Terms of Use

1. Accepting these terms

These Terms of Use are an agreement between you and Inkster Now! ("Inkster Now!," "we," "us"). By using this website, subscribing to our newsletter, posting content, or paying for anything, you agree to them. If you don't agree, please don't use the site.

Our Privacy Policy is part of these terms.

2. Who may use the site

• Reading the site: anyone.
• Commenting, submitting stories or signing up for the newsletter: 13 or older.
• Buying anything, or posting a marketplace or job listing: 18 or older, and legally able to enter a contract.

You agree that the information you give us is accurate and that you'll keep it accurate.

3. Your content and the licence you give us

You keep ownership of everything you submit, your words, your photographs, your video. We are not claiming your copyright.

By submitting content, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual and irrevocable licence to publish, reproduce, edit for length and clarity, adapt, distribute, archive, display and promote that content on the site, in our newsletter, in social media posts and in future formats. This licence lets us keep publishing our archive; it does not stop you using your own work however you like, including selling it elsewhere.

When you submit content you confirm that:

• It's yours, or you have permission from whoever owns it
• It's accurate to the best of your knowledge
• Publishing it won't violate anyone's rights or any law
• You have permission from any identifiable person in a photograph where permission is required
• You're not being paid by anyone to place it without telling us

We are not obligated to publish anything you send, and we may edit, shorten, or decline it. We may remove previously published submissions at our discretion.

4. Community guidelines

These apply to comments, submissions, listings and every other place you can post. Don't post content that:

• Attacks, threatens, harasses or intimidates anyone
• Attacks people based on race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation or gender identity
• Accuses a named person of a crime they haven't been convicted of
• Is knowingly false, or presents rumour as established fact
• Publishes someone's private information, home address, phone number, workplace, financial details, without their consent
• Is copied from somewhere else without permission
• Is sexually explicit, or sexualizes a minor in any way
• Promotes or facilitates illegal activity
• Is commercial spam, a scam, or a bulk political message
• Impersonates another person or organization

Disagreeing with your neighbours is not just allowed, it's the point. Being cruel to them isn't.

5. Moderation

We may, but are not required to, review, edit, refuse, or remove any content, and may suspend or ban anyone who breaks these terms. We may do this without notice.

Content posted by users is the responsibility of the person who posted it, not of Inkster Now!. Nothing in these terms makes us the publisher or speaker of user content for the purposes of 47 U.S.C. § 230, and our moderation choices do not change that.

If something violates these rules, use the Report button on the comment or email legal@inksternow.com.

6. Marketplace

Read this part carefully.

The marketplace is a bulletin board. Inkster Now! is not a party to any transaction between buyers and sellers. We don't own, inspect, verify, guarantee, insure, deliver or hold anything in escrow. We don't verify the identity of any user or the truth of any listing.

• All transactions are between you and the other person, at your own risk.
• We do not handle payment between buyers and sellers. Fees you pay us are only for promoting a listing.
• We cannot recover your money if a transaction goes wrong.
• Meet in a public place in daylight, bring someone, and use cash in person. The police station lobby is a reasonable exchange spot.

You may not list: firearms, ammunition or weapon parts; illegal drugs, drug paraphernalia, or tobacco, vaping or alcohol products; prescription medication; live animals; stolen property; recalled goods; counterfeits; adult material; hazardous materials; personal identification or financial documents; or anything else illegal to sell in Michigan.

You are responsible for any tax on your sales, and for complying with any law that applies to what you're selling.

7. Jobs board

The jobs board is also a bulletin board. We are not an employment agency, recruiter or staffing service, and we don't verify employers, job listings, wages, working conditions or whether a role exists.

• Verify any employer before giving out personal information or going to an interview alone.
• A legitimate employer never asks you to pay for a job, buy equipment upfront, or send money to reserve a position. Report anything like that to us and to the FTC.
• Employers posting listings are solely responsible for complying with all applicable employment law, including equal opportunity and wage-and-hour requirements. Listings that discriminate on a protected basis will be removed.
• We require a stated wage or range on every listing, but we don't verify it.

8. Lost and found pets

Contact details you put on a pet post are published publicly. Include a phone number only if you're willing for anyone to see it. We don't verify ownership, and we're not responsible for the outcome of any contact made through the section. If you found an animal, consider holding back one identifying detail so you can confirm the real owner.

9. Obituaries and events

By submitting an obituary you confirm you are authorized by the family or the funeral home to publish that information. We may ask for verification and may decline a notice. Event submissions must be for real, publicly accessible events.

10. Payments and refunds

Payments are processed by Stripe. Prices are in U.S. dollars and shown before you pay.

• Basic listings, jobs, marketplace, lost pets, nonprofit events; are free. Paid products are promotion and placement only.
• Promotion begins when your item is published, not when you pay.
• Full refund on request before your item publishes. Prorated refund after it publishes. No questions asked on anything under $25.
• Recurring products, directory listings and memberships, renew automatically until cancelled. Cancel anytime; cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid period and we don't prorate partial months.
• We may refuse or refund any order, and we'll refund in full anything we decline to publish.
• Paying us does not buy favourable news coverage. See section 11.

Refund requests: advertise@inksternow.com.

11. Advertising

Advertisers, sponsors and members get no influence over news coverage. Sponsored content is written to be useful and is always clearly labeled. Buying advertising does not prevent us from reporting on you.

We may decline any advertisement. We're not responsible for the products or claims of advertisers.

12. Our content

Articles, photographs, graphics, the Inkster Now! name and the Inkster Now! logo are owned by us or our licensors and protected by copyright and trademark law.

You may link to our articles, quote a short excerpt with attribution, and share our stories on social media. You may not republish a full article, use our content to train a machine learning model without written permission, scrape the site systematically, or use our name or logo in a way that implies we endorse you.

For republication permission, email legal@inksternow.com.

Headlines and excerpts from other news organizations appearing in "Around Inkster" remain the property of those organizations and link back to them.

13. Copyright and DMCA

We respect copyright and expect our users to. If you believe content on this site infringes your copyright, send a written notice to our designated agent containing all of the following, as required by 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3):

1. Your physical or electronic signature
2. Identification of the copyrighted work you say was infringed
3. Identification of the material on our site you say is infringing, with enough detail; a URL, for us to find it
4. Your address, telephone number and email address
5. A statement that you have a good faith belief the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law
6. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on their behalf

Designated Copyright Agent
Copyright Manager
Inkster Now!
Inkster, Michigan 48141
Email: legal@inksternow.com
Phone: (424) 235-8216

Incomplete notices may not be effective. Knowingly misrepresenting that material is infringing can make you liable for damages under § 512(f).

Counter-notice. If your content was removed and you believe that was a mistake or misidentification, you may send a counter-notice to the same agent including your signature, identification of the removed material and where it appeared, a statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief it was removed by mistake, your contact information, and your consent to the jurisdiction of the federal court for the district where you live (or the Eastern District of Michigan if you're outside the U.S.).

Repeat infringers. We terminate the accounts and posting privileges of users who repeatedly infringe copyright.

14. Disclaimers

The site and everything on it are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement.

We work hard to be accurate, and we correct our mistakes promptly and publicly, but we don't warrant that everything on the site is complete, current or error-free. News develops. Crime data, court records and public records come from third parties and may contain errors. Nothing here is legal, financial, medical or professional advice.

We don't guarantee the site will be uninterrupted, secure or free of harmful components.

15. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Inkster Now! and its owners, staff, contributors and contractors are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or loss of goodwill, arising from your use of the site, even if we were told such damages were possible.

Our total liability to you for any claim relating to the site is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or $100.

We are specifically not liable for the conduct of any other user, for any transaction arranged through the marketplace or jobs board, or for content posted by users.

Some jurisdictions don't allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

16. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Inkster Now! and its owners, staff and contributors from any claim, damage, loss or expense; including reasonable attorney's fees; arising out of content you submit, your use of the site, your violation of these terms, or your violation of anyone's rights.

17. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Michigan, without regard to its conflict of law rules.

Any lawsuit relating to these terms or the site must be brought in the state or federal courts located in Wayne County, Michigan, and you consent to the jurisdiction of those courts.

Before filing anything, please contact us. Almost every dispute a local news site has is resolvable with a phone call, and we would much rather fix a problem than litigate it. Email legal@inksternow.com and give us 30 days to work it out.

18. General terms

• Changes. We may update these terms. Material changes will be posted here with a new effective date. Continuing to use the site after that means you accept the revised terms.
• Severability. If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect.
• No waiver. If we don't enforce a provision once, we haven't given up the right to enforce it later.
• Entire agreement. These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between us about the site.
• Assignment. You may not assign these terms. We may assign them in connection with a sale of the publication.
• Termination. We may suspend or end your access at any time for any reason. Sections 3, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 survive termination.

Questions about these terms: legal@inksternow.com · Inkster Now!, Inkster, Michigan 48141