PeopleFinders.com

AFFILIATE AGREEMENT

Updated March 19, 2008


This Agreement contains the complete terms and conditions that apply to an individual's or entity's participation in the PeopleFinders.com Affiliate Program (the "Program"). As used in this Agreement, "we", "us", or "our" means PeopleFinders.com or any of our affiliate companies, as the case may be, and "you" means the applicant. "PeopleFinders Site" means the site that has its primary home page identified by the URL www.peoplefinders.com, and "site" means a World Wide Web site. "Your site" means any site that you will link to the PeopleFinders Site (and which you will identify in your Program application).
  1. Enrollment in the Program

    To begin the enrollment process, you will submit a complete Program application ("Application") via the PeopleFinders Site. We will evaluate your application in good faith and will notify you of your acceptance or rejection. We may reject Your application if we determine (in our sole discretion) that your Site is unsuitable for the Program. Unsuitable sites include, but are not limited to, those that:

    • promote sexually explicit materials
    • promote violence
    • promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, or age
    • promote illegal activities
    • include "peoplefinders", any other trademark of PeopleFinders.com or its affiliates, " or variations or misspellings of any of them, in their URLs to the left of the top-level domain name (e.g., ".com", ".net", ".uk", etc.) – for example, a URL such as "peoplefinders.mydomain.com" or "peplefinders.com" would be unsuitable
    • otherwise violate intellectual property rights

    If we reject your application, you are welcome to reapply to the Program at any time. You should also note that if we accept your application and your site is thereafter determined (in our sole discretion) to be unsuitable for the Program, we may terminate this Agreement. Participation in the Program is limited to parties that lawfully can enter into and form contracts under applicable law. For example, minors are not allowed to participate in the Program.

  2. Links on Your Site

    Once you have been notified that your site has been accepted into the Program, we grant you a revocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free license for the duration of the term of this Agreement, solely for purposes of facilitating referrals you’re your site to the PeopleFinders Site, to provide on your site one or more of the following types of links to the PeopleFinders Site:

    1. Product/Service Links: You may select one or more Products o list on your site using a variety of formats that we make available to you, such as text link format, graphical link format, customizable "widget" format, or "product preview" link format. A "Product" is any product listed on the PeopleFinders Site that is fulfilled by us or on our behalf or any product sold by a third party seller on the PeopleFinders Site other than: (a) "Excluded Merchants"; (b) products or services sold by a third party through a site linked to from the PeopleFinders Site (e.g. products or services from LiftMedia or Vertrue. For each selected Product, you will display on your site a short description, review, or other reference. You will be responsible for the content, style, and placement of these references. You will provide a Special Link (as defined below) from each Product reference on your site to the corresponding PeopleFinders Site. Each such link will connect to the PeopleFinders Site. You may add or delete the product/service (and related links) from your site at any time without our approval. You may not use Special Links to link to the PeopleFinders Site from references to products on your site that are not "Products" as defined above.
    2. General Link to PeopleFinders Site Home Page: You may provide a general link on your site to the home page of the PeopleFinders Site.
    3. PeopleFinders Recommends Link: If your site qualifies (as determined by us in our sole discretion), you may place a PeopleFinders Recommends link on your site to enable PeopleFinders to serve recommended content based on your site's specialty or sales history directly to visitors to your site.

    We will provide you with guidelines and graphical artwork to use in linking to the PeopleFinders Site home page. To permit accurate tracking, reporting, and referral fee accrual, we will provide you with special "tagged" link formats to be used in all links between your site and the PeopleFinders Site. You must ensure that each of the links between your site and our site properly utilizes such special link formats. Links to the PeopleFinders Site placed on your site pursuant to this Agreement and which properly utilize such special link formats are referred to as "Special Links." You will earn referral fees only with respect to activity on our site occurring directly through Special Links; we will not be liable to you with respect to any failure by you to use Special Links, including to the extent that such failure may result in any reduction of amounts that would otherwise be paid to you pursuant to this Agreement.

    You acknowledge that, by participating in the Affiliates Program and placing any of the above links within your site, we may receive information from or about visitors to your site or communications between your site and those visitors. Your participation in the Program constitutes your specific and unconditional consent to and authorization for PeopleFinders access to, receipt, storage, use, and disclosure of any and all such information, consistent with the policies and procedures set forth in the Privacy Notice on the PeopleFinders Site.

    Except for the license granted under this section, you do not obtain any rights under this Agreement in any intellectual property, including, without limitation, any intellectual property with respect to the Special Links, link formats, technical specifications, guidelines or graphical artwork referenced above, or with respect to the PeopleFinders.com domain name.

    You also acknowledge that we (and our corporate affiliates) may crawl or otherwise monitor your site for the purpose of ensuring the quality and reliability of Special Links on your site (for example, to detect links that are broken or non-functional, links to products that are out of stock or otherwise unavailable, etc.). Therefore, you agree that we and our corporate affiliates may take such actions and that you will not seek to block or otherwise interfere with such crawling or monitoring (and that we and our corporate affiliates may use technical means to overcome any methods used on your site to block or interfere with such crawling or monitoring).

    You also acknowledge that as a participant in the Program, we may from time to time send you email updates about the Program. By participating in the Program, you consent to our sending you these email updates.

    Further, you acknowledge and agree that you will: (a) not, in connection with this Agreement, display or reference on your site, any trademark or logo of any third party competitor of PeopleFinders on the PeopleFinders Site; (b) ensure that any "Privacy Information" link or PeopleFinders trademark (either in logo or text form) that we include in a Special Link is not obscured or altered in any way or made invisible, illegible or indecipherable to visitors of your site; (c) use any data, images, text, or other information obtained by you from us or the PeopleFinders Site in connection with this Agreement ("Content") only in a lawful manner and only in accordance with the terms of this Agreement; (d) not use any Content relating to any Excluded Merchant or any product sold by any Excluded Merchant; (e) not modify or alter any Content that consists of a graphic image, other than to resize it; (f) not edit any Content that consists of text, other than to shorten its length; (g) not sell, redistribute, sublicense or transfer any Content; (h) not use any Content in a manner intended to send sales to any site other than the PeopleFinders Site; (i) promptly delete any Content that is no longer displayed on the PeopleFinders Site or that we notify you is no longer available for your use and (j) not use any Content, including any name or likeness embodied therein, in a manner (e.g., a closely proximate placement to unrelated third party materials) that implies a person's or company's endorsement or sponsorship of, or commercial tie-in or other association with, any product, service, party or cause.

  3. Order Processing

    We will process Product orders placed by customers who follow Special Links from your site to the PeopleFinders Site. We reserve the right to reject orders that do not comply with any requirements that we may establish periodically. We will be responsible for all aspects of order processing and fufilment. Among other things, we will prepare order forms, process payments, cancellations, and returns, and handle customer service. We will track sales made to customers who purchase Products by using Special Links from your site to the PeopleFinders Site and will make available to you reports summarizing this sales activity. The form, content, and frequency of the reports may vary from time to time in our discretion.

  4. Referral Fees

    We will pay you (in accordance with Sections 5 and 8 below) referral fees on certain Product sales to third parties. For a Product sale to be eligible to earn a referral fee, the customer must click-through a Special Link from your site to the PeopleFinders Site and purchase the Product during a session. The session ends upon one of the following events: (a) 30 days elapses from the customer's initial click-through, (b) the customer orders the Product, or (c) the customer follows a third party's Special Link. We will only pay referral fees on eligible Products after order, payment and shipping have occurred.

    To permit accurate tracking, reporting and fee accrual, you must ensure that the Special Links between your site and the PeopleFinders Site are properly formatted. We will not be liable for paying referral fees on purchases that are not correctly tracked and reported because the links between your site and the PeopleFinders Site are not properly formatted.

    We will not, however, pay referral fees on any Products that are purchased after the customer has reentered the PeopleFinders Site (other than through a Special Link from your site), as determined by us, even if the customer previously followed a link from your site to the PeopleFinders Site. In addition, gift certificates that are not redeemable on the PeopleFinders Site are not eligible to earn referral fees.

    You may not purchase products during sessions initiated through the links on your site for your own use, for resale or commercial use of any kind. This includes orders for customers or on behalf of customers or orders for products to be used by you or your friends, relatives, or associates in any manner. Such purchases may result (in our sole discretion) in the withholding of referral fees or the termination of this Agreement. Signups that are eligible to earn referral fees under the rules set forth above are referred to as "Qualified Products."

    In addition, you may not: (a) directly or indirectly offer any person or entity any consideration or incentive (including, without limitation, payment of money (including any rebate), or granting of any discount or other benefit) for using Special Links on your site to access our site (e.g., by implementing any "rewards" program for persons or entities who use Special Links on your site to access our site); (b) read, intercept, record, redirect, interpret, or fill in the contents of any electronic form or other materials submitted to us by any person or entity; (c) in any way modify, redirect, suppress, or substitute the operation of any button, link, or other interactive feature of our site; (d) make any orders or subscription requests, or engage in other transactions of any kind on our site on behalf of any third party, or authorize, assist, or encourage any other person or entity to do so; (e) take any action that could reasonably cause any customer confusion as to our relationship with you, or as to the site on which any functions or transactions (e.g., search, order, browse, and so on) are occurring; or (f) other than providing Special Links on your site in accordance with this Agreement, post or serve any advertisements or promotional content around or in conjunction with the display of our site (e.g., through any "framing" technique or technology or pop-up windows), or assist, authorize, or encourage any third party to take any such action; (g) attempt to circumvent the referral fee schedule or artificially increase your referral fees (e.g. by intentionally featuring, purchasing or requesting or encouraging any third party to purchase low-price items offered on the PeopleFinders Site (as determined by us) for the purpose of exceeding any referral fee threshold or by causing any page of the PeopleFinders Site to open in a customer's browser other than as a result of the customer clicking on a Special Link on your site); (h) attempt to intercept or re-direct (including, without limitation, via user-installed software) traffic from or on, or divert referral fees from, any web site that participates in the Program; or (i) seek to purchase or register any keywords, search terms or other identifiers that include the word "peoplefinders" or variations thereof (for example "peoplefinder", "peplfinders", etc.) ("Proprietary Terms") for use in any search engine, portal, sponsored advertising service or other search or referral service. From time to time we may request that you cause any applicable Web search provider to exclude Proprietary Terms from keywords used to display your advertising content in association with search results, assuming the provider of such Web search engine offers such exclusion capabilities. If we determine, in our sole discretion, that you have engaged in any of the foregoing activities, we may (without limiting any other rights or remedies available to us) withhold any referral fees otherwise payable to you under this Agreement and/or terminate this Agreement.

  5. Referral Fee Schedule

    During each calendar month, for Qualifying Products sold during sessions initiated through Special Links on your site, you will earn (subject to the other terms of this Agreement) referral fees based on Qualifying Revenues according to referral fee schedules to be established by us. "Qualifying Revenues" are revenues derived by us from approved sales. The current referral fee schedule is US$7 per approved sale.

  6. Referral Fee Payment

    We will pay you referral fees on a monthly basis for Qualifying Products shipped in the applicable month. Approximately thirty (30) business days following the end of each calendar month, we will send you a payment for the referral fees accrued thirty (30) days or more prior to that month, however, if the referral fees payable to you for any calendar month are less than US$50, we will hold payment until the total amount due is at least US$50 or (if earlier) until this Agreement is terminated. In calculating referral fees, we will deduct the corresponding referral fee from your next monthly payment if a Product that generated a referral fee is returned by the customer. If there is no subsequent payment, we will send you a bill for the referral fee. If payment is via check, we will also deduct a US$2.00 check fee from each check as a processing fee.

  7. Policies and Pricing

    Customers who buy products through this Program will be deemed to be our clients. Accordingly, all of our rules, policies, and operating procedures concerning customer orders, customer service, and product sales will apply to those customers. We may change our policies and operating procedures at any time. For example, we will determine the prices to be charged for products sold under this Program in accordance with our own pricing policies. Product prices and availability may vary from time to time. Because price changes may affect Products that you have listed on your site, your site may only show prices when we serve the link in which those prices are displayed, for example through "PeopleFinders Recommends" Links. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to present accurate information, but we cannot guarantee the availability of any particular fee or service.

  8. Identifying Yourself as an Affiliate

    You may not issue any press release with respect to this Agreement or your participation in the Program; such action may result in your termination from the Program. We will make available to you a small graphic image that identifies your site as a Program participant. You must display this logo or the phrase "In association with PeopleFinders" somewhere on your site. We may modify the text or graphic image of this notice from time to time. In addition, you may not in any manner misrepresent or embellish the relationship between us and you, or express or imply any relationship or affiliation between us and you or any other person or entity except as expressly permitted by this Agreement (including by expressing or implying that PeopleFinders supports, sponsors, endorses, or contributes money to any charity or other cause).

  9. Limited License

    We grant you a nonexclusive, revocable right to use the graphic image and text described in Section 8 and such other text or images for which we grant express permission, solely for the purpose of identifying your site as a Program participant and to assist in generating Product sales. You may not modify the graphic image or text, or any other of our images, in any way. We reserve all of our rights in the graphic image and text, any other images, our trade names and trademarks, and all other intellectual property rights. You agree to follow our Trademark Guidelines, as those guidelines may change from time to time. We may revoke your license at any time by giving you written notice.

  10. Responsibility for Your Site

    You will be solely responsible for the development, operation, and maintenance of your site and for all materials that appear on your site. For example, you will be solely responsible for:

    • the technical operation of your site and all related equipment
    • creating and posting service descriptions on your site and linking those descriptions to our catalog
    • the accuracy and appropriateness of materials posted on your site (including, among other things, all service-related materials)
    • ensuring that materials posted on your site do not violate or infringe upon the rights of any third party (including, for example, copyrights, trademarks, privacy, or other personal or proprietary rights)
    • ensuring that materials posted on your site are not libelous or otherwise illegal
    • ensuring that your site accurately and adequately discloses, either through a privacy policy or otherwise, how you collect, use, store, and disclose data collected from visitors, including, where applicable, that third parties (including advertisers) may serve content and/or advertisements and collect information directly from visitors and may place or recognize cookies on visitors' browsers.

    We disclaim all liability for these matters. Further, you will indemnify and hold us harmless from all claims, damages, and expenses (including, without limitation, attorneys' fees) relating to the development, operation, maintenance, and contents of your site.

  11. Compliance with Laws

    As a condition to your participation in the Program, you agree that while you are a Program participant you will comply with all laws, ordinances, rules, regulations, orders, licenses, permits, judgments, decisions or other requirements of any governmental authority that has jurisdiction over you, whether those laws, etc. are now in effect or later come into effect during the time you are a Program participant. Without limiting the foregoing obligation, you agree that as a condition of your participation in the Program you will comply with all applicable laws (federal, state or otherwise) that govern marketing email, including without limitation, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and all other anti-spam laws. You will use only approved claims: Some of the unacceptable claims and items that should not be advertised are: medical records, credit reports, driving records, insurance records, or pre-employment records checks (anything falling under the FCRA - Fair Credit Reporting Act). .

  12. Term of the Agreement

    The term of this Agreement will begin upon our acceptance of your Program application and will end when terminated by either party. Either you or we may terminate this Agreement at any time, with or without cause, by giving the other party written notice of termination. Upon the termination of this Agreement for any reason, you will immediately cease use of, and remove from your site, all links to our site, and all PeopleFinders trademarks, trade dress, and logos, and all other materials provided by or on behalf of us to you pursuant hereto or in connection with the Program. You are eligible to earn referral fees only on sales of Qualifying Products that occur during the term, and referral fees earned through the date of termination will remain payable only if the related orders are not canceled or returned. We may withhold your final payment for a reasonable time to ensure that the correct amount is paid.

  13. Modification

    We may modify any of the terms and conditions contained in this Agreement, at any time and in our sole discretion, by posting a change notice or a new agreement on our site. Modifications may include, for example, changes in the scope of available referral fees, referral fee schedules, payment procedures, and Program rules. IF ANY MODIFICATION IS UNACCEPTABLE TO YOU, YOUR ONLY RECOURSE IS TO TERMINATE THIS AGREEMENT. YOUR CONTINUED PARTICIPATION IN THE PROGRAM FOLLOWING OUR POSTING OF A CHANGE NOTICE OR NEW AGREEMENT ON OUR SITE WILL CONSTITUTE BINDING ACCEPTANCE OF THE CHANGE.

  14. Relationship of Parties

    You and we are independent contractors, and nothing in this Agreement will create any partnership, joint venture, agency, franchise, sales representative, or employment relationship between the parties. You will have no authority to make or accept any offers or representations on our behalf. You will not make any statement, whether on your site or otherwise, that reasonably would contradict anything in this Section.

  15. Limitation of Liability

    We will not be liable for indirect, special, or consequential damages (or any loss of revenue, profits, or data) arising in connection with this Agreement or the Program, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages. Further, our aggregate liability arising with respect to this Agreement and the Program will not exceed the total referral fees paid or payable to you under this Agreement.

  16. Disclaimers

    We make no express or implied warranties or representations with respect to the Program or any products or services sold through the Program (including, without limitation, warranties of fitness, merchantability, noninfringement, or any implied warranties arising out of a course of performance, dealing, or trade usage). In addition, we make no representation that the operation of the PeopleFinders Site will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we will not be liable for the consequences of any interruptions or errors.

  17. Independent Investigation

    YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS AGREEMENT AND AGREE TO ALL ITS TERMS AND CONDITIONS. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT WE MAY AT ANY TIME (DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY) SOLICIT CUSTOMER REFERRALS ON TERMS THAT MAY DIFFER FROM THOSE CONTAINED IN THIS AGREEMENT OR OPERATE WEB SITES THAT ARE SIMILAR TO OR COMPETE WITH YOUR WEB SITE. YOU HAVE INDEPENDENTLY EVALUATED THE DESIRABILITY OF PARTICIPATING IN THE PROGRAM AND ARE NOT RELYING ON ANY REPRESENTATION, GUARANTEE, OR STATEMENT OTHER THAN AS SET FORTH IN THIS AGREEMENT.

  18. Arbitration

    Any dispute relating in any way to this Agreement (including any actual or alleged breach hereof), any transactions or activities under this Agreement or your relationship with us or any of our affiliates shall be submitted to confidential arbitration in Sacramento, California, except that, to the extent you have in any manner violated or threatened to violate our intellectual property rights, we may seek injunctive or other appropriate relief in any state or federal court in the state of California (and you consent to non-exclusive jurisdiction and venue in such courts) or any other court of competent jurisdiction. Arbitration under this agreement shall be conducted under the rules then prevailing of the American Arbitration Association. The arbitrator's award shall be binding and may be entered as a judgment in any court of competent jurisdiction. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, no arbitration under this Agreement shall be joined to an arbitration involving any other party subject to this Agreement, whether through class arbitration proceedings or otherwise.

  19. Miscellaneous

    This Agreement will be governed by the laws of the United States and the state of California, without reference to rules governing choice of laws. You may not assign this Agreement, by operation of law or otherwise, without our prior written consent. Subject to that restriction, this Agreement will be binding on, inure to the benefit of, and be enforceable against the parties and their respective successors and assigns. Our failure to enforce your strict performance of any provision of this Agreement will not constitute a waiver of our right to subsequently enforce such provision or any other provision of this Agreement.