Niche Protocol, Inc Terms of Service
Introduction
The following policies and guidelines will evolve as the Niche community grows and our product develops, and will consequently be subject to changes and updates. We strive for transparency in our policies and guidelines for the community, but we remain the final arbiters of whether any activity on the Niche platform is in violation of these policies or our core values. If, in our view, you violate any of these policies or our other terms and conditions, whether in effect now or in the future, we reserve the right to remove the offending post, suspend your account on a temporary basis, or terminate your account and burn any Membership Card NFTs in your Niche Wallet.
Club Creation & Operation
Clubs are exclusive social communities that allow you to find and share content, connect with people who share your interests, and support artists and other Club Creators. When you create a Club, you deploy a ‘smart contract’ – a piece of self-executing code – to the NEAR blockchain that embodies the terms of that Club, including the pre-set number of Membership Cards. Users can then join a Club by minting the applicable Membership Card NFT into their Niche Wallet. In addition to gaining access to the social forums and content posted in the Niche App, Club members can obtain other extrinsic benefits from holding their Membership Cards from the Club Creator, or by ‘gating’ access to third-part applications and content to holders of that Membership Card.
What kinds of Clubs can I create?
Although the types and purposes of Clubs you can create is nearly endless, we don’t support the creation of Clubs which violate our core values, or which support or engage in potentially illegal activity. Some examples of unsupported Club purposes include:
- Promotion of hateful speech or viewpoints. We don’t support communities devoted to racism, sexism, or other hateful activities.
- Promotion of or engagement in harmful or illegal activities. This includes Clubs devoted to things like depictions of self-harm, animal cruelty, or other content that promotes harmful or illegal behavior.
- Investment activities. You should not create a Club for the purposes of providing investment advice, creating an investment club, or sharing tips on trading stocks or cryptocurrencies. Clubs should be for entertainment and socialization.
- Mature content. We do not currently allow Clubs oriented at sharing mature or 18+ only content.
- Gambling or betting. We do not allow Clubs that act as private betting or gambling groups.
Ultimately, we reserve the right to remove any Club that we think is potentially engaged in harmful or illegal activity, or is otherwise in violation of these and other Niche terms and policies.
What is the role of a Club Creator?
Club Creators establish the initial parameters for a Club, including the limit on Membership Cards, and act as the initial Administrator for the Club. The Club Creator can also designate additional Administrators. Administrators have the authority to either kick members or initiate a vote to do so; a kicked member will still hold their Membership Card NFT, but be unable to view or interact with the Club’s forums or other features.
The Club Creator and Administrators are the stewards of the Club, and should hold themselves to a high standard in that role. Although not required, we encourage Creators to require a vote or other social consensus prior to kicking or banning a Club member.
Can I earn money from selling Club memberships?
This is not an option during the Beta test. In the future, Club Creators will be entitled to set a one-time or recurring fee in connection with minting and holding a Membership Card NFT. Additional terms will apply to monetized Club Creators; check back later for details!
What extrinsic benefits can Club Creators offer to members?
In addition to acting as a focus to share content and host discussions amongst members, Club Creators can offer members special perks and benefits. Examples might include early access to new Creator content, discounts on personal merchandise, or special access to physical or virtual events and venues. However, Creators may not offer benefits to Club members that are potentially illegal or dangerous. Examples of extrinsic benefits that Creators may not offer to Club members include:
- Investment advice or opportunities, including token offerings. Creators should not promise Club members access to, discounts on, or other benefits relating to investment opportunities. This includes direct offers to purchase stock or cryptocurrency tokens, but also extends to ‘tips’ on third-party investment offerings or other advice.
- Sexual services or content. Creators should not promise members sexual services, specialized mature content, or any similar benefits for joining a Club.
- Alcohol, tobacco, firearms, or other potentially dangerous objects and substances. You should not promise Club members physical benefits that are likely to be dangerous or strictly legally controlled. This also includes items such as explosive or biohazardous materials.
- Participation in a multi-level marketing scheme or other purported business venture. You should not use Clubs to recruit for any kind of business venture, even a legitimate one.
- Merchandise, physical or digital, which contains hateful or harmful speech. As with our content and Club purpose policies, we do not support the distribution of hateful or harmful material.
- Discounts on unlimited merchandise. While Creators can offer Club members exclusive access to or discounts on their merchandise, it should not be the primary benefit of Club membership or (if it is) be limited in quantity to personal usage only.
How do I leave a Club?
In order to leave a Club, you must ‘burn’ you Membership Card NFTs for that Club. Because Clubs are deployed on the NEAR blockchain, even if you are the Club Creator or Administrator, you cannot delete the whole Club; rather, if there are no other Administrators, burning your Administrator NFTs will trigger an election by the remaining Club members of a new Administrator.
We do not currently support the export of Membership Card NFTs, and you are not permitted to sell or transfer your Niche Wallet and any associated NFTs to another person. Consequently, you cannot sell or transfer your Membership Cards at this time.
Who owns the material and content shared with a Club?
You own your own content and data. When you publish content to Niche or respond to someone else’s post, you give us a limited, nonexclusive right to use that content only to the extent necessary to operate and improve Niche, as well as to use it for purely incidental commercial purposes (such as if a portion of your post were to appear in our marketing materials). Please see the Terms of Service for more information regarding the license.
Niche does not own your data. Niche does not sell your data to third parties and we will never show you advertising. Our app does not use 3rd party cookies, web beacons, pixels or fingerprinting.
If you delete a post, any embedded links or content will be removed and become undiscoverable; only users who previously replied to the post will be able to see the residual thread. Similarly, if you delete your entire account, we will remove all of your prior posts in a similar fashion. Posts you’ve made in a Club you no longer hold a Membership Card NFT for can still be viewed and deleted, but you won’t be able to interact with them otherwise until you re-join that Club.
What happens to my data when I delete my club or account?
You may delete your account at any time in the application by visiting your Settings via your Profile Page (Settings > Account > Delete Account; you will be asked to reauthenicate to confirm your decision to delete your account or by contacting). Additionally, for support deleting your account, you may contact us at members@niche.club. Deleting your account immediately removes all Account Information you have provided in your Settings. We will also remove your account name from any messages you have sent within the Services to de-identify you; however, the messages themselves will remain accessible in the app by other users. We retain the messages because we want to ensure that conversation histories remain available for users who are continuing to use the app, even if an individual leaves the conversation. However, as long as your account is active, you are able to delete any messages that you send individually. We also automatically collect IP addresses when you use the app for security purposes, but we will not use your IP address to track you.
How do I request additional support to ensure my data is deleted?
When you contact our team at members@niche.club, any personal data you may share with us is kept and used only for the purposes of researching the issue and contacting you about your case, and will never be shared with any third party.
Community Guidelines
Community members should treat each other with respect. Niche hosts a diverse community, and we expect users and Creators both to treat other members of the community with decency. In addition to these guidelines, which will continue to evolve as our community grows, you should be sure to also follow any community standards established by the Clubs you join. If you think someone has violated these guidelines, you can report it to us at [https://forms.gle/HF1zgnMovXmaCDmj8]. We carefully review all reports to ensure our community remains safe and vibrant, but keep in mind that just because you find something offensive does not mean it has violated these guidelines.
Hate speech of any type is not permitted. We want to preserve Niche as a safe space for everyone to create and join communities, and do not tolerate racist, sexist, or other hateful speech on our platform.
Bullying, harassment, doxing, and other harmful behavior is strictly forbidden. We want to promote open discussion and communication within our Clubs and community as a whole, and people should be able to voice their views without feeling threatened. Threats, calls for others to harm them or dox their personal contact information, and bullying are not acceptable behaviors and should be reported.
Authenticity is core to our platform. We expect Creators and users alike to not maliciously misrepresent themselves. You cannot impersonate another person or business, post content that does not belong to you, or create a Club for purposes other than those disclosed to potential new members.
Mature, violent, or graphic content. You should not post or link to mature, sexually explicit, or graphically violent content.
No solicitations for investment or gambling activities. Niche is a social networking and entertainment platform, and is not a venue to promote financial services. You may not advertise or promote investment advice or opportunities, offer gambling or betting activities, or make any other solicitations for financial activities or services.
No spam. We want our community to be filled with engaging and interesting content, so spam is not allowed. Although this can cover a range of activities, here are some examples of things we would consider spam:
- Posting recruitments for other Clubs in a Club’s forums.
- Posting the same thing repeatedly to the same Club.
- Using incorrect or misleading tagging to draw more attention to your posts.
- Sending large numbers of private messages to recruit for your Club.
- Sending private messages with solicitations for unrelated services or offerings.
No illegal content. Individuals posting links to child pornography or other such material will be banned and reported to the appropriate authorities.
For more about our Privacy Policy,
read here.