Effective date: 10/01/2016
Our affiliates are very important to us. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let us know. We are strong believers in straight-forward and honest communication. For the quickest results contact us here. You can also reach us via phone toll free at 1-800-481-2193.
PLEASE READ THE ENTIRE AGREEMENT.
YOU MAY PRINT THIS PAGE FOR YOUR RECORDS.
THIS IS A LEGAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN YOU AND TRANSCRIPTION CERTIFICATION INSTITUTE OR TCI ("Company").
BY SUBMITTING THE ONLINE APPLICATION, AND BY REFERRING VISITORS, YOU ARE AGREEING THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT AND THAT YOU AGREE TO BE LEGALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR EACH AND EVERY TERM AND CONDITION.
1. Overview
This Agreement contains the complete terms and conditions governing your relationship with the Company and, if applicable, your participation in the TCI Affiliate Program (the "Program"). The purpose of this Agreement is to allow HTML linking between your web site and the TCI web site for the purpose of referring potential customers to TCI. Please note that throughout this Agreement, "we," "us," and "our" refer to TCI, and "you," "your," and "yours" refer to the Affiliate.
You must be approved by the Company before your participation in TCI's Affiliate Program. Company reserves the right to withhold or refuse approval for any reason or for no reason. Once you have been approved, your continued right to participate is conditioned upon the ongoing compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement. Failure of the Affiliate to observe the terms and conditions of this Agreement, the privacy policy or acceptable use policy posted on Company's Site will disqualify Affiliate from participating in the Program. Publisher shall promptly notify Company in the event of a material change in its business practices or strategy. Approval may be withdrawn by Company, at any time for any reason.
2. Affiliate Obligations
2.1. To begin the enrollment process, you will complete and submit the online application at the TCI website. We will evaluate your application at our convenience, which is at a minimum 72 hours after submission. We may reject your application at our sole discretion.
We will reject your application or cancel an existing affiliate account if we determine that your site is unsuitable for our Program, including if it:
You may not create or design your website or any other website that you operate, explicitly or implied in a manner which resembles our website nor design your website in a manner which leads customers to believe you are TCI or any other affiliated business.
2.2. All affiliates that send advertisements via email must have the consent of the recipient to send such email and shall maintain records evidencing such consent including, without limitation: (a) Consumer opt-in date; (b) Registration source; (c) First name; (d) Last name; (e) Email address; (f) Privacy Policy of Source Site; (g) Any other information collected; and (h) affiliate will supply such records to Company within one (1) business day of a request.
All affiliates shall maintain and post in a conspicuous manner on all its websites involved in the Programs, a privacy policy that clearly and adequately describes how consumer information is collected and used. The privacy policy must fully and accurately disclose your use of third-party technology, use of cookies, and options for discontinuing use of such cookies. Company reserves the right to review your privacy policy as necessary. Failure to have a privacy policy may result in termination from the Program.
2.3. As a member of TCI's Affiliate Program, you will have access to Affiliate Control Panel. Here you will be able to review our Program's details and currently active campaigns, download HTML code for text links and banner creatives (that provide for links to landing pages within the TCI web site). In order for us to accurately keep track of all guest visits from your site to ours, you must use the HTML code that we provide for each banner, text link, or other affiliate link we provide you with.
2.4. TCI reserves the right, at any time, to review your placement and reject the use of links and require that you change the placement or use to comply with the guidelines provided to you.
2.5. The maintenance and the updating of your site will be your responsibility. We may monitor your site as we feel necessary to make sure that it is up-to-date, for compliance with these terms of use, for compliance with applicable law, and/or to notify you of any changes that we feel should enhance your performance.
2.6. It is entirely your responsibility to comply with all applicable intellectual property and other laws that pertain to your site. You must have express permission to use any person's copyrighted material, whether it be a writing, an image, or any other copyrightable work. We will not be responsible (and you will be solely responsible) if you use another person's copyrighted material or other intellectual property in violation of the law or any third party rights.
2.7. It is your obligation to review the Terms of Service for the Affiliate Program regularly. You must stay aware of any changes to the TCI Affiliate Terms of Service, although TCI will use its reasonable efforts to notify you of any changes.
3. TCI Rights and Obligations
3.1. We have the right to monitor your site at any time to determine if you are following the terms and conditions of this Agreement. We may notify you of any changes to your site that we feel should be made, or to make sure that your links to our web site are appropriate and to notify further you of any changes that we feel should be made. If you do not make the changes to your site that we feel are necessary, we reserve the right to terminate your participation in the Program.
3.2. Company actively monitors traffic for fraud. If fraud is detected, your account will be made inactive pending further investigation. Fraud traffic includes but is not limited to, click-through or conversion rates that are much higher than industry averages and where solid justification for such higher click-through or conversion rates is not evident to the reasonable satisfaction of Company; fraudulent leads as determined and reported by Company's clients; use of fake redirects, automated software, and/or other fraudulent mechanisms to generate payable actions from the Programs.
If you fraudulently add leads or clicks, or inflates leads or clicks by fraudulent traffic generation, as determined solely by Company, you will forfeit your entire commission for all Programs and your account will be terminated. In addition, in the event that you have already received payment for fraudulent activities, Company reserves the right to seek credit or remedy from future earnings or to demand re-imbursement from you.
TCI reserves the right to terminate this Agreement and your participation in the TCI Affiliate Program immediately and without notice to you should you commit fraud in your use of the TCI Affiliate Program or should you abuse this program in any way. If such fraud or abuse is detected, TCI shall not be liable to you for any commissions for such fraudulent sales.
4. Term and Termination
This Agreement will begin upon our acceptance of your affiliate application, and will continue unless terminated hereunder. Either you or we may end this Agreement on three (3) business days' written advance notice to the other party, with or without cause Termination notice may be provided via email and will be effective immediately, including that you must immediately cease all advertising activities. All moneys then due will be paid during the next billing cycle, subject to any final accounting.
5. Modification
We may modify any of the terms and conditions in this Agreement at any time at our sole discretion. In such event, you will be notified by email, (which may be provided by email to the email address provided in the course of your registration with the Company). Modifications may include, but are not limited to, changes in the payment procedures and the TCI Affiliate Program rules. If any modification is unacceptable to you, you may terminate this Agreement. Your continued participation in the Program following the email of the change notice and the new Agreement on our site will indicate your agreement to the changes.
6. Commissions & Payment
6.1. TCI is a PPS (pay-per-sale) affiliate program. We pay affiliates 35% commission.
6.2. Affiliates are paid about every 30 days by a company check, approximately 15 days after the prior period, provided that Company may, in its discretion, withhold payments until such time as its clients have paid Company for the Program. In addition to any other remedies that may be available to Company, in the event of any breaches by you of this Agreement, you shall forfeit your rights to any amounts owed by Company to you. All payments are made in U.S. dollars only.
6.3. Company shall compile, calculate and electronically deliver data required to determine your billing and compensation. Any questions or disputes regarding the data or payout provided by Company needs to be submitted in writing within five (5) business days of receipt, otherwise the information will be deemed accurate and accepted as such by you.
6.4. TCI will only pay Affiliates for commissions that are earned and tracked through their termination as an Affiliate. Any Affiliate that is removed from the program because of non-compliant behavior will not receive commissions from any referred customers.
6.5. If commission does not exceed $100 for U.S. based affiliates or $250 for all others during prior period, TCI reserves the right to hold payment until commissions accumulate to the minimum amount.
6.6. As required by U.S. Law, U.S. Residents will be required to submit a W-9 form (as required by the Internal Revenue Service).
7. Access to Affiliate Control Panel
You will create login id (your email address) and password so that you may enter your secure affiliate account interface. You will be able to change your password on your first log-in.
You may not share your password with any other person. You are responsible for any actions taken through the use of your password.
8. Promotion Restrictions
8.1. You are free to promote your own websites, but any promotion mentioning TCI could be perceived by the public or the press as a joint effort. To avoid confusion, the following promotional restrictions are to be followed by all participating affiliates.
Certain forms of advertising are always prohibited by TCI. For example, advertising commonly referred to as "spamming" is unacceptable to us and could cause damage to our name. Other generally prohibited forms of advertising include the use of unsolicited commercial email (UCE), postings to non-commercial newsgroups and cross-posting to multiple newsgroups at once. In addition, you may not advertise in any way that effectively conceals or misrepresents your identity, your domain name, or your return email address. You may use mailings to customers to promote TCI so long as the recipient is already a customer or subscriber of your services or web site, and recipients have the option to remove themselves from future mailings. Also, you may post to newsgroups to promote TCI so long as the news group specifically welcomes commercial messages. At all times, you must clearly represent yourself and your web sites as independent from TCI and its clients. If it comes to our attention that you are spamming, we will consider that cause for immediate termination of this Agreement and your participation in the TCI Affiliate Program. Any pending balances owed to you will not be paid if your account may be forfeited because of unacceptable advertising.
8.2. Affiliates that advertise among other keywords or exclusively bid in their pay-per-click campaigns on keywords such as TCI, TCI.com, www.TCI.com, and/or any misspellings or similar alterations of these - be it separately or in combination with other keywords - will be considered trademark violators, and will be banned from TCI's Affiliate Program. We will do everything possible to contact the affiliate prior to the ban. However, we reserve the right to expel any trademark violator from our affiliate program without prior notice, and on the first occurrence of such pay-per-click bidding behavior.
8.3. Affiliates are prohibited from keying in prospect's information into the lead form with the intent of misrepresenting or falsifying leads.
8.4. Affiliate shall not transmit any so-called "interstitials," "Parasiteware™," "Parasitic Marketing," "Shopping Assistance Application," "Toolbar Installations and/or Add-ons," "Shopping Wallets" or "deceptive pop-ups and/or pop-unders" to consumers from the time the consumer clicks on a qualifying link until such time as the consumer has fully exited Merchant's site (i.e., no page from our site or any TCI's content or branding is visible on the end-user's screen). As used herein a. "Parasiteware™" and "Parasitic Marketing" shall mean an application that (a) through accidental or direct intent causes the overwriting of affiliate and non-affiliate commission tracking cookies through any other means than a customer initiated click on a qualifying link on a web page or email; (b) intercepts searches to redirect traffic through an installed software, thereby causing, pop ups, commission tracking cookies to be put in place or other commission tracking cookies to be overwritten where a user would under normal circumstances have arrived at the same destination through the results given by the search (search engines being, but not limited to, Google, Bing, Yahoo, AOL and similar search or directory engines); (c) set commission tracking cookies through loading of TCI's site in IFrames, hidden links and automatic pop ups that open TCI's site; (d) targets text on web sites, other than those web sites 100% owned by the application owner, for the purpose of contextual marketing; (e) removes, replaces or blocks the visibility of Affiliate banners with any other banners, other than those that are on web sites 100% owned by the owner of the application.
8.5. We strongly advise affiliates to stay compliant with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines on testimonials and endorsements. For example, all endorsements, reviews, testimonials on TCI's products and services, as well as relationships between other types of content websites (forums, blogs, microblogs and other Social Media channels) and TCI must be clearly disclosed in a separate policy on the affiliate sites. The FTC has noted that "when there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product" it is imperative that such connection is "fully disclosed". FTC also scrutinizes that relationship as an endorser-sponsor light, and believes that the end user has the right to understand that an endorser-sponsor relationship exists full text here. We share the concept and concern of the FTC's approach, and will not tolerate any affiliates that fail to adhere to the FTC's guidance. We reserve the right to terminate our relationship with any non-compliant affiliates.
8.6. TCI affiliates are rewarded for networking and bringing in new customers through their own marketing efforts. This includes forms of online payment (Credit/Debit cards) but also checks and money orders.
9. Grant of Licenses; Confidentiality
9.1. Company grants to you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to (i) access our site through HTML links solely in accordance with the terms of this Agreement and (ii) solely in connection with such links, to use our logos, trade names, trademarks, and similar identifying material (collectively, the "Licensed Materials") that we provide to you or authorize for such purpose. You are only entitled to use the Licensed Materials to the extent that you are a member in good standing of TCI's Affiliate Program. You agree that all uses of the Licensed Materials will be on behalf of TCI and the good will associated therewith (including any data derived from the Program) will inure to the sole benefit of TCI.
Confidentiality. Each party agrees to use the other party's Confidential Information solely for the purposes contemplated by this Agreement, and to refrain from disclosing the other party's Confidential Information to any third-party, unless (a) any disclosure is necessary and permitted in connection with the receiving party's performance of its obligations or exercise of its rights under this Agreement or any other agreement between the parties; (b) any disclosure is required by applicable law; provided, that the receiving party uses reasonable efforts to give the disclosing party reasonable advance notice thereof so as to afford the disclosing party an opportunity to intervene and seek an order or other appropriate relief for the protection of its Confidential Information from any unauthorized use or disclosure; or (c) any disclosure is made with the consent of the disclosing party. For the purposes of this Agreement "Confidential Information" includes, without limitation, the terms of this Agreement (including pricing) and information regarding existing or contemplated service, products, Advertisers, processes, techniques, or know-how, or any information or data developed pursuant to the performance of the services. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Publisher agrees that Company may divulge its personal and/or otherwise Confidential Information to an Advertiser, agency, legal or regulatory authority, person or entity relating to investigations, claims or actions that Publisher has violated this Agreement or any applicable law or regulation.
Each party reserves all of its respective rights in the proprietary materials covered by this license. Other than the license granted in this Agreement, each party retains all right, title, and interest to its respective rights and no right, title, or interest is transferred to the other.
10. Disclaimer
TCI MAKES NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES REGARDING TCI SERVICE AND WEB SITE OR THE PRODUCTS OR SERVICES PROVIDED THEREIN. ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TCI ABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED AND EXCLUDED. IN ADDITION, WE MAKE NO REPRESENTATION THAT THE OPERATION OF OUR SITE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE, AND WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR THE CONSEQUENCES OF ANY INTERRUPTIONS OR ERRORS.
11. Representations and Warranties
You represent and warrant that:
11.1. This Agreement has been duly and validly executed and delivered by you and constitutes your legal, valid, and binding obligation, enforceable against you in accordance with its terms;
11.2. You have the full right, power, and authority to enter into and be bound by the terms and conditions of this Agreement and to perform your obligations under this Agreement, without the approval or consent of any other party;
11.3. You have sufficient right, title, and interest in and to the rights granted to us in this Agreement.
12. Limitations of Liability
WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU WITH RESPECT TO ANY SUBJECT MATTER OF THIS AGREEMENT UNDER ANY CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, TORT, STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHER LEGAL OR EQUITABLE THEORY FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOSS OF REVENUE OR GOODWILL OR ANTICIPATED PROFITS OR LOST BUSINESS), EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. FURTHER, NOTWITHSTANDING ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY CONTAINED IN THIS AGREEMENT, IN NO EVENT SHALL COMPANY'S CUMULATIVE LIABILITY TO YOU ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THIS AGREEMENT, WHETHER BASED IN CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, TORT OR OTHER LEGAL OR EQUITABLE THEORY, EXCEED THE TOTAL COMMISSION FEES PAID TO YOU UNDER THIS AGREEMENT.
13. Indemnification
You hereby agree to indemnify and hold harmless TCI and their subsidiaries and affiliates, and their directors, officers, employees, agents, shareholders, partners, members, and other owners, against any and all claims, actions, demands, liabilities, losses, damages, judgments, settlements, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) (any or all of the foregoing hereinafter referred to as "Losses") insofar as such Losses (or actions in respect thereof) arise out of or are based on (i) any claim that your infringed on any trademark, trade name, service mark, copyright, license, intellectual property, or other proprietary right of any third party, (ii) any misrepresentation of a representation or warranty or breach of a covenant and agreement made by you herein, or (iii) any claim related to your site.
You will immediately notify Company of any current, impending, or potential legal action against it by a third party for matters relating to email, email complaints, email deployment, and violations of CAN-SPAM. Company reserves the right, at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by the indemnifying party hereunder.
14. Miscellaneous
14.1. You agree that you are an independent contractor, and nothing in this Agreement will create any partnership, joint venture, agency, franchise, sales representative, or employment relationship between you and TCI. You will have no authority to make or accept any offers or representations on our behalf. You will not make any statement, whether on your site or any other of site or otherwise, that reasonably would contradict anything in this section.
14.2. Neither party may assign its rights or obligations under this Agreement to any party, except, that the assignment to a third party who obtains all or substantially all of the business or assets of a party shall be permitted subject to the reasonable consent of the other party (i.e. the non-assigning party).
14.3. This Agreement shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of the State of California without regard to the conflicts of laws and principles thereof. Further, the parties hereby consent to the general jurisdiction of the federal and state courts located in Santa Ana, California and agree that any action or proceeding concerning this Agreement shall be brought exclusively in such courts.
14.4. You may not amend or waive any provision of this Agreement unless in writing and signed by both parties.
14.5. This Agreement represents the entire agreement between us and you, and shall supersede all prior agreements and communications of the parties, oral or written.
14.6. The headings and titles contained in this Agreement are included for convenience only, and shall not limit or otherwise affect the terms of this Agreement.
14.7. If any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, that provision shall be eliminated or limited to the minimum extent necessary such that the intent of the parties is effectuated, and the remainder of this agreement shall have full force and effect.
