Terms of Service — The Moat

Effective date: August 10, 2026
Last updated: August 10, 2026

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of TheMoat.com and the newsletters, accounts, memberships, subscriptions, events, directories, job listings, and other products or services offered by The Moat that link to these Terms (collectively, the “Services”).

The Services are operated by Matrix Pin, Inc., doing business as The Moat (“The Moat,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). By accessing or using the Services, you agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use the public portions of the Services and at least 18 years old, or the age of legal majority where you live, to create a paid account, purchase a subscription, submit content under a binding license, post a paid listing, or enter into another transaction with us. If you use the Services for a company or organization, you represent that you have authority to bind it to these Terms.

2. Editorial and Informational Purpose

The Moat is a media publication for entrepreneurs and business readers. Articles, newsletters, interviews, opinions, data, directories, event materials, and other content are provided for general informational and educational purposes only.

Nothing in the Services is legal, tax, accounting, investment, medical, employment, or other professional advice. Content may not be complete, current, or applicable to your situation. You are responsible for independently evaluating information and consulting qualified professionals before making decisions. Business and investment outcomes are uncertain, and we do not guarantee any result.

Views expressed by contributors, interview subjects, advertisers, sponsors, commenters, or other third parties are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Moat. Publication does not constitute endorsement.

3. Accounts and Security

You agree to provide accurate, current information and keep it updated. You are responsible for activity under your account and for protecting your credentials. You may not share, sell, transfer, or misuse account access. Notify us promptly through the “Let’s Talk” form on TheMoat.com if you suspect unauthorized use.

We may reject registrations, require verification, change account requirements, or suspend or terminate accounts as permitted by these Terms.

4. Subscriptions, Memberships, and Payments

Some Services may require payment. Prices, included benefits, billing intervals, and material restrictions will be presented at purchase.

Recurring billing

If you purchase an automatically renewing subscription or membership, you authorize us and our payment processor to charge the payment method on file at the disclosed interval until cancellation. Your subscription renews automatically unless you cancel before the next renewal date through your account settings or by contacting us through the “Let’s Talk” form on TheMoat.com.

Price changes

We may change prices or plan features. For recurring subscriptions, we will provide notice of material price changes as required by law. A new price will ordinarily apply to the next renewal after the effective date stated in the notice.

Refunds

Except where required by law or expressly stated at purchase, payments are nonrefundable and we do not provide credits for partially used periods.

Taxes, currency-conversion charges, and third-party fees may apply. You are responsible for applicable taxes other than taxes imposed on our net income.

5. Events

Event details, eligibility, pricing, refund rules, recording notices, codes of conduct, and other event-specific terms may be provided during registration. If event-specific terms conflict with these Terms, the event-specific terms control for that event.

We may change speakers, schedules, formats, venues, or programming when reasonably necessary. We may postpone or cancel an event and will describe any available refund, credit, or transfer options. Attendees must follow applicable venue rules and conduct requirements. We may remove a person whose conduct is unsafe, unlawful, disruptive, harassing, or otherwise inappropriate.

If an event is photographed or recorded, we will provide any notice and obtain any consent required by applicable law.

6. Directories and Job Listings

Directories, profiles, job listings, company listings, and similar materials may be submitted by third parties. We do not guarantee that listings are accurate, complete, current, lawful, available, or suitable. We do not verify every business, employer, opportunity, candidate, credential, compensation statement, or claim.

The Moat is not an employer, recruiter, staffing agency, employment agency, broker, or party to transactions between users and listing providers unless expressly stated. Users are responsible for due diligence, communications, interviews, background checks, legal compliance, and agreements arising from a listing.

We may edit, categorize, reject, remove, or decline to renew listings. Purchasing a listing does not guarantee placement, traffic, leads, applicants, customers, or results. Additional listing terms may apply at purchase.

7. Advertising, Sponsorships, and Affiliate Relationships

The Services may contain advertising, sponsored content, affiliate links, and paid placements. We may receive compensation when you view, click, purchase through, or otherwise interact with certain content or links. We intend to identify material commercial relationships in a clear manner where required.

Advertisers and sponsors are responsible for their claims, products, services, offers, and compliance with law. Unless expressly stated, The Moat does not endorse or guarantee third-party products or services. Your dealings with third parties are between you and the third party.

Editorial judgments remain ours. However, sponsored or partner content may be created, reviewed, or funded in collaboration with a commercial partner and should be evaluated accordingly.

8. User Content and Submissions

“User Content” means comments, pitches, articles, photographs, videos, audio, profiles, listings, messages, feedback, and other materials you submit to or through the Services.

You retain ownership of your User Content. By submitting it, you grant The Moat a worldwide, nonexclusive, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, edit, adapt, translate, publish, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, promote, excerpt, create derivative works from, and otherwise use that User Content in connection with operating, improving, marketing, archiving, and syndicating the Services, in any media now known or later developed. This license continues for materials already published, distributed, archived, or incorporated into other works even if you later delete your account, to the extent permitted by law.

Unless we enter into a separate written contributor agreement, submitting material does not guarantee review, confidentiality, publication, payment, attribution, or return. Do not send confidential or proprietary ideas through unsolicited submissions.

You represent and warrant that:

You own or have all rights needed to submit the User Content and grant this license.
The User Content is accurate to the extent it states facts and is not misleading.
The User Content does not violate law or another person’s intellectual-property, privacy, publicity, contractual, or other rights.
You have obtained necessary permissions and releases from identifiable people and rights holders.
The User Content does not contain undisclosed advertising, affiliate relationships, conflicts of interest, or paid endorsements.

We may review, edit, refuse, remove, restore, or retain User Content in our discretion, but we are not obligated to monitor all content. Editorial changes will not make us responsible for claims or rights you were required to verify.

Comments and community conduct

You may not post content that is unlawful, threatening, harassing, hateful, defamatory, fraudulent, deceptive, obscene, invasive of privacy, infringing, malicious, spam, or designed to manipulate engagement. You may not impersonate others, expose private information, coordinate inauthentic activity, or use automated systems to post without permission.

9. Acceptable Use

You may not:

Violate any law, regulation, contract, or third-party right.
Interfere with the security, integrity, operation, or availability of the Services.
Introduce malware or harmful code, probe vulnerabilities, bypass access controls, or access nonpublic systems without authorization.
Scrape, crawl, harvest, index, copy, or extract content or data through automated means except as permitted by our robots.txt file, a written agreement, or applicable law that cannot be waived.
Use the Services or their content to train, fine-tune, ground, evaluate, or develop an artificial-intelligence or machine-learning system without our express written permission.
Reproduce, republish, sell, license, distribute, or commercially exploit the Services or content except as expressly allowed.
Remove copyright, trademark, attribution, disclosure, or rights-management notices.
Use another person’s account or collect personal information from users without authorization.
Manipulate rankings, votes, comments, traffic, referrals, advertising metrics, or subscription activity.
Use the Services for spam, unlawful promotions, deceptive listings, or fraudulent transactions.

We may investigate suspected violations and cooperate with lawful requests.

10. Our Content and Intellectual Property

The Services, including their articles, newsletters, headlines, graphics, logos, design, arrangement, software, databases, audio, video, and other content, are owned by The Moat or its licensors and protected by intellectual-property laws.

Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, revocable, nonexclusive, nontransferable license to access the Services for your personal or internal business use. You may share links to publicly available articles and quote brief excerpts with clear attribution where permitted by law. No other rights are granted.

“The Moat,” our logos, and related marks are trademarks or trade dress of The Moat or its licensors. You may not use them in a way that suggests affiliation, sponsorship, or endorsement without written permission.

11. Copyright Complaints

If you believe content on the Services infringes your copyright, send a notice to our designated copyright contact containing the information required by applicable law, including identification of the copyrighted work, the allegedly infringing material and its location, your contact information, a good-faith statement, an accuracy and authority statement under penalty of perjury, and your physical or electronic signature.

We may remove content and terminate repeat infringers when appropriate.

12. Feedback

If you provide ideas, suggestions, or feedback about the Services, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free right to use them without restriction or compensation. This section does not apply to a submission governed by a separate written contributor agreement.

13. Third-Party Services and Links

The Services may link to or integrate third-party websites, platforms, products, and services. We do not control and are not responsible for them. Your use of a third-party service is governed by that party’s terms and policies, and you assume the risks of your interactions with it.

14. Suspension and Termination

You may stop using the Services at any time and may cancel an account or subscription through the methods we provide. Cancellation does not automatically entitle you to a refund.

We may suspend, restrict, or terminate access; remove content; or discontinue all or part of the Services if we reasonably believe you violated these Terms, created risk or legal exposure, failed to pay, misused the Services, or if suspension is otherwise necessary to protect the Services or others. Where appropriate, we may provide notice and an opportunity to resolve the issue.

Provisions that by their nature should survive termination will survive, including ownership, licenses already granted, disclaimers, limitations of liability, indemnification, dispute terms, and general provisions.

15. Disclaimers

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” THE MOAT AND ITS AFFILIATES, LICENSORS, CONTRIBUTORS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS DISCLAIM ALL EXPRESS, IMPLIED, AND STATUTORY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, AVAILABILITY, SECURITY, AND RESULTS.

WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICES OR CONTENT WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, CURRENT, COMPLETE, SECURE, OR FREE OF HARMFUL COMPONENTS. YOU USE THE SERVICES AND RELY ON CONTENT AT YOUR OWN RISK. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW CERTAIN DISCLAIMERS, SO SOME OF THIS SECTION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

16. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE MOAT AND ITS AFFILIATES, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRIBUTORS, LICENSORS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, OR REPUTATION, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICES, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICES WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID THE MOAT FOR THE SERVICE GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM DURING THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT OR (B) US$100.

These limitations apply regardless of the theory of liability but do not limit liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

17. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless The Moat and its affiliates, officers, directors, employees, contractors, licensors, and service providers from claims, liabilities, damages, judgments, losses, and reasonable costs, including attorneys’ fees, arising from your User Content, listings, use of the Services, violation of these Terms, or violation of another person’s rights. This obligation does not apply to the extent a claim results from our own unlawful conduct.

18. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Subject to any nonwaivable rights under applicable law, the state and federal courts located in New Castle County, Delaware will have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes arising from these Terms or the Services, and you consent to their jurisdiction and venue.

19. Changes to the Services or Terms

We may modify the Services and these Terms. If we make material changes, we will provide notice as required by law, such as by posting updated Terms, changing the “Last updated” date, emailing account holders, or presenting an in-service notice. Changes apply prospectively from their stated effective date. If you do not agree to revised Terms, you must stop using the Services and cancel affected subscriptions.

20. General Terms

These Terms and policies expressly incorporated into them are the entire agreement between you and The Moat concerning the Services, except for any separate written agreement. If a conflict exists, specific purchase, event, listing, contributor, or promotion terms control for that subject.

If a provision is unenforceable, it will be modified to the minimum extent necessary or severed, and the remaining provisions will remain effective. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them in connection with an affiliate, financing, reorganization, merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. Section headings are for convenience only. Electronic communications and signatures may satisfy writing requirements where permitted by law.

21. Contact Us

The Moat
Matrix Pin, Inc.
Contact: the “Let’s Talk” form on TheMoat.com
Website: https://themoat.com