Open Badges Services Terms of Service

Last Updated May 19, 2014

Summary

This top section summarizes the terms below. This summary is provided to help your understanding of the terms, but be sure to read the entire document, because when you agree to it, you are indicating you accept all of the terms, not just this summary.

Terms of Service

Introduction

BadgeKit and the Mozilla Backpack are platforms for educators, nonprofits, and others that support Mozilla’s Open Badges Infrastructure for issuing, earning, and displaying “badges,” which are digital symbols of recognition.

The BadgeKit website and API are designed for badge “Issuers,” individuals or entities that create, publish, approve, and award badges. Issuers can create new badges from scratch or from existing templates. They can share draft badges with others for input and can publish the badges on third-party Issuer websites, where they become available to be earned. BadgeKit also provides an interface for Issuers to review badge earners’ badge applications and award badges. An “Earner” is anyone who earns a badge. Earners do not interface with the BadgeKit site; Earners apply for badges, submit “Evidence” content in support of their applications, and display their badges all on third-party Issuer sites. Earners may manage earned badges in “Badge Backpacks,” which are badge repositories and user management interfaces where badge Earners can collect, display, group, and delete badges from a variety of sources. The “Mozilla Backpack” is Mozilla’s own hosted instance of a Badge Backpack.

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of the Services.

Eligibility

By using the Services, you agree that: (i) you are at least 18 years old or are acting with the consent and supervision of your parent, and that you are regardless at least 13 years of age; and (ii) you have full power, capacity, and authority to accept these Terms on behalf of yourself, or if applicable, your employer or other entity that you represent. If you are entering this agreement on behalf of an employer or other entity, references to “you” in these Terms refer to such entity as well as to you.

Privacy Policy

The Mozilla Websites Privacy Notice provides details on what we receive from your use of the Services and how we use that information to provide the Services to you.

Your Submissions

“Your Submissions” include any information or content you may upload in relation to your badges. As an Issuer, you may upload badge graphics, badge descriptions, Earner feedback, and other content as part of the features of BadgeKit; Your Submissions also include badges designed by you in the BadgeKit website. As an Earner, you may push badges and other content to the Mozilla Backpack as a part of the features of the Mozilla Backpack. By uploading or creating Your Submissions, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, license to use Your Submissions in connection with the provision of the Services. This license exists for as long as you elect to include Your Submissions on the Services. BadgeKit may provide you with an option to apply Creative Commons licenses to the badges you create. If you choose to remove Your Submissions and/or account from BadgeKit, remember that any use of Your Submissions by another user pursuant to your licensing terms may remain within BadgeKit or elsewhere.

You hereby represent and warrant that: (i) You have and will maintain all necessary rights to post, display, perform, use, reproduce and transmit Your Submissions, worldwide, as well as the rights to authorize others (including Mozilla) to do the same; (ii) Your Submissions will not infringe the rights of any third party and will comply with the below content guidelines as well as any other content guidelines presented by Mozilla. We may remove Your Submissions at any time at our sole discretion if we determine that they violate our content policies or are otherwise objectionable.

Your Content and your use of the Services may not:

This list is illustrative, not definitive, and may be updated.

Responsibility for Content

You are solely responsible for the information and content you make available through the Services. Mozilla does not monitor or control such information and content, and Mozilla makes no representation or warranty about its accuracy or integrity.

Badge Issuing

Badges may only contain the graphical representation of the badge, the badge name, the Issuer’s name, specific data about what the badge means (such as the badge description, criteria for earning the badge, an expiration date), an Earner’s encrypted email address, feedback for the Earner, and a URL pointing to Earner Evidence. If you are an Issuer awarding a badge through BadgeKit, you will be required to upload the email address of the badge Earner. Mozilla creates a hash of that email address, which is used for verification purposes, and then deletes the email address. Mozilla does not use this information for any other purpose. Also note that Mozilla does not host or store any Evidence; all such hosting and storage is the responsibility of the Issuer. If you are an Issuer acting on behalf of yourself and you choose to name yourself as the issuing organization, be aware that your name may be publicly displayed within a badge that you issue.

As an Issuer, you represent and warrant to us that: (i) You will minimize any personalinformation inserted into a badge’s description by limiting that information to the achievement or accomplishment of skills, or attainment of certification or credentials (see the technical specifications about badges for more information); and (ii) If you are an educational institution,the criteria for earning badges may list required grades or minimum grades but the badge itself may not contain any information indicating the actual grade received by that Earner.

If you are an Issuer of badges and enable Earners to send badges to the Mozilla Backpack, you also represent and warrant to us that:

  1. You will comply with all laws and regulations, including having a legally compliant privacy policy describing your role and interaction with the Mozilla Backpack as well as your collection, use, retention or disclosure of information used in badges.
  2. You will comply with the applicable guidelines in the Open Badges FAQ for Issuers.
  3. You will get Earner consent prior to sending a badge to the Mozilla Backpack.
  4. If you have users under 13 who are earning badges, you will not allow those users to push badges to the Mozilla Backpack.

Mozilla's Proprietary Rights

Mozilla does not grant you any intellectual property rights in the Services that are not specifically stated in these Terms. For example, these Terms do not provide the right to use any of Mozilla's copyrights, trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, domain names, or other distinctive brand features. Unless otherwise indicated, the Services are distributed under the current version of the Mozilla Public License.

Third Party Services

Third Party Services are services provided by an entity other than Mozilla ("Third Party Services"). Your use of Third Party Services may subject you to terms, policies, and practices that are separate from Mozilla's, and you are encouraged to read them. Mozilla does not represent or imply that it endorses any Third Party Services nor that it believes the operation of any Third Party Services will be accurate, useful, or non-harmful. Third Party Services may have technical inaccuracies, may cause mistakes or errors, and may transmit, store, or otherwise manipulate data in a manner that you find objectionable. You are responsible for taking precautions to protect yourself and your computer systems in connection with the use of Third Party Services.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act Notice

If you are a copyright owner or an agent of a copyright owner and believe that content available by means of the Services infringes one or more of your copyrights, please immediately notify Mozilla's Copyright Agent by means of emailed, mailed, or faxed notice (“DMCA Notice”) and include the information described below. You can review 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act for authoritative detail, or consult your own attorney if you need assistance. If Mozilla takes action in response to a DMCA Notice, it will make a good faith attempt to contact the party that made such content available by means of the most recent email address, if any, provided by such party to Mozilla. Mozilla will terminate a user’s account if, under appropriate circumstances, they are determined to be a repeat infringer. You may be held liable for damages based on certain material misrepresentations contained in a DMCA Notice. Thus, if you are not sure content located on or linked to by the website infringes your copyright, you should consider first contacting an attorney.

All DMCA Notices should include the following:

  1. A signature, electronic or physical, of the owner, or a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of an exclusive copyright right that is being infringed;
  2. An identification of the copyrighted work or works that you claim have been infringed;
  3. A description of the nature and location of the material that you claim to infringe your copyright, in sufficient detail to permit Mozilla to find and positively identify that content, including the URL where it is located;
  4. Your name, address, telephone number, and email address where we can contact you; and
  5. A statement by you: (i) that you believe in good faith that the use of the material that you claim infringes your copyright is not authorized by law, or by the copyright owner or such owner’s agent; and, (ii) that all of the information contained in your DMCA Notice is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are either the owner of, or a person authorized to act on behalf an owner of, the exclusive copyright right that is being infringed.

If you fail to comply with all of the requirements of a DMCA notice, Mozilla may not act upon your notice.

Mozilla’s designated Copyright Agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement is as follows:

Office of the General Counsel
Mozilla Corporation
331 East Evelyn Ave
Mountain View, CA 94041
Email: dmcanotice at mozilla dot com
Phone: 650-903-0800
Fax: 650-903-0875

The contact information provided above also applies to notices that are based on non-U.S. copyrights or trademarks. Only DMCA Notices, Trademark Notices (which are defined below), and international copyright or trademark notices should go to the Copyright Agent.

Please be advised that any DMCA Notices sent to Mozilla may be sent to third parties (including the accused) and posted on the Internet (including at http://www.chillingeffects.org/).

Trademark Notices

If you are a trademark owner or an agent of a trademark owner and believe that content available by means of one of Mozilla’s websites infringes one or more of your trademarks, please immediately notify Mozilla’s Copyright Agent by means of emailed, mailed, or faxed notice (“Trademark Notice”) and include the information described above for DMCA notices. Mozilla handles notices it receives of trademark violations via a process very similar to the DMCA Notice process that is described above for copyrights. In addition to the DMCA Notice requirements, Mozilla requires that the entire Trademark Notice be made by the trademark owner (or her agent) under penalty of perjury.

Term; Termination

These Terms will continue to apply until ended by either you or Mozilla. You can choose to end them at any time for any reason by deactivating either your BadgeKit or Mozilla Backpack account—or both if you have accounts with each service—and discontinuing your use of the Services. If you delete your Persona login, please note that that will not delete your BadgeKit account or your Mozilla Backpack but will cause you to not be able to log in to access your BadgeKit account or Mozilla Backpack, unless you create a new Persona account with the exact same email address. For individual Issuers, deleting your BadgeKit account will not delete badges or other content you may have created on behalf of an Issuing organization. If you are an Earner and would like to stop using the Mozilla Backpack, you can choose to delete all of your badges at any time. Be aware, however, that once deleted, you will not be able to get your badges back unless you have the badge Issuer reissue them to you. This action will not delete badges from your Issuer’s service or other Badge Backpacks or third parties. Please contact those entities if you would like them to remove or delete your badges or accounts.

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Services at any time for any reason, including, but not limited to, if we reasonably believe: (i) you have violated these Terms, (ii) you create risk or possible legal exposure for us; or (iii) our provision of the Services to you is no longer viable.

In all such cases, these Terms shall terminate, including, without limitation, your license to use the Services, except that the following sections shall continue to apply: Indemnification, Disclaimer, Limitation of Liability, Miscellaneous.

Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Mozilla, its contractors, contributors, licensors, partners, and affiliates, and their respective directors, officers, employees and agents ("Indemnified Parties") from and against any and all third party claims and expenses, including attorneys' fees, arising out of or related to your use of the Services (including, but not limited to, from any content uploaded by you or from your violation of any representation or warranty contained in these Terms).

Disclaimer; Limitation of Liability

THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" WITH ALL FAULTS. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, MOZILLA AND THE INDEMNIFIED PARTIES HEREBY DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES THAT THE SERVICES ARE FREE OF DEFECTS, MERCHANTABLE, FIT FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGING. YOU BEAR THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO SELECTING THE SERVICES FOR YOUR PURPOSES AND AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SERVICES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE RISK THAT YOUR CONTENT IS DELETED OR CORRUPTED OR THAT SOMEONE ELSE ACCESSES YOUR ACCOUNT. THIS LIMITATION WILL APPLY NOTWITHSTANDING THE FAILURE OF ESSENTIAL PURPOSE OF ANY REMEDY. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES, SO THIS DISCLAIMER MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

EXCEPT AS REQUIRED BY LAW, MOZILLA AND THE INDEMNIFIED PARTIES WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN ANY WAY RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION DIRECT AND INDIRECT DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF GOODWILL, WORK STOPPAGE, LOST PROFITS, LOSS OF DATA, CHANGES MOZILLA MAY MAKE TO THE SERVICES, INCLUDING CEASING TO PROVIDE ANY FEATURES OF THE SERVICES, AND COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES AND REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY (CONTRACT, TORT, OR OTHERWISE) UPON WHICH SUCH CLAIM IS BASED. THE COLLECTIVE LIABILITY OF MOZILLA AND THE INDEMNIFIED PARTIES UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT EXCEED $500 (FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS). SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR SPECIAL DAMAGES, SO THIS EXCLUSION AND LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

Modifications to these Terms

Mozilla may update these Terms from time to time to address a new feature of the Services or to clarify a provision. The updated Terms will be posted online. If the changes are substantive, we will announce the update through Mozilla's usual channels for such announcements such as blog posts and forums. Your continued use of the Services after the effective date of such changes constitutes your acceptance of such changes. To make your review more convenient, we will post an effective date at the top of this page.

Miscellaneous

These Terms constitute the entire agreement between you and Mozilla concerning the Services and supersede any prior agreements between you and Mozilla regarding the Services. These Terms are governed by the laws of the state of California, U.S.A., excluding its conflict of law provisions. You agree to submit to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of the state courts and federal courts located within Santa Clara County, California, for the purpose of litigating any claims or disputes. If any portion of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining portions will remain in full force and effect. In the event of a conflict between a translated version of these terms and the English language version, the English language version shall control.

Contact Us

Contact Mozilla at:
badges@mozillafoundation.org, or
Mozilla Corporation, Attn: Mozilla – Legal Notices, 331 E. Evelyn Ave., Mountain View, CA 94041

Please report any violations of the Terms to this address.