Terms and Conditions

PD ONLINE RESEARCH SERVICE USER AGREEMENT

Terms and Conditions of Use

Please read this User Agreement before using this Service.

1. Welcome to the Michael J. Fox Foundation’s PD Online Research Service (“PD Online,” “Service,” or “we”).

Please carefully review these terms of use. By using PD Online, you agree to be bound by all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement (the “User Agreement”) and any published policies.

If you do not agree to abide by all of the provisions contained in this Agreement and the published policies, you must not use or access this Service.

We reserve the right to change the terms of this User Agreement or to modify any features of this Service (including our published policies) at any time without notice to you, and you agree to be bound by such changes. Any changes to this User Agreement or published policies shall become a part of this User Agreement and shall apply as soon as they are posted. Any new features or functionality that augment or enhance the Service, shall be subject to this User Agreement upon activation.

The most current version of the User Agreement can be viewed at any time at: www.pdonlineresearch.org. This Agreement and its policies were last updated May 28, 2009.

2. In General

PD Online hosts discussion and commentary on technical issues related to:

• the value and significance of published scientific research;
• the conduct of scientific research;
• obtaining and directing research funding and investment; and,
• legal, governmental regulatory, or business issues as they relate to scientific research or therapeutics development.

We will not host discussion, commentary, or questions about best practices of medical treatment or appropriateness of care in general or in the case of specific patients. Nothing on this Service should be used to suggest a course of treatment for any patient. This Service cannot substitute for treatment by a physician or other health care provider.

The information provided on PD Online is provided “as is” with no representations or warranties of any kind and is subject to change without notice. The information is intended to provoke scientific discussion relating to the subject matter and may not be appropriate for use in a human clinical trial. Neither the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) nor any contributor to the Service shall be liable to you or any third party for any loss or damage (including, without limitation, damage or loss of business or loss of profits) arising directly or indirectly from your use of or inability to use the information.

We will only publish contributions by individuals professionally involved in patient care, scientific research, or the funding of or investment in scientific research, as per our requirements for registered membership. Any individual who obtains membership in error without meeting PD Online’s delineated membership requirements will have his or her membership immediately canceled. Other visitors may submit questions or comments to the editors via email, which we may or may not publish on PD Online, at our discretion.

Content, submissions, and discussion on the Service will be restricted to those addressing Parkinson’s disease and Parkinson’s disease related topics. Content will be monitored by and subject to the discretion of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research and PD Online. However, the Foundation and PD Online shall not be liable to anyone for any loss or damage related to such content, submissions or discussion, including, without limitation, information about clinical trials appearing on the Service.

3. Visiting Users And Registered Members

Visitors to this Service may use the public areas of this Service for informational purposes and are subject to these Terms and Conditions of Use. Visitors may submit questions or comments to the editors via email, which we may or may not publish on PD Online, at our discretion. In addition, certain areas of this Service, including but not limited to content posting functionality, are intended only for Registered Members. Accordingly, PD Online reserves the right to limit access to certain areas of this Service to those who register and meet the required qualifications. Membership is awarded at our discretion based upon eligibility requirements. To register, a prospective Member must provide us with certain personal information, including his or her name, profession, email address, postal address, title and employment or other affiliation. If you do not qualify, please do not attempt to register.

Upon our review and acceptance of your registration information, PD Online will provide you with a User ID and password. The information you provide must be accurate and complete, and it is your responsibility to inform us of any changes to that information by emailing us at admin@pdonlineresearch.org. We reserve the right to discontinue access to any restricted area of this Service at any time, without notice to you, for any reason. If you are or become a Registered Member, you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your User ID and password. Only a Registered Member may use the User ID to post content. If you become aware of unauthorized use of your User ID and password, you agree to immediately notify PD Online. The personal information provided by you is subject to our Privacy Policy, which can be found at www.pdonlineresearch.org.

4. Registered Member Eligibility Requirements

PD Online Registered Membership will be granted if the individual applicant:

1. Conducts scientific research (clinical or basic science). This category includes graduate students; post-doctoral fellows; and junior and senior scientists employed in academia, industry, government or other research institutes;
2. Is a grant-maker or an investor involved in decisions regarding funding for PD research Treats Parkinson’s disease as a clinician or is an allied healthcare professional directly engaged in clinical research. Is invited to be a Member.*

*Certain “Trusted Members” will be given the opportunity to invite other Members. Trusted Members are permitted to invite individuals who meet our eligibility requirements as outlined above, and only such individuals, to join PD Online.

5. Submitting Content

By posting or submitting content on or to this Service (regardless of the form or medium with respect to such content, whether text, videos, photographs, audio or otherwise), including submission of comments or questions to the editors, you are giving PD Online, and its affiliates, agents and third party contractors the right to display or publish such content on this Service and its affiliated publications (either in the form submitted or in a derivative form), to store such content, and to distribute such content through PD Online. PD Online reserves the right without prior notice to remove or not publish submissions.

You shall be solely responsible for your own submissions and the consequences of posting or publishing them. In connection with each of your submissions, you affirm, represent, and/or warrant that you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and publish any and all such submissions and authorize PD Online to enable inclusion and use of such submissions in the manner contemplated by PD Online and this User Agreement. You agree that you will not submit material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, unless you are the owner of such rights or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant PD Online all of the rights granted herein. We strongly encourage all participants to appropriately protect their respective rights.

You will not publish falsehoods or misrepresentations that could damage PD Online or any third party. You will not submit material that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening, pornographic, harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, violate any law, or is otherwise inappropriate. You will not post advertisements or solicitations of business.

Any contributions of the nature specified in the preceding paragraph will be immediately deleted and/or the user’s membership account will be terminated at the discretion of PD Online. PD Online reserves the right to remove or not publish submissions without prior notice.

6. Intellectual Property

If you are a copyright owner or agent thereof and believe that User Content infringes upon your copyright, please submit notice, pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512(c)) to our designated Copyright Agent with the following information: (i) an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright; (ii) a description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed; (iii) the URL of the location containing the material that you claim is infringing; (iv) your address, telephone number, and email address; (v) a statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; (vi) a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your Notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf.

Our Copyright Agent can be reached as follows: By mail: The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research / Attn: Sohini Chowdhury / PO Box 780, Church Street Station / New York, NY 10004

By phone: (212) 509-0995
By fax: (212) 509-2390
By email: schowdhury@michaeljfox.org

Please note that attachments cannot be accepted at the email address for security reasons. Accordingly, any notification of infringement submitted electronically with an attachment will not be received or processed.

. The content on this Service is subject to a Creative Commons License. All users are free to share, copy, distribute, or display the work. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the content). You may not use the work for commercial purposes. You may not alter, transform, or build upon the work. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

You may excerpt and use materials set forth in this Service, provided, that you must give the original author credit and such use must be for a non-commercial purpose only and not, for example, for re-sale.

Notice that User Content may violate any other intellectual property right may also be sent to our Copyright Agent as provided above.

7. Liability

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Michael J. Fox Foundation, PD Online, their affiliates, and their respective members, directors, officers, managers, employees, agents, and licensors, from and against all losses, expenses, damages and costs, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, resulting from any violation by you of this Agreement. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defense of any claim for which we are entitled to indemnification under this Section. In such event, you shall provide us with such cooperation as is reasonably requested by us.

The Michael J. Fox Foundation, PD Online, their affiliates, and their respective members, directors, officers, managers, employees, shareholders, agents and licensors are not liable for incidental, indirect, consequential, special, punitive, or exemplary damages of any kind, including, without limitation, lost revenues or profits, loss of business or loss of data, in any way related to this Service or for any claim, loss or injury based on errors, omissions, interruptions or other inaccuracies in this Service (including, without limitation, as a result of breach of any warranty or other term of this Agreement).

8. Miscellaneous

. We do not warrant that this Service will be uninterrupted or error-free. There may be omissions and inaccuracies in the posted content, information or other materials available through this Service. We reserve the right to correct any errors or omissions in this Service. While we will make a good faith effort to correct any errors, we do not make any warranties, express or implied, with respect to this Service or any information that is through this Service. We do not make any representations, nor do we endorse the accuracy, completeness, timeliness or reliability of any comment, advice, opinion, statement or other material or data displayed, uploaded or distributed through this Service or available through links in this service. Although we intend to and will take all reasonable steps to prevent the introduction of viruses, worms, “trojan horses” or other destructive materials to this Service, we do not guarantee or warrant that this Service or materials that may be downloaded from this Service do not contain such destructive features. We are not liable for any damages or harm attributable to such features.

You may not use any device, software or routine to interfere with the proper working of the Site. You may not take any action that imposes an unreasonable burden upon the infrastructure used to support the efficient operation of the Site.

This Service may provide links to web sites operated by third parties. Please refer to the separate terms of use, privacy policies, and other rules posted on these linked sites before you use them. Third party links are provided merely as a convenience to you, and the inclusion of any link does not imply affiliation or endorsement by PD Online. PD Online does not review, monitor or check the accuracy of content published on third party sites, and is not responsible for the availability of, and content provided on, third party sites. You acknowledge and agree that PD Online shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any content, goods or services available on or through this Service or any third party links.

We make no claim that this Service or its contents conforms with laws outside the United States. Your use of this Service and/or download of information from it outside the United States is at your own risk. You are responsible for complying with any applicable laws in your jurisdiction.

This User Agreement may be terminated by either party for any reason at any time. The terms and conditions of this Agreement shall survive such termination for any disputes relating to it. Any portion of this Agreement or published policy found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be unenforceable shall be severable and all other portions of this Agreement and published policies shall remain in effect.

This User Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the United States and the State of New York, applicable to agreements made and to be performed therein without regard to conflict of laws principles, and you agree that the federal or state courts in New York, New York shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute relating to this Agreement. BY CONTINUING TO USE THIS SERVICE, YOU AGREE TO ABIDE BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT.

Privacy Policy for PD Online

Thank you for visiting the PD Online Website and reviewing our privacy policy. Our privacy policy is clear: We will collect no personal identifiable information about you when you visit our website unless you choose to provide that information to us. Personally identifiable information (Personal Information) is information that can be used to identify or contact you, such as your name, email address, telephone number or similar information.

Information Collection and Use

MJFF maintains control of the Persona Information collected by the PD Online Website. MJFF collects additional non-personally identifiable information from our users at several different points on the PD Online Website. Content posted to this Service by registered members is governed by the Creative Commons Public License, discussed below.

Registered Members: If you are eligible to be a Member, in order to register, you must provide us with certain Personal Information, including your name, profession, email address, postal mail address, title and clinical or other relevant affiliation. We will use this Personal Information to review and verify your registration information and your eligibility for Membership. Any information you provide to PD Online must be true, accurate, current, non-misleading, and consistent and relevant for the purpose for which you are providing the information. If you are a Registered Member, you must have the authority to provide the information submitted to and through this Service, and understand and agree that we may from time to time verify such authority.

Registered Member Information: MJFF maintains a separate electronic database of Members which includes membership number, name, contact information and research interests. This information is stored securely and separately from our website. Personal information you provide will be used only in connection with PD Online or for such other purposes as are described at the point of collection.

Visiting Users who submit email comments:

We require all Visiting Users who submit email comments to the editors to provide us with a valid email address. MJFF maintains a separate electronic database of Visiting Users, which includes email addresses and other identifying information provided to us when email submissions are made. This information is stored securely and separately from our website. MJFF may contact Visiting Usersregarding PD Online and MJFF. Such contact may be for the purpose of verifying the identity of a Visiting User submitting comments to us.

Additional Information Automatically Collected and Stored for Visiting Users and Registered Members: We automatically collect and store the following information when you visit PD Online:

1. The Internet domain (for example, “xcompany.com” if you use a private Internet access account, or “yourschool.edu” if you connect from a university's domain) and IP address (an IP address is a number that is automatically assigned to your computer whenever you are surfing the Web) from which you access our website;
2. The type of browser and operating system used to access this Service;
3. The date and time you access this Service;
4. The pages you visit; and
5. If you linked to the PD Online website from another website, the address of that website.

Cookies and clear gifs: PD Online uses both "session" and "persistent" cookies on this Service. A cookie is a small piece of information that is sent to your browser and stored in your computer's hard drive. The purpose of a cookie is to remember certain user inputs on this Service.

Session cookies are temporary bits of information that are erased once you exit your web browser or turn off your computer. Persistent cookies are more permanent bits of information that are placed on the hard drive of your computer and stay there unless you delete the cookie. They store information on your computer for a number of reasons, such as retrieving certain information you have previously provided (i.e., username and password), helping to determine what areas of this Service you find most valuable, and customizing this Service based on your preferences on an ongoing basis. Persistent cookies placed on your computer by this Service may hold Personal Information, but only if you are a Registered Member or have otherwise consented to the provision of Personal Information in accordance with the terms of this Policy. In addition to customization, persistent cookies will be used to provide you with better service on this Service, to compile and analyze statistics and trends, and to otherwise administer and improve this Service for your use.

This Service may also use clear gifs (also known as web beacons) in combination with cookies, in order to help Service operators understand how visitors interact with this Service. A clear gif is typically a transparent graphic image (usually 1 pixel by 1 pixel in size) that is placed on this Service, which allows this Service to measure the actions of a visitor who opens the page that contains the clear gif. PD Online uses clear gifs to measure traffic and related behavior, and to improve your experience when visiting this Service. We also use clear gifs to manage the content available on this Service.

We use this information to help us make this Service more useful to visitors. We may use your Usage Data with or without your Personal Information, in order to measure this Service's performance and improve this Service’s design and functionality.

Sharing Information

In General: Posted content may be seen by various people. We may enter the information you send into our electronic database. You may be contacted by MJFF or PD Online about the content that you post. Posted content (“the work”) is governed by a Creative Commons Public License. All Registered Members are free to share, copy, distribute, or display the work. You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the content). You may not use the work for commercial purposes. You may not alter, transform, or build upon the work. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of the work. Nothing in this license impairs or restricts the author's moral rights.

Information may also be collected for statistical purposes. MJFF and PD Online sometimes perform analyses of user behavior in order to measure user interest in the various areas of this Service. We will disclose this information to third parties only in aggregate form.

In other limited circumstances, we may be required by law to disclose information you submit. Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose Personal Information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on this Service.

Consent to Disclosure: By using this Service, posting content or providing information to PD Online, you understand and unambiguously consent to the collection, processing, transfer and use of information in the United States and other countries and territories, for the purposes set forth by PD Online. You hereby consent to the collection, processing and disclosure by PD Online of your Personal Information and posted content as described under this Policy, including but not limited to the transfer of your name, occupation, and posted content between PD Online/ MJFF and the Parkinson’s research community. For further certainty, any consent relating to a right to transfer information referred to in this paragraph shall be deemed to include your consent to the transfer of the applicable information to a jurisdiction which may have a different level of privacy protection than that available in your own country.

Links: This Service contains links to other sites. Please be aware that we, MJFF, are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites or the content of those sites. We encourage our users to be aware when they leave this Service and to read the privacy statements of each and every Web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies solely to information collected by this Service.

“Opt-out”/Correcting/Updating/Deleting/Deactivating Personal Information: If a user’s personally identifiable information changes (such as zip code, phone, email or postal address), or if a user no longer desires to use this Service, we provide a way to correct, update or delete/deactivate it. With the exception of a Registered Member’s name and place of employment, individual privacy settings will be under the Registered Members’ control. To “opt-out” of receiving communications from PD Online (except for communications necessary for your use of this Service) or any other consent previously granted for a specific purpose concerning your personally identifiable information, send an e-mail to PD Online at admin@pdonlineresearch.org.

Updates to Privacy Policy

PD Online may, in its sole discretion, update this Policy at any time and from time to time, by posting the amended Policy on this Service. The amended Policy shall be effective upon posting and your access to or use of this Service following an update shall be deemed consent to the revised Policy. We urge each visitor to refer back to this page regularly and especially prior to providing or updating any Personal Information. This Policy may not be otherwise amended without the written consent of PD Online.

Disclaimer

While PD Online exercises all due caution to protect your privacy, we will not be held responsible for parties who attempt to illegally access this Service and intercept or access transmissions or private communications.

Agreement

By visiting this Service you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions of this Privacy Policy.

Financial Conflict of Interest Disclosure Policy for PD Online

To ensure balance, independence, objectivity, and rigorous scientific diligence within the PD Online Research community, the Moderators and Editors of the PD Online Research Service reserve the right and declare their intention to monitor and evaluate any Relevant Financial Relationships of the Membership.

“Relevant Financial Relationship” will be defined as and limited to those relationships and interests that, based upon the following recognized criteria, create a presumption of conflict of interest with regards to specific PD Online Research content.

In determining whether a presumption of conflict of interest exists, PD Online Research recognizes that Financial Interests (specifically, ties to industry through employment, equity or stock ownership, honoraria, research grants, etc.) are the most obvious sources of potential conflict. Furthermore, PD Online Research recognizes that the likelihood for potential conflict increases when the Financial Interests are held, at a minimum, by the individual or his or her spouse, committed partner, or dependent children. Finally, PD Online Research recognizes that the potential for conflict is directly dependent upon the nature of the link between the Financial Interests and the content on which the Member or Visiting User desires to comment or contribute.

By accepting these Terms and Conditions, each Member or Visiting User acknowledges that failure to disclose a Relevant Financial Relationship may be grounds for probationary action or revocation of my PD Online Research Membership, or, in the case of a Visiting User, refusal to post comments.

By accepting these Terms and Conditions, each Member and Visiting User acknowledges that if a conflict exists regarding a piece of commentary authored by the Member or Visiting User, the Member or Visiting User shall be required to include the following text at the end of the commentary: “Author recognized Relevant Financial Relationship in this Content.”