Terms of Service
1. About These Terms
Effective date: October 15, 2026
These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of the publications operated by 618 Digital, Inc. ("618 Digital," "we," "us," or "our"). These include ILSider (ilsider.com), Granite Citizen (granitecitizen.com), and any other publication we operate now or in the future (each a "Publication"). Together with their websites, newsletters, accounts and paid services, they are the "Services."
By using the Services, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, please do not use the Services.
The same Terms apply on every Publication and are posted at /terms on each site. Previous versions remain available at /terms/archive.
Age. You must be at least 13 years old to use the Services, and at least 18 to create a paid account, buy advertising, or hold an editorial or Scoreboard role.
Changes. We may update these Terms. We will post the new version with a new effective date and, for material changes, notify account holders by email at least 14 days before the change takes effect. Continuing to use the Services after that date means you accept the updated Terms. Changes never apply retroactively to an order you have already paid for.
2. Accounts
One email address equals one account across the whole network. We sign you in with a link sent to your email; there is no password. You are responsible for keeping access to your email account secure and for everything done through your account.
| Account type | What it includes | How you get it |
|---|---|---|
| Subscriber (free) | Newsletters by email; no login required | Sign up on any Publication |
| Supporter (paid) | Supporter badge, commenting on articles, and posting in our town and topic forums; benefits apply on every Publication | Annual membership |
| Customer | Orders, listings, advertising, classifieds, receipts and account credit | Created automatically when you place an order |
| Business owner | Edit a claimed directory listing; buy listing upgrades | Claim and verify a listing |
| Contributor | Write and submit articles for editorial review; cannot publish directly | Assigned by an administrator |
| Author | Write, edit and publish their own articles | Assigned by an administrator |
| Editor | Assign, review, edit and publish articles, including others' work | Assigned by an administrator |
| Scoreboard: Athletic Director | Post results for their school; approve and remove the school's coaches | Approved by us |
| Scoreboard: Coach | Post results for the sports assigned at their school | Approved by the school's athletic director or by us |
| Admin | Full access to management features | Assigned by 618 Digital |
Editorial and Scoreboard roles are granted per Publication or per school. A role on one does not carry over to another.
You must give accurate information and keep it current. We may suspend or close an account that violates these Terms, that is used to impersonate someone, or that is involved in a payment dispute (see Section 4).
3. Access, Pricing and Paid Services
Access to content. Most of our content is free to read. After a number of articles, we may ask for your email address to keep reading. This is free and requires no payment. Content about public safety, government proceedings, elections and obituaries is never subject to this requirement.
Pricing. Current prices for Supporter memberships, directory listings and upgrades, featured event placements, classifieds, newsletter sponsorships, site advertising and any other paid service are published on the relevant page of each Publication. We may change prices at any time. A price change never affects an order you have already submitted. Renewals are charged at the price in effect when they renew, unless your account has a written rate lock. For rolling monthly placements, we email you at least 30 days before a price change takes effect.
How ordering works.
- You submit an order. Nothing is charged at this point.
- We review it, normally within 24 business hours. We may approve it, approve it with edits, ask for changes, or decline it.
- If an edit changes the price, you confirm the new total before you pay.
- Once approved, you receive a link to pay. Limited placements are held for you for a stated time, after which they are released.
- Nothing goes live until it is paid.
A declined order is never charged.
Payment. Payments are processed by Stripe. We do not store full card numbers. If you choose to save a card, it is used only for renewals and orders you approve, and for rolling monthly placements until you cancel.
Taxes. Prices exclude any sales tax that may apply. Where required, tax is added at checkout.
4. Refunds, Changes and Credits
All sales are final once paid, and we do not issue refunds except as stated here or as required by law. Because we charge only after we approve an order, you never pay for something we decline. In place of refunds, we offer changes and account credit.
| Situation | What happens |
|---|---|
| We decline your order | You are not charged. |
| You want to change a paid item before it runs | Move it to another open date or month, or take account credit for its full value, up to the product's change deadline (shown at checkout; generally 2 business days before a newsletter issue and before the 1st of the month for site banners). |
| You cancel a paid item before it runs | Account credit for its full value, if done by the change deadline. After the deadline, the item runs as scheduled. |
| You want to take down an item that is already live | You may end any live ad, listing or classified at any time. There is no refund or credit for the unused time. |
| Rolling monthly placement | Cancel at any time. Cancelling stops the next renewal; the current month runs to its end. |
| You downgrade mid-term | The difference becomes account credit. |
| You upgrade mid-term | You pay the difference for the remaining term. |
| Supporter membership | Cancel at any time. Benefits continue to the end of the paid period; no partial refunds. |
| We fail to deliver what you bought | If an item does not run as purchased because of our error or an outage, we will run it again on the next available date or give account credit of equal value. If we cannot do either, we will refund the affected portion. |
| We remove content for violating our standards | No refund or credit. |
| We suspend or withdraw your commenting and forum access | No refund, credit or extension. Your Supporter membership and its other benefits continue to the end of the paid period. |
| We remove an approved, compliant item for our own reasons | Prorated account credit for the unused portion. |
Account credit. Credit is applied automatically to your next order. It belongs to your account, cannot be transferred, has no cash value, and expires 12 months after it is issued.
Payment disputes. Please contact us before disputing a charge with your card issuer; most problems can be fixed quickly. While a dispute is open, we may pause the account's placements and new orders.
Your rights. Nothing in this section limits any right you have under applicable law.
Questions about an order: [orders@ilsider.com].
5. Advertising
This section applies to everything sold as advertising or promotion, including site banners, newsletter sponsorships, the Scoreboard sponsorship, featured directory and event placements, and classifieds.
Review and acceptance. All advertising is subject to our review. We may decline or remove any advertisement at any time, with or without giving a reason. Accepting an advertisement is not an endorsement of the advertiser or its products.
Editorial independence. Advertising has no influence on our news coverage. Advertisers get no advance notice of, and no chance to review, stories about them. Buying advertising confers no editorial consideration of any kind.
Content standards. We do not accept advertising that:
- is unlawful, misleading or unsubstantiated;
- is adult or sexually oriented;
- promotes discrimination or hatred;
- offers counterfeit goods, or services requiring a license the advertiser does not hold;
- promotes abortion, assisted suicide, or the ending of human life.
Housing advertising must comply with fair housing law, and employment advertising with equal-employment law. Our full standards are published at /standards.
Political advertising. [Standard to be inserted once settled.] Political advertising must carry any disclosure required by law and is payable in advance.
Labeling. All advertising is labeled. Sponsored newsletter blurbs are labeled "Sponsored." We may label any content we determine to be paid or promotional.
Placement and performance. We do not guarantee a position within a placement, adjacency to particular content, or any number of impressions, opens or clicks. Site banners are sold as shares of a calendar month and rotate with other advertisers. Our reports use our own first-party measurement, filtered to exclude automated traffic as best we reasonably can, and are provided in good faith without warranty. Website unique-viewer figures are counted within each day and summed across a period, so a reader who visits on several days is counted once per day. Email open counts are approximate, because many email programs block the images that record them.
Creative and deadlines. You are responsible for supplying creative that meets our published specifications by the stated deadline. Late creative may delay or forfeit a placement without credit. We may edit sponsored copy for length, clarity and accuracy.
Exclusive sponsorships. The Scoreboard "presented by" sponsorship is sold as an exclusive for one calendar month. It appears only on Scoreboard pages and modules, never inside a school's posts, and never on article pages.
Your warranties. You warrant that you hold all rights to the materials you submit, including images, logos, trademarks, music and likenesses of people, and that your advertisement complies with all applicable law. You agree to indemnify 618 Digital against any claim arising from your advertisement.
6. Content You Submit
Reader submissions. This covers events, directory listings, classifieds, comments, tips, photos and letters. You keep ownership of what you submit. You grant 618 Digital a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to publish, edit for length and clarity, display, distribute and archive it on any Publication and in our newsletters, and to use it to promote the Services. You confirm that you have the right to submit it and that it is accurate. We may decline, edit or remove any submission.
Contributed editorial work. Articles, photographs and other editorial material that Contributors, Authors and Editors create for us are governed by the written agreement between us and that person. Without a separate written agreement, submitting editorial material for publication grants 618 Digital a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable license to publish, reproduce, edit, distribute, archive and syndicate it on any Publication, in any format, and to use it to promote the Services. You confirm that you hold all rights needed to grant this license.
Comments and forums. Commenting on articles and posting in our town and topic forums are Supporter benefits.
These are also governed by our Community Guidelines, published at /community-guidelines and incorporated into these Terms. Breaking the Community Guidelines is a breach of these Terms. Before your first comment or forum post you will be asked to read and accept them.
Without limiting those Guidelines, we remove content that is abusive, harassing, defamatory, obscene, spam, or that reveals someone's private information.
Moderation and suspension. We may edit, hide or remove any comment or forum post. For repeated or serious violations we may suspend or permanently withdraw your access to commenting and the forums.
A suspension of commenting or forum access does not cancel your Supporter membership, and the membership's other benefits continue for the paid period. It also does not entitle you to a refund, a credit, or an extension of your membership, whether the suspension is temporary or permanent.
We moderate conduct, not viewpoint. You will not lose access for disagreeing with us or with another reader.
What is not allowed anywhere on the Services:
- content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, threatening or obscene;
- content that infringes someone else's copyright, trademark or privacy;
- impersonating another person or organization;
- automated scraping, bulk downloading, or use of our content to train AI models without written permission;
- attempts to interfere with the Services or gain unauthorized access.
Copyright complaints. If you believe content on the Services infringes your copyright, email [legal@618.digital] with the details required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. [Designated agent registration to be confirmed.]
7. The Scoreboard
Scoreboard posts are made by athletic directors and coaches approved for a school.
How posts work. Posts publish immediately. The poster and the school's athletic director may edit them, and we may edit or hide any post. The score and status of a game are shared: either school's approved staff may correct them, and all changes are logged. Each school's highlights, notes and photos belong to that school's post, and only that school's staff may change them.
Student athletes who are minors. These provisions are not optional and apply to every school.
- A student's name may be included only where the school's athletic director or a school administrator has confirmed to us in writing that the school's media policy permits publishing student names. We record who gave that confirmation and when. Without it, posts report scores and team results only.
- A photograph identifying a student may be posted only where that same person has confirmed to us in writing that the necessary releases are on file at the school.
- A school may withdraw either confirmation at any time by emailing us. We stop publishing student names or photographs for that school on request and remove existing ones on request.
- Posts must never include a student's contact information, email address, phone number, home address or social media handles.
- A parent or guardian may ask us to remove a student's name or photograph at any time, for any reason. We do not require a reason, we do not ask the school first, and we remove it promptly. Requests go to [privacy@ilsider.com].
A coach or athletic director who posts a student's name without the school's confirmation on file may have their Scoreboard role suspended.
Conduct. Posts must be factual and sportsmanlike: no taunting, and no criticism of officials, opponents or individual athletes.
8. Standards, Ownership and Legal Terms
Corrections. We correct errors. When we publish something factually wrong, we fix the text and add a dated correction describing what changed. We do not silently alter the facts of a published article. Corrections are listed at /corrections on each Publication, and our editorial standards are at /standards.
Our content. Articles, photographs, design, logos and other material on the Services belong to 618 Digital or our licensors. You may read, share links to and quote brief excerpts with attribution. You may not republish, sell or redistribute our content without written permission. Directory, event and Scoreboard information is provided for personal, non-commercial use.
Third-party links and listings. We link to other sites and list businesses, congregations, events and schools. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content, products or services. Listing hours, event times and worship times can change; confirm with the organization.
Disclaimers. The Services are provided "as is" and "as available." We work to be accurate but do not warrant that the Services will be error-free, uninterrupted, or that information is complete or current. Nothing we publish is legal, financial or medical advice.
Limitation of liability. To the fullest extent permitted by law, 618 Digital is not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages arising from your use of the Services. Our total liability for any claim relating to a paid service is limited to the amount you paid us for that service in the 12 months before the claim.
Indemnity. You agree to indemnify 618 Digital against claims arising from content you submit or your violation of these Terms.
Governing law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Illinois. Any dispute will be resolved in the state or federal courts serving Madison County, Illinois. [Arbitration clause: counsel to advise.]
General. If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. These Terms, our Privacy Policy, and any order or written agreement are the entire agreement between us about the Services.
Contact. 618 Digital, Inc., PO Box 26, Edwardsville, IL 62025. Email: [hello@ilsider.com]. Orders and advertising: [orders@ilsider.com].