(Thanks to the folks at WordPress.com, who shared their Terms of Ser­vice under a Cre­ative Com­mons License so that I didn’t have to cook this up from scratch!)

The fol­low­ing terms and con­di­tions gov­ern all uses of Ann Liu Blog and all con­tent, ser­vices and prod­ucts avail­able at or through the Web sites and related offer­ings (col­lec­tively referred to here as the “Site”). The Site is owned and oper­ated by Ann Liu and is offered sub­ject to your accep­tance with­out mod­i­fi­ca­tion of all of the terms and con­di­tions con­tained herein and all other oper­at­ing rules, poli­cies and pro­ce­dures that may be pub­lished from time to time on the Site (col­lec­tively referred to here as the “Agreement”).

Please read this Agree­ment care­fully before access­ing or using the Site. By access­ing or using any part of the Site, you agree to become bound by the terms and con­di­tions of this Agree­ment. If you do not agree to all the terms and con­di­tions of this Agree­ment, then you may not access the Site or use any ser­vices. If these terms and con­di­tions are con­sid­ered an offer, accep­tance is expressly lim­ited to these terms. The Site is avail­able only to indi­vid­u­als who are at least 13 years old.

1. Con­tri­bu­tions. If you com­ment, post mate­r­ial, post links or oth­er­wise make (or allow any third party to make) mate­r­ial avail­able by means of the Site (any such mate­r­ial, “Con­tent”), you are entirely respon­si­ble for the con­tent. That is the case regard­less of whether the Con­tent in ques­tion con­sti­tutes text, graph­ics, an audio or video, file, com­puter soft­ware or mate­r­ial in another for­mat. By mak­ing Con­tent avail­able, you rep­re­sent and war­rant that:

* the down­load­ing, copy­ing and use of the Con­tent will not infringe the pro­pri­etary rights, includ­ing but not lim­ited to the copy­right, patent, trade­mark or trade secret rights, of any third party;
* if your employer has rights to intel­lec­tual prop­erty you cre­ate, you have either (i) received per­mis­sion from your employer to post or make avail­able the Con­tent, includ­ing but not lim­ited to any soft­ware, or (ii) secured from your employer a waiver as to all rights in or to the Con­tent;
* you have fully com­plied with any third-party licenses relat­ing to the Con­tent, and have done all things nec­es­sary to suc­cess­fully pass through to end users any required terms;
* the Con­tent does not con­tain or install any viruses, worms, mal­ware, Tro­jan horses or any­thing else that is harm­ful or destruc­tive;
* the Con­tent is not spam, is not machine– or randomly-generated, and does not con­tain uneth­i­cal or unwanted com­mer­cial con­tent designed to drive traf­fic to third party sites or boost the search engine rank­ings of third party sites, or to fur­ther unlaw­ful acts (such as phish­ing) or mis­lead recip­i­ents as to the source of the mate­r­ial (such as spoof­ing);
* the Con­tent is not libelous or defam­a­tory, does not con­tain threats or incite vio­lence towards indi­vid­u­als or enti­ties, and does not vio­late the pri­vacy or pub­lic­ity rights of any third party.

With­out lim­it­ing any of those rep­re­sen­ta­tions or war­ranties, Ann Liu Blog has the right (though not the oblig­a­tion) to, in Ann Liu sole dis­cre­tion (i) refuse or remove any con­tent that, in Ann Liu’s rea­son­able opin­ion, vio­lates any Ann Liu Blog pol­icy or is in any way harm­ful or objec­tion­able, or (ii) ter­mi­nate or deny access to and use of the Site to any indi­vid­ual or entity for any rea­son, in Ann Liu’s sole discretion.

2. Respon­si­bil­ity of Site Vis­i­tors. Ann Liu Blog has not reviewed, and can­not review, all of the mate­r­ial posted to the Site, and can­not there­fore be respon­si­ble for that material’s con­tent, use or effects. By oper­at­ing the Site, Ann Liu does not rep­re­sent or imply that it endorses the mate­r­ial there posted, or that it believes such mate­r­ial to be accu­rate, use­ful or non-harmful. You are respon­si­ble for tak­ing pre­cau­tions as nec­es­sary to pro­tect your­self and your com­puter sys­tems from viruses, worms, Tro­jan horses, and other harm­ful or destruc­tive con­tent. The Site may con­tain con­tent that is offen­sive, inde­cent, or oth­er­wise objec­tion­able, as well as con­tent con­tain­ing tech­ni­cal inac­cu­ra­cies, typo­graph­i­cal mis­takes, and other errors. The Site may also con­tain mate­r­ial that vio­lates the pri­vacy or pub­lic­ity rights, or infringes the intel­lec­tual prop­erty and other pro­pri­etary rights, of third par­ties, or the down­load­ing, copy­ing or use of which is sub­ject to addi­tional terms and con­di­tions, stated or unstated. Ann Liu dis­claims any respon­si­bil­ity for any harm result­ing from the use by vis­i­tors of the Site, or from any down­load­ing by those vis­i­tors of con­tent there posted.

3. Con­tent Posted on Other Sites. Ann Liu has not reviewed, and can­not review, all of the mate­r­ial, includ­ing com­puter soft­ware, made avail­able through the web sites and web pages to which the Site links, and that link to the Site. Ann Liu does not have any con­trol over other web sites and web pages, and is not respon­si­ble for their con­tents or their use. By link­ing to a web site or web page, Ann Liu does not rep­re­sent or imply that it endorses such web site or web page. Ann Liu dis­claims any respon­si­bil­ity for any harm result­ing from your use of such web sites and web pages.

4. Copy­right Infringe­ment. As Ann Liu asks oth­ers to respect its intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights, it respects the intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights of oth­ers. If you believe that mate­r­ial located on or linked to by the Site vio­lates your copy­right, you are encour­aged to notify Ann Liu in accor­dance with the Dig­i­tal Mil­len­nium Copy­right Act. Ann Liu will respond to all such notices, as required or appro­pri­ate, by remov­ing the infring­ing mate­r­ial or dis­abling all links to the infring­ing mate­r­ial. In the case of a vis­i­tor who may infringe or repeat­edly infringes the copy­rights or other intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights of The Pio­neer Woman or oth­ers, Ann Liu may, in its dis­cre­tion, ter­mi­nate or deny access to and use of the Site.

5. Intel­lec­tual Prop­erty. This Agree­ment does not trans­fer from Ann Liu Blog to you any intel­lec­tual prop­erty of Ann Liu Blog or a third party, and all right, title and inter­est in and to such prop­erty will remain (as between the par­ties) solely with Ann Liu Blog. All trade­marks, ser­vice marks, graph­ics and logos used in con­nec­tion with the Site are trade­marks or reg­is­tered trade­marks of Ann Liu Blog or Ann Liu Blog’s licen­sors. Other trade­marks, ser­vice marks, graph­ics and logos used in con­nec­tion with the Site may be the trade­marks of other third par­ties. Your use of the Site grants you no right or license to repro­duce or oth­er­wise use any Ann Liu Blog or third-party trademarks.

6. Changes. Ann Liu Blog reserves the right, at its sole dis­cre­tion, to mod­ify or replace any part of this Agree­ment. It is your respon­si­bil­ity to check this Agree­ment peri­od­i­cally for changes. Your con­tin­ued use of or access to the Site fol­low­ing the post­ing of any changes to this Agree­ment con­sti­tutes accep­tance of those changes. Ann Liu Blog may also, in the future, offer new ser­vices and/or fea­tures through the Site, includ­ing the release of new tools and resources. Such new fea­tures and/or ser­vices shall be sub­ject to the terms and con­di­tions of this Agreement.

7. Ter­mi­na­tion. Ann Liu Blog may ter­mi­nate your access to all or any part of the Site at any time, with or with­out cause, with or with­out notice, effec­tive imme­di­ately. If you wish to ter­mi­nate this Agree­ment, you may sim­ply dis­con­tinue using the Site.

8. Dis­claimer of War­ranties. The Site is pro­vided “as is.” Ann Liu Blog and its sup­pli­ers and licen­sors hereby dis­claim all war­ranties of any kind, express or implied, includ­ing, with­out lim­i­ta­tion, the war­ranties of mer­chantabil­ity, fit­ness for a par­tic­u­lar pur­pose and non-infringement. Nei­ther Ann Liu Blog nor its sup­pli­ers and licen­sors make any war­ranty that the Site will be error free or that access thereto will be con­tin­u­ous or unin­ter­rupted. You under­stand that you down­load from, or oth­er­wise obtain con­tent or ser­vices through, the Site at your own dis­cre­tion and risk.

9. Lim­i­ta­tion of Lia­bil­ity. In no event will Ann Liu Blog, or its sup­pli­ers or licen­sors, be liable with respect to any sub­ject mat­ter of this Agree­ment under any con­tract, neg­li­gence, strict lia­bil­ity or other legal or equi­table the­ory for: (i) any spe­cial, inci­den­tal or con­se­quen­tial dam­ages; (ii) the cost of pro­cure­ment or sub­sti­tute prod­ucts or ser­vices; (iii) for inter­rup­tion of use or loss or cor­rup­tion of data; or (iv) for any amounts that exceed the fees paid by you to Ann Liu Blog under this agree­ment dur­ing the twelve (12) month period prior to the cause of action. Ann Liu Blog shall have no lia­bil­ity for any fail­ure or delay due to mat­ters beyond its rea­son­able con­trol. The fore­go­ing shall not apply to the extent pro­hib­ited by applic­a­ble law.

10. Gen­eral Rep­re­sen­ta­tion and War­ranty. You rep­re­sent and war­rant that (i) your use of the Site will be in strict accor­dance with this Agree­ment and with all applic­a­ble laws and reg­u­la­tions (includ­ing with­out lim­i­ta­tion any local laws or reg­u­la­tions in your coun­try, state, city, or other gov­ern­men­tal area, regard­ing online con­duct and accept­able con­tent, and includ­ing all applic­a­ble laws regard­ing the trans­mis­sion of tech­ni­cal data exported from the United States or the coun­try in which you reside) and (ii) your use of the Site will not infringe or mis­ap­pro­pri­ate the intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights of any third party.

11. Indem­ni­fi­ca­tion. You agree to indem­nify and hold harm­less Ann Liu Blog, its con­trac­tors, and its licen­sors, and their respec­tive direc­tors, offi­cers, employ­ees and agents from and against any and all claims and expenses, includ­ing attorney’s fees, aris­ing out of your use of the Site, includ­ing but not lim­ited to out of your vio­la­tion this Agreement.

12. Mis­cel­la­neous. This Agree­ment con­sti­tutes the entire agree­ment between Ann Liu Blog and you con­cern­ing the sub­ject mat­ter hereof, and they may only be mod­i­fied by a writ­ten amend­ment signed by an autho­rized exec­u­tive of Ann Liu Blog, or by the post­ing by Ann Liu Blog of a revised ver­sion. Except to the extent applic­a­ble law, if any, pro­vides oth­er­wise, this Agree­ment, any access to or use of the Site will be gov­erned by the laws of the state of Okla­homa, U.S.A., exclud­ing its con­flict of law pro­vi­sions, and the proper venue for any dis­putes aris­ing out of or relat­ing to any of the same will be the state and fed­eral courts located in Osage County, Okla­homa. Except for claims for injunc­tive or equi­table relief or claims regard­ing intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights (which may be brought in any com­pe­tent court with­out the post­ing of a bond), any dis­pute aris­ing under this Agree­ment shall be finally set­tled in accor­dance with the rules of the Amer­i­can Arbi­tra­tion Asso­ci­a­tion by three arbi­tra­tors appointed in accor­dance with such rules. The arbi­tra­tion shall take place in the Eng­lish lan­guage and the arbi­tral deci­sion may be enforced in any court. The pre­vail­ing party in any action or pro­ceed­ing to enforce this Agree­ment shall be enti­tled to costs and attor­neys’ fees. If any part of this Agree­ment is held invalid or unen­force­able, that part will be con­strued to reflect the par­ties’ orig­i­nal intent, and the remain­ing por­tions will remain in full force and effect. A waiver by either party of any term or con­di­tion of this Agree­ment or any breach thereof, in any one instance, will not waive such term or con­di­tion or any sub­se­quent breach thereof. You may assign your rights under this Agree­ment to any party that con­sents to, and agrees to be bound by, its terms and con­di­tions; Ann Liu Blog may assign its rights under this Agree­ment with­out con­di­tion. This Agree­ment will be bind­ing upon and will inure to the ben­e­fit of the par­ties, their suc­ces­sors and per­mit­ted assigns.

Dig­i­tal Mil­len­nium Copy­right Act Notice

If you believe that con­tent avail­able by means of the Site (as defined in our Terms of Ser­vice above) infringes one or more of your copy­rights, please notify us by means of an emailed notice (“Infringe­ment Notice”) pro­vid­ing the infor­ma­tion described below to the email address listed below. If Ann Liu Blog takes action in response to an Infringe­ment Notice, it will make a good faith attempt to con­tact the party that made such con­tent avail­able by means of the most recent email address, if any, pro­vided by such party. Please be advised that you will be liable for dam­ages (includ­ing costs and attor­neys’ fees) if you mate­ri­ally mis­rep­re­sent that a prod­uct or activ­ity is infring­ing your copy­rights. Thus, if you are not sure con­tent located on or linked-to by the Site infringes your copy­right, you should con­sider first con­tact­ing an attorney.

All Infringe­ment Notices need to be sent to admin[at]annliublog.com as plain text emails with­out attach­ments and include the fol­low­ing or they will be deemed invalid:

* An elec­tronic sig­na­ture of the copy­right owner or a per­son autho­rized to act on their behalf;
* An iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the copy­right claimed to have been infringed;
* A descrip­tion of the nature and exact loca­tion of the con­tent that you claim to infringe your copy­right, in suf­fi­cient detail to per­mit Ann Liu Blog to find and pos­i­tively iden­tify that con­tent;
* Your name, address, tele­phone num­ber and email address; and
* A state­ment by you: (a) that you believe in good faith that the use of the con­tent that you claim to infringe your copy­right is not autho­rized by law, or by the copy­right owner or such owner’s agent; and (b) under penalty of per­jury, that all of the infor­ma­tion con­tained in your Infringe­ment Notice is accu­rate, and that you are either the copy­right owner or a per­son autho­rized to act on their behalf.

If a DMCA notice is valid, we are required by law to respond to it by dis­abling access to the allegedly infring­ing con­tent. If you are a con­trib­u­tor of Con­tent and access to por­tions of your Con­tent have been dis­abled for this rea­son, we will notify you. You then have the option to send us a counter-notice stat­ing why your Con­tent does not infringe copy­rights and ask­ing for access to be rein­stated. Counter notices need to be sent to ann[at]annliublog.com as plain text emails with­out attach­ments and include the fol­low­ing or they will be deemed invalid:

* Your name, address, phone num­ber and phys­i­cal or elec­tronic sig­na­ture;
* Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the allegedly infring­ing con­tent and its loca­tion before dis­abling access; and
* A state­ment under penalty of per­jury explain­ing why the con­tent was removed by mis­take or misidentification.

Pub­lic Forums

This site may make chat rooms, forums, mes­sage boards, and/or news groups avail­able to its users. Please remem­ber that any infor­ma­tion that is dis­closed in these areas becomes pub­lic infor­ma­tion and you should exer­cise cau­tion when decid­ing to dis­close your per­sonal information.

Infor­ma­tion Col­lec­tion and Use

We respect your right to per­sonal pri­vacy. You can gen­er­ally visit our Site with­out reveal­ing any per­son­ally iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion about your­self. How­ever, in cer­tain sec­tions of this Site, to use cer­tain ser­vices, we may require you to reg­is­ter for an account, or we may invite you to sub­mit ques­tions or com­ments or request infor­ma­tion, par­tic­i­pate in sur­veys, ques­tion­naires or con­tests, sub­scribe to newslet­ters or par­tic­i­pate in com­mu­nity forums. Due to the nature of some of these activ­i­ties, we may ask that you com­plete and sub­mit an online form with per­son­ally iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion such as your name, user­name, email address, con­tact infor­ma­tion and credit card infor­ma­tion. This state­ment applies solely to infor­ma­tion col­lected on this website.

We may use your per­son­ally iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion to deliver cer­tain ser­vices, prod­ucts or infor­ma­tion you have requested, ver­ify your author­ity to enter cer­tain pass­word pro­tected areas of the Site, send you notices for prod­ucts and/or ser­vices that you have used or that may be of inter­est to you, and improve the con­tent and gen­eral admin­is­tra­tion of the Site.

If you are a reg­is­tered user and post to any of the Site’s com­mu­nity forums, other reg­is­tered users of this Site may view your user­name and may send you emails, but they will not be able to see your actual email address. We may use your per­son­ally iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion to send you adver­tise­ments and other pro­mo­tional infor­ma­tion regard­ing our prod­ucts and ser­vices or the prod­ucts and ser­vices of our third party mar­ket­ing part­ners and other com­mu­ni­ca­tions related to the Site.

We are com­mit­ted to keep­ing all your per­sonal details safe and secure. Our pri­vacy pol­icy strictly pro­tects the secu­rity of your per­sonal infor­ma­tion and hon­ors your choices for its intended use. We care­fully pro­tect your data from loss, mis­use, unau­tho­rized access or dis­clo­sure, alter­ation, or destruction.

How We Con­trol Your Per­sonal Information

We will not use your per­sonal infor­ma­tion for any other rea­son other than to con­tact you. We do not sell, give away or rent your email address to any third party. If in the future I did for any rea­son wish to rent, sell or use your email address for any other pur­pose we will ask you for your per­mis­sion first.

Dis­clo­sure

The con­tents of this web site and blog is writ­ten by Ann Liu Blog.

For some post, the com­pen­sa­tion I (Ann Liu) receive as a refer­rer to pro­vide opin­ion on prod­ucts, ser­vices, web­sites and var­i­ous other top­ics does NOT affect the top­ics or posts I make in this blog.

I abide word of mouth mar­ket­ing stan­dards, I believe in hon­esty of rela­tion­ship, opin­ion and identity.

The views and opin­ions expressed on this blog are purely on my own. I am NOT a prod­uct launch mon­ger who pro­motes every prod­uct that hits the mar­ket regard­less good or bad.

Myself, I always pro­vide my hon­est opin­ions, find­ings, beliefs, or expe­ri­ences on those top­ics or products.

Any prod­uct claim, sta­tis­tic, quote or other rep­re­sen­ta­tion about a prod­uct or ser­vice should be ver­i­fied with the man­u­fac­turer, mer­chant, provider or party in question.

Con­tact­ing the Web Site

If you have any ques­tions about this pri­vacy state­ment, the prac­tices of this site, or your deal­ings with this Web site, feel free to con­tact con­tact us.

Dis­claimer

AnnLiuBlog.com does not rep­re­sent or endorse the accu­racy or reli­a­bil­ity of any of the infor­ma­tion, con­tent or adver­tise­ments con­tained on, dis­trib­uted through, or linked, down­loaded or accessed from any of the ser­vices con­tained on this web­site, nor the qual­ity of any prod­ucts, infor­ma­tion or other mate­ri­als dis­played, pur­chased, or obtained by you as a result of an adver­tise­ment or any other infor­ma­tion or offer in or in con­nec­tion with the ser­vices herein. You hereby acknowl­edge that any reliance upon any Mate­ri­als shall be at your sole risk. AnnLiuBlog.com reserves the right, in its sole dis­cre­tion and with­out any oblig­a­tion, to make improve­ments to, or cor­rect any error or omis­sions in any por­tion of the Ser­vice or the Materials.

THE SERVICE AND THE MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED BY AnnLiuBlog.com ON AN “AS IS” BASIS, AND AnnLiuBlog.com EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS AND PRODUCTS. IN NO EVENT SHALL AnnLiuBlog.com BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND WHATSOEVER WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE, THE MATERIALS AND THE PRODUCTS.

AnnLiuBlog.com respects the rights (includ­ing the intel­lec­tual prop­erty rights) of oth­ers, and we ask our users to do the same. AnnLiuBlog.com may, in appro­pri­ate cir­cum­stances and in its sole dis­cre­tion, ter­mi­nate the accounts of users that infringe or oth­er­wise vio­late such rights of others.