JOINER Services Terms of Use

Updated: February 20, 2025

1. JOINER Services Accounts

Read these Site Terms of Use carefully before visiting our Site. Some visitors to our Site visit the publicly available portions of our Site. If you disagree with these Site Terms of Use, you may not visit, use, or access the Site Services.

2. Licenses and Third-Party Content

2.1 JOINER’S Provision of the Site and Limited Site License:

As described in this section, JOINER grants you a limited license to access the Site and Site Services. This license is subject to and conditioned on complying with the Site Terms of Use and, to the extent applicable, the rest of the Terms of Service.

We try to keep our Site and the Site Services safe, secure, and functioning correctly, but we cannot guarantee continuous operation or access to our Services. We might even stop providing the Site, Site Services, or certain features without notice.

2.2 Termination of the Limited License:

JOINER may terminate any license granted to any Site Visitor or User to access the Site and Site Services by providing notice. JOINER terminating the license is effective immediately upon JOINER providing such notice.

2.3 JOINER’S Intellectual Property:

JOINER and our licensors retain all rights, titles, and interests in and to all Intellectual Property Rights related to the Site and the Site Services. The JOINER logos and names are registered trademarks of JOINER. All other product names, company names, marks, logos, and symbols on the Site or Site Services may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Nothing in the Terms of Service grants you a right to use any JOINER trademarks.

2.4 Your Intellectual Property:

2.4.1 Your Obligations and Your Indemnification of JOINER

When you post User Content on the Site or through the Site Services or provide JOINER with User Content, you understand and acknowledge that you are solely responsible for such User Content. Further, you represent and warrant that you have the right, power, and authority to (i) post that User Content without violating the rights of third parties and (ii) grant the licenses specified.

The poster of User Content, and not JOINER, is responsible for any User Content, including any harm caused to you, another User, or a third party by such User Content.

You will indemnify, defend, and hold harmless JOINER, our Affiliates, and our respective members, directors, officers, employees, representatives, and agents (each an “indemnified party”) from all claims, damages, liabilities, costs, losses, and expenses (including, reasonable attorney fees) arising from or relating to any claim, suit, proceeding, demand, or action brought by you or a third-party or other User against an indemnified party relating to or arising out of User Content you post.

2.4.2 Your Rights and License to JOINER and Other Site Visitors

You retain ownership rights in any User Content you post on the Site or Site Services. To the extent permitted by applicable law, you also grant to JOINER and Affiliates a royalty-free, sub-licensable, transferable, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, list information regarding, edit, translate, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, and make derivative works of all such User Content and your name, voice, and likeness as contained in your User Content, in whole or in part, and any form, media, or technology, whether now known or subsequently developed, for use in connection with the Site and JOINER’s, and Affiliates’ businesses, including, without limitation, for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Site (and derivative works of it) in any media formats and through any media channels.

You also grant each User and each Site Visitor a non-exclusive license to access your User Content through the Site and to use, reproduce, distribute, and display such User Content to the extent permitted through the standard functionality of the Site and subject to all applicable confidentiality and other provisions of the Terms of Service, our Privacy Policy, and applicable law.

2.4.3 Your Comments and Ideas

You may submit comments or ideas about the Site and Site Services, including how to improve the Site or Site Services (collectively, “Ideas”). Suppose you submit any Ideas: (i). In that case, your disclosure is voluntary, gratuitous, unsolicited, and without restriction. It will not place JOINER under any fiduciary or other obligation, (ii) your Ideas do not contain the confidential or proprietary information of third parties, and (iii) you grant us a perpetual and royalty-free license to use the Ideas without any additional compensation to you and to disclose the Ideas on a non-confidential basis or otherwise to anyone. By accepting your submission, JOINER does not waive any rights to use similar or related ideas, including those known or developed by JOINER or obtained from sources other than you.

2.5 Third-Party Intellectual Property:

Any information made available by a third party or any other Site Visitor or User is owned by the respective author(s) or distributor(s) and not of JOINER. JOINER neither endorses nor is responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, advice, information, or statement made on the Site by anyone other than JOINER’s authorized agents acting in their official capacities.

The Site may contain links to third-party websites. The Site may also contain applications that allow you to access third-party websites on the Site. Third parties or their licensors own and operate such third-party websites or applications. Including any link or application on the Site does not imply that we endorse the linked site or application. You use the links and third-party websites at your own risk and agree that your use of an application or third-party website accessed on the Site is on an “as is” and “as available” basis without any warranty for any purpose.

2.6 Complaints About Copyright Content on the Site:

JOINER is committed to complying with U.S. copyright and related laws and requires all Site Visitors and Users to comply with these laws. Accordingly, you may not use the Site to store or disseminate any material or content in a manner that infringes third-party intellectual property rights, including rights granted by U.S. copyright law.

3. Permitted Site Uses

JOINER offers the Site and Site Services for your business purposes only and not for personal, household, or consumer use. JOINER makes the Site and Site Services available for Users to find one another, enter into service relationships, make and receive payments through JOINER, and receive and provide Contractor Services. In addition, certain Visitor Site services may be used to obtain general information and articles that may interest Site Visitors and Users. While we try to ensure that any information we post is timely and accurate, errors may appear. We do not make any representations or warranties concerning information posted on the Site by us or anyone else. Content should not be relied on or construed as tax, legal advice, or otherwise. You should independently verify the accuracy of any content.

4. Prohibited Site Uses

You may not use, or encourage, promote, facilitate, instruct, or induce others to use the Site or Site Services for (i) activities that violate any law, statute, ordinance, or regulation, (ii) any purpose that is harmful to others, or (iii) transmitting, storing, displaying, distributing, or otherwise making available content that is illegal, fraudulent, or harmful to others.

4.1 Examples of Prohibited Uses of the Site:

The following are examples of uses that are prohibited on the Site or when using the Site Services:

  1. Seeking, offering, promoting, or endorsing services, content, or activities that:
    • are defamatory, illegal, profane, vulgar, threatening, unlawfully discriminatory, illegal, pornographic, obscene, or sexually explicit;
    • would violate the intellectual property rights of another person, entity, service, product, or website;
    • would violate (i) JOINER’s Terms of Service, (ii) the terms of service of another website or any similar contractual obligations, or (iii) the academic policies of any educational institution;
    • regard the creation, publication, or distribution of “fake news,” “hoax news,” Deep Fake content, or similar content, which is, in JOINER’s sole discretion, determined to be intended to mislead recipients for personal, financial, political or other gain or advantage;
    • reference any escort services, prostitution, or sexual acts; or
    • are harassing toward another person based on the person’s inclusion in a protected class as defined by applicable law;
  2. Fraudulent or misleading uses or content, including:
    • fraudulently billing or attempting to fraudulently bill any Client, including by (i) falsifying or manipulating the hours, (ii) or otherwise billing Clients for the time that was not actually worked, or (iii) reporting, recording, or otherwise billing hours worked by another person as hours misleadingly worked by you;
    • misrepresenting your experience, skills, or information, including by representing another person’s Profile or parts of another person’s Profile as your own;
    • using a Profile photo that misrepresents your identity or represents you as someone else;
    • impersonating any person or entity, including, but not limited to, a JOINER representative, or falsely stating or misrepresenting your affiliation with a person or entity;
    • falsely stating or implying a relationship with another User, including an agency continuing to use a Profile or information after you no longer work with the agency;
    • falsely attributing statements to any JOINER representative, forum leader, guide, or host;
    • falsely stating or implying a relationship with JOINER or with another company with whom you do not have a relationship;
    • allowing another person to use your account or
    • falsely stating that one Contractor will perform the work on a job when another performs the work, including submitting a proposal on behalf of a Contractor that is unable, unwilling, or unavailable to do the work;
  3. Expressing an unlawful preference in a job post or proposal or otherwise unlawfully discriminating on a protected basis;
  4. Posting identifying information concerning another person;
  5. Spamming Users with proposals or invitations by making unsolicited contact with Users off the JOINER platform or by posting the same job multiple times so that more than one version remains active at a given time;
  6. Making or demanding bribes or other payments without the intention of providing services in exchange for the payment;
  7. Requesting or demanding free services, including requesting Contractors to work on a Project for very little or no money;
  8. Requesting a fee before allowing a User to submit a proposal;
  9. Manipulating or misusing the feedback system, including by:
    • withholding payments or Work Product or engaging in other conduct to obtain positive feedback from another User;
    • coerce another User by threatening to give negative feedback;
    • expressing views unrelated to the work, such as political, religious, or social commentary, in the feedback system;
    • providing anything of value to a person (including to a third party who assists in obtaining feedback) or using any service of any type to obtain feedback; or
    • offering services for the sole purpose of obtaining positive feedback of any kind;
  10. Duplicating or sharing accounts;
  11. Transferring an account to another person without JOINER’s consent;
  12. Sharing or soliciting Means of Direct Contact with or from another User either directly through messages or by including them in a job post, Profile, proposal, or other User Content before entering into a Service Contract;
  13. Directly advertising or promoting another website, product, or service or soliciting other Users for other websites, products, or services, including advertising on JOINER to recruit Contractors or Clients to join an agency or another website or company;
  14. Interfering or attempting to interfere with the proper operation of the Site or Site Services or any activities conducted on the Site, including by:
    • bypassing any measure we use to prevent or restrict access to the Site or any subparts of the Site, including, without limitation, features that (i) prevent or restrict the use or copying of any content or (ii) enforce limitations on the use of the Site or its content;
    • attempting to interfere with or compromise the system integrity or security or decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running the Site;
    • using any robot, spider, scraper, or other automated means to access the Site for any purpose without our express written permission;
    • attempting to or interfering with or compromising the system integrity or security or deciphering any transmissions to or from the servers running the Site;
    • collecting or harvesting any personally identifiable information, including Account names, from the Site;
    • attempting to or imposing an unreasonably large load (as determined in JOINER’s sole discretion) on the Site’s infrastructure; Introducing any invalid data, virus, worm, or other harmful or malicious software code, agent, hidden procedure, routine, or mechanism through or to the Site that is designed to or known to cause to cease functioning, disrupt, disable, harm, or otherwise impair in any manner, including aesthetic disruptions or distortions, the operation of (or to allow you or any other person to access or damage or corrupt data, storage media, programs, equipment, or communications or otherwise interfere with operations of or on) the Site or any software, firmware, hardware, computer system, or network of JOINER or any third party;
    • accessing or attempting to access the Site or Site Services by any means or technology other than the interface provided or
    • framing or linking to the Site or Site Services except as permitted in writing by JOINER.
  15. Conduct or actions that could jeopardize the integrity of or circumvent the Site, Site Services, or JOINER’s proprietary information, including:
    • reverse engineering, modifying, adapting, translating, preparing derivative works from, decompiling, interfering with the operation of, or otherwise attempting to derive source code from any part of the Site or Site Services unless expressly permitted by applicable law or JOINER; or
    • accessing or using the Site or Site Services to build a similar service or application, identify or solicit JOINER Users, or publish any performance or benchmark test or analysis relating to the Site.

4.2 Enforcement:

We may investigate potential violations of these Site Terms of Use and remove, disable access to, or modify any content on the Site. Our failure to act concerning a breach by you or others does not waive our right to act concerning subsequent or similar breaches. We do not guarantee we will take action against all breaches of these Terms of Use or the User Agreement.

4.3 Reporting and Correcting Violations:

If you become aware of violating these Site Terms of Use, you must immediately report it to JOINER. You agree to assist us with our investigation and take the necessary remedial steps to correct such a violation.

Definitions:

This section gives some definitions of capitalized terms in the Terms of Use. Capitalized terms not defined have the meanings described in the Site Terms of Use or elsewhere in the Terms of Service.

“Affiliate” – Any entity that, directly or indirectly, through one or more intermediaries, controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with JOINER.

“Client” – Any authorized User utilizing the Site or Site Services to seek or obtain Contractor Services, including from another User.

“Confidential Information” – Any material or information provided to, or created by, a User to evaluate a Project or the suitability of another User for the Project, regardless of whether the information is in tangible, electronic, verbal, graphic, visual, or other form. Confidential Information does not include material or information that: (i) is generally known by third-parties as a result of no act or omission of Contractor or Client; (ii) was lawfully received by User without restriction from a third-party having the right to disseminate the information; (iii) was already known by User prior to receiving it from the other party and was not received from a third-party in breach of that third-party’s obligations of confidentiality; or (iv) was independently developed by User without use of another person’s Confidential Information.

“Contractor” – Any authorized User utilizing the Site or Site Services to advertise or provide Contract Services to Clients.

“Contractor Fees” – The amount reflected in the Hourly Invoice (the number of hours multiplied by the hourly rate charged).

“Contractor Services” – All Services performed for or delivered by Contractors.

“Deep Fake” – Media that is altered to replace a person in an existing image or video with someone else’s likeness in a realistic manner without permission or authorization of the person whose likeness is used.

“Hourly Invoice” – The report of hours invoiced for a stated period of time for Contractor Services performed for a Client.

“Intellectual Property Rights” – All patent rights, copyright rights, mask work rights, moral rights, rights of publicity, trademark, trade dress, and service-mark rights, goodwill, trade secret rights, and other intellectual property rights as may now exist or subsequently come into existence, and all applications for them and registrations, renewals, and extensions of them, in each case, under the laws of any state, country, territory, or other jurisdiction.

“Means of Direct Contact” – Any information that would allow another person to contact you directly, including, without limitation, phone number, email address, physical address, a link to a contact form or form requesting contact information, any link to an applicant-management system or means to submit a proposal or application outside of the Site, or any information that would enable a user to contact you on social media or other website or platform or application that includes a communications tool, such as Teams, Skype, Zoom, Slack, WeChat, or Facebook.

“Payment Method” – A valid bank account, PayPal account, or other financial payment method acceptable to JOINER.

“Project” – An engagement for Contractor Services that a Contractor provides to a Client under a Service Contract.

“Public Site Services” – All services and applications accessible by any Site Visitor who has not become a User through the Site, to the extent they are accessible by a Site Visitor who has not become a User.

“Service Contract” – A contractual agreement governing the services to be performed by a Contractor for a Client Project.

“Site” – Our website is located at https://joinerservices.io, and applications, including mobile websites.

“Site Services” – All services and applications accessible through the Site, including the Public Site Services.

“Site Visitor” – Someone who views the Sites public pages but is not registered with JOINER.

“Substantial Change” – A change to the terms of the Terms of Service that reduces your rights or increases your responsibilities.

“User” – Someone who registers on the Site as a Client or Contractor.

“User Content” – Any comments, remarks, data, feedback, content, text, photographs, images, video, music, or other content or information that you or any Site Visitor or User post to any part of the Site or provide to JOINER, including such content or information that is posted as a result of questions.

“You” – Any person who accesses our Site, including a Site Visitor or User and any entity or agency on whose behalf any such person accesses or uses our Site.

“Work Product” – Any tangible or intangible results or deliverables that the Contractor agrees to create for, or deliver to, the Client as a result of performing the Contractor Services.