AFFILIATE AGREEMENT
Welcome to the Real Estate Press, LLC d/b/a HousingAlerts.com (hereinafter referred to as “Publisher”) Affiliate Marketing Agreement (the “Agreement”). This Agreement sets forth the terms and conditions under which Publisher makes the Real Estate Press Affiliate Program (“Affiliate Program”) available to you.
In addition to the terms below you must also be an Active Paid Member in the HousingAlerts system to qualify for the Affiliate Program.
By becoming a Publisher Affiliate and using the Affiliate Program you expressly agree to be bound by and follow all terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement. If you do not agree to be bound by this Agreement, your sole recourse is not to participate in the Affiliate Program.
Publisher reserves the right to add, delete and/or modify any of the terms and conditions contained in this Agreement, at any time and in its sole discretion, by posting a change notice or a new agreement on the Publisher Web Site. In the event of substantive changes to the terms of this Agreement, you may be notified by email. If any modification is unacceptable to you, your only recourse is to terminate this Agreement and your participation in the Affiliate Program. Your continued participation in the Affiliate Program following posting of a change notice or new agreement on the Publisher Web Site will constitute binding acceptance of the changes.
1. General
1.1 The Privacy & Terms Notices located in the footer of the website (hereinafter referred to as “Terms of Service” or “TOS”) are incorporated herein by this reference. As an Affiliate you will continue to be bound by the Publisher Agreement and the Terms of Service.
1.2 Independent Contractor. You hereby represent, warrant and agree that you are an Independent Contractor as defined by the IRS and NOT an employee of Publisher. As an Independent Contractor, Publisher has no obligation or responsibility for any withholding or payment of your taxes, insurance or any of your other business expenses, for which you are solely responsible.
2. Becoming a Publisher Affiliate
2.1 Eligibility. Publisher will only knowingly provide the Affiliate Program to parties that can lawfully enter into and form contracts under applicable Florida state law. By joining this Affiliate Program, you attest that you are legally competent to enter into such agreement and are over the age of eighteen (18).
2.2 Opening an Account. To become an Affiliate and have the right to participate in the Affiliate Program, you must enroll in the Affiliate Program by opening an Affiliate account (“Account”) with Publisher through its online registration process.
2.3 Contact Information. You must provide Publisher with accurate and complete contact and payment information when you open an Account. You must immediately notify Publisher if any of your contact or payment information changes. If you do not provide Publisher with complete, accurate, and updated contact information, you may not be eligible to receive commissions based on your participation in the Affiliate Program.
2.4 Account Security. You will need to select a password if you open an Account. You will be solely and exclusively responsible for keeping your password confidential and all use of your password and Account, including, without limitation, any use by any third party. You must notify Publisher immediately if you believe your password has been or may be obtained or used by any unauthorized person or entity. In addition, you must notify Publisher immediately if you become aware of any other breach or attempted breach of the security of your Account or the Publisher Service.
2.5 Objectionable Material. Publisher may terminate this agreement if Publisher determines (in its sole and exclusive opinion) that your site or promotional activities are objectionable, harmful, illegal, threatening, obscene, defamatory, harassing, racially or ethnically prejudiced, inconsistent with our business plan or otherwise in bad taste.
3. Your Obligations
3.1 You must use the Affiliate Program in a manner that demonstrates common sense and respect for the rights of Publisher and third parties. You shall not misrepresent any Publisher family of products or services or make any unsubstantiated income or other product claims not expressly made in the Publisher family of Web Sites.
3.2 Special Links. As a member of the Affiliate Program, Publisher will provide you with special “tagged” link formats (“Special Link(s)”) to be used in linking to the Publisher family of Web Sites (“Web Sites”). The Special Links will permit tracking, reporting, and commission calculations. You must ensure that each of these links properly utilize the Special Link formats. You will only earn commissions on activities occurring on or through the Publisher Web Site if such activity was originated from properly formatted Special Links and processed through the RealEsatePress.com system. Publisher will not be liable to you for any failure by you to use Special Links, or by failures of the system itself, including to the extent that such failure may result in any reduction of amounts, which may otherwise be owed to you pursuant to this Agreement.
3.3 SPAM and Spamming
This sets forth our policy with regard to the use of “SPAM” marketing techniques in connection with Internet Marketing. In the event that we deem you to be in violation of these policies, we shall immediately revoke your rights and close any active account, withhold future commission payments and aggressively pursue legal action against you to recover all damages attributable to your spamming activities.
We have a strict policy against spamming. We forbid the sending of unsolicited mass Emails or unsolicited Emails of any kind in connection with the marketing of our programs, products and services.
We reserve the right to terminate your account and participation in our programs “for cause” if we deem you to be in violation of our anti-spamming policies. We also reserve the right to suspend your account and participation pending review upon receipt of any complaint or other evidence that you may be engaging in any spamming activity.
We consider spamming to be any activity whereby you directly or indirectly transmit email messages to any email address that has not solicited such email and does not consent to such transmission. We also consider spamming to constitute posting advertisements in newsgroups, blogs, forums and similar venues in violation of the terms of participation in such group(s), posting messages that are off topic, or in venues that do not specifically permit or welcome such advertisements. We also consider it spamming when advertisements are placed on message boards or in chat rooms when they are not permitted by the terms of participation in such message boards and chat rooms or when they are posted by automated means or in such quantities so as to become rude, offensive, disrespectful or annoying to other users of the group.
3.4 Use of Special Links. Publisher will provide you with the Special Links, text and graphical artwork to use in linking to the Web Sites. You must use the Special Links and other material in accordance with the terms and conditions in this Agreement and as may be posted on the Publisher Web Sites (hereinafter referred to as “Affiliate Guidelines”).
3.5 Bypassing our name and email capture or registration pages. You are not permitted to link directly to any sub-pages within our family of websites if doing so allows visitors to access our training material without first registering or opting-in to our newsletter or auto-responder lists.
We have tested and optimized the sales process; these systems must be used as designed. Implicit in our attractive commission schedules is the fact we will also be obtaining potential marketing leads from these opt-in systems. Enabling visitors to bypass these systems for the purpose of accessing our intellectual property without first registering is deemed an unauthorized use of copyrighted material and shall be grounds for dismissal from our program.
4. Customers Purchasing Via the Affiliate Program
4.1 Order Processing and Reporting. Publisher will process all product orders placed by customers who follow Special Links to the Publisher Web Sites (“Customers”). Publisher reserves the right to reject orders that do not comply with any requirements that Publisher has and may periodically establish. Publisher will be responsible for all aspects of order processing and fulfillment. Among other things, Publisher will prepare order forms, process payments and handle customer service. Publisher will track sales made to Customers who purchase products using Special Links from your web site to the Publisher Web Sites and will make available to you reports summarizing sales activity. Publisher will use commercially reasonable efforts to present accurate information in the reports, but Publisher cannot guarantee the accuracy of the reports.
4.2 Customers. Customers who buy products through the Affiliate Program will be deemed to be customers of Publisher. Accordingly, all of the Publisher rules, policies, and operating procedures concerning customer orders, customer service and product sales will apply to those Customers. Publisher may change the Publisher policies and operating procedures at any time. Product prices and availability may vary from time to time, and such price changes may affect your commissions and/or products that you already have listed on your web site. Publisher will use commercially reasonable efforts to present accurate information, but Publisher cannot guarantee the availability or price of any particular product.
5. Affiliate Commissions and Reporting
5.1 Affiliate Commissions. Publisher will pay you commissions in accordance with this Agreement and the Affiliate Commission Schedule (“Commissions”). The Affiliate Commission Schedule is incorporated herein by this reference. Publisher Affiliates can earn commissions only from the following types of transactions:
Direct Initial Sales. Publisher shall pay you a commission on qualifying “direct” Initial Sales, net of any discounts, gift certificates, merchant fees and/or other promotions, and originating from Special Links on your web site or web space and as processed through the affiliate system in accordance with the then current Affiliate Commission Schedule (currently 50% of the ‘initial’ sale, net of any returns, cancellations, charge-backs, 4% merchant fees, and reserves) as set forth herein. No sub-affiliate or second-tier commissions are paid on non-direct or other affiliates’ sales.
Residual Commissions from monthly or annual membership fees. No commissions shall be earned, due or payable on any portion of any recurring membership fees.
5.2 Payment of Commissions.
(a) Tax Information. In order to receive your Commissions you must provide your taxpayer information to Publisher as required by the IRS on form W-9. If Publisher does not have your current taxpayer information on file for a particular year, payments due to you under this Agreement will not be made until such form has been provided.
(b) Payment Terms. Publisher will pay you Commissions on a monthly basis. Within 60 days following the end of any ‘free trial’ period granted to the individual purchasers, Publisher will send you a check (or make payments via other acceptable payment method, such as PayPal, as Publisher shall, in it’s sole discretion, determine) for the Commissions you have earned for the relevant month after first deducting a contingency reserve against future returns, refunds or credit card charge-backs. The amount of said reserve shall be determined by Publisher, in its sole and exclusive judgment and Publisher shall provide you an accounting of such reserves, if any. Any previously reserved funds, net of any subsequent customer refunds, returns or charge-backs, shall be released and paid as and when deemed appropriate by Publisher, in its sole judgment. However, except in the event of apparent fraud or unusually large customer returns, refunds or charge-backs, no such reserve funds shall be maintained by Publisher for more than six months beyond the originally scheduled payment date. If the Commissions payable to you for any month are less than $50.00, Publisher will hold your Commissions until the total amount due is at least $50.00 or until this Agreement is terminated.
( c) Free Trial Period & Refunds. For purposes of customer goodwill and to reduce customer charge-backs and/or disputes, Publisher has adopted the practice of issuing customer refunds well beyond the stated ‘free trial’ period. Commissions are not earned, due or payable on any such refunded customer transaction. In the event commissions had previously been paid on such subsequently refunded sale(s), or in the event of an error in calculating previous commission payments made to you, Publisher may, in it’s sole discretion, deduct such overpaid commissions from future commission payments to you or request that you return such overpaid commissions, which you hereby agree to do within five business days.
(d) Self-purchased memberships. You may not use your affiliate account to purchase your own membership in HousingAlerts.com and no commissions will be earned, due or payable for such sale.
(e) Charitable Contribution. Unless you and Publisher otherwise agree in writing, Publisher may remit any payment otherwise due to you as a contribution in your name to a 501(c)(3) charitable nonprofit organization of Publisher’s choice (or any charity agreed upon in writing by you and Publisher) if: (i) you fail to provide Publisher with accurate and complete contact information and appropriate IRS documents; and (ii) the funds remain outstanding for more than 12 months. If Publisher makes such a contribution, its obligation to you shall be reduced by the amount of that contribution.
(f) Extended Payment Plan (“EPP”) sales. Products may be offered for sale under a deferred or ‘extended’ payment plan. For example, the entire regular ‘upfront’ sale price may be stretched out over several monthly payments. Commissions on such EPP sales actually received will be earned due and payable as though each portion of the partial upfront payments were treated as a separate sale and shall exclude any amount of that payment which is attributable to the recurring monthly membership fee, whether that monthly membership amount is expressly broken-out or not.
5.3 Non Disclosure Agreement. You will be given access our product and marketing strategy information including the software, special reports, audio/video recordings, sample emails, etc. (hereinafter “Proprietary Information”) on a strictly CONFIDENTIAL basis. Accordingly, you agree to hold the Proprietary Information in strict confidence and to take all reasonable precautions to protect the secrecy of such Proprietary Information, preventing it from intentional or accidental release to unauthorized 3rd parties.
6. Communications
6.1 Identifying Yourself As An Affiliate Except as expressly agreed by the parties, you may not make any press release with respect to this Agreement or your participation in the Affiliate Program without Publisher’s prior written consent, which may be given or withheld in its sole discretion.
6.2 Notices. Official notices to the Affiliate shall be sent to the email address on record in the Affiliate System. Notices to Publisher shall be sent to partners@realestatepress.com with a copy to ken@realestatepress.com
7. Limited Licenses
7.1 Publisher License to You of Images, Text and Links. Publisher grants you a limited nonexclusive, nontransferable, revocable right to use the graphic images and text provided to you by Publisher, for use on your web site or web space, solely for the purpose of identifying your web site or web space as an Affiliate Program participant and to assist in generating Commissions.
In addition, Publisher grants you a limited, nontransferable, nonexclusive, worldwide right to reproduce and use all graphic images and other materials provided to you, solely for the purpose of creating Special Links connecting your web site or web space to the Publisher Web Site and promoting the sale of products on the Publisher Web Sites. Product images cannot be used in any form other than the in the form and for the purposes provided by Publisher. You may not modify the graphic images or text, or any other of the Publisher images, in any way. Publisher may revoke your license at any time by giving you written notice. Publisher and its family of Web Sites reserves all of its rights in the graphic images, text, any other images, trade names and trademarks, copyrights and all other intellectual property rights. Any and all rights in and to Publisher’s family of Web Sites’ intellectual property shall inure to the benefit of Publisher.
8. Indemnification
As you are bound by the Terms of Service in using the Affiliate Program, you hereby indemnify, defend and hold Publisher harmless for any claim arising out of, relating to, or connected with your alleged breach of the Terms of Service in using the Affiliate Program.
9. Disputes, Term and Termination
9.1 Term. The term of this Agreement will begin upon Publisher’s acceptance of your Affiliate Program application and will end when terminated by either party.
9.2 Publisher Termination. In its sole discretion, with or without notice to you, Publisher may terminate your participation in the Affiliate Program and terminate your Account. If Publisher determines, in its sole discretion, that you are spamming or otherwise abusing the system, Publisher may (without limiting any other rights or remedies available to it) withdraw your participation and withhold any Commissions payable to you.
9.3 Disputes. Any disputes you may have resulting from your participation in the Affiliate Program will be subject to mediation or confidential binding arbitration, as selected by Publisher, the costs of which shall be paid by you.
9.4 In the event of an inconsistency between this Agreement and the Publisher Terms of Service, this Agreement shall control.
9.5 Your Termination. You may terminate your Account by sending us an email a partners@realestatepress.com
9.6 Effect of Termination. You can only earn Commissions during the term of the Agreement, and Commissions earned through the date of termination will remain payable only if the related orders are not canceled or returned. Publisher may withhold your final payment for a reasonable time to ensure that the correct amount is paid. Upon the termination of this Agreement for any reason, you will immediately cease use of, and remove from your web site, all links to the Publisher Web Site, product images from the Publisher database, all Publisher trademarks, trade dress and logos, all Special Links, and all other materials provided by or on behalf of Publisher to you pursuant hereto or in connection with the Affiliate Program.
10. Entire Agreement
This Agreement comprises the entire agreement between you (the Affiliate) and Publisher and that this Agreement may not be modified orally.
11. Governing Law
This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Florida. You may not assign or attempt to assign your obligations under this agreement without the prior written consent of Publisher.
12. Severability
In the event that any portion of this Agreement is held to be unenforceable, the unenforceable portion shall be construed in accordance with applicable law as nearly as possible to reflect the original intentions of the parties hereto and the remainder of the provisions shall remain in full force and effect.
13. Force Majeure
Publisher shall not be liable or deemed to be in default for any delay or failure in performance under this Agreement or interruption of service resulting directly or indirectly from the performance, or lack of performance, from any third-party provider of information, products or services.
I indicate my approval of and assent to this agreement and desire to become an affiliate under these terms and conditions by filling out and submitting the Real Estate Press, LLC affiliate enrollment form.