User accounts

When you sign or create a petition via our platform, a Change.org account is created for you. All your campaign activities are then tied to this account.

When setting up your account, you must provide accurate and complete information, including a valid email address. You have complete responsibility for your account and everything that happens on your account, including for any harm or damage (to us or anyone else) caused by someone using your account without your permission. This means you need to be careful with your password. You may not transfer your account to someone else or use someone else’s account without their permission. Inform us immediately upon learning that someone else may be using your account without your permission, by contacting us through our Help Centre.

Our platforms are for people who are at least 16 years of age. If you are younger than 16 you may not set up an account by yourself, but we encourage you to invite a parent or guardian to create a campaign about areas of interest to you. We do not knowingly collect any personal information from children under the age of 16 without parental consent, unless permitted by law. If we learn that a child under the age of 16 has provided us with personal information, we will delete it in accordance with applicable law.

User content rules

Follow our Community Guidelines: When posting content you must follow the Community Guidelines that are applicable to the product or feature you are using.

Abide by the law and respect rights of others: You cannot post any campaign or content that violates applicable local or national laws of your country, or international laws or regulations. You agree that any campaign or content you post will comply with applicable local and national laws, including data protection laws. Except as provided otherwise by applicable laws, you are solely responsible for any campaign, content, and actions you post or take via the platforms and their consequences. If you name a decision maker (a person or group with the power and authority to affect the issue of the petition) for your campaign, you entrust us to perform any and all data processing and protection activities for decision makers, as outlined in our Privacy Policy.

Enforcement by Change.org: If we are put on notice that your campaign or content violates the law or the rights of others (for example, if it is established that it is defamatory or violates privacy, intellectual property or publicity rights of others, or is funding an illegal activity), if we discover that your campaign or content violates our Community Guidelines, or if we believe your campaign or content is inappropriate or objectionable, we may remove it from our platforms, or we may make edits to bring your content into compliance. In the vast majority of cases, we will notify you and try to work with you to fix the issue before we take any of these actions (but we are not obligated to do so).

Change.org has discretion in enforcing these Terms. We may terminate or suspend your permission to use our platforms and services or disable your account at any time, with or without notice, for any material or repeated violation of these Terms, your failure to pay any fees when due, upon the request of law enforcement or government agencies, for extended periods of inactivity, for unexpected technical issues or problems, or for engagement by you in fraudulent or illegal activities. Upon any such termination we may delete your account, passwords, and content and we may prevent you from further access to the platforms and use of our services. Your content may still be available on the platforms even if your account is terminated or suspended. You agree that we will have no liability to you or any third party for termination of your account, removal of your content, or blocking of your access to our platforms and services.

Posting user content

The content you submit on the platforms is not confidential: Any content you submit or post on the platforms is likely to be publicly available, including all petitions you create, your comments to any petitions you signed and the questions you submit to candidates (on our websites, in apps and in social media pages). If you are concerned about other Change.org community members or people you don’t know seeing a particular message or other content of yours, please do not post it. If you do not wish to have your name publicly displayed in connection with a particular petition, you may select the option not to display your signature publicly. Please check out our Privacy Policy for more details on information we collect and share when you use the platforms.

The content you post (including photos) remains yours, and you also allow us to reuse and share it: By submitting and posting content, you do not lose any ownership rights you may have over your content. However, you authorise us to share this content with anyone, distribute it on any platform and in any media, and to make modifications or edits to it as we see fit (e.g. for clarity or optimization purposes). For example, we may shorten a petition title for it to appear on our homepage, test alternative images to help your petition be seen by more people, reformat a petition for a video highlighting petition victories, or share the content with interested media. You also authorise us to allow others to do the same with your content. In legal language, by submitting or posting content on or through the platforms , you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display, and distribute your content in any and all media or distribution methods (existing now or later developed). This includes making your content available to other companies, organisations, or individuals who partner with Change.org for the syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication of content on other media. You represent and warrant that you have all the rights, power, and authority necessary to authorise us to use any content that you submit. You also agree to all such uses of your content with no compensation paid to you.

Sharing campaigns and other actions: Except in very limited circumstances where we’ll expressly ask you not to, we encourage you to link to, post to social media and third party services, such as Facebook or Twitter, share via email, or otherwise copy and share individual petitions and campaigns of interest to you, but only for informational, non-commercial purposes. If you share another user’s petitions, questions, or other content, you may not make any modifications, and you may not remove any attributions. When you post content to any third party service through the features and functionalities of our platforms (such as our apps or API), you will be subject to the terms of that third party service. If you want to remove any petition or content from a third party service, you should contact that third party service and request removal directly from them.

No user content storage: We are not a content-archiving service. We do not promise to store or make available on our platforms any content that you or other users may post for any length of time. You are solely responsible for keeping backups of everything you post on the platforms.

Open platform

We are not responsible for the content or actions of our users: Campaigns or content posted by users come from people, organisations, and other various sources. We make no promises about the reliability of any source or the accuracy, usefulness, safety, or intellectual property rights of any user campaign or content, nor do we endorse any campaigns or petitions or support any views, opinions, recommendations, or advice that may be posted by users. You acknowledge that certain users may have commercial interests in their campaigns. You therefore use the Change.org services and rely on any content you find at your own risk.

If you find any campaign or other user content that violates our Community Guidelines, please use the “Report a policy violation” function on each petition page or file a Help Centre Request.

Links out: When you use our platforms, you will find links to other websites that we don’t own or control. We are not responsible for the content or any other aspect of these third party sites, including their collection of information about you. You should also read their terms and conditions and privacy policies.

Our rights

All right, title, and interest in and to the Change.org platform and services including our website, our existing or future applications, our APIs, databases, and the content our employees or partners submit or provide through our services (but excluding content provided by users) are and will remain the exclusive property of Change.org and its licensors. Our platform and services are protected by copyright, trademark, and other laws of both the United States and foreign countries. Nothing gives you a right to use the Change.org name or any of the Change.org trademarks, logos, domain names, and other distinctive brand features. Any feedback, comments, or suggestions you may provide regarding Change.org or the services is entirely voluntary and we will be free to use such feedback, comments, or suggestions as we see fit and without any obligation to you.

You may not do any of the following while accessing or using the platforms and services:

1. access, tamper with, or use non-public areas of the platform, Change.org’s computer systems, or the technical delivery systems of Change.org’s service providers.
2. disable, interfere with, or try to circumvent any of the features of the platforms related to security or probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of any of our systems.
3. copy, modify, create a derivative work of, reverse engineer, reverse assemble, or otherwise attempt to discover any source code of the Change.org platforms or services.
4. access or search or attempt to access or search our platforms by any means (automated or otherwise) other than through our currently available search functionalities that are provided via our website, mobile apps, or API (and only pursuant to those API terms and conditions). Crawling the Change.org site is permissible if done in accordance with the provisions of the robots.txt file; however, scraping the services, platforms, and databases is expressly prohibited unless authorised in a written agreement between you and Change.org.
5. in any way use the Change.org services to send altered, deceptive, or false source-identifying information (such as sending email communications falsely appearing as Change.org); or interfere with, or disrupt, (or attempt to do so), the access of any user, host, or network, including, without limitation, sending a virus, overloading, flooding, spamming, mail-bombing the platforms or services, or in any other manner interfering with or creating an undue burden on the services.

Purchases and donations

We may provide you the ability to purchase promotional items related to petitions and campaigns, contribute monthly to help cover the costs of the Change.org platform, or purchase other products or services.

PROMOTED PETITIONS

The ability to purchase promotional items and services includes, but is not limited to, our Promoted Petitions service. When you pay to promote a petition using our Promoted Petition tool, you are purchasing advertisements for that petition, which will allow the petition to be discovered by potential supporters who may go on to sign. In exchange for your purchase, Change.org will advertise your chosen petition to other potential supporters within our website, and/or via email, and/or other distribution channels. Change.org reserves the right as to which of those locations the purchased advertising will be delivered.

We use a standard digital advertising model called CPM which stands for “cost per thousand impressions.” The dollar amount you chip in determines the number of times we will display the petition advertisement to other potential supporters on your behalf. Each time the petition ad is displayed to a potential supporter, that “impression” or “view” counts toward the fulfilment of our promotional obligations to you. The CPM rate, or the cost per 1,000 ad impressions, varies based on country, currency, and other factors.

Change.org reserves the right to track and calculate the number of delivered ad impressions using multiple data sources. Because we are unable to directly track delivered impressions via some platforms (e.g., Apple iOS devices), the number of impressions of a petition ad that we are agreeing to provide in exchange for your contribution is based, in part, on a projection from recent past experience. In other words, it is an estimate—although it is an estimate that we believe to be accurate based on the best information available to us. We reasonably believe that the specified number of impressions (or a close approximation) will be provided, but because of imperfect information, we cannot guarantee any precise number.

The money you spend on Promoted Petitions does not get disbursed directly to the petition starter(s) or any other organisations associated with the underlying campaign or cause. Promoted Petition purchases directly benefit the petition (and indirectly benefit the underlying cause) by giving the petition greater public exposure, increasing the likelihood that the petition will gather more signatures and momentum. If the actual cost to Change.org of providing the promised ad impressions is less than the amount that you pay to purchase those impressions, Change.org reserves the right as to how to utilise the balance.

By default, the Promoted Petition tool is activated on most petitions. If the Promoted Petition tool is disabled, the petition will not be eligible to be recommended by Change.org to other Change.org users via our email, on our website, or any other channels we may use for advertising distribution. As the petition starter, you can request the Promoted Petition feature to be disabled on your petition. To do so, you can contact our Help Desk.

In circumstances where the petition is marked a victory before the promotion has been fulfilled, we will continue to advertise the content, without the ability to collect signatures, for the remaining number of purchased impressions.

CHANGE.ORG RECURRING CONTRIBUTIONS

We may provide you with the ability to support Change.org by making a recurring contribution. If you choose to do so, a monthly contribution to Change.org will be deducted from your preferred payment method. Your monthly contributions help cover the costs of the Change.org platform, including, but not limited to, technology fees, engineering, operations, and expert campaign support services. Recurring contributions help, in part, to keep the Change.org platform free for everyone, open, and independent. Change.org reserves the right to decide how recurring contributions are allocated within the company.

You can make changes to your recurring contribution settings at any time. You can change the amount of your scheduled monthly contributions or cancel future contributions by logging in and visiting your Account Settings page.

PAYMENT PROCESSING

We work with Stripe, Braintree, dLocal, and other payment processing companies to process all financial transactions (see below for terms and privacy policies). If you make a payment for services, Change.org reserves the right to keep a record of your transaction amount only; none of your personal payment information is stored or saved within our systems. Instead, we rely on the payment processing platforms to store, on our behalf, certain information about you. For more information about which information we store, see our Privacy Policy.

• Change.org uses Stripe for payment processing services. By using Stripe payment processing services, you agree to be legally bound by Stripe’s Services Agreement and Privacy Policy.
• Change.org uses Braintree, a division of PayPal, Inc. (Braintree), for payment processing services. By using the Braintree payment processing services, you agree to be legally bound by the Braintree Payment Services Agreement and the applicable Bank Agreement.
• Change.org uses dLocal for payment processing services. By using dLocal payment processing services, you agree to be legally bound by dLocal’s Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.

REFUNDS & REMOVAL

If you are unsatisfied with your Promoted Petition purchase for any reason, you may request a refund. To be eligible, refund requests must be received by Change.org Help Desk within 90 days of purchase. To request a refund, please contact our Help Desk.

Change.org reserves the right to disable the Promoted Petitions service and/or remove any petition for violations of our Community Guidelines, our Terms of Service, and/or other discretionary reasons as we deem appropriate, regardless of the petition’s Promoted Petition history. We reserve the right to not issue refunds in cases of fraud, abuse, or violations of our Terms of Service.

TAXES & FEES

You agree that, for all purchase, donation, or contribution transactions, (a) you will not use an invalid or unauthorised payment method; (b) you will be charged using the payment method you designate. You understand and acknowledge that payments made to Change.org (PBC) are not tax-deductible as charitable donations. Charitable donations to qualified tax-exempt organisations, such as the Change.org Foundation, made through our platforms may be tax-deductible. You agree to review, be legally bound by, and comply with any relevant terms and conditions of the receiving organisation when making a donation. If you make a purchase, donation, or contribution through our platform, you agree to pay the applicable fee or amount in accordance with any pricing and payment terms presented to you for that purchase, donation, or contribution. All amounts do not include taxes, and you are responsible for paying any applicable taxes. You are also responsible for paying applicable standard credit card processing fees.

Unlike many companies, Change.org does not exist to make a profit — we exist to make an impact. As of September 2021, Change.org (PBC) is now a wholly owned corporate subsidiary of the Change.org Foundation (a nonprofit entity). The transition to a non-profit ownership and governance structure secures the long-term stewardship of Change.org (PBC) as a digital public utility committed to the public interest. In the spirit of transparency, as part of this transition, we’ve committed to fulfilling legacy obligations that include making scheduled payments to employees and former stockholders.

Copyright infringement

If you believe that one of our users has violated your copyright, you should notify our copyright agent in writing. In order for us to take action, you must do the following in your notice:

1. identify your copyrighted work that you believe is being infringed
2. identify the item on our service that you think is infringing your work and include sufficient information about where the material is located (for example, a URL or link to a relevant page) so that we can easily find it
3. provide us with a way to contact you, such as your address, telephone number, or e-mail
4. provide a statement that you believe in good faith that the item you have identified as infringing is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law to be used on the platform
5. provide a statement that the information you provide in your notice is accurate, and that (under penalty of perjury), you are the copyright owner or authorised to act on behalf of the copyright owner whose work is being infringed

Here is the contact information for our copyright agent:

Copyright Enforcement
Change.org, PBC
548 Market Street
Private Mailbox 29993
San Francisco, CA 94104-5401
USA

Phone: (415) 236-3829
Fax: (415) 520-2154
Email: copyright@change.org

More legal stuff to protect us

No waiver, assignment: If we waive any of our rights in any particular instance, it does not mean that we are waiving our rights generally or in the future. If we do not enforce all our rights all of the time under these Terms, it does not mean that we are waiving our rights, and we may decide to enforce them at a later date. These Terms, and any rights and licences granted under these Terms, may not be transferred or assigned by you, but may be assigned by us to another company or person without restriction. We won’t be liable to you for any delay or failure to perform any obligation we have under these Terms if the delay or failure is due to events which are beyond our reasonable control, including but not limited to any strike, blockade, war, act of terrorism, riot, natural disaster, failure or diminishment of power or of telecommunications or data networks or services, or refusal of approval or a license by a government agency.

As is service: Use of the Change.org and Change Politics platforms is at your own risk. The platforms (including the content you find on it) are provided on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis. Change.org and its affiliates, suppliers, partners, and agents expressly disclaim all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of title, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

Furthermore, Change.org and its affiliates, suppliers, partners, and agents make no warranty that (i) its platforms or any products or services provided through the platforms will meet your requirements; (ii) the platforms will be uninterrupted, timely, secure or error-free or that Change.org will fix any errors; (iii) you will obtain any specific results from use of the platforms; or (iv) any campaign or content on the platforms are accurate, complete, reliable, current or error-free. Any content obtained through use of the platforms is obtained at your own discretion and risk and Change.org shall not be responsible for any damage caused to your computer or data or for any bugs, viruses, Trojan horses or other destructive code resulting from use of the platforms or any content obtained from the platforms. When you contribute to a fundraising campaign through our platform, you do so at your own risk and we do not guarantee the quality, safety, morality or legality of any fundraising campaign. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so the above exclusion may not apply to you. You may also have other legal rights, which vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

No guarantee of service: We may decide to cease making available the Change.org platforms, apps or services or any portion of the services at any time and for any reason. Under no circumstances will Change.org or its affiliates, suppliers, partners, or agents be held liable for any damages due to such interruptions or lack of availability.

Limitation of liability: To the fullest extent permitted under law, Change.org and its affiliates, suppliers, partners and agents have no obligation or liability (whether arising in contract, warranty, tort (including negligence), product liability, or otherwise) for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, or consequential damages or liabilities (including, but not limited to, any loss of data or content, revenue or profit, or personal injury or death) arising from or related to your use of the platforms, service, or any content provided by or through the platforms or service, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages in advance. This limitation applies to damages arising from (i) your use or inability to use the platforms and access the services; (ii) cost of procurement of substitute products or services; (iii) unauthorised access to or alteration or distribution of content you submit through the platforms; (iv) third party content made available to you through the platforms; (v) any loss or damage as a result of contributions to a fundraising campaign on Change.org or (vi) any other matter relating to any aspect of the platforms and service, including the website, the API, any present or future apps, email communications, and Change.org content on third party sites. Some countries and states do not allow the limitation or exclusion of incidental, consequential, or other types of damages, so some of the above limitations may not apply to you.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained herein, Change.org’s liability and the liability of each of its affiliates, suppliers, partners, and agents to you or any third parties under any circumstance is limited to the greater of one hundred dollars ($100) or the amount you have paid us in the past twelve (12) months.

Indemnity: You agree to indemnify, defend (if we so request), and hold harmless Change.org and its affiliates, suppliers, partners, and agents from and against any claims, demands, losses, damages, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising from the content you post or submit, your use of and connection to the Change.org website, applications, API, and any other aspect of the platforms or services, your violation of these Terms or your violation of any rights of any third-party. Your indemnification obligation will survive the termination of these Terms and your use of the platforms and services.

Binding Agreement: By using the platforms you agree to abide by these Terms and our Community Guidelines, and you consent to Change.org collecting, using, and sometimes sharing information about you as stated in our Privacy Policy and Cookies Policy. If you are accepting these terms and policies and using our services on behalf of a company, organisation, government, or other legal entity, you represent and warrant that you are authorised to do so.

For users residing in India and payments processed in India: This document is an electronic record in terms of Information Technology Act, 2000 and published in accordance with the rules and regulations thereunder. We shall comply with all mandatory provisions of the law in India – including the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Rules framed thereunder as applicable and as amended from time to time – more particularly, the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021; Information Technology (Procedure and Safeguard for Monitoring and Collecting Traffic Data or Information) Rules, 2009; and the Information Technology (Reasonable security practices and procedures and sensitive personal data or information) Rules, 2011.

 You agree that You shall at all times comply with all applicable provisions of the law in India including the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Rules framed thereunder, as amended from time to time. You further agree and acknowledge that our platform may be commissioned, located, controlled and/or operated from outside the territory of India and by using the platform, you hereby consent to the collection, use, storage, transfer, re-rendering and disclosure of your personal information and other information subject to these terms, our Privacy Policy and/or other policies and in accordance with the applicable laws of India. 

 For users residing in India, please note, in compliance with the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the rules made thereunder, as well as the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, and the rules made thereunder, the grievance redressal mechanism, including the contact details of the Grievance Officer and Nodal Officer are given herein below: GrievanceOfficer.india@change.org

Dispute resolution

Change.org is a U.S.-based company and these Terms are governed by laws of the State of California and the United States of America, without regard to their conflict of law principles. If a court having proper authority decides that any portion of these terms, policies, and guidelines is invalid, only the part that is invalid will not apply and the rest will still be in effect. The official language of these Terms is English. If there is a conflict between the English language version and any translation, the English language version will prevail.

In the event of any dispute, claim, question, or disagreement arising from or relating to these Terms or an alleged breach thereof, whether arising in contract, tort or otherwise, between you and us, we shall use our respective best efforts to settle the dispute. If a dispute arises, the complaining party shall provide written notice to the other party in a document specifically entitled “Notice of Dispute,” specifically setting forth the precise nature of the dispute. Please email any Notice of Dispute to help@change.org or send by postal mail to our head office at:

Dispute Resolution
Change.org, PBC
548 Market Street
Private Mailbox 29993
San Francisco, CA 94104-5401
USA

You can also contact our Help Desk at https://help.change.org/ to let us know you have mailed your Notice of Dispute. Following Change.org’s receipt of the Notice of Dispute, the parties shall consult and negotiate with each other in good faith and, recognizing their mutual interest, attempt to reach a just and equitable solution of the dispute that is satisfactory to both parties. If the parties are unable to reach a resolution of the dispute through this dispute resolution mechanism within 90 days of the receipt of the Initial Notice of Dispute, then any subsequent claim, legal proceedings, or litigation arising in connection with the Change.org services will be brought solely in the federal or state courts located in San Francisco County, California, United States, and you consent to the jurisdiction of and venue in such courts and waive any objection as to inconvenient forum.

For users residing in India: In the event of a dispute, Change.org’s Dispute Resolution Terms apply to the fullest extent permissible. For disputes, claims or difference either in interpretation or otherwise, that require resolution outside the scope of existing Terms above, the governing law shall be the applicable laws of India and parties shall be deemed to have submitted to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Courts in Bangalore, India, without reference to any conflict of laws principles. Without any prejudice, Change.org shall have the right to seek and obtain any injunctive, provisional or interim relief from any court of competent jurisdiction to protect its trade-mark or other intellectual property rights or confidential information or to preserve the status quo.

How to contact us

We’d love to hear your questions, concerns, and feedback about this policy. If you have any suggestions for us, feel free to let us know by contacting our Help Desk at https://help.change.org/ or writing to the following address:

Change.org, PBC
548 Market Street
Private Mailbox #29993
San Francisco, CA 94104-5401
USA

If you prefer, you may also contact us at our EU office:

Change.org, PBC
Carrer de Santaló, 10 1st Floor
08021 Barcelona
Spain

Because email or postal communications are not always secure, please do not include credit card or other sensitive information in your emails or letters to us. Thanks for supporting change in your community – we can’t wait to see what you’ll change next!