Privacy
The privacy of our story contributors is something we take very seriously at EtiquetteHell. We do not, and have never, sold or disseminated (except in cases where required to by law by law enforcement agencies) the personal information of our contributors to any parties outside of EtiquetteHell.com. We do not release contact information of our story contributors to the media unless first granted that permission by the information holder. All of EtiquetteHell’s development is done in-house, and hence no contracted parties will ever have access to individual contributor information.
Privacy Policy for EtiquetteHell.com
The privacy of our visitors to Etiquettehell.com is important to us.
At Etiquettehell.com, we recognize that privacy of your personal information is important. Here is information on what types of personal information we receive and collect when you use visit Etiquettehell.com, and how we safeguard your information. We never sell your personal information to third parties.
Log Files
As with most other websites, we collect and use the data contained in log files. The information in the log files include your IP (internet protocol) address, your ISP (internet service provider, such as AOL or Shaw Cable), the browser you used to visit our site (such as Internet Explorer or Firefox), the time you visited our site and which pages you visited throughout our site.
Cookies and Web Beacons
We do use cookies to store information, such as your personal preferences when you visit our site. This could include only showing you a popup once in your visit, or the ability to login to some of our features, such as forums.
We also use third party advertisements on Etiquettehell.com to support our site. Some of these advertisers may use technology such as cookies and web beacons when they advertise on our site, which will also send these advertisers (such as Google through the Google AdSense program) information including your IP address, your ISP , the browser you used to visit our site, and in some cases, whether you have Flash installed. This is generally used for geotargeting purposes (showing New York real estate ads to someone in New York, for example) or showing certain ads based on specific sites visited (such as showing cooking ads to someone who frequents cooking sites).
You can chose to disable or selectively turn off our cookies or third-party cookies in your browser settings, or by managing preferences in programs such as Norton Internet Security. However, this can affect how you are able to interact with our site as well as other websites. This could include the inability to login to services or programs, such as logging into forums or
accounts.
Copyright Grant of Rights
By submitting content to Etiquette Hell , you automatically grant, or warrant that the owner of such content has expressly granted, Jeanne Hamilton the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive and fully sublicensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt,publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display such Content (in whole or part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed.
Essentially, this is legalese allowing Etiquette Hell’s owner, Jeanne , to correct typos/spelling, protect copyright of the web site under one legal entity, to release edited (no names) stories to print news media and to cover her backside in case you used your story to libel someone else or stole someone’s copyrighted material as your own. There are no plans for any future books based on Etiquettehell.com.
Members who post to the Ehell forum retain their copyright but grant a non-exclusive license implied by context to others to forward any message posted within EtiquetteHell.com’s forum. They also grant the forum owner permission to maintain an archive or approve the archiving of forum messages. Content submitted to the forum is not deemed to be granted material for the blog or any other publication. What happens on the forum, stays on the forum.
WARNING: Jeanne Hamilton or any other administrative personnel reserves the right to use any e-mail or forum private message you send to me or others as an (rare) example of the stupid things people send via e-mail and forum private messages.
If you do not agree with these copyright grants, do not post content of any kind to any part of EtiquetteHell.com
Copyright Violations
We do not allow our forum members and story contributors to engage in or knowingly facilitate the unauthorized distribution or acquisition of copyrighted materials. Unless you have obtained explicit permission from the copyright holder to publish their work or you are the copyright holder yourself, submission of copyrighted stories and images are prohibited.
The only time we find out about the possible infringement of copyrighted material is when we are contacted by a 3rd party. In such cases, we require that the copyright holder – or someone acting in an official capacity representing the copyright holder – submit a formal Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Notification to us. This process is described in DMCA Title II, also known as the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act.
The process works thusly:
The copyright holder submits a formal DMCA Notification of infringement directing us to the alleged infringing material. If the Notification meets all the requirements mandated by law, we will expeditiously remove that material. Be forewarned that we submit ALL DMCA Notifications to www.ChillingEffects.org’s DMCA database. Further, we forward the DMCA Notification in its entirety to the original story contributor/alleged creator. If you’ve done a legally correct DMCA notice, that means your real name, address and all pertinent contact information will be forwarded to this person who may opt to file a formal DMCA Counter-Notification in order to contest the initial complaint. After a formal DMCA Counter-Notification has been filed, if we do not receive word from the complaining party within 10 days that they have filed suit against the story contributor/alleged original copyright owner, we will then return the content to the web site.
DMCA NOTIFICATION DEFINITION: A legal document filed under penalty of laws against perjury stating that the filing party is or represents the copyright holder, that they have a good faith belief that infringement is taking place, and identifying the infringing content. Again, this is a legal document with VERY specific requirements so we recommend acquiring the assistance of an experienced Intellectual Property attorney to draft it.
Note that it is very important to provide EtiquetteHell.com with a full list of all infringing material when filing a DMCA Notification. If the list is ambiguous or overly broad, we may not be able to accept the DMCA Notification.
DMCA COUNTER-NOTIFICATION DEFINITION: A legal document filed under penalty of laws against perjury wherein the owner of the material claims that they believe that the removal of the material should not have occurred, i.e. it falls under Fair Use.
DMCA ABUSE AND MISUSE: Occasionally, someone will attempt to blatantly misuse the DMCA process in order to remove content from EtiquetteHell.com. Usually when this occurs, it is done to censor content they find offensive or that is critical of them. Other times, it’s simply a matter of a DMCA Notification being overly broad or ambiguous. If you haven’t bothered to register your works with the US Copyright Office, you have no legal case and a DMCA Notification is abusive.
In any case, we will not accept a clearly invalid or overly broad or ambiguous DMCA Notification. The DMCA is not a tool by which to bully or censor opinions on Etiquettehell.com, and those who abuse the process open themselves up to significant legal liabilities.
Technically, you don’t need an attorney to write a DMCA Notification though we highly recommend one. Yes, lawyers are very expensive but if you think you know what you are doing but you really don’t, you can find yourself in a boatload of serious legal hot water.
If you’ve read this far and still feel that your copyright is being abused, you can send your DMCA Notification to the following email address: abuse@etiquettehell.com
We will look over your DMCA Notification to make sure it meets all of the necessary legal requirements. If it doesn’t, we will be unable to take further action.
Libel
Libel is written communication that includes false statements and claims that may harm an individual, company or entity by defaming the character/reputation.
EtiquetteHell is not in a position to judge the merits of what our story contributors state in their submitted stories or posts which are then published to the EtiquetteHell.com web site. As such, we do not censor or otherwise assert editorial control over the content of submitted stories and posts in the forum other than to remove proper names. We are unable to judge the veracity of submitted stories and posts nor is EtiquetteHell actually engaging in that speech. The Communications Decency Act specifically grants legal immunity to oneline service providers for the content of their subscribers/members’ posts and submissions. For this reason, we ask that you address your concerns about libelous material directly with the creator of the content.
