The MerchantCircle Community is here to provide you with a friendly environment where you can discuss ideas, give marketing advice, networking advice, discuss how to use MerchantCircle and converse about any other merchant/local business related topic. The MerchantCircle Community is at their best when participants treat their fellow posters with respect and courtesy. Therefore, we ask that you conduct yourself in a civilized manner when participating in these forums.

In addition to these forums, MerchatCircle’s primary mission is to help local businesses find customers online. MerchantCircle helps you tap into the power of the Local Internet to reach these potential local customers, who are online right now, searching for deals, recommendations and information in your community. We created simple tools to help you promote your products and services, and designed our site to get your business listed higher in search engine results on engines such as Google and Yahoo. But MerchantCircle is only a tool for getting found online, you the merchant, control the ability to provide relevant content, which is the key to higher placement on search engine results.

The policies, guidelines and rules listed below explain what behavior is expected of you and what behavior you can expect from other community members. Furthermore, these guidelines are designed to inform MerchantCircle members of the appropriate uses of the MerhantCircle Community, service(s) and listing page. It is the responsibility of MerchantCircle users to review these forum policies and guidelines from time-to-time, as this will be updated frequently.

Note that the following policies and guidelines are not exhaustive, and may not address all manners of offensive behavior. As such, the Community moderators shall have full discretion to address any behavior that they feel is inappropriate. Otherwise, such conduct will be directed to MerchantCircle. Your access to the Community is a “privilege,” and not a “right.” MerchantCircle reserves the right to suspend your access to the Community at any time for reasons that include, but are not necessarily limited to, your failure to abide by these guidelines.

MerchantCircle reserves the right to evaluate each incident on a case-by-case basis. The action MerchantCircle takes may be more lenient or more severe than those listed under each category.

Advertising Products/Competive Products in MC Community

This category includes advertisement of:

• Any non-beneficial, non-MerchantCircle related businesses, organizations, or websites posted in forums not designated specifically for promoting
• Any advertising products that directly compete with similar MerchantCircle products in the forums
• Any “spam” that harms the network (either using MerchantCircle features or in the Forums)
• Any use of the MerchantCircle network to develop leads for competitive businesses
• If a merchant is found to have been spamming or trolling, he/she will: Be given a temporary or permanent ban from MerchantCircle website and/or the MerchantCircle Community, depending upon severity.

Inappropriate listing content, as a general policy, will be considered a direct violation of the MerchantCircle TOS. MerchantCircle will protect our network from listing pages that could potentialy harm transparency with the search engines.

Creating Fake, Inappropriate or Spamming Content

Fake Listing Pages

This category includes:

• Business information that is NOT accurate and/or does NOT represent content of a local business
• Listing information that is intended to manipulate Internet traffic as a form of lead generation
• Posting multiple listings directing traffic to one URL.
• Posting ads in duplicate
• Posting listings with invalid email addresses or unverified email addresses

Fake listing content, as a general policy, will be considered a direct violation of the MerchantCircle TOS.

Harassing or Defamatory

This category includes both clear and masked language and/or links to websites containing such language or images which:

• Insultingly refer to other MerchantCircle users, MerchantCircle employees, or groups of people
• Result in ongoing harassment to other MerchantCircle users, MerchantCircle employees, or groups of people

Harassment takes many forms, and is not necessarily limited to the type of language used, but the intent. Repeatedly targeting a specific MerchantCircle user with harassment can lead to more severe action. The idea behind this is to prevent any one user from consistently being uncomfortable on MerchantCircle and/or the MerchantCircle Community.

Obscene/Vulgar/Inappropriate/Harassing Language

This category includes both clear and masked language in posts, signatures, and/or links to MerchantCircle websites containing such language or images which:

• Are an inappropriate reference to human anatomy or bodily functions
• Are pornographic in nature

Inappropriate Language

This category includes both clear and masked language and/or links to MerchantCircle websites containing such language or images which:

• Are a mildly inappropriate reference to human anatomy or bodily functions
• Are otherwise considered objectionable

Violating the Law

Note that MerchantCircle members are not above the law. Please do not post any content that violates county, city, state or federal law(s). Please review our Privacy and Copyright Policy.

No Advertisement of Counterfeit Goods

This category includes the prohibition of advertising the selling of counterfeit goods.

Counterfeit goods contain a trademark or logo that is identical with or substantially indistinguishable from the trademark of another. Counterfeiters attempt to deceive consumers into believing the counterfeit is a genuine product of the brand owner, or sell their goods as faux, replicas or imitations of the original product. Counterfeit goods differ from standard trademark infringement in that counterfeiters attempt to pass off their goods as the originals, instead of merely using a similar mark in a confusing manner. Counterfeit goods differ from pirated products or copyright infringement because it is the trademark that is copied, rather than software, books, artwork, etc.

Reviews

With the MerchantCircle listing you can monitor what is being said about you online. We aggregate reviews from several sources, such as CitySearch, Yahoo! Local and the Yellow Pages Online and display them on one location. Of course, MerchantCircle allows a visitor to leave reviews as well. However, unlike other review sites, with MerchantCircle, you are in complete control over the reviews posted to MerchantCircle. To remove a review, you can do several things:

Register with MerchantCircle

Once a Merchant registers with MerchantCircle for FREE, they can monitor, respond and/or remove any review posted to the MerchantCircle listing. To remove a review, simply login into the Merchant Dashboard, and click the following link under ‘Connect with Customers’, ‘Manage Reviews’.

To read more about managing your reviews click here.

If you need immediate live support you can call our Priority Support line at 800-305-9203 (NOTE: There is a charge for this immediate, live support.)

Already Registered with MerchantCircle

As a registered merchant you can monitor, respond, and/or remove any review posted to your MerchantCircle listing at any time. Click here to start managing your reviews from your dashboard.

MerchantCircle Answers Guidelines

MerchantCircle Answers is a community of merchants in which consumers can ask local merchants questions on a wide range of topics. Similar to other communities, our community has a basic set of core principles that must be followed by all participants and members. Note that your use of MerchantCircle Answers is subject to the MerchantCircle Answers Community Guidelines and the MerchantCircle Terms of Service.

Violating MerchantCircle Answers Community Guidelines may result in the termination of your MerchantCircle Neighbors profile or MerchantCircle Business profile without warning.

The Good:

The community depends on each member to help keep MerchantCircle Answers useful, constructive and a valuable resource for everyone. Any member can report abuse.

Contribute your knowledge

The unique proposition of MerchantCircle Answers is to bring consumer questions directly to local merchants who can answer their questions. Consumers can directly benefit from your knowledge, experience and expertise. Sharing what you know is one of the many ways you can make a positive contribution to the community.

Be a valued community member

Remember that consumers will only find knowledgeable, objective and useful answers valuable. When you see a great question or answer, give it a thumbs-up. If you see abuse, report it.

Respect the community

Keep in mind that we are a diverse community—be kind, polite, and respectful of the comments and opinions that do not match your own.

Ask clearly

Ask a question with clarity that is succinct and to the point, but be descriptive enough to help people understand what you’re asking. Correct spelling and grammar is always appreciated and helps people find your questions when searching. Also, you’ll get better answers when others can make out what you’re asking.

Categorize correctly

Categorizing your question correctly ensures that it will be answered by those merchants most qualified to address your question.

The Bad:

Exploiting the community (i.e., spamming, keyword stuffing or otherwise attempting to direct internet traffic).

MerchantCircle Answers is a community of merchants answering consumer questions. It is NOT the place to promote your business by spamming, keyword stuffing or any other attempts to post content with the intent of directing traffic to other Internet pages to gain page views. Such conduct is strictly prohibited and will be removed. If you have years of experience in a particular topic, you own a business related to the topic, or if you have researched an appropriate, on-topic answer, linking to a website; a blog or email to offer more information is acceptable. However, it is not acceptable to post a link to an unrelated topic or make posts that are clearly meant to solicit others for personal information or financial gain.

Venting, ranting or using hate speech

MerchantCircle Answers is not the place to rant or vent your frustrations about an issue. We are a diverse community, including both merchants and consumers, please be respectful of others and keep your comments constructive and valuable for the benefit of all in the community.

Cheating

The Mentor point system is meant to reward the community members for sharing answers, so any attempts to manipulate the point system by creating multiple MerchantCircle Neighbor accounts, posting content for the sole purpose of gaining points or soliciting others for points is not permitted. Cheating includes, but is not limited to the following examples: posting filler answers to questions in an effort to be first to answer, or copying and pasting other members’ answers.

Violating the law

Any MerchantCircle member, Business or Neighbor, is subject to all state, province or city laws. So don’t post anything that would violate these laws. Be particularly mindful of copyright or trademark material(s), don’t post any harassing, threatening, impersonating or other content that invade another’s privacy.

Behaving badly, obscene or just plain mean

The goal of MerchantCircle Answers is to allow our expert merchants to answer consumer questions and for consumers to find answers from merchants in their local area, thus, sexually explicit and vulgar language and images are not welcome on the site. Also, we do not welcome belligerence, insults, slurs and generally objectionable speech. Don’t post links to sites that contain viruses or malicious programs or that interfere with the operation of MerchantCircle Answers.