Website Terms and Conditions

Updated as at 19 February 2026

These HardwareZone Forums Terms and Conditions ("Terms") apply to your access to, and use of, the website and the message boards and forums ("Services") provided by SPH Media Limited ("SPH Media", "we", "us", or "our").

The HardwareZone Forums ("HWZ Forums") are made up of a wide variety of topical sections for connecting with people who share your interests, and we ask that you abide by some basic terms and rules to keep things classy for everyone.

By accessing or using our Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms, as set out below. If you do not agree to these Terms, you may not access or use our Services.

1. Access to the Services

1. While the Internet is generally openly accessible, parts of our Services require you to be at least 18 years old to access. Please read these Terms and any additional notices carefully, as they will apply to you when accessing the Services.
2. By using the Services, you represent and warrant that:
   1. You are at least 18 years old and have the necessary legal capacity, right, power and authority to form a binding contract with SPH Media; or if you are under 18 years of age, your parent or legal guardian has reviewed and agrees to these Terms.
   2. (If you are representing a legal entity - e.g. business or government entity) You are authorised to bind such entity to these Terms.
   3. You are over the minimum age required by the laws of your country of residence to access and use the Services.
3. We look to improve our Services from time to time, and reserve the right to:
   1. change, modify, suspend or discontinue the Services (in whole or in part); and/or
   2. impose limits on certain features or restrict your access to the Services (in whole or in part);
   at any time, with or without notice to you. Our provision of the Services will be subject to these Terms, which may be updated from time to time, and your continued use of the Services after any amendment of these Terms will be deemed to be acceptance of the amended Agreement by you.
4. You also agree that we will not be liable to you or to any third party for any modification, suspension, or discontinuation of the Services (in whole or in part). If you do not agree to the amended Agreement, you have the right to close your Account and/or stop using the Services.

2. Data Use & Protection

1. SPH Media's Privacy Policy informs you of how we handle or process your personal data when you access or use the Services.
2. You understand and accept that by using the Services, you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal data for us to provide the Services to you, and for any of the purposes stated in our Privacy Policy. Your consent for our collection, use and disclosure of your personal data is cumulative and does not supersede nor replace any other consents you may have previously provided to us.

3. User Accounts

1. You may be required to create a HWZ Forums account ("Account") to access some features of our Services, by providing us with a username, password, and certain other information about yourself. As part of the Account registration process, we may put in place reasonable verification measures and/or conduct additional verification where required.
2. You are solely responsible for the information associated with your Account, which includes providing accurate information, keeping your account secure, and not sharing, transferring or otherwise allowing others to use your Account/Account credentials. Notify us immediately if you discover/suspect that someone has accessed your Account without your permission. In this regard, you acknowledge that:
   1. unauthorized sharing or disclosure of your Account/Account credentials may harm our business, and could make you criminally liable under Singapore's Computer Misuse Act 1993 or other applicable laws; and
   2. we are not responsible or liable for any loss, damage, cost, expenses, or liabilities arising from any wrongful or fraudulent use of your Account/Account credentials.
3. We reserve the right to change your username or password at any time with notice, and we are not responsible for any issues and/or losses this may cause you. Additionally, during election periods, we may conduct and/or require additional verification of accounts belonging to political parties and candidates.

4. Using the Services

1. When accessing or using the Services, you must comply with these Terms and all applicable laws, rules, and regulations.
2. Our Intellectual Property & Usage Rights. All content, code, and services on our Services and website belong to SPH Media or our licensors. You may read our content, but you must not:
   1. sell, license, broadcast, or commercially exploit our content;
   2. reproduce our content on another server or website (including via framing or mirroring);
   3. use automated tools (such as scrapers, spiders, or bots) to access or harvest data from our Services and website;
   4. reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive the source code of our Services and website; or
   5. commit any act that may breach our intellectual property and usage rights.
3. User Conduct & User-Generated Content.
   1. User Conduct. You agree to not:
      1. use the Account of another registered member of HWZ Forums ("Member") at any time, whether with or without his/her permission;
      2. impersonate another person, or misrepresent your identity or to mislead any person as to your identity;
      3. doxx, stalk, harass, abuse, defame, threaten, or spam other users;
      4. post any content (which includes Account details and credentials) that is inaccurate, misleading, libelous, defamatory, threatening, pornographic, obscene, indecent, lewd, abusive, spam, malware, illegal, political, racist, religious, blasphemous, false, an infringement of any intellectual property rights of a third party, or would otherwise violate or encourage the violation of any law (e.g. Official Secrets Act 1935, Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019 ("POFMA"), Protection from Harassment Act 2014, Gambling Control Act 2022, etc);
      5. post any form of advertising and/or promotional content (including any links to external/third party websites) (more details);
      6. infringe the HWZ Forums' Content Policy, prohibition on egregious and unlawful gambling content;
      7. hack into, interfere with, disrupt, disable, over-burden or otherwise impair the proper working of the Services or website (e.g. via denial-of-service attacks, spoof attacks, session hacking, sniffing, tampering, reverse engineering or reprogramming, etc); and
      8. use any automated process, use any kind of scripting software or bots or service to access or use the Services or website.
      (collectively referred to as "Improper Behaviour")
   2. Intellectual Property rights of User Generated Content. When you submit, create, upload, post, or display content or information through your Account, including but not limited to feedback, postings, messages and/or chats (referred to as UGC):
      1. You represent and warrant that you either own the UGC or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use the UGC; your use of the UGC on the Services or website will not infringe, violate, misappropriate, or otherwise breach any third-party rights, including intellectual property rights, privacy rights, or publicity rights; and the UGC complies with all applicable laws and regulations in Singapore.
      2. You automatically, unconditionally, and irrevocably assign SPH Media (and our affiliates) an equal co-ownership share of all intellectual property rights in that UGC worldwide to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display, store, distribute, license, make derivative works of, and sell your UGC in any media or distribution methods (now known or later developed), without asking your permission or paying you or any third-party any fees, royalties or share of profits. If this co-ownership is not recognized for any reason, you grant us a permanent, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to exercise these same rights instead. Additionally, in any case, you waive all current and future Moral Rights, and we are not required to credit you as the author and may edit your work as we see fit.
4. How we manage Accounts, User Conduct and UGC. While SPH Media generally monitors the Services for Improper Behaviour (and may use automated systems that analyse UGC to help detect infringement and abuse, such as spam, malware, and illegal content), we do not exercise editorial control over UGC and are not responsible for the same. However, we retain the sole and absolute discretion at all times, and reserve the right to:
   1. screen, delete, archive, block, remove and/or decline to accept any UGC from the Service or website, including where we receive a complaint, a notice of intellectual property infringement or other direction for removal, or where in SPH Media's sole and absolute opinion such UGC is in breach of these Terms, or is illegal or otherwise objectionable, or for any other reason as SPH Media may see fit;
   2. investigate notices of infringement under the POFMA, including without limitation the Code of Practice for Transparency of Online Political Advertisements, the Code of Practice for Preventing and Countering Abuse of Online Accounts, and any applicable laws and regulations in Singapore ("Relevant Notices") received in respect of SPH Media content, UGC and other material on the Services or website and take such action as it considers appropriate to comply with the requirements of the POFMA and/or the Relevant Notices;
   3. restrict, suspend, or terminate your access to all or any part of the Services; and/or
   4. terminate, deactivate or suspend your Account, delete your Account and all related information and files in your Account,
   without notice or assigning any reason. Notwithstanding the foregoing, in the event that we have taken any of the aforementioned actions in response to a report on concerning content or unwanted interactions submitted by another user, you may request a review of our decision and action taken via the Feedback Forum, or by emailing hwzmembership@sph.com.sg.
5. Without prejudice to the generality of the above, SPH Media reserves the right to deactivate your Account if it has been inactive for a period of six (6) months or more, or if you are in breach of any of these Terms or if we believe that you have been using the Account for unlawful and/or undesirable activities, including engaging in any Improper Behaviour.
6. You acknowledge and agree not to hold SPH Media liable or responsible for any acts that SPH Media may be required to take in relation to the Services or website (i) under applicable law, or (ii) upon the receipt of legitimate instructions from government authorities.
7. You agree not to hold SPH Media liable or responsible for any loss or damage incurred by you arising out of or in connection with the suspension and/or termination of your Account.

5. Reporting and Resolution Mechanisms

1. You have the right to report any concerning content or unwanted interactions to us through any of the following channels:
   1. by clicking the “Report” button on any post;
   2. by posting a thread on our Feedback Forum; and/or
   3. by contacting us at hwzmembership@sph.com.sg.
   Please refer to this FAQ for more information.
2. We will assess the validity of your report against our HWZ Forums Content Policy, Egregious Content Policy and any other applicable policies as soon as reasonably possible.
3. Should any of these policies be violated, we may:
   1. Swiftly remove the reported content or restrict access to it; and/or
   2. warn, suspend, or ban the account(s) that generated, uploaded, or shared the reported content.
4. Provided that your report is not frivolous or vexatious, we will inform you of our decision and the action taken with respect to any report made by you as soon as reasonably practicable.
5. You may request a review of our decision and action taken regarding any report submitted by you via the Feedback Forum, or by emailing hwzmembership@sph.com.sg.

6. Disclaimers & Limitations

1. We provide the Services and all content on the website on an "as is" and "as available" basis without warranties of any kind (meaning we do not guarantee accuracy, completeness, satisfactory quality, fitness for purpose, non-infringement of third-party rights, security, uptime, or that the website will be error-free), and we reserve the right to modify, suspend, or terminate the Services or the website at any time without notice or liability to you.
2. You acknowledge that the Services enables other users to upload UGC to the Services and website, and that we do not exercise editorial control over any UGC that may be made available on the Services or website by other users of the Services. While we may, at our sole and absolute discretion, remove any such User Content brought to our notice, you acknowledge and agree that we do not endorse and cannot be held responsible or liable for any UGC posted by other Members/users, all of which you agree to access with care and discretion, and entirely at your own risk.
3. Without limiting the foregoing, you agree not to hold SPH Media liable for any loss that is due to any circumstances beyond the control of SPH Media.
4. SPH Media may provide links to other sites ("Linked Sites") that may be of relevance and interest to users. You acknowledge and agree that SPH Media does not endorse or recommend, is not an agent, reseller or distributor of, and has no control over, and is not responsible for:
   1. the content on the Linked Sites;
   2. any third party products/services whether available or advertised via the Site or on Linked Sites;
   3. any loss or damage you may incur from the Linked Sites (including any virus, spyware, malware, worms, errors or damaging material contained in the Linked Sites); or
   4. the availability of any content on the Linked Sites
   and you hereby irrevocably waive any claim against us with respect to the Linked Sites.
5. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, under no circumstances, including, but not limited to, negligence, shall SPH Media be liable for any damages, losses, expenses or liabilities (whether based upon warranty, contract, tort, statute, strict liability or otherwise) suffered by any party arising out of: (A) these Terms; (B) the use of, or the inability to use, the Services, website, any UGC, any third party products, any electronic device used to access the Services and website, or any other website; and/or (C) the collection, use or disclosure of your personal data, including, without limitation:
   1. any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, punitive, multiple, or pure economic loss;
   2. any loss of profits, revenue, sales, contracts, anticipated savings, business opportunity or business;
   3. any loss in goodwill or damage to reputation; or
   4. any loss of data or corruption of data (including but not limited to any loss of, or any inability to retrieve, any personal data, or any inaccuracy in the personal data presented, used or transmitted),
   even if SPH Media or a SPH Media authorised representative has been advised of, or should have foreseen, the possibility of such damages.
6. In the event that SPH Media is liable for damages despite the foregoing provision, you agree that, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, SPH Media's aggregate liability to you for any and all causes of action in relation to the SPH Media content, Services, website, and these Terms, shall not exceed in aggregate of S$50.00 or the total amount of fees and charges paid and/or payable by you for the Services to SPH Media for the one (1) month period immediately preceding the time such liability arose, whichever is lower.
7. You agree that the above exclusions and limitations of liability are reasonable and enable the Services and the SPH Media Content to be provided by SPH Media at either reasonable costs or no costs to you.

7. Indemnity

1. Notwithstanding anything within these Terms, you agree to indemnify and hold SPH Media, and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents, partners, and employees, harmless from all claims, demands, actions, proceedings, liabilities (including statutory liability and liability to third parties), penalties, and costs (including without limitation, legal costs on a full indemnity basis), awards, losses and/or expenses, due to or arising out of:
   1. your UGC;
   2. any use of the Services or the website;
   3. your connection to the Services or the website;
   4. your breach of any terms and conditions of these Terms;
   5. your violation of any rights of another person or entity; or
   6. your breach of any statutory requirement, duty or law.

8. Severability

1. If any provision of these Terms is found to be illegal, void or unenforceable under any law that is applicable hereto or if any court of competent jurisdiction in a final decision so determines, these Terms shall continue in force save that such provision shall be deemed to be deleted.

9. Relationship of Parties

1. Nothing in this Agreement shall constitute or be deemed to constitute an agency, partnership or joint venture between SPH Media and you and neither party shall have any authority to bind the other in any way.

10. Waiver

1. No waiver of any rights or remedies by SPH Media shall be effective unless made in writing and signed by an authorised representative of SPH Media.
2. A failure by SPH Media to exercise or enforce any rights conferred upon it by this Agreement shall not be deemed to be a waiver or variation of any such rights or operate so as to bar the exercise or enforcement thereof at any subsequent time or times.

11. Assignment

1. You may not assign these Terms or any of its rights or obligations under these Terms to any party.
2. SPH Media may, by notice in writing posted on its website, assign all of its rights and interests relating to or in connection with these Terms, the Services and/or the website to a related corporation of SPH Media (the "Transferee") without your consent.
3. Without prejudice and in addition to the right under Clause 10.2 above, SPH Media may, by notice in writing posted on its website (the "Notification"), transfer and/or novate all of its rights, interests, obligations and liabilities relating to or in connection with these Terms, the Services and/or the website to the Transferee, and you shall not withhold your consent thereto. For the avoidance of doubt, you hereby consent to (a) the assignment of all rights of SPH Media relating to or in connection with these Terms, the Services and/or the website to the Transferee, (b) the assumption by the Transferee of all liabilities of SPH Media relating to or in connection with these Terms, the Services and/or the website, (c) the release of all obligations of SPH Media relating to or in connection with these Terms, the Services and/or the website, and (d) the Transferee taking the place of SPH Media as if it were named in all documents relating to or in connection with these Terms, the Services and/or the website as a party thereto in place of SPH Media, in each case with effect from such effective date as may be informed in the Notification.

12. Rights of Third Parties

1. Except as provided for in Clause 6, a person or entity who is not a party to these Terms shall have no right under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 2001 to enforce any term of these Terms, regardless of whether such person or entity has been identified by name, as a member of a class or as answering a particular description.

13. Force Majeure

1. No party shall be liable for any failure to perform its obligations under these Terms if the failure results from a Force Majeure Event (defined below), provided always that whenever possible, the affected party will resume that obligation as soon as the Force Majeure Event occasioning the failure ceases or abates.
2. For purposes of these Terms, a "Force Majeure Event" is an event which is a circumstance or event beyond the reasonable control of a party which affects the general public in that party's country or in the territory, and which results in the party being unable to observe or perform on time an obligation under these Terms. Such circumstance or event shall include industrial action or labour disputes, civil unrest, war or threat of war, criminal or terrorist acts, government action or regulation, telecommunication or utility failures, power outages, fire, explosion, natural physical disasters, epidemic, quarantine restrictions, and general failure of public transport.

14. Governing Law & Jurisdiction

1. The Services and website are owned and operated by SPH Media in Singapore, and we make no representation that the contents of the Site are appropriate or available for use in your location. Those who choose to access the Site from any location do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with local laws, if and to the extent local laws are applicable.
2. Notwithstanding the above, you agree:
   1. that these Terms and all matters relating to your access to, or use of, the Services and website shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Singapore including without limitation the provisions of the Evidence Act 1893 and the Electronic Transactions Act 2010, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law; and
   2. to submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the Singapore courts.

15. Contact Us & Notice

1. If you have any feedback or enquiries relating to the Services, the website, and/or this Agreement, please contact us.
2. All notices required or permitted to be given hereunder to SPH Media shall be in writing and in the English language and shall be sent by hand or by post to:
   Attn: The Company Secretary
   1000 Toa Payoh North, News Centre, Singapore 318994
   or, to such other address and person as SPH Media may hereafter specify to you by notice in writing expressed to be for the purposes of this clause.