Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of theonlinereader.com and the related services operated by The Online Reader ("we," "us," or "our") (collectively, the "Service"). Please read these Terms carefully. They form a binding agreement between you and The Online Reader.

1. Acceptance of Terms

By creating an account, signing in, submitting ratings or content, or otherwise accessing or using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, you may not use the Service. If you are using the Service on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have the authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

2. The Service

The Online Reader is a community-driven rating and discovery site for online articles. Registered users can submit URLs, rate and review articles they have read, build a personal library, and view aggregated community ratings. The Service is built on a Sling CMS for content management, an Express API for application logic, and MongoDB for storage. We may add, change, or remove features over time as the Service evolves.

3. User Accounts

• Eligibility. You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you live in a country where the age of digital consent is higher than 13 (16 in most EU countries) and you are below that age, you may use the Service only with the consent of a parent or legal guardian. If you are under the age of majority in your jurisdiction, you confirm that a parent or legal guardian has reviewed and agreed to these Terms on your behalf. Age is self-declared at registration.
• One account per user. Each individual may maintain only one active account. We may suspend or merge duplicate accounts at our discretion.
• Account security. You are responsible for safeguarding your password and any one-time passwords (OTPs) we send to your email for sign-in. Do not share your credentials with anyone.
• Activity under your account. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account, whether or not authorized by you. Notify us promptly at [email protected] if you suspect unauthorized access.

4. Acceptable Use

You agree not to do any of the following while using the Service:

• Submit spam ratings, fake ratings, or ratings designed to manipulate aggregate scores.
• Use bots, scripts, or other automated means to submit URLs, ratings, or other content.
• Harass, threaten, defame, or otherwise harm other users.
• Scrape, crawl, or otherwise extract data from the Service in bulk, except as permitted by our robots.txt for publicly indexable content.
• Attempt to bypass, disable, or otherwise circumvent any rate limits, authentication, or other security or access-control mechanisms (the API enforces rate limits on /api endpoints - these exist to keep the Service stable and fair).
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or otherwise attempt to derive source code from the Service, except as permitted by applicable law.
• Use the Service to violate any law, regulation, or third-party right.
• Submit URLs that contain or link to sexually explicit material, content that sexualises or exploits minors, content promoting hatred or violence against protected groups, content promoting self-harm, content that constitutes harassment of any individual, or any content that is illegal in Canada or the user's jurisdiction.

5. User-Submitted Content

"User Content" means anything you submit, post, or otherwise make available through the Service - including ratings, reviews, comments, URLs you submit for indexing, and any associated metadata.

• Ownership. You retain all ownership rights in your User Content. We do not claim ownership of your ratings, reviews, or other contributions.
• License to us. By submitting User Content, you grant The Online Reader a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, distribute, aggregate, and create derivative works from that content, solely as needed to operate, provide, and improve the Service (for example, displaying your rating on an article page or including it in aggregate scores).
• Your warranties. You represent and warrant that (a) you have the right to submit the User Content, (b) the content is accurate to the best of your knowledge, and (c) the content does not infringe the rights of any third party or violate any law.
• No obligation to display. We may, but are not obligated to, review, edit, refuse, or remove User Content at our discretion.
• Automated content screening. Submitted URLs are automatically screened against (a) a domain blocklist of sites known to host content prohibited under section 4, and (b) a third-party content classification service (OpenAI Moderation - see Privacy Policy section 5). Submissions that match the blocklist or are classified as prohibited are rejected and not added to the catalog. Submissions flagged as borderline may be held for human review before being published. Automated screening is provided on a best-effort basis and is not a guarantee that all prohibited content will be detected; user reports remain an important part of moderation.

6. Ratings & Reviews

• Ratings and reviews are subjective opinions and must reflect your genuine experience reading or using the article in question.
• Do not rate articles you have not read, do not submit ratings on behalf of others, and do not coordinate with others to inflate or deflate scores.
• We may remove ratings or reviews that violate the Acceptable Use rules in section 4, or that we reasonably believe to be fraudulent, manipulative, or otherwise inauthentic. In severe or repeated cases, we may suspend or terminate the offending account.
• Aggregate ratings displayed on article pages are computed from authentic user submissions and may change over time as new ratings are added or invalid ones are removed.

7. Intellectual Property

The Service - including the source code, design, layout, branding, the "The Online Reader" name and logo, and all other materials we provide - is owned by The Online Reader and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual-property laws. Except for the limited license to use the Service granted to you by these Terms, no rights are granted to you in or to the Service. User Content remains the property of the user who submitted it, subject to the license described in section 5.

8. Termination

• By us. We may suspend or terminate your account, or restrict your access to the Service, at any time and without notice if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms or applicable law, or if your use of the Service poses a risk to other users, the Service, or us.
• By you. You may delete your account at any time from your profile page (which calls our account-deletion endpoint at /api/v1/users/me/account/delete). Account deletion follows a 30-day grace period during which the deletion can be cancelled, after which the account and personal data are permanently removed as described in our Privacy Policy.
• Effect of termination. Sections that by their nature should survive termination - including User-Submitted Content (section 5), Intellectual Property (section 7), Disclaimers (section 9), Limitation of Liability (section 10), Indemnification (section 11), and Governing Law (section 13) - will survive.

9. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTIES ARISING OUT OF COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or free of harmful components, or that ratings, reviews, or any other content on the Service are accurate, complete, or reliable. You use the Service at your own risk.

10. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL THE ONLINE READER BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE, OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THESE TERMS OR YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR TOTAL CUMULATIVE LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE LESSER OF (A) THE AMOUNTS YOU HAVE PAID TO US FOR THE SERVICE IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE CLAIM, OR (B) FIFTY CANADIAN DOLLARS (CAD $50). Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages; in those jurisdictions our liability is limited to the smallest extent permitted by law.

11. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless The Online Reader from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or in any way connected with (a) your User Content, (b) your use of the Service, (c) your violation of these Terms, or (d) your violation of any third-party right, including any intellectual-property or privacy right. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defence and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in which case you agree to cooperate with our defence.

12. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the "Effective" date at the top of this page. For material changes that affect your rights, we will provide a more prominent notice (for example, by email or an in-app announcement). Your continued use of the Service after the updated Terms take effect constitutes your acceptance of the updated Terms. If you do not agree, you must stop using the Service and may delete your account.

13. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. You agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be brought exclusively in the courts located in Ontario, Canada, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts. Nothing in this section limits any non-waivable rights you may have under the laws of your place of residence.

14. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email us at [email protected], or use the contact form.