Terms of Use

If you access this web site, you are agreeing to everything that is contained in this Terms of Use agreement. This Terms of Use agreement contains information that impacts your legal rights. Please review this agreement carefully .

Throughout this agreement, The Minnesota Council for Quality shall be referred to as “MCQ” or “Us” or “We” or “Our.” The person or entity accessing this web site shall be referred to as “You” or “Your.” This Terms of Use Agreement shall be referred to as the “Agreement.”

Permitted Uses and Linking. You have MCQ’s permission to access the web pages on this site, so long as you abide by all the terms and conditions contained in this Agreement. You may link to this site as long as: (1) You do not confuse or mislead anyone about Your relationship with Us or about Our services; (2) Your site does not contain false, misleading, offensive, obscene or other material We find objectionable; (3) Your link doesn’t contain any of Our trademarks or graphics without prior written permission signed by Our representative; and (4) You provide Us with immediate written notice of every link, and agree to immediately remove any link that we don’t approve.

Prohibited Uses . You are not authorized to modify or distribute any content on the site without Our prior written permission. Further, We do not authorize use of any data mining, robots or similar data-gathering and/or data-extraction tools. You agree not to frame or utilize framing techniques to enclose any portion of this site without Our prior written permission. You agree to not use any meta tags or any other "hidden text" utilizing Our trade name or trademarks without Our prior written consent. You agree not to use this site, or any services obtained through this site, in any manner that would damage, overburden, disable or injure in any fashion this web site, its host computer, its Internet Service Provider, or any of its users. You further agree to never attempt to obtain data through any means not intentionally made publicly available through standard means on this web site. Any unauthorized uses of this site shall terminate all implied or express permissions or licenses granted to You to access and/or link to this site.

Interaction with Us : Filling out forms on this site or sending email to Us creates a request by you for our services. We may, in our sole discretion, chose to respond or chose not to respond to your request for services. Even if we respond to your request, we are still under no obligation to ultimately provide services to You, unless we have explicitly and unambiguously agreed to do so in a legally binding contract.

Modification of Terms of Use: We reserve the right to modify any of the terms appearing in this Terms of Use agreement at any time, with or without notice. Modifications are effective the moment they are posted on the site. Your continued accessing of this web site following any modification of this Agreement indicates your acceptance to Our changes.

Copyright and Trademark Ownership: You acknowledge that all text, images, files, web site layout & design, hypertext code and other copyright protected works on this site are owned or lawfully used by MCQ. You further acknowledge that the trademarks: “Minnesota Council for Quality,” “Minnesota Quality Award,” as well as the Minnesota Quality Award emblem, are the exclusive trademarks of the Minnesota Council for Quality. You agree to disavow any interest or claim you may have in such copyrights or trademarks, unless You provide Us with immediate written notice of Your claim of interest in them.

Links to Other Sites: This web site may contain links to third party web sites.  Monitoring the vast information accessible through those links is beyond our resources and MCQ does not attempt to do so.  Links are provided for convenience only, and MCQ does not endorse the information contained in linked web sites. Further, MCQ does not imply or suggest any particular affiliation or relationship with any site it links to from this site, even if the link arguably suggests such an affiliation or relationship.

Privacy: Information transmitted electronically via the Internet cannot be guaranteed to be secure.

To the extent that information regarding You is available from Your Internet browser, We reserve the right to use such information to record traffic and user information statistics for the purposes of optimizing Our Web site content and structure, or for any other purposes We see fit. To the extent that You provide Us with personal information regarding You for purposes of receiving additional information, memberships or other subscriptions, We agree to limit use of such information for that purpose, and won’t sell the information to third parties.

Use of Cookies: Cookies are small pieces of information that are sent to a user's Internet browser when that user accesses a Web page. The Cookie is then saved to the user's hard disk so that on subsequent visits to the site the host computer will know what information the user accessed on previous visits and/or might want to access on future visits. MCQ uses Cookies, and use of Cookies is standard practice for many Web sites. Your browser is most likely programmed to accept Cookies. If you wish to disable this function, you can do so by de-selecting this option in your browser.

Liability Disclaimer and Limitation of Damages: MCQ does not guarantee, warrant, endorse, or otherwise take any responsibility for, any of the practices, products, services, vendors, or information appearing or referenced on this site. Further, MCQ assumes no responsibility for computer viruses or other harmful code resulting from a third-party’s use of Our web site, email addresses or IP addresses. Use of this web site AND EMAIL SENT IN OUR NAME OR USING OUR EMAIL ADDRESS is at YOUR own risk.

MCQ MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE SUITABILITY, RELIABILITY, LEGALITY, AVAILABILITY, TIMELINESS, OR ACCURACY OF THE DATA AND SERVICES PROVIDED ON OR THROUGH THIS WEB SITE OR ANY AFFILIATED WEB SITES. ALL SUCH DATA AND SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER THE LAW, MCQ DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL MCQ BE LIABLE FOR ANY ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOST PROFITS, DATA OR USE, THAT ARISE OUT OF OR IN CONJUNCTION WITH ANY ERRORS, INACCURACIES, OMISSIONS, DEFECTS, UNTIMELINESS, UNAVAILABILITY, NEGLIGENCE, INFRINGEMENT OR LACK OF AUTHENTICITY ASSOCIATED WITH THE USE OF THIS SITE OR SERVICES OBTAINED THROUGH THIS SITE. FURTHER, MCQ SHALL NOT BE LIABLE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES FOR ANY LOSS, DAMAGE OR CLAIM RELATED TO OR ARISING OUT OF THIS WEB SITE, EXCEPT FOR THOSE ECONOMIC DAMAGES YOU CAN PROVE BEYOND A REASONABLE DOUBT WERE CAUSED DIRECTLY AND EXCLUSIVELY BY OUR NEGLIGENT OR INTENTIONAL ACTIONS OR OMISSIONS, AND EVEN THEN, ONLY ON THE CONDITION THAT YOU REFRAIN FROM EVER ASSERTING OR CLAIMING EMOTIONAL, PUNATIVE OR OTHER DAMAGES NOT EXPLICITLY PERMITTED BY THIS PARAGRAPH. CERTAIN JURISDICTIONS/STATES HAVE LAWS THAT DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CERTAIN DAMAGES, AND AS SUCH, YOU MIGHT BE ABLE TO DISREGARD THIS LIMITATION.

The disclaimers and limitations on liability contained in this Agreement apply not only to MCQ, but also to its directors, officers, employees, and/or agents.

Access Restrictions: Although MCQ assumes no responsibility for the loss of Internet access or service, We may restrict or terminate Your access to this web site or services obtained through this web site in any manner We see fit, at Our sole discretion, with or without notice, and without incurring any liability from or by You. We do not undertake a duty to monitor use of this web site, its public forums (if any), or any services offered by third parties through this web site. Nonetheless, we reserve the right to remove files You upload or information You post, and/or to terminate Your access altogether for any reason or for no reason at all, with or without notice, and without incurring any liability from or by You. If We terminate Your use of this site, You agree to promptly destroy all materials obtained from it, except those You have already lawfully purchased and received.

Jurisdiction : By accessing this web site, you agree that any disputes or matters arising from Your use of or accessing of this web site shall be exclusively governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Minnesota , without regard to the conflict of laws. You further agree to jurisdiction and venue exclusively in the federal or state courts located in the State of Minnesota , and agree to forever waive, and agree never to assert, jurisdiction or venue in a different state or country, including for reasons of prejudice, undue hardship, inconvenience, injustice, and/or fundamental fairness.

Miscellaneous: If any part of this Agreement is determined to be illegal, invalid, void or unenforceable, then that provision will be severed from the remaining provisions of this Agreement, and the remaining provisions shall be enforced to their fullest extent. Any severed provisions should be used, if possible, to determine the intent of the parties when interpreting the remaining provisions in the Agreement.