User Agreement

 

The following describes the terms on which SmartBaza offers you access to our services.

Introduction

Welcome to SmartBaza. By using SmartBaza (including SmartBaza.com and its related sites, services and tools), you agree to the following terms and the general principles for the websites of our subsidiaries and international affiliates.

This Agreement is effective on 1 September 2009, for current users, and upon acceptance for new users.

Scope

Before you may become a member of SmartBaza, you must read and accept all of the terms in, and linked to, this User Agreement and the SmartBaza Privacy Policy. We strongly recommend that, as you read this User Agreement, you also access and read the linked information. By accepting this User Agreement, you agree that this User Agreement and Privacy Policy will apply whenever you use SmartBaza sites or services, or when you use the tools we make available to interact with SmartBaza sites and services. If you use another SmartBaza site, you agree to accept the User Agreement and Privacy Policy applicable to that site. Some SmartBaza sites, services, and tools may have additional or other terms that we provide to you when you use those sites, services, or tools.

Using SmartBaza

While using SmartBaza sites, services and tools, you will not:

• post content or items in an inappropriate category or areas on our sites and services;
• violate any laws, third party rights or our policies, such as the prohibited and restricted items;
• use our sites, services, or tools if you are not able to form legally binding contracts, are under the age of 18, or are temporarily or indefinitely suspended from using our sites, services, or tools;
• fail to deliver payment for items purchased by you, a clear typographical error is made;
• fail to deliver items purchased from you, unless the buyer fails to meet the posted terms, or you cannot authenticate the buyer's identity;
• manipulate the price of any item or interfere with other users' listings;
• circumvent or manipulate our fee structure, the billing process, or fees owed to SmartBaza;
• post false, inaccurate, misleading, defamatory, or libelous content (including personal information);
• take any action that may undermine the Feedback or ratings systems (such as displaying, importing or exporting Feedback information off of the sites or using it for purposes unrelated to SmartBaza);
• distribute or post spam, unsolicited, or bulk electronic communications, chain letters, or pyramid schemes;
• distribute viruses or any other technologies that may harm SmartBaza, or the interests or property of SmartBaza users;
• export or re-export any SmartBaza tools except in compliance with the export control laws of any relevant jurisdictions;
• copy, modify, or distribute rights or content from the SmartBaza sites, service, or tools or SmartBaza's copyrights and trademarks; or
• harvest or otherwise collect information about users, including email addresses, without their consent.

Abusing SmartBaza

SmartBaza and the Community work together to keep our sites and services working properly and the Community safe. Please report problems, offensive content, and policy violations to us.

SmartBaza's Verified Rights Owner program works to ensure that listed items do not infringe upon the copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights of third parties. If you believe that your intellectual property rights have been violated, please notify us and we will investigate.

Without limiting other remedies, we may limit, suspend, or terminate our service and user accounts, prohibit access to our sites and their content, services, and tools, delay or remove hosted content, and take technical and legal steps to keep users off the sites if we think that they are creating problems or possible legal liabilities, infringing the intellectual property rights of third parties, or acting inconsistently with the spirit of our policies. We also reserve the right to cancel unconfirmed accounts or accounts that have been inactive for a long time, or to modify or discontinue SmartBaza sites, services, or tools.

Buyer Protection

Buyers and sellers share the responsibility for making sure purchases facilitated by SmartBaza are exciting, rewarding, and hassle-free. We strongly encourage buyers to work with sellers before opening a claim relating to a purchase. Buyers and sellers agree to protect each other’s interests. SmartBaza Buyer Protection covers only claims filed in accordance with the SmartBaza Buyer Protection Policy, not claims filed with carriers or payment processors. We may suspend the SmartBaza Buyer Protection Policy without notice if we suspect abuse or interference with the proper working of the program.

We require SmartBaza sellers to comply with our resolution process. Sellers permit us to make a final decision, in our sole discretion, on any claim that a buyer files with SmartBaza under the SmartBaza Buyer Protection Policy. If we resolve a dispute in the buyer's favor, we will refund the buyer for the cost of the item and the original shipping, and we will require the seller to reimburse us for the refund. Without limiting the foregoing, sellers may not have to pay a reimbursement for any SmartBaza claim if they provide the documentation (for example, delivery confirmation or proof that the item was as described).

• Sellers must have a reimbursement method on file with SmartBaza.
• When there are insufficient funds, we will require another reimbursement method.

For future claims where the seller is found at fault, we will notify the seller and continue to charge the sellers preferred method for any reimbursements made. Changing a reimbursement method will not affect SmartBaza's use of a payment method on file for other purposes (such as payment of your SmartBaza fees). If sellers do not provide SmartBaza with a valid reimbursement method, we may collect amounts owed using other collection mechanisms, including retaining collection agencies. We may also suspend or restrict sellers from trading on our sites until payment is made.

Fees and Services

Joining SmartBaza is free. We do charge fees for using other services, such as listing items for sellers. When you list an item or use a service that has a fee, you have an opportunity to review and accept the fees that you will be charged based on our Fees structure, which we may change from time to time. Changes to that structure are effective after we provide you with at least 14 days' notice by posting the changes on the SmartBaza site. We may choose to temporarily change the fees for our services for promotional events (for example, free listing days) or new services, and such changes are effective when we post the temporary promotional event or new service on the sites.

Unless otherwise stated, all fees are quoted in default U.S. Dollars. You are responsible for paying all fees and applicable taxes associated with our sites and services in a timely manner with a valid payment method. If your payment method fails or your account is past due, we may collect fees owed using other collection mechanisms. (This includes charging other payment methods on file with us, and legal counsel.

Content

When you give us content, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sub licensable (through multiple tiers) right to exercise any and all copyright, trademark, publicity, and database rights (but no other rights) you have in the content, in any media known now or in the future.

For the convenience of sellers, we may offer catalogs of stock images, descriptions, and product specifications that are provided by third parties (including SmartBaza users). You may use catalog content solely in connection with your SmartBaza listings during the time your listings are on SmartBaza's sites.

While we try to offer reliable data, we cannot promise that the catalogs will always be accurate and up-to-date, and you agree not to hold our catalog content providers or us responsible for inaccuracies in catalogs. If you choose to include catalog content in your listings, you continue to be fully responsible for your listings and for ensuring that your listings are accurate, do not include misleading information, and comply with this User Agreement and all SmartBaza policies. The catalogs may include copyrighted, trademarked, or other proprietary materials. You agree not to remove any copyright, proprietary, or identification markings included with the catalogs or create any derivative works based on catalog content (other than by including them in your listings).

Limitation of Liability

You will not hold SmartBaza responsible for other users' content, actions, or inactions, items they list or their destruction of allegedly fake items. You acknowledge that we are not a traditional auctioneer. Instead, our sites are venues to allow anyone to offer, sell, and buy just about anything, at anytime, from anywhere, in a variety of pricing formats and locations, such as Stores, and fixed price formats. We are not involved in the actual transaction between buyers and sellers. While we may help facilitate the resolution of disputes through various programs, we have no control over and do not guarantee the quality, safety, or legality of items advertised, the truth or accuracy of users’ content or listings, the ability of sellers to sell items, the ability of buyers to pay for items, or that a buyer or seller will actually complete a transaction or return an item. For certain categories, particularly items above $500 offer initiates a non-binding transaction representing a buyer’s serious expression of interest in buying the seller’s item.

We do not transfer legal ownership of items from the seller to the buyer, unless the buyer and the seller agree otherwise. Further, we cannot guarantee continuous or secure access to our sites, services, or tools, and operation of our sites, services, or tools may be interfered with by numerous factors outside of our control. Accordingly, to the extent legally permitted, we exclude all implied warranties, terms and conditions. We are not liable for any loss of money, goodwill or reputation, or any special, indirect or consequential damages arising, directly or indirectly, out of your use of or your inability to use our sites, services, and tools.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the disclaimer of warranties or exclusion of damages, so such disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you.

Regardless of the previous paragraphs, if we are found to be liable, our liability to you or to any third party is limited to the greater of (a) the total fees you paid to us in the 12 months prior to the action giving rise to the liability.

Release

If you have a dispute with one or more users, you release us (and our officers, directors, agents, subsidiaries, joint ventures, and employees) from claims, demands, and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes.

Access and Interference

Much of the information on the sites is updated on a real-time basis and is proprietary or is licensed to SmartBaza by our users or third parties. You agree that you will not use any robot, spider, scraper, or other automated means to access the sites for any purpose without our express handwritten permission.

Additionally, you agree that you will not:

• take any action that imposes or may impose (in our sole discretion) an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;
• copy, reproduce, modify, create derivative works from, distribute, or publicly display any content (except for your information) from the sites without the prior express written permission of SmartBaza and the appropriate third party, as applicable;
• interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the sites, services, or tools, or any activities conducted on or with the sites, services, or tools; or
• bypass our authentication or other measures we may use to prevent or restrict access to the sites.

Indemnity

You will indemnify and hold us (and our officers, directors, agents, subsidiaries, joint ventures, and employees) harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your breach of this Agreement, or your violation of any law or the rights of a third party.

No Agency

No agency, partnership, joint venture, employee-employer, or franchiser-franchisee relationship is intended or created by this Agreement.

Notices

Except as explicitly stated otherwise, legal notices shall be served on SmartBaza or to the email address you provide to SmartBaza during the registration process. Notice shall be deemed given 24 hours after email is sent, unless the sending party is notified that the email address is invalid. Alternatively, we may give you legal notice by mail to the address provided during the registration process. In such case, notice shall be deemed given three days after the date of mailing.

Resolution of Disputes

If a dispute arises between you and SmartBaza, our goal is to provide you with a neutral and timely cost effective means of resolving the dispute. Accordingly, you and SmartBaza agree that we will resolve any claim or controversy at law or equity that arises out of this Agreement or our services (a "Claim") in accordance with one of the subsections below or as we and you otherwise agree in writing. Before resorting to these alternatives, we strongly encourage you to first contact us directly to seek a resolution. We will consider reasonable requests to resolve the dispute through alternative dispute resolution procedures, such as mediation or arbitration, as alternatives to litigation.

• Law and Forum for Disputes - This Agreement shall be governed in all respects by the laws of Uganda as they apply to agreements. You agree that any claim or dispute you may have against SmartBaza must be resolved exclusively by court located in Kampala, Uganda, except as otherwise agreed by the parties. You agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the courts.

Improperly Filed Claims - All claims you bring against SmartBaza must be resolved in accordance with this Resolution of Disputes Section. All claims filed or brought contrary to the Resolution of Disputes Section shall be considered improperly filed. Should you file a claim contrary to the Resolution of Disputes Section, SmartBaza may recover attorneys' fees and costs, provided that SmartBaza has notified you in writing of the improperly filed claim, and you have failed to promptly withdraw the claim.

 

General

If any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be struck and the remaining provisions shall be enforced. In our sole discretion, we may assign this Agreement in accordance with the Notices Section. Headings are for reference purposes only and do not limit the scope or extent of such section. Our failure to act with respect to a breach by you or others doesn't waive our right to act with respect to subsequent or similar breaches. We do not guarantee we will take action against all breaches of this Agreement.

We may amend this Agreement at any time by posting the amended terms on this site. Except as stated elsewhere, all amended terms shall automatically be effective 30 days after they are initially posted. Additionally, we will notify you through email.

This Agreement sets forth the entire understanding and agreement between us with respect to the subject matter hereof. The following Sections survive any termination of this Agreement: Fees and Services (with respect to fees owed for our services), Release, Content, Liability, Indemnity and Resolution of Disputes.

 

Privacy Policy

Scope

This Privacy Policy describes how we handle your personal information for our services on the SmartBaza websites. It applies generally to the SmartBaza.com website, content and other related websites where this policy appears in the footer of the page. Some Max Online Services owned websites domains or sub domains we operate may be governed by separate privacy policies. The policy that applies on any of them is always the policy that appears in the footer of each website.

Our subsidiaries’ and joint ventures’ privacy practices are similar to those described in this Privacy Policy and subjected to the requirements of applicable law, we strive to provide a consistent set of privacy practices throughout the global SmartBaza trading community. By accepting the Privacy Policy and the User Agreement in registration, you expressly consent to our collection, storage, use and disclosure of your personal information as described herein.

Collection

You can browse our sites without telling us who you are or revealing any personal information about yourself. Once you give us your personal information, you are not anonymous to us. If you choose to provide us with personal information, you consent to the transfer and storage of that information on our servers located in Uganda and the United States.

We may collect and store the following personal information:

• email address, physical contact information, and (depending on the service used) sometimes financial information, such as credit card or bank account numbers;
• transactional information based on your activities on the sites (such as bidding, buying, selling, item and content you generate or that relates to your account);
• shipping, billing and other information you provide to purchase or ship an item;
• community discussions, chats, dispute resolution, correspondence through our sites, and correspondence sent to us;
• other information from your interaction with our sites, services, content and advertising, including computer and connection information, statistics on page views, traffic to and from the sites, ad data, IP address and standard web log information;
• additional information we ask you to submit to authenticate yourself or if we believe you are violating site policies (for example, we may ask you to send us an ID or bill to verify your address, or to answer additional questions online to help verify your identity or ownership of an item you list or buy);
• information from other companies, such as demographic and navigation data; and
• other supplemental information from third parties (for example, if you incur a debt to SmartBaza, we will generally conduct a credit check by obtaining additional information about you from a credit reference bureau, as permitted by law).

Marketing

We don't sell or rent your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes without your explicit consent. We may combine your information with information we collect from other companies and use it to improve and personalize our services, content and advertising. If you don't wish to receive marketing communications from us or participate in our ad-customization programs, simply indicate your preference or by following the directions provided with the communication or advertisement.

Use

Our primary purpose in collecting personal information is to provide you with a safe, smooth, efficient, reliable and customized experience. You agree that we may use your personal information to:

• provide the services and customer support you request;
• resolve disputes, collect fees, and troubleshoot problems;
• prevent potentially prohibited or illegal activities, and enforce our User Agreement;
• customize, measure and improve our services, content and advertising;
• tell you about our services and those of our corporate family, targeted marketing, service updates, and promotional offers based on your communication preferences; and
• compare information for accuracy, and verify it with third parties.

Our Disclosure of Your Information

We may disclose personal information to respond to legal requirements, enforce our policies, respond to claims or other content that violates the rights of others, or protect anyone's rights, property, or safety. Such information will be disclosed in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

We may also share your personal information with:

• Other Authorities to provide joint content and services (like registration, transactions and customer support), to help detect and prevent potentially illegal acts and violations of our policies, and to guide decisions about their products, services and communications. Members may use this information to send you marketing communications only if you’ve requested their services.
• Service providers under contract who help with our business operations (such as fraud investigations, bill collection, affiliate and rewards programs banks and credit cards providers).
• Other third parties to whom you explicitly ask us to send your information (or about whom you are otherwise explicitly notified and consent to when using a specific service).
• Law enforcement or other governmental officials, in response to a verified request relating to a criminal investigation or alleged illegal activity. In such events, we will disclose information relevant to the investigation, such as name, city, state, zip code, telephone number, email address, User ID history, IP address, fraud complaints, and bidding and listing history.
• In connection with an investigation of fraud, intellectual property infringement, piracy, or other unlawful activity. In such events, we will disclose name, street address, city, state, zip code, country, phone number, email address and company name.
• Other business entities, should we plan to merge with or be acquired by any business entity. (Should such a combination occur, we will require that the new combined entity follow this privacy policy with respect to your personal information. If your personal information will be used contrary to this policy, you will receive prior notice.)

Without limiting the above, in an effort to respect your privacy and our ability to keep the community free from bad actors, we will not otherwise disclose your personal information to law enforcement, other government officials, or other third parties without a subpoena, court order or substantially similar legal procedure, except when we believe in good faith that the disclosure of information is necessary to prevent imminent physical harm or financial loss or to report suspected illegal activity.

Using Information from SmartBaza

SmartBaza enables you to share personal and financial information to complete transactions. We encourage you to disclose your privacy practices and respect the privacy of other users. We cannot guarantee the privacy or security of your information and therefore we encourage you to evaluate the privacy and security policies of your trading partner before entering into a transaction and choosing to share your information. To help protect your privacy, we allow only limited access to other users' contact, shipping and financial information to facilitate your transactions. When users are involved in a transaction, they will have access to each other's company or personal name, User ID, email address and other contact and shipping information. We give users a chance to edit or remove their information from our database at anytime.

You agree to use user information only for:

• SmartBaza transaction-related purposes that are not unsolicited commercial messages;
• using services offered through SmartBaza, or
• other purposes that a user expressly chooses.

Cookies

We use "cookies" (small files placed on your hard drive) on certain of our pages to help analyze our web page flow; customize our services, content and advertising; measure promotional effectiveness, and promote trust and safety.

A few important things you should know about cookies are that:

• We offer certain features that are available only through the use of cookies.
• We use cookies to help identify you and maintain your signed-in status.
• Most cookies are "session cookies," meaning that they are automatically deleted from your hard drive at the end of a session.
• You are always free to decline our cookies if your browser permits, although doing so may interfere with your use of some of our sites or services.
• You may encounter cookies from third parties on certain pages of the sites that we do not control. (For example, if you view a web page created by another user, there may be a cookie placed by that web page.)

No Spam, Spyware or Spoofing

We and our users do not tolerate spam. Make sure to set your SmartBaza communication preferences so we communicate to you as you prefer. You are not licensed to add other SmartBaza users, even a user who has purchased an item from you, to your mailing list (email or physical mail) without their express consent. To report SmartBaza-related spam or spoof emails to SmartBaza, please forward the email to support@maxonlineservices.com. You may not use our communication tools to send spam or otherwise send content that would violate our User Agreement. We automatically scan and may manually filter messages to check for spam, viruses, phishing attacks and other malicious activity or illegal or prohibited content, but we do not permanently store messages sent through these tools. We do not rent or sell these email addresses.

Account Protection

Your password is the key to your account. Use unique numbers, letters and special characters, and do not disclose your SmartBaza password to anyone. If you do share your password or your personal information with others, remember that you are responsible for all actions taken in the name of your account. If you lose control of your password, you may lose substantial control over your personal information and will be subject to legally binding actions taken on your behalf. Therefore, if your password has been compromised for any reason, you should immediately notify SmartBaza and change your password.

Accessing, Reviewing and Changing Your Personal Information

You can see, review and change most of your personal information by signing on to SmartBaza. Generally, we will not manually modify your personal information because it is very difficult to verify your identity remotely. You must promptly update your personal information if it changes or is inaccurate. Once you make a public posting, you may not be able to change or remove it. Upon your request, we will close your account and remove your personal information from view as soon as reasonably possible, based on your account activity and in accordance with applicable law. We may retain personal information from closed accounts to comply with law, prevent fraud, collect any fees owed, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigations, enforce our SmartBaza User Agreement and take any other actions otherwise permitted by law.

Security

Your information is stored on our servers located in Uganda and the United States. We treat data as an asset that must be protected and use lots of tools (encryption, passwords, physical security, etc.) to protect your personal information against unauthorized access and disclosure. However, as you probably know, third parties may unlawfully intercept or access transmissions or private communications, and other users may abuse or misuse your personal information that they collect from the site. Therefore, although we work very hard to protect your privacy, we do not promise, and you should not expect, that your personal information or private communications will always remain private in situations beyond our control.

Third Parties

Except as otherwise expressly included in this Privacy Policy, this document addresses only the use and disclosure of information we collect from you. If you disclose your information to others, whether they are bidders, buyers, sellers, or payment processors on our sites or other sites throughout the internet, different rules may apply to their use or disclosure of the information you disclose to them. SmartBaza does not control the privacy policies of third parties, and you are subject to the privacy policies of those third parties where applicable. We encourage you to ask questions before you disclose your personal information to others.

General

We may amend this Privacy Policy at any time by posting the amended terms on this site. All amended terms automatically take effect 30 days after they are initially posted on the site. In addition, we will notify you through the SmartBaza Message Center. If your questions are not answered online, you may email us at support@maxonlineservices.com or write to us at: Max Online Services P.O. Box 5766 Kampala, Uganda or using the Contact Us form.