Effective Date: 2 February, 2015
These terms and conditions (these “Terms of Use”) apply to your use of www.pmiscience.com and all documents, Web pages, and other Content (as hereinafter defined) hosted thereon and thereunder (the “Site”). Philip Morris International Management, S.A. (“PM”) and its Affiliates and subcontractors will operate the Site and provide and update the Content on the Site. As used in these Terms of Use, “Content” includes any information, articles, publication, models, communications, software, text, photos, video, graphics, music, sounds, data and other material and services that can be viewed by users on our Site.
YOUR USE OF THE SITE IS ALSO SUBJECT TO YOUR AGREEMENT TO THE PRIVACY POLICY. BY USING THIS SITE, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS OF USE AND THE PRIVACY POLICY. IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO BE BOUND BY THE THESE TERMS OF USE AND THE PRIVACY POLICY, PLEASE EXIT THE SITE NOW. YOUR REMEDY FOR DISSATISFACTION WITH THIS SITE, OR ANY CONTENT OR OTHER INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON OR THROUGH THIS SITE, IS TO STOP USING THE SITE.
As used in these Terms of Use, references to an entity’s “Affiliates” include that entity’s owners, subsidiaries, affiliated companies, officers, directors,. References to our “Subcontractors” include (without limitation) all parties involved in creating, producing, and/or delivering this Site and/or its Content, for avoidance of doubt, incuding any suppliers, partners, sponsors, subcontractors, suppliers and advertisers.
1. Scope of Site; Modifications
This Site is operated for the purpose of publishing and disseminating scientific information regarding tobacco that comprise the Content. The Site is not operated for advertising or marketing purposes. The Content on this Site is not and should not be regarded as an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any product of PM or its Affiliates. The Content on this Site is also not and should not be regarded as a promise, warranty, characterization or guarantee regarding any product of PM or its Affiliates.
Some parts of the site may refer to Reduced Risk Products (“RRPs”). Reduced Risk Products (“RRPs”) is the term we use to refer to products that present, are likely to present, or have the potential to present less risk of harm to smokers who switch to these products versus continuing smoking. PMI has a range of RRPs in various stages of development, scientific assessment and commercialization. Our RRPs are smoke-free products that produce an aerosol that contains far lower quantities of harmful and potentially harmful constituents than found in cigarette smoke. NO PART OF THE SITE, INCLUDING ANY PARTICULAR CONTENT, REPRESENTS, OR IS INTENDED TO REPRESENT, A CLAIM OF REDUCED EXPOSURE OR REDUCED RISK WITH RESECPT TO ANY RRP.
We reserve the right to modify the contents of the Site at any time, but we have no obligation to update any information on this Site. You agree that it is your responsibility to monitor changes to the content of the Site, and that we shall not be liable to you or any third party should we exercise such right. You understand and agree that temporary interruptions of the availability of this Site may occur as normal events.
You are solely responsible for providing, at your own expense, all equipment necessary to use this Site. You further understand and agree that we have no control over third party networks you may access in the course of the use of this Site, and therefore, that delays and disruption of other network transmissions are completely beyond our control.
2. Conduct on Site
We welcome feedback, both positive and negative about our scientific approaches and data, but please make sure that your comments are in line with applicable laws and regulations, these terms of use generally and including this section (reffered to in other parts of the Site as the “House Rules”). The requirements in this section are designed to help everyone get the most out of commenting on the Site.
All comments are pre-moderated before publishing on the website. We aim to moderate comments as quickly to allow as much as possible a real-time conversation. If a comment or post is deemed to have broken any of the House Rules, or otherwise is deemed inappropriate, it will not be published and will be replaced with an explanation of why the post was not published. We also reserve the right to remove published comments.
Please also note that breach of theses Terms of Use will result in blocking of and/or removal of your comments. You are solely responsible for the contents of your communications through the Site and your interactions with the Site.
As such, the following constitute our House Rules of regarding posting and commenting on the Site:
a. You agree not to upload, post or otherwise transmit via the Site any content that:
violates or infringes in any way upon the rights of others, including any statement which may defame, harass, stalk or threaten others;
you know or believe is likely to be false, misleading or inaccurate, unless you identify explicitly that the content is false and do not misleadingly represent it to be true;
contains expressions of bigotry, racism, racially or ethnically offensive content, hate speech, abusiveness, vulgarity or profanity;
contains or advocates pornography, sexually explicit content, violent behavior or violent images of killing, physical harm or physical abuse, that appear to have been captured or reproduced principally for exploitative, prurient or gratuitous purposes, or other content that would reasonably be considered to be offensive;violates any law or advocates or provides instruction on dangerous, illegal, or predatory acts, or discusses illegal activities with or without the intent to commit them or would be in breach of a legal duty;
poses a reasonable threat to personal or public safety;is repeatedly offensive about individuals either connected with PMIScience or PMI or any other individual that would reasonably be considered as harassment;
does not generally pertain to the designated topic or theme of the page or blog on which the content is posted;
contains any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising or promotional materials with respect to products or services, “junk mail,” “spam”, “chain-letters,” “pyramid schemes,” or any other form of solicitation;
discloses the name, address, telephone, mobile or fax number, e-mail address, social media identity of any individual, including yourself, without their consent; and
infringes any intellectual property right of another person.
b. You agree not to engage in activity that would constitute a criminal offence or give rise to a civil liability;
c. You agree not to interfere with any individual’s right to privacy, including by harvesting or collecting personally-identifiable information about the site’s users, content providers, contributors or posting private information about a third party;
d. You agree not to impersonate any person or entity on the Site, including, but not limited to PM, its Affiliates or its Subcontractors, or an employee of any of the foregoing, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity.
Not all areas of the Site may be available to you or other authorized users of the Site. You may not interfere with anyone else’s use and enjoyment of the Site. Users who violate systems or network security may incur criminal or civil liability.
You acknowledge and agree that (i) we may at any time, and at our sole discretion block your use of the Site without prior notice to you for violating any of the above provisions; and (ii) we can and will cooperate fully with investigations of violations of systems or network security at other sites, including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in investigating suspected criminal violations.
3. Third Party Sites and Information
This Site may include links to other sites which may be operated by third parties. These links are provided as a convenience to you and as an additional avenue of access to the information contained in those other sites. Except to the extent we operate these sites, we have not necessarily reviewed all the information on other sites and are not responsible for the content of any other sites or for any products or services that may be offered through other sites. Third-party sites may contain information with which we do not agree and may require registration or agreement with terms and conditions which differ from these Terms of Use. Inclusion of links to other sites should not be viewed as an endorsement of the content of linked sites or as a representation that you are free to use any content, data or information on such linked sites without restrictions. Different terms and conditions may apply to your use of any linked sites. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT NEITHER WE NOR OUR AFFILIATES OR SUBCONTRACTORS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACCURACY, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY COMPLIANCE, LEGALITY, DECENCY, OR ANY OTHER ASPECT OF THE CONTENT OF SUCH SITES, NOR ARE WE RESPONSIBLE FOR ERRORS OR OMISSIONS IN ANY REFERENCES TO OTHER PARTIES OR THEIR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES.
4. Intellectual Property Information
Unless otherwise indicated on any particular portion of the Site, this Site is subject to copyright protection. All rights reserved.
You acknowledge and agree you are only permitted to use the Content as expressly authorized by us. You may use the Content for your personal and research purposes and republish the Content in association with a research, scholarly or other publication related to the Content, in each case provided that any publication of the Content includes an attribution to the authors of the Content and this Site in accordance with good scientific practice and the guidelines set forth on the Site. For avoidance of doubt, you may not use or republish the Content for any commercial purpose, including for building a commercial database or for mass replication in a database. With respect to the Content, except for a uses that qualify as a “fair use” under applicable copyright laws or a single copy made for personal use only, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, publish, upload, post, transmit, or distribute the Content in any form or by any means without prior written permission from us or the specific content provider, and you are solely responsible for obtaining permission before reusing any copyrighted material that is available on this Site. You may not remove any copyright or other notices that appear on the material you print or download. Nothing in these Terms of Use grants you any right to use any trademark, service mark, logo, and/or the name of PM, of its Affiliates or of its Subcontractors. Any unauthorized use of the materials appearing on this Site may violate copyright, trademark and other applicable laws and could result in criminal or civil penalties.
To cite to the Site you must use the following format (or such other format as may be published on the Site):
"As published on DD/MM/YYY on www.pmiscience.com "
PM, its Affiliates and Subcontractors do not warrant or represent that your use of materials (including the Content) displayed on, or obtained through, this Site will not infringe the rights of third parties. See “User’s Materials and Infringement” below for a description of the procedures to be followed in the event that any party believes that Content posted on this Site infringes on any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, right of publicity, or other proprietary right of any party.
5. User’s Materials and Infringement
Subject to our Privacy Policy, any communication or material that you transmit to this Site or to us, whether by electronic mail or other means, for any reason, will be treated as non-confidential and non-proprietary. Please do not submit confidential or proprietary information to us unless we have mutually agreed in writing otherwise. We are also unable to accept your unsolicited ideas or proposals via the Site, so please do not submit them to us in any circumstance.
We respect the intellectual property of others, and we ask you to do the same. If you or any user of this Site believes its copyright, trademark or other property rights have been infringed by a posting on this Site, you or the user should send notification to our Designated Agent (as identified below) immediately. To be effective, the notification must include:
- a physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
- identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed;
- information reasonably sufficient to permit us to contact the complaining party, such as address, telephone number and, if available, an electronic mail address at which the complaining party may be contacted;
- identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be subject to infringing activity and that is to be removed and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the materials;
- a statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, agent, or the applicable law; and
- a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringing.
Designated Agent for Receipt of Notifications of Claimed Infringement: Philip Morris Products, S.A., Law Department, Quai Jeanrenaud 5, 2000 Neuchatel, Switzerland.
You acknowledge and agree that upon receipt of a notice of a claim of copyright infringement, we may immediately remove the identified materials from our Site without liability to you or any other party and that the claims of the complaining party and the party that originally posted the materials may be referred to applicable authorities under applicable law. Service of repeat infringers of copyright or of users about whom repeat claims of copyright infringement are received will be terminated.
6. Disclaimer of Warranties
ALL CONTENT AND MATERIALS ON THIS SITE ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS-IS” AND “AS-AVAILABLE” BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR THE WARRANTY OF NON-INFRINGEMENT. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, WE MAKE NO WARRANTY THAT (A) THE CONTENT WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, (B) ANY RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE CONTENT WILL BE EFFECTIVE, ACCURATE OR RELIABLE,. WE ASSUME NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY THE TIMELINESS, DELETION, MIS-DELIVERY OR FAILURE TO STORE ANY USER COMMUNICATIONS OR PERSONALIZATION SETTINGS.
THIS SITE COULD INCLUDE TECHNICAL OR OTHER MISTAKES, INACCURACIES OR TYPOGRAPHICAL ERRORS. WE MAY MAKE CHANGES TO THE CONTENT ON THIS SITE, AT ANY TIME. THE CONTENT ON THIS SITE MAY BE OUT OF DATE, AND WE MAKE NO COMMITMENT TO UPDATE SUCH CONTENT.
THE USE OF THE CONTENT OR THE DOWNLOADING OR OTHER ACQUISITION OF CONTENT OR ANY MATERIALS THROUGH THIS SITE IS DONE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK AND WITH YOUR AGREEMENT THAT YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM SUCH ACTIVITIES.
WE MAKE NO WARRANTY REGARDING ANY TRANSACTIONS EXECUTED THROUGH, OR IN CONNECTION WITH THIS SITE, AND YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT SUCH TRANSACTIONS ARE CONDUCTED ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. ANY WARRANTY THAT IS PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH ANY SERVICES, CONTENT, OR INFORMATION AVAILABLE ON OR THROUGH THIS SITE FROM A THIRD PARTY IS PROVIDED SOLELY BY SUCH THIRD PARTY, AND NOT BY US OR ANY OTHER OF OUR AFFILIATES.
SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN WARRANTIES, SO SOME OF THE ABOVE DISCLAIMERS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
7. Limitation of Liability
IN NO EVENT SHALL WE OR OUR AFFILIATES, OR ANY OF OUR OR THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES, SUBCONTRACTORS, DIRECTORS, SHAREHOLDERS, AGENTS OR REPRESENTATIVES BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THOSE RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER OR NOT WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES, AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OF THIS SITE OR OF ANY WEB SITE REFERENCED OR LINKED TO FROM THIS SITE.
SOME JURISDICTIONS PROHIBIT THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, SO SOME OF THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
8. Indemnification
Upon a request by us, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold PM and its Affiliates, or any of our or their respective employees, directors, shareholders, agents, Subcontractors and representatives harmless from all liabilities, claims, and expenses, including attorney’s fees, that arise from your use or misuse of this Site. We, or our Affiliates or Subcontractors (should they be the sole indemnified party), reserve the right, at our own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in which event you will cooperate with us in asserting any available defenses.
9. Termination of Use
You acknowledge and agree that we may at any time, and at our sole discretion block your use of all or part of the Site without prior notice to you for reasons including, without limitation, breach of these Terms of Use. In addition, any suspected fraudulent, inappropriate, abusive or illegal activity may be grounds for terminating our relationship and may be referred to appropriate law enforcement authorities. We shall not be liable to you or any third party for any claims or damages arising out of any termination or suspension or any other actions taken by us in connection therewith.
10. Entire Agreement Amendments
These Terms of Use (including, for avoidance of doubt, the Privacy Policy) constitute the entire agreement and understanding between us concerning the subject matter hereof and supersedes all prior agreements and understandings of the parties with respect thereto. We may need to change these Terms of Use from time to time in order to address new issues and reflect changes on our Site. We will post the revised Terms of Use on the Site, indicate the effective date of the revision and inform you that these Terms of Use have been changed. To continue using the Site you must agree to such revised Terms of Use.
11. Miscellaneous
You may not assign your rights and obligations under these Terms of Use to any third party, and any purported attempt to do so shall be null and void. We may freely assign our rights and obligations under these Terms of Use.
If any part of these Terms of Use is held invalid or unenforceable, that portion shall be construed in a manner consistent with applicable law to reflect, as nearly as possible, the original intentions of the parties, and the remaining portions shall remain in full force and effect.
Any failure by us to enforce or exercise any provision of these Terms of Use or related rights shall not constitute a waiver of that right or provision.
12. Governing Law
This Site (excluding any linked sites) is controlled by PM, which is based in Switzerland. It can be accessed from Switzerland and also from other countries around the world which may have laws that differ from those of Switzerland. By accessing this Site you agree that these Terms of Use are governed by the laws of Switzerland. You agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located in Lausanne, Canton of Vaud, Switzerland to resolve any legal matter arising from the dispute or claims. You and we hereby waive, to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, any objection that it may now or hereafter have to the laying of venue of any such proceedings in such a court and any claim that any such proceedings brought in such a court have been brought in an inconvenient forum. You and we agree that a final judgment in any action or proceeding brought under this Section 13 shall be conclusive and may be enforced in other jurisdictions by suit on the judgment or in any other manner provided by applicable law.
13. Contact Information
You may choose to communicate with us via the “Contact Us” link available on the navigation and footer of every page on the website. We shall use your e-mail address and name only in accordance with the Privacy Policy.