stackoverflow.ai Terms of Use

All use of stackoverflow.ai, stackoverflow.co, and all content, features, and functionalities therein (collectively, “the Services”) are governed by these Terms of Use (“Terms”). By accessing or using the Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, or do not have the authority to agree to these Terms, do not access or use the Services.

Stack Overflow welcomes you to http://stackoverflow.ai, the newest way to engage with one of the largest developer communities in the world. Designed to modernize the Stack Overflow experience, stackoverflow.ai is an AI-powered search and discovery platform owned and operated by Stack Exchange, Inc. (“Stack Overflow”, “Stack,” or “we/us”), a Delaware corporation. The Services, including stackoverflow.ai, are separate from the Stack Overflow Public Network and are governed by a different set of terms and conditions (these Terms).

Like all communities, ours has a few basic ground rules to make everyone’s experience better. To that end, we provide you with these Terms of Use to advise you of the legal obligations you assume when you engage with the Services. To the extent you are accessing or using one of our other products, including individually or on behalf of a company or team, your use of those products (such as the Stack Overflow Network or Stack Overflow for Teams) is governed by their relevant terms and conditions.

1. Eligibility

No one under 13 years old is allowed to access or use the Services. In the European Union (“EU”), no one under 16 years old is allowed to access or use the Services.

By accessing or using the Services in any manner, you state that:

• You are at least 13 years old (or at least 16 years old in the EU), and over the minimum age required by the laws of your country of residence to access and use the Services;
• You have the authority to enter a binding contract with Stack, or, if you are over 13 but under the age of majority in your jurisdiction, your legal guardian has reviewed and agrees to these Terms on your behalf;
• You are not prohibited from using the Services under all applicable laws; and
• You are not currently suspended or banned from the Stack Overflow Network or any individual Stack site under any account or username.

If you are accepting these Terms on behalf of a legal entity, including a business, you represent that you have full legal authority to bind such entity to these Terms.

2. Privacy

Stack Overflow’s Privacy Policy describes how and why we collect, use, and protect your personal information when you access or use our products, including the Services. For the purposes of these Terms only, all references in our Privacy Policy to the “Network” include the Services. By accessing or using the Services, you consent to the collection and use of such information as set forth in the Privacy Policy.

3. Accessing the Services

Subject to your ongoing compliance with these Terms, Stack grants you a personal, non-transferable, non-exclusive, revocable, limited license to access and use the Services. All other rights not expressly granted to you in these Terms are reserved. Unless you have written permission from Stack in a different agreement, you may not:

• license, sell, transfer, assign, distribute, host, or otherwise commercially exploit the Services or their underlying content;
• modify, prepare derivative works of, disassemble, decompile, or reverse engineer any part of the Services or their underlying content;
• use, launch, or distribute any automated system, including without limitation, any spider, robot, cheat utility, scraper, unauthorized script, offline reader, data miners, or similar data gathering extraction tools to access the Services, except as may be the result of standard search engine, browser, or local caching for human interaction with the Services; or
• access the Services, or their underlying content, in order to: (i) build a similar or competitive website, product, or service; or (ii) develop, build, train, test, index, benchmark, or improve any generative AI, large language, or machine-learning tool or model, or similar technology.

The Services help connect you to the larger Stack community, and we expect you to treat each community member with respect. To prevent negative experiences, we have outlined common sense rules for community participation in our Stack Exchange Network Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”). For the purposes of these Terms only, all references in the AUP to the “Network” include the Services. When accessing or using the Services, you agree to follow this AUP, which is incorporated into these Terms, and we reserve the right to pause or terminate your access to the Services if you engage in behavior that is outside of or inconsistent with our AUP.

We are always improving our products and services, and may add or remove features, products, or functionalities at any time. We reserve the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue any Stack product or service, with or without notice, in whole or in part, at any time, with no liability to you or any third party.

All future releases and updates to the Services will be subject to these Terms, which may be updated from time to time. You agree to check back here periodically to make sure you have read and understand the current version of the Terms in effect.

4. Site Content

The Services may contain information, text, links, graphics, images, photos, videos, illustrations, animations, audio, streams, chat logs and history, AI inputs and outputs, software, source code, tools, and other materials (collectively, “Site Content”), including content created by and/or submitted to the Services by you or other users (“User Content”).

A. User Content

By submitting your User Content to the Services, you represent and warrant that such User Content is consistent with our AUP and that you have all the rights, power, and authority necessary to grant the rights to your User Content described in these Terms. We take no responsibility for, and we do not expressly or implicitly endorse, support, or guarantee the completeness, truthfulness, accuracy, acceptability, or reliability of any User Content.

You retain the ownership rights you have in your User Content, but you grant Stack the following license:

By submitting your User Content to the Services, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to use, copy, modify, adapt, prepare derivative works of, distribute, store, perform, and display your User Content, in all media formats, platforms, and channels now known or later developed anywhere in the world. This license grant includes the right for us to make User Content available outside of the Services, including for syndication, broadcast, distribution, machine-learning ingestion, or publication by other companies, organizations, or individuals who partner with Stack Overflow. You irrevocably waive any claims and assertions of moral rights or attribution with respect to your User Content in these and all other contexts.

Although Stack has no obligation to review, edit, filter, or monitor your User Content, we may, in our sole discretion, remove or delete your User Content, at any time, for any reason, including without limitation any violation of law, these Terms or our AUP.

B. Stack Content

The Services are owned and operated by Stack Overflow. All Site Content that is not User Content posted by you or another individual user (“Stack Content”) is the sole and exclusive property of Stack Overflow and is protected by United States and international copyright laws. The Services are also protected by copyright as a collective work and/or compilation, pursuant to U.S. copyright laws, international covenants, and other copyright laws. All trademarks, service marks, and trade names are proprietary to Stack Overflow, and you agree to abide by all copyright and trademark-related notices, information, and restrictions found in any Site Content.

Other than as expressly set forth in these Terms, you may not copy, modify, publish, transmit, upload, download, transfer, sell, reproduce, create derivative works based on, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit any of the Site Content, including without limitation all Stack Content and any User Content that is not your own personal work, in whole or in part. For clarity, this means that using any Site Content in the development, training, testing, indexing, or improvement of any generative AI, large language, or machine-learning tools or models, or similar technologies, is strictly prohibited under these Terms.

C. Feedback

We may collect data related to your usage of the Services to help us improve the Services, or you may proactively provide us ideas, suggestions, and/or feedback regarding the Services or your use of the Services (collectively, “Feedback”). You agree that Stack may freely use all such Feedback for any purpose, including in product and commercial contexts, with no further compensation or obligation to you whatsoever.

5. Generative AI

Some of our features allow you to generate content using Generative Artificial Intelligence (“GAI”). You acknowledge that Stack may generate the same or similar content for others and that we reserve all rights to do so. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim any liability for any damages, losses, or claims arising out of or in connection with the use of our GAI features and all content generated thereby. This includes but is not limited to direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages.

Our GAI features may integrate or utilize third-party GAI services provided by external entities. These third-party services operate independently, and we do not have control over their internal policies or practices. We advise you to consult the terms of service and privacy policies of any third-party GAI services integrated into our platform to fully understand their practices and how they may impact your data and operations (see list below).

When using our GAI features, you agree:

• You will comply with all applicable law regarding using generated content, which may require the provision of attribution to the source;
• To use discretion before relying on generated content, especially code;
• That you are solely responsible for your use of generated content and assume the entire risk arising out of your use of the GAI functionalities and outputs thereof;
• The outputs of the GAI functionalities are provided “as is” without warranty of any kind and Stack makes no warranty that such outputs will be correct or accurate. We recommend checking the outputs against a primary source before using them.
• You will only use such features for your personal and productivity work purposes, and not to train artificial intelligence, large language, or machine learning models. This means you must not, and must not allow third parties to, use any content, data, output, or other information received or derived from any GAI features to directly or indirectly create, train, test, or otherwise improve any machine learning, algorithms, or artificial intelligence systems, including any architectures, models, or weights;
• Stack does not control and is not responsible for the terms, data handling practices, or policies of third-party GAI service providers. Your interactions with these services are subject to the respective provider's terms and conditions.;
• Any data input into or generated by third-party GAI services is subject to those respective providers' data usage policies. We recommend reviewing their terms to understand how your data may be used or stored.

Notwithstanding the above, Stack only uses third-party GAI services that are industry standard and evaluated to be secure, trusted services, with the following minimum requirements:

• They do not use the input content or prompts for training their machine learning models using the input content or prompts.
• They do not use the output for training their machine learning models using the output.
• They do not claim ownership of any inputs and outputs.

At this time, we may use the following trusted services as third-party GAI services:

• OpenAI, L.L.C. (Business terms: https://openai.com/policies/business-terms)

This list of trusted services used for providing GAI functionalities may change at the sole discretion of Stack, provided that any new services added must satisfy the same minimum requirements mentioned above. You acknowledge that, while we implement reasonable technical, administrative, and physical measures to ensure the security and reliability of these third party services, we do not control the operations of these third-party service providers. Consequently, we disclaim any liability for security breaches, data loss, or other issues arising from the operations or security practices of these service providers. This limitation of liability applies regardless of the legal theory under which such damages are sought, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability, or otherwise, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages

6. Disclaimer of Warranties

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT ALLOWED BY LAW, STACK OVERFLOW DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AND REPRESENTATIONS OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NONINFRINGEMENT, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY. STACK EXCHANGE PROVIDES NO GUARANTEES THAT THE SERVICES OR NETWORK WILL FUNCTION WITHOUT INTERRUPTION OR ERRORS AND PROVIDES ASK STACK AND ANY RELATED CONTENT, PRODUCTS, OR SERVICES SUBJECT TO THESE TERMS ON AN “AS IS” BASIS.

7. Indemnification

You will indemnify and hold Stack Overflow, its directors, officers, employees, agents, consultant, contractors, partners, vendors and service providers (including, without limitation, hosting and telecommunications providers) harmless, including costs and attorneys’ fees, from any claim or demand made by any third party due to or arising out of your access to the Services, use of Stack Overflow products or services made available on the Services, any violation of this Agreement, or your infringement of any intellectual property right.

8. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, STACK OVERFLOW AND ITS AFFILIATES SHALL NOT BE LIABLE UNDER CONTRACT, TORT, STRICT LIABILITY, NEGLIGENCE OR ANY OTHER LEGAL OR EQUITABLE THEORY WITH RESPECT TO ASK STACK (I) FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF DATA, OPPORTUNITIES, REPUTATION, PROFITS OR REVENUES, OR (II) FOR ANY DIRECT DAMAGES IN EXCESS OF ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($100) IN THE AGGREGATE, EVEN IF STACK OVERFLOW OR ITS AFFILIATES HAVE BEEN TOLD OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE, AND EVEN IF THESE REMEDIES FAIL THEIR ESSENTIAL PURPOSE. NOTHING IN THIS LIMITATION OF LIABILITY SHALL PREVENT STACK OVERFLOW’S RIGHT TO SEEK AND OBTAIN EQUITABLE RELIEF. NOTWITHSTANDING SUCH RIGHT OF EQUITABLE RELIEF, TO THE EXTENT THAT APPLICABLE LAW DOES NOT PERMIT SUCH LIMITATION OF LIABILITY OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY, SUCH LIMITATION WILL APPLY TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

9. DMCA and Copyright/Trademark Takedowns

Because Stack values the intellectual property rights of everyone, we require our users to do the same when engaging with the Services. We have a policy of removing any infringing material from the Services, and where appropriate, to permanently suspend repeat infringers. If you believe that anything on the Services infringes a copyright or a trademark that you own or control, you may notify Stack’s Designated Agent by contacting:

Email: dmca@stackoverflow.com

Physical Mail:

Attn: Copyright Agent

Stack Exchange, Inc.

14 Wall Street, 20th Floor

New York, NY 10005

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to immediately suspend or terminate the access of any user who is the subject of repeated valid takedown notices. Please also note that we reserve the right to pursue legal action, including costs and damages, for submitting false or frivolous notices of copyright infringement. As such, please consider all circumstances prior to submitting your request, including fair use and other licensing exceptions and limitations.

If you believe your User Content was wrongly removed due to a mistake or misidentification in a copyright notice, you may send a counter notification via the contact information provided above. For more information on the DMCA takedown process, please visit: https://policies.stackoverflow.co/company/dmca-takedown/

10. General Provisions

A. Assignment and Jurisdiction

Stack Overflow reserves the right to assign our rights and obligations under these Terms (in whole or in part) without your consent to a corporate affiliate, in connection with a merger, acquisition, corporate restructure or reorganization, or due to the sale of all or substantially all of our assets.

These Terms will be governed by and construed in accordance with the applicable laws of the State of New York, without giving effect to the principles of that State regarding conflicts of laws. Both you and Stack Overflow hereby irrevocably agree to the sole and exclusive personal jurisdiction of the Courts of the State of New York with respect to any action, suit, or proceeding brought by it or against it by the other party in connection with the Services. Notwithstanding the foregoing, these Terms shall not prevent either party from seeking injunctive relief with respect to a violation of the confidentiality provisions and indemnification provisions contained in these Terms. The Uniform Commercial Code shall not apply to the provisions of these Terms to the fullest extent permitted by law. No shrinkwrap or click-wrap terms contained in any purchase order or any order form shall apply to or supersede these Terms. In the event of any conflict between the terms and conditions of these Terms and any such shrinkwrap or click-wrap terms, these Terms shall prevail.

B. Mandatory Arbitration

YOU AGREE THAT WITH RESPECT TO ALL DISPUTES BETWEEN YOU AND STACK OVERFLOW OR ITS AFFILIATES OR ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, OR EMPLOYEES (WHETHER OR NOT SUCH DISPUTE INVOLVES A THIRD PARTY) WITH REGARD TO YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH US, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION DISPUTES RELATING TO THESE TERMS, YOUR USE OF ASK STACK OR RELATED SERVICES, AND/OR RIGHTS OF PRIVACY AND/OR PUBLICITY, YOU AND STACK OVERFLOW SHALL FIRST CONSULT WITH EACH OTHER TO ATTEMPT TO RESOLVE SUCH DISPUTE IN A MANNER SATISFACTORY TO BOTH PARTIES, AND THAT IF A RESOLUTION IS NOT REACHED WITHIN NINETY (90) DAYS, THEN THE DISPUTE SHALL BE REFERRED TO AND RESOLVED BY BINDING ARBITRATION UNDER JAMS, INC.’S RULES FOR ARBITRATION OF CONSUMER-RELATED DISPUTES AND YOU AND WE HEREBY EXPRESSLY WAIVE TRIAL BY JURY; PROVIDED, HOWEVER, THAT TO THE EXTENT THAT YOU HAVE IN ANY MANNER VIOLATED OR THREATENED TO VIOLATE OUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS, WE MAY SEEK INJUNCTIVE OR OTHER APPROPRIATE RELIEF IN ANY STATE OR FEDERAL COURT IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. DISCOVERY AND RIGHTS TO APPEAL IN ARBITRATION ARE GENERALLY MORE LIMITED THAN IN A LAWSUIT, AND OTHER RIGHTS THAT YOU AND WE WOULD HAVE IN COURT MAY NOT BE AVAILABLE IN ARBITRATION. As an alternative, you may bring your claim in your local “small claims” court, if permitted by that small claims court’s rules and if within such court’s jurisdiction, unless such action is transferred, removed or appealed to a different court. You may bring claims only on your own behalf. Neither you nor we will participate in a class action or class-wide arbitration for any claims covered by this agreement to arbitrate. YOU ARE GIVING UP YOUR RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE AS A CLASS REPRESENTATIVE OR CLASS MEMBER ON ANY CLASS CLAIM YOU MAY HAVE AGAINST US INCLUDING ANY RIGHT TO CLASS ARBITRATION OR ANY CONSOLIDATION OF INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATIONS. You also agree not to participate in claims brought in a private or representative capacity, or consolidated claims involving another person, if we are a party to the proceeding. This dispute resolution provision will be governed by the Federal Arbitration Act and not by any state law concerning arbitration. In the event JAMS, INC. is unwilling or unable to set a hearing date within one hundred and sixty (160) days of filing the case, then either we or you can elect to have the arbitration administered instead by the American Arbitration Association. Judgment on the award rendered by the arbitrator may be entered in any court having competent jurisdiction. Any provision of applicable law notwithstanding, the arbitrator will not have authority to award damages, remedies or awards that conflict with these Terms. You agree that regardless of any statute or law to the contrary, any claim or cause of action arising out of, related to or connected with the use of the Services or these Terms must be filed within one (1) year after such claim of action arose or be forever banned.

You agree that, notwithstanding anything in the foregoing, any arbitration proceeding between you and us will be conducted in New York, NY, USA, that the language of the arbitration shall be in English, and that all arbitration proceedings shall be considered confidential in nature.

C. Survival

Sections 4, 6, 7, 8, and 10 shall survive any termination or expiration of these Terms.

D. Merger and Severability

The parties to these Terms are independent contractors and these Terms shall not be construed to constitute any agency, partnership, joint venture, or employment relationship between you and Stack Overflow. These Terms represent the entire agreement between you and Stack Overflow and supersede all prior or contemporaneous oral or written communications, proposals, and representations with respect to the Services. If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid, void, unenforceable, or contrary to public policy, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that the remaining provisions of these Terms remain and continue in full force and effect.

E. Notices

Unless otherwise specified in these Terms, all notices under these Terms will be in writing and will be deemed to have been duly given when received, if personally delivered or sent by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested; when receipt is electronically confirmed, if transmitted by facsimile or e-mail; or the day after it is sent, if sent for next day delivery by recognized overnight delivery service. Electronic notices should be sent to legal@stackoverflow.com.

F. No Waiver

Our failure to enforce any part of these Terms shall not constitute a waiver of our right to later enforce that or any other part of these Terms. Waiver of compliance in any particular instance does not mean that we will waive compliance in the future. In order for any waiver of compliance with these Terms to be binding, we must provide you with written notice of such waiver through one of our authorized representatives.

G. Headings

The section and paragraph headings in these Terms are for convenience only and do not affect their interpretation.

11. Additional Terms & Policies

• Stack Overflow’s Privacy Policy.
• The Stack Overflow Public Network of sites are governed by the Stack Overflow Public Network Terms of Service.
• Use of the Stack Overflow API is governed by the Stack Overflow API Terms of Use.
• Stack Overflow for Teams is governed by the Stack Overflow Basic Terms of Service as well as additional terms depending on which version you are using.