# Chicago Politics Terms of Use These Terms of Use ("**Terms**") are an agreement between you and Matics Lab INC, a Delaware corporation ("**Matics Lab INC**," "**we**," "**us**" or "**our**"), which operates the website at **www.chicagopolitics.org** (the "**Site**") and its accounts, email alerts, dashboard for offices and organizations, API, MCP server and data files (together, the "**Services**"). Please read them carefully. This page is in English, and the English version controls if a translation of any page of the Site says something different. ## 1. Accepting these Terms By using the Services, or by creating an account, posting a comment or sending us a message, you agree to these Terms and to our [Privacy Policy](https://www.chicagopolitics.org/privacy), which is part of them. If you use the Services for an organization, you agree for that organization and confirm you may do so. If you do not agree, do not use the Services. ## 2. What the Services are Chicago Politics brings together public records about a city legislature: its members, votes, legislation, committees and meetings, campaign money and lobbying, and elections, with tools to search and follow them, email alerts, the On My Block news section, a dashboard for alderperson offices and organizations, and an API. The Services are for information. They are not legal, financial or voting advice, and nothing on the Site is an endorsement of any candidate, official or position. We may change, add or remove features, or suspend or end any part of the Services, at any time. We will try to give notice of a significant change where we reasonably can. ## 3. Public records and accuracy - **Where the data comes from.** Records come from official sources (the city clerk, election authorities, ethics boards, meeting video and others named on the [About page](https://www.chicagopolitics.org/about#sources)), copied and processed by us. Official sources have errors and delays, and so can our copies and calculations. - **Provided "as is".** The data, counts, rankings, maps and summaries are provided as is, without any promise that they are complete, current or error-free. Check the official record before relying on anything for a decision that matters. Links to the official documents are on the pages. - **AI-written text.** Some summaries, notes and answers are written by AI models from public documents, and are labeled. They can be wrong. The source document always wins. - **Connections are not accusations.** Where the Site shows money, lobbying or votes near each other, that shows a connection in the public record, not that one caused the other. - **Corrections.** If you find an error, tell us through the [contact form](https://www.chicagopolitics.org/contact) or email [hello@chicagopolitics.org](mailto:hello@chicagopolitics.org) with the page's link and, if you can, a link to the official record. We check every report and correct what is wrong; see our [corrections policy](https://www.chicagopolitics.org/about#corrections). We do not remove accurate public records on request. ## 4. Accounts You may create an account with your email address. You must be at least 13 years old, and old enough to agree to these Terms where you live. Keep access to your email account secure: anyone who can read it can sign in as you. You are responsible for what happens through your account. Tell us at once if you think someone else has used it. One account per person; do not share sign-in links or codes. Dashboard teams: the person who sets up a team for an office or organization is responsible for who it invites, the roles it gives them and what its members put into the dashboard. Remove people who leave. ## 5. Acceptable use You agree not to: - break any law, or use the Services to harass, threaten, defame, impersonate or invade the privacy of anyone; - use information from the Site to harass, threaten or stalk any person, including public officials, donors or lobbyists named in public records, or to contact people in ways the law prohibits; - send spam or unsolicited messages through any part of the Services (including campaign pages and alerts); - try to get into accounts, systems or data you are not allowed to reach, probe or test our security without our written permission, or get around rate limits, access controls or the honeypot and other abuse protections; - interfere with the Services, overload them, or introduce malware; - scrape or crawl the Site in a way that puts a heavy load on it (use the [API and data files](https://www.chicagopolitics.org/developers) instead), or ignore our robots.txt; - misrepresent your affiliation with anyone, or suggest that we, any official or any government endorse you; - remove or hide our notices, attributions or the labels on AI-written text when you reuse our material. ### 5.1 Comment rules Comments on On My Block articles are for discussing the article and the issues in it. When you comment: - be civil: no personal attacks, slurs, hate speech or threats, and nothing that targets anyone for their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or age; - stay on topic, and no advertising, spam or repeated posts; - do not post anyone's private information (home address, phone number, email, ID numbers) or anything you have no right to share; - do not impersonate anyone, or claim to speak for an office or organization you do not; - do not post anything illegal, sexually explicit, or that encourages violence or self-harm. Comments are limited in length and in how many you can post in a period. Readers can report comments; a comment reported by several readers is held until our staff review it. We may hide or remove any comment, and suspend anyone who breaks these rules, at our discretion. ## 6. Your content "**Your content**" means what you submit: comments, messages to us, positions on legislation, and what your team puts into the dashboard. You keep ownership of it. You give Matics Lab INC a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, publish (where the feature is public, such as comments) and process your content to provide and improve the Services, and to publish positions only as aggregate totals. This license ends when you delete your content or account, except for copies in backups for a limited time, content others have quoted or replied to, and what we must keep by law. You promise that you have the right to submit your content and that it does not break these Terms or anyone's rights. We do not review all content before it appears, are not responsible for what users post, and may remove or refuse any content at our discretion. If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without any obligation to you. ## 7. Our content and how you may reuse it The Site's design, software, logos and names, and the text we write, are owned by Matics Lab INC or its licensors. Public records themselves are not ours, and you may use them as the law allows. **Data reuse.** Our data files and the information in them are offered under the [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/): you may reuse them, including commercially, if you credit Chicago Politics with a link to the page or file. Do not present AI-written summaries as official text, and keep the labels that say what they are. **The API, MCP server and A2A agent** are subject to these Terms and to the [API terms and limits](https://www.chicagopolitics.org/developers/terms) in our developer documentation, which control if they conflict with these Terms for API use. Keep your keys secret, stay within the limits, and do not use the API to build a service that misrepresents the records or harasses the people in them. We may suspend keys that are abused. ## 8. Paid plans Plans for alderperson offices, lobbyists and advocacy groups are described on our [pricing page](https://www.chicagopolitics.org/pricing), which sets out what each includes and costs. If you buy a plan, you agree to pay the fees in effect when you buy it, plus any taxes. Yearly plans can be paid by card or invoice. Unless your order says otherwise, plans renew for the same term until cancelled, and you can cancel at any time effective at the end of the current term; fees already paid are not refunded except where the law requires or your order says so. We may change prices for future terms with reasonable notice. If a payment fails, we may suspend the paid features after notice. A separate written agreement or order form with your organization controls if it conflicts with this section. ## 9. Third-party links and services The Services link to and embed other websites and services, such as official record systems, video players, maps and ads. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content, policies or practices. Your use of them is between you and them, under their terms. ## 10. Copyright complaints We respect intellectual property rights. If you believe something on the Services infringes your copyright, send us a notice through the [contact form](https://www.chicagopolitics.org/contact) or email [hello@chicagopolitics.org](mailto:hello@chicagopolitics.org) with: your signature (typed is fine); a description of the copyrighted work; where the material is on the Services; your contact information; a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorized by the owner, its agent or the law; and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized to act for the owner. We may remove the material and, in appropriate cases, end the accounts of repeat infringers. ## 11. Disclaimers THE SERVICES AND EVERYTHING ON THEM ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, MATICS LAB INC DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY AND AVAILABILITY. WE DO NOT PROMISE THAT THE SERVICES OR ANY DATA, SUMMARY OR ANSWER ON THEM WILL BE ACCURATE, COMPLETE, CURRENT, UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE OR ERROR-FREE. YOU USE THE SERVICES, AND RELY ON ANYTHING ON THEM, AT YOUR OWN RISK. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT OTHER USERS POST OR DO. ## 12. Limitation of liability TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, MATICS LAB INC AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS AND SUPPLIERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL OR OPPORTUNITY, ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THE SERVICES OR THESE TERMS, EVEN IF WE WERE TOLD THEY WERE POSSIBLE. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SERVICES OR THESE TERMS IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100) OR THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR THE SERVICES IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW SOME OF THESE LIMITS, SO THEY MAY NOT ALL APPLY TO YOU; IN THAT CASE OUR LIABILITY IS LIMITED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS. ## 13. Indemnity To the extent the law allows, you agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Matics Lab INC and its officers, directors, employees and contractors from any claims, losses, liabilities and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from your content, your use of the Services in breach of these Terms, or your violation of the law or anyone's rights. ## 14. Suspension and termination You may stop using the Services at any time, and delete your account from [My tracker](https://www.chicagopolitics.org/account). We may suspend or end your access, remove your content, or disable your account, keys or team at any time if you break these Terms, if the law requires it, or to protect the Services or other people; where reasonable, we will tell you why. Sections that by their nature should survive (including 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 16) survive the end of these Terms. ## 15. Disputes and governing law These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware and of the United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Before filing any claim, you agree to try to resolve the dispute informally by writing to us through the [contact form](https://www.chicagopolitics.org/contact) or email [hello@chicagopolitics.org](mailto:hello@chicagopolitics.org) and giving us 60 days to work it out with you. If we cannot resolve it, any claim must be brought in the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and you and we consent to their jurisdiction, except that either of us may bring a claim in small-claims court where it qualifies, and either of us may ask any court for an injunction to protect intellectual property. To the extent the law allows, you and we each waive any right to a jury trial, and claims may be brought only individually, not as part of a class or representative action. ## 16. General These Terms, the Privacy Policy, the API terms, and any order form for a paid plan are the whole agreement between you and Matics Lab INC about the Services. If any part of them is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. Our failure to enforce a part is not a waiver. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms without our written consent; we may transfer ours in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets. There are no third-party beneficiaries. Notices to you may be given on the Site or by email to the address on your account; notices to us go through the contact details below. ## 17. Changes to these Terms We may change these Terms. We will post the new version on this page and update the "Last modified" date, and for a material change we will give notice on the Site or by email before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Services after the change takes effect means you accept the new Terms. If you do not agree, stop using the Services. ## 18. Contact Questions about these Terms: use the [contact form](https://www.chicagopolitics.org/contact) or email [hello@chicagopolitics.org](mailto:hello@chicagopolitics.org). The operator of Chicago Politics is Matics Lab INC. --- Source: https://www.chicagopolitics.org/terms ยท Chicago Politics, an independent tracker of the Chicago City Council. Guide for agents: https://www.chicagopolitics.org/llms.txt