Terms of Use

01 About these Terms

1.1 What the Website is. The Website provides information about the AAC, the Acceptable Ads Standard (the “Standard”), and our work.

1.2 What these Terms do not change. These Terms do not change:

• the content, authority, or application of the Standard;
• the Committee’s Bylaws, membership, or governance; or
• any separate agreement with the AAC or relating to the Standard.

If a separate agreement conflicts with these Terms, the separate agreement prevails. You do not need the AAC’s permission to apply the Standard.

1.3 Privacy. Our Privacy Notice explains how we handle personal information.

1.4 Changes. We may update these Terms by posting a new version on this page with a new effective date. An update applies to your use of the Website after it is posted. It does not apply to a dispute that arose before then.

02 Using our content

2.1 Content. “Content” means the text, graphics, logos, reports, documents, and other materials we make available on the Website.

2.2 What you may do without asking. You may:

1. read, view, download, and print Content, and keep copies;
2. share links to any page or file on the Website;
3. quote reasonable excerpts, for example in news, commentary, research, teaching, or discussion;
4. reproduce Content, including the text of the Standard, as reasonably needed to explain, apply, implement, or comment on the Standard, for example in guidelines, training, product documentation, or compliance materials; and
5. use Content for indexing, retrieval, summaries, and AI training as section 4 allows.

2.3 Conditions. When you quote, reproduce, summarise, translate, or adapt Content, you must:

• identify the AAC as the source and, where practical, link to the page you used;
• not misrepresent the AAC’s position;
• not present altered material as the AAC’s original, and make clear which changes, translations, adaptations, or summaries are yours; and
• when you reproduce the Standard, say which version you used and point readers to the current version on our Website.

This does not prevent clearly identified commentary, translations, adaptations, or summaries made under section 2.2 or as the law allows.

2.4 What needs our permission. Except as sections 2.2 and 4 allow, you need our written permission to:

• publicly republish the Website or substantial parts of the Content as a standalone copy, such as complete pages or reports, including a copy or mirror that could replace a visit to the Website; or
• publish adaptations, translations, or excerpts of Content presented as official AAC materials.

To ask for permission, use the contact form described in section 9.

2.5 Rights under the law. These Terms do not limit any use of Content that the law allows without permission, such as fair use.

2.6 Only rights the AAC can grant. The permissions in sections 2 and 4 cover only rights that the AAC can grant. Materials that belong to others are covered by section 3.3.

03 Our name, logo, and work

3.1 Ownership. The AAC owns the Content, including the original text of the Standard, our reports, and the design of the Website, except for materials that belong to others (section 3.3). The AAC also owns the name “Acceptable Ads Committee”, the abbreviation “AAC” as used for the Committee, and the AAC logo. We keep all rights not granted in these Terms.

3.2 Facts and ideas remain free. Our rights cover how we express our work. They do not give us exclusive rights over underlying facts, ideas, or methods, or over the requirements of the Standard, which anyone may apply.

3.3 Materials belonging to others. Some materials on the Website belong to others, such as other organisations’ logos, embedded videos, and material identified as third-party work or shown with its own licence. Their owners’ rights and any applicable licence govern those materials. These Terms give you no rights in them.

3.4 Referring to the AAC. You may use our name to refer to the AAC and its work accurately. For example, you may say truthfully that your ads or product are designed to meet the Standard. You must not:

• use the AAC logo without our permission, except within an unaltered reproduction of Content allowed by section 2 or as the law allows;
• suggest that the AAC endorses, approves, certifies, sponsors, or is affiliated with you, your organisation, your product, or your ads, unless we have agreed in writing;
• present the AAC’s work as your own, or another’s work as the AAC’s; or
• use a name, logo, or domain name that is likely to be confused with ours.

04 Search engines and AI

4.1 We welcome indexing and AI use. We want our work to be found and understood. You may access the Website by automated means to:

• index Content;
• retrieve Content to answer users’ questions;
• summarise Content; and
• use Content to train, fine-tune, or evaluate AI models.

You may copy and store Content as reasonably needed for these purposes, including in search indexes, retrieval databases, and training datasets.

4.2 Access respectfully. When you access the Website by automated means, you must:

• follow our robots.txt file and any other access instructions we publish;
• not bypass logins, access controls, spam protection, email confirmation, or other restrictions; and
• not overload or disrupt the Website.

4.3 Credit and substitution. When you show people an identifiable quotation, summary, or reproduction of Content, identify the AAC as the source and, where practical, link to the page it came from. You do not need to credit the AAC in every output of a model trained on Content.

Indexing and training are not republication. However, you must not:

• publicly republish substantial Content as a standalone substitute for the Website, except as section 2 allows;
• misrepresent the AAC’s position; or
• present generated or altered text as the AAC’s own words or as the official text of the Standard.

05 Conduct

When using the Website, you must not:

• send spam, or bulk or automated messages, through our forms;
• submit abusive, threatening, fraudulent, or unlawful material;
• impersonate any person or organisation, or misstate who you are or who you represent;
• access or try to access non-public areas, accounts, or systems, or get around security measures;
• exploit a vulnerability or test our security in a way that could cause harm. If you find a security problem, please tell us through the contact form;
• introduce malware or other harmful code;
• interfere with the Website or overload it with requests;
• reuse Content or our name in a misleading way; or
• use the Website for any unlawful purpose.

06 Information you send us

6.1 Accurate and authorised. You may send us information through a form, including a message, an application to join the Committee, or feedback on a proposal. Any factual information in it must be accurate to the best of your knowledge. Opinions, ideas, and proposals are welcome as they are. You must have the right to send what you submit, including any information about other people.

6.2 Email confirmation. We may ask you to confirm your email address before a submission reaches us. Unconfirmed submissions are deleted shortly after the confirmation link expires.

6.3 How we use it. You keep ownership of what you send. You allow the AAC to use, copy, store, and share it as needed to:

• handle your submission, including responding to you and considering and acting on it; and
• carry out the Committee’s processes under its Bylaws, including any publication the Bylaws require.

We handle personal information as our Privacy Notice describes.

6.4 Confidentiality. Please do not send confidential business information through the forms. Sending a submission does not by itself create a duty of confidentiality, or any professional or other relationship. This does not affect our obligations under our Privacy Notice, applicable law, or any existing confidentiality agreement with you. An application is decided under the Bylaws, and sending one does not make you a member.

07 Stopping misuse

If you breach these Terms, or your use of the Website harms the Website, the AAC, or others, we may, without prior notice:

• refuse or remove your submissions;
• restrict or block your access to the Website, including by blocking network addresses or automated agents; and
• take other lawful steps, including seeking remedies in court.

We may choose to contact you first, but we do not have to. If you breach these Terms in a way connected to a permission in them, that permission ends for you.

08 Disclaimers and liability

8.1 Information only. Content is general information. It is not legal, technical, or other professional advice.

The Standard is adopted and amended under the Committee’s Bylaws, and we publish the current version on our Website. Research findings, proposals, and drafts are not part of the Standard unless the Committee adopts them.

8.2 Provided as is. We provide the Website free of charge, “as is”, and “as available”. We try to keep it accurate and available, but we do not promise that it will be complete, current, error-free, secure, or always available. To the extent the law allows, we disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

8.3 Other websites. Links to websites we do not operate are for convenience. We are not responsible for those websites.

8.4 Limits on liability. To the extent the law allows:

• the AAC is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data, or goodwill, arising out of the Website or these Terms; and
• the AAC’s total liability for all claims arising out of the Website or these Terms is limited to US$100.

These limits do not apply to liability for fraud, gross negligence, or wilful misconduct, or to any liability that the law does not allow to be limited.

8.5 Claims caused by misuse. If a third party makes a claim against the AAC because you breached section 3, 4, 5, or 6, you must compensate the AAC for its resulting reasonable losses and legal costs, to the extent the law allows. This does not cover any loss to the extent it is caused by the AAC’s own wrongful act or omission.

8.6 Rights you keep. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits a right or remedy that the law says cannot be excluded or limited.

09 Contacting us and notices

For questions about these Terms, permission requests, and notices under these Terms, please use our contact form at acceptableadscommittee.org/join/. After you send the form, we email you a link. Your message reaches us only after you open the link and press Confirm and send.

The contact form is not a way to serve legal proceedings on the AAC. Legal process must be served as the law requires, for example on our registered agent named in our Imprint.

10 Law and courts

10.1 Governing law. The laws of the State of New York, and applicable United States federal law, govern these Terms and any dispute arising out of the Website or these Terms, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules.

10.2 Courts. Disputes arising out of the Website or these Terms must be brought in either:

• the New York State courts located in Erie County, New York; or
• the United States District Court for the Western District of New York, sitting in Buffalo.

You and the AAC agree to the jurisdiction of those courts. However:

• if the law where you live gives you a right to bring or defend a claim in your local courts, this section does not take that right away; and
• you or the AAC may ask any other court with jurisdiction for an injunction or similar order to protect intellectual property rights, including the AAC’s rights in its Content, name, and logo.

11 General

These Terms and our Privacy Notice are the whole agreement between you and the AAC about your use of the Website, subject to section 1.2. If a court finds part of these Terms unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. If we do not enforce a provision, we may still enforce it later.