Terms of Use

Effective date: August 6, 2026 · Last updated: August 6, 2026

These Terms of Use (the "Terms") are a binding agreement between you and Votesphere LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company ("Votesphere," "we," "our," or "us"), governing your access to and use of the Votesphere websites, applications, and related services (collectively, the "Service"). Please read Section 15 carefully. It requires that most disputes be resolved through an informal resolution process followed, if necessary, by binding individual arbitration, and it includes a waiver of jury trials and class actions. Section 15.7 explains how to opt out of arbitration within 30 days.

1. Acceptance of These Terms; Eligibility

1.1 Agreement. By creating an account, beginning an anonymous session, taking a quiz, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated by reference. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1.2 Minimum age. You must be at least 16 years old to use the Service. By using the Service you represent that you are at least 16. The Service is not directed to children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 16.

1.3 Beta availability; territorial restriction. The Service is currently offered as an invitation-only beta available only to residents of the United States. We may decline, suspend, or revoke access from outside the United States during the beta period. We expect to expand availability at public launch, at which time these Terms and the Privacy Policy will be updated as needed for additional jurisdictions.

1.4 Capacity; one account. You represent that you have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms. You may maintain only one account, and you may not use the Service on behalf of another person or entity without authority to bind them.

2. The Service

2.1 What Votesphere is. Votesphere is a civic-expression platform on which participants record and explore their own positions on public issues, take educational quizzes, and view their evolving civic portrait, and on which Votesphere presents aggregated, de-identified views of participation. The Service is a tool for self-expression and civic education. It is not a poll, a ballot, a petition, a voter-registration service, or a means of official political participation, and nothing on the Service constitutes political, legal, or professional advice.

2.2 Neutrality. Votesphere does not endorse any political party, candidate, cause, or position. References on the Service to real parties, officials, court decisions, ballot measures, historical or literary figures, or published platforms are drawn from published, publicly available sources and are provided for educational and comparative purposes only. The presence of any such reference, including in quiz content or results, is not an endorsement by Votesphere and does not imply any affiliation with, or approval by, the referenced person or organization.

2.3 Beta status; changes. The Service is in active development. We may add, change, suspend, or discontinue features at any time. Where a change materially reduces core functionality for existing participants, we will use reasonable efforts to give advance notice through the Service or by email.

3. Accounts and Anonymous Sessions

3.1 Anonymous participation. You may begin using parts of the Service, including quizzes reached through a shared link, in an anonymous session without providing your name or contact information. Positions and responses recorded in an anonymous session are stored under a session identifier and are not linked to your identity unless you register.

3.2 Registration and persistence. To preserve your positions and history across visits and devices, you must register by upgrading your anonymous session to an account. If you decline to register, positions recorded in an anonymous session may not persist, and we may delete dormant anonymous-session data as described in the Privacy Policy.

3.3 Account security. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your credentials and for activity under your account. Notify us promptly at legal@votesphere.com of any unauthorized use. We may require completion of security challenges (such as CAPTCHA) as a condition of access.

3.4 Accuracy. Information you provide, including your declared ZIP code or district, must be accurate. Geographic participation on the Service is by declaration; we do not collect your street address, and we ask that you not enter it.

4. Privacy and the Nature of the Data You Provide

Positions, quiz responses, and related expressions you record on the Service reveal your political opinions. In many jurisdictions, including under the EU and UK General Data Protection Regulation and certain U.S. state laws, such information is treated as sensitive and receives heightened protection. Our collection and use of this information is described in the Privacy Policy, and where required by law is based on your explicit consent. Participant-level data is never sold. Please review the Privacy Policy before using the Service.

5. Your Content and Positions

5.1 Definition. "User Content" means the content you submit to the Service, including positions, quiz responses, text you submit to interactive features, issue submissions, and feedback.

5.2 Ownership; license to operate. As between you and Votesphere, you retain your rights in your User Content. You grant Votesphere a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, process, adapt for technical purposes, display to you, and transmit your User Content solely as necessary to operate, secure, maintain, and improve the Service, to generate the aggregated and de-identified data described in Section 6, and to comply with law. This license does not grant Votesphere the right to publish your identifiable User Content publicly except as you direct (for example, by electing to share a result card under Section 8).

5.3 Representations. You represent that your User Content is yours to submit and does not violate law or the rights of any third party.

5.4 Feedback. If you submit suggestions or feedback about the Service, you grant Votesphere a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to use them without restriction or compensation.

6. Aggregated and De-Identified Data

6.1 Grant. Votesphere may create and use aggregated and de-identified data derived from User Content and use of the Service, including for research, publication of aggregate civic reporting, product development, and commercial purposes, and Votesphere retains a perpetual, irrevocable right to do so. Aggregated and de-identified data does not identify you, and is not personal information.

6.2 No re-identification. Votesphere commits that it will maintain de-identified data in de-identified form, will not attempt to re-identify it, and will contractually require the same of any recipient. Aggregate reporting on the Service is presented with honest sample sizes and visible uncertainty.

7. Quizzes and Results

7.1 Educational purpose. Quizzes on the Service, including recurring and topical quizzes, are educational and self-expressive instruments. There are no right or wrong answers. Results, including archetypes, placements, and match percentages, are characterizations of your own responses generated by the Service's editorial framework. They are a portrait, not a diagnosis, and are not political advice or a prediction of how you should vote or act.

7.2 Comparative results. Some results compare your responses to published positions of political parties (including foreign parties), historical or public figures, referenda, court decisions, or literary characters. Such comparisons are editorial characterizations based on published sources. They do not constitute an endorsement by you or by Votesphere of, or any affiliation with, the compared party, figure, or position.

8. Shared Result Cards

8.1 Sharing is your choice. You may elect to generate a shareable card presenting a quiz result. Cards are deliberately anonymous: they display result labels, archetype or placement names, match percentages, and editorial text, and they do not display your name, handle, or other identifier. If you do not share, no card exists.

8.2 Public once shared. A shared card is available to anyone who holds its link, on or off the Service. Share links are unlisted — they use long, unguessable tokens and there is no public directory or browsing of shared results — but an unlisted link is not private: anyone to whom the link is forwarded or exposed can view the card. Treat sharing as making the card public.

8.3 Revocation. You may revoke a share at any time, after which the Service will stop serving the card and its link. Revocation cannot recall copies that were already downloaded, screenshotted, or cached by third-party platforms.

8.4 License to your card. Votesphere grants you a non-exclusive, royalty-free right to reproduce and distribute your own rendered result cards, which carry Votesphere branding, for personal, non-commercial sharing. Votesphere retains all right, title, and interest in the quiz instruments, questions, scoring methods, result archetypes and editorial text, card designs and formats, and the Votesphere and Ippie names, marks, and branding. No rights are granted in these except the limited distribution right in this Section 8.4.

8.5 Integrity of shared results. You may not alter a card or its link, or present either, in a way that misrepresents a result, the person who generated it, or the Service; and you may not remove or obscure Votesphere branding or attribution on a card.

9. Intellectual Property

9.1 Ownership. The Service and all content and materials on it, other than User Content, including software, the sphere visualization, quiz instruments, editorial content, designs, and data compilations, are owned by Votesphere or its licensors and are protected by intellectual property laws. Votesphere® and the Votesphere emblem are registered trademarks owned by or licensed to Votesphere LLC. Ippie and associated names, characters, and badges are trademarks owned by or licensed to Votesphere LLC. Excerpts from the book Represent: A Return to Common Sense appear by permission and remain the property of their owner.

9.2 Limited license to you. Subject to these Terms, Votesphere grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to access and use the Service for your personal, non-commercial use. No other rights are granted.

9.3 Copyright complaints. We respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Send notices to legal@votesphere.com or to our mailing address in Section 19, marked "DMCA Notice." We may remove content alleged to be infringing and may terminate repeat infringers.

10. Acceptable Use

You agree not to, and not to attempt or assist others to: (a) use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of these Terms; (b) misrepresent your identity, impersonate any person, or misstate your declared geography; (c) access or use the Service by automated means, including scraping, crawling, or bulk querying, or probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service, except with our prior written consent; (d) interfere with the operation or security of the Service, circumvent access controls or rate limits, or introduce malicious code; (e) attempt to identify, contact, or de-anonymize any participant, or to re-identify de-identified data; (f) manipulate participation, including by creating multiple accounts, coordinating inauthentic activity, or using the Service to harass or defame; (g) use the Service or any data obtained from it to train machine-learning models, or reproduce, frame, or create derivative works of the Service, except as expressly permitted; or (h) use the Service in connection with any commercial solicitation without our prior written consent. We may investigate violations and may suspend or terminate access as described in Section 12.

11. Third-Party Services; AI Features

11.1 Service providers. The Service is operated using third-party infrastructure and tools identified in the Privacy Policy. Their availability is not within our control, and the Service may depend on their continued operation.

11.2 AI-assisted features. Certain features, such as classification of submitted text and the civic chat, are powered by third-party artificial-intelligence models processed through a commercial API. AI-generated output can be inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated, and is provided for educational and organizational purposes only; it is not advice, and you should not rely on it as a statement of fact about any person, party, or law. As described in the Privacy Policy, content processed through this API under our commercial terms is not used to train the provider's models.

11.3 Links. The Service may link to third-party sites or sources. We are not responsible for their content or practices.

12. Suspension and Termination

12.1 By you. You may stop using the Service at any time and may delete your account through the Service or by writing to privacy@votesphere.com. Deletion is handled as described in the Privacy Policy.

12.2 By us. We may suspend or terminate your access, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms or law, created risk or possible legal exposure for us or other participants, or if we discontinue the Service. Where practicable we will give notice and an opportunity to cure. During the beta period we may also withdraw invitations or limit cohort size at our discretion.

12.3 Survival. Sections 5.4, 6, 8.4 (as to cards already distributed), 9, 10, and 13 through 20 survive termination.

13. Paid Services (Reserved)

The Service is currently provided without charge. If we introduce paid features or subscriptions, we will publish supplemental terms, including pricing, billing, renewal, and cancellation terms, before any charge is incurred, and your enrollment in any paid tier will be subject to those supplemental terms together with these Terms.

14. Disclaimers; Limitation of Liability

14.1 Disclaimers. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, AND UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, VOTESPHERE DOES NOT WARRANT THE ACCURACY OF ANY QUIZ RESULT, COMPARATIVE CHARACTERIZATION, AGGREGATE FIGURE, OR AI-GENERATED OUTPUT.

14.2 Limitation. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW: (a) NEITHER VOTESPHERE NOR ITS MEMBERS, MANAGERS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, OR AGENTS WILL BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, OR REPUTATIONAL HARM, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS, HOWEVER CAUSED AND UNDER ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY; AND (b) VOTESPHERE'S TOTAL LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS (US $100) OR THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID VOTESPHERE FOR THE SERVICE IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM.

14.3 Consumer-law savings. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain disclaimers or limitations, including for death or personal injury, fraud, gross negligence, or willful misconduct, or restrict them for consumers. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, and if you are a consumer in a jurisdiction whose law grants you non-waivable rights, those rights prevail over any conflicting provision. The disclaimers and limitations in this Section 14 apply only to the maximum extent permitted by the law of your jurisdiction.

15. Dispute Resolution: Informal Resolution First; Arbitration; Class Waiver

PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. IT AFFECTS YOUR RIGHTS.

15.1 Informal resolution (required first step). Before filing any arbitration or court proceeding (other than small claims), you and Votesphere agree to first attempt to resolve any dispute informally for at least 60 days. The party raising the dispute must send an individual, written notice describing the dispute and the relief sought — to Votesphere at legal@votesphere.com or the address in Section 19, or to you at the email associated with your account. Both parties agree to negotiate in good faith, including, on request of either party, by one individualized telephone or video conference. The 60-day period and completion of this process are conditions precedent to commencing any proceeding, and any applicable limitations period is tolled during it.

15.2 Small-claims election. Either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court in your county of residence (or Sheridan County, Wyoming) instead of arbitration, and either party may elect to have a claim filed in arbitration heard in small-claims court if it qualifies, in which case the arbitration will be administratively closed.

15.3 Arbitration agreement. Except for disputes resolved under Sections 15.1 or 15.2, and except that either party may seek injunctive relief for infringement or misuse of intellectual property or for unauthorized access to the Service in any court of competent jurisdiction, any dispute arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms will be resolved by final and binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this Section. Arbitration will be conducted by a single arbitrator, in English, by videoconference or written submissions unless an in-person hearing is required by the rules, in which case it will occur in your county of residence. The arbitrator has exclusive authority to resolve disputes about the interpretation, applicability, or enforceability of this arbitration agreement, except that only a court may decide the enforceability of the class waiver in Section 15.5.

15.4 Fees. Payment of filing, administration, and arbitrator fees will be governed by the AAA's Consumer Arbitration Rules. If your claim is for less than US $10,000 and you prevail, Votesphere will reimburse your filing fee. Each party bears its own attorneys' fees except where the arbitrator awards them under applicable law, or determines that a claim or defense was frivolous or brought for an improper purpose, in which case the arbitrator may award fees against the responsible party.

15.5 Individual basis; class waiver. ALL DISPUTES MUST BE BROUGHT ON AN INDIVIDUAL BASIS. NEITHER YOU NOR VOTESPHERE MAY PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION, OR IN ARBITRATION ON A CLASS OR REPRESENTATIVE BASIS, AND THE ARBITRATOR MAY NOT CONSOLIDATE CLAIMS OF MORE THAN ONE PERSON EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN SECTION 15.6. If the class waiver is held unenforceable as to a particular claim, that claim (and only that claim) must proceed in court, and the remainder of this Section 15 remains in effect.

15.6 Coordinated filings (batching). If 25 or more demands for arbitration presenting similar claims are filed against Votesphere by or with the assistance of the same or coordinated counsel or organizations within a 90-day period, the parties agree that: (a) the demands will be resolved in staged proceedings, beginning with up to 10 bellwether arbitrations selected half by claimants' counsel and half by Votesphere; (b) all other demands will be held in abeyance, with filing and arbitrator fees deferred, and applicable limitations periods tolled, until the bellwether proceedings conclude; and (c) following the bellwethers, the parties will engage in a global mediation before further staged sets proceed. A demand held in abeyance is not "filed" for fee purposes until it proceeds. If this Section 15.6 is held unenforceable, Sections 15.1 through 15.5 remain in effect.

15.7 Your right to opt out. You may opt out of Sections 15.3 through 15.6 (arbitration and class waiver) by emailing legal@votesphere.com or writing to the address in Section 19, within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, stating your name, the email associated with your account, and your intent to opt out. Opting out does not affect Sections 15.1, 15.2, or any other provision of these Terms.

15.8 Limitations period. Except where prohibited by law, any claim arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms must be commenced within one year after the claim accrues, or it is permanently barred. This period is tolled during the informal-resolution process and any abeyance under Section 15.6.

16. Governing Law and Venue

These Terms and any dispute arising out of them are governed by the laws of the State of Wyoming and applicable U.S. federal law, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules, except that the Federal Arbitration Act governs Section 15, and except that if you are a consumer habitually resident in a jurisdiction whose law affords you mandatory protections or a mandatory forum, nothing in this Section deprives you of them. Subject to Section 15, the state and federal courts sitting in Sheridan County, Wyoming will have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute not subject to arbitration, and the parties consent to their jurisdiction.

17. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by applicable law, you will indemnify and hold harmless Votesphere and its members, managers, officers, employees, and agents from and against third-party claims, and associated reasonable costs and attorneys' fees, arising out of your User Content, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of law or of the rights of a third party. This Section does not apply to the extent a claim arises from Votesphere's own breach, negligence, or misconduct, and does not require you to indemnify Votesphere where prohibited by consumer-protection law.

18. Changes to These Terms

We may revise these Terms from time to time. If a change is material, we will provide notice through the Service or by email at least 14 days before it takes effect, except for changes required by law or addressing security, which may take effect immediately. The "Last updated" date above reflects the current version. Your continued use of the Service after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance; if you do not agree, you must stop using the Service. Material changes to Section 15 will not apply to disputes of which either party had actual notice before the change.

19. Contact and Notices

We may provide notices to you through the Service or to the email address associated with your account, and such notice is effective when sent.

20. General Provisions

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any supplemental terms we publish for specific features, are the entire agreement between you and Votesphere regarding the Service and supersede prior agreements on that subject. If any provision is held unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible and the remainder will remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets, provided the assignee assumes our obligations, including those in the Privacy Policy. Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control. Section headings are for convenience only. "Including" means "including without limitation."