Revised July 1st, 2008

Firefox News is a news portal aimed at speculative fiction fans (fandom). As a Firefox News Reporter you may write news, reviews, opinion pieces, and other works of nonfiction and fiction as approved by the Firefox News editorial staff.

For the purpose of this Terms of Service all material that you submit to the Firefox News Web site via your Reporter account that is intended for public viewing will be called your Work. Any Work that you submit to Firefox News is subject to the terms of this agreement. Examples of your Work would include, but is not limited to, blogs, news articles, and media reviews. However, comments on articles, forum posts and other material of this nature which are not submitted via your Reporter account are not included under the scope of this agreement.

Payment for your Work will be made by Google and will be based on a percentage of ad revenue for contextual Adsense ads directly appearing in association with your articles. The percentage of Adsense revenue which is your share may vary but any changes will be announced at least thirty days in advance. In the case of a conflict with the Terms of Service of this contract and Google's Terms of Service for Adsense, Google's Terms of Service shall take precedence.

This agreement applies to all users enrolled in the Reporter program, is legally binding, and affects your rights to your work. This contract applies to any work you upload, submit or post on the site via your Reporter Account unless otherwise specified in writing (including via e-mail) by the site editor and/or owner.

This agreement may be revised by Firefox News at any time. When this agreement is revised notification will be posted on this page on the Firefox News Web site. Firefox News may notify you by other means, but is under no obligation to do so. If you do not agree with the revisions to this agreement you may remove your Work from the Firefox News Web site. If you do not remove your Work from the Firefox News Web site you agree that you will be bound by any future revisions to this Terms of Service.

The terms you/your apply to you (the Reporter) and we/us/our refer to Firefox News. "Firefox News" includes any successors-in-interest, subsidiaries, or parent companies.

(1) Your Account

To join the Firefox News Reporter program you must apply for an open position with Firefox News as listed on the Firefox News Web site. Alternately, you may be offered a position or invited to apply for a position which is not publicly listed. You must also be eligible for a Google Adsense Publisher Account, based on Google's Terms of Service.

If you are accepted for a Reporter position you agree not to share your login and password with any other party. If you ever believe that your account information has been compromised, you must contact Firefox News immediately using the contact form here:

http://firefox.org/news/pages/Contact-Us.html

You may also contact Firefox News directly by using contact information on the Firefox News Web site.

We are not responsible for any losses you may incur by fraudulent use of your account. 

All written Work that you submit using your account must be your own. You may not submit another party's Work using your account even with their approval. You may not post visual material protected by copyright law unless you have the necessary legal rights or permission to display that content. This includes images and video files hosted on other sites. (You may not "hotlink" to video files or images.) You are responsible for ensuring that you have the legal right to post any Work that you submit.

Firefox News reserves the right to cancel the Reporter account of any member, with or without cause.  Examples of behavior which may cause Firefox News to delete your account include, but are not limited to:
    -- Repeatedly posting articles which do not meet accepted journalistic standards, or which contain incorrect information
    -- Behaving in an unprofessional, rude, or antagonistic manner towards site readers, other writers, or site staff or any other parties with an interest in the site
    -- Posting material which attacks or belittles an individual or group or contains slanderous statements
    -- Posting articles which are not yours under your account even with a third party's permission. This includes press releases, work for hire which you may have contracted, and material which you may have co-written with a third party
    --  Clicking on any pay-per-click ads at any time anywhere under the firefox.org domain, or causing fraudulent page impressions for any page on the site. Examples of creating fraudulent page impressions may include, but are not limited to, repeatedly "refreshing" or "reloading" a page manually in a browser window, using bots or other artificial means, or generating artificial traffic by any means.
    -- Promoting or advertising your articles in inappropriate settings, i.e., "forum" or "blog" spam.
    -- Mass email promotion of your articles
    -- Any sort of advertising campaign using banner ads, contextual ads, or other ads, paid or not, to promote your articles without express permission of the site Editorial Staff. As a specific example, you may not set up a Google Adwords campaign to promote your articles unless we approve it. Approval, if given for an ad campaign, may be revoked at any time.
    -- "Link swapping" or trading links with other Web sites. You may not offer to link to another Web site in exchange for a link to your article(s). All links to your articles from other Web sites should be naturally occurring and strictly voluntary.

If Firefox News cancels your account we may remove all or part of your Work submitted via your Firefox News Reporter Account at our discretion. You may also remove, or request to have removed, your Work. Firefox News will not be responsible for any financial compensation or consideration once your Work is removed from the site, however, all rights to your Work revert to you.

Should you lose eligibility with Google Adsense we may also elect to remove your Work from the site.

(2)Your work and your grant of rights to Firefox News

By submitting your Work to Firefox News via your Firefox News Reporter account, you grant Firefox News (and any Firefox News successors-in-interest, subsidiaries, or parent companies) a worldwide exclusive right and license to, in whole or in part, use, modify, edit, adapt, publicly display, translate, and create derivative Works from and/or distribute your Work on the Firefox News Web site or any successor, subsidiary, or parent Web sites.

By submitting your Work to Firefox News you assert that any statements you make are factual and that you own and may grant to Firefox News any and all relevant legal rights to the work.

Additionally, Work that you submit:
    -- May not advocate violence, racial intolerance, or advocate against any specific individual, group, or organization.
    -- May not contain pornographic, adult, or mature content, or link to such.
    -- May not contain information about hacking or cracking.
    -- May not discuss or advocate illicit drug use.
    -- May not contain excessive profanity as determined by the editorial staff.
    -- May not request that users click on site ads, perform searches using the third party search boxes, or mention or draw attention to site advertising in any way
    -- May not include deceptive, irrelevant or excessive keywords
    -- May not promote or offer for sale weapons or ammunition including but not limited to swords, guns, fighting knives, stun guns, and other items generally considered to be weapons
    -- May not promote or offer for sale alcoholic beverages or discuss the making of alcoholic beverages
    -- May not promote or offer for sale tobacco or tobacco related merchandise or discuss the making/growing of tobacco
    -- May not promote or offer for sale prescription medication
    -- May not promote or offer for sale items which are replicas or imitations of designer goods, including but not limited to repaints of dolls and toys
    -- May not promote, discuss, or offer for distribution term papers or student essays
    -- May not promote, discuss, or provide directions to download music, videos, text, or other content in a manner which would be illegal
    -- May not submit any other content which is illegal, promotes illegal activity, or infringes on the legal rights of others.

At any time you may delete or otherwise remove your Work from Firefox News. Upon deletion/removal of your Work from Firefox News you regain all rights and you may then post, upload, or publish your articles to other internet sites.

While you may not post or publish your own Work on other internet sites at the same time that it is posted on Firefox News, you are allowed and encouraged to link to your Work and the Work of other Reporters on Firefox News so long as such activity is not perceived to be "spam" or is otherwise unwelcome. We recommend that you limit links to sites that you own or maintain (such as private Web sites and blogs) or sites where you have specific permission to post links. Repeatedly "spamming" links to your Work in forums, blogs, and other Web sites may result in cancellation of your account and deletion of your articles. Firefox News reserves the right to determine when posting a link or other mention of a work would be considered spam.

You also agree not to post, publish, or otherwise distribute or disseminate any material from Firefox News that is owned by Firefox News or other Firefox News Reporters. This includes but is not limited to material which is only available in member-restricted or password protected areas of the site, or content which is sent to you via e-mail from Firefox News by automated means or which is sent directly to you by the editorial staff.  This includes but is not limited to site-specific manuals and instructions, directions, or explanations.

In submitting Work to Firefox News, you agree to comply with all relevant laws, statutes and regulations of your jurisdiction, and all fiduciary obligations you may have (such as inside information, proprietary and confidential information learned or disclosed as part of employment relationships or under nondisclosure agreements) and all contracts to which you are a party.

Firefox News shall make commercially reasonable efforts to protect submitted articles from inadvertent loss. However, Firefox News is not responsible for any loss of data, including your Work, information related to site ratings systems, reader comments, and other information in relation to your Work on the site, in the event of hardware failure, malicious action of a third party, Act of God, or other event resulting in loss of data for the Site. In the event that data is lost or the Site is temporarily inaccessible to readers no financial compensation or other compensation is due to Reporters and Firefox News will have no liability. Reporters are encouraged to keep copies of their Work in a safe and secure location.

Firefox News will have no liability for infringement of your copyright by a third party in association with your use of the Firefox News Web site. Additionally, you acknowledge that we cannot control the actions of readers and other Reporters in relation to your intellectual property rights. We will have no liability to you for any violation of these terms by another user of the site and no responsibility or requirement to enforce these terms to your benefit. 

Except as expressly provided to you in this Terms of Service Firefox News does not grant any rights or license to any intellectual property with respect to Firefox News or its contents. This includes usage of any logos, graphics, slogans, or other images or phrases which may be used in relation to Firefox News.

Firefox News reserves the right to screen submitted Work and refuse publication at our discretion, for any reason. However, we are under no obligation to review Work before publication.

3) Site usage requirements:

While you read, use, or in any way access content on Firefox News that is not of your own creation you agree to the following requirements:

You agree that you may not modify, edit, or otherwise alter any content on Firefox News that is not yours, and you agree not to do any other act which may infringe upon the rights of the copyright holder of that content. You agree that you may not remove or modify any copyright, trademark, or proprietary notices that have been placed on materials on the site by Firefox News.

You understand and agree that by using Firefox News you may be exposed to material which you find objectionable, offensive, indecent, or obscene and that, furthermore, such material may not be in accordance of the laws of your jurisdiction. You understand that Firefox News is not responsible for material submitted by third parties to the site and that opinions, comments, and other text, images, and other content posted to Firefox News by third parties does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Firefox News. You hold Firefox News harmless for any exposure to material of this nature.

You specifically agree that Firefox News is not responsible for any obscene, threatening, defamatory, offensive or illegal content which you may view in association with your usage of the site. This specifically includes but is not limited to comments, e-mails and other reactions by site readers and other interested parties made in relation to material you may post on the site.

You agree and understand that Firefox News makes no warranty as to the value, quality, or accuracy of any content which you may read. Information presented on Firefox News is intended solely for entertainment purposes and is not intended to be used as a substitute for medical, legal or professional advice.

You agree not to manipulate any article rating system on Firefox News by methods including, but not limited to, posting excessive comments on your own articles or those of others, repeated refreshing of Web site pages by manual or artificial means, or by any other methods which may apply in the future.

Firefox News reserves the right to determine what constitutes excessive comments on an article, however, responding to individual reader comments on your own articles or those of other Firefox News Reporters would not generally be considered 'excessive' and is encouraged.

You agree not to generate excessive or automated traffic to your articles. Any attempt by you to generate higher traffic to articles by artificial means, or by any method which does not reflect natural interest by site visitors, may result in immediate cancellation of your account and removal of your articles.

You agree not to use the site to impersonate another person; to harass or "stalk" a third party; or to post information that is invasion of a third party's privacy. Additionally, you agree to accurately represent your relationship with Firefox News at all times.

4.) Adsense Revenue Sharing

Payment to you for ad revenue is solely handled by Google Adsense.

Firefox News is not responsible for and will not intervene in any dispute between you and Google, including, but not limited to, termination of Adsense Accounts by Google ("banning"), any dispute of a financial matter, or any other financial, legal, or other dispute that you may have with Google. We will not compensate you if Google fails to pay you for any reason.

Firefox News is not responsible for, and you agree to hold Firefox News harmless for, any termination, suspension, or other penalty assessed by Google in relationship to your use of the Firefox News Reporter program. You are responsible for understanding and adhering to Google's Adsense Publisher Terms of Service and ensuring that your use of Firefox News's Web Site and the Reporter Program do not violate any aspect of Google's Adsense Publisher Terms of Service. We strongly suggest that you read and ensure that you understand your agreement with Google as it is possible that Google may terminate your Adsense account if the content of your submitted Work violates Google's Terms of Service.

Adsense Revenue will be split between Reporters and Firefox News. The percentage split is subject to change with a minimum of thirty days notice and will apply to all Work you have submitted going forward from the date the change is effective. You may view the current percentage and any planned changes at:

http://firefox.org/news/pages/Adsense-Revenue-Sharing-Percentage.html

5.) Applicable Law

This agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Arizona. By using this site and submitting Work using your Firefox News Reporter account you hereby agree that all disputes shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal, state and local courts for Pinal County, Arizona. If any part of this agreement is found to be unlawful, unenforceable, or void that provision is deemed severable from the remainder of the Terms of Service and does not affect the validity of the remaining provisions.

By accepting the Terms of Service of this contract you waive your right to a trial by jury and explicitly waive your right to participate in a class action lawsuit.

The failure of Firefox News to comply with this agreement due to events beyond our control including fire, war, terrorism, Act of God, riot, governmental action, or malicious actions of a third party, does not render this agreement void and shall not be considered a breach of this agreement.