Selling of Goods
thinkspot is a gathering place for ideas and is not intended to be used as a marketplace for the selling of goods. Any posts or comments promoting or advertising the selling of goods will be required to be taken down. If you are a contributor and want to promote certain merchandise, you must obtain prior approval from thinkspot.
Copyright, Trademark, Intellectual Property Rights
Users may not infringe upon or violate copyright, trademark, or intellectual property rights of thinkspot or another party.
thinkspot will not independently adjudicate fair-use issues with regard to copyrighted content. However, if we receive a legitimate DMCA takedown notice, we will comply with the request (see our DMCA Takedown Policy here).
Defamation
Defamation, a false statement about another that tends to damage the reputation of that person, is not protected by the First Amendment. Any defaming language that plainly contravenes U.S. law is forbidden and will be removed.
Obscenity
Obscenity is a category of speech that is not protected by the First Amendment. The basic guidelines that determine when material is obscene are: (a) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.
Any material deemed to be obscene will be removed.
Pornography and Adult Content
Pornography and adult content are not allowed on the site and will be removed.
The dissemination of illegal pornography, including child pornography, is strictly prohibited, and users in violation of this guideline will have their account permanently banned. thinkspot reserves the right to report any illegal behavior to local and/or federal law enforcement.
Incitement and Fighting Words
Incitement of people to commit illegal or lawless activity is not protected by the First Amendment. Likewise, fighting words are not protected by the First Amendment. Any language or threatening behavior that plainly contravenes U.S. law is forbidden. thinkspot reserves the right to report users to local and/or federal law enforcement.
Terrorism
thinkspot recognizes the U.S. Department of State’s list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s list of terrorist groups, organizations and individuals as guidance in determining the prohibition of terrorist or terrorist-associated activities.
CyberStalking (Harassment)
In accordance with our strict adherence to free speech as codified in U.S. law, thinkspot permits a wide range of user expression. However, we also abide by current laws surrounding online cyberstalking and cyberharassment, as upheld by the United State Supreme Court. Under U.S. federal law, cyberstalking and harassment includes any course of conduct or series of acts taken by the perpetrator on the Internet that place the victim in reasonable fear of death or serious bodily injury, or causes, attempts to cause, or would be reasonably expected to cause substantial emotional distress to the victim or the victim’s immediate family. Any explicit statement threatening to kill or inflict serious physical harm to another will result in the immediate and permanent removal of the user from thinkspot. thinkspot reserves the right to report any illegal behavior to local and/or federal law enforcement.
Doxing
Users are explicitly forbidden from releasing the private information of any user. This includes names, phone numbers, email addresses, commercial or residential addresses, passport information, ID card information, credit or debit card information, banking information, and the like.
In addition, users may not aggregate non-private information on the site for the purpose of exposing a user’s identity. This includes names and locations on social media sites, job information, or other publicly available information. Our team will analyze context in all cases regarding the dissemination of personal information, with the ultimate goal of determining whether such information was used for the purpose of harassment or threats.
Prohibited Transactions
Users may not utilize thinkspot for any of the following harmful or illicit activities:
Please follow the laws of your jurisdiction and adhere to prudence when in doubt.
Brigading
Users are forbidden from engaging in coordinated manipulation of votes for the purpose of targeted abuse, harassment, and the suppression of speech, expression, and association.
Spam
Spam on thinkspot is expressly prohibited. More specifically we ask that you:
Impersonation
Users may not impersonate any individual, entity, brand, or business that is not their own. Parody, satire, and comedic contributor accounts are allowed, but must be duly represented as such in the page description. Accounts that fail to comply with this guideline may be subject to suspension. thinkspot reserves the right to reclaim usernames at its discretion.
Fake pages, fan pages, and otherwise falsified content is not allowed on the site. Impersonation of verified contributors is strictly forbidden.
Multiple Account Abuse, Username Squatting
The creation of multiple, overlapping accounts is not allowed.
Users may not occupy usernames for the purpose of squatting. Any accounts that are dormant for a period greater than six months are subject to removal. Any content on the site indicative of user squatting is also subject to removal at the discretion of thinkspot.
Refund Policy
thinkspot will only grant refunds in exceptional circumstances and at our sole discretion.
All donations and any e-books purchased are final and non-refundable.
A refund will not be considered if processed more than 30 days prior to the refund request date.
If a user’s account is terminated for violation of the Terms of Use or Community Guidelines, a refund will not be issued.
We do not grant refunds for failure to deliver content on behalf of the Contributors. If the Contributor has promised to post a certain amount of content and failed to do so, thinkspot is not responsible for refunds for this undelivered content. In the event the Contributor is unable to fulfill any or some of the commitments, the Contributor may need to reach a resolution directly with the user without involving thinkspot.
To initiate a refund, the user must email us at support@thinkspot.com stating the exact reason for the refund, amount of the refund, and details about the purchase.
Once this request for refund has been received and reviewed, we will send the user an email notifying the user that we have received the request and our decision on the refund request.
If a refund is approved, it will be processed and a credit will automatically be applied to the credit card used to make the purchase or to the original method of payment.
If a refund request has been approved by thinkspot, we will deduct the refunded amount from any future payment to the Contributor whose user requested this particular refund. The Contributor expressly agrees that s/he will be responsible to pay thinkspot the full refunded amount, including transaction and processing fees.
User Recourse
thinkspot reserves the right to suspend, remove, and ban accounts pursuant to our Terms of Use and Community Guidelines. For the sake of transparency, our review process for activity alleged to violate thinkspot’s Term of Use and Community Guidelines can be found here. This review process does not apply to any suspension action imposed by thinkspot moderators. Further, contributors on this site have the right to block any other person from commenting on content on the contributor’s page or the contributor’s forum.
If your account has been suspended, you may be asked to do one of the following three options:
Tier 1: Confirm and verify specific personal information to reactivate your account.
Tier 2: Respond to links prompting you to communicate with thinkspot to discuss the issue at hand.
Tier 3: File an appeal to be reviewed by thinkspot in a timely fashion, wherein the thinkspot team will deliberate on the appeal and decide accordingly.
Review and Appeals
We take User Recourse very seriously at thinkspot, and our team is dedicated to ensuring that your rights as a user are respected pursuant to our Terms of Use and Community Guidelines. If you are notified of an account suspension at any Tier, you will always have the ability to directly correspond with a member of the thinkspot team. While the vast majority of Tier 1 suspensions are able to be resolved with a few clicks, we still want to provide users with a chance to receive documentation about the reasons for the suspension.
With regard to Tier 2 suspensions, users will be prompted to communicate with a member of the thinkspot team to discuss the terms of the suspension, as well as the reasoning behind our decision. This will be a transparent walk-through of our review system, where users can engage in correspondence with thinkspot directly to understand why the account has been suspended.
Tier 3 suspensions will have gone through Tier 2 and will be upheld as suspensions. As part of Tier 3, users may file an appeal, in which they will deal with a different team to hear their case. At the team’s discretion, the issue may involve multiple levels of decision makers in our policy department, wherein a final decision will be made regarding a user’s suspension or permanent removal from the site. To file an appeal, please email appeal@thinkspot.com and include your username, and why you believe you have not violated thinkspot’s Terms of Use or Community Guidelines.