TERMS OF USE

The following terms and conditions (collectively, the “Terms”) constitute an agreement for the use of the website http://www.veterinaryha.org (the “Website”). By accessing or otherwise using this Website, you agree to be bound contractually by these Terms and the Privacy Policy, incorporated herein by reference. Your affirmative act of using this Website and/or registering with the Website constitutes your electronic signature to these Terms and your consent to enter into agreements with us electronically.

1. Parties. The parties to these Terms are you, and the owner and operator of this Website: VETERINARY HOSPITALS ASSOCIATION (VHA). All references to “we”, “us”, or “this Website” shall be construed to mean VHA.
2. Modification of Terms. We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time, and without prior notice, by posting amended Terms that are always accessible through the “Terms of Use” link on this Website’s home page. Your continued use of this Website indicates your acceptance of the amended Terms. You should check these Terms through this link periodically for modifications. We may also, from time to time, issue additional guidelines and rules with respect to using our Website. We will notify you on the Website when we issue any such additional information. By using our Website, you agree that you will comply with any such additional guidelines and rules.
3. License. VHA grants you a limited non-exclusive, non-transferable, and revocable license to access and use the Website, only in connection with fostering professional development of the global veterinary healthcare community and related uses. You may not access or use this Website for purposes of resale. This license terminates automatically if you breach these Terms.
4. Prohibited Activities. You do not have the right to modify this Website, its content, or any copyright or other proprietary notices. Unauthorized use of this Website or any content may violate copyright laws, trademark laws, the laws of privacy and publicity, and communications regulations and statutes. You may not copy, distribute, transfer, or transmit this Website or its content in any form without VHA’s prior written permission. Further, the following activities are also expressly prohibited without VHA’s prior written permission: (i) any non-personal or commercial use of the Website, including without limitation, selling any information contained on this Website to third parties, compiling such information into a list for purposes of selling same, or sending e-mail communications to any parties listed on the Website with the intent of marketing, advertising, selling or distributing your products or services or the products or services of others; (ii) use of any robot, spider, other automatic device, or manual process to monitor or copy this Website or any of its content; (iii) attempting to gain unauthorized access to any of our services, user accounts, computer systems or networks through hacking, password mining or other means; (iv) “mirroring” this Website or any content on any other server; (v) reverse engineering, attempting to derive source code from, or translating for commercial purposes any part of the Website; (vi) collection or use of information for a supplier of competitive or comparable products or services; (v) misusing the Website or the services we provide, creating fraudulent member accounts, or collecting or storing personal information about other users; (vi) any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on this Website or otherwise interferes with its functioning; and (vii) any other action that may reasonably and adversely jeopardize VHA’s services or reputation.
5. Membership. Portions of this Website are viewable without registration or membership with VHA, but the majority of our services and our Website is available only to registered members. By registering, you authorize us to use and disclose any information you provide to us, including any of your personal information, for purposes of allowing us to provide our services to you and as otherwise disclosed in our Privacy Policy. As part of the registration process, you will provide an email address and create a password for your account. This information should be kept private and you should not share this information with any other parties that you do not wish to have access to your account information. If you learn that your access information has been stolen, lost, or otherwise compromised, you must notify us immediately.
6. Posting To Public Areas of This Website. We will not treat information that you post to areas of this Website that are viewable by others (for example, to a forum or chat-room) as confidential or proprietary. By posting information to public areas of this Website, you agree that we may use that information without any restrictions. However, you shall be solely responsible for any such information, material or content, whether created by or for you, and the consequences of posting or publishing it on the Website. You may not post any infringing, threatening, defamatory, sexually graphic, inflammatory, profane, or other inappropriate material. We have no obligation to monitor posts to this Website; however, we reserve the right to review such posts and to remove any material that, in our sole judgment, is not appropriate.

   By using this site, you agree that you will create only one account for use of this website, and you will not use the website for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by the Terms of Use. You may not use the website in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden, or impair this website or interfere with any other party’s use of this website or services. You may not seek by any means to obtain any materials or information through the website not intentionally made available to you through the website.

7. Submissions: You hereby grant to VHA the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display all content, remarks, suggestions, ideas, graphics, reviews or comments, advertisements or listings for products and/or services, or other information communicated to VHA through this website (together, the “Submission”), and to incorporate any Submission in other works in any form, media, or technology now known or later developed. VHA will not be required to treat any Submission as confidential, and may use any Submission in its business (including without limitation, for products or advertising) without incurring any liability for royalties or any other consideration of any kind, and will not incur any liability as a result of any similarities that may appear in future VHA operations.

   You agree that all Submissions provided on this website are the sole responsibility of the person or entity from which the Submission originated, and that you are responsible for each Submission that you post on this website. As VHA may make modifications of this website, you agree that VHA may at any time delete, refuse or move Submissions posted to the website for any reason.

8. Employment Through Classifieds. VHA will utilize best practices to ensure that jobs presented on VHA’s website are genuine opportunities, which are available and as described. However, VHA is not responsible for the employment opportunities that are made available through the platform. VHA gives no warranty as to the suitability of a career or career advertisement, or as to their accuracy, completeness, or reliability.
9. No Guaranty or Endorsement. Unless expressly stated by us to the contrary in writing, we do not endorse, recommend or support any persons, entities, organizations, or companies (such as, for example, conference participants, sponsors, or partners) that we may list or mention on this Website.
10. Monitoring. We reserve the right, but not the obligation, to monitor your access and use of this Website without notification to you. We may record or log your use in a manner as set out in our Privacy Policy.
11. Ownership. The material and content provided on this Website is protected by law, including, but not limited to, United States copyright law and international treaties. The copyright in the content of this Website is owned by VHA. Except for the limited rights granted above, all other rights are reserved. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners. You may not copy, modify, distribute, download, display, transfer, post, remove or attempt to do any of the foregoing with respect to any copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property contained on this Website or on any other content associated with the services we provide.
12. Access to Website. We do not guarantee that you will be able to access or use the Website at times or locations of your choosing. We may perform updates or maintenance to the Website from time to time, and nothing herein shall in any way modify or limit our right to perform such maintenance and other services even if such services would temporarily restrict your access to the Website
13. Links to This Website. VHA grants you a limited, revocable, and nonexclusive right to create a hyperlink to the home page of this Website so long as the link does not portray VHA or its products or services in a false, misleading, derogatory, or offensive matter as determined by VHA in its sole discretion. You may not use the VHA logo, VHA trademark, or VHA’s name or trademarks, or other proprietary graphic in the link without the prior written permission of VHA.
14. Links to Third-Party Web Sites. VHA does not review or control third-party Web sites that link to or from this Website, is not responsible for their content, and does not represent that their content is accurate or appropriate. Your use of such third party web sites is on your own initiative and at your own risk and may be subject to the other sites’ terms of use.
15. Participation In Promotions Of Advertisers. You may enter into correspondence with or participate in promotions of advertisers, if any, promoting their products, services or content on this Website (“Advertisers”). Any such correspondence or participation, including the delivery of and the payment for products, services or content, are solely between you and each Advertiser.
16. USA Patriot Act Notice. The U.S. federal USA Patriot Act (“USA Patriot Act”) provides generally for the operator of a communication host and law enforcement to be able to monitor any content, upon request of the operator. We anticipate fully complying with all our obligations, and availing ourselves of all our rights, under the USA Patriot Act.
17. Accuracy of Information and Disclaimer of Warranty. VHA has made every effort to present the content on this Website accurately, but additions, deletions and changes may occur. Except as may be provided in any separate agreements originating from this Website, products, services, and/or content on this Website is provided “as is”, and neither VHA nor its representatives make any representation or warranty with respect to such products, services, and/or content. EXCEPT AS MAY BE PROVIDED IN ANY SEPARATE WRITTEN AGREEMENT SIGNED BY THE PARTIES OR SEPARATE AGREEMENT ORIGINATING FROM THIS WEBSITE, VHA AND ITS REPRESENTATIVES SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM, TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, RELATING TO THIS SITE OR PRODUCTS, SERVICES AND/OR CONTENT ACQUIRED FROM THIS SITE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, COMPLETENESS, TIMELINESS, CORRECTNESS, NONINFRINGEMENT, OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. VHA ALSO DOES NOT IN ANY WAY REPRESENT OR WARRANT THAT THE WEBSITE WILL OPERATE ERROR-FREE, THAT LOSS OF DATA WILL NOT OCCUR, OR THAT THE WEBSITE IS FREE OF COMPUTER VIRUSES, CONTAMINANTS OR OTHER HARMFUL FILES.
18. Limitation of Liability. Under no circumstances will VHA or its affiliates have any liability with respect to any claims or damages (whether direct or indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or punitive) as a result of your access or use of (or inability to access or use) this Website or its content, even if they have been advised of the possibility of such damages. You access and use this Website at your own risk. IN NO EVENT SHALL WE BE LIABLE TO YOU (OR TO ANY THIRD PARTY CLAIMING UNDER OR THROUGH YOU) FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE WEBSITE. THESE EXCLUSIONS APPLY TO ANY CLAIMS FOR LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, LOSS OF GOODWILL, WORK STOPPAGE, COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION, OR ANY OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES OR LOSSES, EVEN IF WE KNEW OR SHOULD HAVE KNOWN OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN THOSE JURISDICTIONS THAT DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR THE LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, OUR LIABILITY SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
19. Indemnification. You hereby release, indemnify and hold VHA and its employees, directors, agents, and affiliates (collectively, the “VHA Indemnified Parties”) harmless from, and agree that VHA Indemnified Parties shall in no event be liable for, any claims, losses, damages or liabilities relating to (i) any inaccuracies, errors or omissions with respect to any information contained on the Website, (ii) any use or access of this Website or VHA’s services whatsoever by you or any person utilizing your identifying or access information; (iii) the violation of these Terms or the Privacy Policy by you or any person utilizing your identifying or access information; (iv) your violation, alleged or actual, of any third party right, including without limitation any copyright, property, or privacy right; (v) any claim that any material or content you uploaded or e-mailed to VHA or published on the Website caused damage to a third party; or (vi) your gross negligence or willful malfeasance. This indemnification obligation does not apply with respect to any claims, losses, damages or liabilities resulting from our own gross negligence or intentional misconduct. This indemnification obligation is in addition to other obligations set forth elsewhere in these Terms.
20. California Residents. IF YOU ARE A CALIFORNIA RESIDENT, YOU WAIVE YOUR RIGHTS WITH RESPECT TO CALIFORNIA CIVIL CODE SECTION 1542, WHICH SAYS “A GENERAL RELEASE DOES NOT EXTEND TO CLAIMS WHICH THE CREDITOR DOES NOT KNOW OR SUSPECT TO EXIST IN HIS FAVOR AT THE TIME OF EXECUTING THE RELEASE, WHICH, IF KNOWN BY HIM MUST HAVE MATERIALLY AFFECTED HIS SETTLEMENT WITH THE DEBTOR”.
21. Jurisdiction And Venue. The courts of Dakota County in the State of Minnesota, USA, and the nearest U.S. District Court to Dakota County in the State of Minnesota, USA shall be the exclusive jurisdiction and venue for all legal proceedings relating to these Terms. You specifically agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of Dakota County in the State of Minnesota, USA, and the nearest U.S. District Court to Dakota County in the State of Minnesota, USA.
22. Controlling Law. These Terms shall be construed under the laws of the State of Minnesota, USA, excluding rules regarding conflicts of law.
23. Entirety; Waiver. These Terms, including the Privacy Policy and any supplemental terms, policies, guidelines, and rules that may be posted on the Website from time to time, embody the entire agreement between the parties concerning the matter dealt with herein and supersede all prior agreements or understandings as may relate to the subject matter hereof. No waiver of any of the provisions of these Terms shall be deemed to or shall constitute a waiver of any other provision hereof (whether or not similar).
24. Assignment. You may not assign or transfer any of your interest in or rights or obligations under these Terms without our prior written consent. We may, however, assign or transfer any of our rights or obligations under these Terms to any third party without your prior consent.
25. Intended For Use Only In The United States. This Website is controlled and operated by VHA from its offices within the United States. VHA does not represent that this Website is appropriate or available for use elsewhere; access to this Website from locations where its contents are illegal is not authorized. If you access this Website from outside the United States, you do so on your own initiative and at your own risk.
26. Force Majeure. We shall not be liable for damages for any delay or failure of delivery arising out of causes beyond their reasonable control and without their fault or negligence, including, but not limited to, Acts of God, acts of civil or military authority, fires, riots, wars, embargoes, Internet disruptions, hacker attacks, or communications failures.
27. Authority, Eligibility. In accordance with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, children under the age of 13 are prohibited from using this Website. Membership on this Website is null and void if prohibited by applicable law. By using the Website, you represent and warrant to us that you are at least 18 years of age, that you have the proper right, authority, and capacity to enter into these Terms on your behalf or on behalf of another person, and that you will abide by the terms and conditions contained in these Terms.
28. Security: Any usernames and/or passwords used for this website are for individual use only. You will be responsible for the security of your username and/or password (if any). VHA will be entitled to monitor your password and, at its discretion, require you to change it. If you use a password that VHA considers insecure, VHA will be entitled to require the password to be changed and/or terminate your account.
29. Privacy. Please review this Website’s Privacy Policy below which also governs your visit to this Website.

PRIVACY NOTICE

This privacy notice (the “Notice”) discloses the privacy practices for the web site found at http://www.veterinaryha.org (the “VHA Site”) as provided by Veterinary Hospitals Association (“VHA”). With this notice, VHA provides the VHA Site visitors the opportunity to know what information we collect about them and how they can limit the use of personally- identifiable information beyond the purposes for which they first provided it. At all times, however, VHA reserves the right to disclose information where required by law or to comply with valid legal process (such as a search warrant, subpoena or court order) to protect VHA’s rights or property, including without limitation in the event of a transfer of control of VHA or substantially all of its assets, or during emergencies where safety is at risk.

Whenever VHA changes this Notice, we will give reasonable notice of any material changes by posting a notice on the VHA Site home page. You should check this Notice regularly to see if there have been any changes.

This notice applies solely to information collected by the VHA Site. This Notice will advise you of the following:

1. What personally identifiable information is collected from you through the VHA Site, how it is used, and with whom it may be shared.
2. What choices are available to you regarding the use of your data.
3. The security procedures in place to protect against the misuse of your information.
4. How you can correct any inaccuracies in your information.

Information Collection, Use, and Sharing

As permitted by applicable law, VHA is the sole owner of the information collected on VHA Site. We only have access to collect information that you voluntarily give us via email or which your browser allows us to collect (as further described below), as well as other information that you might supply voluntarily, such as survey information

We may use this information to respond to an email or other inquiry or request, to help improve the VHA Site and our services, to customize your experience at the VHA Site, or to send updates or notices about VHA and the products we offer that we think may be of interest to you. We may also combine this information with other generally or publicly available information to help us identify visitors’ preferences or interests. We may provide information that identifies you to companies that assist us in these activities, such as helping us fulfill a request for a product, service, or information. Unless you ask us not to, we may contact you via email in the future to tell you about news, specials, new services, or changes to this privacy policy.

Google Analytics Advertising Features

From time to time, VHA will enable Google Analytics Advertising Features to measure the responses to our online ads. These may include ads for any VHA event or other properties, including Minnesota Veterinary Institute (MVI) and Minnesota Animal Health Foundation (MNAHF). In addition, we may run online ads on behalf of our veterinary industry partners. To measure responses to our ads, the VHA and our Industry Partners use first-party cookies (such as the Google Analytics cookie) or other first-party identifiers, and third-party cookies (such as the DoubleClick cookie) or other third-party identifiers together. You may opt-out of the Google Analytics Advertising Features — including Ads Settings, Ad Settings for mobile apps, or any other available means — by following these Google instructions.

Children’s Privacy

The VHA Site is intended for adults. VHA does not knowingly collect personal information from children under the age of 13. If VHA obtains knowledge that it has personally identifiable information about a child under 13 in retrievable form in its files, VHA will delete that information from our existing files.

Cookies & Computer-Related Information

VHA does not enable “cookies” on the VHA Site with one exception. A cookie is used in website system administration to keep track of the movement of an individual user from one screen to another. This information may be used by the VHA staff to detect and resolve website problems and to assist with customer support. VHA does not collect any personally identifiable information about site visitors in this process.

The VHA web server automatically collects information from your computer and navigation patterns when you visit our site, including your Internet Protocol (IP) address, the computer’s operating system, the type of browser you use, and the specific web pages visited during your connection. We may also track data such as the total number of visits to our website and the number of visitors to each page of our website.

We may use this information, in aggregate form, for system maintenance and to better understand how our visitors use our site and services so that we can make them better. VHA may also share statistical or demographic information in aggregate form with third parties for marketing or research purposes. This aggregate data will not contain any information that personally identifies you.

Your Access to and Control Over Information

You can do the following at any time by contacting us via the email address or phone number given on the VHA Site and below:

• See what data we have about you, if any.
• Change/correct any data we have about you.
• Have us delete any data we have about you.
• Express any concern you have about our use of your data.

HOW TO OPT-OUT: You may opt-out of receiving unsolicited commercial emails from VHA or choose at any time to remove your name, telephone and fax numbers, or postal and email addresses from any lists VHA may use to send notices or updates and elect not to receive correspondence from us by emailing us at customerservices@veterinaryha.org.

Please note that your request not to receive unsolicited commercial emails from VHA will not apply to messages that you request or that are not commercial in nature. For example, VHA may contact you concerning any purchases you have made with VHA, even if you opt-out of receiving unsolicited commercial messages.

Other Internet sites you visit, including those linked from the VHA Site, may have their own privacy policies or no policy at all. Other websites might use personal information differently than this Notice permits. We strongly encourage you to review the privacy policies of any site before providing any personal information.

Security

VHA takes precautions to protect your information and to keep any information you provide in a secure manner in accordance with industry practices.

If you purchase something from VHA online, your sensitive data, such as credit card data, is not stored at VHA but at the secure merchant services provider used by VHA. VHA has in place privacy protection control contractual obligations with these vendors designed to ensure that personal data is protected from unauthorized access or disclosure.

If you have questions about this privacy policy, you can contact us via telephone at (651) 451-6669 or via email at customerservice@veterinaryha.org.

Effective Date: February 4, 2021