Terms of Service

Effective Date: September 10, 2025

Introduction and Acceptance of Terms

Welcome to Binghamtonian.news ("Binghamtonian," "we," "us," or "our"). These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the website located at https://binghamtonian.news, including all content, features, and services offered on or through the website (collectively, the "Service"). The Service is a news and information platform focused on the Greater Binghamton, New York area.¹

Binghamtonian is a locally- and writer-owned outlet by journalist and Endwell native Jay Bradley.

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us at info@binghamtonian.news

This document, together with our Privacy Policy, which is hereby incorporated by reference, constitutes a legally binding agreement ("Agreement") between you ("User," "you," or "your") and Binghamtonian.

By accessing, browsing, or using the Service in any manner, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not access or use the Service.

Eligibility and Account Registration

The Service is intended for users who are at least 13 years of age. By using the Service, you represent and warrant that you are at least 13 years old. If you are under the age of 18 (or the age of legal majority in your jurisdiction), you may only use the Service with the consent and supervision of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound by these Terms.

Account Registration: To access certain features of the Service, such as subscriptions, you may be required to create an account. When you register for an account, you agree to:

(a) provide true, accurate, current, and complete information about yourself as prompted by the registration form; and

(b) maintain and promptly update your registration data to keep it true, accurate, current, and complete.

Account Security: You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account password and are fully responsible for all activities that occur under your account. You agree to immediately notify Binghamtonian of any unauthorized use of your account or any other breach of security. Binghamtonian will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to comply with this section.

Intellectual Property Rights

The Service and all of its original content, including but not limited to articles, text, data, photographs, images, graphics, illustrations, logos, trademarks, service marks, and the overall design and arrangement of the website (collectively, "Content"), are the exclusive property of Binghamtonian and its licensors. The Content is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws of the United States and international conventions.

Limited License: Subject to your compliance with these Terms, Binghamtonian grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, and revocable license to access and use the Service and its Content for your personal, non-commercial use only.

Restrictions: Except as expressly permitted in these Terms, you may not:

(a) sell, modify, rent, loan, share, distribute, reproduce, republish, create derivative works of, publicly display, or otherwise commercially exploit the content in any way without the express written consent of this publication;

(b) remove, alter, or obscure any copyright, trademark, or other proprietary rights notices incorporated in or accompanying the Service or Content.

User Conduct and Prohibited Activities

As a condition of your use of the Service, you agree not to use the Service for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms. You are prohibited from engaging in the following activities:

(a) Illegal Activities: Using the Service to conduct or encourage any activity that would constitute a criminal offense or give rise to civil liability.¹¹

(b) Harmful and Offensive Content: Posting, uploading, or distributing any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, obscene, pornographic, profane, indecent, invasive of another's privacy, or hateful toward an individual or group on the basis of religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, age, or disability.

(c) Infringement of Rights: Violating, misappropriating, or infringing on the intellectual property, privacy, publicity, or other proprietary rights of any third party.

(d) Impersonation and Misrepresentation: Impersonating any person or entity, or falsely stating or otherwise misrepresenting your affiliation with a person or entity.

(e) System Abuse: Interfering with or disrupting the integrity or performance of the Service, its servers, or networks. This includes uploading or distributing viruses, worms, malware, Trojan horses, or other harmful or destructive code.

(f) Data Harvesting: Using any manual or automated means to collect, harvest, or store personal information about other users of the Service without their explicit consent.

(g) Spam and Unsolicited Communications: Transmitting or facilitating the transmission of unauthorized or unsolicited advertising, junk mail, spam, or chain letters.

User-Generated Content (UGC)

The Service may, now or in the future, permit users to post, submit, or otherwise make available content such as comments, reviews, or other materials ("User-Generated Content" or "UGC").

Your Responsibility: You are solely and entirely responsible for your UGC and any harm resulting from it. By making UGC available, you represent and warrant that your UGC does not violate the User Conduct and Prohibited Activities policy (Section 4) or any other provision of these Terms. Binghamtonian is not obligated to pre-screen UGC but reserves the right (but not the obligation) to refuse or remove any UGC that, in our reasonable opinion, violates these Terms or is otherwise harmful or objectionable.

License Grant to Binghamtonian: By submitting UGC to the Service, you grant Binghamtonian an irrevocable, non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free, fully paid, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, publicly display and perform, prepare derivative works of, incorporate into other works, and otherwise exploit your UGC in connection with the Service and Binghamtonian's business. You agree to irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to your UGC.

No Endorsement: Binghamtonian does not endorse any UGC or any opinion, recommendation, or advice expressed therein. You acknowledge that you may be exposed to UGC that is inaccurate, offensive, or otherwise objectionable, and you agree to waive any legal or equitable rights or remedies you have against Binghamtonian with respect thereto.

Subscriptions and Payments

Binghamtonian offers access to its newsletter and certain content through free and potentially paid subscriptions.

Paid Subscriptions: Should you subscribe to a paid tier of the Service, you agree to pay all applicable fees as described on the Service.

(a) Billing: We may use a third-party payment processor to bill you through a payment account linked to your account. The processing of payments will be subject to the terms, conditions, and privacy policies of the payment processor in addition to this Agreement.

(b) Automatic Renewal: Paid subscriptions may operate on a continuous service basis, meaning your subscription will automatically renew at the end of each billing cycle unless you cancel it. By purchasing a subscription, you authorize us to charge your payment method on a recurring basis without further authorization from you.

(c) Cancellation: You may cancel your paid subscription at any time through your account settings. The cancellation will take effect at the end of the current paid term.

(d) No Refunds: Payments are non-refundable, and there are no refunds or credits for partially used periods, unless required by law.

Third-Party Links and Content

The Service may contain links to third-party websites, services, or resources that are not owned or controlled by Binghamtonian. Binghamtonian has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party websites or services. You acknowledge and agree that Binghamtonian shall not be responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any damage or loss caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with the use of or reliance on any such content, goods, or services available on or through any such websites or services.² We encourage you to be aware when you leave the Service and to read the terms and conditions and privacy policies of any other website that you visit.

Copyright Policy (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)

Binghamtonian respects the intellectual property rights of others and expects its users to do the same. In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1996 ("DMCA"), we will respond expeditiously to claims of copyright infringement committed using the Service that are reported to our Designated Copyright Agent.

Takedown Notice: If you are a copyright owner or an agent thereof and believe that any content on the Service infringes upon your copyrights, you may submit a notification pursuant to the DMCA by providing our Copyright Agent with the following information in writing:

1. A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works.
3. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material (e.g., a URL).
4. Information reasonably sufficient to permit us to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an email address.
5. A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
6. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Counter-Notice: If you believe that your content that was removed (or to which access was disabled) is not infringing, or that you have the authorization from the copyright owner, the copyright owner's agent, or pursuant to the law, to post and use the material in your content, you may send a counter-notice to our Copyright Agent. The counter-notice must contain the required statutory information. Upon receipt of a valid counter-notice, we may, in our discretion, reinstate the material in question.

Repeat Infringer Policy: It is our policy to terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of users who are determined to be repeat infringers.

Termination

Binghamtonian reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to suspend, restrict, or terminate your account and your access to all or any part of the Service at any time and for any reason without prior notice or liability. Reasons for termination may include, but are not limited to, a breach of these Terms. We reserve the right to change, suspend, or discontinue all or any part of the Service at any time without prior notice or liability. All provisions of these Terms which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity, and limitations of liability.

Limitation of Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL BINGHAMTONIAN, ITS AFFILIATES, OR THEIR RESPECTIVE OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, OR AGENTS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL, USE, DATA, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES (EVEN IF BINGHAMTONIAN HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES), RESULTING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE.

Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Binghamtonian, its affiliates, and their respective officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any and all claims, damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses (including but not limited to attorney's fees) arising from: (a) your use of and access to the Service; (b) your violation of any term of these Terms; (c) your violation of any third-party right, including without limitation any copyright, property, or privacy right; or (d) any claim that your User-Generated Content caused damage to a third party. This defense and indemnification obligation will survive these Terms and your use of the Service.

Modification of Terms

Binghamtonian reserves the right, at our sole discretion, to modify or replace these Terms at any time. If a revision is material, we will make reasonable efforts to provide notice, such as by posting the updated Terms on the Service, sending an email to registered users, or displaying a notice on our homepage. The "Effective Date" at the top of this page will indicate when the latest modifications were made. What constitutes a material change will be determined at our sole discretion.

By continuing to access or use our Service after those revisions become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised terms.

Privacy Policy

As an outlet that is diehard local, we know that you value your privacy. We take care with your data, and utilize it only for necessary services. If you want us to delete your information at any point, we will! (although we would be very sad to see you go, as you would not receive any emails)

In short: we only have what you give us, and we don't sell any of your personal data.

How we collect data

Binghamtonian collects only information about you that you provide when you fill up a signup form in the portal. Manual signups may occur, with extreme care to acquire the consent of those signing up. Emails will not be added without consent or via any scraping or automated methods. 

We are thoughtful about the personal information we ask you to provide and the personal information that we collect about you through the operation of our site.

Our system uses your email to pull in your Gravatar image, if you have created one. This is used, for example, to put that image next to your username when you comment.

If you become a paid subscriber or buy something from us, we’ll collect information to process those payments and contact you, including your name, credit card information, and contact information. We also keep a record of the purchases you’ve made for tax and accounting purposes. Our secure payment platform Stripe collects payment information on our behalf, but we do not retain or have direct access to the credit card data you provide, only a record of purchases.

Analytics for this site are provided by Ghost's built-in integration with Tinybird, meaning we are able to use as few cookies as possible.

All payments are processed via third party tool Stripe. You can see their privacy policy here.

Our website may integrate with or contain links to other third party sites and services, such as an embedded social media post or hosted video. While we strive to keep cookies to a minimum, we are not responsible for the practices employed by third party websites or services embedded in, linked to, or linked from our website. Your interactions with any third-party website or service are subject to that third party’s own rules and policies.

What data we collect

Personal data includes the information you provide us when registering to use the platform like your name, email address, location, other contact information you share with us.

This category also includes information tied to your identity that you provide us through other means, such as emails to our support team.

You may also provide us with information when you respond to surveys, communicate with us about a support question, post a comment, or sign up for an event. When you communicate with us via form, email, or otherwise, we store a copy of our communications.

Our publishing system may attempt to determine the approximate location of your device from your IP address. We collect and use this information to, for example, calculate roughly how many people visit our services from certain geographic regions.

Other data collected includes usage information (e.g. page views, open rates) to improve our services and ensure deliverability and readership.

How we use data

• To provide our services or allow necessary third parties to function correctly. For example, to set up and maintain your account, deliver newsletters, provide customer service, process payments and orders, and verify user information. Newsletters are delivered by Mailgun. You can view their privacy policy here. No personal data will be shared with any advertisers, but non-personal data such as analytics and demographic data may be.
• To ensure quality, maintain safety, and improve our services. For example, by monitoring and analyzing how users interact with our services so we can create new features that we think our users will enjoy or make our services easier to use.
• To protect our services, our users, and the public. For example, by detecting security incidents; detecting and protecting against malicious, deceptive, fraudulent, or illegal activity; fighting spam; complying with our legal obligations; and protecting the rights and property of this site and others, which may result in us, for example, declining a transaction or terminating users or services.
• To fix problems with our services. For example, by monitoring, debugging, repairing, and preventing issues.
• To communicate with you. For example, by emailing you to ask for your feedback, share tips for getting the most out of our products, or keep you up to date on Binghamtonian.

Who we share personal data with

• Subsidiaries and independent contractors: We may disclose information about you to our subsidiaries and independent contractors who need the information to help us provide our services or process the information on our behalf. We require our subsidiaries and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for any personal information that we share with them.
• Third-party vendors: We may share information about you with third-party vendors who need the information in order to provide their services to us, or to provide their services to you or your site. This includes vendors that help us provide our services to you (like Stripe, which powers subscription payments, fraud prevention services that allow us to analyze fraudulent payment transactions, cloud storage services, postal and email delivery services that help us stay in touch with you, customer chat and email support services that help us communicate with you, registrars, registries, those that host our website, assist us with our marketing efforts; those that help us understand and enhance our services (like analytics providers); those that make tools to help us run our operations (like programs that help us with task management, scheduling, word processing, email and other communications, and collaboration among our teams); and other third-party tools that help us manage operations. We only use vendors that agree to similar privacy commitments in order to share information with them. Additionally, we will provide information to a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or any portion of our business. Such an event would be communicated to users at least 14 days in advance of it occurring.
• Legal and regulatory requirements: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
• To protect rights, property, and others: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of the outlet, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury, we may disclose information related to the emergency without delay.
• Business transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Dark Mode LLC goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
• With your consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction.
• Aggregated or de-identified information: We may share information that has been aggregated or de-identified, so that it can no longer reasonably be used to identify you. For instance, we may publish aggregate statistics about how many subscribers we have, or share a hashed version of your email address to facilitate customized ad campaigns on other platforms.
• Published support requests: If you send us a request for assistance (for example, via a support email or one of our other feedback mechanisms), we reserve the right to publish that request (without your name or identifying information attached) in order to clarify or respond to your request, or to help us support other users.

We do not sell our users' data!

We aren't a data broker, we don't sell your personal information to data brokers, and we don't sell your information to other companies that want to spam you with marketing emails. We may show ads at some point but will not do so in a way that turns over personally-identifable information about you to an advertiser.

Under a new California law, the California Consumer Privacy Act ("CCPA"), some personalized advertising you see online might be considered a "sale" even though we don't share information that identifies you personally, like your name or email address.

Except for the limited circumstances we describe here or in an applicable agreement or our Terms of Service below, we do not share your personal data with third parties. When we need to provide your personal data to third parties, we will only share it to the extent necessary to provide you with our services, and we ensure that we have in place data protection requirements with these third parties (including standard contractual clauses as well as the requisite technical and organisational measures).

We may also share your personal data as required or permitted by law and as to optimally provide our services through third party providers as described below.

We host the website and operate the platform using third parties, including Digital Ocean, AWS®. Your platform will be hosted from their data centers throughout the United States.

Security & Choices about your data

While no online service is 100% secure, we and our partners work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so. We and our partners monitor our services for potential vulnerabilities and attacks.

As far as what you decide, you have several choices available when it comes to information about you and communications:

• Limit the information that you provide: If you have an account with us, you can choose not to provide the optional account information, profile information, and transaction and billing information. Please keep in mind that if you do not provide this information, certain features of our services — for example, paid subscriber-only posts may not be accessible.
• Unsubscribe from our newsletters: Free and paid subscribers may unsubscribe from our newsletter at any time, either through the unsubscribe link at the end of every newsletter or on the website in your account settings. You cannot opt out of Service-related communications (e.g., account verification, payment confirmation, changes/updates to our products or features, technical and security notices.)
• Request your data: If you reach out to us at info@binghamtonian.news and we will do our best to get back to you with that information within 48 hours. If there is any data you would like us to remove, just let us know.
• Close your account: While we’d be very sad to see you go, you can close your account if you no longer want to use our services or for us to retain account data.

Your Rights

You may contact us to remove your information at any time, and we will do so within 14 days.

If you are located in certain parts of the world, including California and countries that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (aka the “GDPR”) or the UK’s GDPR, you may have certain rights regarding your personal information, like the right to request access to or deletion of your data.

European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) / UK GDPR

If you are located in a country that falls under the scope of the GDPR, or are in the UK, data protection laws give you certain rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:

• Request access to your personal data;
• Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
• Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
• Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
• Request portability of your personal data.

You also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.

For processing based on your consent, you can withdraw your consent at any time.

California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)

The California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”) requires us to provide California residents with some additional information about the categories of personal information we collect and share, where we get that personal information, and how and why we use it. The CCPA also requires us to provide a list of the “categories” of personal information we collect, as that term is defined in the law, so, here it is. In the last 12 months, we and our service providers collected the following categories of personal information from California residents, depending on the services used:

• Identifiers (like your name, contact information, and email address);
• Commercial information (your billing information and purchase history, for example);
• Internet or other electronic network activity information (such as your usage of our services, like the actions you take as paid subscriber);
• Geolocation data (such as your location based on your IP address);
• Audio, electronic, visual or similar information (such as your profile picture, if you use Gravatar);and
• Inferences we make (such as likelihood of retention or attrition).

If you are a California resident, you have additional rights under the CCPA, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the right to:

• Request to know the categories of personal information we collect, the categories of business or commercial purpose for collecting and using it, the categories of sources from which the information came, the categories of third parties we share it with, and the specific pieces of information we collect about you;
• Request deletion of personal information we collect or maintain;
• Opt out of any sale of personal information; and
• Not receive discriminatory treatment for exercising your rights under the CCPA.

Privacy Policy based on 404 Media's