Privacy Policy
The Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA), the manager of this website, respects your privacy. Any personal information you provide, including your name and email address will not be released, sold, or rented to any entities or individuals outside of the Tech Forum community website, part of the Industry-Consumer Alliance for Accessible Technology (ICAAT) initiative. This Privacy Policy is subject to change without notice. Changes to the Privacy Policy will be posted on this page.
Your registration on this website signifies your agreement of this Privacy Policy.
Terms of Use
HLAA welcomes you to the Tech Forum community website, conditioned on your acceptance of the terms, conditions and notices contained herein (these “Terms of Use”). You agree that HLAA may modify these Terms of Use at any time and from time to time, with or without notice to you. When you access, use or browse the Tech Forum website, you accept, without limitation or qualification, these Terms of Use.
1. Acceptance of Terms
Please read these Terms of Use carefully. By using the Tech Forum website, you agree to these Terms of Use, and you consent to the collection and use of information as described in these Terms of Use. If you do not agree to these Terms of Use, you must exit the community immediately and discontinue any use of information, products, services or content from the Tech Forum website.
2. Assignment
Users may submit, upload, or post content to the community. You understand that HLAA does not guarantee any confidentiality with respect to any content you submit. You shall be solely responsible for your own content and the consequences of submitting and publishing your content in the community. You affirm, represent, and warrant that you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to publish content you submit; and you license to the Tech Forum community website all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights in and to such content for publication on the community pursuant to these Terms of Service. HLAA prefers users to voluntarily provide to the Tech Forum website content licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, or content that is in the public domain.
For clarity, you retain all your ownership rights in your content. However, by submitting content to the community, you hereby grant HLAA a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferrable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, and display the content in connection with the community. You also hereby grant each user of the community a non-exclusive license to access your content through the community, and to use, reproduce, distribute, and display such content as permitted through the functionality of the community and under these Terms of Service. You acknowledge and agree that you are not entitled to receive any compensation for any user content submitted in connection herewith.
You further agree that content you submit to the community will not contain third party copyrighted material, or material that is subject to other third party proprietary rights, unless you have permission from the rightful owner of the material or you are otherwise legally entitled to post the material and to grant HLAA all of the license rights granted herein. HLAA does not endorse any content submitted to the community by any user or other licensor, or any opinion, recommendation, or advice expressed therein, and HLAA expressly disclaims any and all liability in connection with content. HLAA does not permit copyright infringing activities and infringement of intellectual property rights on the community, and HLAA will remove all content if properly notified that such content infringes on another’s intellectual property rights. HLAA reserves the right to remove content without prior notice.
3. Use and Restrictions
The Tech Forum website is provided solely as a convenience to you. You may use the community, the products and the services only in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations and in accordance with these Terms of Use and any applicable Additional Terms. You further agree that you will not:
a. other than for your use of the community, the products and / or the services, as expressly permitted in these Terms of Use, access or attempt to access any systems or servers on which the community is hosted or modify or alter the community in any way;
b. submit, display or transmit any user content, or any content via the systems or services on which the community is hosted, in violation of any proprietary rights of, or your contractual obligations to, any third party, or in violation of applicable laws, rules and regulations;
c. submit, display or transmit any images, photographs, graphics, links, audio files, video files or similar content that exceed the Tech Forum website’s capacity limits or that you do not own or have the necessary and appropriate rights to submit, display or transmit;
d. submit, display or transmit any spam, duplicative messages, unauthorized promotions or advertisements, surveys, contests, chain letters or pyramid schemes;
e. forge headers, create a false identity or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to deceive others or disguise the origin of any content transmitted to or via the Tech Forum website;
f. use the community and / or the services to threaten, defame, abuse, assault, stalk, harass or otherwise violate the rights of any other person or entity, including, without limitation, rights of privacy or publicity;
g. publish, post, display or disseminate any profane, obscene, indecent, unlawful, terroristic, violent or hateful content;
h. offer, sell, broker, purchase or seek any unethical, profane, obscene, indecent, unlawful, terroristic, violent or hateful services;
i. collect, store, publish, post, sell, transmit or disclose personal data about other account holders (see 4 below) or users of the community unless authorized to do so;
j. upload or otherwise transmit files that contain viruses, worms, Trojan horses, malicious code, spyware, adware, sniffers, corrupted files or similar software or programs; or
k. restrict or prevent any other account holder or other user of the community from using the community and/or the services.
4. Use: Account Holders
You may access and browse certain areas of the Tech Forum website’s content without registering. You must register to access certain content or participate in certain discussion boards, forums, or other community features.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, you acknowledge and agree that HLAA, in its sole discretion and without notice or any further obligation to you, may: (a) temporarily suspend or permanently discontinue your, and refuse any and all current and future, access to or use of the Tech Forum website, or (b) take any other necessary or appropriate actions in case of technical problems, objectionable material, false, misleading, unlawful or inaccurate postings, articles or other contributions.
5. Monitoring
HLAA has no obligation to monitor the community. However, HLAA reserves the right to review any user content, and remove, delete, redact or otherwise modify such user content, in its sole discretion, at any time and from time to time, without notice or further obligation to you. HLAA has no obligation to display or post any user content. HLAA reserves the right to disclose, at any time and from time to time, any information or user content that HLAA deems necessary or appropriate to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, contract obligation, legal or dispute process or government request.
The Tech Forum website is intended to support a community of consumers and product developers who are involved with assistive technologies. The site managers at HLAA have the right to remove any message they consider to be inconsistent with that goal, to be inappropriate in content or language, and/or to be primarily of a commercial or advertising nature.
6. Modifications
As noted above, HLAA reserves the right, at any time and from time to time, without notice, to modify, alter, or update these Terms of Use, and your continued use of the community after such modifications, alterations or updates signifies your agreement to be bound by such modifications, alterations or updates. HLAA may also, directly or indirectly, make improvements and / or changes in the community at any time without notice or obligation to you.
7. Confidentiality
You acknowledge and agree that any user name, login code, identifier or password (each, a “Password”) is confidential information. You acknowledge and agree that you are responsible for any use of your username, user ID, login and / or Password. You agree to notify HLAA immediately of any unauthorized use of any Password or any other breach of security of which you are aware.
HLAA cannot be responsible, and disclaims all liability in connection with, the use of any information that you submit, post or display in the community. You should use caution when posting any information, including personally identifiable information to the community.
8. Links to Third Party Websites
The Tech Forum website may contain links to websites and other resources operated by third parties other than Tech Forum. Such links are provided solely as a convenience to you. HLAA does not control such websites, and is not responsible for the contents, or products, services or other content offered through such websites. HLAA’s inclusion of links to such websites does not imply any endorsement of any website, or the content, products or services offered through any website, or of any company or person. If you decide to access any third party websites, you do so entirely at your own risk, and you may be subject to the terms and conditions and the privacy policies of such websites.
9. Release
In the event that you have a dispute with one or more account holders or users of the Tech Forum website, you hereby irrevocably release HLAA and its directors, officers, agents, affiliates, subsidiaries, employees, successors and assigns from any claims, demands or damages, direct or consequential, of any kind, known or unknown, disclosed and undisclosed, arising out of, related to or in connection with any such dispute.
10. Warranties and Disclaimer
Except as expressly provided by the applicable additional terms, the community and any content, products and services contained on the community, including links, are provided on an “as is” basis with no warranty of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by law, HLAA disclaims all representations and warranties, express or implied, with respect to the community, the content, the products, the services, including, without limitation, warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, freedom from computer viruses or other malicious or unauthorized code or programs, and implied warranties arising from course of dealing or course of performance. In addition, HLAA does not represent or warrant that the information accessible via the community is accurate, complete or current. As a condition of your use of the community, you warrant to HLAA that you will not use the community for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these terms of use.
11. Limitation of Liability
HLAA, and its directors, employees, agents, suppliers, licensors and third party partners will not be liable for any indirect, special, punitive, incidental, exemplary or consequential damages, or any damages whatsoever, whether or not HLAA has been previously advised of the possibility of such damages, whether in an action under contract, tort, or any other theory, arising out of or in connection with any errors or omissions, viruses or other malicious or unauthorized code or programs, the use, inability to use, or performance of the community or the content, products or services available from the community or any loss, business interruption or other damages in connection therewith.
12. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless HLAA and its officers, directors, employees, agents, suppliers, licensors and third party partners from and against all claims, losses, expenses, damages and costs (collectively, “Damages”), including reasonable attorneys’ fees, resulting from: (a) any violation by you of these Terms of Use or any applicable Additional Terms, and (b) any user content provided by you.
13. Dispute Resolution
If any controversy, dispute or claim arising out of or related to your use of the Tech Forum website, the services or any of the content arises, the dispute will be resolved exclusively by binding arbitration in accordance with the then-current Commercial Rules of the American Arbitration Association. However, HLAA will have the right to petition any court of competent jurisdiction for the entry of injunctions and orders for specific performance relating to your unauthorized use, modification, copying, distribution, transmission, display, performance, reproduction, publication, license, creation of derivative works, transfer or sale of the community, the products, the services, the marks and / or the content.
14. Governing Law
Except as provided in the second sentence of Section 16, all litigation, court proceedings, arbitration proceedings, mediation proceedings, lawsuits, court hearings and other hearings initiated in connection with the Tech Forum website, the services and / or the content must and will be venued exclusively in Washington, D.C., USA. These Terms of Use and the relationship between you and HLAA will be governed by the laws of the District of Columbia, USA, without giving effect to principles of conflict of laws of any jurisdiction. If any part of these Terms of Use is determined to be invalid or unenforceable pursuant to applicable law including, but not limited to, the warranty disclaimers and liability limitations set forth above, then the invalid or unenforceable provision will be deemed superseded by a valid, enforceable provision that most closely matches the intent of the original provision and the remainder of these Terms of Use shall continue in effect.
15. Miscellaneous
If any provision of these Terms of Use or any Additional Terms is held to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable in any respect under any applicable law or rule in any jurisdiction, such invalidity, illegality or unenforceability will not affect the effectiveness or validity of any provision in any other jurisdiction, and these Terms of Use or the applicable Additional Terms will be reformed, construed and enforced in such jurisdiction as if such provision had never been contained herein. You agree that no joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship exists between you and Tech Forum as a result of these Terms of Use, any Additional Terms, our Privacy Policy or use of the Tech Forum website, the products and / or the services. HLAA’s performance of these Terms of Use and any Additional Terms is subject to existing laws and legal process, and nothing contained in these Terms of Use, any Additional Terms or our Privacy Policy is in derogation of HLAA’s right to comply with law enforcement requests or requirements relating to your use of the community or information provided to or gathered by HLAA with respect to such use. These Terms of Use, the Privacy Policy and any Additional Terms constitute the entire agreement between you and HLAA with respect to the community and they supersede all prior or contemporaneous communications and proposals, whether electronic, oral or written, between you and HLAA with respect to the Tech Forum website. In the event of a conflict between these Terms of Use and the terms and conditions of any of the foregoing with respect to the Community or any content, the Additional Terms shall control with respect to their subject matter. The Section titles in these Terms of Use are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect. HLAA may provide notice to you hereunder by posting announcements in the Tech Forum website. A printed version of these Terms of Use and of any notice given in electronic form shall be admissible in judicial, arbitration or administrative proceedings based upon or relating to these Terms of Use to the same extent and subject to the same conditions as other business documents and records originally generated and maintained in printed form.
