Terms of Service

Privacy Policy and Information Sharing

As a result of support requests and other correspondence with Open Technology Fund, we keep non-financial information in a database used by employees, and some contractors, and other non-profit partners. We collect contact information from a variety of sources including submission forms on our website, partner organizations, and public records lists. We sometimes share information with our partners when it is related to the content.

Open Technology Fund adheres to the highest standards of ethical practices in all of our operations and is dedicated to protecting the privacy of all visitors to our Services. Except as disclosed below, we don’t sell, barter, give away, rent or permit anyone outside of Radio Free Asia to use or access your personal information.

We will honor your request to stop sending you publications or e-mail newsletters, and this will not affect your support-related communications. Please e-mail [email protected] with such requests.

Your Responsibilities

By submitting or otherwise making available content on any Open Technology Fund Services, including this Website, you represent that you own or otherwise have the intellectual property rights to submit such materials. Intellectual property rights of others may protect files and other content you might choose to share with Open Technology Fund. You may have rights, however, under relevant legal exemptions to intellectual property rights in your nation. These exemptions could include the right to fair use for criticism, parody, or newsworthiness. You warrant that you have a good faith belief that you have the right to share your content with us. You shall be solely liable for any damage resulting from any infringement of copyrights, proprietary rights, or any other harm resulting from such a submission.

You, and not Open Technology Fund, are responsible for maintaining and protecting your content. Open Technology Fund will not be liable for any loss or corruption of your content, or for any costs or expenses associated with backing up or restoring any of your property.

All information that you supply to us under any circumstances shall be to the best of your knowledge and belief, true and accurate, and not misleading in any manner.

Your Submitted Content

Some of our Services allow you to upload, submit, store, send or receive content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.

When you upload, submit, store, send or receive content to or through any of our Services, you give Open Technology Fund a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free worldwide license to use, host, and store such content in whole or in part. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.

Your Security

Please take full responsibility for your own security and do not under any circumstances disclose personal information or content unless you are confident it will not be misused. Please also ensure that you do not leave your personal computer unattended while it is in operation unless it is safe to do so, and be aware that online services are often used by people as a means of exploiting others and obtaining personal information about you. In spite of our best efforts, by agreeing to these terms you acknowledge and understand it is impossible to guarantee complete security and anonymity over the Internet or our Services.

You are responsible for safeguarding the way you choose to access our Services. You fully assume any risks or actions that may be taken against you for accessing or contributing to our Services.

You are responsible for any activity using the Services, whether or not you authorized to use the Services. You acknowledge that if you wish to protect your transmission of data or files to Open Technology Fund, it is your responsibility to use a secure encrypted connection to communicate with the Services. We recommend reviewing EFF’s “Learn to Encrypt Your Internet Communications”

Your Privacy

For users of our Services, we temporarily log standard technical information, such as the numerical Internet protocol (IP) address of the computer you are using; the browser software you use and your operating system; and the Internet address of the outside website from which you followed a link to our Services, for up to 48 hours. The information is kept for 48 hours primarily to assist Open Technology Fund in diagnosing technical problems and defending against attacks on the site.

After 48 hours, Open Technology Fund makes anonymous, obfuscates, aggregates and/or deletes unneeded technical information. Circumstances in which Open Technology Fund may need to retain technical information longer than 48 hours include when we believe it is reasonably necessary for conducting site testing, diagnosis of technical problems, and defending against attacks on the site. In those instances we will delete the information as soon as it is apparent the information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was kept. For more information on the methods used by Open Technology Fund for data logging and techniques to make anonymous, obfuscate, aggregate and delete information, see EFF’s “Best Practices for Online Service Providers”.

Disclosure of Information About You

Open Technology Fund adheres to the highest standards of ethical practices in all of our operations and is dedicated to protecting the privacy of all visitors to our Services. Except as disclosed below, we don’t sell, barter, give away, rent or permit anyone outside of Open Technology Fund to use or access your personal information.

While Open Technology Fund endeavors to provide the highest level of protection for your information, we may disclose information you have shared with us – which may include personally identifiable information about you – to third parties in limited circumstance, which may include: with your consent; for the purpose of fulfilling our review process or in consideration for external funding; or when we have a good faith belief it is required by law, such as pursuant to a subpoena or other judicial or administrative order.

Legal Requests to Us

If we are required by law to disclose the information that you have submitted, we will attempt to provide you with notice (unless we are prohibited) that a request for your shared information has been made in order to give you an opportunity to object to the disclosure. We will attempt to provide this notice by email, if you have given us an email address, or by postal mail if you have entered a postal address. If you do not challenge the disclosure request, we may be legally required to turn over your information.

In addition, we will independently, and when possible publicly, object to requests for access to information about users of our site that we believe to be improper.

Our ‘Cookies’

Our web server places a small data file on your computer called a ‘cookie.’ This cookie helps us improve the web site’s functionality during your visit. The cookie contains no personal information and is not used by us during your visits to other web sites. No personally information about you other than your computer type and the fact that you visited is being saved in the cookie.

Our Third-Party Service Providers

Portions of our Services are may be operated or made available by third-party service providers (“Providers” or “Provider”). Providers could include a third-party search engine to help make Service content easier to find, Content Delivery Network providers to help make Services as fast as possible, or upstream Internet Service Providers to connect our Services to the Internet, among others. The Providers may log standard technical information, such as the numerical Internet protocol (IP) address of the computer you are using; the browser software you use and your operating system; the date and time you access our site; and the Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site. Unfortunately, the information collected by the Providers is not under our control, may be collected by the Provider, and is subject to Providers own policies.

In cases where Open Technology Fund works with third-party consultants, we will restrict their use of personally identifiable information in accordance with their assigned tasks. Open Technology Fund may change Providers from time to time, and will transfer stored information to the new Providers subject to similar restrictions.

Open Technology Fund Services may link to a wide variety of third-party providers and their services. Open Technology Fund is not responsible for, and does not have any control over, the privacy practices, terms of service, or the content of such third parties. We encourage users to read the policies of any third-party or other website visited and reviewing EFF’s “Learn to Encrypt Your Internet Communications” to reduce the identifying information available to our Third-Party Service Providers.

Copyright and Ownership

Open Technology Fund is a program of Radio Free Asia, a private, non-profit company registered in the state of Washington, DC. Request an IRS Form 990-PF by calling our accounting department at +1 (202) 530-4976. Board members and officers are identified on the web site.

Copyright © Open Technology Fund. The publicly available contents of this Website and our Services are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) License protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. Open Technology Fund welcomes the re-use, republication, and distribution of original only published on this Website and Services on condition that you credit Open Technology Fund by including the following information: Copyright © 1998-2014, Open Technology Fund. Used with the permission of Open Technology Fund, 2025 M St. NW, Suite 300, Washington DC 20036. http://www.opentech.fund.

For questions relating to this web site or for further information email [email protected]

Any user who duplicates electronically or in printed form, re-transmits, redistributes or otherwise uses material on this web site shall be solely responsible for any violations of copyright proprietary or other personal right, including libel or slander, or any other personal injury, and hereby agrees to indemnify and hold Open Technology Fund harmless from any loss or damage, including attorneys’ fees, arising out of any claim or proceeding instituted on the grounds that any of the foregoing rights have been violated.

Purpose

The purpose of our Services are to inform the public about the initiatives and projects of Open Technology Fund, to help shine light on the operations of those we support, to present information to inform future applicants, and to allow an open submission platform for any and all potential applicants.

Advertising

The web site carries no advertising. There are no paid sponsorship’s. Open Technology Fund does not receive any payment or compensation for publishing any content or link.

Corrections

If you are aware of incorrect information on this web site, please send all related information, including a link to the page, to [email protected]