Blue Directory – Terms and Conditions.

BLUE DIRECTORY TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE (DRAFT)

1. Contract and Scope of Application

 

• This Contract is concluded by and between the Water Research Commission, and or its successor in title, as the custodian of the Blue Directory website and platform as well as all services offered thereon, and the Visitor and/or Member of the Blue Directory (‘’the Parties’’).
• When accessing the Blue Directory as a Visitor or Member, whether registering, accessing uploading content to, or using in any way whatsoever, you agree to all the terms and conditions contained herein, as well as any amendments to these terms of conditions that may be made from time to time, with or without notice to you.
• Visitors and/or Members use in any way whatsoever of the Blue Directory, is also subject to our Cookie Policy, our Privacy Policy and any documents referenced in those policies, and any updates thereto.
• This Contract applies to the Blue Directory site and all related sites, applications, communications and other services offered by the Blue Directory.
• This Contract also applies to the offsite collection of data for all Blue Directory uses and services, such as our advertisements and marketing initiatives.

2. Changes to this Contract

 

2.1          Minor changes or modifications made to this Contract, our Privacy Policy and our Cookies Policies from time to time may be made without notice to you.

2.2          Material changes or modifications made to this Contract, our Privacy Policy and our Cookies Policies will be made on notice to you via the Blue Directory services, or by other means, to enable you to review the changes before they become effective. We agree that changes cannot be retroactive.

2.3          Should you object to minor or major changes or modifications made to this Contract, our Privacy Policy and our Cookie Policies, you may deregister your account and discontinue use of the Blue Directory.

2.4          Your continued use of the Blue Directory after we publish or send a notice about our changes or modifications to this Contract, our Privacy Policy and our Cookies Policies will be interpreted as consent and agreement with the updated terms.

 

3. Visitors and Members Obligations

 

Visitors and Members agree that they will:

3.1          use their correct name on any profile created on the Blue Directory platform and ensure that all information linked to their profile is truthful;

3.2          choose a strong and secure password;

3.3          keep their password secure and confidential;

3.4          report any misuse or deregister if there is misuse of their profile or account.

3.5          Keep their contact information up to date and relevant;

3.6          only provide information and content that they have the right to share;

3.7          only provide content or information that does not violate the law nor anyone’s rights (including intellectual property rights);

 

Visitors and Members agree that they will not:

• not share an account with anyone else and will follow the Blue Directory rules and honour all applicable laws.
• Develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, robots, or any other means or processes (including crawlers, browser plugins and add-ons, or any other technology) to scrape the Blue Directory or its services or otherwise copy profiles and other data from the Blue Directory platform;
• Override any security feature or bypass or circumvent any access controls or use limits of the Blue Directory Platform;
• Copy, use, disclose or distribute any information obtained from the Blue Directory, whether directly or through third parties (such as search engines), without the consent of the Blue Directory;
• Disclose information that they do not have the consent to disclose (such as confidential or personal information of others;
• Violate the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, or other proprietary rights;
• Violate the intellectual property or other rights of the Blue Directory.
• Post anything that contains software viruses, worms, or any other harmful code;
• Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, decipher or otherwise attempt to derive the source code for the Blue Directory or any related technology that is not open source;
• Imply or state that they are affiliated with or endorsed by the Blue Directory without the Blue Directory’s express consent.;
• Rent, lease, loan, trade, sell/re-sell or otherwise monetize the Blue Directory platform or any of its services or related data or access thereto, without the Blue Directory’s consent;
• Deep-link (use of a hyperlink that links to a specific searchable or indexed, piece of content on the website rather than the website’s home page) to the Blue Directory for any purpose other than to promote your profile, without the Blue Directory’s consent.
• Use bots or other automated methods to access the Blue Directory, add or download contacts, send or redirect messages;
• Monitor the Blue Directory’s availability, performance or functionality for any competitive purpose;
• Engage in “framing,” “mirroring,” or otherwise simulating the appearance or function of the Blue Directory platform;
• Overlay or otherwise modify the Blue Directory platform or their appearance (such as by inserting elements into the Services or removing, covering, or obscuring an advertisement included on the Services).

4             Status of Information Shared or Uploaded on the Blue Directory

 

4.1          Visitors and Members acknowledge that when they share information on the Blue Directory, the Blue Directory and other Visitors and Members can see, access, copy, store and use that information.

4.2          Visitors and Members specifically acknowledge that all personal information (such as names, origins, contact information, educational backgrounds, working history etc – and specifically defined by the South African Protection of Personal Information Act) shared on the Blue Directory platform can be publicly viewed, copied and used by all Visitors and Members of the Blue Directory Platform and registering, accessing uploading content to, or using the Blue Directory platform in any way whatsoever, they consent to the public access and use to all personal information.

4.3          Where the Blue Directory has made privacy settings available, it will honour the settings chosen.

4.4          The Blue Directory is not obligated to publish or share any information or content on its site, related sites and applications and reserves the right to veto, edit, summarise or correct any information is publishes and shares on its platform at its sole discretion, with or without notice.

 

5. Rights and Limits Granted to the Blue Directory by Visitors and Members

 

5.1       Visitors and Members of the Blue Directory platform own all of the content, feedback, and personal information provided, but grant the Blue Directory platform, website, related sites and applications a non-exclusive worldwide, transferable and sublicensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publish, and process, information and content that you provide without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others.

5.2       Visitors and Members of the Blue Directory platform may terminate the right of use license referred to above for specific content by deleting such content, or generally by closing your account.

5.3       The termination of the right to use license will not cover all content, feedback and personal information shared with others as part of the Blue Directory, especially where they have copied, re-shared or stored such content, feedback and personal information.

5.4       Once the right to use license has been terminated, Visitors and Members will allow for a reasonable time to remove the content, feedback or personal information from backup and other systems of the Blue Directory.

5.5       The Blue Directory will not include Visitors and/or Members content in advertisements for the products and services of third parties to others without your separate consent (including sponsored content). However, the Blue Directory has the right, without payment to you or others, to serve advertisements near Visitors and/or Members content and information. Visitors and/or Members social actions may be visible and included with advertisements, as noted in the Privacy Policy.

 

6. Blue Directory’s Rights and Disclaimers in Relation to Management of the Platform

 

6.1          The Blue Directory may change, suspend, modify or end any service in its sole discretion. To the extent allowed under law, these changes may be effective with or without notice.

6.2          The Blue Directory may limit the manner in which Visitors and/or Members connect and interact with the platform in so far as the number of connections, ability to contact other Visitors and/or other Members if it is of the view that  you may be in breach of this Contract, its named and supporting policies or any law. To the extent allowed under law, these restrictions and limitations may be effective with or without notice.

6.3          The Blue Directory reserves the right to make use of the automated processing of data and information about Visitors and Members to make relevant suggestions to you and others. Visitors and Members specifically consent hereto.

6.4          The Blue Directory reserves all its intellectual property rights in the platform and all services or applications linked thereto. Use of the Blue Directory, in any manner whatsoever, does not transfer ownership of content or information made available through the Blue Directory.

6.5          Trademarks and logos used on or in connection with the Blue Directory are the trademarks of their respective owners.

6.6          The Blue Directory does not guarantee that the service or platform will function without interruption or error.

6.7          The Blue Directory provides access to the service and platform on an “as is’’ and “as available’’ basis.

6.8          To the extent permitted under law, and unless the Blue Directory has concluded a separate written agreement that supersedes this Contract, the Blue Directory, its affiliates and service providers shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or any loss of data, opportunities reputation, profits or revenues related to the service in any manner whatsoever.

 

7. Other Content, Sites and Applications linked to the Blue Directory

 

7.1          The use of the content and information of others posted on the Blue Director, is at Visitors’ and Members’ own risk.

7.2          Third parties may offer their products and services through the Blue Directory, but the Blue Directory will be held responsible for liable for third-party activities.

7.3          Incorrect, inaccurate, incomplete, delayed, misleading, illegal, offensive or otherwise harmful content and information may be encountered by Visitors and Members when using (in any manner whatsoever) the Blue Directory. Although the Blue Directory will make reasonable efforts to enforce content and information standards, the Blue Directory cannot be responsible or liable for inadequacies of the content of other Visitors and/or Members.

7.4          Visitors and Members agree and acknowledge that the Blue Directory cannot be held responsible or liable for any such misuse of its platform and the risk that Visitors and Members may mistakenly be associated with content of other Visitors and/or Members.

7.5          Visitors and Members are responsible for deciding whether to grant access to or use third-party applications or sites that link to the Blue Directory, and do so at their own risk, without further recourse to the Blue Directory.

 

8. Termination

• Either the Blue Directory or Visitors and/or Members can terminate this Contract at any time with notice to the other.
• Notwithstanding clause 8.1 above, Visitors and/or Members may close their account or delete their profile from the Blue Directory at any time they so choose.
• On termination, Visitors and Members lose their right to access or use the Blue Directory.
• The Blue Directory’s rights to use and disclose Visitors and/or Members feedback; Visitors and/or Members’ rights to further re-share content and information shared through the Blue Directory to the extent copied or re-shared prior to termination; and Clauses 4,5,6 and 7 of this Contract , will survive termination of this Contract.

9. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

 

In the unlikely event we end up in a legal dispute, the Parties agree to resolve the dispute in South African courts using South African law.

 

10. General Terms

 

10.1        If a court with authority over this Contract finds any part of it unenforceable, the Parties agree that the court should modify the terms to make that part enforceable while still achieving its intent. If the court cannot do that, the Parties agree to ask the court to remove that unenforceable part and still enforce the rest of this Contract.

10.2        To the extent allowed by law, the English language version of this Contract is binding and other translations, if any, are for convenience only.

10.3        This Contract (including additional terms that may be provided by us when you engage with a feature of the Blue Directory) is the only agreement between the Parties and supersedes all prior agreements for the Services.

10.4    Should the Blue Directory does not act to enforce a breach of this Contract, that does not mean that The Blue Directory has waived its right to enforce this Contract.

10.5    Visitors and/or Members may not assign or transfer this Contract to anyone without the Blue Directory’s consent. However, Visitors and/or Members agree that the Blue Directory may assign this Contract to its affiliates or a party that buys it without Visitors’ and/or Members’

consent.

10.6    There are no third-party beneficiaries to this Contract.

10.7    The only way to provide the Blue Directory or the WRC with legal notice is at the addresses provided in Clause 12.

 

11. Complaints Regarding Content

 

Complaints concerning content posted by our Visitors and/or Members should be addressed to the contact information contained in Clause 12.

 

12           Blue Directory Contact Information

 

For correspondence, notices or service of legal process, please contact us:

 

Address:              The Water Research Commission, 04 Daventry Street, Lynwood Bridge, 0081

Email:                    @Hlengiwe Cele  – hlengiwec@wrc.org.za

Tel:                         012 761 9300

 

 

 

END