HAWSER TERMS OF SERVICE
Welcome to Hawser.org. Hawser, Inc., its affiliates and partners provide this service to you ("you" or "your" means any person using the website or service) subject to the following conditions. “Certified Nonprofits” shall mean any authorized 501(c)(3) which has been approved by Hawser’s independent authentication process (The background checks we conduct on those organizations identified as “certified nonprofit” for which we facilitate donations / contributions of money and or time are merely to serve as an additional layer of protection for our users and in no way should be misconstrued as or constitute a "guarantee" of any kind). By logging into Hawser and/or checking the “I Agree” consent box on the registration page or using Hawser’s affiliates’ websites and services (collectively the "Service"), you accept these terms and conditions which may be unilaterally modified. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the new Terms of Service on the Site. Please read them carefully and review them regularly.
Acceptance to the Hawser network and/or issuance of the Hawser Certified Nonprofit designation is "at-will", "revokable for any reason" and shall not constitute any loss, defamation, slander, review, judgement or opinion of those organizations that either do not receive that designation or that do not maintain that designation.
These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of our Services, including our various websites, SMS, APIs, email notifications, applications, buttons, widgets, ads, commerce services (“Hawser Services”), and our other covered services that link to these Terms (collectively, the “Services”), and any information, text, graphics, photos or other materials uploaded, downloaded or appearing on the Services (collectively referred to as “Content”). Your access to and use of the Services are conditioned on your acceptance of and compliance with these Terms. By accessing or using the Services you agree to be bound by these Terms.
1. PRIVACY
PERSONAL ID INFORMATION
In the course of using the Services (including a Hosted Application), we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information (“Personal Information” or “Contact Information”) that can be used to contact or identify you and administer your account. Personal Information includes, but is not limited to, your name, phone number, credit card or other billing information, email address and home and business postal addresses.
We also collect the other information that you provide as part of registration and the administration and personalization of your profile webpage (e.g., without limitation, zip code (on its own) and individual preferences) (“Non-Identifying Information”).
We use your Personal Information (in some cases, in conjunction with your Non- Identifying Information) to provide the Services, complete your transactions, administer your inquiries, and as further explained below.
Certain Non-Identifying Information would be considered a part of your Personal Information if it were combined with other identifiers (for example, combining your zip code with your street address) in a way that enables you to be identified. But the same pieces of information are considered Non-Identifying Information when they are taken alone or combined only with other non-identifying information (for example, your viewing preferences). We may combine your Personal Information with Non- Identifying Information and aggregate it with information collected from other Hawser users to attempt to provide you with a better experience, to improve the quality and value of the Services and to analyze and understand how our Site and Services are used. We may also use the combined information without aggregating it to serve you specifically, for instance to deliver a connection recommendation to you according to your preferences.
We also use your Personal Information to contact you with Hawser updates, marketing or promotional materials imbedded in expected content (e.g., connection confirmations/requests and/or transaction confirmations) and other confirmations which may be required by law and/or of interest to you. If you decide at any time that you no longer wish to receive such communications from us, please follow the unsubscribe instructions provided in any of the communications or update your “user preferences” and “Settings” configuaration or information.
Hawser does not sell, rent, lease or disclose your Personal Information except as described in this Privacy Policy. Your Personal Information will be used only by Hawser and its controlled subsidiaries and affiliates, and your Personal Information will not be disclosed to any other third party without your consent. Hawser will store personal data until account deletion is requested. At that point, personal data will be scheduled for deletion. Some data may not be deleteable, such as content sent that has been received and/or shared. These posts may contain minimum personal data (e.g., user name and/or likeness / avatar).
We do not share your Credit Card number or other specific Payment Information. We do not retain your Credit Card Information, except as needed to process payments, transactions and/or donations which you authorize.
Although Hawser serves as the merchant for all transactions on hawser.org, the payments are processed by Braintree, a PayPal company. Please see PayPal’s Privacy Policy here.
When you use the Services, our servers automatically record information that your browser sends whenever you visit a website or online service (“Log Data”). This Log Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type or the webpage you were visiting before you came to our Site, pages of our Site that you visit, the time spent on those pages, information you search for on our Site, access times and dates, and other statistics. We use this information to monitor and analyze use of the Site and the Services and for the Site’s technical administration, to increase our Site’s functionality and user-friendliness, and to better tailor it to our visitors’ needs. For example, some of this information is collected so that when you visit the Site again, it will recognize you and serve to better inform our member nonprofits, third party sponsors, prospective nonprofits and prospective third party sponsors as to Hawser’s effectiveness and/or general user activity.
2. INFORMATION COLLECTION
COOKIES
Like many websites, we use “cookies” to collect information. A cookie is a small data file that we transfer to your computer’s hard disk for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies for two purposes. First, we utilize persistent cookies to save your registration ID and login password for future logins to the Site. Second, we utilize session ID cookies to enable certain features of the Site, to better understand how you interact with the Site and to monitor aggregate usage by Hawser users and web traffic routing on the Site. Unlike persistent cookies, session cookies are deleted from your computer when you log off from the Site and Services and then close your browser. You can instruct your browser, by changing its options, to stop accepting cookies or to prompt you before accepting a cookie from the websites you visit. If you do not accept cookies, however, you may not be able to use all portions of the Site or all functionality of the Services.
PHISHING
We do not and will not, at any time, request your credit card information, your account ID, login password, or national identification numbers in a non-secure or unsolicited e-mail or telephone communication. For more information about phishing, visit the Federal Trade Commission’s website.
BUSINESS TRANSFER
Hawser may sell, transfer or otherwise share some or all of its assets, including your Personal Information, in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets or in the event of bankruptcy. Hawser will notify you before transferring your information to a new entity as part of a merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of some or all of its assets if the new entity’s processing of your information will materially differ from that set forth in this Privacy Policy.
CHANGING OR DELETING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
All registered users may review, update, correct or delete the Personal Information in their registration profile under “Settings”. If you completely delete all such information, then your account may become deactivated. If you would like us to delete your record in our system, please contact us with a request for us to delete your Personal Information from our database. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to honor your request. We may retain an archived copy of your records as required by law or for legitimate business purposes.
3. SECURITY
Hawser is very concerned with safeguarding your information. We employ certain physical, technological, and administrative security measures, but they may not be reasonable or applicable under the circumstances and, in any case, no security measures can be guaranteed to protect your data.
We will make any legally required disclosures of any breach of the security, confidentiality, or integrity of your unencrypted electronically stored “personal data” (as defined in applicable state statutes on security breach notification) to you via email or conspicuous posting on this Site in the most expedient time possible and without unreasonable delay, insofar as consistent with (i) the legitimate needs of law enforcement or (ii) any measures necessary to determine the scope of the breach and restore the reasonable integrity of the data system.
4. INTERNATIONAL USERS
Your information may be transferred to- and maintained on- computers located outside of your state, province, country or other governmental jurisdiction where the privacy laws may not be as protective as those in your jurisdiction. If you are located outside the United States and choose to provide information to us, Hawser transfers Personal Information to the United States and processes it there. Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.
5. LINKS TO THIRD PARTY SITE
Our Services contain links to other websites. If you choose to click on another third party link, you will be directed to that third party’s website. The fact that we link to a website or present a banner ad, certification or other type of identifier(s), labels, advertisement or promotion is not an endorsement, authorization or representation of our affiliation with that third party, nor is it an endorsement of their privacy or information security policies or practices. We do not exercise control over any account holders, third parties or third party websites. These other websites may place their own cookies or other files on your computer, collect data or solicit personal information from you. Other sites follow different rules regarding the use or disclosure of the personal information you submit to them. We encourage you to read the privacy policies or statements of the account holders with whom you connect, nonprofits you decide to support and/or other websites you visit.
6. ACCESS BY CHILDREN
In compliance with “COPPA”, the Site and Services are not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from children under 13. If a parent or guardian becomes aware that his or her child has provided us with Personal Information without their consent, he or she should contact us. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with Personal Information, we will delete such information from our files.
Hawser, Inc. (“Hawser”) provides this Privacy Policy to inform you of our policies and procedures regarding the collection, use and disclosure of personal information we receive from users of Hawser.org (the “Site”; Site and any login service, API, or web service collectively, the “Services”). This Privacy Policy applies only to information that you provide to us through the Services (including that which we may collect on your behalf) when you use the Services.
Your use of this Site indicates your acceptance of this Privacy Policy. This Privacy Policy may be updated unilaterally from time to time. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on the Site page. You are advised to consult this policy regularly for any changes.
As used in this policy, the terms “using” and “processing” information include using cookies on a computer, subjecting the information to statistical or other analysis and using or handling information in any way, including, but not limited to collecting, storing, evaluating, modifying, deleting, using, combining, disclosing and transferring information within our organization or among our affiliates within the United States or internationally.
Any conduct including providing access, funds, personal information or any other data to other account holders or outside thrird-party web sites and/or applications is at each users' own risk... For example, if someone posts a link to a GoFundMe or similar site or page that is found to be fraudulent or misrepresenting in any way, we are not responsible.
7. ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATIONS
When you visit hawser.org or any of our affiliate sites, send emails to us or communicate via the Hawser network or Service, you are communicating with us and other members electronically. You consent to receive communications from us and other members electronically. We and other members will communicate with you by email, notifications or by posting notices on the Hawser website. You agree that all agreements, notices, notifications, disclosures and other communications that we provide to you electronically satisfy any legal requirement that such communications be in writing.
8. SMS COMMUNICATIONS
When you opt-in to the Service, we will send you an SMS, email or similar electronic message to confirm your signup / account creation and ask you to confirm your account.
You can cancel the SMS, email or similar communication service at any time. Just text "STOP" to the sender, select ‘unsubscribe’ or contact us directly via the ‘Contact Us’ page on our website. After you send the message "STOP" to us, we will send you an message to confirm that you have been unsubscribed. After this, you should no longer receive messages from us. If you want to join again, just sign up as you did the first time and we may start sending messages to you again.
As always, message, data rates, credit card fees, transaction charges and/or processing fees may apply for any use of the Service, surfing, transactions or messages sent to users through us, to you from us, from users to you and to us from you. If you have any questions about your text plan or data plan, it is best to contact your wireless provider.
For all questions about the services provided by this short code, you can send an email to [email protected].
9. COPYRIGHT
All Hawser content, titles, graphics, logos, button icons, images and software are the copyrighted material of Hawser, Inc., its affiliates or its licensors and you agree not to download (other than page caching) or modify them, or any portion of them. The compilation of all content on this website is the exclusive property of Hawser, Inc., and is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Reproduction, republication or distribution of any material from the website with the exception of sharing with citation is strictly prohibited, except that you may, for personal and non-commercial use only, make a single hard copy of your donations, receipts, coupons, promotions and/or records of financial transactions for your personal records.
We assume you are the creator and/or originator of any and all material, data or other content and assume no liability for your actions related or unrelated to your activity on our Site / Service. No one can take our images, likenesses or data and share it without responsibility.
10. TRADEMARKS
The Hawser name, logo, button icons, three segments of rope, and all related logos, products, likenesses, representations, artwork and/or services described in this website are trademarks, service marks and/or the intellectual property of Hawser, Inc. All other service marks, trademarks, likenesses, representations and artwork that appear on this website that are not owned by Hawser, Inc., or its affiliates, are or should be assumed the property of their respective owners.
11. LICENSE AND SITE ACCESS
Hawser, Inc. grants you a limited license to access and make personal use of this Service to communicate with members, share information across other social media networks, transfer funds to or through Hawser, Inc. or our payment processor(s) for the disbursement to specified Hawser certified nonprofits (i.e., donations). You may also be able to use the Service to obtain information about the balance of donations to various member certified nonprofits and to review your individual donations made through our transaction platform. Individual charities and/or nonprofits will provide you with an actual receipt in the event you elect to receive one and have not elected to hide, encrypt or alter your personal contact information or to activate any anonymity feature on the Hawser network. You acknowledge and agree that we shall not be held responsible for the accuracy of this information since the content is electronically provided to you and/or Hawser from the charity and/or nonprofit, their affiliate or third parties software systems and the accuracy of the content is outside of our control. Hawser shall not be responsible for any loss or damages caused or alleged to have been caused by the use of or reliance on any such content. The Service is intended to be used by adults who can purchase with a debit card, credit card, bank account, PayPal account, Venmo, Square, mobile wallet or other means of electronic funds transfer. If you are under 18, you may use this Service and related Services only with involvement of a parent or guardian. You are responsible for protecting the confidentiality of your personal identification including but not limited to password(s), and should not permit any other person to use your password(s). You hereby agree to hold Hawser, Inc., its agents, employees, officers, members, agents and assigns harmless for any activity in or as a result of your account, including but not limited to authorized or unauthorized charges to your debit or credit card or other payment method and/or issuing bank via the Service or disputes between you and any charity, nonprofit, payment processor or money transmitter. Hawser, Inc. reserves the right to refuse service, terminate third party affiliates for such, or cancel transactions, accounts and/or memberships according to our discretion.
12. PAYMENTS TO NONPROFITS
The background checks we conduct on those organizations for which we facilitate donations / contributions of money and or time are merely to serve as an additional layer of protection for our users and in no way should be misconstrued as or constitute a "guarantee" of any kind. Users transfer funds directly to “Certified Nonprofits” (“Certified Nonprofits” shall mean any authorized 501(c)(3) which has been approved by Hawser’s independent authentication process) for any specified Hawser Certified Nonprofit’s discretionary use and/or for items made available in the Hawser online store by using a debit card, credit card, checking account, mobile wallet, Venmo, Pay Pal or any other acceptable form of electronic payment and/or funds transfer (Please see “Forms of Payment” under FAQs for the most recent list of acceptable payment methods).
Payment services providers, processors and/or transmitters including but not limited to: credit / debit card providers, financial institutions and/or electronic funds providers may have imposed fees and/or a minimum or maximum amount which can be charged and or withdrawn from your account. Your designated certified nonprofit, charity and/or nonprofit receives the full remaining amount of your fund transfer through Hawser. Both member nonprofits/charities and individual members (i.e, “donors”) hereby waive any and all right to any benefit earned or awarded to Hawser, Inc and/or their affiliates including but not limited to interest earned on any transacted/donated funds held prior to disbursement to the intended authorized and approved 501(c)(3) organization(s) with active Hawser account(s).
Payments are processed instantly and distributed promptly but may be held in escrow for an average of ninety (90) days prior to using a third party money transmitter service for distribution to the charity and/or nonprofit you specify should Hawser’s association with Braintree and/or PayPal be interrupted or terminated for any reason. Funds shall be used at the charity’s/nonprofit’s sole discretion and information sent to or for them shall be subject to their own respective privacy policies, mission statements, intended purposes and terms of service.
Hawser Inc is not responsible for lost, misdirected funds in the event the network or individual users' connection or Hawser's access to a processor, transmitter or organization's established transaction or gateway is interrupted for any reason.
We strongly recommend that you review any and all information regarding the intended recipient of any contribution of funds or time / volunteering (whether through the Hawser network or by any other method) including but not limited to their publicly available 501(c)(3) status, 501(c)(3)’s tax filings and annual reports. However, we make no representations or warranties regarding the amount of time needed to complete transactions, processing or how the transacted funds are used once they are distributed. A number of factors, such as delays in the banking system, electronic funds transfer systems or individual nonprofit/charity policies, are outside our control and will affect when the funds are received by your selected nonprofit/ charity. Use of prepayments or regularly scheduled payments / donations to nonprofits and/or charities of your choosing is governed exclusively by your agreement or arrangement with that particular nonprofit and/or charity and we are not responsible for the organization’s handling or mishandling of your prepayments after the organization receives the funds from or through the Service, including, but not limited to, any failure by a member or nonprofit organization to record, apply or refund a payment made by you via the Service.
13. REFUNDS
If you are not satisfied with any transaction including but not limited to donations, private label merchandise or marketing materials purchased in connection with or through the Service, you agree to resolve the issue with the nonprofit organization or charity whose licensed product you purchased. Hawser, Inc. and its affiliates may issue refunds when those refunds do not pose a conflict with and/or additional cost to the disruption of our site, service and/or banking agreements but Hawser,Inc and it’s affiliates are not responsible for refunds or liable for refunds. If you would like a refund of any kind from your chosen nonprofit and/or charity, less any processing fees, you must contact the nonprofit and/or charity either through the Service or directly, whichever you prefer. Refund policies may vary from one nonprofit organization to another.
14. PROGRAM FEE OR MEMBERSHIP FEE
Banking institutions, credit card issuers, electronic fund accounts, payment processors or transmitters etc... may require transaction fees, processing fees or membership fees for your use of their service. Hawser, Inc will not apply any additional transaction, processing or administrative fees to or from the funds transferred to or through us for your intended recipient provided they are a federally certified 501(c)(3) in good standing with Hawser.
If you and/or Hawser,Inc is/are required to pay a program, membership, transaction, transmitter or processing fee, any related transaction and/or purchase shall be reduced by such fee as required for each payment transaction made using that third party service.
15. LINKS TO THIRD PARTY WEBSITES
Hawser may showcase, display, advertise or otherwise disseminate links to other third party internet websites, applications or resources. We neither control nor endorse such third parties, their websites, applications, products or resources nor have we reviewed or approved any content that appears on such other sites. You acknowledge and agree that we shall not be held responsible for the legality, quality, safety, authenticity, accuracy, or inappropriate nature of any content, advertising, products, services, or information located on or through any other websites, nor for any loss or damages caused or alleged to have been caused by the use of or reliance on any such content.
16. LIMITED LIABILITY; DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. HAWSER, INC., AND ITS AFFILIATES, AGENTS, ASSIGNS, EMPLOYEES AND PARTNERS MAKE NO WARRANTY AND DISCLAIM ALL LIABILITY THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR FREE OR FREE FROM VIRUSES OR OTHER DEFECTS OR HARMFUL COMPONENTS NOR DO WE MAKE ANY WARRANTY AS TO THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM USE OF THE SERVICE OR TO THE ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, SECURITY, INAPPROPRIATENESS, EXPLICITNESS, PROFANE NATURE OF, LIBEL OR OTHERWISE DEFAMATORY NATURE OF OR GENERAL CONTENT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED OR SHARED THROUGH THE SERVICE.
ADDITIONALLY, WE MAKE NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES OF TITLE, NONINFRINGEMENT, OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT THE USE OF THIS SERVICE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK.
HAWSER IS A SOCIAL MESSAGING SERVICE AND CONVENIENT ALTERNATIVE PAYMENT METHODOLOGY BUT IS NOT THE ONLY WAY TO COMMUNICATE, STORE INFORMATION, TRANSMIT INFORMATION OR MAKE PAYMENTS TO A NONPROFIT AND/OR CHARITY. IN THE EVENT HAWSER IS NOT AVAILABLE AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON YOU ARE ADVISED AND ENCOURAGED TO SEEK ALTERNATIVE MEANS FOR COMMUNICATION AND FOR MAKING DONATIONS. HAWSER, INC. IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONSEQUENCES OF ANY FAILURE BY ANY NONPROFIT OR CHARITY TO RECEIVE ANY PAYMENT AND/OR USE IT RESPONSIBLY AND IN A WAY CONSISTENT WITH THEIR STATED MISSION AND/OR GOALS.
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE BY APPLICABLE LAW, THIS DISCLAIMER OF LIABILITY APPLIES TO ANY CLAIMS, ALLEGATIONS, LOSSES, ACTIONS, DAMAGES OR INJURY RESULTING FROM ANY FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE OF THE SERVICE, ERROR, OMISSION, INACCURACY, INTERRUPTION, DEFECT, DELAY OR INTERRUPTION IN OPERATION OR TRANSMISSION, COMMUNICATION LINE FAILURE, SECURITY BREACH, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO, ALTERATION OF OR USE OF INFORMATION. IN NO EVENT SHALL HAWSER, INC., OR IT AFFILIATES, AGENTS, ASSIGNS, EMPLOYEES OR MEMBERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OF ANY KIND ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE AND CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. CERTAIN STATES DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATIONS ON IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF CERTAIN DAMAGES. SOME OR ALL OF THE ABOVE DISCLAIMERS, EXCLUSIONS OR LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
17. TERMINATION
You may terminate this Agreement at any time by deleting your membership account and proving written notice to us within thirty (30) days. Hawser, Inc. may immediately limit and/or terminate this Agreement and/or any membership including those of certified nonprofits or those in the processor attaining certified nonprofit status at any time without notice and for any reason, including, but not limited to, if you or any authorized or unauthorized user of your account engage in any conduct which we, in our sole discretion, consider to be unacceptable, profane, offensive or if you breach this or any other Agreement with Hawser, Inc.
18. APPLICABLE LAW
By visiting hawser.org and/or related websites and/or applications, you agree that the laws of the State of South Dakota will govern these Terms of Use, and any dispute relating to the Service provided herein shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of the State of South Dakota.
19. SITE POLICIES, SEVERABILITY
This Agreement and other agreements, policies and any operating rules posted with regard to the Service constitute the entire agreement between you and Hawser with respect to use of the Service, and supersede all previous written or oral agreements between the parties with respect to such subject matter. Hawser, Inc., reserves the right at any time to change, add or delete any aspect or feature of the Service for any individual user or all users collectively and the terms and conditions thereof unilaterally, including but not limited to, respective listing or processing fees. We will provide notice of any such change by posting a notice to the website or as otherwise required by law. Any use of the Service by you after such notice shall be deemed to constitute acceptance by you of such changes. Any waiver of our rights must be in writing and signed by us. Should any provision of this Agreement be held invalid or unenforceable by any court of competent jurisdiction, the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.