Terms of Service: The Reader Contract for This Curtain Site

Readers ask for a Terms of Service on this site for three reasons. Do I risk anything by clicking an affiliate link. Can I copy, quote, or screenshot what I am reading. And where does a dispute go if one ever actually starts. Here is each answer in the section built for it, plus a one-glance table that puts the whole contract on one screen.

The rest of this page is the contract between you as a reader and the editorial team behind these reviews. It is written to be read once by a human, not scanned by a lawyer for boilerplate that only exists to survive litigation. For context on who runs this site and what its editorial standard is, start there and come back to the clauses.

The 30-Second Version

If you only read one section on this page, read this one. Twelve clauses in one table, with a plain-English column, the party each clause protects, and the outside reference we drew from.

Clause	Plain-English meaning	Who it protects	Reference
Affiliate disclosure	Every commercial link is marked. The site earns commission on qualifying purchases.	Reader	FTC 16 CFR §255
No warranty on third-party seller	Two Pages sets pricing, stock, warranty. This site cannot promise your color is in stock.	Both	UCC §2-316
Editorial verdict = opinion	Rankings and verdicts are protected opinion. Facts inside them must be accurate.	Site	First Amendment
Copyright on site content	Text, photos, infographics belong to the site. Short quote with link is fair use.	Site	17 USC §107
DMCA takedown path	Rights holders file §512(c) notice. Removal within 10 business days.	Both	17 USC §512
Reader-generated content license	Comments and contact-form text you send grant a limited license to publish and quote.	Site	Contract
Limit of liability	Site’s max liability capped at fees paid in the last 12 months. For readers, that is zero.	Site	Common law
Indemnification (mutual)	Each party covers the other only for third-party claims caused by its own breach.	Both	Contract
Arbitration + class-action waiver	Individual binding arbitration after 30-day negotiation. Opt-out window 30 days.	Both	FAA + AAA rules
Choice of law	Delaware, chosen for neutrality. Non-waivable local rights still apply.	Both	Restatement 2d §187
Change of terms notice	Material change = 30-day banner + new date + change summary.	Reader	Contract
Severability	If one clause fails in court, the rest of the contract stays in force.	Both	Common law

The Reader Contract in Plain English

The site is a WordPress publication with affiliate links to Two Pages Curtains. The reader contract has four moving pieces. Here they are in order of how often they get misread by someone landing on a Terms of Service page for the first time.

What the Site Promises

Editorial independence, first. The site owes you reviews that reflect the same verdict for a $2.99 swatch order as for a $2,999 full drapery order, with material connections disclosed on every commercial mention. The editorial verdicts you read are governed by the public methodology behind every ranking, which sits outside this contract but next to it.

Accuracy, second, scoped to reasonable effort. Facts inside a review must be correct, and corrections land within 5 business days of a valid notice. The verdict itself is opinion protected under the First Amendment, informed by FTC endorsement guides on how a commercial-connection review must be labelled.

What the Reader Agrees To

You agree to give accurate information in any contact form, DMCA notice, or comment you submit. You agree not to scrape the site at machine scale, republish full articles for commercial use, or bypass the affiliate link to obscure which reviewer sent the click. And you agree to one informal resolution step before any arbitration is filed, which almost always closes the loop before a dispute exists on paper.

You confirm you are 18 or older, or accessing the site under a verified guardian. There is no login wall, no account created, and no restriction on general reading otherwise. Submitting a contact form or subscribing to the newsletter is where the age representation matters.

What Neither Party Controls

Two Pages sets its own pricing, stock, warranty, and shipping. The site cannot promise a color is in stock the day you click, cannot alter a return window, and cannot issue a refund on a purchase it never held the money for. Everything downstream of the affiliate click lives inside Two Pages’s own terms of sale.

Impact Radius mechanics live in Impact’s own contract with the site. Host uptime and delivery are commercially reasonable, not guaranteed to any specific percentage, and force-majeure boilerplate covers CDN outages, DDoS mitigation, and transit ISP issues. What the site controls is editorial. What lives outside is technical infrastructure and the seller’s own terms.

When a Dispute Starts

Informal resolution first. Every disagreement starts with a message via the contact form, giving the editor 30 days to reply, propose a remedy, or explain why no remedy applies. The full ladder from that first message to any arbitration award is laid out below in its own section, and almost every reader concern is resolved before step two.

What the Site Actually Promises

A verdict is an opinion. That is not a bug in the review, it is what a review is. What the site owes you is the underlying facts inside that opinion (specs, prices, shading percentages, lead times) tracking the seller’s own published data as of the review’s Last updated date, plus a prompt correction when something moves out of date.

Every commercial link on the site is marked, disclosed, and consistent with FTC endorsement guides. What the site does not owe you is a guarantee that a curtain will suit your particular window, that a color will render on your screen the way it drapes in your bedroom, or that Two Pages will keep a discontinued line in stock the week you decide to order.

Copyright, DMCA, and What You Can Reuse

Quote us. Link us. Screenshot us for a class. What we ask, and why, comes down to one line: a link plus a two-sentence quote with attribution is fair use in almost every jurisdiction, and we treat it as authorized on this site. Full-paragraph reprints, product images, and infographics require written permission from the editor. Commercial reuse (a competing affiliate blog, a paid newsletter, a product listing) is never authorized without a license.

Rights holders who believe their work has been used on this site without authorization can file a DMCA §512 safe harbor takedown notice. The site’s designated agent contact and the full checklist for a valid §512(c) notice sit in the flow below. Editor evaluates on face and, if valid, removes within 10 business days.

How a Dispute Starts, Escalates, and Ends

Almost every disagreement ends at step one. Here is the whole ladder anyway. First step is the contact form with a subject line naming the issue: a factual correction, a DMCA claim, a data request, or an unresolved concern. Editor commits to a substantive reply within 5 business days and a remedy proposal, if a remedy applies, within 15 business days.

Second, a small-claims carve-out that both parties keep. Either side may file in small-claims court in their own county of residence for claims under the local jurisdictional limit, no arbitration required. This is intentional. Small claims exists precisely to keep low-stakes consumer disputes out of expensive fora.

Third, individual binding arbitration under AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules for anything above the small-claims threshold that survives the 30-day negotiation. Class-action pursuit is waived, with a 30-day opt-out window running from your first newsletter opt-in or first contact form submission. Opting out is one email with the subject line Arbitration opt-out to the editor. Opting out does not affect any other clause of this contract.

Choice of Law, Limit of Liability, Indemnification

Governing law: Delaware. Chosen for the depth of its commercial case law and its neutrality relative to any single reader’s home state, not to inconvenience the reader. Where your local consumer-protection law is non-waivable, it applies to you regardless of what this contract says.

Limit of liability caps at fees paid to the site in the last 12 months. For the overwhelming majority of readers, that number is zero, because reading the site costs nothing and the affiliate commission flows from Two Pages, not from you. Consequential damages (lost business, indirect losses, punitive damages) are excluded. Gross negligence and willful misconduct are carved out from the cap as required under most state laws.

Indemnification is mutual and narrow. Each party covers the other for third-party claims caused by its own breach of this contract, and nothing else. If a reader submits a DMCA notice that turns out to be fraudulent and triggers a suit against the site, the reader indemnifies the site for that specific claim. If the site republishes a reader’s contact-form text beyond the license granted, the site indemnifies the reader for the resulting claim. That is the full scope.

Changes to These Terms

Material changes trigger three things at once: a header banner on every page announcing the change, a new Last updated date at the top of this page, and a summary of what changed listed under the date. The banner runs for 30 days. On day 30, the new version becomes binding on all continued readers; before day 30, both versions are effectively in force and the earlier version governs any dispute arising before the change.

Typo fixes, dead-link swaps, and formatting changes are silent. If a material change lands and you object, email the editor for a data-portability export within the 30-day window, unsubscribe from the newsletter, and stop visiting the site; the new version binds only readers who continue past day 30.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does reading this site create a contract?

Reading creates the reader contract you are looking at. Which means, in practice, three things: the site owes you accurate reviews and prompt corrections, you owe the site accurate information in any form you submit, and any dispute that survives a good-faith exchange gets handled the way this page describes. No login is required, no account is created, and there is no fine print past what you can read on this single page.

Can I copy an image or a paragraph from a review?

A link plus a two-sentence quote with attribution is fair use in almost every jurisdiction, and we treat it as authorized on this site. Full-paragraph reprints and product images require written permission from the editor. Commercial reuse (a competing affiliate blog, a paid newsletter, a product listing) is never authorized without a license.

What if a product I ordered on Two Pages arrives damaged?

The seller of record is Two Pages, not this site. Damage claims, returns, and refunds are handled under Two Pages’ own terms of sale and warranty. This site can advocate on your behalf and has done so successfully in the past. What we cannot do is issue a refund or ship a replacement panel, because we never held the money or the goods.

Do I really have to arbitrate?

For claims that survive a 30-day informal negotiation, yes, with two carve-outs. First, either party may still file in small-claims court in their county of residence for claims under the local jurisdictional limit. Second, any reader may opt out of arbitration within 30 days of first newsletter opt-in or first contact form submission by emailing the editor with the subject line Arbitration opt-out. Opting out does not affect any other clause.

Can I file a class action against this site?

The contract includes a class-action waiver, which means individual arbitration is the default path. Readers who opted out of arbitration within the 30-day window retain full class-action rights. Readers who did not opt out may still coordinate individual actions, and the site has no clause preventing a reader from talking to other readers about a shared concern.

What state’s law applies?

Delaware, chosen for the depth of its commercial case law and its neutrality relative to any single reader’s home state, not to inconvenience the reader. Where your local consumer-protection law is non-waivable, it applies to you regardless of what this contract says. That is not us being generous, that is how consumer-protection law works in most US states and every EU member state.

How much notice do I get before the terms change?

Material changes trigger a 30-day banner on every page, a new Last updated date at the top of this page, and a summary of what changed. Typo fixes and dead-link swaps are silent. If a material change lands and you object, email the editor for a data-portability export and stop visiting; the change becomes binding on day 30 only for continued readers.

Does the affiliate disclosure repeat the same content as the ToS?

Overlap of about one paragraph, on purpose. FTC 16 CFR §255 requires the disclosure to be clear and conspicuous on every commercial mention. The ToS repeats the material connection in one clause so the contract is complete on its own and so the disclosure page is complete on its own. A reader who lands on either page in isolation still gets the full picture.