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Terms Of Use

Effective Date: January 1, 2021

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Welcome To Tomodachi

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Tomodachi’s mission is to provide services that enable schools, teachers, and students to safely connect with each other and exchange educational ideas. We are committed to empower the people in our community to express themselves and share content that is important to them. To advance our mission, we hold you to the provisions as set forth by our Terms of Use (“Terms”). By creating an account on Tomodachi, you agree to be bound by our Terms. The Terms here below govern your use of all relevant Tomodachi services. 

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Our Privacy Promises

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Protecting your privacy is fundamental to our mission and business. The following summarize our promises to you: 

  • We will not sell your personal data or share information that directly identifies you (such as your name, email address, or other contact information) with advertisers.

  • We use the latest security industry best practices to protect you.

  • We are transparent about our practices and will notify you if things change.

  • We are compliant with FERPA, COPPA, GDPR, MFIPPA, and the Australian Privacy Act.

 

To learn more about how Tomodachi collects, stores, uses, shares, and protects your personal information, please visit our full Privacy Policy page.

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Parental Consent

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We require that teachers or schools get parental consent before using Tomodachi with children who are under the age when they can grant consent on their own.  This age may vary based on where you live. For example, in the US that age is younger than 13. You should check your local laws to determine the relevant age in your country.  If you are aware Tomodachi is collecting information from a student without parental consent, please contact us immediately and we will delete the data.

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Service Eligibility

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To use Tomodachi’s services, you agree to:

  • Use your real name

  • Provide accurate information about yourself

  • Create only one account (your own)

  • Not share your password, give access to others, or transfer your account to anyone else (without our permission)

 

We try to make Tomodachi broadly available to everyone, but you cannot use Tomodachi if:

  • You are under 13 years old without parental consent

  • You are a convicted sex offender

  • We've previously disabled your account for breaches of our Terms

  • You are prohibited from receiving our software under applicable laws


 

Teacher Account

 

Only teachers or school administrators can create a class on Tomodachi. Once the class is created, teachers can authorize students with appropriate permissions to join their class and create, view, comment on, and share work.

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When you create a class, you agree that:

  • Any students you add to your class are current students in your class.

  • You will use Tomodachi only for lawful purposes and abide by applicable law and school or school district policies.

  • You will take reasonable steps to confirm that students are using Tomodachi appropriately.

  • You will take reasonable measures to protect access to student personal information.


 

Student Account

 

Students may use Tomodachi only if their parent or legal guardian has given permission to their teacher or school. 

 

When you create an account in Tomodachi, you agree to:

  • Use Tomodachi only if you have been given a Join Code or have otherwise been invited to use Tomodachi by your teacher.

  • Use Tomodachi in a manner that is appropriate to the classroom.

  • Not violate the policies of your school or school district in your use of Tomodachi.


 

Prohibited Activities

 

People will only participate enthusiastically and without reservation on Tomodachi if they feel safe. We pledge to make a good faith effort to detect misuse of our software, harmful communication or conduct with others. If we learn of such content or conduct, we will take appropriate action such as blocking content or access to certain features, disabling accounts, or even contacting law enforcement. 

 

With this good faith commitment, we also commit you to conduct that in no way bullies others or is manifestly not constructive to the community. Should you violate these terms, then your account and participation will be suspended. 

 

You therefore agree NOT to engage in the conduct described below (or to facilitate or support others in doing the following):

  • Use Tomodachi in a manner that is unlawful, misleading, discriminatory or fraudulent.

  • Use Tomodachi in a way that infringes or breaches someone else's rights, including their intellectual property rights.

  • Upload viruses or do anything that could disable, overburden, or impair the proper working or appearance of any software, hardware, or equipment that belongs to Tomodachi or anyone else.

  • Access or collect data from our software using automated means or attempt to access data you do not have permission to access.

  • Use Tomodachi to distribute unsolicited or unauthorized unsolicited communications, promotions, advertisements or spam.

  • Use Tomodachi in any manner that violates applicable school or school district policies.

  • Use Tomodachi to lie or mislead other users.

  • Use Tomodachi to do anything threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, tortious, obscene, profane, or invasive of another person’s privacy.

  • Impersonate Tomodachi or our users on Tomodachi or elsewhere.

  • Interfere with anyone’s use or enjoyment of Tomodachi.

 

We also can remove or restrict access to your content, services or information if we determine that doing so is reasonably necessary to avoid or mitigate adverse legal impact to Tomodachi.

 

To help support our community, we encourage you to report content or conduct that you believe breaches your rights or our Terms.

 

 

Permissions

 

We need certain permissions from you to provide for the optimal functionality of the Tomodachi software:

  • Permission to use content you create and share. Some content that you share or upload may be protected by intellectual property laws. While you own those intellectual property rights (things like copyright or trademarks) in any such content that you create and share on Tomodachi, you grant us herewith a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your application settings). This means you give us permission to store, copy, and share your content with others (again, consistent with your settings). This license ends, however, if your content is deleted from our systems.

  • Permission to update software you use or download. If you download or use our software, you give us permission to download and install updates to the software where available.

  • Permission to enable global access to our services. To operate our global service, we may need to store and distribute content and data in our data centers and systems outside your country of residence.

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Tomodachi’s Intellectual Property

 

Tomodachi is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. If you use content covered by intellectual property rights that we have and make available in our software (for example, images, designs, videos, or sounds we provide that you add to content you create or share), we retain all rights to that content (but not yours). You can only use our copyrights or trademarks (or any similar marks) with our prior written permission. Unauthorized use of Tomodachi’s logos, trademarks, copyrights, domain names, or other distinctive brand features is prohibited.

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Updating Our Terms

 

We work constantly to improve our services and develop new learning features to make our software better for you and our community. As a result, we may need to update these Terms from time to time to accurately reflect our services and practices. Tomodachi will notify you of any changes to our terms that materially alter your rights or responsibilities by email and by posting a notice to our site. If you as a teacher, student, or school administrator continue to use Tomodachi after you receive such a notice, you agree to be bound by any changes to our Terms.

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Account Suspension Or Termination

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Tomodachi reserves the right to suspend or terminate accounts associated with users who engage in any of the prohibited activities described above or in any manner that otherwise violates our Terms or other policies. In addition, we reserve the right to terminate any account at any time for any reason without notice to you. 

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Limitation Of Liability 

 

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Tomodachi will not be liable to you for any special, indirect, incidental, punitive, reliance, consequential, or exemplary damages, even if Tomodachi has been advised of the possibility of damages, or any loss of profits or revenues, whether incurred directly or indirectly, or any loss of data, goodwill or other intangible losses relating to or resulting from: (a) your access to, use of, or inability to use Tomodachi; (b) any conduct or content of any user or third party on our services; (c) unauthorized access, use, or alterations of your transmissions or content; (d) any information posted on Tomodachi; or (e) Tomodachi’s decision to publish or remove any information on our service.


 

Disputes

 

We try to provide clear rules so that we can limit or hopefully avoid disputes between you and us. If a dispute does arise, however, it's useful to know up front where it can be resolved and what laws will apply.

 

If you are a consumer and habitually reside in a Member State of the European Union, the laws of that Member State will apply to any claim, cause of action, or dispute you have against us that arises out of or relates to these Terms or the Tomodachi software ("claim"), and you may resolve your claim in any competent court in that Member State that has jurisdiction over the claim. 

 

In all other cases, you agree that the claim must be resolved in a competent court in the State of California and that California law will govern these Terms and any claim, without regard to conflict of law provisions.

 

 

Informal Dispute Resolution

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We want to address your concerns without needing a formal legal case. Before filing a claim against Tomodachi, you agree to try to resolve the Dispute informally by contacting us at our email provided in the Contact information below. We'll try to resolve the Dispute informally by contacting you through email. If a dispute is not resolved within 30 days after submission, you or Tomodachi may bring a formal proceeding.

 

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No Class Actions

 

You may only resolve Disputes with Tomodachi on an individual basis, and may not bring a claim as a plaintiff or a class member in a class, consolidated, or representative action. Class arbitrations, class actions, private attorney general actions, and consolidation with other arbitrations aren't allowed under our agreement.

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Entire Agreement

 

These Terms make up the entire agreement between you and Tomodachi and replace any prior agreements. If any portion of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining portion will remain in full force. If we fail to enforce any of these Terms, this shall not constitute a waiver. Any amendment to or waiver of these Terms must be made in writing and signed by both parties. You will not transfer any of your rights or obligations under these Terms to anyone else without our consent.

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Contact

 

If you have any questions about this Terms of Use, please contact us at info@thetomo.org.

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