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Terms of Use

as adopted by the GeyserTimes Board of Directors on 17 December 2022

Part A. Terms and Conditions​

Article A1. General Terms​

Section A1.01 Services​

Thank you for using the GeyserTimes platform. These terms cover your use of services officially operated and provided by GeyserTimes. In particular these are:

  • the geysertimes.org website and associated services and APIs,
  • the GeyserTimes data distribution,
  • the GeyserTimes for Android app,
  • the GeyserTimes for iOS app,
  • the GeyserTimes dashboard and webcam chat, and
  • the GeyserTimes assistants for Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa;

(together, the "Services").

Section A1.02 Service Provider​

The entity providing the Services is GeyserTimes, a nonprofit organization (Employer Identification Number: 84-3245322) located in Salt Lake City, Utah 84116, United States of America (referred to as "GeyserTimes", "we", "us", or "our").

Section A1.03 Agreement to Terms​

By using these Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Use, as updated from time to time (collectively, the "Terms"). Please read them carefully. If you do not agree to these Terms, you may not use the Services.

Section A1.04 Use by Entity​

If you are entering into this agreement on behalf of your company or another legal entity, you represent that you have the authority to bind that entity to these Terms, in which case "you" will mean the entity you represent.

Section A1.05 GeyserTimes as Host​

GeyserTimes is a collaborative project. A volunteer group operates the infrastructure and websites, but content, including observation data, comments, and forums, are contributed by users. While it is a goal of the GeyserTimes project to facilitate an accurate open database of geyser activity throughout the world, GeyserTimes does not and cannot proactively review all contributions and other edits. Therefore, we do not represent or guarantee the truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any submitted community content. Suspected data problems may be reported to the Board of Directors.

Section A1.06 Responsibility of Actions​

You are responsible for your own actions. You are legally responsible for your contributions and edits, so for your own protection you should exercise caution and avoid contributing any content that may result in criminal or civil liability under any applicable laws. Although we may not agree with such actions, we warn contributors and editors that authorities may seek to apply other countries’ laws to you, including local laws where you live, or where you view or edit content. GeyserTimes generally cannot offer any protection, guarantee, immunity, or indemnification.

Section A1.07 Database and Contents​

The GeyserTimes database available through these Services is licensed under the Open Database License 1.0. Rights in individual contents of the database are licensed under the Database Contents License 1.0. Contributions of data, comments, notes, images, materials, and/or any other content (collectively, "Contents") to GeyserTimes are governed by Part C.

Section A1.08 Acknowledgement and Citation​

In addition and supplemental to the licenses of the database and its contents, you agree to acknowledge and cite GeyserTimes, where applicable, when using the Services. Bibliographic citations should provide individual contributors and copyright owners as authors. When citing specific contributors is either impossible due to lack of information or unreasonable, provide the phrase "GeyserTimes contributors" for citing data contributors to the extent permitted under the licenses and applicable law. Use "GeyserTimes" when referring to the publisher and "GeyserTimes developers" when referring to the Services provider.

Section A1.09 Suspension of Services​

Though we hope GeyserTimes and its projects will continue for the foreseeable future, we reserve the right to suspend or end the Services at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice.

Article A2. Privacy​

Section A2.01 Privacy Policy​

Review the terms of our Privacy Policy, so that you are aware of how we collect and use your information.

Because our Services are used by people all over the world, personal information that we collect may be stored and processed in any other country in which we or our agents maintain facilities. You consent to any such transfer of information outside your country by using our Services.

Section A2.02 User Accounts​

Certain aspects of the Services require you to have a GeyserTimes account and to be logged into that account while you access those aspects.

You agree to keep the contact information associated with your GeyserTimes account current and complete. Your contact information will be used in accordance with the Privacy Policy.

Section A2.03 Use by Minors​

You must be 13 years or older to use the Services.

If you are at least 13 but under 16 years of age, a parent or other adult authorized by your parent may create an account for you to use. The account must not contain any personal data about you, and you must not add any personal data about yourself. For example, your parent may create an account using your parent’s email address and a username that is not associated with you, which your parent may permit you to use to contribute content. For your protection, you are not allowed to use any social aspects of the Services (such as the webcam chat), but you may contribute geyser-related data. You should not reveal any personal data in any communications you have regarding your data contributions.

By registering as a user or providing personal information on the Services, you represent that you are at least 16 years old.

Article A3. Use of Services​

You are solely responsible for your compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and third party agreements in your use of the Services. You represent that you are not, and are not controlled by, an individual, organization or entity organized or located in a country or territory that is the target of sanctions imposed, or on any restricted or sanctioned party list maintained by the United States of America.

Section A3.02 Prohibited Use​

You may not use the Services in any manner that could damage or overburden the Services or interfere with any other party's use of the Services.

Section A3.03 Agreement to Policies​

You agree to abide by any other policies posted on the GeyserTimes website in conjunction with these Services, including but not limited to accompanying Services’ documentation. Those policies are incorporated by reference into these Terms.

Section A3.04 Unlawful and Unauthorized Uses​

You may not use the Services to:

  • disseminate or store material that infringes the copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other intellectual property right of any person;
  • impersonate any person, create a false identity (a pseudonym does not count as a false identity) or otherwise attempt to mislead others as to the identity or origin of any communication, or engage in fraud;
  • interfere with or attempt to gain unauthorized access to any computer network;
  • host with, transmit to, or provide to us any information that is subject to specific United States or Utah government regulation, including, without limitation, personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious, or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, or genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health, data concerning a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation, or data relating to criminal convictions and offences or related security measures, and information subject to export control or economic sanction laws;
  • operate dangerous businesses, where the use or failure of the Services could lead to death, personal injury, or significant property damage;
  • transmit viruses, trojan horses, or any other malicious code or program;
  • engage in any form of unsolicited advertising;
  • recreate or proxy any part of the Services in order to evade these Terms (including aiding anyone else in doing so);
  • store data available through the Services in order to evade these Terms (including aiding anyone else in doing so); or,
  • engage in any other activity reasonably deemed by GeyserTimes to be in conflict with the spirit or intent of these Terms.

Section A3.05 Restrictions on Use of Personal Data​

Through your GeyserTimes account, you may have access to some personal data from other GeyserTimes contributors. You may not use, store, or process any personal data available through the Services for any purpose other than:

  • if you are a natural person, in the course of a purely personal or household activity;
  • as necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which you are subject;
  • as necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest;
  • as necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by you or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data, in particular where the data subject is a child; or,
  • any other purpose authorized by the General Data Privacy Regulation.

For the avoidance of doubt, you may not use personal data available through the Services to:

  • attempt to re-identify any natural person;
  • attempt to stalk or harass any natural person;
  • gather or collect email addresses or real names without express consent; or,
  • seek personal data from any minor without the express consent of their parent or legal guardian.

Section A3.06 Legitimate Interest for Use of Personal Data​

To fulfill the goal of distributing data that is truly open, untethered by rights of third parties and of high quality, we do not support anonymous contributions and retain additional, non-geographic, data on a legitimate interest base (see GDPR article 6.1f). Common legitimate interests for which GeyserTimes and users of the GeyserTimes platform often process personal data include content editing and data integrity efforts that involve:

  • identifying all the contributions made by an account;
  • contacting the contributor in the case of questions in respect to the nature and source of the contributions;
  • detection, removal and correction of spam accounts, vandalism and violations of the rights of third parties;
  • facilitating communication between GeyserTimes contributors;
  • research and analysis on aggregate contributions to improve or prioritize Services, such as evaluating data completeness.

Article A4. User Accounts​

Section A4.01 Account Use​

You are free to stop using the Services any time.

Section A4.02 Account Termination​

In addition, we may cancel or suspend your account for violation of any policy. Upon cancellation or suspension, your right to use the Services will stop immediately. Attempting to evade a cancellation or suspension (such as by creating a new account or using an alternate account) is a violation of these Terms.

You may not have access to data that you stored on the Services after we cancel or suspend your account. You are responsible for backing up data that you use with the Services.

If your account or access is blocked or otherwise terminated for any reason, your public contributions will remain publicly available (subject to applicable policies), and, unless we notify you otherwise, you may still access our public pages for the sole purpose of reading publicly available content. In such circumstances, however, you may not be able to access your account or settings.

Even after your use and participation are banned, blocked, or otherwise suspended, these entire Terms of Use will remain in effect with respect to relevant provisions.

Article A5. End Users​

Section A5.01 Efforts for Prevention of Violation of Terms​

You may not permit your end users or other third parties to use the Services in any way that would be a violation of these Terms if done by you, and you agree to take reasonable efforts to prevent such use. You agree to promptly notify GeyserTimes in writing if you become aware of any misappropriation or unauthorized use of the Services.

Article A6. Additional Terms​

Section A6.01 Intellectual Property​

You agree that we may freely exploit and make available any and all feedback, suggestions, ideas, enhancement requests, recommendations, or other information you provide relating to the Services.

Section A6.02 Validity and Enforceability of Terms​

If any provision of these Terms is held to be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable from these Terms and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions. Headings, design elements, and other formatting are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect.

Section A6.03 Relationship with GeyserTimes​

You agree that no joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship exists between you and GeyserTimes as a result of these Terms or your use of the Services. You further acknowledge no confidential, fiduciary, contractually implied, or other relationship is created between you and GeyserTimes other than pursuant to these Terms.

Part B. Contents Contribution​

Article B1. Intellectual Property​

We respect the intellectual property rights of others and we need to be able to respond to any objections by intellectual property owners. This means that:

  • Your contribution of data should not infringe the intellectual property rights of anyone else. If you contribute Contents, you are indicating that, as far as you know, you have the right to authorize GeyserTimes to use and distribute those Contents under our current license terms. If you do not have that right, you risk having your contribution deleted.
  • Please note that GeyserTimes does not have to include Contents you contribute, and may remove your contributions at any time. For example, if we suspect that any contributed data is incompatible (in the sense that we could not continue to lawfully distribute it) with whichever license or licenses we are then using, then we may delete that data.

Article B2. Granted Rights​

Subject to Article B3 and Article B4 below, you hereby grant to GeyserTimes a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable license to do any act that is restricted by copyright, database right, or any related right over anything within the Contents, whether in the original medium or any other. These rights explicitly include commercial use, and do not exclude any field of endeavor. These rights include, without limitation, the right to sub-license the work through multiple tiers of sub-licensees and to sue for any copyright violation directly connected with GeyserTimes's rights under these terms. To the extent allowable under applicable local laws and copyright conventions, you also waive and/or agree not to assert against GeyserTimes or its licensees any moral rights that you may have in the Contents.

Article B3. Use and Sub-licensing of Contents​

GeyserTimes agrees that it may only use or sub-license your Contents as part of a database and only under the terms of one or more of the following licenses: the Open Database License 1.0 for the database and the Database Contents License 1.0 for the individual contents of the database; the CC-BY-SA 4.0 license; or such other free and open license (for example, http://www.opendefinition.org/okd/) as may from time to time be chosen by a vote of the GeyserTimes Board of Directors.

Article B4. Attribution​

At your or the copyright owner’s option, GeyserTimes agrees to attribute you or the copyright owner. The common mechanism for such attribution for GeyserTimes is to use the auto-populated "entrant" and/or user-contributed "observer" fields.

Article B5. Reserved Rights​

Except as set forth herein, you reserve all right, title, and interest in, and to your Contents.

Article B6. Limitation of Liability​

To the extent permitted by applicable law, you provide the Contents "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including without limitation any warranties or conditions of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or otherwise.

Subject to any liability that may not be excluded or limited by law, neither you nor GeyserTimes shall be liable for any special, indirect, incidental, consequential, punitive, or exemplary damages under these Terms, however caused and under any theory of liability. This exclusion applies even if either party has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Article C1. Disputes and Jurisdiction​

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We hope that no serious disagreements arise involving you, but, in the event there is a dispute, we encourage you to seek resolution through the dispute resolution procedures or mechanisms provided by the Services, such as by contacting the GeyserTimes Board of Directors.

If you seek to file a legal claim against us, you agree to file and resolve it exclusively in a court located in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America. You also agree that the laws of the State of Utah and, to the extent applicable, the laws of the United States of America will govern these Terms, as well as any legal claim that might arise between you and us (without reference to conflict of laws principles). You agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of, and agree that venue is proper in, the courts located in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States of America, in any legal action or proceeding relating to us or these Terms.

To ensure that disputes are dealt with soon after they arise, you agree that regardless of any statute or law to the contrary, any claim or cause of action you might have arising out of or related to use of our Services or these Terms must be filed within the applicable statute of limitations or, if earlier, one (1) year after the pertinent facts underlying such claim or cause of action could have been discovered with reasonable diligence (or be forever barred).

As stated above, the Terms of Use shall be governed by the laws of the State of Utah and United States of America without regard to principles of conflict of law. In the event of invalidity of any provision of these Terms, the parties agree that such invalidity shall not affect the validity of the remaining portions of these Terms. This is the entire agreement between you and GeyserTimes which supersedes any prior agreement, whether written, oral, or other, relating to the subject matter of these Terms.

Article C2. Disclaimers​

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Your use of the Services is at your sole risk. We provide the Services on an "as is" and "as available" basis, and we expressly disclaim all express or implied warranties of all kinds, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We make no warranty that our Services will meet your requirements, be safe, secure, uninterrupted, timely, accurate, or error-free, or that your information will be secure.

We are not responsible for the content, data, or actions of third parties, and you release us, our directors, officers, employees, and agents from any claims and damages, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with any claim you have against any such third parties. No advice or information, whether oral or written, obtained by you from us or through our Services creates any warranty not expressly stated in these Terms.

Any material downloaded or otherwise obtained through your use of our Services is done at your own discretion and risk, and you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from the download of any such material. You agree that we have no responsibility or liability for the deletion of, or the failure to store or to transmit, any content or communication maintained by the service. We retain the right to create limits on use and storage at our sole discretion at any time with or without notice.

We may add, change, replace, remove, or discontinue the features and functions of the Services, including APIs. It is your responsibility to ensure that calls or requests you make to the Services are compatible with then-current APIs and authentication methods, and that you handle responses properly.

Some states or jurisdictions do not allow the types of disclaimers in this section, so they may not apply to you either in part or in full depending on the law.

Article C3. Limitation on Liability​

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GeyserTimes will not be liable to you or to any other party for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or exemplary damages, including but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data, or other intangible losses, regardless of whether we were advised of the possibility of such damage. In no event shall our liability exceed one thousand U.S. dollars (USD $1000.00) in aggregate. In the case that applicable law may not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability or incidental or consequential damages, the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you, although our liability will be limited to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law.

Article C4. Changes to Terms​

We may modify these Terms and other terms related to your use of the Services (like our Privacy Policy) from time to time, by posting the changed terms on the GeyserTimes website. All changes will be effective immediately upon posting to the GeyserTimes website unless they specify a later date. Changes will not apply retroactively. Please check these Terms periodically for changes – your continued use of the Services after new Terms become effective constitutes your binding acceptance of the new Terms.

The text of these Terms of Use is adapted from the Wikimedia Foundation Terms of Use and OpenStreetMap Foundation Terms of Use and is available under a CC BY-SA 3.0 license, and from the OpenStreetMap Contributor Terms under a CC BY-SA 2.0 license.