Terms of Use

Definitions:

The services that GoPetition provides to you are subject to the following Terms of Use ("TOU").

"User" refers to any individual who loads any material to or from the GoPetition server. A "user" includes, but is not limited to, petition authors, petition signers, any forum participant including individuals who make facebook comments on any of the GoPetition website properties, and petition signers.

"Member" means any person who authors a petition on the GoPetition site or any person who joins the GoPetition community by opening an account.

"Moderate", "moderated content", "moderation" refers to a process by GoPetition where content is reviewed on a random sampling basis or due to comments or feedback by 3rd parties. GoPetition uses a part active, part passive moderation regime. Active moderation is conducted primarily on a random sampling basis. Passive moderation results from feedback by 3rd parties. Due to the massive volume of content posted to GoPetition, not all content can be reviewed actively, and therefore a large amount of content is automatically posted. GoPetition does not warrant that any specific petition(s) or forum comment(s) has been actively moderated, reviewed or even seen by a human being. Petition edits submitted by petition authors are reviewed on a random sampling basis.

"Approved" petitions or petition edits may simply have passed through a review period and may NOT have been actively moderated, or even viewed, by a human being. Active human moderation is primarily done on a random sampling basis.

TOU:

(1). User/Member Agreement: In consideration of being allowed to use the website facilities provided by GoPetition, Users/Members agrees that Users/Members will not:

A. Use petition or forum facilities for any purpose in violation of local, state or national laws of any country;

B. Post material that is copyrighted, unless User/Member owns them or has the permission of the copyright owner to post it;

C. Post material that reveals trade secrets, unless User/Member owns them or has the permission of the owner of the trade secrets to post it;

D. Post material that infringes on any other intellectual property rights of others or on the privacy or publicity rights of others;

E. Post material that could be construed by a reasonable person as obscene or defamatory in relation to a User/Member or any other person or entity;

F. Post advertisements, solicitations of business, chain letters or pyramid schemes;

G. Post personal information of targets or email addresses of other people (including employees of targets) that could not be construed as either directly relevant to a public campaign or that may infringe on the personal rights of the people so named (via disclosure of personal information or personal contact information e.g. private or work email addresses). GoPetition in its discretion can remove such information from any petition without notice.

H. Impersonate another person.

I. Submit false User/Member information when opening an account or signing a petition. GoPetition reserves the right to edit, change or remove an account, petitions or signatures or any other information when untruthful or inaccurate User/Member information is supplied. This includes but is not limited to Name, Address, City, State, zip (post) code and e-mail address. Members may post petitions or comments anonymously or by using a username (nickname) to protect identity as long as such usage does not conflict with the terms of use herein. However, in all cases, a member must supply their first and last name to open an account with GoPetition even if that name will not be displayed on the member's petition(s). GoPetition reserves the right to ask a petition author to confirm or prove their identity and provide their residential or business address. Failure to furnish this information upon request may result in account closure.

GoPetition also reserves the right to ask a petition author (whether an individual or organization) to publish a contact person (real name) on the relevant petition. Such a request can be made at the absolute discretion of GoPetition. A request may be made, for example, because GoPetition believes that legal issues exist between the parties of a nature that demands identity transparency. GoPetition encourages ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) procedures and this is often best served with a transparency policy. Failure to comply with a request from GoPetition for identity transparency may result in account closure.

J. Signature Management and Signature Edits. Members must not edit a signature in any way that compromises the intent of the signer. Petition authors agree to edit signatures only to remedy a spelling or grammatical error, remove an obscenity or remove spam, or delete illegal material.

K. Members must not use signature lists irresponsibly. Members must use signature lists (including email addresses) responsibly, legally and in compliance with our Privacy Policy which forms part of these Terms. Members undertake not to spam their signature list. Members may forward their signature list to their petition's target but must not re-publish their petition's signature list on their own or any 3rd party website. Republication of signatures is in breach of our terms, our intellectual property rights (see Term (4) below), and our privacy undertaking to signers.

L. Will not hold GoPetition responsible for the consequences of any search engine access to public signature list details.

M. Upload a petition about any issue that is currently before the courts, or will or could soon be before the courts, or use a petition as an instrument to engage in pre-litigation or litigation positioning. Petitions must not discuss evidence before the courts or show contempt of any court in any jurisdiction. A petition may not lobby court official in any matter that is before the courts. A petition cannot lobby jurors or make any comment about them. A petition should not, as a general rule, lobby state or federal prosecutors or judges.

N. Petitions must not show contempt of any court or judge in any jurisdiction. Petitions must not disparage any judge, DA, lawyer, barrister or legal official regardless of whether such allegations may be true or not.

O. Petition authors may not use bots or automated scripts to upload signatures or other data to the GoPetition server, unless express permission is supplied by GoPetition. A breach of this term may result in a petition or account being disabled or closed.

P. Hold GoPetition liable in relation to third party search engine activity. Listings of GoPetition content by search engines are possible because GoPetition has a general data transparency policy. To balance this policy, GoPetition has a rigorous Privacy Policy which enables data control and data protection. Urgent requests to search engines for content removal can be made by users to those search engines through the various request channels of those search engines.

Q. In the interests of signers and site moderators, authors shall not engage in excessive editing of their petitions. Signers' trust in the information that signers have endorsed must be respected. In this respect, each petition author agrees not to change the substance of their petition(s). Authors agree not to change the essential meaning of their petition(s) so that fairness is displayed to all signers. Any editorial changes to petitions must only be of a grammatical, stylistic or non-substantive basis. If substantial changes are needed for any petition, we encourage the relevant petition author to start a fresh petition which can then be promoted to signers of previous versions for approval.

R. Members must not post petitions against: (a) residential neighbors or residential tenants; (b) landlords; (c) property managers; (d) school teachers, school principals, school sports coaches, school superintendents, school directors or school administrators; (e) police officers; (f) law enforcement personnel; (g) DAs, prosecutors, attorneys general, or any other government paid attorney or legal representative; (h) judges of any court. GoPetition does not warrant that petitions on these subject matters will not appear on the GoPetition website. GoPetition may waive this clause at its discretion but members should assume that no waiver will be given.

S. Members must not post petitions that: (a) concern specific family law cases, including divorce, child custody, guardianship, or family abuse disputes; (b) allege personal, family, sexual or emotional abuse; (c) concern specific complaints or disputes with departments of family or social services, or family courts; (d) seek specific or general rights to abortion; (e) involve complaints against residential neighbors; (f) complain against judges or lawyers (g) promote religious cults; (h) unless an account has premium services, the account's petition author must not upload a petition that is simply an advertisement for a petition on another website; (i) contain hate speech; (j) or contain political propaganda of an obvious nature; (k) involve conflict between specific countries such as India/Pakistani disputes; (l) contain elements which are subversive to ordered society in general; (m) subvert the institution of marriage; (n) support, agree with, or promote any religious legal system that denigrates women; (o) seek the termination of neighborhood property managers; (p) are without just cause; (q) campaign for any issue that may adversely affect public safety.

T. Petitions that make ad hominem attacks against Joe Biden will not be allowed on this website. Defamatory slurs, including imputations, such as "racist", "bigot", and "xenophobe" constitute political propaganda and will be rejected. Reasonable policy debates about the Biden presidency are welcome, but ad hominem arguments are not.

(2). Members' email addresses and communication with GoPetition

A. A Member's email address will never be displayed publicly by GoPetition. GoPetition has a strict privacy policy that can be viewed on this website.

B. Members will normally be emailed a signature receipt after signing any petition.

C. Members will normally receive email alerts regarding mail sent to their GoPetition mailbox. This alert feature may be switched off at any time by a member.

D. Members may receive periodic emails from GoPetition which relate to site functions.

E. GoPetition does not warrant that it will reply to an email enquiry by a member. Members should read the GoPetition FAQ in detail.

(3) Data Management

(a) Members may edit or delete their signature at any time (if they have signed with a valid email address).

(b) Members may edit their member profile at any time as long as they have an open account.

(c) Members and users agree that their petition(s), signatures, and member profile(s) may be stored in perpetuity in the GoPetition database. Members agree that their petition(s) may be published in perpetuity on the GoPetition website for historical record. Members agree that if a petition is closed it may be publicly archived for signers and/or the general public to view so as to ascertain the status of the petition and/or the results of the petition. A closed version of all petitions may remain live on the site as an historical record. Archived petitions allow for data access by signers and targets. Archived petitions also allow the general public to ascertain the status of a petition. Archiving also has other historical and social benefits. Members may request the removal of a petition from the public archive.

Member and user signatures are retained in the GoPetition database for legal reasons. Retained data, however, will be subject to fair usage.

(d) Members acknowledge that the signature list URL can be made available by them and sent (emailed) to the petition target for viewing of the signature list at any time and on completion of the petition. Members acknowledge that this method of signature list delivery shall be sufficient for the purposes of signature list presentation. Members acknowledge that file downloads and backups are available for members with premium services.

(e) Members acknowledge that they are responsible for their own content and any associated signature comments. Members with petitions shall moderate signature comments associated with their petition(s) and shall report abuse to GoPetition if they become aware of it.

(f) Members acknowledge that GoPetition will place statistical counters on each petition including # page views, # signatures, and # facebook likes. Page views and signature counters may be removed by GoPetition upon request by those who have purchased premium services.

(4). License and copyright:

By posting petitions and other communications, User/Member grants to GoPetition a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable exclusive license to use, reproduce, modify, moderate, publish, translate, distribute, perform and display those communications, inclusive of signatures, alone or as part of other works in any form, media, or technology whether now known or hereafter developed. GoPetition reserves any and all intellectual property rights, including copyright or otherwise, attached to the publication of petitions, authored by members, on the GoPetition website. Publication of a petition at GoPetition does not automatically confer copyright to the owner. Copyright of a petition text, if required, should be stated specifically in the petition where copyright is required. GoPetition shall retain copyright over all signature lists generated on the GoPetition website.

(5). Indemnity:

Every User/Member agrees to hold harmless GoPetition and its officers and directors from any and all claims, actions or demands, resulting from User/Member material or personal information posted to any facilities provided by GoPetition. Members, including petition authors, agree to indemnify GoPetition for any legal claims against GoPetition resulting from member content posted on the GoPetition website, or any content endorsed by a member on the member's petition. The indemnity shall include all legals costs pre, during and post litigation resulting from any action by an aggrieved party. The indemnity operates regardless of whether the legal action is successfully defended by GoPetition or not. All and any court costs orders, regardless of a case's outcome, are included in this indemnity.

Listings of GoPetition content by search engines such as Google are the responsibility of those engines as GoPetition has a general data transparency policy. GoPetition, however, allows and encourages Members to control their own data. GoPetition seeks to balance the interests of data transparency, data control, Privacy, data access and search engine exposure for the benefit of our members and the general public. GoPetition's Privacy Policy forms part of this TOU.

(6). Users and Members are subject to the GoPetition Disclaimer.

The Disclaimer forms part of these Terms. The GoPetition Privacy Policy is also subject to the Disclaimer and TOU. The Privacy Policy forms part of these Terms.

(7). GoPetition at its absolute discretion may release member or signer contact and other identifying details to third parties without notice or reasons to the member or signer.

This clause would be occasionally invoked, for example, when GoPetition forms an opinion that the release of such information would be fair or equitable or may help in a legitimate legal investigation, criminal or civil.

GoPetition reserves the right to request members to disclose their identity on any petition they are associated with, either as a campaign author or campaign organizer.

(8). Construction:

Nothing in the Terms and Conditions shall be construed as reducing or limiting GoPetition's rights or interests as set forth in the Disclaimer, or as expanding GoPetition's duties, obligations or liabilities beyond those provided for in the Terms and Conditions.

(9). GoPetition reserves the right to amend or change these terms of service without notice or disclosure so as to improve the services of GoPetition.

(10). GoPetition reserves the right to place a sponsor's advertisement on the same page as a Member's petition, and/or to allow the general public to sponsor a petition campaign.

GoPetition reserves the right to post a sponsor's url on a Member's petition page, and also to place sponsorship options on any petition to promote that petition. The placement of sponsorship options on any petition is at GoPetition's absolute discretion and can be done without notice or disclosure.

(11) GoPetition may charge for premium services, on a non-refundable basis, which may vary from time to time according to GoPetition's discretion, use of server or administrative resources, and/or service availability.

Premium services may be purchased at GoPetition. The minimum period of purchase is 30 days. Payments are non-refundable even if premium services are not used for the full period of purchase. GoPetition may request the payment of premium services or other fees at its discretion. Such requests may be made, for example, in circumstances where GoPetition forms the view that excessive administrative resources have been applied to an account. Please see our FAQ for more information about premium services.

(12). GoPetition has the right to reject, remove or moderate site content at its complete discretion. GoPetition also has the right to list site content internally at its own discretion.

Due to the magnitude of content on the site, GoPetition does not warrant that all content is actively moderated. GoPetition does not warrant that its moderation of content complies with the laws of relevant jurisdictions. GoPetition has the right to reject, remove or moderate any site content, including petitions and forums, without notice or reasons. Any content removal or editing due to moderation shall be at GoPetition's absolute discretion. GoPetition reserves the right to rank, list, index, and/or tag any petition for internal search purposes at its absolute discretion without notice or disclosure. GoPetition also reserves the right to tag petitions for search engines at its absolute discretion without notice or disclosure.

(13). GoPetition does not necessarily endorse any website or advertiser displayed on the site. Ads served by a Google robot are not selected by GoPetition.

(14). The terms herein shall be governed by the protections afforded by the Supreme Court of California to blog sites against claims for libel or copyright infringement.

This website is not liable for any such infringements in relation to materials uploaded by members or users. Redress against member content lies with direct claims against members, authors and/or users, not this website.

(15). Testimonials and feedback by members

Any member who provides positive feedback to GoPetition in the form of a rating or otherwise, hereby explicitly gives permission to GoPetition to (1) publish that feedback on the GoPetition website as an ongoing testimony, and (2) list them (i.e. the member) on the GoPetition website as a site endorsing patron.

(16). GoPetition is a premium content Website.

GoPetition agrees to supply a moderated premium content site that displays and enhances petitions of local, national and international significance for the betterment of our members' interests.