Terms of Service

Social Hooey builds technologies and services that enable people to connect with each other, build communities, and grow businesses. These Terms govern your use of  Social Hooey, and the other products, features, apps, services, technologies, and software we offer, except where we expressly state that separate terms (and not these) apply. These Products are provided to you by Social Hooey.

We don’t charge you to use Social Hooey or the other products and services covered by these Terms. Instead, businesses and organizations pay us to show you ads for their products and services. By using our Products, you agree that we can show you ads that we think will be relevant to you and your interests. We use your personal data to help determine which ads to show you.

We don’t sell your personal data to advertisers, and we don’t share information that directly identifies you (such as your name, email address or other contact information) with advertisers unless you give us specific permission. Instead, advertisers can tell us things like the kind of audience they want to see their ads, and we show those ads to people who may be interested.


1. The services we provide

Our mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. To help advance this mission, we provide the Products and services described below to you:

Provide a personalized experience for you:
Your experience on  Social Hooey  is unlike anyone else's: from the posts, stories, events, ads, and other content you see in News Feed or our video platform to the  Social Hooey  Pages you follow and other features you might use, and search. 

Connect you with people and organizations you care about:
We help you find and connect with people, groups, businesses, organizations, and others that matter to you across the  Social Hooey  Products you use. We use the data we have to make suggestions for you and others - for example, groups to join, events to attend,  Social Hooey Pages to follow or send a message to, shows to watch, and people you may want to become friends with. Stronger ties make for better communities, and we believe our services are most useful when people are connected to people, groups, and organizations they care about.

Empower you to express yourself and communicate about what matters to you:
There are many ways to express yourself on Social Hooey and to communicate with friends, family, and others about what matters to you - for example, sharing status updates, photos, videos, and stories across the  Social Hooey Products you use, sending messages to a friend or several people, creating events or groups, or adding content to your profile. 

Help you discover content, products, and services that may interest you:
We show you ads, offers, and other sponsored content to help you discover content, products, and services that are offered by the many businesses and organizations that use  Social Hooey Products.
 
Combat harmful conduct and protect and support our community:
People will only build community on  Social Hooey Products if they feel safe. We employ teams and develop advanced technical systems to detect misuse of our Products, harmful conduct towards others, and situations where we may be able to help support or protect our community. If we learn of content or conduct like this, we will take appropriate action - for example, offering help, removing content, removing or restricting access to certain features, disabling an account, or contacting law enforcement. 

Provide consistent and seamless experiences across the Social Hooey Products:
Our Products help you find and connect with people, groups, businesses, organizations, and others that are important to you. We design our systems so that your experience is consistent and seamless across the different  Social Hooey  Products that you use.

2. How our services are funded

Instead of paying to use Social Hooey and the other products and services we offer, by using the Social Hooey Products covered by these Terms, you agree that we can show you ads that businesses and organizations pay us to promote on and off the Social Hooey Products. We use your personal data, such as information about your activity and interests, to show you ads that are more relevant to you.

Protecting people's privacy is central to how we've designed our ad system. This means that we can show you relevant and useful ads without telling advertisers who you are. We don't sell your personal data.

3. Your commitments to  Social Hooey and our community

We provide these services to you and others to help advance our mission. In exchange, we need you to make the following commitments:

1. Who can use Social Hooey

When people stand behind their opinions and actions, our community is safer and more accountable. For this reason, you must:

Use the same name that you use in everyday life.
Provide accurate information about yourself.
Create only one account (your own) and use your timeline for personal purposes.
Not share your password, give access to your  Social Hooey account to others, or transfer your account to anyone else (without our permission).

We try to make  Social Hooey broadly available to everyone, but you cannot use  Social Hooey if:

You are under 13 years old.
You are a convicted sex offender.
We've previously disabled your account for violations of our Terms or Policies.
You are prohibited from receiving our products, services, or software under applicable laws.

2. What you can share and do on  Social Hooey Products
We want people to use  Social Hooey Products to express themselves and to share content that is important to them, but not at the expense of the safety and well-being of others or the integrity of our community. You therefore agree not to engage in the conduct described below (or to facilitate or support others in doing so):

You may not use our Products to do or share anything:

That violates these Terms, our Community Standards, and other terms and policies that apply to your use of our Products.
That is unlawful, misleading, discriminatory or fraudulent.
That infringes or violates someone else's rights, including their intellectual property rights.

You may not upload viruses or malicious code or do anything that could disable, overburden, or impair the proper working or appearance of our Products.
You may not access or collect data from our Products using automated means (without our prior permission) or attempt to access data you do not have permission to access.

We can remove or restrict access to content that is in violation of these provisions.
If we remove content that you have shared in violation of our Community Standards, we’ll let you know and explain any options you have to request another review, unless you seriously or repeatedly violate these Terms or if doing so may expose us or others to legal liability; harm our community of users; compromise or interfere with the integrity or operation of any of our services, systems or Products; where we are restricted due to technical limitations; or where we are prohibited from doing so for legal reasons.
To help support our community, we encourage you to report content or conduct that you believe violates your rights (including intellectual property rights) or our terms and policies.

We also can remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal or regulatory impacts to Social Hooey.

3. The permissions you give us

We need certain permissions from you to provide our services:

Permission to use content you create and share: Some content that you share or upload, such as photos or videos, may be protected by intellectual property laws.
You own the intellectual property rights (things like copyright or trademarks) in any such content that you create and share on  Social Hooey Products you use. Nothing in these Terms takes away the rights you have to your own content. You are free to share your content with anyone else, wherever you want.

Specifically, when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings). This means, for example, that if you share a photo on  Social Hooey, you give us permission to store, copy, and share it with others (again, consistent with your settings) such as service providers that support our service or other  Social Hooey Products you use. This license will end when your content is deleted from our systems.

You can delete content individually or all at once by deleting your account. 

When you delete content, it’s no longer visible to other users, however it may continue to exist elsewhere on our systems where:

Immediate deletion is not possible due to technical limitations (in which case, your content will be deleted within a maximum of 90 days from when you delete it);
your content has been used by others in accordance with this license and they have not deleted it (in which case this license will continue to apply until that content is deleted); or where immediate deletion would restrict our ability to:

investigate or identify illegal activity or violations of our terms and policies (for example, to identify or investigate misuse of our Products or systems);
comply with a legal obligation, such as the preservation of evidence; or
comply with a request of a judicial or administrative authority, law enforcement or a government agency;

in which case, the content will be retained for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it has been retained (the exact duration will vary on a case-by-case basis).
In each of the above cases, this license will continue until the content has been fully deleted.

Permission to use your name, profile picture, and information about your actions with ads and sponsored content: You give us permission to use your name and profile picture and information about actions you have taken on  Social Hooey next to or in connection with ads, offers, and other sponsored content that we display across our Products, without any compensation to you. 

Permission to update software you use or download: If you download or use our software, you give us permission to download and install updates to the software where available.
 
4. Limits on using our intellectual property
If you use content covered by intellectual property rights that we have and make available in our Products (for example, images, designs, videos, or sounds we provide that you add to content you create or share on  Social Hooey), we retain all rights to that content (but not yours). You can only use our copyrights or trademarks (or any similar marks) as expressly permitted by our Brand Usage Guidelines or with our prior written permission. You must obtain our written permission (or permission under an open source license) to modify, create derivative works of, decompile, or otherwise attempt to extract source code from us.
 
4. Additional provisions
  1. Updating our Terms

    We work constantly to improve our services and develop new features to make our Products better for you and our community. As a result, we may need to update these Terms from time to time to accurately reflect our services and practices. Unless otherwise required by law, we will notify you before we make changes to these Terms and give you an opportunity to review them before they go into effect. Once any updated Terms are in effect, you will be bound by them if you continue to use our Products.
    We hope that you will continue using our Products, but if you do not agree to our updated Terms and no longer want to be a part of the Social Hooey community, you can delete your account at any time.

  2. Account suspension or termination

    We want  Social Hooey  to be a place where people feel welcome and safe to express themselves and share their thoughts and ideas.

    If we determine that you have clearly, seriously or repeatedly breached our Terms or Policies, including in particular our Community Standards, we may suspend or permanently disable access to your account. We may also suspend or disable your account if you repeatedly infringe other people’s intellectual property rights or where we are required to do so for legal reasons.
     
     

    Where we take such action we’ll let you know and explain any options you have to request a review, unless doing so may expose us or others to legal liability; harm our community of users; compromise or interfere with the integrity or operation of any of our services, systems or Products; or where we are restricted due to technical limitations; or where we are prohibited from doing so for legal reasons.
  3. Limits on liability

    We work hard to provide the best Products we can and to specify clear guidelines for everyone who uses them. Our Products, however, are provided "as is," and we make no guarantees that they always will be safe, secure, or error-free, or that they will function without disruptions, delays, or imperfections. To the extent permitted by law, we also DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. We do not control or direct what people and others do or say, and we are not responsible for their actions or conduct (whether online or offline) or any content they share (including offensive, inappropriate, obscene, unlawful, and other objectionable content).

    We cannot predict when issues might arise with our Products. Accordingly, our liability shall be limited to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, and under no circumstance will we be liable to you for any lost profits, revenues, information, or data, or consequential, special, indirect, exemplary, punitive, or incidental damages arising out of or related to these Terms or the  Social Hooey Products, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages. 

  4. Disputes
     
    We try to provide clear rules so that we can limit or hopefully avoid disputes between you and us. If a dispute does arise, however, it's useful to know up front where it can be resolved and what laws will apply.

    For any claim, cause of action, or dispute you have against us that arises out of or relates to these Terms or the  Social Hooey Products ("claim"), you agree that it will be resolved exclusively in the U.S. District Court for the South West District of Virginia or a state court located in Lee County. You also agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of either of these courts for the purpose of litigating any such claim, and that the laws of the State of Virginia will govern these Terms and any claim, without regard to conflict of law provisions.