Terms of Service

Welcome to Maru.community!

CanPro builds technologies and services that enable people to online expand their networks, choices, content, engagement, visibility, opportunities and available services. On the other hand, it empowers participating organisations to engage with you, our maru.community user to improve their offerings, participation, and trust.

These Terms govern your use of Maru.community, WorkPro and the other products, features, apps, services, technologies, and software we offer, except where we expressly state that separate terms (and not these) apply.

We don’t charge you to use Maru.community or other products and services covered by these Terms. Instead, businesses and organizations pay us to provide you with access to their programmes, products and services on our platforms. By using our Products, you agree that we can show you content and contact you about what we think will be relevant. We use your personal data to help determine how to improve our offerings.

We don’t sell your personal data to organizations, and we don’t share information that directly identifies you (such as your name, email address or other contact information) unless you give us specific permission. Instead, organisations can tell us the kind of user they want to see use their online services or ads, and we show those content and ads to people who may be interested. We provide our clients with reports about the performance of their services and ads that help them understand how people are interacting with their content.

What kinds of information do we collect?

To provide the services on Maru.community, we must process information about you. The types of information we collect depend on how you use our Products. 

Information and content, you provide. We collect the content, communications and other information you provide when you use our Products, including when you sign up for an account, create or share content, and message or communicate with others via our Products. We collect information about the people, pages visits, accounts and groups you are connected to and how you interact with them across our Products, such as people you communicate with the most or groups you are part of. 

Your usage. We collect information about how you use our Products, such as the types of content you view or engage with; the features you use; the actions you take; the people or accounts you interact with; and the time, frequency and duration of your activities. 

Things others do and information they provide about you. We also receive and analyze content, communications and information that other people provide when they use our Products. This can include information about you, such as when others share or comment on a photo of you, send a message to you, or upload, sync or import your contact information.

Device Information. As described below, we collect information from and about the computers, phones, connected TVs and other web-connected devices you use that integrate with our Products, and we combine this information across different devices you use. 

Data from device settings: information you allow us to receive through device settings you turn on, such as access to your GPS location, camera or photos.

Network and connections: information such as the name of your mobile operator or ISP, language, time zone, mobile phone number, IP address, connection speed and, in some cases, information about other devices that are nearby or on your network

Cookie data: data from cookies stored on your device, including cookie IDs and settings. 

The services we provide

Our mission is to give people the power to online expand their networks, choices, content, engagement, visibility, opportunities and available services. To help advance this mission, we provide the Products and services described below to you:

We use the data we have - for example, about the online services you use to personalize your experience.

Connect you with people, organizations and content that can add value to you:

We help you find and connect with people, groups, businesses, organizations, and others that can add value to you across Maru.communities. We use the data we have to make suggestions for you and others - for example, important information, opportunities in your area, local businesses. Stronger ties make for better communities, and we believe our services are most useful when people are connected to people, groups, and organizations they care about.

Empower you to express yourself and communicate about what matters to you:

There are many ways to express yourself on Maru.community and to communicate with community members, participating organisations and CanPro - for example, completing surveys, logging your need, reaching out to community members asking for help, telling us how you feel or sending your profile all via maru.community.

Help you discover content, products, and services that may interest you:

We show you ads, offers, and other sponsored content to help you discover content, products, and services that are offered by the many businesses and organizations that use Maru.community and other Maru.community Products. Section 2 below explains this in more detail.

Combat harmful conduct and protect and support our community:

People will only build community on Maru.community if they feel safe. We employ dedicated teams around the world and develop advanced technical systems to detect misuse of our Products, harmful conduct towards others, and situations where we may be able to help support or protect our community. If we learn of content or conduct like this, we will take appropriate action - for example, removing content, removing or restricting access to certain features, disabling an account, or contacting law enforcement. We share data with other Maru.community Companies when we detect misuse or harmful conduct by someone using one of our Products.

Use and develop advanced technologies to provide safe and functional services for everyone:

We use and develop advanced technologies - such as artificial intelligence, machine learning systems, and augmented reality - so that people can use our Products safely regardless of physical ability or geographic location. For example, technology like this helps people who have visual impairments understand what or who is in photos or videos shared on Maru.community or Instagram. We also build sophisticated network and communication technology to help more people connect to the internet in areas with limited access. And we develop automated systems to improve our ability to detect and remove abusive and dangerous activity that may harm our community and the integrity of our Products.

Research ways to make our services better:

We engage in research to develop, test, and improve our Products. This includes analyzing the data we have about our users and understanding how people use our Products, for example by conducting surveys and testing and troubleshooting new features. Our Data Policy explains how we use data to support this research for the purposes of developing and improving our services.

Provide consistent and seamless experiences across the CanPro Products:

Our Products help you find and connect with people, groups, businesses, organizations, and others that are important to you. We design our systems so that your experience is consistent and seamless across the different Maru.community Company Products that you use. For example, we use data about the people you engage with on Maru.community to make it easier for you to connect with them on Instagram or Messenger, and we enable you to communicate with a business you follow on Maru.community through Messenger.

Enable global access to our services:

To operate our global service, we need to store and distribute content and data in our data centres and systems around the world, including outside your country of residence. This infrastructure may be operated or controlled by Maru.community, Maru.community, or its affiliates.

How our services are funded

Instead of paying to use Maru.community and the other products and services we offer, by using the Maru.community Products covered by these Terms, you agree that we can show you ads that businesses and organizations pay us to promote on and off the Maru.community Company Products. We use your personal data, such as information about your activity and interests, to show you ads that are more relevant to you.

Protecting people's privacy is central to how we've designed our ad system. This means that we can show you relevant and useful ads without telling advertisers who you are. We don't sell your personal data. We allow advertisers to tell us things like their business goal, and the kind of audience they want to see their ads (for example, people between the age of 18-35 who like cycling). We then show their content to people who might be interested.

We also provide advertisers with reports about the performance of their ads to help them understand how people are interacting with their content on and off Maru.community. For example, we provide general demographic and interest information to advertisers (for example, that an ad was seen by a woman between the ages of 25 and 34 who lives in Mokopane and likes learning online) to help them better understand their audience. We don’t share information that directly identifies you (information such as your name or email address that by itself can be used to contact you or identifies who you are) unless you give us specific permission. Learn more about how Maru.community ads work here.

We collect and use your personal data in order to provide the services described above to you. You can learn about how we collect and use your data in our Data Policy. You have controls over the types of ads and advertisers you see, and the types of information we use to determine which ads we show you. Learn more.

Your commitments to Maru.community and our community

We provide these services to you and others to help advance our mission. In exchange, we need you to make the following commitments:

1. Who can use Maru.community

When people stand behind their opinions and actions, our community is safer and more accountable. For this reason, you must:

• Use the same name that you use in everyday life.
• Provide accurate information about yourself.
• Create only one account (your own) and use your timeline for personal purposes.
• Not share your password, give access to your Maru.community account to others, or transfer your account to anyone else (without our permission).

We try to make Maru.community broadly available to everyone, but you cannot use Maru.community if:

• You are under 13 years old (or the minimum legal age in your country to use our Products).
• You are a convicted sex offender.
• We've previously disabled your account for violations of our Terms or Policies.
• You are prohibited from receiving our products, services, or software under applicable laws.

2. What you can share and do on Maru.community

We want people to use Maru.community to express themselves and to share content that is important to them, but not at the expense of the safety and well-being of others or the integrity of our community. You therefore agree not to engage in the conduct described below (or to facilitate or support others in doing so):

1. You may not use our Products to do or share anything:
2. That violates these Terms, our Community Standards, and other terms and policies that apply to your use of Maru.community.
3. That is unlawful, misleading, discriminatory or fraudulent.
4. That infringes or violates someone else's rights, including their intellectual property rights.
5. You may not upload viruses or malicious code or do anything that could disable, overburden, or impair the proper working or appearance of our Products.
6. You may not access or collect data from our Products using automated means (without our prior permission) or attempt to access data you do not have permission to access.

We can remove or restrict access to content that is in violation of these provisions.

If we remove content that you have shared in violation of our Community Standards, we’ll let you know and explain any options you have to request another review, unless you seriously or repeatedly violate these Terms or if doing so may expose us or others to legal liability; harm our community of users; compromise or interfere with the integrity or operation of any of our services, systems or Products; where we are restricted due to technical limitations; or where we are prohibited from doing so for legal reasons.

To help support our community, we encourage you to report content or conduct that you believe violates your rights (including intellectual property rights) or our terms and policies.

1. The permissions you give us

We need certain permissions from you to provide our services:

1. Permission to use content you create and share: Some content that you share or upload, such as photos or videos, may be protected by intellectual property laws.

You own the intellectual property rights (things like copyright or trademarks) in any such content that you create and share on Maru.community and the other Maru.community Company Products you use. Nothing in these Terms takes away the rights you have to your own content. You are free to share your content with anyone else, wherever you want.

However, to provide our services we need you to give us some legal permissions (known as a ‘license’) to use this content. This is solely for the purposes of providing and improving our Products and services as described in Section 1 above.

Specifically, when you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings). This means, for example, that if you share a photo on Maru.community, you give us permission to store, copy, and share it with others (again, consistent with your settings) such as service providers that support our service or other Maru.community Products you use. This license will end when your content is deleted from our systems.

You can delete content individually or all at once by deleting your account. Learn more about how to delete your account. You can download a copy of your data at any time before deleting your account.

When you delete content, it’s no longer visible to other users, however it may continue to exist elsewhere on our systems where:

• immediate deletion is not possible due to technical limitations (in which case, your content will be deleted within a maximum of 90 days from when you delete it);
• your content has been used by others in accordance with this license and they have not deleted it (in which case this license will continue to apply until that content is deleted); or where immediate deletion would restrict our ability to:
• investigate or identify illegal activity or violations of our terms and policies (for example, to identify or investigate misuse of our Products or systems);
• comply with a legal obligation, such as the preservation of evidence; or
• comply with a request of a judicial or administrative authority, law enforcement or a government agency;

in which case, the content will be retained for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it has been retained (the exact duration will vary on a case-by-case basis).

In each of the above cases, this license will continue until the content has been fully deleted.

1. Permission to use your name, profile picture, and information about your actions with ads and sponsored content: You give us permission to use your name and profile picture and information about actions you have taken on Maru.community next to or in connection with ads, offers, and other sponsored content that we display across our Products, without any compensation to you. For example, we may show your friends that you are interested in an advertised event or have liked a Page created by a brand that has paid us to display its ads on Maru.community. Ads like this can be seen only by people who have your permission to see the actions you've taken on Maru.community. You can learn more about your ad settings and preferences.
2. Permission to update software you use or download: If you download or use our software, you give us permission to download and install updates to the software where available.

4. Limits on using our intellectual property

If you use content covered by intellectual property rights that we have and make available in our Products (for example, images, designs, videos, or sounds we provide that you add to content you create or share on Maru.community), we retain all rights to that content (but not yours). You can only use our copyrights or trademarks (or any similar marks) as expressly permitted by our Brand Usage Guidelines or with our prior written permission. You must obtain our written permission (or permission under an open source license) to modify, create derivative works of, decompile, or otherwise attempt to extract source code from us.

Additional provisions

1. Updating our Terms

We work constantly to improve our services and develop new features to make our Products better for you and our community. As a result, we may need to update these Terms from time to time to accurately reflect our services and practices. We will only make any changes if the provisions are no longer appropriate or if they are incomplete, and only if the changes are reasonable and take due account of your interests.

We will notify you (for example, by email or through our Products) at least 30 days before we make changes to these Terms and give you an opportunity to review them before they go into effect, unless changes are required by law. Once any updated Terms are in effect, you will be bound by them if you continue to use our Products.

We hope that you will continue using our Products, but if you do not agree to our updated Terms and no longer want to be a part of the Maru.community community, you can delete your account at any time.

2. Account suspension or termination

We want Maru.community to be a place where people feel welcome and safe to express themselves and share their thoughts and ideas.

If we determine that you have clearly, seriously or repeatedly breached our Terms or Policies, including in particular our Community Standards, we may suspend or permanently disable access to your account. We may also suspend or disable your account if you repeatedly infringe other people’s intellectual property rights or where we are required to do so for legal reasons.

Where we take such action we’ll let you know and explain any options you have to request a review, unless doing so may expose us or others to legal liability; harm our community of users; compromise or interfere with the integrity or operation of any of our services, systems or Products; or where we are restricted due to technical limitations; or where we are prohibited from doing so for legal reasons.

You can learn more about what you can do if your account has been disabled and how to contact us if you think we have disabled your account by mistake.

If you delete or we disable your account, these Terms shall terminate as an agreement between you and us, but the following provisions will remain in place: 3, 4.2-4.5.

3. Limits on liability

We work hard to provide the best Products we can and to specify clear guidelines for everyone who uses them. Our Products, however, are provided "as is," and we make no guarantees that they always will be safe, secure, or error-free, or that they will function without disruptions, delays, or imperfections. To the extent permitted by law, we also DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. We do not control or direct what people and others do or say, and we are not responsible for their actions or conduct (whether online or offline) or any content they share (including offensive, inappropriate, obscene, unlawful, and other objectionable content).

We cannot predict when issues might arise with our Products. Accordingly, our liability shall be limited to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, and under no circumstance will we be liable to you for any lost profits, revenues, information, or data, or consequential, special, indirect, exemplary, punitive, or incidental damages arising out of or related to these Terms or the Maru.community Products, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

4. Disputes

We try to provide clear rules so that we can limit or hopefully avoid disputes between you and us. If a dispute does arise, however, it's useful to know up front where it can be resolved and what laws will apply.

If you are a consumer, the laws of the country in which you reside will apply to any claim, cause of action, or dispute you have against us that arises out of or relates to these Terms or the Maru.community Products, and you may resolve your claim in any competent court in that country that has jurisdiction over the claim. In all other cases, you agree that the claim must be resolved exclusively in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California or a state court located in San Mateo County. You also agree that you submit to the personal jurisdiction of either of these courts for the purpose of litigating any such claim, and that the laws of the State of California will govern these Terms and any claim, without regard to conflict of law provisions.

5. Other

1. These Terms (formerly known as the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities) make up the entire agreement between you and Maru.community, Inc. regarding your use of our Products. They supersede any prior agreements.
2. Some of the Products we offer are also governed by supplemental terms. If you use any of those Products, supplemental terms will be made available and will become part of our agreement with you. For instance, if you access or use our Products for commercial or business purposes, such as buying ads, selling products, developing apps, managing a group or Page for your business, or using our measurement services, you must agree to our Commercial Terms. If you post or share content containing music, you must comply with our Music Guidelines. To the extent any supplemental terms conflict with these Terms, the supplemental terms shall govern to the extent of the conflict.
3. If any portion of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining portion will remain in full force and effect. If we fail to enforce any of these Terms, it will not be considered a waiver. Any amendment to or waiver of these Terms must be made in writing and signed by us.
4. You will not transfer any of your rights or obligations under these Terms to anyone else without our consent.
5. You may designate a person (called a legacy contact) to manage your account if it is memorialized. Only your legacy contact or a person who you have identified in a valid will or similar document expressing clear consent to disclose your content upon death or incapacity will be able to seek disclosure from your account after it is memorialized.
6. These Terms do not confer any third-party beneficiary rights. All of our rights and obligations under these Terms are freely assignable by us in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, or by operation of law or otherwise.
7. You should know that we may need to change the username for your account in certain circumstances (for example, if someone else claims the username and it appears unrelated to the name you use in everyday life). We will inform you in advance if we have to do this and explain why.
8. We always appreciate your feedback and other suggestions about our products and services. But you should know that we may use them without any restriction or obligation to compensate you, and we are under no obligation to keep them confidential.
9. We reserve all rights not expressly granted to you.

5. Other terms and policies that may apply to you

• Community Standards: These guidelines outline our standards regarding the content you post to Maru.community and your activity on Maru.community and other Maru.community Products.
• Commercial Terms: These terms apply if you also access or use our Products for any commercial or business purpose, including advertising, operating an app on our Platform, using our measurement services, managing a group or a Page for a business, or selling goods or services.
• Advertising Policies: These policies specify what types of ad content are allowed by partners who advertise across the Maru.community Products.
• Self-Serve Ad Terms: These terms apply when you use self-serve advertising interfaces to create, submit, or deliver advertising or other commercial or sponsored activity or content.
• Pages, Groups and Events Policy: These guidelines apply if you create or administer a Maru.community Page, group, or event, or if you use Maru.community to communicate or administer a promotion.
• Maru.community Platform Policy: These guidelines outline the policies that apply to your use of our Platform (for example, for developers or operators of a Platform application or website or if you use social plugins).
• Developer Payment Terms: These terms apply to developers of applications that use Maru.community Payments.
• Community Payment Terms: These terms apply to payments made on or through Maru.community.
• Commerce Policies: These guidelines outline the policies that apply when you offer products and services for sale on Maru.community.
• Maru.community Brand Resources: These guidelines outline the policies that apply to use of Maru.community trademarks, logos, and screenshots.
• Music Guidelines: These guidelines outline the policies that apply if you post or share content containing music on Maru.community.

Date of Last Revision: Nov 2020