Terms and Conditions
1. About
This Terms and Conditions is a contract between you (the "User", “You”) and Associate.com LTD (“Associate.com LTD” or “the Company”), a company incorporated in Switzerland, registered under the number CHE-336.404.342 and whose address is Associate.com AG, c/o MJP Partners AG, Bahnhofstrasse 20, 6300 Zug, Switzerland. It applies to your use of the Associate.com website, and any of the services provided to you by the Company .
1.1. Governing Laws
These Terms of Service shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of Switzerland.
1.2. Changes
The company may amend these Terms and Conditions at posting on the ASSOCIATE.COM Website and emailing you the new version of the Terms and Conditions. By continuing to access or use the ASSOCIATE.COM Services, you agree to be bound by the Terms. If you do not agree, you must close your ASSOCIATE.COM Account and cease accessing or using the ASSOCIATE.COM Services. You will not be charged for terminating your relationship with ASSOCIATE.COM for this reason.
2. Definitions
- Terms and Conditions
- means this document.
- User, You
- A natural person or moral person that accepted this contract.
- ASSOCIATE.COM
- We, the Company: ASSOCIATE.COM AG, a company incorporated in Switzerland registered under CHE-336.404.342 whose address is Associate.com AG, c/o MJP Partners AG, Bahnhofstrasse 20, 6300 Zug, Switzerland
- Services
- Any of the services provided to you by ASSOCIATE.COM through the Website at Associate.com.
- Website
- Websites located at https://www.associate.com and owned and operated by ASSOCIATE.COM LTD.
- Account
- A user account opened at ASSOCIATE.COM.
- Means of Access
- email addresses, passwords, double authentication tokens, and any other information used to authenticate with ASSOCIATE.COM.
- Association
- Community project in which decisions are taken by vote of Members.
- Member
- A User that joined an Association, that was accepted by the group Administrator, and is not more than 3 months late for paying his membership fee.
- Administrator
- Member of an Association with extra privileges like publishing posts, submitting Payment Requests, accepting and rejecting membership requests, and initiating Votes.
- Personal Information
- Information that can be related directly to a person. It includes email password, First name, Last name, date of birth, address details, phone number, service usage history, IP address, personal statistics, and communications.
- Objectives
- Goals defined at the creation of the Association. Administrators agree to only act in the interest of these Goals on the Website.
- Association Balance
- Amount of money that is available to the Association.
- Voting Threshold
- Percentage of Members required to initiate a Vote in an Association.
- Resolution
- A decision inside a vote or a proposal. Decisions are applied automatically by Association.com if voted favor.
- Proposal
- List of Resolution submitted by a Member. A Proposal will become a Vote, if more than the Voting Threshold % Members approve it.
- Vote
- Decision process between Members. A Vote lasts for 2 weeks maximum and starts by sending all Members a notification.
- Archived Votes
- Votes that are terminated
3. Services
Your ASSOCIATE.COM Account encompasses the following ASSOCIATE.COM Services:
- An account that allows users to create or join one or more Associations. And optionally:
- The participation in one or more Association as a Member.
- The participation in one or more Association as a Administrator
3.1. Account
To create an Account, you need and enter your details such as e-mail address, password, first name, last name, address, date of birth, and optionally a profile picture. You also need to accept our Term and Conditions. The full list of Personal Information that we collect is available in our Privacy Policy on our website.
With this Account you may now create one or more Associations, by entering all the requested information like, Association Name, Objectives, Short Description and all other parameters required by the forms.
With this Account you may also join one or more Associations.
Association are strictly based around one membership per person. You agree to never join an Association multiple times, for example using multiple different accounts. Violations will cause you to be removed or banned from Website.
3.2. Association
An Association is a group of Members united to achieve common goals (the “Objectives”) using the Associate.com Website and only the Website.
You agree that any action outside the platform is the personal responsibility of the initiator, and not the responsibility of Associate.com.
Decisions of the Associations are taken by Vote. If you are Member and have paid your fee, you will have 1 vote in each decision of the Associations.
An Association has also “Voting Threshold” value which is the percentage of Members required to initiate a Vote.
3.2.1. Voting
Associate.com will initiate a Vote:
- When an Administrator requests it
- When at least {Voting Threshold}% of Members click on “Yes I want a vote” for a specific Proposal.
A vote lasts for two weeks and the result is computed at the end. Associate.com will execute it earlier if the result is decided (when the required percentage of Total Members already voted in favor or against).
Members or Administrations can add the following type of Resolutions to a Proposal or Vote:
| Resolution | Executed Automatically by Associate.com | Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| Free Form Text | No | N.A. |
| Add an Administrator | Yes | InFavor>50% of Expressed Members |
| Remove an Administrator | Yes | InFavor>50% of Expressed Members |
| Change the membership fee | Yes | InFavor>50% of Expressed Members |
| Change the voting threshold | Yes | InFavor>50% of Expressed Members |
| Change the Objectives | Yes | InFavor>66% of Total Members |
| Dissolve the Association | Yes | InFavor>66% of Total Members |
- Expressed Members
- The percentage of members that voted during the 2 week Vote
- Total Members
- The total members in the Association
- InFavor
- of Votes that voted “Yes”
3.3. Members of an Associations
3.3.1. Joining and Creating
Users may request to join a one or more Association. An Administrator of the Association may accept or reject the request. In case the Administrator does not accept the request within one week, it is automatically rejected by the platform. Associate.com does not take part in the decision. Administrator are not allowed to discriminate based on the conditions explained in section 4. If you estimate that you have been rejected based on one of these conditions, you can submit a complaint to Associate.com as described in section 5
Users may also create an Association themselves. They will then automatically become Administrator. Associate.com will then approve or rejects the new Association based on the information given (Objectives, Description, Member information etc…). You accept to not create an Association with Objectives linked to activities listed in section 6.
3.3.1. Membership fees
Some Associations are free, but others require you to pay a monthly fee displayed on the Association Page. If a Fee is required, the Fee is payed to Associate.com and Associate.com credits this amount to the Association Balance after subtracting the credit card fees.
This fee can never be returned to the Member. Associate.com agrees to spend these funds according to the Objective defined in the Association. If the Association is dissolved, Associate.com will donate the funds to an Association or an Association outside the platform with similar Objectives.
The fee will be charged to your credit card the first day of each Month. The first month, the Member will only be charged pro rata the number of days remaining in the month (compared to the total number of days in the month), with a minimum of 0.5EUR due to credit card processing fees.
If your membership request was rejected by the Administrator, Associate.com will refund you.
If the creation of your Association was rejected, Associate.com will refund all the Members and Pending Members.
Missing or late payments
If the you didn't pay your Membership fee for some Association, Associate.com will block you from participating in any Association activity including Proposals, Votes, Posts or Payment Requests until the situation is resolved. If you want to re-enable the account, you agree to pay your fee for the full period.
If after 3 months the fee is still not paid, Associate.com will removes you as Member of the Association. The same holds if you are an Administrator of the Association and you will be removed of you Administrator permissions. These 3 months will not be due.
3.3.1. Proposals
Any Member that has paid his membership fee can submit a Proposal to an Association.
3.4. Administrator of an Associations
If you are an Administrator of an Association, Associate.com will give you some extra permissions in this Association including:
- Accept or Reject a membership request
- Initiate a Vote
- Request a Payment
- Post a Message on the group
When acting as an Administrator, you agree, to the best of your knowledge, to only act in the interest of the Objectives of the Association and According to the Archived Votes.
You agree not to use your extra permission in the purpose of illegal activities or activities forbidden by Associate.com Terms in Conditions listed in section 6
You also agree not to discriminate members based on conditions listed in section 4.
You agree not to extract or use for any other purposes than the Objectives any Personal Information that you might have access to from the Website and according to our Privacy Policy.
In case of Violation, Associate.com can may decide to remove you as an Administrator or ban you from becoming an Administrator of any Association.
4. Discrimination
You agree in you Administrator role not to discriminate membership requests based on religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation or having a handicap.
5. Complaints
If you are aware Association or Administrators not acting according to the what is allowed by the Law or according to these Terms in Conditions, in particular Membership discrimination disallowed by section 4., Payment that might not be in the compatible with the Objectives of the Association, Posts or Votes promoting illegal of forbidden activity, please send a message to [email protected] describing the situation. Associate.com will analyze it, and may decide to block a payment in case of a valid concern to remove an Administrator, ban someone becoming an Administrator. In case of repeated violations, Associate.com might decide to dissolve the Association.
6. Excluded Activities
Activities illegal by the laws of Switzerland are not allowed on Associated.com and Associate.com also excludes some extra topics.
The following topics are activities are strictly prohibited:
- Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing
- Drugs and narcotics, or equipment to make or use drugs
- Counterfeit or Unauthorised Goods
- Adult Content and Services
- Intellectual Property or Proprietary Rights Infringement
- Multi-level Marketing like pyramid schemes
- Unfair or deceptive practices
- Fake News and Disinformation
Associate.com will not approve Association having Objectives including these activities or related activities and might Dissolve Association that changes Objectives to include them.
7. General Provisions
7.1. Limitation of Liability
To the extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall associate.com , be liable for lost profits or any special, incidental, consequential, or exemplary damages arising out of or in connection with the Associate.com site, the Associate.com services, or these Terms and Conditions. The extent permitted by law, the maximum aggregate liability of Associate.com is limited to the lower of (1) the actual amount of direct damages, and (2) the total amount paid to associate.com for its services during the twelve months prior to the event giving rise to liability.
7.2. No Warranty
The Associate.com services are provided "as is" and "as available" basis without any representation or warranty, whether express, implied or statutory. Associate.com makes no warranty that access to any part of associate.com services will meet your requirements or be uninterrupted. operation of our site may be suspended for maintenance or upgrade or interfered with by numerous factors outside of our control. Associate.com will make reasonable efforts to ensure that all requests are processed in a timely manner but makes no representations or warranties regarding the amount of time required to complete the corresponding request.