GeoCities Page Content Guidelines and Member Terms of Service

GeoCities is an amazing place. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world have taken up residence in one of our neighborhoods. The pages created by this group of GeoCitizens contain an incredible array of facts, opinions, entertainment, and interesting information. We are very mindful of our role as stewards of these communities, and will do our best to ensure that GeoCities remains a positive contributor to the Internet community.

Within the guidelines stated below, we are committed to provide a forum for all points of view. If you disagree with some of the opinions expressed by certain members of our community we encourage you to create your own free Personal Home Page and make your own views known. To us, this is the definition of community. We appreciate your interest and support of GeoCities and pledge to you our continued support in building the Societies of the New Frontier.

David Bohnett and the Staff of GeoCities

Last modified February 11, 1997

We reserve the right to remove any page from the system which is brought to our attention and which we find, in our sole discretion, violates these page content guidelines, or otherwise is in violation of the law. GeoCities does not actively monitor the content of Personal Home Pages, but will investigate complaints of violation of these guidelines. Please submit any such complaints using our Content Violation Reporting Form. GeoCities is also not responsible for any loss of data resulting from our deletion of Personal Home Pages, network or system outages, file corruption, or any other reasons.

GeoCities has carefully developed the following page content guidelines to promote the free flowing exchange of ideas about your interests, activities, and hobbies, and at the same time maintain standards consistent with the Internet community and the societies of the world at large.

Please refrain from using your free Personal Home Page for the following activities:

• Providing material that is grossly offensive to the Web community including blatant expressions of bigotry, racism, hatred, or profanity
• Promoting or providing instructional information about illegal activities, or promoting physical harm or injury against any group or individual
• Using your free Personal Home Pages for commercial purposes, including but not limited to the following:
  • Offering for sale any products or services
  • Soliciting for advertisers or sponsors
  • Displaying a sponsorship banner of any kind, including those that are generated by banner or link exchange services, with the sole exception of the GeoCities GeoRewards program and the Internet Link Exchange
  • Displaying banners for services that provide cash or cash-equivalent prizes to users in exchange for hyperlinks to their web site
  • Promoting or soliciting for participation in direct marketing or pyramid schemes
  • Conducting raffles or contests that require any type of entry fee

• Displaying material containing nudity or pornographic material of any kind
• Displaying material that exploits children under 18 years of age
• Developing restricted or Password-only access pages, or hidden pages or images (those not linked to from another accessible page)
• Using your page (or directory) as storage for remote loading or as a door or signpost to another server
• Using your page for acts of copyright infringement including offering pirated computer programs or links to such programs, information used to circumvent manufacturer-installed copy-protect devices, including serial or registration numbers for software programs, or any type of cracker utilities
• Violating Internet standards for the purpose of promoting your home page
• Developing pages that consist of hyperlinks to content not allowed in GeoCities

EnchantedForest residents: Please read the special content guidelines developed especially for that neighborhood.

Members are solely responsible for everything contained in their own Personal Home Pages. GeoCities does not verify, endorse, or otherwise vouch for the contents of any Personal Home Page. Members can be held legally liable for the contents of their Personal Home Pages, and may be held legally accountable if their Personal Home Pages include, for example, material protected by copyright, trademark, patent, or trade secret law without the permission of the author or owner or defamatory comments.

The member agrees to indemnify and hold harmless GeoCities for any loss, liability, claim, damage, and expenses (including reasonable attorney fees) arising from or in connection with the contents of the member's Personal Home Page, or use of the member's GeoCities email account.

In the event that GeoCities receives a complaint that the contents of a personal home page infringe intellectual property rights or otherwise is unlawful, GeoCities shall request written substantiation of the complaint from the complaining party, for example, substantiation of proof of ownership in the form of a trademark, service mark, or copyright registration and will take such steps that it believes to be appropriate under the circumstances, including, for example:

1. Suspend the site immediately until the dispute is resolved
2. Provide the member with contact information for the complaining party
3. Instruct the member to contact the complaining party to resolve the dispute
4. Inform the complaining party of our actions and ask them to work directly with the member
   Note: All correspondence between the parties must also be sent to GeoCities (address provided)
5. Take the following action based on the progress of the dispute:
   • If the member has not pursued resolution within 14 days of notification, the site is deleted
   • If complaining party has not pursued resolution within 14 days of member's response, the site is re-activated
   • If legal action is pending or the dispute is not settled, the site may remain suspended until resolution is reached and GeoCities is notified by both parties as to the outcome
   • If a resolution is reached between the parties, site is reactivated with any mutually agreed upon modifications

GeoCities reserves the following rights:

• To release current or past member information in the event GeoCities believes that accounts are in violation of the terms of service or content guidelines, used to commit unlawful acts, if the information is subpoenaed, or when GeoCities deems it necessary and/or appropriate.
• To deny membership to repeat offenders of these guidelines or terms of service
• To amend or change these guidelines at any time and without notice
• To use images of homesteader pages for promotional and other commercial purposes

GeoCities encourages you to use your free member email account as often as you like. Always remember to stay within the accepted use policies that govern Internet Email, and do not use it for the purpose of "spamming" newsgroups or individuals, conducting unwanted solicitations of groups or individuals, harassing or threatening anyone, or for the purpose of conducting any illegal activities.

The only code that we require to be on all of your html pages is a reference back to GeoCities. This can be a reference to the main Neighborhood page that you reside in, or to the GeoCities Home Page. Please see the FTP Procedures Page for the preferred source code.

You may use up to 2MB of disk space for your files, and can earn even more by joining our Featured Page Program. We support many different filetypes to help you be creative, and offer you the choice of two different home page editors to update and create your pages. We also provide a method for you to transfer your files to us, FTP

GeoCities is not responsible for the delivery of any goods or services sold or advertised through its sponsors or Commercial Home Pages.