Terms and Conditions of Use
Welcome to DocTok.com - The USMLE Network. DocTok.com is a feature rich web based service (the "Service") that will allow you to interact with your entire network of medical professionals from students/graduates to residents and medical doctors, a place for great start for your USMLE preparation. Before you use DocTok.com, you must register as a member of the site, prior to registration you must agree to be bound by these terms and conditions (the "Agreement"). If you do not agree to be bound by this Agreement after reading it, you may not use DocTok.com.
You agree that we may modify this Agreement or the Privacy Policy from time to time and such modification shall be effective upon posting by DocTok.com on the Website. You agree to be bound to any changes to this Agreement when you use the Service after any such modification is posted.
The Service
The Service includes services provided on DocTok.com's Web site and services by DocTok.com's Affiliates (USMLEVoice.com, USMLEStudyPartner.com and TheUSMLENetwork.com). To use this Service, you understand and agree to the following:
When registering for the Service, you must submit a valid e-mail address that can be verified by us and select a password and user name.
You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your member name and password.
You are responsible for all uses of your account -- whether or not you've authorized such use.
You agree to notify DocTok.com immediately of any unauthorized use of your account; and you are at least eighteen (18) years of age.
You (DocTok member) are not allowed to give any medical consultation to medical and non-medical visitors to the site. You are responsible for whatever actions you take that might cause harm to others.
As a member you have the right and you are encouraged to report misuse of other members to the DocTok team.
No cussing, cursing or use of profanity language is allowed, our administrators/moderators have the right to kick, ban temporarily or permanently as it fits depending on the reasons.
DocTok.com will not be held liable for any loss or damage for non-compliance. In addition, you understand and agree that DocTok.com will use aggregated data collected from you and other users for statistical and analytical reporting purposes. You understand, and agree that, unless expressly stated, DocTok.com in no way controls, verifies, or endorses any of the information contained on or in the DocTok.com Service, including links, events, messages, message boards and members' published listings.
The Point System
Doctok.com has a point earning system implemented to pay you back for your participation. Be among the top three posters per month and we will pay you the reward set for that specific month. Also, reach an all-time 300 posts and 900 points and we will pay you the reward set for that specific period (if the deadline is met). Relevancy is important and it is monitored by our moderators. We reserve the right to deny/delete any fraudulent/irrelevant post points that are made for the sole reason of collecting points. Payments are made by a check or PayPal.com only if within the US, and via paypal.com anywhere outside the US (if applicable). We are under no obligation to send a check outside the US. If sending a check or PayPal payment is not possible then you have a choice to obtain a different equivalent reward such as a customized residency program list or a personal statement editing service (one personal statement edit) or any other rewards we may announce under the “How it works” page. We will not pay more than one reward per month, per person. If you are the highest earned member, you are not allowed to redeem the 2nd or 3rd highest poster positions. You must meet a minimum posts per month to qualify for the top three positions with at least 50 posts and 150 points/month set as a requirement. We also hold the right to deny postings that may have been made by a mass copy/paste for a sole reason of collecting highest points. We also hold the right to change/cease the point earning system at anytime without a prior notification. We are not to be held liable for ceasing the points at anytime and we are under no obligation to give a reimbursement.
For further information on how the point system works and the rules involved you can email us at admin@doctok.com.
The “Ask us a question” help desk
DocTok.com’s “Ask us a question” feature is made to help you with your general questions regarding USMLE, Match and Residency. These are questions that will be pending until our moderators answer them accordingly. You must agree that you cannot hold DocTok.com and its moderators responsible for any answers provided. We do our best to answer each of your questions as accurate as possible. We may edit your questions containing any personal information and anything may seem inappropriate appearing in public. You understand that all answers do not reflect DocTok’s service as a whole but the personal opinion of each individual moderator. If you doubt any of our answers please verify it with other sources before you take action. You agree that your questions will be made public as soon as our moderators respond to your submitted questions which may take up to 24-48 hours. We hold the right to edit/reject any part of your questions if necessary, and without any notice. DocTok.com and its helpdesk feature is made solely and strictly to assist: 1. Pre-med students 2. Medical Students 3. Medical Graduates DocTok.com and its helpdesk are not intended for patient question purposes. DocTok.com and its moderators are not responsible for any information collected and used by patients or the general public. If you have any questions regarding “Ask us a question” feature, please contact us at support@doctok.com
Registration
As part of the registration process for the Service, you agree to:
Provide certain limited information about you as prompted to do so by the Service (this information must be current, complete and accurate).
Maintain and update this information as required to keep it current, complete and accurate.
The information requested upon original sign-up shall be referred to as registration data ("Registration Data"). DocTok.com reserves the right to delete accounts created by users who appropriate the name, likeness, e-mail address, or other personally identifiable information of another individual. DocTok.com reserves the right to refuse the Service to any user.
Eligibility
You must be eighteen (18) years of age or older to register as a member of DocTok.com or use the Web site. Membership in DocTok.com is void where prohibited by law. By using the DocTok.com Web site, you represent and warrant that you have the right, authority, and capacity to agree to, and abide by, this Agreement.
Your Membership is solely for your personal use, and you shall not authorize others to use your account, including your profile or email address. You are solely responsible for all Content published or displayed through your account, including any email messages, and for your interactions with other members.
Term
This Agreement will remain in full force and effect while you use the DocTok.com Web site and/or are a Member. You may cancel your DocTok.com membership at any time by emaling us your user name to admin@doctok.com. Once we process your request, we will remove your account from our database. DocTok.com may terminate your membership for any reason, at any time. Even after membership is terminated, this Agreement will remain in effect.
Non Commercial Use by Members
The DocTok.com Web site is for the personal use of individual Members only and may not be used in connection with any commercial endeavor. Organizations, companies, and/or businesses may not become Members and should not use the Service or the Web site for any purpose. Illegal and/or unauthorized uses of the Web site, including collecting usernames and/or e-mail addresses of members by electronic or other means for the purpose of sending unsolicited e-mail and unauthorized framing of or linking to the Web site will be investigated, and appropriate legal action will be taken, including, without limitation, civil, criminal, and injunctive redress. Commercial advertisements, affiliate links, and other forms of solicitation may be removed from member profiles without notice and may result in termination of membership privileges. We have reserved a classified section in our forum where you are able to sell your products and services as far as copyrights are respected and also it must not conflict with our own products or services (including our affiliates).
Proprietary Rights in Content on DocTok.com
DocTok.com owns and retains all intellectual property rights in the Web site and our Service. The Web site contains the copyrighted material, trademarks, and other proprietary information of DocTok.com. Except for that information which is in the public domain or for which you have been given written permission, you may not copy, modify, publish, transmit, distribute, perform, display, or sell any such proprietary information.
Content Posted on the DocTok.com Site
You also agree to the following terms regarding the content posted on the DocTok.com site:
You understand and agree that DocTok.com may review and delete any content, messages, photos or profiles (collectively, "Content") that in the sole judgment of DocTok.com violate this Agreement or which might be offensive, illegal, or that might violate the rights, harm, or threaten the safety of Members.
You are solely responsible for the Content that you publish or display (hereinafter, "post") on the DocTok.com site, or transmit to other Members.
By posting Content to any public area of DocTok.com, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to DocTok.com an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, fully paid, worldwide license to use, copy, perform, display, distribute and to prepare derivative works of such Content within the Service, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.
DocTok has the right remove any fraudulent irrelevant posts that are made for the sole purpose of collecting points. DocTok also has the right to disqualify/ban/delete any member for earning future points if abuse is observed in the system.
The following is a partial list of the kind of Content that is illegal or prohibited on the Web site. DocTok.com reserves the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action in its sole discretion against anyone who violates this provision including, without limitation, removing the offending communication from the DocTok.com site and terminating the membership of such violators. It includes Content that:
is patently offensive to the online community, such as Content that promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual;
harasses or advocates harassment of another person;
involves the transmission of "junk mail," "chain letters" or unsolicited mass mailing or "spamming";
promotes information that you know is false, misleading or promotes illegal activities or conduct that is abusive, threatening, obscene, defamatory or libelous;
promotes an illegal or unauthorized copy of another person's copyrighted work, such as providing pirated computer programs or links to them, providing information to circumvent manufacturer-installed copy-protect devices, or providing pirated audio or links to pirated audio files;
contains restricted or password-only access pages, or hidden pages or images (those not linked to or from another accessible page);
displays pornographic or sexually explicit material of any kind;
provides material that exploits people under the age of eighteen (18) in a sexual or violent manner, or solicits personal information from anyone under eighteen (18);
provides instructional information about illegal activities such as making or buying illegal weapons, violating someone's privacy, or providing or creating computer viruses;
solicits passwords or personally-identifying information for commercial or unlawful purposes from other users;
engages in commercial activities and/or sales without our prior written consent such as contests, sweepstakes, barter, advertising and pyramid schemes; or
Solicits people you don't know to add you or accept you as a friend on DocTok.com.
Even though all of this is strictly prohibited, there is a small chance that you might become exposed to such items and you further waive your right to any damages (from any party) related to such exposure.
You must use the Service in a manner consistent with any and all applicable laws and regulations.
You may not engage in advertising to, or solicitation of, other Members to buy or sell any commercial products or commercial services through the Service. You may not engage in advertising to, or solicitation of other members to buy or sell any personal products or services except in your personal Classifieds area. You may not transmit any chain letters or junk e-mail to other Members. Although DocTok.com cannot monitor the conduct of its Members off the Web site, it is also a violation of these rules to use any information obtained from the DocTok.com Service in order to harass, abuse, or harm another person, or in order to contact, advertise to, solicit, or sell to any Member without their prior explicit consent. In order to protect our Members from such advertising or solicitation, DocTok.com reserves the right to restrict the number of messages which a Member may send to other Members in any 24-hour period to a number which DocTok.com deems appropriate in its sole discretion.
Copyrights and Trademarks
You may not post, distribute, or reproduce in any way any copyrighted material, trademarks, or other proprietary information without obtaining the prior written consent of the owner of such proprietary rights. Without limiting the foregoing, if you believe that your work has been copied and posted on the Service in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide our Copyright Agent with the following information: an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest; a description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed; a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the Web site; your address, telephone number, and e-mail address; a written statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf. DocTok.com's Copyright Agent for notice of claims of copyright infringement can be reached as follows: DocTok.com Legal Dept., legal@DocTok.com
Member Disputes
You are solely responsible for your interactions with other DocTok.com Members or third parties. DocTok.com reserves the right, but has no obligation, to monitor disputes between you and other Members or third parties.
Links to Third Party Sites
Any links included within the DocTok.com site that take users out of the DocTok.com site are not under the control of DocTok.com. DocTok.com shall not be responsible for the content of any linked site or any link contained in a linked site. All such sites shall be subject to the policies and procedures of the owner of such site. We encourage you to read those policies and know your rights.
Transactions with Organizations or Individuals
DocTok.com shall not be liable for your interactions with any organizations and/or individuals found on or through the DocTok.com Service. This includes, but is not limited to, payment and delivery of goods and services, and any other terms, conditions, warranties or representations associated with such dealings. These dealings are solely between you and such organizations and/or individuals. You agree that DocTok.com is not responsible for any damage or loss incurred as a result of any such dealings. DocTok.com is under no obligation to become involved in disputes between participants on the site, or between participants on the site and any third party. In the event of a dispute, you release DocTok.com, its officers, employees, agents and successors in rights from claims, damages and demands of every kind, known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed, arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and our Service.
Privacy Policy
Use of the Web site and/or the Service is also governed by our Privacy Policy.
Disclaimers
DocTok.com is not responsible for any incorrect or inaccurate Content posted on the Web site or in connection with the DocTok.com Service, whether caused by users of the Web site, Members or by any of the equipment or programming associated with or utilized in the Service. DocTok.com is not responsible for the conduct, whether online or offline, of any user of the Web site or Member of the Service. DocTok.com assumes no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to, or alteration of, user or Member communications. DocTok.com is not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers or providers, computer equipment, software, failure of e-mail or players on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any web site or combination thereof, including injury or damage to users and/or Members or to any other person's computer related to or resulting from participating or downloading materials in connection with the Web and/or in connection with the Service. Under no circumstances will DocTok.com be responsible for any loss or damage, including personal injury or death, resulting from anyone's use of the Web site or the Service, any Content posted on the Web site or transmitted to Members, or any interactions between users of the Web site, whether online or offline. The Web site and the Service are provided "AS IS" and DocTok.com expressly disclaims any warranty of fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. DocTok.com cannot guarantee and does not promise any specific results from use of the Web site and/or the Service. The Service may be temporarily unavailable from time to time for maintenance or other reasons. No advice or information, whether oral or written, obtained by user from DocTok.com or through or from the Service shall create any warranty not expressly stated herein.
Limitation on Liability
Except in jurisdictions where such provisions are restricted, in no event will DocTok.com be liable to you or any third person for any indirect, consequential, exemplary, incidental, special or punitive damages, including also lost profits arising from your use of the Web site or the DocTok.com Service, even if DocTok.com has been advised of the possibility of such damages. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained herein, DocTok.com's liability to you for any cause whatsoever, and regardless of the form of the action, will at all times be limited to the amount paid, if any, by you to DocTok.com for the Service during the term of membership.
Disputes
If there is any dispute about or involving the Web site and/or the Service, by using the Web site you agree that the dispute will be governed by the laws of the State of Ohio (USA) without regard to its conflict of law rules. You agree to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the Ohio supreme courts in and for Ohio, United States of America.
Indemnity
You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless DocTok.com with respect to any and all costs, claims, demands, investigations, liabilities, losses, damages, judgments, settlements, costs and expenses, including attorneys' fees arising out of or in connection with your use of the DocTok.com Service in violation of this Agreement and/or arising from a breach of this Agreement and/or any breach of your representations and warranties set forth above. Notwithstanding the foregoing, DocTok.com retains the exclusive right to settle, compromise and pay any and all claims, demands, proceedings, suits, actions or causes of actions which are brought against DocTok.com herein under the terms and provisions of this Section and in no event shall you settle any such claim without DocTok.com's prior written approval.
General Practices Regarding Use and Storage
You acknowledge that DocTok.com may establish general practices and limits concerning use of the Service including, without limitation, the maximum number of days that messages or other uploaded Content will be retained by the Service, the maximum number of messages that may be sent from or received by an account on the Service, the maximum size of any message that may be sent from or received by an account on the Service, the maximum disk space that will be allotted on DocTok.com's servers on your behalf, and the maximum number of times (and the maximum duration for which) you may access the Service in a given period of time. You agree that DocTok.com has no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any messages and other communications or other Content maintained or transmitted by the Service. You acknowledge that DocTok.com reserves the right to log off accounts that are inactive for an extended period of time. You further acknowledge that DocTok.com reserves the right to modify these general practices and limits from time to time.
No Agency
The terms and provisions of this Agreement shall not be interpreted as creating an agency, partnership, joint venture, employee-employer or franchisor-franchisee relationship between DocTok.com and any User of the Service. A Member may not bind or obligate DocTok.com without DocTok.com prior written consent.
Special Admonitions for International Use
As a consequence of the global nature of the Internet, you agree to comply with all local rules regarding user conduct on the Internet and acceptable content. Specifically, you agree to comply with all applicable laws regarding the transmission of technical data exported from the United States or the country in which you reside.
Miscellaneous
This Agreement, accepted upon use of the Web site and further affirmed by becoming a Member of the DocTok.com Service, contains the entire agreement between you and DocTok.com regarding the use of the Web site and/or the Service. The failure of DocTok.com to exercise or enforce any right or provision of this Agreement shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. If any provision of this Agreement is held invalid, the remainder of this Agreement shall continue in full force and effect. The section titles in this Agreement are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect.
Please contact us with any questions regarding this Agreement (admin@doctok.com).
Privacy Policy
DocTok.com is a Service that allows you to build and communicate with your network of friends and colleagues in very powerful ways, via our forums. Privacy and the sharing of this information is always a delicate issue, however DocTok.com cares deeply about the privacy of members’ information and we make it our highest priority to protect the privacy of our members. So that you can have confidence in DocTok.com and so that you have an understanding of how DocTok.com uses information collected on the website we have drafted this privacy document. It outlines the types of information DocTok.com collects and how that information is utilized within the site.
DocTok.com will adhere to this policy when dealing with any information collected within the DocTok.com website. The information will only be used to provide you with an enriched and finely personalized experience within the site. No personal information collected from our members will ever be sold or leased to any third party without the proper consent.
Any questions regarding this privacy policy should be sent to admin@doctok.com.
WHAT INFORMATION WE COLLECT AND WHAT IT IS USED FOR
Registration
You need to provide an email address that can be verified, a "screen name" and a password during the registration phase of your membership. We’ll also suggest you provide certain personal information, such as: first and last name. Screen names are used to provide a unique account with which you can access DocTok.com and to create the web address (URL) for your home page. So accordingly, your screen name will be visible to anyone who is in the forums. Your e-mail address is used to identify you in our system, to contact you regarding your activities on the Website (including, but not limited to, confirmation e-mails or important news affecting your relationship with DocTok.com, as well as to gather feedback via surveys to enable us to improve our site according to your needs). We also use your email address to forward messages to you from other DocTok.com members. DocTok.com will never share your personal information with any non-registered user of our site nor any third party company or person without your explicit consent except for DocTok partners (ElectronicResidency.com, MatchAResident.com) which we share email information with. Note also that we require prospective members to confirm the e-mail address provided at registration, this prevents someone from registering with another person's e-mail address. People that do not know you or not part of your social group do not have access to your email address.
Contacts' Information
Building and interacting with your network of friends is a key facet of the DocTok.com experience. When inviting another person to register for our site and join your network of friends, we will ask you to provide that person's e-mail address or Instant Messenger ID, and the nature of your relationship (e.g., brother, friend, co-worker, etc.) with that person.
We will automatically send your friend a one-time email inviting him or her to visit the site. We store this information for the sole purpose of sending this one-time email and tracking the success of our referral program. Your friend may contact us at admin@doctok.com to request that we remove this information from our database.
If you use a bulletin board or chat room on this site, you should be aware that any personally identifiable information you submit there can be read, collected, or used by other users of these forums, and could be used to send you unsolicited messages. We are not responsible for the personally identifiable information you choose to submit in these forums.
Cookies, Tracking and Site Operation
DocTok.com uses cookies and web log files to track site usage. Cookies are an essential part of this Service. A cookie is a tiny data file that resides on your computer and allows DocTok.com to recognize you as a member when you return to our site using the same computer and web browser. It also allows you to remain logged in to the DocTok.com website. Unfortunately, if your browser settings do not allow cookies, you will not be able to use our website. Cookies also help us understand how members use DocTok.com, which allows us to continually improve the Service. Like the information you enter at registration or in your Profile, cookie and log file data is used to customize your experience on the web site.
Due to the communications standards on the Internet, when you visit the DocTok.com web site we automatically receive the URL of the site from which you came and the site to which you are going when you leave DocTok.com. We also receive the Internet protocol (IP) address of your computer (or the proxy server you use to access the World Wide Web), your computer operating system and type of web browser you are using, as well as the name of your ISP. This information may be used to analyze overall trends to help us improve the DocTok.com Service, but is not linked to personally identifiable information in any way.
Persons Under the Age of Eighteen
Persons under the age of eighteen (18) are not permitted to join the DocTok.com website. In compliance with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), we will not knowingly provide access to DocTok.com to persons under the age of eighteen (18). If DocTok.com later learns that a member is under the age of eighteen (18) we will take appropriate steps to remove the member's information from the database and restrict the individual from future access to the DocTok.com Service. DocTok.com believes that the supervision of children under the age of eighteen (18) is the responsibility of the parent or guardian, and ultimately accepts no responsibility if a person under the age of eighteen (18) joins DocTok.com.
SHARING AND DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION
Third Party Companies and Organizations
DocTok.com will not sell, lease or give your personal information to third parties without your explicit consent, unless required by law. We may share your information with third parties under the following explicit circumstances:
if sharing your information is necessary to execute a specific request by you. In these specific cases third parties will not retain, share or store any personally identifiable information except to provide the specific services requested by you, and are bound by strict confidentiality agreements which limit their use of such information;
if sharing your information is required by law or is necessary to respond to a subpoena, warrant or court order, or to protect the rights of DocTok.com or its members; or
if you give us explicit permission to share your information for any reason not stated in this privacy policy.
We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Web site.
DocTok.com Advertisers and Agencies
We may use third-party advertising companies to advertise products or services on our site. These companies may employ cookies and action tags (also known as single pixel gifs or web beacons) to measure advertising effectiveness. Any information that these third parties collect via cookies and action tags will be completely anonymous. Further details regarding the privacy of your information after you have left the DocTok.com site in response to any advertising is the responsibility of the advertiser and as such their privacy policy on their own website should be read if you are concerned in any way.
External Links and URL’s
All DocTok.com pages will be served via our domain name www.DocTok.com. If you see a page that does not have the "properties" DocTok.com it may not be a page served by us. An exception to this is our images that may be served from our distributed caching service – this group of servers is managed by a third party – no information is disclosed to this third party about you. They do however automatically detect the region from which you are logging in from so as to serve images from the server that is geographically the most efficient. Personal images and information is not usually cached by any third party caching companies we employ, only DocTok.com branding, buttons, and images are cached. Additionally, you may occasionally see links to other web sites on DocTok.com, either via advertisements or other third-party promotions or links posted by other DocTok.com members. DocTok.com is not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites you may visit through a link you found on DocTok.com. If you provide information directly to a party other than DocTok.com, different privacy policies may cover those parties' use of your information. Please review any company's privacy policy before disclosing your personal information.
SECURITY
DocTok.com has expended significant time, effort and money to provide you with security measures to protect member information from loss, misuse and alteration. We use industry-standard practices such as encrypted storage, firewalls and password protection systems to safeguard the confidentiality of your personal information. Each of our employees is aware of our security policies, and your information is only available to those employees who need it to perform their jobs.
CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
DocTok.com may update the privacy policy at anytime. The latest version of the privacy policy will always be available to be emailed to you by contacting us at admin@doctok.com. Please check this page occasionally to make sure you are aware of any updates.
We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our home page.
Last updated 12/23/2007