Several Terms of Service Documents have been changed, effective February 12, 2014. Here is a summary of the key changes: All payments that you make or receive through the Site will now be collected and held in a separate escrow trust account by Elance Escrow Corporation (EEC). EEC is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Elance, Inc., and is licensed and regulated as an Internet Escrow Agent by the California Department of Business Oversight. As a licensed and regulated escrow agent, EEC is required to act as a fiduciary to protect your escrowed funds. This extension of escrow protections requires us to change provisions throughout numerous documents in the Terms of Service, so please read through all the new documents carefully. This change means that you have even more protection for the money held in your Account. Elance will no longer charge a $5 monthly Inactive Account fee. This is reflected in the Account Agreement. Elance Escrow Corporation (EEC) will charge an Escrow Fee of $5 per month. However, users who meet any of the following criteria are exempt from this fee: if your Elance Account Balance is $0 at any time during the past 60 days. if you maintain a paid freelancer membership. if you are a Private Talent Cloud Client and current in your other obligations to Elance. Note: this fee is only charged in cases where there is a balance in a user’s Elance account (Manage/Transactions) and does not affect milestones for fixed price jobs and escrow balances on these milestones. This is reflected in the new Account Agreement. In certain circumstances, we now offer international users the ability to pay in their local currency instead of in US dollars. This change is reflected in the Account Agreement. In response to user requests, if you have a dispute over a fixed price job, you will now have the option to choose another online arbitration service called the American Arbitration Association (AAA). The AAA is an internationally-recognized arbitration service. Elance will continue to offer the arbitration service net-ARB. If you choose the AAA arbitration service instead, you will have to agree to pay the difference between these two services. These changes are reflected in the new Fixed Price Dispute Resolution Policy. In response to user requests, we have made other changes to the Dispute Resolution Policies for consistency and efficiency. In response to user requests, the Independent Contractor Services Agreement has been changed to reinstitute the default provision stating that ownership of intellectual property rights in work product is automatically assigned from a freelancer to the client upon receipt of payment from the client, instead of upon delivery of the work product. In response to user requests, we will reinstate our policy of publishing the last-revised date for each Terms of Service Document on the site. This is merely a high-level overview of our new Terms of Service, which are effective beginning February 12, 2014. We realize that these documents are detailed, and not all of them apply to all Users. But they are extremely important, so please take a moment to read through this new material. By doing so you help Elance continue to deliver a successful and rewarding online work experience for all Users.
Posted on: Tue, 11 Mar 2014 10:32:42 +0000
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