Terms of Service

The open source project is separate

Changes to these terms

Account terms

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and password, and for making sure the people you invite into your account do the same. We cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage from your failure to meet this obligation.
You may not use the Services for any purpose described in our Acceptable Use policy, and you may not permit anyone in your account to do so either.
You are responsible for all content and activity under your account, including that of any teammate you invite.
You must be a human, and at least 18 years old. Accounts registered by bots or other automated methods are not permitted.
You must provide a valid email address. We use it to reach you about your account — verification, billing, service notices, and the like — so it needs to work.
The Services are for business use only. By using them you represent that you are doing so on behalf of a business or in your professional capacity, and not as a consumer.
If you accept these Terms on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have the authority to bind it, and "you" means that organization.

What Elmo does, and what it doesn't promise

We do not guarantee that Elmo's measurements are complete, exact, or reproducible, and we make no promise about the availability, behavior, or output of any third-party answer engine we track.
Elmo's output is information, not advice. Decisions you make based on it are yours.
Third-party model and search providers are not parties to these Terms and owe you nothing under them.
We may add, change, or remove tracked platforms and models as those products and our access to them change.

Payment, refunds, and plan changes

Paid plans are billed in advance, through our payment processor, on the interval you choose.
Card details go to our payment processor rather than to us. We keep the billing and subscription records that go with your account.
If a payment fails, we may retry it and let you know. If it stays unpaid, we may suspend the account until it's settled, and eventually close it.
Plan changes, and any proration, are applied as shown when you make them.
All fees are exclusive of taxes, levies, and duties. Where we are required to collect them we will, and remit them to the relevant authority. Otherwise you are responsible for them.
Fees are non-refundable, except where required by law or where we choose to issue a refund at our discretion. If you think you were charged in error, email us. We don't prorate unused time when you cancel mid-cycle.
We may change our prices. A price change for an existing subscription takes effect from the next billing period after we've notified you.

Cancellation and termination

You can cancel your subscription yourself from the billing settings in your account. An email or a message to us is not, by itself, a cancellation — though we're happy to help if you're stuck.
When you cancel, we won't bill you again. You'll normally keep access until the end of the period you already paid for.
Cancelling ends the subscription and stops Elmo collecting anything new. It is not, by itself, a deletion request — but it is not a promise to keep anything either. If there is anything in the account you want, ask us for a copy before you cancel. If you want it deleted instead, ask us that — see Data retention. And if you leave the account dormant, we may close it under the next clause.
We may close accounts that have gone unpaid or unused for a long stretch.
We have the right to suspend or terminate any account, and to refuse the Services to anyone, for any reason and at any time. Termination may result in deletion of the account and the content in it.
Verbal, physical, written, or other abuse — including threats — directed at anyone who works on Elmo may result in immediate termination.

Modifications to the Services

Uptime, security, and privacy

Your use of the Services is at your sole risk. We provide them on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We do not offer a service-level agreement on self-serve plans, but we take uptime seriously — see status.elmohq.com for the hosted service and our provider status page for the answer engines we track.
We may temporarily throttle or disable an account whose usage significantly exceeds normal usage and degrades the service for other customers.
We use reasonable safeguards to protect your data, but no system is perfectly secure and we can't guarantee that yours will never be accessed, disclosed, or lost. If you find a security problem, please tell us at security@elmohq.com rather than disclosing it publicly.
You agree that we may process the data in your account as described in our Privacy Policy. We may access it to provide, support, secure, maintain, and improve the Services, to investigate suspected abuse or violations of these Terms, and where we believe in good faith that the law requires it.
We use third-party vendors to run the Services. The current list is published at Subprocessors.
If the EU GDPR, the UK GDPR, or the Swiss FADP applies to your use of the Services, we will enter into a data processing addendum with you covering that processing, including the applicable Standard Contractual Clauses. Email privacy@elmohq.com and we'll get one to you.

Content ownership

All content you put into the Services must comply with U.S. law and with our Acceptable Use policy.
You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, copy, process, and use the content in your account to provide, maintain, secure, and improve the Services. We claim no ownership over it. What you submit remains yours.
We do not pre-screen content, but we reserve the right — not the obligation — to refuse or remove any content in our sole discretion.
We may use aggregated and de-identified data derived from the Services — data that does not identify you or your organization — for any purpose, including operating, securing, and improving Elmo and publishing research.
If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without any obligation to you.
Blue Whale Software and its licensors own all right, title, and interest in the Services, including all intellectual property rights in them, except for the parts published under the MIT License in our public repository. You must ask before using the Elmo name or logo for promotional purposes; see our brand assets for what's already permitted.

Features and bugs

API terms

You expressly understand and agree that we are not liable for any damages or losses resulting from your use of the API, or from third-party products that access your data through it.
Abuse, or excessively frequent requests, may result in temporary or permanent suspension of your account's API access. We determine what counts as abuse or excessive use.
You may not use the API to build a product that resells Elmo's measurements as a competing visibility-tracking service.

Indemnification

Disclaimer of warranties

Liability

Disputes and arbitration

Informal resolution first. Before starting an arbitration, the party raising a dispute must send the other a written description of it — to hello@elmohq.com if you're raising it, or to your account email if we are — and both of us will try in good faith to resolve it for 30 days.
Binding arbitration. Any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services that isn't resolved informally will be resolved by final and binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Arbitration Rules, before a single arbitrator. The arbitration may be conducted by video conference or in writing; any in-person hearing will be held in California. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court with jurisdiction. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this section.
Exceptions. Either of us may bring an individual claim in small claims court, and either of us may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in court to protect intellectual property or to stop unauthorized use of the Services.
No class actions. Disputes will be arbitrated or litigated only on an individual basis. Neither of us may bring or participate in a class, collective, consolidated, or representative action, and the arbitrator may not consolidate claims or award relief to anyone other than the individual party. If this paragraph is found unenforceable as to a particular claim, that claim will be decided in court and not in arbitration.
Jury waiver. Where a dispute proceeds in court rather than arbitration, you and we each waive any right to a jury trial.
Time limit. To the extent permitted by law, any claim must be brought within one year after it arose, or it is permanently barred.
Changes to this section don't apply to a dispute that either of us had notified the other of before the change.

Governing law

General

Force majeure. We are not liable for any delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including natural disasters, pandemics, war, terrorism, civil unrest, labor disputes, government action, and failures of the internet, utilities, or third-party providers — including the answer engines and data providers the Services depend on.
Sanctions and export control. You represent that you are not located in, or organized under the laws of, a country or region subject to comprehensive U.S. sanctions, and that you are not on, or owned or controlled by anyone on, a U.S. government list of prohibited or restricted parties. You will not use the Services, or let anyone else use them, in violation of U.S. or other applicable export control or sanctions laws.
Electronic communications and notices. You consent to receive communications from us electronically and agree that they satisfy any legal requirement that a communication be in writing. We may give you notice by email to the address on your account or through the Services, and it is effective when sent. You may give us notice at hello@elmohq.com.
Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the policies they reference, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Services and supersede any prior agreements or understandings about them. If you have a separate agreement with us signed by both parties, it controls where it conflicts with these Terms.
Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign or transfer them without restriction.
Relationship. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, agency, fiduciary, or employment relationship. There are no third-party beneficiaries to these Terms.
Severability and waiver. If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, it will be limited to the minimum extent necessary and the rest stays in effect. Our failure to exercise or enforce any right or provision is not a waiver of it.
Survival. Any provision that by its nature should survive the end of your use of the Services survives, including those on payment, content ownership, indemnification, disclaimers, liability, disputes, and governing law.

Questions

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