Yes, you do. Your professional link will be: theconnect.africa/user/[name.surname] and your buisness link will be: theconnect.africa/user/[1st part of name.2nd part of name] etc. depending on the number of words that your business name is made up of. Your URL will be created automatically.
Yes, you have to. If you do not, your account will not work, you will not be able to post anything on the platform, and you will not be able to reset or change your password. Rememeber to check your email inbox or spam folder for the confirmation/activation email.
In order to properly enjoy all that the platform has to offer you need to create a profile.
All your sign on information is safe and secure.
Yes, setting up a user profile is free.
Yes. Being on MyConnects is free. When you set up a user profile you automatically appear on MyConnects.
Your profile remains on the platform indefinately. It will be removed if you violate our community standards or if you remove it yourself.
That benefit does not exist yet. In the meantime, when you post a job listing, please make sure that you include your contact details and instructions on how the applicant should apply for the position.
The length of time that your job listing will be up for is dependant on the number of days that you pay for.
To sell your event tickets on our platform you need to contact us online and we will get in touch with you with the process.
Yes. Each event that we post will have an event URL created for marketing purposes. The URL will look like this: theconnect.africa/event//
Yes, you can post any type of listing as long as its contents are legal and do not go against our community standards and guidelines.
The length of time that your listing will be up for is dependant on the number of days that you pay for.
You can make your listing more visible by adding as much information as possible while you create it so that it can be picked up using key words during search.
Yes, you do. The link for your shop is: theconnect.africa/myshop/[your_store]. Your URL will be created automatically.
The MyShop service is not free. You need to pay a monthly rental fee in order to be able to use it continuously.
Yes, after you register and pay for your shop, your get a personalized link and your shop automatically appears on the E-Shopping Mall.
Yes, the platform is open to be used by anyone, as long you you follow our standards, agreements and policies, as well as the laws of South Africa.
You have to register your shop under theconnect.africa/myshop-register and pay for the monthly shop rental.
Please contact us by leaving us a message on our contact form under the contact tab and our admin will be in touch with you within 24hours or less.
THECONNECT AFRICA™ COMMUNITY STANDARDS & GUIDLINES
TheConnect Africa Community Standards and guidelines outline what is and is not allowed on TheConnect Africa.
Introduction
Every day, people use TheConnect Africa to connect with businesses and professionals, and to start online shops, post listings, and advertise events. It is a service for everyone to connect and brand themselves across regions and cultures.
TheConnect Africa recognises how important it is for our platform to be a place where people feel empowered to exist, and we take our role seriously in keeping abuse off the service. That is why we developed standards for what is and is not allowed on TheConnect Africa.
These standards are based on feedback from people and the advice of experts in fields such as technology, public safety and human rights. To ensure that everyone’s voice is valued, we take great care to create standards that include different views and beliefs, especially from people and communities that might otherwise be overlooked or marginalised.
Our Commitment to Voice
The goal of our Community Standards is to create a safe place for expression and trade.
In some cases, we allow content – which would otherwise go against our standards – if it is newsworthy and in the public interest. We do this only after weighing the public interest value against the risk of harm, and we look to international human rights standards to make these judgments. In other cases, we may remove content that uses ambiguous or implicit language when additional context allows us to reasonably understand that the content goes against our standards.
Our commitment to expression is paramount, but we recognise that the Internet creates new and increased opportunities for abuse. For these reasons, when we limit expression, we do it in service of one or more of the following values:
- Authenticity
We want to make sure that the content people see on TheConnect Africa is authentic. We believe that authenticity creates a better environment for networking, and that is why we do not want people using TheConnect Africa to misrepresent who they are or what they are doing.
- Safety
We are committed to making TheConnect Africa a safe place. We remove content that could contribute to a risk of harm to the physical security of persons. Content that threatens people has the potential to intimidate, exclude or silence others and is not allowed on TheConnect Africa.
- Privacy
We are committed to protecting personal privacy and information. Privacy gives people the freedom to be themselves, choose how and when to trade on TheConnect Africa and network more easily.
- Dignity
We believe that all people are equal in dignity and rights. We expect that people will respect the dignity of others and not harass or degrade others.
Community Standards & Guidelines
Our Community Standards apply to everyone, and to all types of content, including AI-generated content.
- Violence And Criminal Behaviour
- Coordinating harm and promoting crime
- Dangerous organisations and individuals
- Fraud, scams, and deceptive practices
- Restricted goods and services
- Violence and incitement
- Safety
- Adult sexual exploitation
- Bullying and harassment
- Child sexual exploitation, abuse and nudity
- Human exploitation
- Suicide, self-injury and eating disorders
- Objectionable Content
- Adult nudity and sexual activity
- Adult sexual solicitation and sexually explicit language
- Hate speech
- Privacy violations
- Violent and graphic content
- Integrity And Authenticity
- Account integrity and authentic identity
- Authentic identity representation
- Cybersecurity
- Inauthentic behaviour
- Memorialisation
- Misinformation
- Spam
- Respecting Intellectual Property
- Third-Party Intellectual Property Infringement
- Using Meta Intellectual Property and Licences
- Content-Related Requests And Decisions
- Additional protection of minors
- Locally illegal content, products or services
- User requests
THECONNECT AFRICA™ PROFESSIONAL COMMUNITY POLICY
Thank you for using TheConnect Africa, where the world’s professionals come together to find jobs, trade, advertise, and build productive relationships. The content that you contribute should add to the TheConnect Africa community in a constructive manner. Additional information on what that means is laid out below. You should also review our Publishing Platform Guidelines. Together we can make our community a place where everyone is able to learn, grow, and communicate, which, in turn, helps create economic opportunity for everyone.
We want TheConnect Africa to reflect the best version of professional life and business. This is a community where we treat each other with respect and help each other succeed.
Tell us if you see abusive content
If you see something you believe may violate our policies, whether in profiles, advertisements, messages, shops, or anywhere else, please report it to us. Combined with our automated defences, these reports help us identify and prevent abuse. Users can report content by contacting TheConnect Africa.
In addition to TheConnect Africa trained content reviewers, we use automated systems to identify potentially violating content. Violating content will be removed from TheConnect Africa.
Violating our community policies can result in action against your account or content.
These policies apply to all members. Depending on the severity of violation, we may limit the visibility of certain content, label it, or remove it entirely. Repeated or egregious offenses will result in account restriction or deletion. If you believe action taken on your content or your account was in error, you can submit an appeal.
- Be safe
Only bring safe conversations to TheConnect Africa.
- Do not post harassing content: We do not allow bullying or harassment. This includes targeted personal attacks, intimidation, shaming, disparagement, and abusive language directed at other members. Do not reveal others’ personal or sensitive information (for example, doxing), or incite others to do the same. You may not engage in trolling or other repetitive negative content that disrupts other members or conversations on the platform.
- Do not threaten, incite, or promote violence: We do not allow threatening or inciting violence of any kind. We do not allow individuals or groups that engage in or promote violence, property damage, or organized criminal activity. You may not use TheConnect Africa to express support for such individuals or groups or to otherwise glorify violence.
- Do not share material depicting the exploitation of children: We have zero tolerance for content that depicts the sexual exploitation of children. Do not share, post, transmit, or solicit child exploitation material through or using our platform. Do not use TheConnect Africa in any way to facilitate, encourage, or engage in the abuse or exploitation of children. Additionally, while we recognize that there may be instances where people share images of non-sexualized child nudity with good intentions, we generally remove these images due to the potential of misappropriation and abuse by others.
- Do not promote, sell or attempt to purchase illegal or dangerous goods or services: We do not allow content that facilitates the purchase of illegal or dangerous goods and/or services, prostitution, and escort services. We do not allow content that promotes or distributes fake educational and/or professional certifications, sale of scraped data, proxy test taking, or instructions on creating forged official documents. You may not use TheConnect Africa to hold lotteries, contests, sweepstakes, or giveaways. Do not use TheConnect Africa to sensationalize or capitalize on tragic events for commercial purposes.
- Do not share content promoting dangerous organizations or individuals: We do not allow any terrorist organizations or violent extremist groups on our platform. In addition, we do not allow any individuals who affiliate with such organizations or groups to have a TheConnect Africa profile. Content that depicts terrorist activity, that is intended to recruit for terrorist organizations, or that threatens, promotes, or supports terrorism in any manner is not tolerated.
- Be Trustworthy
We require you to use your true identity on TheConnect Africa, provide accurate information about yourself or your organization, and only share information that is real and authentic.
- Do not share false or misleading content: Do not share content that is false, misleading, or intended to deceive. Do not share content to interfere with or improperly influence an election or other civic process. Do not share content that directly contradicts guidance from leading global health organizations and public health authorities; including false information about the safety or efficacy of vaccines or medical treatments. Do not share content or endorse someone or something in exchange for personal benefit (including personal or family relationships, monetary payment, free products or services, or other value), unless you have included a clear and conspicuous notice of the personal benefit you receive and have otherwise complied with our Advertising Policies.
- Do not create a fake profile or falsify information about yourself: We do not allow fake profiles or entities. Do not post misleading or deceptive information about yourself, your business, your qualifications, work experience, affiliations, or achievements. Do not use an image of someone else, or any other image that is not your likeness, for your profile photo. Do not associate yourself on TheConnect Africa with a business or organization that you are not actually professionally associated with. Do not use or attempt to use another person’s TheConnect Africa account or create a member profile for anyone other than yourself. In addition, do not share your TheConnect Africa account with anyone else.
- Do not scam, defraud, deceive others: Do not use TheConnect Africa to facilitate romance scams, promote pyramid schemes, or otherwise defraud members. Do not share malicious software that puts our members, platform, or services at risk. Phishing attempts are not tolerated.
- Be professional
TheConnect Africa’s mission is to connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful. We allow broad conversations about the world of work, but require professional expression. To maintain a professional platform, members should treat each other with respect and civility. Do not interact with others or share content in a way that is uncivil, inappropriate, or disrespectful.
- Do not be hateful: We do not allow content that attacks, denigrates, intimidates, dehumanizes, incites or threatens hatred, violence, prejudicial or discriminatory action against individuals or groups because of their actual or perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, age, or disability status. Hate groups are not permitted on TheConnect Africa. Do not use racial, religious, or other slurs that incite or promote hatred, or any other content intended to create division. Do not post or share content that denies a well-documented historical event such as the Apartheid.
- Do not engage in sexual innuendos or unwanted advances: We do not allow unwanted expressions of attraction, desire, requests for romantic relationship, marriage proposals, sexual advances or innuendo, or lewd remarks. TheConnect Africa is a professional networking platform, not a dating site. Do not use TheConnect Africa to pursue romantic connections, ask for romantic dates, or provide sexual commentary on someone’s appearance or perceived attractiveness. Do not send unwanted advances in messages, posts, or comments or send sexually explicit images to anyone on the platform.
- Do not share harmful or shocking material: We do not allow content that is excessively gruesome or shocking. This includes content that is sadistic or gratuitously graphic, such as the depiction of bodily injury, severe physical or sexual violence. We do not allow content, activities, or events that promote, organize, depict, or facilitate criminal activity. We also do not allow content depicting or promoting instructional weapon making, drug abuse, and threats of theft. Do not engage in or promote escort services, prostitution, exploitation of children, or human trafficking. Do not share content or activities that promote or encourage suicide or any type of self-injury, including self-mutilation and eating disorders. If you see signs that someone may be considering self-harm, please report it using our reporting tools and consider also reporting it to your local law enforcement authorities. Do not share material depicting nudity or sexual activity.
- Do not spam members or the platform: We do not allow untargeted, irrelevant, obviously unwanted, unauthorized, in appropriately commercial or promotional, or gratuitously repetitive messages or similar content. Do not use our invitation feature to send promotional messages to people you do not know or to otherwise spam people. Please make the effort to create original, professional, relevant, and interesting content in order to gain engagement. Do not do things to artificially increase engagement with your content. Respond authentically to others’ content and do not agree with others ahead of time to like or re-share each other’s content.
Complaints regarding content posted on TheConnect Africa™ website
TheConnect Africa respects the intellectual property rights of others and desires to offer a platform which contains no content that violates those rights. Our User Agreement requires that information posted by Members be accurate, lawful and not in violation of the rights of third parties. To promote these objectives, TheConnect Africa provides a process for submission of complaints concerning content posted by our Members.
Please note that whether or not we disable access to or remove content, TheConnect Africa may make a good faith attempt to forward the written notification, including the complainant’s contact information, to the Member who posted the content and/or take other reasonable steps to notify the Member that TheConnect Africa has received notice of an alleged violation of intellectual property rights or other content violation. It is also our policy, in appropriate circumstances and in our discretion, to disable and/or terminate the accounts of Members, or groups as the case may be, who infringe or repeatedly infringe the rights of others or otherwise post unlawful content.
Please note that any notice or counter-notice you submit must be truthful and must be submitted under penalty of perjury. A false notice or counter-notice may give rise to personal liability. You may therefore want to seek the advice of legal counsel before submitting a notice or a counter-notice.
TheConnect Africa’s Publishing Platform is an ideal forum to develop and strengthen your professional identity by sharing your knowledge and expertise in your job. It will be tied to your professional profile. Here are some guidelines to consider as you use the publishing platform:
- Content published on TheConnect Africa’s publishing platform remains your work. You own the rights to any original works you publish.
- You can request the deletion of your content from our platform at any time.
- TheConnect Africa can distribute your content, annotate your content (e.g., to highlight that your views may not be the views of TheConnect Africa), and sell advertising on pages where your content appears.
- Expect that your articles will be publicly available and can be shared.
- Postings for job openings or for job opportunities do not belong on our publishing platform.
- Advertisements and promotions for events, products, or services are not appropriate content for article publishing.
- Remember to be professional and do not post anything misleading, fraudulent, obscene, threatening, hateful, defamatory, discriminatory, or illegal.
- You are responsible for the content of your articles, including any harm caused by you to others, or harm caused to you through your use of this service.
- TheConnect Africa may restrict, suspend, or terminate your account and/or disable your articles for any violation of the User Agreement. Please refer to our User Agreement for full details.
- TheConnect Africa will disable accounts found using infringing content.
Please do not publish anything you do not have permission to share. This includes other people’s articles, things that you have found on the Internet, or content that belongs to your employer but not you. Most content on the Internet belongs to someone, and unless you have clear permission from the owner to share it, you should not include it in your articles. You can republish something that you have published somewhere else, as long as it is original content that you own the rights to.
USER AGREEMENT
Our mission is to connect the world’s professionals to allow them to be more productive and successful. Our services are designed to promote economic opportunity for our members by enabling you and other professionals to meet, exchange ideas, learn, and find opportunities or employees, work, and make decisions in a network of trusted relationships.
- Introduction
- Contract
When you use our services, you agree to all of these terms. Your use of our Services is also subject to our Cookie Policy and our Privacy Policy, which covers how we collect, use, share, and store your personal information.
You agree that by clicking “Sign Up” or similar, registering, accessing or using our services (described below), you are agreeing to enter into a legally binding contract with TheConnect Africa (even if you are using our Services on behalf of a company). If you do not agree to this contract (“Contract” or “User Agreement”), do not click “Join Now” (or similar) and do not access or otherwise use any of our Services. 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 Services.
- Services
This Contract applies to theconnect.africa, TheConnect Africa -branded apps, TheConnect Africa Learning and other TheConnect Africa-related sites, apps, communications and other services that state that they are offered under this Contract (“Services”), including the offsite collection of data for those Services, such as our ads and the “Apply with TheConnect Africa” and “Share with TheConnect Africa” plugins. Registered users of our Services are “Members” and unregistered users are “Visitors”.
- TheConnect Africa
You are entering into this Contract with TheConnect Africa (also referred to as “we” and “us”).
You are entering into this Contract with The Connect Africa (Pty) Ltd (“TheConnect Africa or TheConnect”) and TheConnect Africa will be the controller of your personal data provided to, or collected by or for, or processed in connection with our Services.
- This Contract applies to Members and Visitors.
As a Visitor or Member of our Services, the collection, use and sharing of your personal data is subject to this Privacy Policy (which includes our Cookie Policy and other documents referenced in this Privacy Policy) and updates.
- Members and Visitors
When you register and join the TheConnect Africa Services, you become a Member. If you have chosen not to register for our Services, you may access certain features as a “Visitor.”
- Change
We may make changes to the Contract.
We may modify this Contract, our Privacy Policy and our Cookies Policy from time to time. If we make material changes to it, we will provide you notice through our Services, or by other means, to provide you the opportunity to review the changes before they become effective. We agree that changes cannot be retroactive. If you object to any changes, you may close your account. Your continued use of our Services after we publish or send a notice about our changes to these terms means that you are consenting to the updated terms as of their effective date.
- Obligations
2.1 Service Eligibility
Here are some promises that you make to us in this Contract:
- You are eligible to enter into this Contract and you are at least our “Minimum Age.” The Services are not for use by anyone under the age of 16.
- To use the Services, you agree that: (1) you must be the “Minimum Age”(described below) or older; (2) you will only have one TheConnect Africa account, which must be in your real name, you can have several business accounts if you have multi-businesses; and (3) you are not already restricted by TheConnect Africa from using the Services. Creating an account with false information is a violation of our terms, including accounts registered on behalf of others or persons under the age of 16.
- “Minimum Age” means 16 years old. However, if law requires that you must be older in order for TheConnect Africa to lawfully provide the Services to you without parental consent (including using of your personal data) then the Minimum Age is such older age.
2.2 Your Account
You will keep your password a secret:
- You will not share an account with anyone else and will follow our rules and the law.
- Members are account holders. You agree to: (1) use a strong password and keep it confidential; (2) not transfer any part of your account (e.g., connections) and (3) follow the law and our list of Dos and Don’ts and Professional Community Policies. 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 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
2.3 Payment
- You will honour your payment obligations and you are okay with us storing your payment information. You understand that there may be fees and taxes that are added to our prices.
- We do not do refunds.
- If you buy any of our paid 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.
- We may calculate taxes payable by you based on the billing information that you provide us at the time of purchase.
- You can get a copy of your invoice through a request.
2.4 Notices and Messages
- You are okay with us providing notices and messages to you through our websites, apps, and contact information. If your contact information is out of date, you may miss out on important notices.
- You agree that we will provide notices and messages to you in the following ways: (1) within the Service, or (2) sent to the contact information you provided us (e.g., email, mobile number). You agree to keep your contact information up to date.
Please review your settings to control and limit messages you receive from us.
2.5 Sharing
- When you share information on our Services, others can see, copy and use that information.
- Our Services allow messaging and sharing of information in many ways, such as your profile, articles, links to news articles, job postings, and messages. 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.
We are not obligated to publish any information or content on our Service and can remove it with or without notice.
- Rights and Limits
3.1 Your License to TheConnect Africa
- You own all of the content, feedback and personal information you provide to us, but you also grant us a non-exclusive license to it.
- We will honour the choices you make about who gets to see your information and content, including how it can be used for ads.
- As between you and TheConnect Africa, you own the content and information that you submit or post to the Services, and you are only granting TheConnect Africa and our affiliates the following non-exclusive license:
A worldwide, transferable and sub licensable right to use, copy, modify, distribute, publish and process, information and content that you provide through our Services and the services of others, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or others. These rights are limited in the following ways:
- You can end this license for specific content by deleting such content from the Services, or generally by closing your account, except (a) to the extent you shared it with others as part of the Service and they copied, re-shared it or stored it and (b) for the reasonable time it takes to remove from backup and other systems.
- 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. If you use a service feature, we may mention that with your name or photo to promote that feature within our services, subject to your settings.
- We will get your consent if we want to give others the right to publish your content beyond the services. 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.
- 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.
- Because you own your content and information and we only have non-exclusive rights to it, you may choose to make it available to others.
- You and TheConnect Africa agree that if content includes personal data, it is subject to our Privacy Policy.
- You and TheConnect Africa 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 TheConnect Africa, you agree that TheConnect Africa can use and share (but does not have to) such feedback for any purpose without compensation to you.
- You promise to only provide information and content that you have the right to share, and that your TheConnect Africa profile will be truthful.
- 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. TheConnect Africa may be required by law to remove certain information or content in certain countries.
3.2 Service Availability
- We may change or end any service or modify our prices prospectively. 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 do not promise to store or keep showing any information and content that you have posted. TheConnect Africa 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.
3.3 Other Content, Sites and Apps
- Your use of others’ content and information posted on our services is at your own risk.
- Others may offer their own products and services through our services, and we are not responsible for those third-party activities.
- By using the services, you may encounter content or information that might be inaccurate, incomplete, delayed, misleading, illegal, offensive or otherwise harmful. TheConnect Africa 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.
- TheConnect Africa may help connect members offering their services (career coaching, accounting, etc.) with members seeking services. TheConnect Africa does not perform nor employs individuals to perform these services. You must be at least 18 years of age to offer, perform or procure these services. You acknowledge that TheConnect Africa does not supervise, direct, control or monitor members in the performance of these services and agree that (1) TheConnect Africa is not responsible for the offering, performance or procurement of these services, (2) TheConnect Africa does not endorse any particular member’s offered services, and (3) nothing shall create an employment, agency, or joint venture relationship between TheConnect Africa 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 Professional Community Policies.
- TheConnect Africa 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) TheConnect Africa is not responsible for the conduct of any of the members or other attendees at such events, (2) TheConnect Africa does not endorse any particular event listed on our Services, (3) TheConnect Africa 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.
3.4 Limits
We have the right to limit how you connect and interact on our services. TheConnect Africa reserves the right to limit your use of the services, including the number of your connections and your ability to contact other members. TheConnect Africa 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 the dos and don’ts or Professional Community Policies).
3.5 Intellectual Property Rights
We are providing you notice about our intellectual property rights. TheConnect Africa 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. TheConnect Africa, and all logos and other TheConnect Africa trademarks, service marks, graphics and logos used for our services are trademarks or registered trademarks of TheConnect Africa.
3.6 Automated Processing
We use data and information about you to make relevant suggestions to you and others. We use the information and data that you provide and that we have about members to make recommendations for connections, content and features that may be useful to you. For example, we use data and information about you to recommend jobs to you and you to recruiters. Keeping your profile accurate and up to date helps us to make these recommendations more accurate and relevant.
- Disclaimer and Limit of Liability
4.1 No Warranty
This is our disclaimer of legal liability for the quality, safety, or reliability of our Services:
TheConnect Africa 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, TheConnect Africa 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.
4.2 Exclusion of Liability
These are the limits of legal liability we may have to you:
- To the fullest extent permitted by law (and unless TheConnect Africa has entered into a separate written agreement that overrides this contract), TheConnect Africa, including its affiliates, will not be liable in connection with this contract for lost profits or lost business opportunities, reputation (e.g., offensive or defamatory statements), loss of data (e.g., down time or loss, use of, or changes to, your information or content) or any indirect, incidental, consequential, special or punitive damages.
- TheConnect Africa and its affiliates will not be liable to you in connection with this contract for any amount that exceeds (a) the total fees paid or payable by you to TheConnect Africa for the services during the term of this contract, if any, or (b) ZAR 100.
4.3 Basis of the Bargain; Exclusions
The limitations of liability in this Section 4 are part of the basis of the bargain between you and TheConnect Africa and shall apply to all claims of liability (e.g., warranty, tort, negligence, contract and law) even if TheConnect Africa or its affiliates has been told of the possibility of any such damage, and even if these remedies fail their essential purpose.
These limitations of liability do not apply to liability for death or personal injury or for fraud, gross negligence or intentional misconduct, or in cases of negligence where a material obligation has been breached, a material obligation being such which forms a prerequisite to our delivery of services and on which you may reasonably rely, but only to the extent that the damages were directly caused by the breach and were foreseeable upon conclusion of this contract and to the extent that they are typical in the context of this contract.
- Termination
We can each end this contract, but some rights and obligations survive.
Both you and TheConnect Africa may terminate this contract at any time with notice to the other. On termination, you lose the right to access or use the services. 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 services;
- Sections 4, 6, 7, and 8.2 of this contract;
- Any amounts owed by either party prior to termination remain owed after termination.
- Governing Law and Dispute Resolution
In the unlikely event we end up in a legal dispute, you and TheConnect Africa agree to resolve it in South Africa courts using South African law.
You and TheConnect Africa agree that the laws of South Africa shall exclusively govern any dispute relating to this contract and/or the services. You and TheConnect Africa both agree that all claims and disputes can be litigated only in the state courts in South Africa, and you and TheConnect Africa each agree to personal jurisdiction in those courts.
- General Terms
Here are some important details about the contract:
- If a court with authority over this contract finds any part of it unenforceable, you and we agree that the court should modify the terms to make that part enforceable while still achieving its intent. If the court cannot do that, you and we agree to ask the court to remove that unenforceable part and still enforce the rest of this contract.
- This contract (including additional terms that may be provided by us when you engage with a feature of the services) is the only agreement between us regarding the services and supersedes all prior agreements for the services.
- If we do not act to enforce a breach of this contract, that does not mean that TheConnect Africa has waived its right to enforce this contract. You may not assign or transfer this contract (or your membership or use of services) to anyone without our consent. However, you agree that TheConnect Africa may assign this Contract to its affiliates or a party that buys it without your consent. There are no third-party beneficiaries to this contract.
- You agree that the only way to provide us legal notice is at the addresses provided in Section 10.
- TheConnect Africa “Dos and Don’ts”
TheConnect Africa is a community of professionals. This list of “Dos and Don’ts” along with our Professional Community Policies limit what you can and cannot do on our Services.
8.1 Dos
You agree that you will:
- Comply with all applicable laws, including, without limitation, privacy laws, intellectual property laws, anti-spam laws, export control laws, tax laws, and regulatory requirements;
- Provide accurate information to us and keep it updated;
- Use your real name on your profile; and
- Use the Services in a professional manner.
8.2 Don’ts
You agree that you will not:
- Create a false identity on TheConnect Africa, misrepresent your identity, create a member profile for anyone other than yourself (a real person), or use or attempt to use another’s account;
- 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;
- 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);
- 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 TheConnect Africa;
- Disclose information that you do not have the consent to disclose (such as confidential information of others (including your employer));
- 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, which they may give by posting under a Creative Commons license;
- Violate the intellectual property or other rights of TheConnect Africa, 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 “TheConnect Africa” or our logos in any business name, email, or URL except as provided in the Terms and Conditions;
- Post anything that contains software viruses, worms, or any other harmful code;
- 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;
- Imply or state that you are affiliated with or endorsed by TheConnect Africa without our express consent (e.g., representing yourself as an accredited TheConnect Africa trainer);
- Rent, lease, loan, trade, sell/re-sell or otherwise monetize the services or related data or access to the same, without TheConnect Africa’s consent;
- Deep-link to our services for any purpose other than to promote your profile or a business on our services, without TheConnect Africa’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 Professional Community Policies or any additional terms concerning a specific service, that are provided when you sign up for or start using such service.
- Complaints Regarding Content
Contact information for complaint about content provided by our members.
We respect the intellectual property rights of others. We require that information posted by members be accurate and not in violation of the intellectual property rights or other rights of third parties. We provide a policy and process for complaints concerning content posted by our members.
- How to Contact Us
Our Contact information.
For general inquiries, you may contact us online. For legal notices or service of process, you may write to us online and we will provide you with the address for the delivery of the registered mail.
COOKIE POLICY
At TheConnect Africa, we believe in being clear and open about how we collect and use data related to you. This Cookie Policy applies to any TheConnect Africa product or service that links to this policy or incorporates it by reference. We use cookies and similar technologies such as pixels, local storage and mobile ad IDs (collectively referred to in this policy as “cookies”) to collect and use data as part of our services, as defined in our Privacy Policy (“services”) and which includes our sites, communications, mobile applications and off-site services, such as our ad services and the “Apply with TheConnect Africa” and “Share with TheConnect Africa” plugins or tags.
By continuing to visit or use our services, you are agreeing to the use of cookies and similar technologies for the purposes described in this policy.
What third parties use these technologies in connection with our Services?
Third parties such as our customers, partners and service providers may use cookies in connection with our services.
For example, third parties may use cookies in their TheConnect Africa pages, job posts and their advertisements on and off TheConnect Africa for their own marketing purposes.
Third parties may also use cookies in connection with our off-site services. Third parties may use cookies to help us to provide our services. We may also work with third parties for our own marketing purposes and to enable us to analyze and research our services.
Your Choices
You have choices on how TheConnect Africa uses cookies and similar technologies. Please note that if you limit the ability of TheConnect Africa to set cookies and similar technologies, you may worsen your overall user experience, since it may no longer be personalized to you. It may also stop you from saving customized settings like login information.
PRIVACY POLICY
This Privacy Policy does not replace the Privacy Policy under https://theconnect.africa/privacy-policy-terms-and-conditions, it is an extension of it.
TheConnect Africa’s mission is to connect the world’s professionals to allow them to be more productive and successful. Central to this mission is our commitment to be transparent about the data we collect about you, how it is used and with whom it is shared.
This Privacy Policy applies when you use our services (described below). We offer our users choices about the data we collect, use and share as described in this Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.
Introduction
We are a social network and online platform for professionals. People use our services to find and be found for business opportunities, to connect with others and find information. Our Privacy Policy applies to any member or visitor to our services.
Our registered users (“members”) share their professional identities, engage with their network, exchange knowledge and professional insights, post and view relevant content, learn and develop skills, and find business and career opportunities. Content and data on some of our services is viewable to non-members (“visitors”).
Services
This Privacy Policy, including our Cookie Policy applies to your use of our services.
This Privacy Policy applies to theconnect.africa, TheConnect-branded apps, and other TheConnect Africa-related sites, apps, communications and services (“services”), including off-site services, such as our ad services and the “Apply with TheConnect Africa” and “Share with TheConnect Africa” plugins, but excluding services that state that they are offered under a different privacy policy.
Data Controllers and Contracting Parties
The Connect Africa (Pty) Ltd is the controller of your personal data provided to, collected by or for, or processed in connection with, our services.
As a visitor or member of our services, the collection, use and sharing of your personal data is subject to this Privacy Policy and other documents referenced in this Privacy Policy, as well as updates.
Change
Changes to the Privacy Policy apply to your use of our services after the “effective date.”
TheConnect Africa (“we” or “us”) can modify this Privacy Policy, and if we make material changes to it, we will provide notice through our services, or by other means, to provide you the opportunity to review the changes before they become effective. If you object to any changes, you may close your account.
You acknowledge that your continued use of our services after we publish or send a notice about our changes to this Privacy Policy means that the collection, use and sharing of your personal data is subject to the updated Privacy Policy, as of its effective date.
- Data We Collect
1.1 Data You Provide To Us
- Registration
You provide data to create an account with us. To create an account you need to provide data including your name, email address and/or mobile number, general location (e.g., city), and a password. If you register for a service, you will need to provide payment (e.g., credit card) and billing information.
- Profile
You create your TheConnect Africa profile (a complete profile helps you get the most from our services). You have choices about the information on your profile, such as your education, work experience, skills, photo, city or area and endorsements. You do not have to provide additional information on your profile; however, profile information helps you to get more from our services, including helping recruiters and business opportunities find you. It is your choice whether to include sensitive information on your profile and to make that sensitive information public. Please do not post or add personal data to your profile that you would not want to be publicly available.
You give other data to us, such as by synchronizing your address book or calendar.
- Posting and Uploading
We collect personal data from you when you provide, post or upload it to our services, such as when you fill out a form, (e.g., with demographic data or salary), respond to a survey, or submit a resume or fill out a job application on our services. If you opt to import your address book, we receive your contacts (including contact information your service provider(s) or app automatically added to your address book when you communicated with addresses or numbers not already in your list).
If you synchronize your contacts or calendars with our services, we will collect your address book and calendar meeting information to keep growing your network by suggesting connections for you and others, and by providing information about events, e.g. times, places, attendees and contacts.
You do not have to post or upload personal data, though if you do not, it may limit your ability to grow and engage with your network over our Services.
1.2 Data from Others
- Content and News
Others may post or write about you. You and others may post content that includes information about you (as part of articles, posts, comments, videos) on our services. We also may collect public information about you, such as professional-related news and accomplishments, and make it available as part of our services, including, as permitted by your settings, in notifications to others of mentions in the news.
- Contact and Calendar Information
Others may synchronize their contacts or calendar with our services. We receive personal data (including contact information) about you when others import or sync their contacts or calendar with our services, associate their contacts with member profiles, scan and upload business cards, or send messages using our services (including invites or connection requests). If you or others opt-in to synchronize email accounts with our services, we will also collect “email header” information that we can associate with member profiles.
- Customers and partners may provide data to us.
We receive personal data (e.g., your job title and work email address) about you when you use the services of our customers and partners, such as employers or prospective employers and applicant tracking systems providing us job application data.
- Related Companies and Other Services
We receive data about you when you use some of the other services provided by our affiliates, or us including Microsoft. For example, you may choose to send us information about your contacts in Microsoft apps and services, such as Outlook, for improved professional networking activities on our services
1.3 Service Use
We log your visits and use of our services, including mobile apps. We log usage data when you visit or otherwise use our services, including our sites, app and platform technology, such as when you view or click on content (e.g., learning video) or ads (on or off our sites and apps), perform a search, install or update one of our mobile apps, share articles or apply for jobs. We use log-ins, cookies, device information and internet protocol (“IP”) addresses to identify you and log your use.
1.4 Cookies and Similar Technologies
We collect data through cookies and similar technologies. As further described in our Cookie Policy, we use cookies and similar technologies (e.g., pixels and ad tags) to collect data (e.g., device IDs) to recognize you and your device(s) on, off and across different services and devices where you have engaged with our services. We also allow some others to use cookies as described in our Cookie Policy. We also collect (or rely on others who collect) information about your device where you have not engaged with our services (e.g., ad ID, IP address, operating system and browser information) so we can provide our members with relevant ads and better understand their effectiveness.
1.5 Your Device and Location
We receive data through cookies and similar technologies. When you visit or leave our services (including some plugins and our cookies or similar technology on the sites of others), we receive the URL of both the site you came from and the one you go to and the time of your visit. We also get information about your network and device (e.g., IP address, proxy server, operating system, web browser and add-ons, device identifier and features, cookie IDs and/or ISP, or your mobile carrier). If you use our services from a mobile device, that device will send us data about your location based on your phone settings. We will ask you to opt-in before we use GPS or other tools to identify your precise location.
1.6 Messages
If you communicate through our services, we learn about that. We collect information about you when you send, receive, or engage with messages in connection with our services. For example, if you get a TheConnect Africa connection request, we track whether you have acted on it and will send you reminders. We also use automatic scanning technology on messages to support and protect our site. For example, we use this technology to suggest possible responses to messages and to manage or block content that violates our User Agreement or Professional Community Policies from our services.
1.7 Workplace and School Provided Information
When your organization (e.g., employer or school) buys a service for you to use, they give us data about you. Others buying our services for your use, such as your employer or your school, provide us with personal data about you and your eligibility to use the services that they purchase for use by their workers, students or alumni. For example, we will get contact information for “Company Page” administrators and for authorizing users of our services, such as our recruiting, sales or learning products.
1.8 Sites and Services of Others
We get data when you visit sites that include our ads, cookies or some of our plugins or when you login to others’ services with your TheConnect Africa account. We receive information about your visits and interaction with services provided by others when you login with TheConnect Africa or visit others’ services that include some of our plugins (such as “Apply with TheConnect Africa”) or our ads, cookies or similar technologies.
1.9 Other
We are improving our services, which means we get new data and create new ways to use data. Our services are dynamic, and we often introduce new features, which may require the collection of new information. If we collect materially different personal data or materially change how we collect, use or share your data, we will notify you and may also modify this Privacy Policy.
- How We Use Your Data
We use your data to provide, support, personalize and develop our services. How we use your personal data will depend on which services you use, how you use those services and the choices you make in your settings. We use the data that we have about you to provide and personalize our services, including with the help of automated systems and inferences we make, so that our services (including ads) can be more relevant and useful to you and others.
2.1 Services
Our Services help you connect with others, find, and be found for work and business opportunities, stay informed, get training and be more productive. We use your data to authorize access to our services and honour your settings.
- Stay Connected
Our Services allow you to stay in touch and up to date with colleagues, partners, clients, and other professional contacts. To do so, you can “connect” with the professionals who you choose, and who also wish to “connect” with you. Subject to your and their settings, when you connect with other members, you will be able to search each others’ connections in order to exchange professional opportunities.
We use data about you (such as your profile, profiles you have viewed or data provided through address book uploads or partner integrations) to help others find your profile, suggest connections for you and others (e.g. members who share your contacts or job experiences) and enable you to invite others to become a member and connect with you. You can also opt-in to allow us to use your precise location or proximity to others for certain tasks (e.g. to suggest other nearby members for you to connect with, calculate the commute to a new job, or notify your connections that you are at a professional event).
It is your choice whether to invite someone to our services, send a connection request, or allow another member to become your connection. When you invite someone to connect with you, your invitation will include your network and basic profile information (e.g., name, profile photo, job title, and region). We will send invitation reminders to the person you invited. You can choose whether to share your own list of connections with your connections.
Visitors have choices about how we use their data.
- Stay Informed
Our services allow you to stay informed about news, events and ideas regarding professional topics you care about, and from professionals you respect. Our services also allow you to improve your professional skills, or learn new ones. We use the data we have about you (e.g., data you provide, data we collect from your engagement with our services and inferences we make from the data we have about you), to personalize our services for you, such as by recommending or ranking relevant content and conversations on our services.
We also use the data we have about you to suggest skills you could add to your profile and skills that you might need to pursue your next opportunity. So, if you let us know that you are interested in a new skill (e.g., by watching a learning video), we will use this information to personalize content in your feed, suggest that you follow certain members on our site, or suggest related learning content to help you towards that new skill. We use your content, activity and other data, including your name and photo, to provide notices to your network and others. For example, subject to your settings, we may notify others that you have updated your profile, posted content, took a social action, used a feature, made new connections or were mentioned in the news.
- Career
Our services allow you to explore careers, evaluate educational opportunities, and seek out, and be found for, career opportunities. Your profile can be found by those looking to hire (for a job or a specific task) or be hired by you. We will use your data to recommend jobs or mentees, show you and others relevant professional contacts (e.g., who work at a company, in an industry, function or location or have certain skills and connections). You can signal that you are interested in changing jobs and share information with recruiters. We will use your data to recommend jobs to you and you to recruiters. We may use automated systems to provide content and recommendations to help make our services more relevant to our members, visitors and customers. Keeping your profile accurate and up-to-date may help you better connect to others and to opportunities through our Services.
- Productivity
Our services allow you to collaborate with colleagues, search for potential clients, customers, partners and others to do business with. Our services allow you to communicate with other members and schedule and prepare meetings with them. If your settings allow, we scan messages to provide “bots” or similar tools that facilitate tasks such as scheduling meetings, drafting responses, summarizing messages or recommending next steps.
2.2 Communications
We contact you and enable communications between members. We offer settings to control what messages you receive and how often you receive some types of messages.
We will contact you through email, mobile phone, notices posted on our websites or apps, messages to your TheConnect Africa inbox, and other ways through our services, including text messages and push notifications. We will send you messages about the availability of our services, security, or other service-related issues. We also send messages about how to use our services, network updates, reminders, job suggestions and promotional messages from us and our partners. You may change your communication preferences at any time. Please be aware that you cannot opt out of receiving service messages from us, including security and legal notices.
We also enable communications between you and others through our services, including for example invitations, groups and messages between connections.
2.3 Advertising
We serve you tailored ads both on and off our services. We offer you choices regarding personalized ads, but you cannot opt-out of seeing other ads.
We target (and measure the performance of) ads to members, visitors and others both on and off our services directly or through a variety of partners, using the following data, whether separately or combined:
Data from advertising technologies on and off our services, pixels, ad tags, cookies, and device identifiers; member-provided information (e.g., profile, contact information, title and industry);
Data from your use of our services (e.g., search history, feed, content you read, who you follow or is following you, connections, groups participation, page visits, videos you watch, clicking on an ad, etc.), including as described in Section 1.3;
Information from advertising partners, vendors and publishers; and
Information inferred from data described above (e.g., using job titles from a profile to infer industry, seniority, and compensation bracket; using graduation dates to infer age or using first names or pronoun usage to infer gender; using your feed activity to infer your interests; or using device data to recognize you as a member).
We will show you ads called sponsored content which look similar to non-sponsored content, except that they are labelled as advertising (e.g., as “ad” or “sponsored”). If you take a social action (such as like, comment or share) on these ads, your action is associated with your name and viewable by others, including the advertiser. Subject to your settings, if you take a social action on the TheConnect Africa services, that action may be mentioned with related ads. For example, when you like a company we may include your name and photo when their sponsored content is shown.
- Ad Choices
We adhere to self-regulatory principles for interest-based advertising and participate in industry opt-outs from such ads. This does not opt you out of receiving advertising; you will continue to get other ads by advertisers not listed with these self regulatory tools. You can also opt-out specifically from our uses of certain categories of data to show you more relevant ads. For visitors, the setting is here.
- Info to Ad Providers
We do not share your personal data with any third-party advertisers or ad networks except for: (i) hashed IDs or device identifiers (to the extent they are personal data in some countries); (ii) with your separate permission (e.g., in a lead generation form) or (iii) data already visible to any users of the Services (e.g., profile). However, if you view or click on an ad on or off our services, the ad provider will get a signal that someone visited the page that displayed the ad, and they may, through the use of mechanisms such as cookies, determine it is you. Advertising partners can associate personal data collected by the advertiser directly from you with hashed IDs or device identifiers received from us. In such instances, we seek to contractually require such advertising partners to obtain your explicit, opt-in consent before doing so.
2.4 Marketing
We promote our services to you and others. In addition to advertising our services, we use members’ data and content for invitations and communications promoting membership and network growth, engagement and our services, such as by showing your connections that you have used a feature on our services.
2.5 Developing Services and Research
We develop our services and conduct research. We use data, including public feedback, to conduct research and development for our services in order to provide you and others with a better, more intuitive and personalized experience, drive membership growth and engagement on our services, and help connect professionals to each other and to economic opportunity.
- Other Research
We seek to create economic opportunity for members of the global workforce and to help them be more productive and successful. We use the personal data available to us to research social, economic and workplace trends, such as jobs availability and skills needed for these jobs and policies that help bridge the gap in various industries and geographic areas. In some cases, we work with trusted third parties to perform this research, under controls that are designed to protect your privacy. We publish or allow others to publish economic insights, presented as aggregated data rather than personal data.
- Surveys
Polls and surveys are conducted by us and others through our services. You are not obligated to respond to polls or surveys, and you have choices about the information you provide. You may opt-out of survey invitations.
2.6 Customer Support
We use data to help you and fix problems. We use data (which can include your communications) to investigate, respond to and resolve complaints and for service issues (e.g., bugs).
2.7 Insights That Do Not Identify You
We use data to generate insights that do not identify you. We use your data to produce and share insights that do not identify you. For example, we may use your data to generate statistics about our members, their profession or industry, to calculate ad impressions served or clicked on, or to publish visitor demographics for a service or create demographic workforce insights.
2.8 Security and Investigations
We use data for security, fraud prevention and investigations. We use your data (including your communications) for security purposes or to prevent or investigate possible fraud or other violations of our User Agreement and/or attempts to harm our members, visitors or others.
- How We Share Information
3.1 Our Services
Any data that you include on your profile and any content you post or others, consistent with your settings, will see social action (e.g., likes, follows, comments, shares) you take on our services.
- Profile
Your profile is fully visible to all members and customers of our services. Subject to your settings, it can also be visible to others on or off our services (e.g., Visitors to our Services or users of third- party search engines). Your settings, degree of connection with the viewing member, the subscriptions they may have, their usage of our services, access channels and search types (e.g., by name or by keyword) impact the availability of your profile and whether they can view certain fields in your profile.
- Posts, Likes, Follows, Comments, Messages
Our services allow viewing and sharing information including through posts, likes, follows and comments.
- When you share an article or a post (e.g., an update, image, video or article) publicly it can be viewed by everyone and re-shared anywhere (subject to your settings). Members, visitors and others will be able to find and see your publicly-shared content, including your name (and photo if you have provided one).
- In a group, posts are visible to others in the group. Your membership in groups is public and part of your profile, but you can change visibility in your settings.
- Any information you share through companies’ or other organizations’ pages on our services will be viewable by it and others who visit those pages.
- When you follow a person or organization, you are visible to others and that “page owner” as a follower.
- We let senders know when you act on their message, subject to your settings where applicable.
- Subject to your settings, we let a member know when you view their profile.
- When you like or re-share or comment on another’s content (including ads), others will be able to view these “social actions” and associate it with you (e.g., your name, profile and photo if you provided it).
- Your employer can see how you use services they provided for your work (e.g. as a recruiter or sales agent) and related information. We will not show them your job searches or personal messages.
- Enterprise Accounts
Your employer may offer you access to our enterprise services. Your employer can review and manage your use of such enterprise services.
Depending on the enterprise service, before you use such service, we will ask for permission to share with your employer relevant data from your profile or use of our non-enterprise services. We understand that certain activities such as job hunting and personal messages are sensitive, and so we do not share those with your employer unless you choose to share it with them through our services (for example, by applying for a new position in the same company or mentioning your job hunting in a message to a co-worker through our services).
Subject to your settings, when you use workplace tools and services (e.g., interactive employee directory tools) certain of your data may also be made available to your employer or be connected with information we receive from your employer to enable these tools and services.
3.2 Communication Archival
Regulated members may need to store communications outside of our service.
Some members (or their employers) need, for legal or professional compliance, to archive their communications and social media activity, and will use services of others to provide these archival services. We enable archiving of messages by and to those members outside of our services. For example, a financial advisor needs to archive communications with her clients through our services in order to maintain her professional financial advisor license.
3.3 Others’ Services
You may link your account with others’ services so that they can look up your contacts’ profiles, post your shares on such platforms, or enable you to start conversations with your connections on such platforms. Excerpts from your profile will also appear on the services of others.
Subject to your settings, other services may look up your profile. When you opt to link your account with other services, personal data (e.g., your name, title, and company) will become available to them. The sharing and use of that personal data will be described in, or linked to, a consent screen when you opt to link the accounts. For example, you may link your Instagram or Facebook account to share content from our services into these other services, or your email provider may give you the option to upload your TheConnect Africa contacts into its own service. Third-party services have their own privacy policies, and you may be giving them permission to use your data in ways we would not. You may revoke the link with such accounts.
Subject to your settings, excerpts from your profile will appear on the services of others (e.g., search engine results, mail and calendar applications that show a user limited profile data of the person they are meeting or messaging, social media aggregators, talent and lead managers). “Old” profile information remains on these services until they update their data cache with changes you made to your profile.
3.4 Related Services
We share your data across our different services and TheConnect Africa affiliated entities. We will share your personal data with our affiliates to provide and develop our services. We may combine information internally across the different services covered by this Privacy Policy to help our services be more relevant and useful to you and others. For example, we may personalize your feed or job recommendations based on your learning history.
3.5 Service Providers
We may use others to help us with our services. We use others to help us provide our services (e.g., maintenance, analysis, audit, payments, fraud detection, customer support, marketing and development). They will have access to your information (e.g., the contents of a customer support request) as reasonably necessary to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for other purposes.
3.6 Legal Disclosures
We may need to share your data when we believe the law requires it or to help protect the rights and safety of you, us or others.
It is possible that we will need to disclose information about you when required by law, subpoena, or other legal process or if we have a good faith belief that disclosure is reasonably necessary to (1) investigate, prevent or take action regarding suspected or actual illegal activities or to assist government enforcement agencies; (2) enforce our agreements with you; (3) investigate and defend ourselves against any third-party claims or allegations; (4) protect the security or integrity of our services (such as by sharing with companies facing similar threats); or (5) exercise or protect the rights and safety of TheConnect Africa, our members, personnel or others. We attempt to notify members about legal demands for their personal data when appropriate in our judgment, unless prohibited by law or court order or when the request is an emergency. We may dispute such demands when we believe, in our discretion, that the requests are overbroad, vague or lack proper authority, but we do not promise to challenge every demand.
3.7 Change in Control or Sale
We may share your data when our business is sold to others, but it must continue to be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy. We can also share your personal data as part of a sale, merger or change in control, or in preparation for any of these events. Any other entity which buys us or part of our business will have the right to continue to use your data, but only in the manner set out in this Privacy Policy unless you agree otherwise.
- Your Choices & Obligations
4.1 Data Retention
We keep most of your personal data for as long as your account is open. We generally retain your personal data as long as you keep your account open or as needed to provide you services. This includes data you or others provided to us and data generated or inferred from your use of our services. Even if you only use our services when looking for a new job every few years, we will retain your information and keep your profile open, unless you close your account. In some cases, we choose to retain certain information (e.g., insights about services use) in a depersonalized or aggregated form.
4.2 Rights to Access and Control Your Personal Data
You can access or delete your personal data. You have many choices about how your data is collected, used and shared. We provide many choices about the collection, use and sharing of your data, from deleting or correcting data you include in your profile and controlling the visibility of your posts to advertising opt-outs and communication controls. We offer you settings to control and manage the personal data we have about you.
For personal data that we have about you, you can:
- Delete Data: You can ask us to erase or delete all or some of your personal data (e.g., if it is no longer necessary to provide services to you).
- Change or Correct Data: You can edit some of your personal data through your account. You can also ask us to change, update or fix your data in certain cases, particularly if it is inaccurate.
- Object to, or Limit or Restrict, Use of Data: You can ask us to stop using all or some of your personal data (e.g., if we have no legal right to keep using it) or to limit our use of it (e.g., if your personal data is inaccurate or unlawfully held).
- Right to Access and/or Take Your Data: You can ask us for a copy of your personal data and can ask for a copy of personal data you provided in machine readable form.
4.3 Account Closure
We keep some of your data even after you close your account.
If you choose to close your TheConnect Africa account, your personal data will generally stop being visible to others on our services within 24 hours. We generally delete closed account information within 30 days of account closure, except as noted below.
We retain your personal data even after you have closed your account if reasonably necessary to comply with our legal obligations (including law enforcement requests), meet regulatory requirements, resolve disputes, maintain security, prevent fraud and abuse (e.g., if we have restricted your account for breach of our Professional Community Policies), enforce our User Agreement, or fulfill your request to “unsubscribe” from further messages from us. We will retain de-personalized information after your account has been closed.
Information you have shared with others (e.g., through messages, updates or group posts) will remain visible after you close your account or delete the information from your own profile or mailbox, and we do not control data that other members have copied out of our services. Groups content and ratings or review content associated with closed accounts will show an unknown user as the source. Your profile may continue to be displayed in the services of others (e.g., search engine results) until they refresh their cache.
- Other Important Information
5.1. Security
We monitor for and try to prevent security breaches. Please use the security features available through our services. We implement security safeguards designed to protect your data, such as HTTPS. We regularly monitor our systems for possible vulnerabilities and attacks. However, we cannot warrant the security of any information that you send us. There is no guarantee that data may not be accessed, disclosed, altered, or destroyed by breach of any of our physical, technical, or managerial safeguards.
5.2. Cross-Border Data Transfers
We store and use your data outside your country. We process data both inside and outside of South Africa and rely on legally-provided mechanisms to lawfully transfer data across borders. Countries where we process data may have laws which are different from, and potentially not as protective as, the laws of your own country.
5.3 Lawful Bases for Processing
We have lawful bases to collect, use and share data about you. You have choices about our use of your data. At any time, you can withdraw consent you have provided by going to settings. We will only collect and process personal data about you where we have lawful bases. Lawful bases include consent (where you have given consent), contract (where processing is necessary for the performance of a contract with you (e.g., to deliver the LinkedIn Services you have requested) and “legitimate interests.”
Where we rely on your consent to process personal data, you have the right to withdraw or decline your consent at any time and where we rely on legitimate interests, you have the right to object.
5.4. Direct Marketing and Do Not Track Signals
Our statements regarding direct marketing and “do not track” signals. We currently do not share personal data with third parties for their direct marketing purposes without your permission.
5.5. Contact Information
You can contact us or use other options to resolve any complaints. If you have questions or complaints regarding this Policy, please first contact TheConnect Africa online.
BRAND POLICY
TheConnect Africa branding policies.
Law protects our trademarks and other brand features. You will need our permission in order to use them. For permission requests, please contact us online.
TheConnect Africa generally does not permit its members, third party developers, partners and the media (“you”) to use its name, trademarks, logos, web pages, screenshots and other brand features. Narrow and specific exceptions are detailed below. Any other uses must obtain prior approval from TheConnect Africa.
We never approve the following types of requests, so please do not ask permission to:
- Use our trademarks such as TheConnect Africa in the name of your business, group, event, product, service, app, domain name, social media account, or other offering,
- Use our trademarks more prominently than your product or service name,
- Use our trademarks on promotional materials that you are distributing or selling,
- Modify our trademarks or combine them with any other symbols, words, images, designs, or incorporate them into a slogan, or
- Use our trademarks in a way that implies affiliation with or endorsement by TheConnect Africa of your products or services.
If you have a partner agreement with TheConnect Africa, the agreement requires you to seek permission in order to use our trademarks or brand features.
Note that even after you have received specific permission to use our trademarks or brand features, you agree to adhere to this policy.
TheConnect Africa™ encourages users and visitors to frequently check this page for any changes. Your continued use of this site after any change will constitute your acceptance of such change.