Terms of Service

Last updated: 06.05.2024

When you use any Orient-Institut Istanbul services, you are agreeing to these latest Terms of Service (“Terms”). Violation of these terms may, at our discretion, result in us terminating your account.

We may update these Terms of Service at any time.

Definitions

“Organization”, “we”, “our”, or “us” in any of our policies or terms, refers to Orient-Institut Istanbul.

“Services” refers to our website oiist.com, and any product created and maintained by Orient-Institut Istanbul.

Finally, “you” or “your” refers to the people or organizations that own an account with one or more of our Services.

Account Terms

  1. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and password. The Organization cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage from your failure to comply with this security obligation.
  2. You may not use the Services for any purpose outlined in our Use Restrictions Policy.
  3. You are responsible for all content posted to and activity that occurs under your account.
  4. You must be a human. Accounts registered by “bots” or other automated methods are not permitted.

Cancellation and Termination

  1. You are solely responsible for properly canceling your account. You can find instructions for how to cancel your account in our Cancellation Policy. An email or phone request to cancel your account is not automatically considered cancellation. If you need help canceling your account, you can always contact our Support team.
  2. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account and refuse any and all current or future use of our Services for any reason at any time. Suspension means you and any other users on your account will not be able to access the account or any content in the account. Termination will furthermore result in the deletion of your account or your access to your account, and the deletion of all content in your account. We also reserve the right to refuse the use of the Services to anyone for any reason at any time, including, but not limited to violations of our Use Restrictions Policy.
  3. Verbal, physical, written or other abuse (including threats of abuse or retribution) of an Organization employee or officer will result in immediate account termination.

Uptime, Security, and Privacy

  1. Your use of the Services is at your sole risk. We provide these Services on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We do not offer service-level agreements, but do take uptime of our applications seriously.
  2. We reserve the right to temporarily disable your account if your usage significantly exceeds the average usage of other customers of the Services. We’ll reach out to the account owner before taking any action except in rare cases where the level of use may negatively impact the performance of the Service for other customers.
  3. We take many measures to protect and secure your data through backups, redundancies, and encryption. We enforce encryption for data transmission from the public Internet. There are some edge cases where we may send your data through our network unencrypted.
  4. You agree that Orient-Institut Istanbul may process your data as described in our Privacy Policy and for no other purpose. On rare occasion, our staff may access your data for the following reasons:
    • To help you with support requests you make. We’ll ask for express consent before accessing your account.
    • On the rare occasions when an error occurs that stops an automated process partway through. We get automated alerts when such errors occur. When we can fix the issue and restart automated processing without looking at any personal data, we do. In rare cases, we have to look at a minimum amount of personal data to fix the issue.
    • To safeguard Orient-Institut Istanbul. We’ll look at logs and metadata as part of our work to ensure the security of your data and the Services as a whole. If necessary, we may also access accounts as part of an abuse report investigation.
    • In compliance with applicable EU legislation. As an organization based in the EU with our primary data infrastructure located within the EU, we manage customer data strictly in accordance with the GDPR. We will only process or disclose customer data under the following circumstances:
      • Legal Requirements: We may preserve or share customer data when required by EU or member state law. This may include compliance with orders from courts or legal authorities within the jurisdiction of the EU.
      • International Requests: If approached by a non-EU authority for data access, our standard policy is to refuse such requests unless they are backed by an international agreement, such as a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), to which the EU is a party and which is recognized under EU law.
      • Emergency Requests: In rare cases of legitimate emergency requests, data may be shared in accordance with EU regulations and our stringent internal policies designed to protect personal data.
  5. We use third party vendors and hosting partners to provide the necessary hardware, software, networking, storage, and related technology required to run the Services. You can see a list of all subprocessors who handle personal data here.
  6. Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Orient-Institut Istanbul is classified as a “data processor” rather than a “data controller” with respect to your use of our services. This classification reflects our role in processing personal data on behalf of another data controller, and we commit to handling all personal data in accordance with GDPR requirements. We ensure the protection and confidentiality of the data processed, abiding by all legal obligations and ensuring that data processing aligns strictly with the instructions provided by the data controller and the provisions of our data processing agreements. That means we process any data you share with us only for the purpose you signed up for and as described in these Terms and Privacy Policy. As part of the Max-Weber Foundation we do not retain, use, disclose, or sell any of that information for any commercial purposes. Similarly, you agree to comply with your obligations under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and not use the Orient-Institut Istanbul’s Services in a manner that violates these regulations. It is your responsibility to ensure that the use of our services aligns with all applicable data protection laws, respecting the principles of data privacy and security as stipulated by the GDPR.
  7. These Terms incorporate the Orient-Institut Istanbul Data Processing Addendum (“DPA”) when the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) applies to your use of Orient-Institut Istanbul Services to process Customer Data as defined in the DPA. The DPA linked above supersedes any previously agreed data processing addendum between you and Orient-Institut Istanbul relating to your use of the Orient-Institut Istanbul Services.

Copyright and Content Ownership

  1. All content posted on the Services must comply with EU copyright law (Directive (EU) 2019/790). We provide details on how to file a copyright infringement claim.
  2. You give us a limited license to use the content posted by you and your users in order to provide the Services to you, but we claim no ownership rights over those materials. All materials you submit to the Services remain yours.
  3. We do not pre-screen content, but we reserve the right (but not the obligation) in our sole discretion to refuse or remove any content that is available via the Service.
  4. The Organization or its licensors own all right, title, and interest in and to the Services, including all intellectual property rights therein, and you obtain no ownership rights in the Services as a result of your use. You may not duplicate, copy, or reuse any portion of the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or visual design elements without express written permission from the Organization. You must request permission to use the Organization’s logos or any Service logos for promotional purposes. Please email us requests to use logos. We reserve the right to rescind any permissions if you violate these Terms.
  5. You agree not to reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, resell or exploit any portion of the Services, use of the Services, or access to the Services without the express written permission of the Organization.

Liability

You agree that the Organization is not liable to you or to any third party for damages of any kind that result from the use of the Services, in ability to access data, or unauthorized access of your data or account. The Organization is also not liable for damages of any kind related to actions of any third party that uses the Services, or any other consequences related to the Terms or Services.

If you have a question about any of these Terms, please contact our Support team.

Adapted from the Basecamp open-source policies / CC BY 4.0