Disqus Terms of Service

DATED 2012-08-27 · VERSION 20131101_rev01 · COMPARED WITH 20130704_rev01 · ARCHIVE SNAPSHOT

Full text changes — 20130704_rev01 to 20131101_rev01

COLOUR MARKS THE SEVERITY OF A FLAGGED CLAUSE · + AND − MARK ADDED AND REMOVED

 **Description of Our Service**. The Service provides a comment platform that helps you build an active community from your website's audience. In addition to other functionalities, the Service provides: (i) a real-time comment system which allows real-time posting and updating; (ii) a notification and reply system that alerts users to responses and allows users to continue a conversation through email; (iii) inline media embedding that allows full integration with media services as well as being able to attach media such as photos and videos within comments; and (iv) mobile commenting to be able to comment on the go.
 **Eligibility**. You may use the Service only if you can form a binding contract with Disqus, and only in compliance with this Agreement and all applicable local, state, national, and international laws, rules and regulations. Any use or access to the Service by anyone under 13 is strictly prohibited and in violation of this Agreement. The Service is not available to any Users previously removed from the Service by Disqus.
 **Disqus Account**. Your Disqus account gives you access to the services and functionality that we may establish and maintain from time to time and in our sole discretion. We may maintain different types of accounts for different types of Users. If you open a Disqus account on behalf of a company, organization, or other entity, then (a) "you" includes you and that entity, and (b) you represent and warrant that you are an authorized representative of the entity with the authority to bind the entity to these Terms, and that you agree to these Terms on the entity's behalf. You may never use another User's account without permission. When creating your account, you must provide accurate and complete information. You are solely responsible for the activity that occurs on your account, and you must keep your account password secure. We encourage you to use "strong" passwords (passwords that use a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols) with your account. You must notify Disqus immediately of any breach of security or unauthorized use of your account. Disqus will not be liable for any losses caused by any unauthorized use of your account. You may control your User profile and how you interact with the Service by changing the settings in your [profile settings](http://disqus.com/account). By providing Disqus your email address, you consent to our using the email address to send you Service-related notices, including any notices required by law, in lieu of communication by postal mail. We may also use your email address to send you other messages, such as changes to features of the Service and special offers. If you do not want to receive such email messages, you may opt out or change your preferences in your [settings page](http://disqus.com/account). Opting out may prevent you from receiving email messages regarding updates, improvements, or offers.
+**Services Rules**. You agree not to engage in any of the following prohibited activities: (i) copying, distributing, or disclosing any part of the Service in any medium, including without limitation by any automated or non-automated "scraping" except for uses allowed under the "Feed and API" section below; (ii) using any automated system, including without limitation "robots," "spiders," "offline readers," etc., to access the Service in a manner that sends more request messages to the Disqus servers than a human can reasonably produce in the same period of time by using a conventional on-line web browser (except that Disqus grants the operators of public search engines revocable permission to use spiders to copy materials from disqus.com for the sole purpose of and solely to the extent necessary for creating publicly available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials); (iii) transmitting spam, chain letters, or other unsolicited email; (iv) attempting to interfere with, to compromise the system integrity or security or to decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running the Service; (v) taking any action that imposes, or may impose at our sole discretion an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure; (vi) uploading invalid data, viruses, worms, or other software agents through the Service; (vii) collecting or harvesting any personally identifiable information, including account names, from the Service; (viii) uploading, posting, transmitting, sharing, storing or otherwise making publicly available on the site, or other channels, any private, personally identifiable information of any third party, including, but not limited to: addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, Social Security numbers and credit card numbers; (ix) using the Service for any commercial solicitation purposes; (x) impersonating another person or otherwise misrepresenting your affiliation with a person or entity or conducting fraud; (xi) interfering with the proper working of the Service; (xii) accessing any content on the Service through any technology or means other than those provided or authorized by the Service or Disqus' written permission; or (xiii) bypassing the measures we may use to prevent or restrict access to the Service, including without limitation features that prevent or restrict use or copying of any content or enforce limitations on use of the Service or the content therein.
+**Service Rules**. You agree not to engage in any of the following prohibited activities: (i) copying, distributing, or disclosing any part of the Service in any medium, including without limitation by any automated or non-automated "scraping" except for uses allowed under the "Feed and API" section below; (ii) using any automated system, including without limitation "robots," "spiders," "offline readers," etc., to access the Service in a manner that sends more request messages to the Disqus servers than a human can reasonably produce in the same period of time by using a conventional on-line web browser (except that Disqus grants the operators of public search engines revocable permission to use spiders to copy materials from disqus.com for the sole purpose of and solely to the extent necessary for creating publicly available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials); (iii) transmitting spam, chain letters, or other unsolicited email; (iv) attempting to interfere with, to compromise the system integrity or security or to decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running the Service; (v) taking any action that imposes, or may impose at our sole discretion an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure; (vi) uploading invalid data, viruses, worms, or other software agents through the Service; (vii) collecting or harvesting any personally identifiable information, including account names, from the Service; (viii) uploading, posting, transmitting, sharing, storing or otherwise making publicly available on the site, or other channels, any private, personally identifiable information of any third party, including, but not limited to: addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, Social Security numbers and credit card numbers; (ix) using the Service for any commercial solicitation purposes; (x) impersonating another person or otherwise misrepresenting your affiliation with a person or entity or conducting fraud; (xi) interfering with the proper working of the Service; (xii) accessing any content on the Service through any technology or means other than those provided or authorized by the Service or Disqus' written permission; or (xiii) bypassing the measures we may use to prevent or restrict access to the Service, including without limitation features that prevent or restrict use or copying of any content or enforce limitations on use of the Service or the content therein.
 - Accessing the audiovisual content available on the Service for any purpose or in any manner other than Streaming (as defined below) is expressly prohibited. "Streaming" means a contemporaneous digital transmission of an audiovisual work via the Internet from the Disqus Service to a User's device in such a manner that the data is intended for real-time viewing and not intended to be copied, stored, permanently downloaded, or redistributed by the User.
 - We may, without prior notice, change the Service; stop providing the Service or features of the Service, to you or to users generally; or create usage limits for the Service. We may permanently or temporarily terminate or suspend your access to the Service without notice and liability for any reason, including if in our sole determination you violate any provision of these Terms, or for any or no reason. Upon termination for any reason or no reason, you continue to be bound by these Terms.
 - You are solely responsible for your interactions with other Disqus Users. We reserve the right, but have no obligation, to monitor disputes between you and other Users. Disqus shall have no liability for your interactions with other Users, or for any User's action or inaction.
 By posting any User Content on the Service, you expressly grant, and you represent and warrant that you have all rights necessary to grant, to Disqus a royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, worldwide license to use, reproduce, modify, publish, list information regarding, edit, translate, distribute, syndicate, publicly perform, publicly display, and make derivative works of all such User Content and your name, voice, and/or likeness as contained in your User Content, in whole or in part, and in any form, media or technology, whether now known or hereafter developed, for use in connection with the Service and Disqus' (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You also hereby grant each User of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your User Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display and perform such User Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms.
 ## Feeds and API
 Disqus provides access to portions of its Service via RSS feeds and an API; for the purposes of these Terms, such access constitutes use of the Service. Disqus asks that you use these features respectfully, and as may be outlined in any documentation that we provide. You may not use these or any other features of the Service itself to allow the display of a substantial portion of the Disqus database or reproduce, duplicate or copy any or all of the Disqus Service. Disqus reserves the right to change these features at any time and to disable access to the feeds and the API at any time for any reason or no reason.
+Disqus, the Disqus logo and the Disqus design are trademarks or trade dress of Disqus, and may not be used without express written permission from Disqus, other than for attribution, which is required via the display of the Disqus logo and marks and usage of the universal Disqus login option and commenter profiles as presented in the default themes, unless otherwise agreed in writing by Disqus. All other trademarks not owned by Disqus that appear on this Site are the property of their respective owners, who may or may not be affiliated with, connected to, or sponsored by Disqus. Except for your User Content, the Service and all materials therein or transferred thereby, including, without limitation, software, images, text, graphics, illustrations, logos, APIs, software, patents, trademarks, service marks, copyrights, photographs, audio, videos, music, and User Content belonging to other Users (the "Disqus Content"), and all Intellectual Property Rights related thereto, are the exclusive property of Disqus and its licensors (including other Users who post User Content to the Service). Except as explicitly provided herein, nothing in these Terms shall be deemed to create a license in or under any such Intellectual Property Rights, and you agree not to sell, license, rent, modify, distribute, copy, reproduce, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, adapt, edit or create derivative works from any Disqus Content. Use of the Disqus Content for any purpose not expressly permitted by these Terms is strictly prohibited.
+Disqus, the Disqus logo and the Disqus design are trademarks or trade dress of Disqus, and may not be used without express written permission from Disqus, other than for attribution. Attribution branding guidelines can be found at [http://disqus.com/brand/](http://disqus.com/brand/). Any application displaying a Disqus comment or user profile must display the Disqus social icon linking to [http://disqus.com/](http://disqus.com/), the comment timestamp linking to the comment permalink, and the Disqus username linking to the disqus.com user profile URL if the username is available.
+## Paid Services
+All other trademarks not owned by Disqus that appear on this Site are the property of their respective owners, who may or may not be affiliated with, connected to, or sponsored by Disqus. Except for your User Content, the Service and all materials therein or transferred thereby, including, without limitation, software, images, text, graphics, illustrations, logos, APIs, software, patents, trademarks, service marks, copyrights, photographs, audio, videos, music, and User Content belonging to other Users (the "Disqus Content"), and all Intellectual Property Rights related thereto, are the exclusive property of Disqus and its licensors (including other Users who post User Content to the Service). Except as explicitly provided herein, nothing in these Terms shall be deemed to create a license in or under any such Intellectual Property Rights, and you agree not to sell, license, rent, modify, distribute, copy, reproduce, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, adapt, edit or create derivative works from any Disqus Content. Use of the Disqus Content for any purpose not expressly permitted by these Terms is strictly prohibited.
+Certain aspects of the Service may be provided for a fee or other charge. If you elect to use paid aspects of the Service, you agree to the pricing and payment terms http://docs.disqus.com/help/51/, as we may update them from time to time. Disqus may add new services for additional fees and charges, or amend fees and charges for existing services, at any time in its sole discretion. Any change to our pricing or payment terms shall become effective in the billing cycle following notice of such change to you as provided in these Terms.
 ## Privacy
 We care about the privacy of our Users. You understand that by using the Services you consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personally identifiable information and aggregate data as set forth in our Privacy Policy http://docs.disqus.com/help/30/, and to have your personally identifiable information collected, used, transferred to and processed in the United States.
 ## DMCA Notice