TERMS AND AGREEMENTS
HERBAL ACADEMY OF NEW ENGLAND AFFILIATE PROGRAM TERMS AND AGREEMENTS
This general agreement is made out to you (the affiliate) from Herbal Academy of New England. It contains the complete terms and agreements of the affiliate program.
Please Note: “we”, “us”, and “our” refers to Herbal Academy of New England and “you”, “yours”, “your” refers to the applicant. The term of this agreement will begin once you are accepted into the Herbal Academy of New England affiliate program and will end upon notice of termination from either you or Herbal Academy of New England.
RIGHTS AND RESTRICTIONS
- We reserve the right to accept or reject any affiliate we review. All new affiliate requests will be reviewed and decided upon within 72 hours. In the event that we have opted to accept your acceptance as an affiliate we will notify you by e-mail within this 72 hour time frame. Herbal Academy of New England will exercise their own discretion during the decision making process and may decide to decline any application we see necessary.
- All affiliates are required to be of legal age to enter into a contractual agreement.
- As part of this agreement, all affiliates who are accruing active commissions must do so through a visible Herbal Academy of New England banner, link or other forwarding method on a publicly viewable website, newsletter, blog, etc. Failure to do so may result in a terminated account.
- Affiliates are prohibited from using “Herbal Academy”, “Academy”, or “Herbal Academy of New England” in the url/web address or title of their website. Affiliates may not purchase or register any search terms, keywords, or other identifiers that include the phrase “Herbal Academy of New England” (including similar variations; ie., “Herbal Academy,” “Herbal New England,” “Herbal Academy products,” “Herbal Academy coupon,” etc.) for use in any search engine, directory, portal, sponsored advertising service, or other search service. If we determine that you have engaged in any of the above activities, we may, at our sole discretion, withhold any commissions otherwise payable to you under this Agreement and/or terminate this Agreement.
- While we allow affiliates to order through their own site, the affiliate program is not intended as a discount program. We will audit sites for publicly viewable links and banners coded with a unique affiliate number.
- Affiliates should regularly create original content for their site or provide rich informational resources related to herbs, herbalism, sustainable living, aromatherapy, natural body care, environmentalism, tea culture, culinary recipes, etc.
CANCELLATION
- The affiliate account may be cancelled by Herbal Academy of New England at any time for any reason we feel appropriate. This is usually the result of slander, misrepresentation made to us, spam email used to promote the affiliate, posting Herbal Academy of New England links on unapproved websites, uploading affiliate code through the use of unapproved methods, or sites that we feel might bring Herbal Academy of New England disrepute, etc. An issued warning letter in the form of e-mail, fax or letter will be sent first. If no reparations have been made, then the affiliates account with Herbal Academy of New England will be terminated.
- All affiliates may cancel their account with Herbal Academy of New England at any time and for any reason.
- Affiliate accounts are non-transferable. The affiliate account will belong to the original registered owner until such time as the account is canceled by either party.
ACCESS TO ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT SERVICES
- Immediately after your acceptance into the Herbal Academy of New England affiliate program you will be emailed links, passwords and the related information necessary to gain access to your control panel. From here you may manage your account and set its parameters. We suggest you keep these invaluable links in a safe place and in a place that is easily accessible by you. If for any reason you lose this information we will be able to re-send it to you.
USE OF GRAPHICS AND LINKS, LIMITATIONS OF USE, AND COOKIE PERIODS
- Only HTML code and approved linking information is to be used for the affiliates website. Failure to do so will result in misappropriated commissions. All of the links, graphics, and account management information will be provided to the affiliate after their acceptance into the program. In no way is the affiliate to use graphics or links not approved by Herbal Academy of New England.
- Once a viewer clicks on an affiliate link and places an order with Herbal Academy of New England that viewer becomes the sole customer of Herbal Academy of New England. The affiliate will not have access to the customer’s account information, contact information, and will not be allowed to communicate with customer in regards to their order/s placed with Herbal Academy of New England. Herbal Academy of New England is responsible for all customer service, fulfillment, processing, shipping and after-order inquiries made with the customer.
- This agreement does not constitute a joint venture, partnership, franchise, or other representative business of Herbal Academy of New England. The affiliate is being paid as an independent contractor and in no way is this to be interpreted as representation or endorsement by Herbal Academy of New England.
- Herbal Academy of New England may at any time refuse any particular link, text or referring graphic used to forward a viewer to the Herbal Academy of New England website. Only approved links, banners, graphics and text may be used.
- The use of Herbal Academy of New England affiliate links, or links referring to a particular affiliate link is strictly prohibited through the use of junk mail, email server programs, spam, hit distribution networks, pay-per-click programs, or through mass distribution in chat rooms, on Herbal Academy of New England social networking sites, etc. Herbal Academy of New England holds sole discretion on what is termed as “inappropriate use” and may at any time close an account if we are given information on inappropriate use.
- The cookie period for the Herbal Academy of New England affiliate program is exactly 21 days. After this 21 day period the viewer must come back to the affiliate’s website and proceed to click a link for commission to be earned.
- Commissions will not be reported or recorded by viewers who have set their cookie protection settings to a high standard. This may block and prevent the necessary cookies from being installed thus preventing the accrual of commissions that you as the affiliate may earn.
- Herbal Academy of New England is not responsible for sales lost through high security settings, firewall parameters, or any other settings or equipment which prevent the necessary cookies from being installed.
- Affiliates are solely responsible for the development, operation, maintenance and technical operation of their sites including all materials that appear on their sites and related equipment.
INTERNATIONAL AFFILIATES
- We welcome affiliates from the international community but payouts to international affiliates from Herbal Academy of New England will be made with Paypal. There are no exceptions. Provide an accurate Paypal email to receive payouts in your application. All payments are sent out the first full week of each month.
PAYMENT
- Monthly payout to the affiliate will accrue in their account until a minimum of $50.00 has been met. We will not make payments or reimbursements to affiliates for amounts under $50.00. This helps us manage over-head and accounting fees. All commission payouts will be sent via Paypal the first full week of every month.
- The commission to the affiliates is based on 15% of the subtotal for each order. You will not receive a commission on shipping charges.
- Commissions can be voided within your account for reasons which we will feel are appropriate. This is usually the result of fraudulent orders, excessive clicks from the same IP address, refunds, declines from the referred customer’s credit card, or other reasons that facilitate garnishment of commission.
- We will not be responsible for lost commissions due to improper coding or inoperative links. Herbal Academy of New England is also not responsible for sales lost through technical issues, such as, service outages, service interruptions, website updates, and server updates.
FRAUDULENT ORDERS AND ORDERS OUTSTANDING
- It is possible that we may receive an order that is illegitimate and fraudulent. This usually takes place with a stolen or dispossessed credit card. In the event that we receive an order, which we have conclusive evidence of being fraudulent, we will cancel the order entirely and decommission your account for the 15%. If this is to occur you will be notified immediately.
- Herbal Academy of New England currently has the option for a customer to choose a payment option titled “check/money order”. This is a choice for customers who wish to pay by check and it is our policy to hold orders until the check or money order payment has reached our office. After 30 days of non-payment from a customer that has chosen this payment option we issue an e-mail giving the customer a chance to respond within 3 business days in regards to their order. If we do not hear from them their order is cancelled and the 15% commission, which was awarded to the affiliate will be removed from the account.
- Herbal Academy of New England reserves the right to decide whether or not a viewer from your site will be serviced, sold to or otherwise catered to.
GRANT OF LICENSE AND RESTRICTED USE
- Herbal Academy of New England grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to use our banners, advertisements, links, trademarks, logos, and HTML used solely for the purpose of advertising the Herbal Academy of New England website.
- Herbal Academy of New England holds sole editorial discretion on how links are worded, or described on the affiliates site. Herbal Academy of New England is not responsible for the creation of the links, which may be posted on your site and will only be involved surrounding editorial review. You also agree to fully cooperate to work with Herbal Academy of New England to maintain and manage links.
- All content on the affiliates website including links, banners, text, etc, leading to any or all content within the Herbal Academy of New England website is the sole responsibility of the affiliate. Because of the constantly changing nature of the Herbal Academy of New England website, we hold it to be the affiliates responsibility to update and manage their own links leading to the Herbal Academy of New England website. We are not responsible for alerting the affiliate or making recommendations on when we anticipate changing the links or directions to content on the Herbal Academy of New England website.
- If Herbal Academy of New England believes that fraudulent clicks have been recorded within your account as a result of masking links, multiple clicks or through embedding the code in a hidden fashion within your pages, or if the commission links have been exploited in any other way, we reserve the right to cancel any or all commissions and if necessary, close the account.
IRS RESPONSIBILITIES
- All affiliates are required to provide Social Security numbers or tax ID numbers at signup.
- Once an affiliate has accrued over $600.00 dollars in commission payouts, we require a social security number, for United States citizens, of the affiliate who is receiving payments from Herbal Academy of New England. The IRS requires us to submit a 1099 tax form for contracted business services and because the affiliate is paid and recognized as a “contractor”, this information needs to be accurately gathered and submitted to the IRS. In the event that an affiliate fails to provide this information or wishes to omit this information the affiliates account will be terminated.
CHANGES TO THIS AGREEMENT
- Herbal Academy of New England may change the wording and structure of these terms at any time.
PRIVACY
- Your privacy is a major concern for Herbal Academy of New England. We will not sell, disperse, trade or otherwise decimate your account information to any organization outside of Herbal Academy of New England.
WARRANTY
- Herbal Academy of New England does not make any guarantees on the ability of the affiliate programs ability to generate income for the affiliate or applicant. We are exempt from all warranty, including, traffic generated, revenue earned, and functionality of the affiliate program.
LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY
- WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU WITH RESPECT TO ANY SUBJECT MATTER OF THIS AGREEMENT UNDER ANY CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, TORT, STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHER LEGAL OR EQUITABLE THEORY FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOSS OF REVENUE OR GOODWILL OR ANTICIPATED PROFITS OR LOST BUSINESS), EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. FURTHER, NOTWITHSTANDING ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY CONTAINED IN THIS AGREEMENT, IN NO EVENT SHALL HERBAL ACADEMY OF NEW ENGLAND CUMULATE LIABILITY TO YOU ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THIS AGREEMENT, WHETHER BASED IN CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, TORT OR OTHER LEGAL OR EQUITABLE THEORY, EXCEED THE TOTAL COMMISSION FEES PAID TO YOU UNDER THIS AGREEMENT.
Indemnification. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Herbal Academy of New England and its employees, representatives, officers, agents and affiliates, against any and all claims, suits, actions, or other proceedings brought against Herbal Academy of New England based on or arising from any claim.
- That our use of any material provided by you infringes on any copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or any other intellectual property right of any third party, or
- Resulting from your breach of this Agreement or resulting from your breach of any third party intellectual property right or misappropriation of any material, or resulting from any of your defamatory, libelous act or resulting from your violation of any third party right of publicity or privacy. You will pay any and all costs, damages, and expenses, including, but not limited to, reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs awarded against or otherwise incurred by Herbal Academy of New England in connection with or arising from any such claim, suit, action, or proceeding.
MISCELLANEOUS
- In any proceeding to enforce or interpret this agreement, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover from the losing party its reasonable attorney fees, costs and expenses before and at any trial, arbitration, bankruptcy or any other proceeding and in any appeal or review.
- The parties acknowledge and agree that this agreement has been negotiated and entered into in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The parties expressly agree that this agreement shall be governed by, interpreted under and construed and enforced in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Venue of any legal proceeding shall be in Middlesex County, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
PROHIBITED SOLICITATION
Except for the display of a link to the Herbal Academy of New England website, affiliate understands and agrees that Affiliate is prohibited from any solicitation activities that would refer customers to Herbal Academy of New England. This prohibition on solicitation includes, but is not limited to: distributing flyers, coupons, newsletters and other printed promotional materials or electronic equivalents; verbal solicitation (e.g. in person referrals); initiating telephone calls; and sending emails. In addition, if affiliate is an organization such as a club or a nonprofit group, the organization will maintain on its website information alerting the organization’s members to the prohibition against each of the solicitation activities described above.
ANNUAL COMPLIANCE CERTIFICATION
Each affiliate located in the states of Arkansas, California, Georgia, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Missouri, New York, North Carolina and Rhode Island must submit annually to Herbal Academy of New England a certification that the affiliate has complied with the terms of the preceding section “Prohibited Solicitation”. The certification shall be on a form prescribed by Herbal Academy of New England. In the event that Herbal Academy of New England Commonwealth of Massachusetts does not receive the annual certification from an affiliate located in one of the state specified above, the affiliate’s account will be cancelled.