Terms of Service
The governing conditions for access to the Validly digital archive and analytical tools. Last updated: October 14, 2023.
1. Acceptance of Terms
By accessing, browsing, or utilizing the Validly platform, including its API endpoints and archival database, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms of Service.
Validly is a restricted-access environment designed for professional verification and academic research. If you do not agree to these terms, you must immediately discontinue use of the platform. These terms constitute a legally binding agreement between you and Validly Inc., registered in Delaware, USA.
Continued use of the service following the posting of changes to these terms means that you accept and agree to the changes. We reserve the right to modify these terms at any time, with significant changes notified via the dashboard of registered institutional accounts.
2. Content License: Creative Commons vs. Proprietary
Validly operates on a dual-licensing model to balance open information integrity with the protection of proprietary analytical infrastructure.
CC BY-NC 4.0
Raw data sets, verified fact-checks, and primary source archives are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. You are free to share and adapt the material for non-commercial purposes, provided you give appropriate credit to Validly.
All Rights Reserved
Our proprietary algorithms, source lineage mapping visualizations, and "Pattern Recognition" reports are the exclusive intellectual property of Validly Inc. These assets may not be reproduced, scraped, or redistributed without a specific enterprise license agreement.
Usage Protocol
When utilizing Validly data in academic or journalistic work, you must cite the specific archive entry ID (e.g., VLY-2023-09-004) and link back to the original verification page. Failure to provide precise attribution may result in account suspension.
3. User Conduct
To maintain the integrity of the archive and the utility of the platform for researchers, strict conduct standards apply to all user interactions, including comments on articles and submissions to the "Verify" queue.
- No Disinformation: Users may not knowingly submit false source material or manipulate data points in the archive. Violation results in permanent banning and reporting to relevant platform authorities.
- Academic Tone: Discourse in the comments section must remain professional. Harassment, hate speech, or ad hominem attacks against journalists and researchers will be removed immediately.
- No Automated Scraping: Automated bots, scrapers, or spiders are prohibited from accessing the site without prior written consent. We employ rate-limiting and IP blocking to enforce this.
4. Limitation of Liability
While Validly is dedicated to the highest standards of verification, we provide our services "as is" without warranty of any kind.
Validly Inc. shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including without limitation, loss of profits, data, use, goodwill, or other intangible losses, resulting from:
- Your access to or use of (or inability to access or use) the platform;
- Any conduct or content of any third party on the platform;
- Any content obtained from the platform; and
- Unauthorized access, use, or alteration of your transmissions or content.
In the event that a verification is found to be erroneous due to new evidence, Validly updates the record but assumes no liability for prior reliance on the initial data point. Users are encouraged to verify critical data independently before publication.
Legal Inquiries
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