Information-Online is a free service for communication, self-expression and freedom of speech. We believe Information-Online increases the availability of information, encourages healthy debate, and makes possible new connections between people.

We respect our users' ownership of and responsibility for the content they choose to share. It is our belief that censoring this content is contrary to a service that bases itself on freedom of expression.

In order to uphold these values, we need to curb abuses that threaten our ability to provide this service and the freedom of expression it encourages. As a result, there are some boundaries on the type of content that can be hosted with Information-Online. The boundaries we've defined are those that both comply with legal requirements and that serve to enhance the service as a whole.

Content Boundaries

Illegal Purposes.
Information-Online may not be used for illegal purposes. Examples of this include using Information-Online for fraudulent purposes or operating a phishing site (used to obtain account and password information).

Spam.
We will aggressively seek to remove spam from our site. There are a variety of different ways in which spam manifests itself in blogs.
Generally, when we talk about spam we mean content that is created for the primary purpose of manipulating search engine results, or generating revenue or traffic through deceptive means. The following are examples of the types of spam that are forbidden by the Information-Online Content Policy ("Content Policy"), but this is not an exhaustive list.

• comment spam: the manual or automated placement of comments on a post for the sole purpose of driving either traffic or Google PageRank to another site. Note that Blogger uses the rel="nofollow" attribute on links in comments to negate the effect of comment spam />
• referrer spamming: send fake referrer traffic (links) to a site for the purpose of driving traffic to a Blog*Spot-hosted blog
• cloaking:
  the programmatic hiding of content on a site for the purposes of having
  that content indexed by search engines without it being viewable
• automated content creation: the scripted creation of blog content for the purpose of generating revenue or manipulating search results

More information about the specific measures we are taking against spam can be found in Blogger Help.

Identity Theft and Privacy.
Blogs that misleadingly appropriate the identity of another person are not permitted.

Users may not post other people's personally identifying or confidential information, including but not limited to credit card numbers, Social Security Numbers, and driver's and other license numbers. You may not post information such as other people's passwords, usernames, phone numbers, addresses and e-mail addresses unless already publicly accessible on the Web.

Hate Content.
Hate speech and other objectionable content may be flagged for review by our users. When this happens, Blogger reserves the right to warn others of the potentially offensive content through the use of a warning page. Other content, such as adult material, may be depublicized so that it does not appear in frequently-trafficked places such as the homepage of Information-Online.

Just because a given blog has received votes through this mechanism does not mean that any particular action will be taken. For example, blogs that are flagged because readers disagree with the political opinions expressed in a blog will not be acted upon.

Please see Blogger Help for more information about our "Flag as Objectionable" feature.

Defamation/Libel.
Users should not publish any content that is unlawful, defamatory, and fraudulent. Note that an allegation of defamatory expression, in and of itself, does not establish defamation. The truth or falsehood of a bit of expression is a key element in establishing defamation, and we are not in a position to make that sort of fact-based judgment. That said, if we have reason to believe that a particular statement is defamatory (a court order, for example), we will remove that statement.

Disruptions and Exploits.
We will terminate accounts and block addresses of those who attempt unauthorized use of both Information-Online.

Copyright.
Using copyrighted material does not constitute infringement in all cases. In general, however, users should be careful when using copyrighted content without the permission of those who created it.

It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). If we remove a blog/post or disable access to a blog to comply with the DMCA, we will make a good-faith attempt to contact the owner or administrator of each affected site so that they may make a counter notification pursuant to section 512(g)(2) and (3) of the DMCA. It is our policy to document all notices of alleged infringement on which we act. A copy of the notice, with any personally identifying information removed, will be sent to a third party who will make it available to the public.

More information about our copyright procedures can be found here.

Commercial Pornography.
We do not permit the hosting of sites that exist for the primary purpose of garnering commercial traffic through pornography. Such sites tend to take up a disproportionate amount of resources. In order to maintain a free and open service for the majority of our users, we choose to forbid commercial pornography on Blog*Spot.