Acceptable Use Policy

When you ("You" or "User") use this Internet web site ("Site"), You agree to the following terms and conditions (the "User Agreement"). The Financial Sector Reform and Strengthening ("FIRST Initiative ", or "We") may revise these terms from time to time, at our sole discretion, by updating this posting. Unless otherwise provided below, the revised terms will take effect when they are posted. BY CONTINUING TO USE THE SITE, YOU ARE INDICATING YOUR AGREEMENT TO THE TERMS OF THIS USER AGREEMENT AND REVISIONS THEREOF.

This Site is for Adults Only
Our services are available only to individuals who can form legally binding contracts under applicable law. You may use this site and the services available here during the time you are a registered user.

Site Development
We may modify or discontinue this Site and the services available at it without notice or liability to You.

Nature of the Site
The Site functions as a venue to exchange information regarding technical assistance in the financial sector in developing and transition countries and related information. FIRST has no control over the truth, accuracy, quality, legality, or safety of postings made by users. Because verifying the identity of a user on the Internet is difficult, FIRST cannot and does not confirm the identity of users, nor does it confirm or verify the qualifications, background, or abilities of users. Therefore, We recommend that You be careful and exercise common sense and good judgment when dealing with any User on the Site.

Your Relationship with Providers of consulting and other services, and Other Users
Your correspondence with service providers or other users on the Site, including the development and delivery of related goods or services, and any other terms, conditions, warranties or representations associated with such dealings, are solely between You and such service providers, or other users. You agree not to hold FIRST liable for any loss or damage of any sort incurred as the result of any such dealings or as the result of the presence of such merchants, advertisers, or users on the Site.

Accurate Information
You agree to provide true, accurate and complete information as prompted by the registration form, and maintain and update such information to maintain its truth, accuracy and completeness. Whenever You post any information on or to the Site (including but not limited to posting a request for services, bidding on a posted project, and/or posting your profile), You agree to provide true, accurate and complete information. FIRST reserves the right to terminate Your registration upon the discovery that the information You provided or posted is not complete or accurate.

Passwords
You must safeguard the User ID and password You use to access this Site. You authorize us to assume that any person using the Site with Your User ID and password either is You or authorized to act for You.

User Obligations
You agree NOT to do any of the following while using the Site:

Violate an applicable law or regulation
Post or transmit any Content that You do not have the right to post or transmit under any law, contractual duty or fiduciary relationship
Post or transmit any Content or request FIRST to do so, that is unlawful, untrue, fraudulent, harassing, libelous, defamatory, abusive, tortuous, threatening, pornographic, harmful (including but not limited to viruses, corrupted files, or any other similar software or programs), invasive of another's privacy, hateful, racially or ethnically objectionable or overly disparaging or deprecating of FIRST or other users or otherwise objectionable
Access, tamper with or use non-public or non-authorized areas of the Site. Unauthorized individuals attempting to access these areas of the Site may be subject to prosecution
Tamper with postings of other users
Post logos, seals or slogans from third parties on any part of the Site unless they are provided or authorised by FIRST
Solicit or gather any user's information available from the Site, such as other users' names and email addresses, for any commercial or business purposes or to transmit any unsolicited advertising, "junk mail," "spam," "pyramid schemes" or "chain letters"
Do anything which would create or impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large burden or load on the Site
Post false or misleading information about a service or service request
Frame or deeplink to the Site except as permitted in writing by FIRST
Impersonate or misrepresent Your affiliation with any person or entity
Stalk or otherwise harass another
Collect or store personal data about other users.

Notices
FIRST will provide notices by posting them on the Site and You agree to check the Site for notices You also authorize FIRST to send notices to You, at FIRST's discretion, via electronic mail unless You otherwise indicate in writing to FIRST at first@worldbank.org. Regardless of whether FIRST sends an email notification, You will be considered to have received a notice when it is made available to You by posting on the Site.

This is an International Web Site
Recognizing the global nature of the Internet, you agree to comply with all local rules regarding online conduct and acceptable Content. Specifically, you agree to comply with all applicable laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from the United Kingdom, the United States and the country in which you reside (if different from the aforementioned).

Content on this Site
You use the content on this Site, and any web sites linked thereto, at your own risk. You understand and agree to the following:

Some content provided by on this Site on various subjects may be considered of an advisory nature. This information is provided solely for informational purposes and should not be considered professional or legal advice.

You should not act based on information you receive from the Site without using your own efforts to confirm such information, and, when appropriate, consulting with an independent, licensed professional regarding your individual circumstances.

By its very nature, the information on this Site is changed frequently, may be offensive, harmful, or inaccurate, and in come cases may be mislabeled or deceptively labeled.

This Site provides unfiltered access to third-party content. In such cases, we are only acting as a venue, and have no liability related to third-party content on this Site, whether arising under the law of copyright, defamation, libel, privacy, obscenity, or otherwise.

Your Content
You are solely responsible for content or any other information you provide, distribute, post, include, link to, or otherwise upload to the Site ("Your Content"). You understand and agree as follows:

We are only acting as a passive conduit for the online distribution and publication of Your Content. However, we make no warranties as to the actual distribution or publication of Your Content.

We have the right (but no obligation) to take any action we deem appropriate with respect to Your Content if we believe that it may create liability for us, harm our business, or cause us to lose the services of our ISPs or other suppliers.

You represent and warrant that Your Content:

Will not infringe or misappropriate any copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, or other proprietary right or right of publicity or privacy
Will not violate any law or regulation
Will not be defamatory or trade libelous
Will not be obscene or contain child pornography
Will not include incomplete, false or inaccurate information about you or any other individual
Will not contain any viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information

By submitting your Content to this Site, you hereby grant to us a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicenseable (through multiple tiers) license to use, copy, modify, display, and perform Your Content, under all your intellectual property and proprietary rights worldwide. For the avoidance of doubt, providing links to content hosted on servers other than our own will not be "submitting" such content for purposes of this license grant.

Links to Our Site
We grant you full permission to link to the front page of the Site using a text link, but not to:

Frame the Site
"Deep link" to any web page on the Site other than the front page without our written permission which we can withhold at our sole discretion
Use any of our trademarks or logos without our prior written permission OR
Use any robot, spider, automated collection mechanism, or any manual process to monitor or copy the web pages comprising the Site or the content contained therein without our prior written permission.

You acknowledge and agree that we do not pay referral fees for any links you may make to the Site.

Links to Third Parties
The Site may contain links to third-party web sites. While we hope that you are able to benefit from the information, products, and services that these businesses provide to you, we neither control nor constantly review the web sites to which we link from this Site. Therefore, we cannot endorse the content, products, services, or performance of web sites we link to from this Site, and you should not treat any link as such an endorsement. Because We do not have any control over such sites and resources, You acknowledge and agree that FIRST is not responsible for the availability of such external sites or resources, and does not endorse and is not responsible or liable for any Content, advertising, products, or other materials on or available from such sites or resources. You further acknowledge and agree that FIRST 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 use of or reliance on any such Content, goods or services available on or through any such site or resource.

We cannot, nor do we undertake any obligation to, control, verify, or validate the content that you receive. We expect that you will use caution and common sense when using this Site and your Account.

Ownership and Intellectual Property
You agree that as between You and us, all content, software, trademarks, logos and everything else hosted on this Site are our valuable intellectual property. All rights to our content, software, services, and server information are reserved. All reproduction in whole or in part of the text or illustrations on the Site, by any means whatsoever and without our prior consent, is prohibited.

No Resale or Unauthorized Commercial Use
Users of the Site agree not to resell or assign their rights or obligations under these Terms and Conditions. Users also agree not to make any unauthorized commercial use of the Site FIRST.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
THIS SITE, AND THE CONTENT, SERVICES, PRODUCTS, AND INFORMATION RELATED THERETO, ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITH ALL FAULTS, AND THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SATISFACTORY QUALITY, PERFORMANCE, ACCURACY, AND EFFORT IS WITH YOU. WE AND OUR CONTENT SUPPLIERS AND PARTNER AND DONOR ORGANISATIONS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. THERE IS NO WARRANTY AGAINST INTERFERENCE WITH YOUR ENJOYMENT OF THE INFORMATION RECEIVED UNDER THIS AGREEMENT OR AGAINST INFRINGEMENT.

WE DO NOT MAKE ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE ACCURACY, TIMELINESS, OR COMPLETENESS OF ANY INFORMATION ON THE SITE (INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED BY COMMUNITY LEADERS OR USERS, OR ANY PROJECT DESCRIPTION/SOLICITATIONS PROPOSALS OR USER PROFILES), NOR DO WE UNDERTAKE TO VERIFY, UPDATE OR CORRECT SUCH INFORMATION.

WE DO NOT GUARANTEE CONTINUOUS OR UNINTERRUPTED ACCESS TO THE SITE AND MAKE NO WARRANTY AS TO THE OPERATION, FUNCTIONALITY, OR AVAILABILITY OF THE SITE.

WE DO NOT GUARANTEE ANY RESPONSE RATE TO ANY ENQUIRIES OR SOLICITATIONS FOR INFORMATION OR PROPOSALS. ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED THEREFROM, IS DONE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK AND YOU AGREE THAT YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES RESULTING THEREFROM.

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
IN NO EVENT WILL WE OR OUR PARTNERS OR DONORS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT, EXEMPLARY, SPECIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY LOST DATA AND LOST PROFITS, ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THIS AGREEMENT OR THE SITE, EVEN IF WE AND/OR OUR PARTNERS OR DONORS HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. OUR (AND OUR PARTNERS OR DONORS') TOTAL CUMULATIVE LIABILITY IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT OR THE SITE, WHETHER IN CONTRACT OR TORT OR OTHERWISE, WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT PAID TO US BY YOU IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS PRIOR TO THE ACTION GIVING RISE TO LIABILITY; OR (B) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS (U.S. $100). THE FOREGOING LIMITATION IS CUMULATIVE, WITH ALL PAYMENTS COUNTING TOWARD SATISFACTION OF THE LIMIT. SOME U.S. STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OF LIABILITY, SO THE FOREGOING LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold us, and our donors harmless from all losses, liabilities, damages, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorney's fees) that we may incur as a result of any claims, suits actions or proceedings arising out of or related to Your Content or your breach of this Agreement, including without limitation any claims of intellectual property infringement, defamation, and trade secret misappropriation, and claims under any business tort theory.

Governing Law
By entering into a contract with FIRST, You agree that any such contract will be interpreted, construed and enforced in all aspects in accordance with the laws of England. Further You irrevocably submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts.

Last updated May 2003