Terms of use

Registration and Access

Access to this service requires an Academic Cloud ID. Having an Academiccloud ID is subject to acceptance of “Academic Cloud Terms of Use.” Furthermore, for signing up for an account to use our service, you must provide accurate and thorough information. Sharing your account details or allowing others to use your account is not permitted, and you are responsible for any activities conducted under your account. If you create an account or use this service on behalf of another person or entity, you must have the authority to accept these Terms on their behalf.

Authorized usage

Users are obligated to employ the technology or services solely for authorized and lawful purposes, ensuring compliance with all applicable laws, regulations, and the rights of others, encompassing national, federal, state, local, and international laws.

Development

You recognize that we may be developing or acquiring similar software, technology, or information from other sources. This acknowledgment does not impose limitations on our development or competitive endeavors.

Prohibitions

  1. Users are prohibited from using this service for transmission, generating, and distributing content (input and output) that:

    • contains confidential or sensitive information;
    • violates privacy laws, including the collection or distribution of personal data without consent;
    • Is fraudulent, deceptive, harmful, or misleading;
    • Is discriminative, promotes violence, hate speech, or illegal activities;
    • encourages self-harm, harassment, bullying, violence, and terrorism;
    • Is sexually explicit for non-educational or non-scientific purposes, involves child sexual exploitation, misrepresentation, deception, or impersonation;
    • promotes illegal activities or infringes on intellectual property rights and other legal and ethical boundaries in online activities;
    • Involves any sensitive or controlled data, such as protected health information, personal details, financial records, or research involving sensitive human subjects;
    • attempting to bypass our safety measures or prompting actions that violate established policies intentionally;
    • could unfairly or adversely impact individuals, particularly concerning sensitive or protected characteristics;

  2. Users are prohibited from doing activities including:

    • Reverse engineering, decompiling, or disassembling the technology;
    • Unauthorized activities such as spamming, malware distribution, or disruptive behaviors that compromise service quality;
    • Modifying, copying, renting, selling, or distributing our service;
    • Engaging in tracking or monitoring individuals without their explicit consent.

Termination and suspension

You can terminate your use of our Services and your legal relationship with us at any time by stopping the use of the service. If you’re an EEA-based consumer, you have the right to withdraw these Terms within 14 days of acceptance by contacting Support. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to our service or deactivate your account for violating these Terms or other terms and policies referred to here by you, for the necessity of compliance with the law, or for posing risks or harm to us, users, and others through using. We’ll give you notice before deactivating your account unless it’s not feasible or allowed by law. If you believe your account has been suspended or disabled mistakenly, you can appeal by contacting Support. We reserve the right of legal action to safeguard intellectual property rights and user safety. Civil penalties, damages, administrative fines, criminal charges, or other legal options could be pursued in violation of these terms or by engaging in illegal activities through using this service.

Accuracy

The results generated by our services may not always be unique, and entirely correct or precise. It could contain inaccuracies, even if they seem detailed. Users shouldn’t solely depend on these results without verifying their accuracy independently. Moreover, the transcription provided by our services might not always be complete or accurate. Therefore, users should exercise caution and avoid using the services alone for important decisions. It’s crucial to understand that AI and machine learning are constantly evolving, and although we strive to improve the accuracy and reliability of our services, users should always assess the accuracy of the results and ensure they meet their specific requirements, verifying them with human input before use or distribution. Additionally, users should refrain from using results related to individuals for purposes that could significantly affect them, such as legal or financial decisions. Lastly, users should be aware that incomplete or inaccurate results may occur, which may not necessarily reflect the views of GWDG or its affiliated parties.

We own all rights, titles, and interests in and to the service. Users are required to uphold copyright and other proprietary notices, preventing the unauthorized distribution or reproduction of copyrighted content. We reserve the right to remove or block any content believed to infringe on copyright and to deactivate the accounts of repeat offenders.

Feedbacks

We appreciate your feedback on our services and products and encourage you to share your thoughts to help us improve them. By providing feedback, you understand that we may disclose, publish, exploit, or use it to enhance our offerings without any obligation to compensate you. We reserve the right to use feedback for any purpose without being restricted by confidentiality obligations, whether it is marked confidential or not.

Privacy

The privacy of user requests is fundamental to us. As a result, our service does not save your audio/conversation or results at any point on persistent storage, except for BBB transcriptions, which are stored in local MySQL, and >500 MB audio file transcription results in our s3 storage, both of which will be erased after 30 days. The number of requests for either of services per user and the respective timestamps are recorded so we can monitor the system’s usage and perform accounting.

For technical purposes, the following data is collected by the webserver:

  • Date of access
  • Name of the operating system installed on the accessing device
  • Name of the browser used
  • Source system via which the access was made
  • The IP address of the accessing device

The data is also stored in our system’s log files. This data is not stored together with the user’s other personal data. You can find more detailed information regarding data protection in the privacy policy that users shall accept when using this service.

Business Users and Organizations

If the users are businesses or organizations, including public and government agencies, they shall indemnify GWDG and its affiliates for all claims and legal actions arising from their misuse of this service or violation of these terms. This indemnification encompasses all associated costs and liabilities, such as claims, losses, damages, judgments, fines, litigation expenses, and legal fees. In this case, GWDG will inform the other party in writing upon becoming aware of any claim and leave the defense at businesses or organizations or will cooperate reasonably in the defense or investigation of the claim.