Plain-language summary
- Ideas you publish become public and non-confidential. Others can discuss and build on them.
- You keep ownership of your content; you give us only the licence we need to run the platform.
- AI helps structure, research, moderate, and rank ideas — it is not professional advice.
- You must be at least 16 years old to register.
- Donations are voluntary support, not investments.
- We can remove content or accounts that violate these terms.
1. Acceptance of terms
By accessing or using Clap Ideas (“the Platform”), you agree to these Terms of Service (“Terms”) and all incorporated policies. If you do not agree, do not use the Platform. These Terms form a binding agreement between you and the operator of Clap Ideas (“we,” “us,” “our”).
The Platform is operated by CLAPPE Inc.(“the operator”), based at Suite C, 16644 - 71 St, Edmonton, AB T5Z 0N5, Canada. We communicate by email only — we do not offer telephone support. These Terms remain a draft pending review by qualified counsel; the operator’s final corporate registration details and any regional representatives will be confirmed on formal launch.
2. Eligibility and age requirements
You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. Users between 16 and 18 should review our Children, Minors & Age Policy. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you are under 13, do not use the Platform.
For certain activities (events involving minors, regulated research proposals, donations), additional age and parental-consent requirements may apply.
3. Account registration and security
When you register:
- You must provide accurate information.
- You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your credentials.
- You are responsible for all activity under your account.
- Notify us immediately at legal@clapideas.com if you suspect unauthorised use.
- Do not share accounts or create accounts to circumvent bans.
4. Platform purpose and public-benefit mission
Clap Ideas is an AI-powered global idea democracy and future-technology lab. It is intended as a public-benefit, public-interest platform — not a traditional commercial social network. Our mission: Democratizing Ideas. Building the Future. No serious idea is rejected for sounding impossible today; instead, we classify the breakthrough required.
5. User content ownership and platform licence
You retain ownership of the original content you submit. By submitting content to the Platform, you grant Clap Ideas a worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, non-exclusive licence to:
- Host, display, store, index, and cache your content.
- Process your content through AI systems for structuring, research, moderation, duplicate detection, ranking, summarisation, and translation.
- Allow other users to read, reference, discuss, and build upon your published ideas through Platform functionality, subject to attribution requirements.
- Reproduce your content for backup, security, and technical purposes.
We do not claim ownership of your content. The licence above is only what is needed to operate the Platform.
6. Public idea submission — no confidentiality
Critical notice: All ideas you publish on the Platform are public and non-confidential from the moment of publication.
- Do not submit trade secrets, classified information, confidential business information, employer-owned inventions, or information you are under a legal duty to protect.
- Public disclosure may affect your patent rights, trade secret protections, and commercial interests. Consult a qualified attorney before publishing patentable or commercially sensitive information.
- The Platform is not an invention-submission company, patent attorney, confidentiality custodian, or technology-transfer office.
- We do not guarantee exclusivity, ownership, copyrightability, patentability, commercial freedom to operate, or monetisation.
- Similar or identical ideas may already exist or may be independently developed.
- The Platform may cluster, merge, rank, summarise, or link similar ideas.
7. Open collaboration and “Run With This Idea”
Other users may create pathways, projects, teams, and events based on public ideas through Platform functionality. This is a core feature of Clap Ideas.
- Original submitters and meaningful contributors receive attribution according to our IP & Attribution Policy.
- Creating a project from an idea does not give the project creator exclusive ownership over the original idea.
- Building on an idea does not create a partnership, employment relationship, agency, joint venture, fiduciary duty, or legal representation between users or between users and Clap Ideas.
- Clap Ideas is not responsible for user-led projects, external groups, off-platform actions, unsafe experiments, event conduct, fundraising, or third-party collaborations.
- Users must comply with all applicable laws, safety rules, institutional requirements, employer obligations, export controls, sanctions, and ethical requirements.
8. AI-assisted features and limitations
AI is integral to Clap Ideas. AI systems are used for:
- Idea intake, structuring, and summarisation.
- Research briefs and feasibility analysis.
- Duplicate detection and clustering.
- Moderation and safety classification.
- Ranking and scoring.
- Suggested pathways, projects, and events.
AI outputs may be inaccurate, incomplete, biased, outdated, or hallucinated. They are provided for discussion and exploration only. They are not professional legal, medical, scientific, engineering, financial, investment, tax, safety, or regulatory advice. You must independently verify all technical, scientific, legal, regulatory, safety, and factual claims. See our AI Transparency Policy for full details.
9. Acceptable use
You agree to comply with our Community Guidelines. You must not use the Platform for illegal activity, harassment, abuse, spam, dangerous instructions, weapons research, malware, fraud, impersonation, or circumvention of safety systems.
10. Projects and events organiser responsibility
If you create a project or event through the Platform:
- You are solely responsible for the project or event’s legality, safety, participant conduct, location permissions, fundraising, external communications, and compliance with all applicable laws.
- You must not conduct unsafe experiments, regulated research, medical or clinical activity, human-subject research, hazardous engineering, weapons development, or other high-risk activity without proper authorisation and safeguards.
- You must not misrepresent that your project or event is officially sponsored by Clap Ideas without written approval from an authorised administrator.
- Clap Ideas does not endorse or supervise user-led projects or events.
11. Donations, sponsorship, and payment processors
Donations are voluntary support for the Platform or for specified public-interest activities. They are notinvestments, equity, loans, grants with guaranteed deliverables, votes, ranking boosts, or purchases of influence over ideas, rankings, moderation, AI outputs, or governance. Tax deductibility is not guaranteed and depends on the operator’s legal status and your jurisdiction.
Card payments are processed by Stripe and collected by CLAPPE Inc.(the operator) on behalf of Clap Ideas. Your card details are entered on Stripe’s secure checkout and never reach our servers. Your card or bank statement will show CLAPPE INC. We offer one-time and recurring (monthly or yearly) donations; recurring donations renew automatically until you cancel, and you can cancel future renewals at any time. Full terms, refunds, and receipts are in our Donation, Sponsorship & Refund Policy.
12. Third-party services
The Platform relies on third-party services — for example Stripe (payments), Google (Gemini AI models), and an error-monitoring service. Your use of those services may also be governed by their own terms and privacy policies. We are not responsible for third-party services we do not control. Links to external sites are provided for convenience and are not endorsements.
13. Intellectual property and infringement reporting
“Clap Ideas” and our logos are our marks; do not use them without permission. Respect others’ intellectual property. If you believe content on the Platform infringes your copyright, you can file a takedown notice and, if your content was removed in error, a counter-notice. Our full process, including the repeat-infringer policy, is in the Copyright & DMCA Policy. See also our IP & Attribution Policy.
14. Feedback
If you send us suggestions or feedback about the Platform, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to use it without restriction or obligation to you. We may use feedback to improve the Platform without crediting or compensating you.
15. No professional advice
Nothing on the Platform constitutes professional legal, medical, scientific, engineering, financial, investment, tax, regulatory, safety, or any other professional advice. Do not rely on AI outputs or user contributions as such. See our Research, Experiment & High-Risk Innovation Safety Policy for high-risk topics.
16. Disclaimers of warranties
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE PLATFORM IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR UNINTERRUPTED AVAILABILITY.
17. Limitation of liability
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, CLAP IDEAS AND ITS OPERATORS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, AND AFFILIATES SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE, OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE PLATFORM, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY SHALL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO US IN THE TWELVE MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM OR (B) ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS (USD 100).
SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. WHERE SUCH LIMITATIONS ARE PROHIBITED, OUR LIABILITY IS LIMITED TO THE GREATEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.
18. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Clap Ideas and its operators, directors, employees, agents, and affiliates from any claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from: (a) your use of the Platform; (b) your content; (c) your violation of these Terms; (d) your violation of any third-party rights; or (e) any project, event, or off-platform activity you conduct.
19. Export controls and sanctions
You must comply with all applicable export-control and economic-sanctions laws. You may not use the Platform if you are subject to sanctions or located in a sanctioned region where such use is prohibited, and you may not use it to share export-controlled technical data or to evade these laws.
20. Force majeure
We are not liable for any delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including outages of third-party providers, natural events, war, civil unrest, labour disputes, or government action.
21. Suspension and termination
You may stop using the Platform and delete your account at any time. We may suspend, restrict, or terminate your access — or remove, hide, down-rank, label, or preserve content — if you breach these Terms or our policies, or where needed for safety, legality, or to protect the Platform and its users. Where appropriate we will give notice and, for most moderation actions, an opportunity to appeal under our Moderation, Enforcement & Appeals Policy. Some terms survive termination, including content licences already granted, disclaimers, limitations of liability, and indemnities.
22. Governing law and dispute resolution
Unless your local law requires otherwise, these Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Alberta and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. The courts located in Alberta, Canada will have jurisdiction, except where mandatory consumer-protection law in your country of residence gives you the right to bring proceedings locally. This choice of law and forum is a draft default and is subject to final confirmation by qualified counsel.
On formal launch, and subject to counsel, the operator may add a binding arbitration agreement and a class-action waiver where these are lawful and enforceable. Any such terms, and any region-specific carve-outs (for example for EEA/UK consumers), will be published here before they take effect. Nothing in these Terms removes mandatory rights you have under the law of your home country.
23. Changes to terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. If changes are material, we will provide notice (for example, by email or in-app notification). Continued use after the effective date of updated Terms constitutes acceptance.
24. Contact
For questions about these Terms, email legal@clapideas.com (by email only; we do not offer telephone support). Related policies include our Privacy Policy, Acceptable Use Policy, and AI Transparency Policy. Change history is tracked by document version; see the Legal Centre.