Terms and Conditions

ThoughtWorld is a platform for helping people share and refine their thoughts and opinions, understand what others think, and bring people together.  We refer to the thoughtworld.com website and ThoughtWorld apps together with other related digital properties as the “Platform”. The Platform helps ordinary people, businesses, nonprofits, policy makers, and others understand why groups of people think the way they do. In some cases it helps connect people with others who share specific views.  It is provided by ThoughtWorld Inc. (“ThoughtWorld”) and these Terms govern your use of the Platform.

1. We’re all about opinions. 

ThoughtWorld is not a news agency or publisher of information and does not verify the accuracy of any information found on or linked to by our users.  ThoughtWorld does not fact check the thoughts posted by users, but recognizes that they are opinions.  We encourage our users to do the fact checking.  ThoughtWorld enforces only three rules about posting thoughts:

1. Single Thought Rule – Each thought must be a single thought and must include a “Why” section where the user states the reason for that thought.  If you suggest a thought that contains multiple thoughts, is not clear, or is the same as a thought already on the Platform, a curator following our guidelines will assist you in dividing your thoughts into multiple single thoughts that are suitable for publication or focusing your thought so it is clear, unique, and ready to be voted on by the public.
2. Subject Rule – Thoughts cannot have as their subject a named individual who is not a public figure, or a private organization or entity, unless that person organization or entity has expressly agreed to allow itself to become the subject of thoughts on ThoughtWorld.  ThoughtWorld is not intended to be a popularity contest, or a platform for harming the reputations of specific individuals or companies.  We invite users to discuss the ideas or policies of candidates, the attributes of products they like or dislike, and other information that does not name a specific individual or company as the subject. For example, the thought “John Doe is a bad person” with the reason “John Doe is a bad person because his policies will hurt people” does not meet the Subject Rule. The thought “Policies should not hurt people” with the reason “It is morally wrong to adopt policies that will hurt people. See example johndoe.com/policy.” would meet the subject rule, even though John Doe’s website is referenced in the reason for the thought, his content is the subject to add context to the thought, John Doe is not the subject of the thought.
3. Profanity Rule – Vulgar, profane, sexual, or violent content are not permitted.

2. We sell aggregated data.

Unlike most social media websites that use your personal information to target you with advertising, maintaining your anonymity is one of our core principles and we will not reveal your thoughts or votes to any third parties without your consent.  We sell aggregated data and analysis about groups of people to businesses, news outlets, elected officials, nonprofit organizations, candidates for office, and others who want to understand how people think.  We will always make sure your data is grouped with data from other people in a way that protects your anonymity.

3. We offer you connection invitations.

Some businesses, organizations, or people may be willing to pay us to help connect them with you.  If your likes and dislikes are what someone is looking for, we may present you with an invitation to connect with them.  It will always be your choice whether to connect or not, and if you choose to connect, we may be paid a fee for making the connection.

4. You own your thoughts, but we own the words you submit.

At ThoughtWorld, our purpose is to bring people together by helping them think new thoughts, become exposed to new ideas, and collaborate with others. Because this process requires the constant collection of intellectual property from users and the combination of that property with other users, there can be no assertion by any user that they retain any ownership interest in a submitted “Thought” once the Thought has been submitted. In exchange for the right to participate on the platform, you hereby sell, assign, and transfer any rights you have to the user generated content (“UGC”) you submit on the Platform to ThoughtWorld. To the extent this assignment is not effective, you hereby grant ThoughtWorld a non-exclusive, royalty free, perpetual right to use any UGC you submit, create derivative products from any UGC, and use the resulting votes or collaborative thoughts created from your UGC for its own marketing, promotion, market data aggregation and other uses, subject to its confidentiality obligations outlined above.

5. No Publication Rights

You understand that ThoughtWorld reserves the right not to publish your thought, or to remove your thoughts, votes, or other UGC from the Platform at any time to protect the integrity of the Platform and maintain the quality of its community and Platform decorum. The Platform will automatically remove any thought that has no new user engagement after a period of time, which may vary depending on how dense the nearby thoughts are or how similar your thought is to another user’s thought.

6. Filtering Tools.

ThoughtWorld is for adults and children twelve and older only.  We plan to release child-friendly sites in the future, but presently all users must confirm they meet these age restrictions to use the platform.  We attempt to prevent children from joining under an alias, but if you are concerned about preventing your children from accessing ThoughtWorld inappropriately, parental filtering tools are available on the internet. By using the website, you agree that you are an adult capable of understanding these Terms and are agreeing to them, or that you are a child with permission from your parent or legal guardian.

7. Cookies

The ThoughtWorld website uses cookies to help the Platform remember your identity and preferences. No identifiable personal information is stored in cookies we use. The website will not function properly without the use of cookies so if you choose not to accept cookies, you will be unable to use the website.

8. Embedded Content

Thoughts on the Platform may include embedded content including videos, images, links, etc. (“Embedded Content”). Embedded Content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website. ThoughtWorld takes no responsibility for the actions of those third party websites after you leave the Platform.

9. Right to be forgotten

If you decide not to use the Platform anymore, you may request that ThoughtWorld purge all your personally identifiable information from the Platform. This will result in your thoughts no longer being attributed to your username, but it will not remove Thoughts you authored. Your Thoughts will remain published on the Platform until they are naturally removed as a result of a lack of user engagement.

 10.  Intellectual Property

You agree that the design, layout, artwork, functionality, programming methods, business processes, delivery techniques, products, services, and related information are proprietary information of ThoughtWorld (“ThoughtWorld Information”).  You agree not to use, copy, sell, redistribute, reverse engineer, or otherwise attempt to monetize ThoughtWorld Information or the Platform without the prior written permission of ThoughtWorld as to each specific use.