Terms of use
These terms are an agreement between you and the operator of Cohort (Cohort, a trading name. The registered company name and number will be added here once the company is registered.), called "Cohort", "we" or "us" below. They apply to the Cohort app and to cohortfounding.com. By creating an account or using Cohort you agree to them, to our privacy policy and to our community rules. If you don't agree, please don't use Cohort.
1. What Cohort is
Cohort is a career-information service for South African trainee accountants, chartered accountants and finance professionals. It shows job listings, pay information, and questions, answers, notes, interview reports and ratings written by members. Cohort is independent. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by SAICA, IRBA, any university or any employer, and names of organisations are used only to identify them.
2. Who can use it
- You must be 18 or older.
- One account per person. Don't create accounts for anyone else or share yours.
- To post or contribute you must verify with a work or university email address you control. Your stage, field and region are self-reported: keep them accurate.
3. Content members post
It's theirs, not ours. Questions, answers, job notes, interview reports and ratings are written by members and reflect their own experience and opinions. Cohort doesn't check them, and doesn't adopt or endorse them. Treat them as one person's account, not as established fact.
When you post, you confirm that:
- it describes your own experience or honest opinion, and anything you state as fact is true to the best of your knowledge;
- it doesn't name, describe or otherwise identify a private individual (a colleague, manager, client or candidate);
- it doesn't disclose confidential information of an employer or client, breach a duty of confidentiality you owe, or reproduce exam or assessment material you aren't allowed to share;
- you have the right to post it, and it doesn't infringe anyone's copyright, privacy or dignity.
Licence. You keep ownership of what you post. You give Cohort a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to host, store, display, reproduce, adapt (for example, to remove identifying details) and include it in aggregated figures, for as long as it is on Cohort and for a reasonable time after you delete it while backups expire. Pay entries, ratings and interview answers are combined into figures that stay published after you delete your account, because they contain nothing that identifies you.
4. What isn't allowed
We have zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive users. Don't post or do anything that:
- makes a factual allegation of crime, fraud, dishonesty or misconduct against a person or organisation that you can't support (raise genuine wrongdoing through a protected disclosure instead; see the community rules);
- harasses, threatens, bullies or intimidates anyone, or is hateful or discriminatory, including on any ground listed in section 9 of the Constitution;
- includes anyone's contact details, ID number or other personal information;
- is sexually explicit, violent, or otherwise unlawful;
- impersonates anyone, misrepresents your verification, or games votes, ratings or figures (for example with several accounts);
- advertises, recruits, sells, or posts spam or links to malware;
- scrapes, copies in bulk, reverse-engineers or interferes with Cohort, or tries to identify anonymous members.
5. Moderation, reports and blocking
- An automatic check holds posts that contain contact details, ID numbers, links or serious allegations until a moderator reviews them.
- You can report any post, answer, note or report, and block any member so you no longer see what they write. Reports are anonymous.
- We may remove or edit content, and suspend or close accounts, that break these terms or that we reasonably believe expose members or Cohort to legal risk. We aim to act on reports within 24 hours.
- We don't monitor everything posted and have no general obligation to do so. If you believe content is unlawful, follow the take-down process in our community rules.
6. Pay figures, research and jobs
- Not advice. Nothing on Cohort is financial, legal, tax, career or professional advice. Check anything important with the employer or a qualified adviser before you rely on it.
- External research. Until enough members contribute, pay figures come from named, dated third-party sources, labelled as external research. We haven't verified them and they may be out of date.
- Member figures are statistics from self-reported entries. They are published only when they meet our disclosure rules, and can still be wrong.
- Job listings are summaries of adverts published by employers and recruiters, with links to the original. The original advert is what counts. We don't act for employers or recruiters, and aren't part of any hiring decision.
7. Your account
You can download your data and delete your account at any time in the app, under You, then Data and account. Deleting your account deletes your posts, answers, notes, interview reports, ratings and blocks. You can stop using Cohort at any time.
8. Availability
We provide Cohort as it is and as available. We may change, suspend or stop any part of it, and will try to give notice of major changes.
9. Liability
To the extent the law allows, Cohort is not liable for any loss or damage arising from your use of Cohort, from content posted by members or third parties, or from relying on pay figures, research or job listings, except where caused by our gross negligence or wilful misconduct. Nothing in these terms limits any right you have under the Consumer Protection Act, 2008 or any other law that cannot lawfully be limited.
You are responsible for what you post. If a claim is made against Cohort because content you posted broke these terms or the law, you agree to cover the reasonable costs and losses that result, to the extent the law allows.
10. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. When the change is material, the app will ask you to accept the new terms before you post again. The date at the top shows the current version.
11. If you got Cohort from the App Store
These terms are between you and Cohort, not Apple. Apple isn't responsible for Cohort or its content, has no obligation to provide maintenance or support, and isn't responsible for any claim relating to Cohort, including product liability, legal compliance or intellectual property claims. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you. Apple's standard licensed application end user licence agreement also applies.
12. Law and disputes
South African law governs these terms. Please contact us first so we can try to resolve any dispute. Otherwise, the courts of South Africa have jurisdiction.
Contact
highveldreefai@gmail.com