By using www.tongal.com ("Website") you are indicating your legally binding agreement to these Terms & Conditions ("Terms"). By accessing the Website you are accepting these terms on you behalf and on behalf of the entity you represent, if any. If you do not agree to these Terms, please do not use the Website and exit now.
Throughout these Terms, the words "we," "us," "our," and Tongal refer to Tongal and its parent, subsidiaries, and affiliates collectively.
We may revise these Terms at any time without prior notice by updating this page and such revisions will be effective upon posting to this page. Please check this page periodically for any changes. Your continued use of this Website following the posting of any revisions to these Terms will mean you accept those changes. We reserve the right to alter, suspend or discontinue any aspect of the Website, including your access to it. Unless explicitly stated, any new features will be subject to these Terms.
INDEMNIFICATION AND RELEASE
By accessing the Website, you agree to indemnify and defend us and any parent, subsidiary, client of Tongal that sponsors a project administered by Tongal ("Sponsor"), community member of Tongal, affiliated entities, our officers, directors and employees, and officers, directors and employees of any parent, subsidiary, Sponsor or affiliated entities, and hold us and them harmless from and against any and all claims, liabilities, damages, costs and expenses, including, without limitation, attorneys' fees, arising from your use of the Website including any material (including third-party material) that you post on the Website and any services or products available through our Website. In addition, you hereby release us and any parent, subsidiary, Sponsor or affiliated entities, community member of Tongal, our officers, directors and employees, and officers, directors and employees of any parent, subsidiary, Sponsor, community member of Tongal, or affiliated entities from any and all claims, demands, debts, obligations, damages (actual, special, indirect or consequential), costs, and expenses of any kind or nature whatsoever, whether known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed, that you may have against us or them arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and/or to any services or products available at our Website. To the fullest extent permissible pursuant to applicable law, Tongal shall not be liable for any damages (including, but not limited to, damages for loss of prizing, payments, data or other damage to any other intangible property, even if Tongal has been advised of the possibility of such damages), resulting from (i) the use of this Website or inability to use this Website, (ii) the disclosure of, unauthorized access to, or alteration of any transmission or data, (iii) the statements or conduct of any third party or (iv) any other matter relating to Tongal.
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANYTHING RELATED TO THIS AGREEMENT (FOR ANY CAUSE, REGARDLESS OF THE FORM OF THE ACTION), WILL BE LIMITED TO A MAXIMUM OF $75 USD. THE EXISTENCE OF MORE THAN ONE CLAIM WILL NOT ENLARGE THIS LIMIT. YOU AGREE THAT OUR CLIENTS AND SUPPLIERS WILL HAVE NO LIABILITY OF ANY KIND ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THIS AGREEMENT.
CAUTION: ANY ATTEMPT TO DELIBERATELY DAMAGE THE WEBSITE OR UNDERMINE THE LEGITIMATE OPERATION OF A PROJECT MAY BE IN VIOLATION OF CRIMINAL AND CIVIL LAWS. SHOULD SUCH AN ATTEMPT BE MADE, TONGAL RESERVES THE RIGHT TO SEEK REMEDIES AND DAMAGES (INCLUDING ATTORNEYS' FEES) TO THE FULLEST EXTENT OF THE LAW, INCLUDING CRIMINAL PROSECUTION.
BY USING THIS WEBSITE AND BECOMING A REGISTERED MEMBER OF TONGAL, YOU ASSUME ALL RISK INVOLVED IN THE PARTICIPATION BY YOU AND OTHERS ON YOUR BEHALF IN ANY PROJECTS ADMINISTERED BY TONGAL, AND YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT NONE OF (A) TONGAL OR ITS SHAREHOLDERS, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS OR ASSIGNS ("TONGAL PARTIES") (B) THE SPONSOR OR A COMMUNITY MEMBER OF TONGAL IS OR SHALL BE RESPONSIBLE OR LIABLE FOR ANY DEATH, BODILY INJURY, PROPERTY DAMAGE, OR LOSS OF ANY KIND ARISING OUT OF YOUR USE OF THE WEBSITE OR PARTICIPATION IN ANY PROJECT ADMINISTERED BY TONGAL. FURTHERMORE, AND IN ADDITION TO ANY OTHER INDEMNIFICATION OBLIGATIONS DESCRIBED HEREIN OR IN THE OFFICIAL RULES OF ANY PROJECT ADMINISTERED BY TONGAL, YOU AGREE TO INDEMNIFY, DEFEND AND HOLD HARMLESS EACH OF THE TONGAL PARTIES, THE SPONSOR, AND THE COMMUNITY MEMBER OF TONGAL FROM AND AGAINST ANY AND ALL CLAIMS, DAMAGES, LIABILITIES, LOSSES, COSTS AND EXPENSES (INCLUDING ATTORNEYS' FEES) ARISING OUT OF YOUR USE OF THE WEBSITE AND/OR YOUR PARTICIPATION IN ANY PROJECT ADMINISTERED BY TONGAL, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, CLAIMS FOR WRONGFUL DEATH, PERSONAL INJURY OR PROPERTY DAMAGE.
You hereby agree to waive all laws that may limit the efficacy of such releases, including, without limitation, Section 1542 of the California Civil Code, which provides as follows:
A GENERAL RELEASE DOES NOT EXTEND TO CLAIMS WHICH THE CREDITOR DOES NOT KNOW OR SUSPECT TO EXIST IN HIS OR HER FAVOR AT THE TIME OF EXECUTING THE RELEASE, WHICH IF KNOWN BY HIM OR HER MUST HAVE MATERIALLY AFFECTED HIS OR HER SETTLEMENT WITH THE DEBTOR.
PRIVACY
See our complete Privacy Policy.
COPYRIGHT, TRADEMARK AND OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY PROTECTION
Except as otherwise indicated, this Website and its entire contents (including, but not limited to, the text, photographs, information, software, graphics, images, sound, and animation) are owned by us and are protected by domestic and international copyright, trademark, patent, and other intellectual property laws. All copyrightable text and graphics, the selection, arrangement, and presentation of all materials, and the overall design of this Website are ©2008-2022 Tongal. All rights reserved. We hereby give you permission to download and print materials from this Website for the sole purposes of viewing, reading, and retaining for reference the materials for non-commercial use. Any other copying, distribution, retransmission, or modification of information or materials on this Website, whether in electronic or other form, without our express prior written permission is strictly prohibited. You further agree that you will not disassemble, decompile, reverse engineer or otherwise modify the material on this Website. Any unauthorized or prohibited use may subject the offender to civil liability and criminal prosecution under applicable laws.
You may not access our website or be a member of our community if you are our direct competitor, except with our prior written consent. In addition, you may not access our Website or be a member of our community for purposes of monitoring availability, performance or functionality, or for any other benchmarking or competitive purposes.
PROHIBITED USE - BOTS AND SCRAPING
Users are prohibited from using automated systems, including without limitation bots, crawlers, spiders, scrapers, or other automated tools to access, collect, or extract content from this Website (such as, but not limited to video content) without our explicit written permission. Content on this Website may not be used for training artificial intelligence models, machine learning systems, or similar automated learning processes without our explicit written permission. Users must respect any technical measures implemented to control access, including rate limits, CAPTCHAs, and robot.txt directives. Circumventing these measures or violating this paragraph is strictly prohibited and Tongal reserve its rights to take any and all appropriate legal action including injunctive relief, monetary damages, disclosure to regulatory authorities, and recovering attorneys’ fees, court costs, and any other expenses associated with enforcement of this paragraph or potential litigation.
NOTICE
All trademarks, service marks, and trade names are proprietary to us or other respective owners that have granted us the right and license to use their trademarks, service marks, and trade names.
COPYRIGHT COMPLAINTS
We respect the intellectual property of others, and we ask you to do the same. We may, in appropriate circumstances and at our sole discretion, terminate the access of users who infringe the copyright rights of others.
If you believe that your work has been copied and is accessible at our Website in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or that our Website contains links or other references to another online location that contains material or activity that infringes your copyright(s), you may notify us by providing our copyright agent the information required by the U.S. Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 512 ("DMCA"). A copy of our DMCA Policy is available here: Tongal DMCA Policy
DISCLAIMER
THE MATERIALS AND SERVICES ON OUR WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE PURSUANT TO APPLICABLE LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THE MATERIALS WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT THIS WEBSITE OR THE SERVER(S) THAT MAKES OUR WEBSITE AVAILABLE OR ANY ADVERTISED OR HYPERLINKED SITE ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS OR THAT OUR SITE, SERVER(S), ADVERTISED OR HYPERLINKED SITES WILL BE ACCESSIBLE AT ALL TIMES. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT SUCH ERRORS, DEFECTS OR INTERRUPTIONS IN SERVICE WILL NOT AFFECT THE RESULTS OF OUR COMPETITIONS, AND WE DISCLAIM ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR REDUCED PERFORMANCE IN COMPETITIONS DUE TO SUCH PROBLEMS. WE DO NOT WARRANT OR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OR THE RESULTS OF OUR WEBSITE WITH RESPECT TO CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, GRAPHICS, LINKS OR OTHERWISE. YOU ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. TO THE EXTENT THAT APPLICABLE LAW MAY NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF IMPLIED WARRANTIES, THE ABOVE EXCLUSIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.
Documents, graphics and other materials appearing at our Website may include technical inaccuracies, typographical errors, and out-of-date information and use of such documents, graphics or other materials is at your own risk.
FORM W-9
Winners of any Project or phase administered by Tongal and who are US Persons, as defined by the IRS, will be required to complete and submit an IRS Form W-9 with the winner's full Social Security Number or the equivalent for receipt of any prize valued at $600 or more or for any prizes awarded by Tongal in a calendar year with an aggregate value of $600 or more. Failure to submit a complete W-9 or equivalent will result in forfeiture of the prize for which such person is eligible.
FORM W-8
Winners of any Project or phase thereof administered by Tongal and who are not US Persons will be required to complete and submit an Certificate of Foreign Status of Beneficial Owner for United States Tax Withholding on IRS form W-8BEN (Individuals) or W-8BEN-E (Entities) for receipt of any prize valued at $600 or more or for any prizes awarded by Tongal in a calendar year with an aggregate value of $600 or more. Failure to submit a complete W-8BEN, W-8BEN-E, or equivalent will result in forfeiture of the prize for which such person is eligible.
LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES AND SERVICES
To the extent that our Website contains links to other Websites and outside services and resources, we do not control the availability and content of those Websites, services or resources, nor do we necessarily review or endorse materials available at or through such other Websites. Viewing other Websites or utilizing outside services and resources is done at your own risk. We shall not be liable for any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused by or in connection with use of or reliance on any such content, goods or services available on or through any such site or resource. Your use of other outside services and resources is governed by these Terms and/or other legal agreements associated with those services and resources.
PROJECTS
In addition to these Terms, Tongal provides specific Official Rules and other documentation for certain activities on this Website, including without limitation, projects or other competitions (collectively "Projects") conducted by us and those in conjunction with third parties. These Terms are incorporated by reference into the specific Official Rules, which appear in connection with information about a particular Project. To the extent that any conflict exists between these Terms, the Official Rules, and any rules in the Project Details Pages, the Project Details Pages for that Project in which you choose to participate shall govern.
CONTENT POSTED BY VISITORS
Except as otherwise specified in the Official Rules and any Entries that you assign to Tongal in accordance with the Official Rules, upon submitting an Entry to a Project, or other documentation pertaining to a Project, you retain any rights to ownership in any content posted, uploaded or otherwise sent to our Website by you; Tongal will not gain ownership rights to this content. By posting, uploading or otherwise sending any content of any kind (including, without limitation, ideas, pitches and video entries) to us or our Website, you grant (or warrant that the owner of such rights has expressly granted) us a perpetual, royalty-free, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce and publish such content into any form, medium or technology, including the right, at Tongal's sole discretion, to distribute such content to be published by third parties throughout the universe. In connection therewith, you also grant us the additional license to modify, adapt, translate, create derivative works from, and distribute such content or incorporate such content into any form, medium or technology, including the right, at Tongal's sole discretion, to distribute such content to be published by third parties.
You waive any and all moral rights, including, without limitation, any rights arising under Chapter 7 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 applicable to European Union residents, and all rights of a similar nature in any jurisdiction in any material, including content of any kind, which you post, upload or otherwise send to Tongal or it's Website, such waivers being in favor of Tongal.
You are also prohibited from posting or otherwise uploading to our Website: any material that infringes on any copyright, trademark, trade names, trade secrets, or other proprietary rights of another (including publicity and privacy rights); material that is obscene, offensive, libelous, pornographic, threatening, abusive, contains illegal content, or is otherwise objectionable, that would constitute or encourage a criminal offense, or that would otherwise give rise to liability or violates any law. You also represent that you have all necessary rights to use any material that you post or otherwise upload to our Website.
You are further forbidden from distributing or otherwise publishing any material on our Website that contains any solicitation of funds or, promotion, employment, advertising, or solicitation for goods or services; sending unsolicited commercial e-mail and other advertising, promotional materials or other forms of solicitation to other users of this site; harvesting names and e-mail addresses from other users of this site without their permission; soliciting passwords from other users; impersonating other users; or sending viruses or other destructive or expropriating content.
We reserve the right to remove any postings or other uploaded materials in response to complaints of infringement, obscenity or defamation or to otherwise review or edit such materials as appropriate, in our sole discretion and without notice.
OTHER RESTRICTIONS ON CONDUCT
You are allowed to register with our Website only once and you must provide true and accurate registration information. You are prohibited from registering more than one time, even under a different Tongal handle, misrepresenting your registration information, or tampering with the registration process.
You agree not to disrupt, modify or interfere with the functioning of our Website or any services provided on or through our Website or with any associated software, hardware or servers in any way and you agree not to impede or interfere with others' use of our Website. This includes your agreement that you will not cheat; that the content submitted by you with respect to any Project is yours alone. This also includes your agreement that you will not provide your Tongal information including, but not limited to, your Tongal handle and rating, to any third party for the purpose of pursuing employment opportunities without the written consent of Tongal. If you are contacted by a third party regarding opportunities to provide work and/or media interest as a result in of your participation in Tongal Projects, you agree to promptly notify Tongal of such contact. You also agree not to alter or tamper with any information or materials on, or associated with our Website or services provided on or through our Website.
We do not necessarily endorse, support, sanction, encourage, verify or agree with the comments, opinions, or other statements made public at our Website by users through our Projects, forums or other interactive services available at our Website. Any information or material sent by users to any forums, including advice and opinions, represents the views and is the responsibility of those users and does not necessarily represent our views.
You agree that no impediment exists to you joining the Tongal Website, and your participation in Tongal's Website and the Projects it offers will not interfere with your performance of any other agreement or obligation that has been or will be made with any third party.
DISPUTE RESOLUTION, CHOICE OF LAW AND FORUM
You agree that any claim, dispute or controversy arising out of, or relating to, this agreement, or the breach thereof, shall be resolved through final and binding Arbitration to be administrated by (“NAM”) National Arbitration and Mediation and governed by NAM’s Comprehensive Dispute Resolution Rules and Procedures in effect at the time such claim is filed. Any award of the Arbitrator is final and binding and may be entered, if necessary, as a judgment in any court having jurisdiction. If you have a question about the arbitration process or to obtain a current copy of the Comprehensive Dispute Resolution Rules and Procedures and/or fee schedule, NAM’s Commercial Dept. can be contacted at (800) 358-2550 or by NAM’s website at www.namadr.com.
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, USA. You hereby agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the State of California in Los Angeles County. To the extent that applicable laws have mandatory application to these Terms or give you the right to bring action in any other courts, the above limitations may not apply to you. Use of this Website is unauthorized in any jurisdiction that does not give full effect to all provisions of these Terms.
SEVERABILITY AND ENFORCEABILITY
If any provision or portion of these Terms is held illegal, invalid, or unenforceable, in whole or in part, such provision shall be modified to the minimum extent necessary to correct any deficiencies or replaced with a provision which is as close as is legally permissible to the provision found invalid or unenforceable and shall not affect the legality, validity or enforceability of any other provisions or portions of these Terms.
TERMINATION/EXCLUSION
We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to revoke any and all privileges associated with accessing and/or competing on our Website, and to take any other action we deem appropriate including but not limited to terminating or suspending your use of this Website, for no reason or any reason whatsoever, including improper use of this Website or failure to comply with these Terms.
GENERAL
Our Website is not intended for use by children under the age of 13, and children under the age of 13 are not eligible to participate in any Projects.
We may assign, novate or subcontract any or all of our rights and obligations under these Terms at any time.
If you have any questions regarding these Terms, contact us at info@tongal.com.
February 2026