Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a legal agreement between you and SinewsLink Inc. (“SinewsLink”, “we”, “us” or “our”). They govern your access to and use of the SinewsLink Local Economy platform (“SLLE” or the “Service”), including the SLLE mobile app for iOS and Android, the website at slle.ca, and related services.

Please read them carefully. By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Acceptance and eligibility

• You must be at least 16 years old to create an account and use SLLE as a consumer (browse, discover, post, message, and buy or trade permitted items).
• You must be at least 18 years old and legally able to enter into contracts where you live to register or manage a business, offer mentorship or tours, receive payments, or apply for a paid internship through the Service.
• Minors. If you are at least 16 but under the age of majority where you live, you may use SLLE as a consumer only with the knowledge and involvement of a parent or legal guardian, who must review and agree to these Terms on your behalf and is responsible for supervising your use of the Service. By creating an account you confirm that you meet the minimum age and either have reached the age of majority or have a parent or guardian who has accepted these Terms for you. We may suspend or close any account we reasonably believe does not meet these requirements.
• If you use the Service on behalf of a business or other organization, you confirm that you are authorized to bind it to these Terms, and “you” includes that organization.
• SLLE is operated from Canada and intended for use in Canada. We make no representation that it is appropriate or available elsewhere. If you use it from another country, you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for complying with local law.

2. The Service

SLLE is a platform that helps people discover and support local businesses and communities. It includes business discovery, community posts and messaging, marketplace, barter and garage-sale listings, mentorship sessions, tours, internship postings, and tools for business owners.

SinewsLink provides the platform. Unless we say otherwise, we are not a party to the transactions, bookings, employment relationships or other arrangements you enter into with businesses or other users through SLLE, and we do not act as an agent, broker, employer or insurer for anyone. We do not vet or guarantee any user, business, listing, offering or review.

We may add, change, suspend or remove features at any time, including features that are in preview or beta. Where a change materially reduces a paid feature you have already paid for, we will provide a proportional refund or credit.

3. Your account

• Provide accurate, complete information and keep it up to date. One account per person; businesses are managed through a personal account.
• Keep your credentials confidential. You are responsible for all activity under your account. Tell us immediately at support@slle.ca if you suspect unauthorized use.
• Do not sell, transfer or share your account, or use someone else’s account without permission.
• You may delete your account at any time from Settings in the App. Our Privacy Policy explains what happens to your information afterwards.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Post anything that is false, misleading, fraudulent, deceptive, defamatory, obscene, hateful, discriminatory, or that infringes anyone’s rights.
• Harass, threaten, stalk, intimidate or harm anyone, or contact users for purposes unrelated to the Service.
• List, offer or request anything that is illegal, stolen, counterfeit, recalled, hazardous, or restricted (including weapons, drugs, alcohol, tobacco and cannabis, live animals, and adult content).
• Use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of any applicable law, including consumer-protection, employment, anti-spam and privacy laws.
• Interfere with or circumvent security, anti-abuse, payment, refund or access-control features.
• Access the Service with bots, scrapers or other automated means, or collect information about users, businesses or listings except as the Service intends.
• Use the Service, or any data obtained from it, to build or train a competing product or dataset.
• Send spam or unsolicited commercial messages, or impersonate any person, business or entity.
• Upload malicious code, or overload, disrupt or impair the Service or its infrastructure.

We may investigate suspected violations, remove or restrict content, and suspend or terminate accounts, with or without notice. You can report content or conduct that concerns you in the App or at support@slle.ca.

5. Your content

You own the content you post on SLLE (posts, comments, reviews, listings, offerings, applications, messages and media). By posting it, you grant SinewsLink a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable and sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt, distribute, publicly display and otherwise use that content for the purposes of operating, promoting and improving the Service. This licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for content that others have shared or that we must keep as described in our Privacy Policy, and for reasonable backup retention.

You are responsible for your content. You confirm that you own it or have the rights needed to post it and grant this licence, and that it does not violate these Terms, the law or anyone’s rights. Reviews must reflect your genuine experience. We may, but are not obliged to, review, moderate or remove content.

Copyright complaints (DMCA and Canadian Notice-and-Notice)

SLLE respects intellectual-property rights and expects users to do the same. If you believe content on SLLE infringes your copyright, please send a written notice to our designated agent including: (i) your physical or electronic signature; (ii) identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed; (iii) identification of the material claimed to be infringing and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate it (URL or in-app path); (iv) your contact information (address, telephone, email); (v) a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the rights holder, its agent, or the law; and (vi) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the rights holder or authorized to act on the rights holder’s behalf. See our DMCA / Notice-and-Notice page for the full workflow, our designated agent’s contact information, counter-notification procedures, and how Canadian Notice-and-Notice (Copyright Modernization Act) is handled.

Repeat-infringer policy. We terminate the accounts of users who are found to be repeat infringers of copyright in appropriate circumstances.

6. Mentorship sessions and tours

Businesses and mentors may offer sessions and tours through SLLE, free or paid. When you book, you enter into an arrangement with that business or mentor; SinewsLink processes the booking and any payment on their behalf.

Price and fees

The total you pay is shown before you confirm. For paid bookings it is made up of the price set by the business, a transaction-processing fee, and a platform booking fee that compensates SinewsLink for operating the Service. The platform booking fee is shown separately and is non-refundable.

Cancellations and refunds

The following policy applies to every paid session and tour booked through SLLE and is applied automatically by the Service:

• Cancelled 24 hours or more before the scheduled start: the price and the transaction-processing fee are refunded to your original payment method. The platform booking fee is retained.
• Cancelled less than 24 hours before the scheduled start, or not attended: no refund is issued.
• Free sessions and tours: cancelling releases your spot; nothing is charged or refunded.

The same rule applies whether you or the business cancels. If a business cancels a paid booking less than 24 hours before it starts, or fails to deliver it, contact support@slle.ca within 7 days; we will review the booking and may issue a refund of the price and processing fee. Approved refunds usually appear on your statement within 5–10 business days, depending on your card issuer.

Businesses and mentors are solely responsible for the content, quality, safety and legality of the sessions and tours they offer, for holding any licences, permits or insurance required, and for honouring confirmed bookings.

7. Internships

Businesses may post internship opportunities on SLLE and users may apply to them. SinewsLink is not the employer, recruiter or placement agency for any internship. The business posting the opportunity is solely responsible for the posting, the selection process, and the internship itself, including compliance with applicable employment-standards, minimum-wage, health-and-safety, human-rights and tax laws. Applicants are responsible for the accuracy of their applications.

A one-time posting fee, shown before you confirm, may apply to paid internship postings. Posting fees are non-refundable once the posting is published, except where required by law.

8. Marketplace, barter and garage sales

SLLE lets users list items for sale, for trade, or as part of a garage sale, and lets other users find them. These are person-to-person arrangements. SinewsLink does not process payments for, and is not a party to, marketplace, barter or garage-sale transactions. Price, payment, exchange, delivery, condition, returns and any dispute are matters between the users involved.

You are responsible for describing items accurately, for complying with the law (including any restrictions on what may be sold or traded), and for your own safety when meeting other users. Meet in public places, do not share more personal information than necessary, and report suspicious activity to us.

9. Business accounts and subscriptions

• You may register a business only if you own it or are authorized to represent it. Business information must be accurate and current. We may ask for verification and may decline or remove listings that do not meet our standards.
• You are responsible for your listings, offerings, postings and customer interactions, and for complying with all laws that apply to your business, including consumer-protection, licensing, advertising and tax laws.
• Where the Service collects payments on your behalf, payouts are made through our payment processor under its terms, less any applicable fees. You are responsible for any taxes on amounts you receive.

Subscriptions and automatic renewal

Some features are available through paid subscription plans. Before you subscribe, the checkout screen shows you the plan’s price, currency (Canadian dollars unless stated otherwise), billing period, and renewal cadence. By tapping Subscribe you agree that your subscription will renew automatically at the end of each billing period at the then-current price, and that we and our payment processor may charge your payment method on file until you cancel. This satisfies our obligations under the California Automatic Renewal Law, the U.S. FTC Negative Option / Click-to-Cancel Rule, and equivalent Canadian consumer-protection rules.

You can cancel at any time in the app from Settings → Subscription → Manage, or (for App Store / Google Play billed subscriptions) in your device’s subscription management screen. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and you keep access until then. Except where the law requires otherwise, fees already paid are not refunded for partial periods. We may change plan prices or features with at least 30 days’ notice; price changes take effect at your next renewal, and you may cancel before then if you do not agree.

10. Payments

• Prices are in Canadian dollars (CAD) unless a business clearly states another currency. Applicable taxes are shown before you confirm a purchase.
• Payments are processed by a third-party payment processor. By paying through SLLE you also agree to the processor’s terms as presented at checkout. We do not store your full card number.
• You authorize us and our processor to charge your chosen payment method for the amounts shown, including recurring subscription charges until you cancel.
• If you believe a charge is wrong, contact support@slle.ca first; most issues are resolved quickly. If you dispute a legitimate charge with your card issuer without giving us the chance to resolve it, we may suspend your account while the dispute is investigated and recover any resulting fees from you.

11. Communications

We will send you service messages about your account and activity, such as booking confirmations, reminders, application updates, receipts, security notices and changes to these Terms. You cannot opt out of these while you have an account. We send marketing or promotional messages only with your consent, and every such message includes a way to unsubscribe. By providing a phone number you agree that we may send verification codes and service messages to it; standard carrier rates may apply.

12. Intellectual property

The Service, including its software, design, text, graphics, logos and trademarks (but excluding user content), is owned by SinewsLink or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws. We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the App and the Service for their intended purposes in accordance with these Terms. You may not copy, modify, reverse-engineer, distribute, sell or create derivative works from any part of the Service except as the law expressly permits.

If you send us ideas, suggestions or feedback, you agree that we may use them without restriction or compensation to you.

13. Third-party services and app stores

The Service relies on third-party services such as payment processing, cloud hosting, mapping, sign-in providers and notification delivery, and may link to third-party websites and content. Those services are governed by their own terms and privacy policies. We are not responsible for third-party services, their availability, or their actions.

If you downloaded the App from Apple’s App Store or Google Play, you acknowledge that these Terms are between you and SinewsLink only, not with the store operator; that the store operator has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the App; that, to the extent permitted by law, the store operator has no warranty obligation of any kind for the App; that the store operator is not responsible for addressing any claim relating to the App or your use of it; and that the store operator and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you. You must also comply with the store’s applicable terms of service.

14. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access, remove content, or refuse service, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have breached these Terms or the law, created risk or possible legal exposure for us or others, or if we discontinue the Service. Where the law requires, we will give you notice and an opportunity to respond. Termination does not affect obligations that accrued before it, including payment obligations, and sections that by their nature should survive (including 5, 12 and 15 through 19) will survive.

15. Disclaimers

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent permitted by law, SinewsLink disclaims all warranties and conditions, whether express, implied or statutory, including those of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, and uninterrupted or error-free operation. We do not endorse, and are not responsible for, any user, business, listing, offering, review or other content, or for the conduct of anyone you meet through the Service, online or in person.

16. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, SinewsLink and its directors, officers, employees, contractors, agents and affiliates will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, business, goodwill or data, arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms, however caused and under any theory of liability, even if we were advised that such damages were possible.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability to you for all claims arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms in any twelve-month period will not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts you paid to SinewsLink in that period and (b) one hundred Canadian dollars (CAD 100).

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limitations of liability. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law, including for fraud, gross negligence, or death or personal injury caused by negligence, or limits any rights you have as a consumer that cannot be waived.

17. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless SinewsLink and its directors, officers, employees, contractors, agents and affiliates from any claims, liabilities, damages, losses and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or relating to your content, your use of the Service, your breach of these Terms, your violation of any law or third-party right, or any transaction, booking or arrangement between you and another user or business.

18. Governing law and disputes

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or relating to them or the Service are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable in it, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. You and SinewsLink agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Ontario, and waive any objection to venue there.

If you live in a jurisdiction whose consumer-protection law gives you the right to rely on your local law or to bring proceedings in your local courts, nothing in this section takes that right away. Before starting any formal proceeding, please contact us at legal@slle.ca so we can try to resolve the matter informally within 30 days.

19. General terms

• Entire agreement. These Terms, our Privacy Policy, and any additional terms presented to you when you use a specific feature make up the entire agreement between you and SinewsLink about the Service.
• Severability. If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect and the unenforceable part is applied to the greatest extent permitted.
• No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to do so later.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets.
• Force majeure. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
• Language. These Terms are written in English. If we provide a translation, the English version governs to the extent permitted by law.

20. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will post the new version here with a new effective date and version number. If a change is material, we will give you reasonable advance notice in the App or by email. Continued use of the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms. If you do not agree, stop using the Service and delete your account. Previous versions are available on request.

21. Contact

SinewsLink Inc.
Legal: legal@slle.ca
Support: support@slle.ca · slle.ca/support
Privacy: privacy@slle.ca
Mailing address available on request.