User Agreement
This User Agreement describes the terms and conditions which you accept by using our Website or our Services. We have incorporated by reference some linked information.
In this User Agreement:
“Account” means the account associated with your email address.
“Buyer” means a User that purchases Seller Services or items from Sellers or identifies a Seller through the Website. A User may be both a Buyer and a Seller under this agreement.
“Contest” means a contest that is promoted by a Buyer and in respect of which a Seller can submit one or more entries via the Website.
“Contest Brief” means the document setting out the scope of a Contest, including but not limited to items such as a design brief.
“Contest Handover”, in respect of a Contest, means the agreement between the Buyer and one or more winning Seller(s) under which each Seller will transfer to the Buyer ownership of the winning entry or entries.
“Dispute Resolution Process” means the process to be followed by Buyers and Sellers in accordance with the Dispute Resolution Services.
“Entrant” means a Seller who has entered a Contest.
“Inactive Account” means a User Account that has not been logged into for a 6 month period, or other period determined by us from time to time.
“Intellectual Property Rights” means any and all intellectual property rights, existing worldwide and the subject matter of such rights, including: (a) patents, copyright, rights in circuit layouts (or similar rights), registered designs, registered and unregistered trademarks, and any right to have confidential information kept confidential; and (b) any application or right to apply for registration of any of the rights referred to in paragraph (a), whether or not such rights are registered or capable of being registered and whether existing under any laws, at common law or in equity.
“Local Job” or “Local Jobs” means a service we provide to match a Buyer with a Seller in relation to the provision of location specific services.
“Freelancing Payment” means a payment made by the Buyer for the provision of Seller Services under a User Contract and which will be released in accordance with the section “Freelancing Payments” of these terms and conditions.
“Project” or “Listing” means a job offered or awarded by a Buyer via the Website, which may include a Project or Contest listed by a Buyer, a Project awarded by a Buyer (for example through HireMe), a service bought by a Buyer from a Seller, and service awarded by a Buyer to a Seller as a result of a Contest or competition hosted via the Website.
“Seller” means a User that offers and provides services or identifies as a Seller through the Website. A User may be both a Buyer and a Seller under this agreement.
“Seller Services” means all services provided by a Seller.
“Freelancer Services” means all services provided by us to you.
User”, “you” or “your” means an individual who visits or uses the Website.
“User Contract” means: (1) this User Agreement; (2) the Code of Conduct as amended from time to time; (3) any other contractual provisions accepted by both the Seller and Buyer uploaded to the Website, to the extent not inconsistent with the User Agreement and the Code of Conduct; (4) the Project terms as awarded and accepted on the Website, to the extent not inconsistent with the User Agreement and the Code of Conduct; and (5) any other material incorporated by reference from time to time.
“Website” means the Websites operated by Freelancer and available at: Freelancer.com and any of its regional or other domains or properties, and any related Freelancer service, tool or application, specifically including mobile web, any iOS App and any Android App, or other access mechanism.
1. Overview
By accessing the Website, you agree to the following terms:
We may amend this User Agreement and any linked information from time to time by posting amended terms on the Website, without notice to you.
The Website is an online venue where Users buy and sell Seller Services and items. Buyers and Sellers must register for an Account in order to buy or sell Seller Services and/or items. The Website enables Users to work together online to complete and pay for Projects, buy and sell items and to use the services that we provide. We are not a party to any contractual agreements between Buyer and Seller in the online venue, we merely facilitate connections between the parties.
IWe may, from time to time, and without notice, change or add to the Website or the information, products, or services described in it. However, we do not undertake to keep the Website updated. We are not liable to you or anyone else if any error occurs in the information on the Website or if that information is not current.
2. Scope
Before using the Website, you must read the whole User Agreement, the Website policies and all linked information.
You must read and accept all of the terms in, and linked to, this User Agreement, the Code of Conduct, the Privacy Policy, and all Website policies. By accepting this User Agreement as you access our Website, you agree that this User Agreement will apply whenever you use the Website, or when you use the tools we make available to interact with the Website. Some Websites may have additional or other terms that we provide to you when you use those services.
3. Eligibility
You will not use the Website if you:
1. are not able to form legally binding contracts; 2. are under the age of 18; 3. a person barred from receiving and rendering services under the laws of India or other applicable jurisdiction; 4. are suspended from using the Website; or 5. do not hold a valid email address.
All free user accounts are associated with individuals. Login credentials should not be shared by users with others. The individual associated with the account will be held responsible for all actions taken by the account, without limitation.
Subject to your local laws, a person over 15 but under 18 can use an adult’s account with the permission of the account holder. However, the account holder is responsible for all actions taken by the account, without limitation.
Users may provide a business name or a company name, which is associated with the User’s Account. Users acknowledge and agree that where a business name or company name is associated with their Account, this User Agreement is a contract with the User as an individual (not the business or company) and Users remain solely responsible for all activity undertaken in respect of their Account.
A company, corporation, trust, partnership or other non-individual corporate entity may be a User subject to an eligible corporate account which pays corporate subscriptions.
We may, at our absolute discretion, refuse to register any person or entity as a User.
You cannot transfer or assign any rights or obligations you have under this agreement without prior written consent.
4. Using Easy Jobs Platform
While using the Website, you will not attempt to or otherwise do any of the following:
1. post content or items in inappropriate categories or areas on our Websites and services; 2. infringe any laws, third party rights or our policies, such as the Code of Conduct; 3. fail to deliver payment for services delivered to you; 4. fail to deliver Seller Services purchased from you; 5. circumvent or manipulate our fee structure, the billing process, or fees owed to Freelancer; 6. post false, inaccurate, misleading, deceptive, defamatory or offensive content (including personal information); 7. take any action that may undermine the feedback or reputation systems (such as displaying, importing or exporting feedback information or using it for purposes unrelated to the Website); 8. transfer your Freelancer account (including feedback) and Username to another party without our consent; 9. distribute or post spam, unsolicited, or bulk electronic communications, chain letters, or pyramid schemes; 10. distribute viruses or any other technologies that may harm Freelancer, the Website, or the interests or property of Freelancer users (including their Intellectual Property Rights, privacy and publicity rights) or is unlawful, threatening, abusive, defamatory, invasive of privacy, vulgar, obscene, profane or which may harass or cause distress or inconvenience to, or incite hatred of, any person; 11. download and aggregate listings from our website for display with listings from other websites without our express written permission, “frame”, “mirror” or otherwise incorporate any part of the Website into any other website without our prior written authorization; 12. attempt to modify, translate, adapt, edit, decompile, disassemble, or reverse engineer any software programs used by us in connection with the Website; 13. copy, modify, or distribute rights or content from the Website or Freelancer’s copyrights and trademarks; or 14. harvest or otherwise collect information about Users, including email addresses, without their consent. 15. use Freelancer to facilitate money exchange including, but not limited to, cryptocurrency (e.g. bitcoin, ethereum, etc).
5. Intellectual Property
It is our policy to respond to clear notices of alleged intellectual property rights infringement. Our Copyright Infringement Policy is designed to make submitting notices of alleged infringement to us as straightforward as possible while reducing the number of notices that we receive that are fraudulent or difficult to understand or verify. If you believe that your Intellectual Property Rights have been violated, please notify us via email or mail mentioned on our website and we will investigate.
6. Fees and Services
We charge fees for certain services while certain services are absolutely free, such as introduction fees for Projects, listing upgrades, and memberships. When you use a service that has a fee, you have an opportunity to review and accept the fees that you will be charged based on our schedule of Fees and Charges, which we may change from time to time and will update by placing on our website. We may choose to temporarily change the fees for our services for promotional events (for example, discounts on memberships) or new services, and such changes are effective when we post a temporary promotional event or new service on the Websites, or as notified through promotional correspondence.
Unless otherwise stated, all fees are quoted in Indian Rupees.
7. Taxes
You are responsible for paying any taxes, including any goods and services or value added taxes, which may be applicable depending on the jurisdiction of the services provided.
Depending on your residency or location, you may be subject to certain ad valorem or other taxes (for example, GST in India), on certain fees that we charge. These taxes will be added to fees billed to you, if applicable.
You acknowledge that you must comply with your obligations under income tax provisions in your jurisdiction.
Certain Sellers who are either registered or required to be registered for GST may be required to charge GST to Indian Consumers on certain projects. You will be notified and asked to confirm on award/accept of such projects the appropriate GST treatment.
8. Content
We do not claim ownership to your User Content; however, you grant us a non-exclusive, sublicensable, irrevocable and royalty-free worldwide license under all copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, privacy and publicity rights and other intellectual property rights to use, reproduce, transmit, print, publish, publicly display, exhibit, distribute, redistribute, copy, comment on, modify, adapt, translate, create derivative works based upon, publicly perform, make available and otherwise exploit such User Content, in whole or in part, in all media formats now known or hereafter devised and on third-party sites and platforms in any number of copies and without limit as to time, manner of frequency of use, without further notice to you, and without the requirement of permission from or payment to you or any other person or entity.
You acknowledge and agree that: (1) we act only as a forum for the online distribution and publication of User content. We make no warranty that User content is made available on the Website. We have the right (but not the obligation) to take any action deemed appropriate by us with respect to your User Content; (2) we have no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any content, whether or not the content was actually made available on the Website; and (3) any and all content submitted to the Website is subject to our approval. We may reject, approve or modify your User content at our sole discretion.
You represent and warrant that your content:
1. will not infringe upon or misappropriate any copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret, or other intellectual property right or proprietary right or right of publicity or privacy of any person; 2. will not violate any law or regulation; 3. will not be defamatory or trade libellous; 4. will not be obscene or contain child pornography; 5. will not contain the development, design, manufacture or production of missiles, or nuclear, chemical or biological weapons 6. will not contain material linked to terrorist activities 7. will not include incomplete, false or inaccurate information about User or any other individual; and 8. will not contain any viruses or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information.
You acknowledge and agree that we may transfer your personal information to a related body corporate and your information may be transferred outside of India. If you wish to withdraw your consent, you acknowledge and agree that we may be unable to provide you with access to the Website and Freelancer Services and may close your Account.
Information on the Website may contain general information about legal, financial, health and other matters. The information is not advice, and should not be treated as such. You must not rely on the information on the Website as an alternative to professional advice. If you have specific questions about any matter you should consult your professional adviser.
We provide unmonitored access to third-party content, including User feedback and articles with original content and opinions (or links to such third-party content). We only act as a portal and have no liability based on, or related to, third party content on the Website, whether arising under the laws of copyright or other intellectual property, defamation, libel, privacy, obscenity, or any other legal discipline.
The Website may contain links to other third-party websites. We do not control the websites to which we link from the Website. We do not endorse the content, products, services, practices, policies, or performance of the websites we link to from the Website. Use of third-party content, links to third-party content and/or websites is at your risk.
In relation to deletion or hiding of any information or content, using the Website to delete, hide or otherwise dispose of information does not imply permanent deletion of content or information. Information may be retained for a period of time to fulfill record-keeping, regulatory, compliance, statistical, law enforcement and other obligations.
9. Limits & Fraud Prevention
We reserve the right to suspend a User withdrawal request if the source of the funds is suspected to be fraudulent.
If we become aware that any funds received into an Account from another Account as a result of a fraudulent transaction, this will be reversed immediately. If those funds have already been released to you, you must pay the funds into your Account. If you do not do so, we may suspend, limit or cancel your account, or take action against you to recover those funds.
We may, in our sole discretion, place a limit on any or all of the funds in your Account (thereby preventing any use of the funds) if:
1. we believe there may be an unacceptable level of risk associated with you, your Account, or any or all of your transactions, including if we believe that there is a risk that such funds will be subject to reversal or chargeback; 2. we believe that the beneficiary of the payment is someone other than you; 3. we believe that the payment is being made to a country where we do not offer our Service; or 4. we are required to do so by law or applicable law enforcement agencies.
If you are involved in a dispute, we may (in certain circumstances) place a temporary limit on the funds in your Account to cover the amount of any potential liability. If the dispute is resolved in your favor, we will lift the limit on your funds and those funds may be released to you. If the dispute is not resolved in your favor, we may remove the funds from your Account. We may also place a limit on your account in circumstances where we suspect you of fraudulent or other unacceptable behavior, while we investigate any such matter.
10. Inactive Accounts
User Accounts that have not been logged into for a period of time will incur a maintenance fee per month, until either the account is closed or reactivated, for storage, bandwidth, support, and management costs of providing hosting of the User’s profile, portfolio storage, listing in directories, promotion of your profile on the Website and elsewhere, provision of the HireMe service, file storage, message transmission, general administrative matters and message, and other storage costs.
We reserve the right to close an Inactive Account.
We reserve the right to close an account with nil or negative funds.
11. Right to Refuse Service
We may close, suspend or limit your access to your Account without reason. Without limiting the foregoing, we may close, suspend or limit your access to your Account:
1. if we determine that you have breached, or are acting in breach of this User Agreement; 2. if you under-bid on any Project in an attempt to renegotiate the actual price privately, to attempt to avoid fees; 3. if we determine that you have infringed legal rights (resulting in actual or potential claims), including infringing Intellectual Property Rights; 4. if we determine that you have engaged, or are engaging, in fraudulent, or illegal activities; 5. you do not respond to account verification requests; 6. you do not complete account verification when requested within 3 months of the date of request; 7. you are the subject of an Indian, United Nations, Australian, EU, USA or other applicable sanctions regime, or our banking and payment relationships otherwise preclude us from conducting business with you; 8. to manage any risk of loss to us, a User, or any other person; or 9. for other reasons.
If we close your Account due to your breach of this User Agreement, you may also become liable for certain fees as described in this User Agreement.
Without limiting our other remedies, to the extent you have breached this User Agreement, you must pay us all fees owed to us and reimburse us for all losses and costs (including any and all of our employee time) and reasonable expenses (including legal fees) related to investigating such breach and collecting such fees.
You acknowledge and agree that: (1) the damages that we will sustain as a result of your breach of this User Agreement will be substantial and will potentially include (without limitation) fines and other related expenses imposed on us by our payment processors and Users and that those damages may be extremely difficult and impracticable to ascertain; (2) if you breach this User Agreement, we may fine you up to Rs. 3,000 for each breach and/or we may take legal action against you to recover losses that are in excess of the fine amount; (3) a fine of up to Rs. 3,000 is a presently reasonable pre-estimate or minimum estimate of our damages, considering all currently existing circumstances, including (without limitation) the relationship of the sum to the range of harm to us that reasonably could be anticipated and the anticipation that proof of actual damages may be impractical or extremely difficult; and (4) we may release the entire (or part of the) amount of the fine from your Account to us.
If we close your Account for a reason other than as a result of your breach of this User Agreement, unless as otherwise specified in this User Agreement, you will be entitled to receive any payment due from us to you.
In the event that we close your Account, you will have no claim whatsoever against us in respect of any such suspension or termination of your Account.