Next Generation City - Terms of Service

Effective date: March 11th 2019

Thank you for using NGC! We're happy you're here. Please read this Terms of Service agreement carefully before accessing or using NGC. Because it is such an important contract between us and our users, we have tried to make it as clear as possible.

A. Definitions

Short version: We use these basic terms throughout the agreement, and they have specific meanings. You should know what we mean when we use each of the terms. There's not going to be a test on it, but it's still useful information.

  1. The “Agreement” refers, collectively, to all the terms, conditions, notices contained or referenced in this document (the “Terms of Service” or the "Terms") and all other operating rules, policies (including the NGC Privacy Statement, available at nextgeneration.city/privacy) and procedures that we may publish from time to time on the Website.
  2. The “Service” refers to the applications, software, products, and services provided by NGC.
  3. The “Website” refers to NGC’s website located at nextgeneration.city, and all content, services, and products provided by NGC at or through the Website. It also refers to NGC-owned subdomains of nextgeneration.city.
  4. “The User,” “You,” and “Your” refer to the individual person, company, or organization that has visited or is using the Website or Service; that accesses or uses any part of the Account; or that directs the use of the Account in the performance of its functions. A User must be at least 16 years of age.
  5. “NGC,” “We,” and “Us” refer to 'Next Generation City Consultancy' (the formal legal entity, operating the website nextgeneration.city, as well as our affiliates, directors, subsidiaries, contractors, licensors, officers, agents, and employees.
  6. “Content” refers to content featured or displayed through the Website, including without limitation text, data, articles, images, photographs, graphics, software, applications, designs, features, and other materials that are available on the Website or otherwise available through the Service. "Content" also includes Services. “User-Generated Content” is Content, written or otherwise, created or uploaded by our Users. "Your Content" is Content that you create or own.
  7. An "Account" represents your legal relationship with NGC. A “User Account” represents an individual User’s authorization to log in to and use the Service and serves as a User’s identity on NGC.

B. Account Terms

Short version: as a user, you retain ultimate control over your Account and Content; a human must create your Account; you must be 16 years of age or over; you must provide a valid email address. You alone are responsible for your Account and anything that happens while you are signed in to or using your Account. You are responsible for keeping your Account secure.

1. Account Controls

  • As a User, you retain ultimate administrative control over your User Account and the Content within it.

2. Required Information

You must provide a valid email address in order to complete the signup process. Any other information requested, such as your real name, is optional, unless you are accepting these terms on behalf of a legal entity (in which case we need more information about the legal entity) or if you opt for a paid Account, in which case additional information will be necessary for billing purposes.

3. Account Requirements

We have a few simple rules for User Accounts on NGC's Service.

  • You must be a human to create an Account. Accounts registered by "bots" or other automated methods are not permitted.
  • One person or legal entity may maintain no more than one free Account.
  • If you are a child under the age of 16, you may not use our Service without obtaining your parents' or legal guardians' consent. NGC does not knowingly collect information from or direct any of our content specifically to children under 16. If we learn of any User under the age of 16, without their parental or legal guardians' consent, we will terminate that User’s Account immediately.
  • Your login may only be used by one person — i.e., a single login may not be shared by multiple people.

4. User Account Security

You are responsible for keeping your Account secure while you use our Service. We offer tools such as two-factor authentication to help you maintain your Account's security, but the content of your Account and its security are up to you.

  • You are responsible for all content posted and activity that occurs under your Account.
  • You are responsible for maintaining the security of your Account and password. NGC cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage from your failure to comply with this security obligation.
  • You will promptly notify NGC if you become aware of any unauthorized use of, or access to, our Service through your Account, including any unauthorized use of your password or Account.

C. Acceptable Use

Short version: NGC hosts a wide variety of content from all over the world, and that collaboration only works when our users are able to work together in good faith. While using the service, you must follow this Acceptable Use Policy, which includes some restrictions on content you can post, conduct on the service, and other limitations. In short, be excellent to each other.

1. Compliance with Laws and Regulations

Your use of the Website and Service must not violate any applicable laws, including copyright or trademark laws, export control laws, or other laws in your jurisdiction. You are responsible for making sure that your use of the Service is in compliance with laws and any applicable regulations.

2. Content Restrictions

You agree that you will not under any circumstances upload, post, host, or transmit any content that:

  • is unlawful or promotes unlawful activities;
  • is or contains sexually obscene content;
  • is libelous, defamatory, or fraudulent;
  • is discriminatory or abusive toward any individual or group;
  • contains or installs any active malware or exploits, or uses our platform for exploit delivery (such as part of a command and control system); or
  • infringes on any proprietary right of any party, including patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, right of publicity, or other rights.

3. Conduct Restrictions

While using our Service, you agree that you will not under any circumstances:

  • harass, abuse, threaten, or incite violence towards any individual or group, including NGC employees, officers, and agents, or other Users;
  • use our servers for any form of excessive automated bulk activity (for example, spamming), or relay any other form of unsolicited advertising or solicitation through our servers, such as get-rich-quick schemes;
  • attempt to disrupt or tamper with NGC's servers in ways that could harm our Website or Service, to place undue burden on NGC's servers through automated means, or to access NGC's Service in ways that exceed your authorization;
  • impersonate any person or entity, including any of our employees or representatives, including through false association with NGC, or by fraudulently misrepresenting your identity or site's purpose; or
  • violate the privacy of any third party, such as by posting another person's personal information without consent.

4. Services Usage Limits

You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any portion of the Service, use of the Service, or access to the Service without NGC's explicit written permission.

5. Scraping

Scraping refers to extracting data from our Website via an automated process, such as a bot or webcrawler. You may scrape the Website for the following reasons:

  • Researchers may scrape public, non-personal information from our Website for research purposes, only if any publications resulting from that research are open access.
  • Archivists may scrape our Website for public data for archival purposes.

You may not scrape our Website for spamming purposes, including for the purposes of selling NGC users' personal information, such as to recruiters, headhunters, and job boards.

All use of our data gathered through scraping must comply with the NGC Privacy Statement.

6. Privacy

Misuse of NGC Users' Personal Information is prohibited.

Any person, entity, or service collecting data from NGC must comply with the NGC Privacy Statement, particularly in regards to the collection of our Users' Personal Information (as defined in the NGC Privacy Statement). If you collect any NGC User's Personal Information from our Service, you agree that you will only use the Personal Information you gather for the purpose for which our User has authorized it. You agree that you will reasonably secure any Personal Information you have gathered from our Service, and you will respond promptly to complaints, removal requests, and "do not contact" requests from NGC or its Users.

7. User Protection

You agree not to engage in activity that significantly harms our Users. We will resolve disputes in favor of protecting our Users as a whole.

D. User-Generated Content

Short version: You own content you create, but you allow us certain rights to it, so that we can display and share the content you post. You still have control over your content, and responsibility for it, and the rights you grant us are limited to those we need to provide the service. We have the right to remove content or close Accounts if we need to.

1. Responsibility for User-Generated Content

You may create or upload User-Generated Content while using the Service. You are solely responsible for the content of, and for any harm resulting from, any User-Generated Content that you post, upload, link to or otherwise make available via the Service, regardless of the form of that Content. We are not responsible for any public display or misuse of your User-Generated Content.

2. NGC May Remove Content

We do not pre-screen User-Generated Content, but we have the right (though not the obligation) to refuse or remove any User-Generated Content that, in our sole discretion, violates any of our terms or policies.

3. Ownership of Content, Right to Post, and License Grants

You retain ownership of and responsibility for Your Content. If you're posting anything you did not create yourself or do not own the rights to, you agree that you are responsible for any Content you post; that you will only submit Content that you have the right to post; and that you will fully comply with any third party licenses relating to Content you post.

Because you retain ownership of and responsibility for Your Content, we need you to grant us — and other Users — certain legal permissions. These license grants apply to Your Content. If you upload Content that already comes with a license granting NGC the permissions we need to run our Service, no additional license is required.

4. License Grant to Us

We need the legal right to do things like host Your Content, publish it, and share it. You grant us and our legal successors the right to store, parse, and display Your Content, and make incidental copies as necessary to render the Website and provide the Service. This includes the right to do things like copy it to our database and make backups; show it to you and other users; parse it into a search index or otherwise analyze it on our servers; share it with other users; and perform it, in case Your Content is something like music or video.

This license does not grant NGC the right to sell Your Content or otherwise distribute or use it outside of our provision of the Service.

E. Copyright Infringement

If you believe that content on our website violates your copyright, please contact us. If you are a copyright owner and you believe that content on NGC violates your rights, please contact us via our contact form.

We will terminate the Accounts of repeat infringers of this policy.

F. Intellectual Property Notice

Short version: We own the service and all of our content. In order for you to use our content, we give you certain rights to it, but you may only use our content in the way we have allowed.

1. NGC's Rights to Content

NGC and our licensors, vendors, agents, and/or our content providers retain ownership of all intellectual property rights of any kind related to the Website and Service. We reserve all rights that are not expressly granted to you under this Agreement or by law. The look and feel of the Website and Service is copyright © Next Generation City Consultancy. All rights reserved. You may not duplicate, copy, or reuse any portion of the HTML/CSS, Javascript, or visual design elements or concepts without explicit written permission from NGC.

2. NGC Trademarks and Logos

If you’d like to use NGC’s trademarks, you must follow all of our trademark guidelines, including those on our logos page: https://www.nextgeneration.city/branding.

G. Advertising on our Website

Short version: We prohibit the use of our Service for commercial advertising. Non-commercial advertising is allowed, but restricted by the guidelines below:

1. Spamming and Inappropriate Use of our Service

Advertising Content, like all Content, must not violate the law or these Terms of Use, for example through excessive bulk activity such as spamming. We reserve the right to remove any advertisements that, in our sole discretion, violate any of Our terms or policies.

2. Non-commercial Advertising

Advertising for commercial purposes is prohibited unless explicit written permission has been provided by NGC. Non-commercial advertising is only allowed when specifically related to the field of Smart Cities.

H. Payment

Short version: You are responsible for any fees associated with your use of our Service. We are responsible for communicating those fees to you clearly and accurately, and letting you know well in advance if those prices change.

1. Pricing

Our pricing and payment terms are available at nextgeneration.city/pricing. If you agree to a subscription price, that will remain your price for the duration of the payment term; however, prices are subject to change at the end of a payment term.

2. Upgrades, Downgrades, and Changes

  • We will immediately bill you when you upgrade from the free plan to any paying plan.
  • If you change from a monthly billing plan to a yearly billing plan, NGC will bill you for a full year at the next monthly billing date.
  • If you upgrade to a higher level of service, we will bill you for the upgraded plan immediately.
  • You may change your level of service at any time by choosing a plan option or going into your User Profile. If you choose to downgrade your Account, you may lose access to Content, features, or capacity of your Account.

3. Billing Schedule; No Refunds

  • For monthly or yearly payment plans, the Service is billed in advance on a monthly or yearly basis respectively and is non-refundable. There will be no refunds or credits for partial months of service, downgrade refunds, or refunds for months unused with an open Account; however, the service will remain active for the length of the paid billing period.
  • In order to treat everyone equally, no exceptions will be made.

4. Authorization

By agreeing to these Terms, you are giving us permission to charge your on-file credit card, PayPal account, or other approved methods of payment for fees that you authorize for NGC.

5. Responsibility for Payment

You are responsible for all fees, including taxes, associated with your use of the Service. By using the Service, you agree to pay NGC any charge incurred in connection with your use of the Service. You are responsible for providing us with a valid means of payment for paid Accounts. Free Accounts are not required to provide payment information.

I. Cancellation and Termination

Short version: You may close your Account at any time. If you do, we'll treat your information responsibly.

1. Account Cancellation

It is your responsibility to properly cancel your Account with NGC. You can cancel your Account at any time by going into your User Profile. The Account screen provides a simple, no questions asked cancellation link. We are not able to cancel Accounts in response to an email or phone request.

2. Upon Cancellation

We will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements, but barring legal requirements, we will delete your full profile and the Content of your repositories within 90 days of cancellation or termination (though some information may remain in encrypted backups). This information can not be recovered once your Account is cancelled.

We will not delete Content that you have contributed to other Users' repositories or that other Users have forked.

Upon request, we will make a reasonable effort to provide an Account owner with a copy of your lawful, non-infringing Account contents after Account cancellation, termination, or downgrade. You must make this request within 90 days of cancellation, termination, or downgrade.

3. Survival

All provisions of this Agreement which by their nature should survive termination will survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity, and limitations of liability.

J. Communications with NGC

Short version: We use email and other electronic means to stay in touch with our users.

1. Electronic Communication Required

For contractual purposes, you (1) consent to receive communications from us in an electronic form via the email address you have submitted or via the Service; and (2) agree that all Terms of Service, agreements, notices, disclosures, and other communications that we provide to you electronically satisfy any legal requirement that those communications would satisfy if they were on paper. This section does not affect your non-waivable rights.

2. Legal Notice to NGC Must Be in Writing

Communications made through email or our messaging system will not constitute legal notice to NGC or any of its officers, employees, agents or representatives in any situation where notice to NGCis required by contract or any law or regulation. Legal notice to NGC must be in writing.

3. No Phone Support

NGC only offers support via email, in-Service communications, and electronic messages. We do not offer telephone support.

K. Disclaimer of Warranties

Short version: We provide our service as is, and we make no promises or guarantees about this service. Please read this section carefully; you should understand what to expect.

NGC provides the Website and the Service “as is” and “as available,” without warranty of any kind. Without limiting this, we expressly disclaim all warranties, whether express, implied or statutory, regarding the Website and the Service including without limitation any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, security, accuracy and non-infringement.

NGC does not warrant that the Service will meet your requirements; that the Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free; that the information provided through the Service is accurate, reliable or correct; that any defects or errors will be corrected; that the Service will be available at any particular time or location; or that the Service is free of viruses or other harmful components. You assume full responsibility and risk of loss resulting from your downloading and/or use of files, information, content or other material obtained from the Service.

L. Limitation of Liability

Short version: We will not be liable for damages or losses arising from your use or inability to use the service or otherwise arising under this agreement. Please read this section carefully; it limits our obligations to you.

You understand and agree that we will not be liable to you or any third party for any loss of profits, use, goodwill, or data, or for any incidental, indirect, special, consequential or exemplary damages, however arising, that result from

  • the use, disclosure, or display of your User-Generated Content;
  • your use or inability to use the Service;
  • any modification, price change, suspension or discontinuance of the Service;
  • the Service generally or the software or systems that make the Service available;
  • unauthorized access to or alterations of your transmissions or data;
  • statements or conduct of any third party on the Service;
  • any other user interactions that you input or receive through your use of the Service; or
  • any other matter relating to the Service.

Our liability is limited whether or not we have been informed of the possibility of such damages, and even if a remedy set forth in this Agreement is found to have failed of its essential purpose. We will have no liability for any failure or delay due to matters beyond our reasonable control.

M. Release and Indemnification

Short version: You are responsible for your use of the service. If you harm someone else or get into a dispute with someone else, we will not be involved.

If you have a dispute with one or more Users, you agree to release NGC from any and all claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes.

You agree to indemnify us, defend us, and hold us harmless from and against any and all claims, liabilities, and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, arising out of your use of the Website and the Service, including but not limited to your violation of this Agreement, provided that NGC (1) promptly gives you written notice of the claim, demand, suit or proceeding; (2) gives you sole control of the defense and settlement of the claim, demand, suit or proceeding (provided that you may not settle any claim, demand, suit or proceeding unless the settlement unconditionally releases NGC of all liability); and (3) provides to you all reasonable assistance, at your expense.

N. Changes to These Terms

Short version: We want our users to be informed of important changes to our terms, but some changes aren't that important — we don't want to bother you every time we fix a typo. So while we may modify this agreement at any time, we will notify users of any changes that affect your rights and give you time to adjust to them.

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to amend these Terms of Service at any time and will update these Terms of Service in the event of any such amendments. We will notify our Users of material changes to this Agreement, such as price changes, at least 30 days prior to the change taking effect by posting a notice on our Website. For non-material modifications, your continued use of the Website constitutes agreement to our revisions of these Terms of Service.

We reserve the right at any time and from time to time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Website (or any part of it) with or without notice.

O. Questions?

Questions about the Terms of Service? Contact us.