Terms of Service

A1. Agreement to terms for Site use

By using the Site you agree to this Section A in addition to the rest of these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Site.

A2. Intellectual property rights

Unless otherwise indicated, the Site and its contents, including text, graphics, designs, logos, and software, are owned by or licensed to Plause and are protected by law. We grant you a limited, revocable license to access and use the Site for personal, educational, or internal business use. You may not copy, distribute, modify, reverse engineer, publicly display, or exploit Site content except as expressly permitted by these Terms.

A3. Prohibited activities on the Site

You agree not to harvest data from the Site without permission, use automated means other than standard web browsers or search engine crawlers, attempt to interfere with Site security or operation, upload or link to malicious code, harass or harm others, or use the Site in violation of law.

A4. Site management and corrections

We may monitor or remove content on the Site, change or discontinue any part of the Site, or limit access. The Site may contain errors. We may correct errors and update information without notice.

A5. Modifications and interruptions

We may update or suspend the Site at any time. We are not liable for unavailability or delays.

1. Scope and relationship to other policies

Your use of the Service is also governed by our Privacy Policy. If you are an institution that requires a Data Processing Addendum or similar agreement, contact us.

2. Eligibility and accounts

• You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you are under 18, you must have consent from a parent or legal guardian, or use the Service through an instructor or institution with authority to provide access.
• You must provide accurate account information and keep it up to date.
• You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your credentials and for all activity under your account.

3. Customer Data and User Content

• Customer Data means forms, templates, questions, rosters, targets, participants, course associations, submissions, feedback, analytics, metadata, and other content you upload, create, or generate in the Service.
• User Content means any other content you submit, including profile information, support messages, and feedback about the Service.
• You retain all rights to Customer Data and User Content. You grant Plause a worldwide, nonexclusive license to host, process, transmit, display, and create derivative works of Customer Data and User Content only as necessary to provide, maintain, secure, and improve the Service and as permitted by these Terms.
• You are responsible for Customer Data and User Content and for ensuring you have all rights necessary to submit them to the Service.

4. Classroom feedback and analytics

Plause helps users run structured feedback workflows, including form setup, reviewer submissions, target or team affiliation, release controls, aggregate results, target-specific results, and AI-assisted summaries. You understand and agree that:

• Feedback and analytics reflect user submissions, system calculations, and configuration choices that may contain errors or incomplete information.
• AI-assisted outputs can be inaccurate, incomplete, or otherwise unsuited for your use case. Independently verify results and avoid relying on AI where failure could cause harm.
• You will not treat analytics, target-specific feedback, or AI outputs as definitive evidence of performance, misconduct, grading outcomes, or student ability without appropriate human review and context.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• violate any law or the rights of others;
• upload, post, or transmit content that is illegal, harmful, deceptive, infringing, or defamatory;
• attempt to probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service or any related system or network;
• interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of the Service, including by imposing unreasonable load, scraping, or using bots or other automation outside documented product interfaces;
• attempt to access the Service or related systems without authorization or bypass rate limits or security controls;
• misrepresent the origin of content or remove, obscure, or alter provenance, release, access, or authorship indicators in the Service;
• use the Service to develop foundation models, train competing analytics or feedback systems using our outputs without consent, or extract datasets at scale.

6. Educational use and student records

If you are an educational institution, instructor, or TA in the United States:

• You are responsible for determining whether any student information constitutes education records under FERPA and for configuring your usage accordingly.
• If you designate Plause as a school official with a legitimate educational interest and execute a Data Processing Addendum or similar agreement, we will process student records only for educational purposes and in accordance with your instructions.
• You are responsible for providing any required notices or obtaining consents from students or guardians.

7. Third-party services and integrations

The Service may integrate with third-party services such as Google, Duke, Supabase, Vercel, OpenAI, or other providers. Your use of third-party services is governed by their terms. We may disable integrations that pose risk or are required to be disabled by the third party.

8. Beta, trial, and free features

We may offer free, trial, experimental, or beta features. Such features are provided as is and as available, may be withdrawn at any time, and may be subject to additional terms.

9. Ownership and license to the Service

The Service, including software, user interfaces, templates, documentation, and all related intellectual property, is owned by Plause and its licensors. Except for the rights expressly granted in these Terms, we reserve all rights. You receive a limited, nonexclusive, nontransferable, revocable license to access and use the Service for your personal, educational, or internal purposes while you are authorized to use the Service.

10. Feedback

If you provide feedback, suggestions, or ideas about the Service, you grant Plause a perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable, sublicensable, royalty-free license to use and exploit that feedback for any purpose without obligation to you.

11. Confidentiality

Each party may disclose confidential information to the other. The receiving party will protect the disclosing party's confidential information with reasonable care and use it only for the purpose of performing under these Terms. These obligations do not apply to information that is public, already known, independently developed, or rightfully obtained from a third party without confidentiality obligations.

12. Security and data retention

We implement reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect Customer Data. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure. You are responsible for maintaining appropriate backups of Customer Data where appropriate. Upon request or termination, you may request export or deletion of Customer Data where available and legally permitted. We may retain backups for a limited time for security, compliance, and audit purposes.

13. Service changes and availability

We may change or discontinue the Service, features, or access models. We aim to avoid breaking changes and to provide notice where feasible. The Service may be unavailable from time to time due to maintenance, outages, or factors outside our control.

14. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service if you breach these Terms, if required by law, or to address security or operational risks. You may stop using the Service at any time. Upon termination, your license ends and you must stop using the Service. Sections that by their nature should survive termination will survive, including ownership, confidentiality, disclaimers, limitations of liability, indemnities, and dispute resolution.

15. Disclaimers

The Site and Service are provided as is and as available. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, whether express, implied, or statutory, including any warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Site or Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, or that analytics, feedback summaries, AI outputs, or access decisions will be accurate or suitable for your purposes.

16. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, in no event will Plause be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or any loss of profits, revenues, data, goodwill, or business opportunities, arising out of or related to your use of or inability to use the Site or Service, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. Our total liability for all claims in the aggregate is limited to 100 dollars.

17. Indemnification

You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Plause, its affiliates, and their officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising from or related to your use of the Service, your Customer Data or User Content, or your violation of these Terms or applicable law.

18. DMCA and copyright policy

We respect intellectual property rights. If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, please send a notice to ryanjbolick@gmail.com with: a description of the work, the URL of the allegedly infringing material, your contact information, a statement that you have a good faith belief the use is not authorized, a statement under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act, and your physical or electronic signature. We may remove content and terminate repeat infringers.

19. Export and sanctions

You may not use the Service if you are located in a country embargoed by the United States or if you are on a U.S. government denied parties list. You must comply with all applicable export control and sanctions laws.

20. Government use

The Service is commercial computer software. If used by or on behalf of the U.S. Government, use, duplication, or disclosure is subject to the restrictions in FAR 12.212 and DFARS 227.7202, as applicable.

21. Dispute resolution and governing law

• These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina, without regard to conflict of laws rules.
• Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Arbitration Rules. The arbitration will take place in Wake County, North Carolina, in English, before a single arbitrator. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court with jurisdiction.
• Class action waiver: disputes will be resolved only on an individual basis and not in a class, consolidated, or representative action.
• Opt out: you may opt out of arbitration by emailing ryanjbolick@gmail.com within 30 days of first accepting these Terms. If you opt out, you agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in Wake County, North Carolina.

22. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will provide notice, such as by email or in product. The updated Terms will be effective on the date stated in the notice. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

23. General terms

• Entire agreement: These Terms, together with any order form, DPA, or similar agreement you execute with us, are the entire agreement between you and Plause regarding the Service and supersede any prior agreements.
• Assignment: You may not assign these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
• Severability: If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full force.
• No waiver: A failure to enforce any right is not a waiver.
• Notices: We may provide notices via the Service, email, or your account. You consent to electronic communications regarding the Service and these Terms.

24. Definitions

• AI features: Model-driven capabilities that generate, summarize, classify, or transform content.
• Customer Data: Content, data, and files you or your users submit to or generate in the Service.
• Service: Plause product and apps made available by Plause.
• Site: Plause public website and marketing pages.
• Student records: Education records subject to FERPA when used by U.S. institutions.
• User Content: Content you submit to the Service not otherwise covered as Customer Data, including feedback and public posts.