Terms of Use — Gradient

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From everyone at Gradient, thank you for visiting our website! We build them to help you do your best work. Because we don't know every one of our users personally, we have to put in place some Terms of Service to help keep the ship afloat.

When we say “we”, “our”, or “us” in this document, we are referring to Gradient.

When we say “Services”, we mean any of the websites created and maintained by Gradient.

When we say “You” or “your”, we are referring to the people or organizations that use our Services.

We may update these Terms of Service in the future. You can track all changes made on GitHub. Typically these changes have been to clarify some of these terms by linking to an expanded related policy.

When you use our Services, now or in the future, you are agreeing to the latest Terms of Service. That's true for any of our existing and future products and all features that we add to our Services over time. There may be times where we do not exercise or enforce any right or provision of the Terms of Service; in doing so, we are not waiving that right or provision. These terms do contain a limitation of our liability.

Modifications to the Service

We make a promise to our users to support our Services. That means when it comes to security, privacy, and user support, we will continue to maintain any legacy Services. Sometimes it becomes technically impossible to continue a feature or we redesign a part of our Services because we think it could be better. We reserve the right at any time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, any part of our Services with or without notice.

Uptime, Security, and Privacy

Your use of the Services is at your sole risk. We provide these Services on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We do not offer service-level agreements for most of our Services - but do take uptime of our applications seriously.
We take many measures to protect and secure your data through backups, redundancies, and encryption. We enforce encryption for data transmission from the public Internet. There are some edge cases where we may send your data through our network unencrypted.
When you use our Services, you entrust us with your data. We take that trust to heart. You agree that Gradient may process your data as described in our Privacy Policy and for no other purpose. We as humans can access your data for the following reasons:
- To help you with support requests you make.
- On the rare occasions when an error occurs that stops an automated process partway through. We get automated alerts when such errors occur. When we can fix the issue and restart automated processing without looking at any personal data, we do. In rare cases, we have to look at a minimum amount of personal data to fix the issue. In these rare cases, we aim to fix the root cause as much as possible to avoid the errors from reoccurring.
- To safeguard Gradient. We'll look at logs and metadata as part of our work to ensure the security of your data and the Services as a whole.
- To the extent required by applicable law. As an organization with all data infrastructure located in the US, we only preserve or share user data if compelled by a US government authority with a legally binding order or proper request under the Stored Communications Act. If a non-US authority approaches Gradient for assistance, our default stance is to refuse unless the order has been approved by the US government, which compels us to comply through procedures outlined in an established mutual legal assistance treaty or agreement mechanism. If Gradient is audited by a tax authority, we only share the bare minimum billing information needed to complete the audit.
We use third party vendors and hosting partners to provide the necessary hardware, software, networking, storage, and related technology required to run the Services.
Under the California Consumer Privacy Act (“CCPA”), Gradient is a “service provider”, not a “business” or “third party”, with respect to your use of the Services. That means we process any data you share with us only for the purpose you signed up for and as described in these Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. We do not retain, use, disclose, or sell any of that information for any other commercial purposes unless we have your explicit permission. And on the flip-side, you agree to comply with your requirements under the CCPA and not use Gradient’s Services in a way that violates the regulations.

Copyright and Content Ownership

All content posted on the Services must comply with U.S. copyright law.
We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Services. All materials uploaded remain yours.
We do not pre-screen content, but reserve the right (but not the obligation) in our sole discretion to refuse or remove any content that is available via the Service.
You must not modify another website so as to falsely imply that it is associated with the Services or Gradient.

Features and Bugs

We design our Services with care, based on our own experience and the experiences of users who share their time and feedback. However, there is no such thing as a service that pleases everybody. We make no guarantees that our Services will meet your specific requirements or expectations.

We also test all of our features extensively before shipping them. As with any software, our Services inevitably have some bugs. We track the bugs reported to us and work through priority ones, especially any related to security or privacy. Not all reported bugs will get fixed and we don't guarantee completely error-free Services.

Services Adaptations and API Terms

We offer Application Program Interfaces ("API"s) for some of our Services. Any use of the API, including through a third-party product that accesses the Services, is bound by the terms of this agreement plus the following specific terms:

You expressly understand and agree that we are not liable for any damages or losses resulting from your use of the API or third-party products that access data via the API.
Third parties may not access and employ the API if the functionality is part of an application that remotely records, monitors, or reports a Service user's activity other than time tracking, both inside and outside the applications. Gradient, in its sole discretion, will determine if an integration service violates this bylaw. A third party that has built and deployed an integration for the purpose of remote user surveillance will be required to remove that integration.
Abuse or excessively frequent requests to the Services via the API may result in the temporary or permanent suspension of your IP address's access to the API. Gradient, in its sole discretion, will determine abuse or excessive usage of the API. If we need to suspend your IP address's access, we will attempt to warn the address owner first. If your API usage could or has caused downtime, we may cut off access without prior notice.

Some third-party providers have created integrations between our Services and theirs.

Liability

We mention liability throughout these Terms but to put it all in one section:

You expressly understand and agree that Gradient shall not be liable, in law or in equity, to you or to any third party for any direct, indirect, incidental, lost profits, special, consequential, punitive or exemplary damages, including, but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data or other intangible losses (even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages), resulting from: (i) the use or the inability to use the Services; (ii) the cost of procurement of substitute goods and services resulting from any goods, data, information or services purchased or obtained or messages received or transactions entered into through or from the Services; (iii) unauthorized access to or alteration of your transmissions or data; (iv) statements or conduct of any third party on the service; (v) or any other matter relating to this Terms of Service or the Services, whether as a breach of contract, tort (including negligence whether active or passive), or any other theory of liability.

If you have a question about any of the Terms of Service, please contact us at support@gradient.pub.

Adapted from the Basecamp open-source policies / CC BY 4.0.