Terms & Conditions

1. Introduction

Welcome to The Hood! By accessing or using our platform, you agree to comply with and be bound by these Terms and Conditions. Your use of our Platforms is also subject to our Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy, which covers how we collect, use, share, and store your personal information.

By using the platform or otherwise indicating your consent, you are agreeing to enter a legally binding contract with The Hood Platform (even if you are using our Platform on behalf of a company). If you do not agree to this contract (“Contract” or “Terms and Conditions”), you should stop using or otherwise accessing the platform immediately. If you wish to terminate this contract, at any time you can do so by closing your account and no longer accessing or using our Platforms You agree that you are solely responsible for any costs and expenses that you may incur while using our platform.

2. Definitions

“Platform” refers to the Hood website and mobile applications comprising the recruitment and social platforms defined below. 

“User” refers to any individual or entity using our platform, including registered users and visitors.

“Content” refers to all information, data, text, software, music, sound, photographs, graphics, video, messages, tags, or other materials submitted, posted, or displayed by users on our platform.

“Account” refers to membership with the Platform.

“Intellectual Property Rights” means any and all intellectual property rights of any nature anywhere in the world whether registered, registrable or otherwise, including patents, utility models, trademarks, registered designs and domain names, applications for any of the foregoing, trade or business names, goodwill, copyright and rights in the nature of copyright, design rights, rights in databases, moral rights, know-how and any other intellectual property rights which subsist in computer software, computer programs, websites, documents, information, techniques, business methods, drawings, logos, instruction manuals, lists and procedures and particulars of customers, marketing methods and procedures and advertising literature, including the “look and feel” of any websites together with all related rights and powers arising or accrued, including the right to bring, make, oppose, defend, appeal proceedings, claims or actions and obtain relief (and to retain any damages recovered) in respect of any infringement, or any other cause of action arising from ownership, of any of these assigned rights.

“Affiliate” refers to, with respect to any person, any entity that is directly or indirectly controlled by such person or is under common control with such person.

“Career Hub” refers to the page where a dedicated feature that facilitates job search and recruitment services within the maritime and energy sectors. It provides users with tools to create job postings, search for roles, and apply for positions relevant to their skills and experience. This feature is accessible to both individual members seeking employment and businesses (subscribers to the Career Hub) looking to connect with qualified candidates.

“Control” means the power to direct or cause the direction of the management or policies of such entity through the ownership of voting securities of the entity or the management of the affairs of the entity, by contract or otherwise.

“Contract” refers to the service agreement into which the Terms and Conditions are incorporated.

“Services” means the digital services tailored by the Hood to support seafarers, maritime professionals, and companies within the maritime and energy industries including Professional Networking and Social Engagement; Community Building, Career Development Tools, Resources such as education, training, news, and charitable support.

“Social Platform” means refers to the dedicated feature of the Hood page separated from recruitment function of Career Hub, which allow users to share their personal updates, join communities, and research or avail social resources provided by the Hood’s corporate members.

“Visitors” means anyone who accesses The Hood Platform without creating an account or signing in. Visitors may browse certain public content, explore informational sections of the platform, and review general offerings or services but do not have access to interactive features such as posting, messaging, or accessing exclusive member content. Visitors are limited to basic viewing rights and cannot participate in community functions, post updates, or apply for industry-specific resources available only to registered users.

3. User Accounts

You must be the “Minimum Age” (16 years old) or older to create an account on The Hood Platform. However, if law requires that you must be older in order for The Hood to lawfully provide the Services to you without parental consent (including using of your personal data) then the Minimum Age is such older age. 

● You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account information, including your password.

● You will not share an account with anyone else and will follow our rules and the law.

● You agree to provide accurate and complete information during registration and to update your information as necessary.

● You will only have one Hood account, which must be in your real name on the provision that you are not already restricted by The Hood admin from using the Platform. Creating an account with false information, including accounts registered on behalf of others or persons under the age of 16, is a violation of our terms.

● We are not obliged to permit anyone to register and we may refuse, terminate or suspend registration to anyone at any time. 

● If we have reason to believe there is likely to be a breach of security or misuse through your account or the use of your password, we may notify you and require you to change your password, or we may suspend or terminate your account.

● You accept to receive notices and messages from us through our websites, apps, and the contact information you provide.

● Members are account holders. You agree to: (1) use a strong password and keep it confidential; and (2) not transfer any part of your account (e.g. connections). You are responsible for anything that happens through your account unless you close it or report misuse.

● As between you and others (including your employer), your account belongs to you. However, if the Services were purchased by another party for you to use (e.g. Recruiter seat bought by your employer), the party paying for such Service has the right to control access to and get reports on your use of such paid Service; however, they do not have rights to your personal account.

● If you buy any of our paid Services (“Recruitment Services”), you agree to pay us the applicable fees and taxes and to additional terms specific to the paid Services. Failure to pay these fees will result in the termination of your paid Services. Also, you agree that:

Your purchase may be subject to foreign exchange fees or differences in prices based on location (e.g. exchange rates).

We may store and continue billing your payment method (e.g. credit card) even after it has expired, to avoid interruptions in your Services and to use to pay other Services you may buy.

If you purchase a subscription, your payment method automatically will be charged at the start of each subscription period for the fees and taxes applicable to that period. To avoid future charges, cancel before the renewal date. Learn how to cancel or suspend your Recruitment Services.

All of your purchases of Services are subject to The Hood’s refund policy.

We may calculate taxes payable by you based on the billing information that you provide us at the time of purchase.

You as the user acknowledge and agree that all intellectual property rights in the Platform and other materials provided by The Hood to User pursuant to these Terms and Conditions are either licensed to, or are the property of The Hood, and nothing contained herein shall be deemed to convey any title or ownership interest therein to User. User’s only right with respect to such intellectual property rights is the right to use them in relation to the Platform provided hereunder. 

The content on the platform is owned by the Hood or its licensors. You may not copy, distribute, or create derivative works from this content without prior written permission. 

By posting content on the platform, you grant The Hood a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, distribute, reproduce, and display your content in connection with the operation of the platform.

Career coaching and training: the Hood may help connect members offering career coaching or training with members seeking services. The Hood does not employ individuals to perform these services. You must be at least 18 years to offer, perform or procure these services. You acknowledge that the Hood does not have a relationship between the Hood and any member offering services. If you are a member offering services you represent and warrant that you have all the required licenses and will provide services consistent with our policies. 

Messaging and Calls: Connecting you with other people. We provide, and always strive to improve, ways for you to communicate with other users of the Hood including through messages, voice and video calls, sending images and video, showing your status, and sharing your location with others when you choose. The Hood works with partners, service providers, and affiliated companies to help us provide ways for you to connect with their services. NO ACCESS TO EMERGENCY SERVICES: There are important differences between our Services and your mobile phone and a fixed-line telephone and SMS services. Our Services do not provide access to emergency services or emergency services providers, including the police, fire departments, or hospitals, or otherwise connect to public safety answering points. You should ensure you can contact your relevant emergency services providers through a mobile phone, a fixed-line telephone, or other service 

The Hood reserves all of its intellectual property rights in the Services. Trademarks and logos used in connection with the Services are the trademarks of their respective owners. The Hood logos and other The Hood trademarks, service marks, graphics and logos used for our Services are trademarks or registered trademarks of The Hood.

4. Users’ Content Guidelines

We aim to foster a supportive, respectful, fun, and professional community for the maritime industry. To ensure our platform remains a positive space for all users, we ask that you adhere to the following Social Content Guidelines:

4.1. Respectful Communication

• Be Courteous: Treat all members with respect. Discriminatory, abusive, or hateful language will not be tolerated.
• Constructive Feedback: Provide feedback in a constructive and respectful manner. Personal attacks or negative comments are not acceptable and will not be tolerated.

4.2. Professionalism

• Maintain Professional Tone: We encourage a light-hearted and fun atmosphere on the platform. However, it’s always good to keep your posts, comments, and messages professional. Remember that The Hood Platform is a space for career development and networking.
• Avoid Offensive Content: Do not share vulgar, obscene, or otherwise offensive content.

4.3. Privacy and Confidentiality

• Respect Privacy: Do not share personal or confidential information about yourself or any personal or confidential information about others without permission. 
• Confidentiality: Protect the confidentiality of discussions related to work, recruitment, and personal matters.

Our Services allow messaging and sharing of information in many ways, such as your profile, articles, group posts, links to news articles, job postings, messages and the Hood’s direct notifications Information and content that you share or post may be seen by other Members, Visitors or others (including off of the Services). Where we have made settings available, we will honour the choices you make about who can see content or information (e.g., message content to your addressees, sharing content only to The Hood connections, restricting your profile visibility from search engines, or opting to share the viewing and downloading ability of your documents with the selected recruiter on Career Hub). For job searching activities, we default to not notifying your connections network or the public. So, if you apply for a job through our Service or opt to signal that you are interested in a job, our default is to share it only with the job poster.

We are not obligated to publish any information or content on our Service and can remove it with or without notice.

As between you and The Hood, you own the content and information that you submit or post to the Services, and you are only granting The Hood and our affiliates the following non-exclusive license:

A worldwide, transferable and sublicensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publish and process, information and content that you provide through our Social Platform, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others. These rights are limited in the following ways:

1. You can end this license for specific content by deleting such content from the Social Platform, or generally by closing your account, except (a) to the extent you shared it with others as part of the Social Platform and they copied, re-shared it or stored it and (b) for the reasonable time it takes to remove from backup and other systems. 

2. We will not include your content in advertisements for the products and services of third parties to others without your separate consent (including sponsored content). However, we have the right, without payment to you or others, to serve ads near your content and information, and your social actions may be visible and included with ads, as noted in the Privacy Policy. If you use a Social Platform, we may mention that with your name or photo to promote that feature within our Services, subject to your settings. 

3. We will get your consent if we want to give others the right to publish your content beyond the Social Platform. However, if you choose to share your post as “public, everyone or similar”, we will enable a feature that allows other Members to embed that public post onto third-party services, and we enable search engines to make that public content findable though their services.

4. While we may edit and make format changes to your content (such as translating or transcribing it, modifying the size, layout or file type or removing metadata), we will not modify the meaning of your expression.

You and The Hood agree that we may access, store, process and use any information and personal data that you provide in accordance with, the terms of the Privacy Policy and your choices (including settings).

By submitting suggestions or other feedback regarding our Services to The Hood, you agree that The Hood can use and share (but does not have to) such feedback for any purpose without compensation to you.

You agree to only provide content or information that does not violate the law nor anyone’s rights (including intellectual property rights). You also agree that your profile information will be truthful. The Hood may be required by law to remove certain information or content in certain countries.

You will need to specifically authorize and approve the viewing access of all your personal information provided to recruitment agents of the Career Hub and The Hood shall have no responsibility and bear no responsibility and bear no liability in relation to any of the information supplied by the User to any recruitment agents. 

4.4. Prohibited Content

• No Harassment: Harassment, bullying, and threats are strictly prohibited.
• No Discrimination: Content that discriminates based on race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or any other characteristic is not allowed.
• No Illegal Activities: Do not promote or engage in illegal activities.
• No false identity: Do not misrepresent your identity, create a member profile for anyone other than yourself (a real person), or use or attempt to use another’s account;
• Do not copy, use, disclose or distribute any information obtained from the Platform whether directly or through third parties (such as search engines), without the consent of The Hood’s admin.
• Do not imply or state that you are affiliated with or endorsed by The Hood without our express consent.

4.5. Intellectual Property

4.5.1    License. You grant to The Hood (and its affiliates) a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable license to use, copy, modify, distribute and publish any content You provide to The Hood. The foregoing license survives termination of this Contract with regard to content provided prior to termination. You represent and warrant that you own or have all necessary rights (including intellectual property rights) to such content (including to grant the license above).

4.5.2   Feedback and Reservations of Rights. If You choose to provide suggestions and feedback to The Hood, you agree that The Hood (and its affiliates) can (but does not have to) use and share such feedback for any purpose without compensation to You. You may not disclose any information about our metrics or Member demographics. The Hood (and its affiliates) reserve all of our intellectual property rights in the Services.

4.6. Relevance and Accuracy

• Stay On Topic: Ensure your posts and comments are relevant to the community and the specific discussion.
• Fact-Check: Share accurate information and verify facts before posting.

4.7. Spam and Promotions

• No Spam: Avoid posting repetitive, irrelevant, or promotional content that is not related to the platform’s purpose.
• Job Advertisement: All job advertisements have to be posted on the Career Hub page by registered agency accounts only. Any job posts on community page or social timeline will be asked for immediate removal to ensure the social content remains focused on community benefits.
• Limited Promotions: Promotional content should be relevant to the community and must not overshadow the primary purpose of the platform.

4.8. Reporting Violations

• Report Inappropriate Content: If you come across content that violates these guidelines, report it to our moderation team using the platform’s reporting tools.
• Action on Violations: Violations of these guidelines may result in content removal, temporary suspension, or permanent banning from the platform.

4.9. Engagement and Community Building

• Positive Contributions: Contribute positively to the community by sharing valuable insights, supporting others, and engaging in meaningful discussions.
• Support and Encourage: Encourage and support fellow members in their career and personal growth.

4.10. User Responsibility

• Adherence to Guidelines: By using The Hood Platform, you agree to adhere to these Social Content Guidelines.
• Understanding Impact: Recognize that your words and actions impact others in the community.

5. Reporting and Moderation

• Users can report content that violates these Terms and Conditions. The Hood reserves the right to review reported content and take appropriate action, including removal or blocking of the content.
• The Hood reserves the right to remove or block content and user accounts that violate these terms or community standards. 
• We can limit how you connect and interact on our Platform.
• We reserve the right to limit your use of the Platform, including the number of your connections and your ability to contact other Members. The Hood also reserves the right to restrict, suspend, or terminate your account if you breach this Contract or the law or misuse the Platform (e.g., violating any of the User’s Content Guidelines).

6. Privacy

• Your privacy is important to us. Please refer to our Privacy Policy for information on how we collect, use, and disclose personal information.

Service Availability

We may change, suspend or discontinue any of our Services. We may also modify our prices effective prospectively upon reasonable notice to the extent allowed under the law. 

We don’t promise to store or keep showing any information and content that you’ve posted. The Hood is not a storage service. You agree that we have no obligation to store, maintain or provide you a copy of any content or information that you or others provide, except to the extent required by applicable law and as noted in our Privacy Policy.

Other Content, Sites and Apps

By using the Services, you may encounter content or information that might be inaccurate, incomplete, delayed, misleading, illegal, offensive or otherwise harmful. The Hood generally does not review content provided by our Members or others. You agree that we are not responsible for others’ (including other Members’) content or information. We cannot always prevent this misuse of our Services, and you agree that we are not responsible for any such misuse. You also acknowledge the risk that you or your organization may be mistakenly associated with content about others when we let connections and followers know you or your organization were mentioned in the news. Members have choices about this feature.

If you are a Member offering services, individually but not limited to recruitment services, you represent and warrant that you have all the required licenses and will provide services consistent with our community standards and Privacy Policy and will strictly comply with all applicable data protection regulation governing data you receive from the Recruitment Platform. The Hood will not have no responsibility and bear no responsibility and bear no liability for any data protection breach by recruitment agents or any other members offering services and shall be fully indemnified by Members offering such services.

Similarly, The Hood may help you register for and/or attend events organized by Members and connect with other Members who are attendees at such events. You agree that (1) The Hood is not responsible for the conduct of any of the Members or other attendees at such events, (2) The Hood does not endorse any particular event listed on our Services, (3) The Hood does not review and/or vet any of these events, and (4) that you will adhere to these terms and conditions that apply to such events.

The Site may contain hyperlinks or references to third party advertising and websites other than the Platform. Any such hyperlinks or references are provided for your convenience only. We have no control over third party advertising or websites and accept no legal responsibility for any content, material or information contained in them. The display of any hyperlink and reference to any third party advertising or website does not mean that we endorse that third party’s website, products or services. Your use of a third party site may be governed by the terms and conditions of that third-party site and is at your own risk.

Limits

The Hood reserves the right to limit your use of the Services, including the number of your connections and your ability to contact other Members. The Hood reserves the right to restrict, suspend, or terminate your account if you breach this Contract or the law or are misusing the Services (e.g., violating any of our community standards).

7. Termination

• The Hood reserves the right to terminate or suspend your account at any time for any reason, including violations of these Terms and Conditions.
• You can terminate this Contract at any time by deleting your account and ceasing to use the platform.
• Upon termination, your right to use the services will immediately cease. The following shall survive termination:
• Our rights to use and disclose your feedback;
• Members and/or Visitors’ rights to further re-share content and information you shared through the Platform;
• Sections 4, 5, 7, 9, and 10 of this Contract;
• Any amounts owed by either party prior to termination remain owed after termination.

8. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Hood and its affiliates make no representation or warranty about the services, including any representation that the services will be uninterrupted or error-free, and provide the services (including content and information) on an “as is” and “as available” basis. To the fullest extent permitted under applicable law, The Hood and its affiliates disclaim any implied or statutory warranty, including any implied warranty of title, accuracy of data, non-infringement, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

9. Limitation of Liability

References to liability in this section include every kind of liability whatsoever arising out of any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, for loss of data or loss of profits arising under or in connection with the Contract or use of the Platform.

Nothing in this Contract operates to limit or exclude a party’s liability that cannot be limited or excluded by law or for its unlawful or fraudulent acts or omissions.

The Hood shall not be liable for:

• any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, unforeseeable, or punitive damages arising out of or related to your use of the platform;
• Loss or corruption of Data;
• loss of anticipated business opportunities, revenues, profits or savings;
• damage to goodwill or reputation; or
•  any losses or damages of any kind arising our of, or as a result of, circumstances beyond our reasonable control, arising out of or in connection with this agreement Contract, whether for breach of contract, in tort (including negligence), under statute or any other law.
• Unless you notify The Hood without any delay, and in any event no later than sixty (60) calendar days, that you intend to make a claim in respect of an event with the notice period, The Hood shall have no liability for that event. The notice period for an event shall start on the day on which you became, or ought reasonably to have become, aware of the event occurring or them having grounds to make a claim in respect of the event. The notice must be in writing and must identify the event and the grounds for the claim in detail. 

In any event any liability of The Hook and its affiliates arising from this contract and/or the services provided either directly or indirectly shall be limited to $1,000.

10. Changes to the Terms and Conditions

• The Hood reserves the right to modify these Terms and Conditions at any time. Changes will be effective immediately upon posting. By using the Platform after the changes, the User agrees to be bound by the most recent version of the Terms and Conditions and they are responsible for reviewing and becoming familiar with any such modifications.

11. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

• The Terms and Conditions or any dispute or claim arising out of them or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation shall be governed by the laws of Cyprus without giving effect to conflict of law rules to the extent those rules would require applying another jurisdiction’s laws. Each party consents to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Cyprus to settle any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with the Terms and Conditions or their subject matter or formation.

The Hood is a community of professionals. This list of “Dos and Don’ts” along with our Social Responsibility Policies limit what you can and cannot do on our Services.

12. Do’s and Don’t’s

12.1 Do’s

You agree that you will:

1. Comply with all applicable laws, including, without limitation, privacy laws, intellectual property laws, anti-spam laws, export control laws, tax laws, and regulatory requirements;

2. Provide accurate information to us and keep it updated;

3. Use your real name on your profile; and

4. Use the Services in a professional manner.

12.2. Dont’s

You agree that you will not:

1. Create a false identity on The Hood, misrepresent your identity, create a Member profile for anyone other than yourself (a real person), or use or attempt to use another’s account;

2. Develop, support or use software, devices, scripts, robots or any other means or processes (including crawlers, browser plugins and add-ons or any other technology) to scrape the Services or otherwise copy profiles and other data from the Services;

3. Override any security feature or bypass or circumvent any access controls or use limits of the Service (such as caps on keyword searches or profile views);

4. Copy, use, disclose or distribute any information obtained from the Services, whether directly or through third parties (such as search engines), without the consent of The Hood;

5. Disclose information that you do not have the consent to disclose (such as confidential information of others (including your employer));

6. Violate the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets or other proprietary rights. For example, do not copy or distribute (except through the available sharing functionality) the posts or other content of others without their permission in writing.

7. Violate the intellectual property or other rights of The Hood, including, without limitation, (i) copying or distributing our learning videos or other materials or (ii) copying or distributing our technology, unless it is released under open source licenses; (iii) using the word “The Hood” or our logos in any business name, email, or URL;

8. Post anything that contains software viruses, worms, or any other harmful code;

9. Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, decipher or otherwise attempt to derive the source code for the Services or any related technology that is not open source;

10. Imply or state that you are affiliated with or endorsed by The Hood without our express consent;

11. Rent, lease, loan, trade, sell/re-sell or otherwise monetize the Services or related data or access to the same;

Deep-link to our Services for any purpose other than to promote your profile or a Group on our Services, without The Hood’s consent; 

Use bots or other automated methods to access the Services, add or download contacts, send or redirect messages;

Monitor the Services’ availability, performance or functionality for any competitive purpose;

Engage in “framing,” “mirroring,” or otherwise simulating the appearance or function of the Services;

Overlay or otherwise modify the Services or their appearance (such as by inserting elements into the Services or removing, covering, or obscuring an advertisement included on the Services);

Interfere with the operation of, or place an unreasonable load on, the Services (e.g., spam, denial of service attack, viruses, gaming algorithms); and/or

Violate the Social Responsibility Policies or any additional terms concerning a specific Service that are provided when you sign up for or start using such Service, and the Bing Maps terms where applicable.

13. Contact Information

For any questions or concerns about these Terms and Conditions, please contact us at support@the-hood.com.