Terms and conditions

These terms and conditions (“Terms”) govern your use of the Where I Stand mobile application (the “App”). They are an agreement between you and Boilerplate LLC (“Boilerplate LLC”, “we”, “us” or “our”). By accepting them in the App, or by using the App, you agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use the App. These Terms are a binding contract even though they are electronic and not signed.

The App’s Disclaimer and Privacy Policy, both linked from the App and from our website, form part of these Terms.

Age requirement

You must be at least 18 years old to use the App. By using it, you confirm that you are.

What the App is

The App shows which elected officials represent a location, with information about those officials, their districts and the places they serve. That includes contact details, votes on selected laws, federal spending figures and short descriptions of places. It works out which districts contain a location on your device, using boundary data built into the App.

The App is published by a private company. It is not a government service, and it is not affiliated with, endorsed by or operated by any government, election authority, political party, candidate or official. It does not provide legal, voting or election advice. The information it shows comes from public sources that can be incomplete, out of date or wrong. Please read the Disclaimer before relying on anything the App shows.

Your license to use the App

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and use the App on devices you own or control, for your own non-commercial use, in line with these Terms and the terms of the app store you downloaded it from.

You may not:

• copy, modify, sell, rent, sublicense or distribute the App itself;
• extract the App’s data in bulk, or use automated means to harvest it, except as the data’s own licenses allow (see below);
• reverse engineer or decompile the App, except where the law allows it despite this restriction;
• interfere with or disrupt the App, or the services it connects to;
• use the App to break any law;
• use the contact details the App shows to harass, threaten or abuse anyone, or to send unsolicited bulk messages;
• present information from the App as official, or as endorsed by us or by any official.

Data and content in the App

The App’s design, code and original text belong to Boilerplate LLC.

Much of the information the App shows comes from public sources that we credit in the App’s About screen. Many of them are free of copyright restrictions, and your use of that information is governed by its source’s terms, not by these Terms:

• works of the U.S. government (Census Bureau boundaries and population figures, spending data from USAspending.gov, and roll-call votes);
• data dedicated to the public domain (the congress-legislators project, Open States, Wikidata and official portraits);
• municipal boundary data from city open-data portals.

Place descriptions are excerpts from Wikipedia, used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license (CC BY-SA 4.0). You may reuse those excerpts under that license. That license’s terms, not ours, govern them.

Advertising

The App is free and is paid for by advertising served by Google AdMob. Ads are labeled as such. An ad is not an endorsement by us or by any official the App shows. Anything you do with an advertiser, including any purchase, is between you and that advertiser, and we are not responsible for it.

Automatic updates

To keep its information current, the App downloads updated reference data and corrected versions of its own software without a visit to an app store. The Privacy Policy describes what those checks send. We may change, suspend or stop offering any part of the App, or the App as a whole, at any time.

Feedback

If you send us feedback, suggestions or reports, you allow us to use them to improve the App, without payment or obligation to you. Do not include anything you are not entitled to share, or anything confidential.

Third-party services and links

The App relies on services run by other companies, and it links to websites we do not control:

• Google, for ads;
• Expo, for software updates and performance measurement;
• GitHub, for data files;
• Tally, for the feedback form.

Their own terms and privacy policies apply to your use of them. A link to a website, including an official’s own website or contact form, is not an endorsement of it. We are not responsible for the content, products or practices of any third party.

Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what leaves your device and who receives it. By using the App, you acknowledge it.

Disclaimer of warranties

The App and everything in it is provided “as is” and “as available”. Your use of it is at your own risk. To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. We do not warrant:

• that the App will meet your needs;
• that it will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error-free;
• that any information in it is accurate, complete or current;
• that defects will be corrected.

No advice or information you obtain from us or through the App creates any warranty not expressly stated in these Terms.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Boilerplate LLC and its affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, suppliers and licensors will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, cover or consequential damages. That includes lost profits, revenue, goodwill or data, business interruption, and any decision you make or action you take in reliance on information in the App. It applies however those damages are caused and under any theory of liability, even if we were told they were possible.

To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability for anything relating to the App is limited to the greater of one U.S. dollar or the amount you paid us in the month before the event giving rise to the liability. The App is free, so that amount is normally nothing.

Some jurisdictions do not allow some of these exclusions or limits, so they may not apply to you in full.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Boilerplate LLC and its affiliates, directors, officers, employees, agents, suppliers and licensors against any third-party claim, and the losses, damages and costs (including reasonable legal fees) arising from it, that results from your misuse of the App or your breach of these Terms.

Ending these Terms

You may stop using the App at any time by deleting it. We may suspend or end your right to use the App if you break these Terms. The sections on data and content, warranties, liability, indemnification and governing law survive the end of these Terms.

Governing law and disputes

These Terms, and any dispute arising out of or relating to them or to the App, are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. The exclusive venue for any such dispute is the state and federal courts located in Virginia, and you submit to their personal jurisdiction. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

App Store terms (if you downloaded the App from Apple)

If you downloaded the App from Apple’s App Store:

• These Terms are between you and Boilerplate LLC only, not Apple. Boilerplate LLC, not Apple, is solely responsible for the App and its content.
• Your license to use the App is limited to Apple-branded products you own or control, and to the uses permitted by the App Store’s Usage Rules.
• Apple has no obligation to provide any maintenance or support for the App.
• If the App fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price, if any. To the maximum extent the law allows, Apple has no other warranty obligation for the App. Any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs or expenses from a failure to conform to a warranty are our responsibility, to the extent these Terms do not disclaim them.
• Boilerplate LLC, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims you or a third party have relating to the App or your possession or use of it. That includes product-liability claims, claims that the App fails to meet a legal or regulatory requirement, and claims under consumer-protection, privacy or similar law.
• If a third party claims that the App or your possession and use of it infringes their intellectual property rights, Boilerplate LLC, not Apple, is solely responsible for investigating, defending, settling and discharging that claim.
• You confirm that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. government embargo or designated as a “terrorist supporting” country, and that you are not on any U.S. government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms. Once you accept them, Apple has the right, and is deemed to have accepted the right, to enforce them against you as a third-party beneficiary.

If you downloaded the App from Google Play, Google Play’s terms also apply to your download and use of it.

Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms. When we do, we will change the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. The App carries that date, and when the Terms have changed since you last accepted them, it asks you to accept the new Terms before you continue using it.

General

These Terms, with the Disclaimer and the Privacy Policy, are the whole agreement between you and us about the App. If any part of them is found unenforceable, that part is limited to the minimum extent necessary and the rest stays in effect. Our not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of all or substantially all of our assets.

Contacting us