Questions tagged [terms-of-service]
For questions regarding the Stack Exchange Network Terms of Service.
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Sites the ToS applies to
The links for Terms of Service in the footers of several Stack Exchange sites that I checked all go to the Public Network Terms of Service posted on stackoverflow.com, not on stackexchange.com. Are ...
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The rules on impersonation should apply to organisations and products as well
I've recently come across users who've changed their names to "ChatGPT" - and in some cases ran bots that were apparently using ChatGPT as a backend.
The current rules as per meta - see here ...
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3
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Does linked content count as "Subscriber Content" under the TOS?
The SE TOS defines "Subscriber Content" as:
any and all content, including without limitation any and all text, graphics, logos, tools, photographs, images, illustrations, software or ...
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Posting content under licenses besides CC BY-SA 4.0
If I post content (authored by me) on an SE site, and I have released it under some license X, how does this work with the SE TOS (even though it links to SO I assume it's applicable to all sites ...
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When did Stack Exchange start to dual-license user content?
Stack Exchange currently dual-licenses user content, which allows them to sell user content without attributing users. When did the dual-licensing start?
The Wayback Machine's first save of the ToS ...
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Does Stack Exchange collect immutable data?
I want to use Stack Exchange but I am unsure what data is collected. The data I am most worried about is data that cannot change, like my race, device id's, or legal identity.
Does SE collect data ...
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Footer contains "Legal" and "Terms of Service", but they are pointing to the same page
Site footer has a link for "Legal" (https://stackoverflow.com/legal) and a link for "Terms of Service" (https://stackoverflow.com/legal/terms-of-service). I noticed the former page ...
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Typo in the "Public Network Terms of Service"
In the Public Network Terms of Service page, there is a typo. In the second point, the character "e" is missing from word "Enforceable".
Contracts are Binding and Legally ...
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We’ve made changes to our Terms of Service & Privacy Policy - January 2022
We’ve just made two adjustments to our Terms of Service & Privacy Policy. They were made to return a section that was accidentally removed about the DMCA Designated Agent - there’s little to no ...
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Send an email to users if any changes are made in the privacy policy and/or terms of service
If any changes are made in the privacy policy and/or terms of service of SE/SO, please send an email to the users (at least a month in advance before the legal agreement comes into effect).
For ...
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Can my username and profile picture be my company?
Let's assume I submit high-quality and unbiased answers, that contain no marketing ploys, no suggestions and no references to my company: they will be as unbiased as any other contributor's. Most of ...
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Does the Age Eligibility section of ToS apply to biological or mental age? [closed]
Current version of the Public Network Terms of Service (accessed 2021-02-13) includes a section about underage users:
3. Age Eligibility
You must be at least 13 years old to access or use the Network ...
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1
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TOS and Ill/Quasi-legal Activity
I'm a moderator at the Raspberry Pi exchange and just had a question flagged for something involving "illegal behaviour":
RPi4 wifi and captive portal failure
I've closed it as off-topic, ...
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Perhaps do not oblige users to read and understand your privacy policy and cookies policy?
I finally reached the end of the processing of your terms and conditions. They are quite long, although they do have the advantage of applying to several useful sites.
One possible improvement, is to ...
3
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1
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Username / company association
This question touches on Is there ever a time to create a user for a company?, but (a) is not identical and (b) The terms and conditions referenced in some answers appear to have changed. (...
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Should the legal page on stackoverflow.com actually be on stackexchange.com?
I have seen plenty of references to the legal disclaimers etc. for the whole Stack Exchange site being referred to https://stackoverflow.com/legal/, but all SE sites are owned and operated by Stack ...
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Suspect crawler without citing source [duplicate]
This question from this site seems to be a SO question:
Unfortunately, it is all translated to my language so I couldn't search for the origin question. All the users are changed to Vietnamese names ...
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What is, or isn't, allowed in a profile? [duplicate]
I can't possibly fathom this not being a duplicate, but I looked...
Two straight-forward questions that are extremely similar to each other (hence included in one post). If they need to be separated ...
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Does the dual license in the pre-2018 Terms of Service allow SE to permit others to redistribute subscriber content outside of CC BY-SA?
I was reading around the topic of the precise details of subscriber-content licensing on SE, and I found (and read more carefully than the previous times I'd seen it) this thread on FOSS.SE from 2017, ...
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Merge the Code of Conduct and Terms of Service
There has been a lot of recent discussion over the Stack Exchange Code of Conduct - what it means, why it says what it does, and what it does and does not forbid. There is an additional document that ...
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Can users 13 to 15 years old who are based outside of the European Union use SE while traveling to the EU?
The Terms of Service contains the following snippet:
If you are located within the European Union, you must be at least 16 years old to access or use the Network or Services, including without ...
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What happened to accounts that were previously of age, but became underage once GDPR was adopted?
I'm aware that in 2018, the GDPR was adopted in the European Union, and in response, SE amended its license terms to require that all users from the EU be at least 16 to participate in the site. ...
149
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How do users escalate concerns about an abusive employee?
Is there a formal grievance policy for reporting incidents where you believe an employee of Stack Exchange has been malicious towards a user of the network?
I'm looking for some official, ideally ...
user287266
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Show Code of Conduct and other terms of service within version control highlighting
I wanted to highlight something I think SO got right today. Within the blog entry about the Code of Conduct, Sara Chipps shows VCS highlighted changes to the CoC
This is a simple quality-of-life ...
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Was the retroactive change to CC BY-SA 4.0 approved by Stack Exchange's lawyers?
Update: I have started a GoFundMe in an attempt to have a court or arbitrator settle this. It has raised a decent amount, but more will be necessary to retain counsel.
On 2019-09-05, Stack Exchange ...
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What is the status of the secure electronic opt-out of the mandatory arbitration that was promised?
In the comments of this post, Tim Post responds to my request for a "secure, electronic means" of the opt-out of mandatory arbitration with the following
@jhpratt And you'll get one. And a lot of ...
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36
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1
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Are we allowed according to the ToS to exempt a part of our post from the CC license?
tl;dr: Right now we are not allowed to quote outside sources (unless they are compatible with cc by-sa 4.0) or use images under fair use exceptions in our posts. Creative Commons provides guidance how ...
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Terms of Service begins with "Stack Overflow Network" instead of "Stack Exchange Network"
According to the Trademark Guidelines, the name of the network of Q&A sites is the "Stack Exchange Network". Yet the Terms of Service begins with the word "Stack Overflow Network":
There was ...
34
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Why was the Ubuntu Code of Conduct clause removed from the Ask Ubuntu terms of service?
Looking back at the old Terms of Service, I noticed they used to contain a special paragraph about Ask Ubuntu.
When accessing the askubuntu.com, meta.askubuntu.com, or chat.askubuntu.com sites ("...
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7
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1
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144
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Please remove the excessive capitalization of certain paragraphs in the Terms of Service
I was browsing through the Terms of Service and noticed that some parts are hard to read because they solely consist of capital letters. I can imagine there must be a US law stating that certain parts ...
GlorfindelMod
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Why are there separate copies of the Terms of Service per site, if the link in each site just goes to Stack Overflow's version?
I noticed that each site in the network has its own copy of the Terms of Service, e.g. https://stackoverflow.com/legal/terms-of-service, https://meta.stackexchange.com/legal/terms-of-service, https://...
10
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Why do users in the European Union have to be at least 16 to participate in SE? [duplicate]
I noticed this new paragraph in the Terms of Service:
If you are located within the European Union, you must be at least 16 years old to access or use the Network or Services, including without ...
1
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0
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38
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The TOS and footer refer to different CC BY-SA license versions [duplicate]
As previously reported, the TOS links to version 4, but the footer and Help Centre to version 3. The TOS should I think say the version number in the text as well, rather than only in the link.
In ...
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What licence is subscriber content provided under 4.0, 3.0 or them all?
In the footer it says:
site design / logo © 2018 Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required. rev 2018.8.7.31273
However, in the footer under ...
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7
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1
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The link to "Acceptable Use Policy" on public terms of service is broken
In section 5, User Obligations, of /legal/terms-of-service/public, there is a link to the "Acceptable Use Policy" that points to legal/content-policy.
Right now, this is a broken link. The actual ...
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Why doesn't the new TOS email or blog post mention the arbitration clause?
Tim Post's initial post on the new TOS provides a three-point summary of the new terms, along with a link to the new text and an opportunity to ask questions.
That, of course, sparked a re-...
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To refuse arbitration, give us your name and address
To opt out of mandatory arbitration and retain the right to participate in a class action, the terms of service state:
Your written notification must be mailed to us at Stack Overflow, Attn: Legal ...
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What happened to the electronic-opt out of arbitration, and to the other "correcting miscommunications" that were previously announced?
Today I received an email about new Terms of Service. It contains no trace whatsoever of the changes that Tim Post announced several weeks ago. In fact, the page https://stackoverflow.com/legal/terms-...
10
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Copy-paste typo in Stack Exchange, Inc. Privacy Policy
In the last section of Stack Exchange, Inc. Privacy Policy, a left side is not reflecting text on the right, and in reality is bluntly copy-pasted from the previous section:
It seems that what had ...
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Brace yourselves: The GDPR is coming!
It's actually nothing to worry about. You as users end up with more protection, and companies like us are left in a place where we've got a framework for handling your information that puts much ...
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Why did I not find out about the TOS change until now (two weeks later) and only from a Reddit post?
Apparently the Stack Exchange terms changed two weeks ago. According to this the change went live on the second of May, and e-mails should have been sent "in the days ahead".
Well, it's now two weeks ...
user136873
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Who serves as the General Counsel of Stack Exchange Inc.?
I could not find any general counsel or other legal position in the Stack Exchange management page.
I believe it's common for companies this size to have one, see e.g. a company from the same a16z ...
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What exactly are the security concerns regarding opting out of arbitration?
In the comments to Tim Post's arbitration update, a debate over potential abuse of the electronic opt-out unfolded because it is trivial to impersonate a profile.
But does this even matter? What ...
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Electronic opt-out, correcting miscommunication, and additional questions answered about the 2018 ToS update
We’ve listened to what you’ve been telling us about the arbitration clause that our most recent ToS update introduced. While we can't incorporate all of the feedback you offered, we did listen to it, ...
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When opting out of arbitration, how will the email address I provide be used?
As a followup to Can an anonymous user opt out of arbitration? and We're examining the implementation of arbitration in the 2018 ToS update, I would like more information as to how the email ...
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Will I receive any acknowledgement/reply of my arbitration opt-out letter, if I sent one before the electronic opt-out announcement was made?
I sent a letter in the mail to opt out of the new arbitration clause to the Terms of Service, before the new electronic opt-out was put into place. Should I be expecting a reply in the mail? If so, ...
88
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Remove the arbitration clause from the Terms of Service
There is a lot of pushback against the new ToS, specifically the arbitration clause. The fact that the vast majority of people will not opt out due to not sending in snail mail within the first 30 ...
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We're examining the implementation of arbitration in the 2018 ToS update
This is an addendum to our announcement about a recent ToS update concerning Stack Overflow For Teams and GDPR; I'm starting a separate discussion because concerns about the third bullet, an ...
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How was the new SE arbitrator selected?
I was just reading through the arbitration clause (sec. 10b) of the new Terms of Service (related MSE announcement) and saw two references to "JAMS INC."
That name is never explained in the document ...
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Can an anonymous user opt out of arbitration?
The new terms of service announced recently include an arbitration clause.
The new terms specify that one can opt out of arbitration by sending a letter including their name and their mailing address ...
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