Terms of Use

Terms Of Use

1. Introduction

The Forge Community

The Forge Community is an invitation-only online private community made available to select individuals, typically single-family office executives and related family members. It is a peer-to-peer interactive platform that provides an environment that may help users obtain and share information associated with establishing, managing, and running a single-family office practice from other single-family offices.  The FORGE Community is a platform provided by The FORGE Community, LLC (“FORGE”), a wholly owned subsidiary of FMR, LLC (commonly known as “Fidelity Investments”) and sits within the Fidelity Institutional business unit at Fidelity Investments.  While these Terms of Use refer to Forge Community with respect to obligations and other responsibilities, you understand and agree that implicitly, such references also refer to the legal entity FORGE.

1.1 Acceptance of terms

These terms ("Terms of Use") apply to the Forge Community (sometimes also referred to as "we" and "us"). When you use the Services and by clicking "Join Now", "Join Forge Community", "Sign Up" or any similar method of registering you acknowledge, agree and accept these Terms of Use. To the extent applicable, your use of the Services is also subject to our Privacy Policy, which covers how we collect, use, share, and store your personal private information. Further, and as discussed in more detail below, we may charge a fee for certain additional, premium membership benefits.   To the extent this applies to your participation, your usage will also be subject to the Forge Payment Policy (only available to logged in users), which covers how premium benefits are paid for and accessed. 

1.2 Membership and Services

Your agreement applies to the Forge Community Website and the Forge Community Platform sites, applications, communications, and other services available through the Community ("Services"), including our use of third-party service providers to assist with providing you those Services. We designate Registered users of our Services as "Members."

During the registration process, Members will have the option of selecting a Basic or Premium Membership types.

A Basic Membership comes at no cost to the Member and offers access certain features and Services, including:

A Premium Membership requires payment and is auto-renewed annually, which grants access to all of the features and Services of a Basic Membership plus additional features and Services available now and in the future, including:

Users can change their Membership type at any time after completing registration.  This can be done by either contacting info@forgecommunity.com to assist in making a change, or by accessing “My Profile” and selecting “Manage Membership” to make changes to their membership type.

For more information on Basic and Premium Memberships, including Premium Membership pricing information, please log in and review our “What you should know” article here - Forge Membership Types.  For information regarding Premium Membership payment information, please review the Forge Payment Policy (only available to logged in users).

1.3 Changes to the Terms of Use

We reserve the right to make changes to these Terms of Use, our Privacy Policy (including the Cookies Policy included therein), the Payment Policy and other policies from time to time. If we make any material changes, we will endeavor to provide you with advance notice of such change, either through our Services or by other appropriate means. If you object to any changes, you may close your account and discontinue the use of our Services. Your continued use of our Services after we publish or send a notice regarding changes shall be deemed acceptance of the updated terms.

2. Obligations

2.1 Service Eligibility

By accepting these Terms of Use, you confirm the following:

You are eligible to use the Services and are at least our "Minimum Age."

You agree that you (1) will only create and maintain one Forge account, which must be registered in your legal name; (2) were invited to join Forge by a Member of Forge or by us; and (3) are not already restricted by Forge from using the Services. Creating an account with false information is a violation of these Terms of Use.

"Minimum Age" means 18 years old. However, if applicable law requires that you must be older than 18 in order for Forge to lawfully provide the Services to you without parental consent (including using of your personal data) then the Minimum Age shall mean such applicable legal age.

2.2 Your Account

By accepting our Terms of Use, you agree to keep your password confidential.

You agree that you will not share an account or your account information with anyone else and will follow our rules and applicable law. Members are account holders. Members agree to: (1) choose a strong and secure password; (2) maintain passwords in a secure and confidential manner; (3) not transfer nor integrate any part of their account (e.g., connections); and (4) adhere to our Membership Pledge and Code of Conduct (below). You acknowledge and agree you are responsible for anything that happens through your account unless you close it or report misuse.

Each applicable account is specific to the applicable Member and as such, no other individual or firm (e.g. your employer) will have access to your account, other than Forge to the extent necessary.  No rights or access to  a Member’s account will be provided to anyone other than that Member, other than Forge to the extent necessary. 

2.3 Notices and Messages

By accepting these Terms of Use, you agree that we may provide you with notices and messages through our websites, apps, and in accordance with your contact information provided. You agree to keep your contact information up to date.

You may alter your settings to control and limit messages provided by us, but we reserve the right to send you communications that notify you of important information regarding the Services, including when the Services are down.

 

2.4 Sharing

When you share, publish, post or provide documents, comments, or any other information (collectively, “Member Content”) in connection with using our Services, you acknowledge and agree that such information is accessible to all Members. Private messages between Members are not disclosed to all Members.  Where settings are available to limit accessibility, we will configure your account to limit accessibility as you select. 

We are not obligated to publish or maintain any Member Content and we have the rights to remove any Member Content in our sole discretion without notice.

3. Rights and Limits

3.1 Your License to Forge

You own all of the content, feedback, and personal information you provide to us, but you also grant us a non-exclusive license to it.

We will endeavor honor the choices you make about who gets to see your information and content. As between you and Forge, you own the content and information that you submit or post to the Services, and you are only granting Forge the following non-exclusive license: A worldwide, transferable and sublicensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publish, and process, information and content that you provide through our Services and the services of others, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others. These rights are limited in the following ways:

  1. You can end this license for specific content by deleting such content from the Services, or generally by closing your account, except (a) to the extent you shared it with others (including Forge) as part of the Service and they copied, re-shared it or stored it and (b) for the reasonable time it takes to remove content from backup and other systems.
  2. While we may edit and make format changes to your content (such as translating it, modifying the size, layout or file type or removing metadata), we will not modify the meaning of your expression.
  3. Because you own your content and information and we only have non-exclusive rights to it, you may choose to make it available to others, including under the terms of a Creative Commons license.

If content includes personal data, its use is subject to our Privacy Policy.

You agree that we may access, store, process and use any information and personal data that you provide in accordance with the terms of the Privacy Policy, and your choices (including settings).

By submitting suggestions or other feedback regarding our Services to Forge, you agree that Forge can use and share (but does not have to) such feedback for any purpose without compensation to you.

You agree that you will only provide information and content that you have the right to share and that your Forge profile will be truthful.

You agree that you will only provide content or information that does not violate the law or anyone’s rights (including intellectual property rights). Forge may be required by law to remove certain information or content in certain countries.

3.2 Service Availability

We may change, suspend or end the Services, or change and modify prices prospectively in our discretion. To the extent allowed under law, these changes may be effective upon notice provided to you.

Forge is not a storage service. We have no obligation to store, maintain or provide copies of any Member Content you or others provide, except to the extent required by applicable law Forge may be subject to or as otherwise noted in our Privacy Policy.  You understand and agree that Forge does not provide recordkeeping services, nor does it monitor or review Member Content to provide compliance services to you or your firm. 

3.3 Other Content, Sites and Applications

Your use of others’ Member Content is at your own risk.  As a Member, you may encounter other Member Content that could be inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, illegal, offensive or otherwise harmful. We have no responsibility for reviewing, validating, or otherwise verifying Member Content that is provided, shared, posted or published by any Member. You are responsible for deciding if you want to access or use third-party applications or websites that may be accessible through or integrated with our Services. If you allow a third-party application or website to authenticate you or connect with your Forge account, that application or website can access information on Forge related to you and your connections. Third-party applications and websites have their own legal terms and privacy policies, and you may be giving others permission to use your information in ways we would not. Except to the limited extent, it may be required by applicable law, Forge is not responsible for these other applications and websites – use these at your own risk. Please see our Privacy Policy.

3.4 Limits

We reserve the right to limit how you connect and interact on our Services as well as the right to limit your use of the Services, including the number of your connections and your ability to contact other Members. Forge also reserves the right to restrict, suspend, or terminate your account if Forge has a reasonable basis for believing that you may be in violation of these Terms of Use or applicable law.

3.5 Intellectual Property Rights

We are providing you notice about our intellectual property rights.

Forge reserves all of its intellectual property rights in the Services. Use of the Services does not give you any ownership interest in our Services or the content or information made available through our Services. Trademarks and logos used in connection with the Services are the trademarks of their respective owners. Forge Community and Forge Community Platform logos and other Forge trademarks, service marks, graphics, and logos used for our Services are trademarks or registered trademarks of Forge.  Forge does not take any responsibility whatsoever for any Member‘s misuse of other Member’s or any third party’s intellectual property.

 

Copyright policy, linking policy and trademarks

If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide Fidelity Investments with the following information:

  1. A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright allegedly infringed;
  2. A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works are the subject of a single notice, a representative list of such works;
  3. An identification of the allegedly infringing material, and a description of where that material is located on the Fidelity Investments Sites;
  4. Your address, telephone number, and email address;
  5. A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that use of the disputed material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
  6. A statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the information you provide in your notice is accurate and that you are the owner of the allegedly infringed copyright, or that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

Fidelity Investments' Agent for Notice of claims of copyright infringement can be reached as follows:

By mail: Tanya Courcey, Fidelity Investments, 245 Summer Street, Boston, MA 02210

By phone: 617-563-9840 By email: CopyrightClaim@fmr.com

 

3.6 Automated Processing

We use data and information about you, in accordance with our Privacy Policy, to identify considerations for you and others.

We will use the information and data that you provide and that we have about Members to identify considerations for connections, content and features that may be useful to you. Keeping your profile accurate and up to date helps this process.

4. Disclaimer and Limit of Liability

4.1 No Warranty

TO THE EXTENT ALLOWED UNDER LAW, FORGE AND ITS AFFILIATES (AND THOSE THAT FORGE WORKS WITH TO PROVIDE THE SERVICES) (A) DISCLAIM ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND REPRESENTATIONS (E.G. WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY OF DATA, AND NONINFRINGEMENT); (B) DO NOT GUARANTEE THAT THE SERVICES WILL FUNCTION WITHOUT INTERRUPTION OR ERRORS, AND (C) PROVIDE THE SERVICES (INCLUDING CONTENT AND INFORMATION) ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS.

4.2 Exclusion of Liability

TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER LAW, FORGE AND ITS AFFILIATES (AND THOSE THAT FORGE WORKS WITH TO PROVIDE THE SERVICES) SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU OR OTHERS FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF DATA, OPPORTUNITIES, REPUTATION, PROFITS OR REVENUES, RELATED TO THE SERVICES (E.G., OFFENSIVE OR DEFAMATORY STATEMENTS, DOWN TIME OR LOSS, USE OF, OR CHANGES TO, YOUR INFORMATION OR CONTENT).

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE LIABILITY OF FORGE AND ITS AFFILIATES (AND THOSE THAT FORGE WORKS WITH TO PROVIDE THE SERVICES) EXCEED, IN THE AGGREGATE FOR ALL CLAIMS, US $1000.

THIS LIMITATION OF LIABILITY APPLIES TO ALL CLAIMS OF LIABILITY (E.G., WARRANTY, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, CONTRACT, LAW).

5. Termination of Relationship

We can each terminate our relationship at will.

Both you and Forge may terminate this relationship at any time with notice to the other. Upon termination, you forfeit the right to access or use the Services. The following shall survive termination:

You can contact info@forgecommunity.com.

If you violate these Terms of Use, Forge may terminate your use of the Services immediately and without notice.

6. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

These Terms of Use and any disputes arising under or related to these Terms of Use (whether for breach of contract, tortuous conduct or otherwise) will be governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without reference to its conflicts of law principles. You agree to submit to jurisdiction in Massachusetts and further agree that any cause of action arising under this Agreement may be brought in a court in Boston, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and you hereby accept and submit to the personal jurisdiction of these courts with respect to any legal actions, suits or proceedings arising out of these Terms of Use. You also waive to the fullest extent permitted by law any right to a trial by jury in any action, suit or proceeding brought to enforce, defend or interpret any right or remedies under, or arising in connection with or relating to, these Terms of Use.

7. General Terms

Here are some important details about our Terms of Use.

If a court of competent authority determines that any of these Terms of Use are unenforceable, such court may modify them to make those parts that are objectionable enforceable consistent with our intent. Any provisions not otherwise modified will remain in effect.

You may not assign or transfer your Membership or use of the Services without our consent.

8. Forge Member Code of Conduct

8.1 Forge Professional Community Commitments

Forge is a community of family office executives. As a Member, you commit to complying with all applicable laws, including, without limitation, privacy laws, intellectual property laws, anti-spam laws, export control laws, tax laws, and regulatory requirements. You also commit to:

  1. Providing accurate information to us and keeping it updated;
  2. Using your legal name on your profile; and
  3. Using the Services in a non-commercial, safe and professional manner.

     

    You also commit not to:

  4. Solicit other Members for personal or other information such as email addresses, contact information, log-in or account information;
  5. Use Members’ name, likeness or voice, in whole or in part, including but not limited to e-mail addresses, URLs, phone numbers, physical addresses or other forms of contact information without permission;
  6. Collect or store personal information about other Members;
  7. Promote, encourage, hype, tout, offer or sell any product or service through the Services, including but not limited to financial products, investments or services;
  8. Create a false identity on Forge, misrepresent your identity, create a Member profile for anyone other than yourself (a real person), or use or attempt to use another’s account;
  9. Develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, robots, or any other means or processes (including crawlers, browser plugins and add-ons, or any other technology) to scrape the Services or otherwise copy profiles and other data from the Services;
  10. Override any security feature or bypass or circumvent any access controls or use limits of the Services (such as caps on keyword searches or profile views);
  11. Copy, use, disclose or distribute any information obtained from the Services, whether directly or through third parties (such as search engines), without the consent of Forge;
  12. Disclose information that you do not have the consent to disclose (such as confidential information of others (including your employer));
  13. Violate the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets, or other proprietary rights. For example, do not copy or distribute (except through the available sharing functionality) the posts or other content of others without their permission, which they may give by posting under a Creative Commons license;
  14. Violate the intellectual property or other rights of Forge, including, without limitation, (i) copying or distributing our learning videos or other materials or (ii) copying or distributing our technology, unless it is released under open-source licenses; (iii) using the word "Forge" or our logos in any business name, email, or URL except with written permission from Forge;
  15. Engage in harassing, bullying, intimidation or other similar activity.
  16. Use hate speech, vulgarity, or other similar communications.
  17. Use behavior that does not support a safe and comfortable environment for all users, including obscenities, discriminatory language, or other language not suitable for a public forum, or to engage in any proselytizing, commercial activity, or political campaigning.
  18. Use language which violates or infringes in any way on the rights of others; or otherwise is threatening, abusive, defamatory, or invasive of privacy or publicity rights; suggests or encourages conduct which is a state or federal offense; or gives rise to civil liability or otherwise violates any state or federal law.
  19. Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, decipher or otherwise attempt to derive the source code for the Services or any related technology that is not open source;
  20. Imply or state that you are affiliated with or endorsed by Forge or Fidelity investments without our express consent (e.g., representing yourself as a Forge speaker);
  21. Promote, discuss or respond to any media inquiry regarding your participation in the Web Site without the express permission of Forge.
  22. Rent, lease, loan, trade, sell/re-sell or otherwise monetize the Services or related data or access to the same, without Forge’s consent;
  23. Deep-link to our Services for any purpose other than to promote your profile or a Group on our Services, without Forge’s consent;
  24. Use bots or other automated methods to access the Services, add or download contacts, send or redirect messages;
  25. Monitor the Services’ availability, performance or functionality for any competitive purpose;
  26. Engage in "framing," "mirroring," or otherwise simulating the appearance or function of the Services;
  27. Overlay or otherwise modify the Services or their appearance (such as by inserting elements into the Services or removing, covering, or obscuring an advertisement included on the Services);
  28. Interfere with the operation of, or place an unreasonable load on, the Services (e.g., spam, denial of service attack, viruses, gaming algorithms); and/or
  29. Violate the Membership Pledge or any additional terms concerning a specific Service that are provided when you sign up for or start using such Service.

    You acknowledge that,

  30. Any decision to engage in an investment strategy based on any information published on the Forge Community Web Site is based solely on your own research and considerations of the risks and your financial circumstances or the financial circumstances of persons or entities on whose behalf you are authorized to act. You will determine which investments are right for you or persons or entities on whose behalf you are authorized to act based on my or their investment objectives, risk tolerance, financial situation and other individual factors and re-evaluate them on a periodic basis.
  31. All statements, views, opinions or information expressed by you are your own and not those of Forge or any other individual or Members.
  32. Forge takes no responsibility for any statements, views, opinions or Member Content that you may post within the Web Site, and that you are solely and fully responsible for your investment decisions.
  33. Forge takes no responsibility for satisfying the compliance obligations you or other Members have under securities law, rules or regulations including with respect to approval, supervision, or retention of electronic communications.
  34. If Members are under certain regulatory obligations, those Members may retain conversations or posts solely for the purposes of adhering to securities law, rules or regulations.
  35. Forge makes no guarantees that information supplied on the Web Site is accurate, complete, or timely, and does not provide any warranties regarding results obtained from its use.
  36. Forge does not endorse or adopt the information submitted through the Web Site.
  37. You may receive emails from Forge regarding Web Site activities.

8.2 Forge Community Membership Pledge

In order to ensure all members of our community embody the values we set forth, we ask each member to agree to the community pledge. You must read and accept the pledge during registration to continue setting up your account. If you decline the pledge, you won't be able to join the Forge Community.

The Forge Community membership pledge

 

9. Complaints Regarding Content

We respect the intellectual property rights of others. We require that information posted by Members be accurate and not in violation of the intellectual property rights or other rights of third parties. To bring any concerns to our attention, please contact us at: info@forgecommunity.com.

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