Posts Tagged ‘privacy’

We had a request for a terms of service page at Twext.me, so I thought I’d write it without the typical legal language. Let’s see how this flies.

Twext.me Terms Of Service

1. We’re a free service that depends on Twitter’s API to function properly. If our service isn’t working, it’s likely because Twitter’s API is acting up.  It happens a great deal. So, we can’t be responsible for outages that are Twitter’s fault.
2. We use Twitter’s OAuth to access your account, so we don’t know your Twitter password. We don’t want to know it. That said, in order to communicate your mentions to you, we must store some of your twitter information on our servers. This information is visible to the public anyway, so there’s nothing in our database that is of any value. Except to you.
3. We won’t spam you. Ever. Once again, we’re a free service, so if you’ve chosen the “true SMS” option, instead of the email SMS option, we use a service called Textmarks to send the SMS. They DO put an ad at the end of the SMS message. That is NOT our ad. We don’t make a dime off of it. If you don’t like those ads, or you consider THAT to be spam, chose the other options. Just note that some systems, like AT&T don’t support threading with the email SMS option. The choice is yours.
4. As for privacy, we won’t be selling your information to anyone or giving your information to anyone for any reason. Ever. Period.
5. I suppose we (Twext.me, Zeek Interactive, our employees, officers, affiliates, agents, partners, anyone we’ve ever met face-to-face, on the phone or on the internet, or anyone we’ve ever thought about meeting, real or imaginary) should tell you that we’re not liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, including without limitation, loss of profits (yeah, right), data, use, good-will, or other intangible losses, resulting from using our service. We can’t imagine what that could possibly be, these are just your Twitter mentions for goodness sakes, but we felt like we had to say it. We live in a pretty litigious society. A better idea: If you feel like we’ve done something to hurt you. Send us a tweet. Twext.me will alert us and we’ll work it out. Promise.
6. If we fail to enforce any of these terms, that doesn’t mean we’re waiving our right to do so. If one of them is not enforceable, that doesn’t mean the others aren’t. We think that’s just fair.
7. We don’t feel compelled to keep this service running forever. If Twitter changes their service offerings to include SMS notification for mentions or some better solution comes along, we reserve the right to shut this service down without asking for your permission. Sorry, it’s just too hard to get consensus on these things.
8. When in doubt, we always take the high road.

We’ll have this up on Twext.me, along with a more formal Privacy statement, in short order.