Web 2.0 sites' Terms of Service (enjoy)

by Nahar
15 replies
Have you had an account suspended and didn't know why? Reading most Terms of Service takes some time, so I prepared a list of some of the Web 2.0 sites (weebly, hubpages, tumblr, squidoo, infobarrel, eHow, EZA, blogsome, scribd, docstoc, and blogger) I use for link building (link wheels, etc.) with those parts of their TOS that I think relate to what we, marketers do. I hope some of you will find this helpful:

(1) Weebly

Weebly Terms of Service:

"You agree that you will not:...(g) upload, post, or transmit unsolicited commercial email or \"spam\". This includes unethical marketing, advertising, or any other practice that is in any way connected with \"spam\", such as (a) sending mass email to recipients who haven't requested email from you or with a fake return address, (b) promoting a site with inappropriate links, titles, descriptions, or (c) promoting your site by posting multiple submissions in public forums that are identical;"

(2) HubPages

to watch HubPages 4 min video on their content policy

or read their Terms of Use:

"As a Website user or Author, You may Not:
...
* Link to pages or sites that are unrelated to the topic and content of Your Hub.
...
* Attempt to automatically redirect Website users to other domains, mislead users of the origins of the Hub Content contained in Your Hubs, or use Your Hubs as storage for remote loading or a door or signpost to a website outside of the Website.
...
* Spam any User or mass email any User in an automated fashion.
* Collect personal identifiable information about the Users of Your Hubs and sell or transfer that information.
* Use any automatic or manual process to harvest email addresses or other information from the Website.
...
* Publish Hubs or Content written primarily in a language other than English.
* Promote gambling or links to sites that promote/offer gambling for money.
* Display misleading tags, categorizations, and/or titles that don't match the Hub's content, including irrelevant or excessive tagging.
* Engage in behavior that is overly promotional, including excessive linking to any one site or domain.
* Engage in behavior designed to manipulate HubScores.
* Spam to promote Hubs or Profiles, including comment spam, forum spam, spam blogs, email spam, instant message spam, or similar.
* Use automation tools to create HubPages Accounts, Hubs, or Author Content, to follow topics or Authors, or to edit Hubs. This includes, but is not limited to, article spinner software, blog and comment blasters, and similar software and online tools and services."

(3) Tumblr

Tumblr Content Policy:

"Spam. Users that do not publish meaningful content, use deceptive means to generate revenue or traffic, or whose primary purpose is affiliate marketing, will be suspended."

(4) Squidoo

Squidoo has a nice page/lens that clearly explains what is not allowed (what you should avoid if you don't want your lens "locked"):

Top 8 Reasons Your Lens Could Get Locked

Here are 2 of them:

"2. Spam, the noun. Spam the noun is content on your lens that looks like spam. Examples: reappropriated and uncredited content from other sites or lenses; cut and pasted, uncurated content; tag stuffing--jamming a bunch of tags into a module or title, hoping to trick search engines; and more.

3. Lenses on one of our SquidDon't topics. Be sure to read up on topics that Squidoo just doesn't allow lenses on, like gambling lenses, pharmaceutical sales, credit card debt, ringtones, some affiliate networking sites and products and more."

(5) Info Barrel

Info Barrel TOS:

"4. Content. You hereby understand, acknowledge, undertake, represent and warrant that any Original Content sent by you with the intention it be published on the Site shall comply with the following requirements: (i) be your original work; (ii) shall have not been previously publicly published, in whole or in part, on the Internet or in any other media (iii) shall not contain any content of any kind whatsoever that is libelous, illegal or infringes any third parties' copyrights; (iv) if any third parties' copyrights are included in the Original Content, the express, unrestricted and unlimited permission of such copyrights owner for the use of such copyrighted materials has been obtained prior to submitting the Original Content; (v) shall not contain any derogatory, offensive, unlawful, harmful, threatening, vulgar, profane, abusive, harassing, obscene, pornographic, defamatory or tortuous content;"

(6) eHow

eHow Terms and Conditions of Use:

"...You acknowledge and agree that eHow is not responsible or liable for (i) the availability or accuracy of such sites or resources; or (ii) the content, advertising, or products or services on or available from such sites or resources. The inclusion of any link on the Site does not imply that we endorse the linked site. You use the links at your own risk. eHow's Privacy Policy is applicable only when you are on our Site. Once you choose to link to another website, you should read and understand that website's privacy statement before disclosing any personal information.

Your correspondence or business dealings with, or participation in promotions of, third party merchants or advertisers that are found on or through the Site or which provide links on the Site, including, for example, "click to purchase" and other similar programs, including payment and delivery of related goods or services, and any other terms, conditions, warranties or representations associated with such dealings, are solely between you and such merchant or advertiser. You waive any claim against eHow and agree to hold eHow harmless from any loss or damage of any kind incurred as the result of any such dealings or as the result of the presence of such merchants or advertisers on the Site."

(7) Ezine Articles

Ezinearticles.com Terms of Service for Publishers:

"If you wish to publish/reprint any article from our site in your ezine, website, blog, forum, RSS feed or print publication, you must:

* Respect the copyrights of the authors by publishing the entire article as it is with no changes.

* Agree to include the FULL Resource box or SIG line at the end of the article.

* Agree not to change the title or content of the article in any way..." (these are just 3 of 15 points - all seem important!)

(8) Blogsome

Blogsome Terms of Service:

"You agree to not use the Service to:...(m) establish a blog as a site which is referred to in a mass-marketing campaign whether by email or otherwise;(n) establish a blog as part of a SEO campaign whose sole focus is to promote other websites and/or earn advertising revenue out of topics frequently used by spammers, such as weightloss sites, mesothelioma, credit/finances, luxury cruises, poker, blogs whose content primarily consists of erotica, adult content and other regular spam topics; (o) where main purpose of blog is to promote the illegal downloading of copyright material (or "warez") regardless of whether the material is hosted on the blog or not;"

(9) Scribd

Scribd General Terms of Use:

"BY USING THE SCRIBD PLATFORM YOU AGREE NOT TO:... post, upload or distribute marketing material, advertisements, spam, content designed to aid search engine optimization, content in HTML format with links or redirects, or other commercial content that in Scribd's sole opinion detracts from the Scribd experience."

(10) Docstoc

Docstoc Terms of Service:

"When submitting User Content to or otherwise using this Site and/or the services, You agree not to, without limitation:... * Post, upload or distribute marketing material, advertisements, spam, content designed to aid search engine optimization, content in HTML format with links or redirects, or other commercial content that detracts from the DOCSTOC experience;
* Engage in any activity or upload commercial content that generally detracts from the DOCSTOC experience;
* Take any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;..."

(11) Blogger

Blogger Content Policy:

"Spam: Spam takes several forms in Blogger, all of which can result in deletion of your account or blog. Some examples include creating blogs designed to drive traffic to your site or to move it up in search listings and posting comments on other people's blogs just to promote your site or product."
#enjoy #service #sites #suspended #terms #tos #web #web 2.0
  • Profile picture of the author Mack
    Thanks. HubPages is pretty anal from my experience...
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Hlatky
    Thanks for the info.

    I might actually bother to read this one day
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Originally Posted by twigman1200 View Post

      Thanks for the info.

      I might actually bother to read this one day
      NOT reading it could be a huge mistake, twigman.

      I pick on these guys alot because of some of the serious moral and ethically compromised things they did leading up to the closure of their WCP (Writer's Compensation Program), but, had people read eHow's TOS, they would have seen that it would have been completely within their rights to take original writer's articles, and completely replicate them on any other worldwide project that they launched (i.e. their UK sister site) and NOT pay those original writers revenue share on those articles. (While SEO'ing them to the point where those replicated articles actually ranked higher--and earned more--than their original writer counterparts)

      Is anyone familiar with this?

      ...hence, this thread is EXTREMELY important, and it embodies exactly what I recommend that people do: read a site(s) TOS before submitting content. The websites are business, as well, so as a user, you should look at their decisions and TOS as business decisions meant to help maximize their own profits.
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      • Profile picture of the author anions
        Originally Posted by x3xsolxdierx3x View Post

        NOT reading it could be a huge mistake, twigman.

        I pick on these guys alot because of some of the serious moral and ethically compromised things they did leading up to the closure of their WCP (Writer's Compensation Program), but, had people read eHow's TOS, they would have seen that it would have been completely within their rights to take original writer's articles, and completely replicate them on any other worldwide project that they launched (i.e. their UK sister site) and NOT pay those original writers revenue share on those articles. (While SEO'ing them to the point where those replicated articles actually ranked higher--and earned more--than their original writer counterparts)

        Is anyone familiar with this?

        ...hence, this thread is EXTREMELY important, and it embodies exactly what I recommend that people do: read a site(s) TOS before submitting content. The websites are business, as well, so as a user, you should look at their decisions and TOS as business decisions meant to help maximize their own profits.
        Only if you are interested in the 50% revenue that they offer.

        I'm only interested in the backlinks and traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author Nahar
    twigman1200, The whole point of this thread is so you DON'T waste your time (by reading the entire TOS or even worse by taking your time or paying someone to publish things on those services and then have your accounts suspended).

    x3xsolxdierx3x, 2 things inspired me to write this: my own experience with an account being suspended (I got it back since though) and some of the comments you made yesterday on this issue on some other thread
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  • Profile picture of the author tecHead
    thank you!!.. saved me a heap of time. Bookmarked this post in my (very few) "WF Posts to Bookmark" folder.

    Coincidentally, those who poo-poo on this thread and the time this man put into pulling this information out for us... well poo-poo on you! 99.8% of the problems that people run into doing business on the Net (using 3rd party services) is due to NOT reading the TOS's of those sites.

    But hey.. keep poo-poo'ing on info like this (and the TOSs) and those of us that DO pay attention to this stuff will have more money to make.

    Thanks again, bro...
    PLP,
    tecHead
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  • Profile picture of the author SledgeHammer
    Nahar: Congrats for the info!

    Among these sites which are the ones who will not allow IM content, affiliate links etc ?

    Which are the ones who are very strict and will delete your membership without any notification ?
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    • Profile picture of the author Nahar
      Originally Posted by tecHead View Post

      thank you!!.. saved me a heap of time. Bookmarked this post in my (very few) "WF Posts to Bookmark" folder.

      Coincidentally, those who poo-poo on this thread and the time this man put into pulling this information out for us... well poo-poo on you! 99.8% of the problems that people run into doing business on the Net (using 3rd party services) is due to NOT reading the TOS's of those sites.

      But hey.. keep poo-poo'ing on info like this (and the TOSs) and those of us that DO pay attention to this stuff will have more money to make.

      Thanks again, bro...
      PLP,
      tecHead
      No problem. I don't really mind being poo-pooed on (I have 4 kids ha, ha!). I've noticed that a lot of lazy people are attracted to IM, probably by silly claims, etc. The fact is that even in this kind of business you must do your homework. It's either that or you will waste a lot of time fixing things that you didn't really need to break in the first place, or you will post your last "IM stinks!" post and go back to making tacos.

      Originally Posted by SledgeHammer View Post

      Nahar: Congrats for the info!

      Among these sites which are the ones who will not allow IM content, affiliate links etc ?

      Which are the ones who are very strict and will delete your membership without any notification ?
      I've had my account suspended only once. By Tumblr. But I sent them an email asking what happened and they replied: "I will unsuspend your account but be aware that Tumblr does not allow affiliate marketing." I wrote to them again saying that oh, good, it was a mistake after all then, because I didn't have any affiliate related links and they didn't write me back.

      The thing about those Web 2.0 sites being strict is that we actually DO want them to be strict. It's like choosing a college. You can graduate with GPA 4.0 (the highest grade in US schools) from a small and easy school or go Harvard and after working hard graduate with GPA 2.5. In which case do you think you will be more likely to get a great job?

      The same is with those services. HubPages is very strict (in order to have do-follow links in your article you must have (1) >74 HubberScore (the author's HubScore) AND (2) >39 Article HubScore) and frustrating sometimes (one day your HubberScore is 80 and a few days later 70, what the ...!). But, probably one hub or article on HubPages will give you more link juice than 20 articles published on sites that are not strict (I don't actually know if it's 20, 5 or 30, but you get the point).

      So, if you can produce good quality, unique content and can pay someone or have enough time to read other hubs, rank them, post comments, etc. (there is an iPhone app that I use to do so whenever I have to stand in line, etc.), I would recommend that you forget about all those insignificant tribes and go to war with worthy adversary and get the real spoil.

      Also, x3xsolxdierx3x recommends InfoBarrel and offers some training about it in WSO section (as soon as I have more time I think I am going to get one myself, looks very promising).

      One more thing: If you want to find out more about the HubScore, here is a link to an awesome hub that explains everything in detail (I also got it from x3xsolxdierx3x - thanks!).
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  • Profile picture of the author missyox
    I have a real issue with hubpages. My hub was just flagged as overly promotional when I linked to my blog from my hub. I was also flagged as duplicate content. I wrote My hub with completely unique content, but because my blog has similar content (it talks about the same thing that my hub did) It was considered overly promotional and with duplicate content.

    So basically you are not allowed to write anything whether unique or not and link it to a blog with similar content. There is nothing on the web that is truly unique. So how you get past that rule is beyond me.
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    • Profile picture of the author colomedia1
      Great post.

      Thanks for this.
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  • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
    Web 2.0 site's TOS and Editorial guidelines should be among the first things people do before they sign up for them....unfortunately, for the tens of thousands of people that join these sites each day/week, few seem to care or understand what they are getting into. The handling of content is no joke.

    Some sites have done some flat-out despicable things with the content that people have published and submitted in good faith. Whether their actions would stand up in a court of law....I don't no....but, they still make allowances for certain things in their TOS and editorial guidelines.
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  • Profile picture of the author King Shiloh
    Banned
    This is quite scary considering the fact that this TOS of a thing is usually too long to be read. So, we might be signing our death warrant unknowingly.

    The danger of the internet.
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    • Profile picture of the author x3xsolxdierx3x
      Do realize, however, that, dependent on the site, SOME concessions should be expected to be made by the writer. The revenue share arrangement is just the tip of the iceberg. Granted, by not actually owning the site, you are subjecting yourself wholey and entirely to the guidelines of the host site. People will swear up and down that you should never use a site that you don't own...that isn't your own piece of online real estate, however, they do have a very valuable and viable role as a part of a much larger online promotional strategy.

      Where you give up revenue share (how much is dependent on the site), you inherent the ability to publish on a site that has high authority and favor in Google. Dependent upon how big your blog is (it's PR, etc), outside of alot of effort and monetary resources expended, you may never ever be able to get a piece of content to rank as high as they would when published online on an authority Web 2.0 site. Picture it as being given a one way ticket to the front of a very long line....by doing this, you catapult your own content off the inherent search engine authority of the site.

      ....there is a REASON why Web 2.0 properties are among the leading trafficked (and used/membership) sites in the entire world.
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