Terms of Service

These Terms govern access to and use of the Grate platform, including the alwaysgrate.com website, provider and organization web applications, Grate signs, plaques, bands, QR codes, and all related services together called the Service.

By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms, the Grate Golden Rule, the Acceptable Use Policy, and the Privacy Notice. If you use the Service for an organization, you represent that you are authorized to bind it.

Customer means a person who gives Recognition. Provider means a person who receives Recognition and may earn Badges. Organization means an employer or other entity associated with one or more Providers that accesses aggregate analytics.

Recognition is an entry created by a Customer acknowledging a Provider’s service. A Badge is a designation issued when a Provider’s Recognition meets Grate’s eligibility criteria. An Artifact is a Grate-issued plaque, band, or other physical item displaying a Badge or Recognition and carrying a Grate QR code.

Grate Marks include the GRATE name, logo, Badge designs, and related trade dress. Content includes the Service’s text, graphics, software, data, and other materials apart from user-submitted material.

You must be at least 18, or the higher age of majority where you live, to create an account. You must provide accurate information, keep it current, protect your credentials, and remain responsible for activity under your account.

Each person may hold one Customer account and one Provider account. Organizations may hold one Organization account per legal entity unless Grate agrees otherwise in writing. Grate may refuse, suspend, or terminate accounts as described below.

Customers may give Recognition only for a genuine service interaction they personally experienced and that meets the Grate Golden Rule. Recognition may not be exchanged for payment, discounts, gifts, or other inducements, or given to oneself or an undisclosed related party.

Providers may claim a profile, view Recognition, and, when eligible, receive Badges and Artifacts. Providers may not solicit Recognition for anything of value.

Organizations may view aggregate analytics for associated Providers, subject to Provider consent and applicable law. They do not receive individual Recognition text unless the Provider has consented.

The Golden Rule is a term of this draft agreement. Customers affirm it before submitting Recognition, while Providers and Organizations accept it during account creation. Recognition that does not reflect a genuinely exceptional, personally experienced service moment may be removed or annotated and, when repeated or coordinated, treated as fraud under the AUP.

Grate does not define “exceptional” by a formula in these Terms. The standard is the Customer’s honest judgment, with Grate’s confidential quality weighting applied afterward.

Recognition is a permanent, immutable, time-stamped record. Once submitted, neither the Customer nor the Provider can edit or delete it. Grate may remove it from display or annotate it when it violates these Terms, violates the AUP, or must be addressed by law, while retaining the underlying record.

Customers grant Grate a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable license to store, display, analyze, and use submitted Recognition to operate, improve, and protect the Service. Customers represent that their Recognition is truthful, their own, and does not infringe another party’s rights.

Badges are issued at Grate’s discretion when a Provider’s Recognition meets confidential, quality-weighted eligibility criteria. Badges cannot be purchased or transferred. Grate does not publish the criteria or methodology and is not required to explain why a Badge was or was not issued.

A Badge is a revocable license to display the designation through the Service and Grate sharing tools. Grate may revoke a Badge when its underlying Recognition is removed, the Provider violates these Terms or the AUP, or the Badge no longer reflects the Provider’s Recognition in Grate’s good-faith judgment. Affected Organizations may be notified.

Artifacts are issued only by Grate to the Provider or Organization that earned the Recognition displayed. Grate does not authorize third parties to manufacture Artifacts or sell them separately from earned Recognition. Ownership of the physical item passes on delivery, while all intellectual property in it remains with Grate.

You must not alter, cover, replace, reproduce, or re-encode a Grate QR code; manufacture or display an imitation Artifact; or display an Artifact tied to revoked Recognition or a revoked Badge.

Every genuine Grate QR code resolves to an address beginning with https://alwaysgrate.com/. Grate does not use third-party link shorteners or redirect users to another domain. Report damaged, lost, or compromised Artifacts to trust@alwaysgrate.com. Grate may require return or destruction of an Artifact after revocation.

The Service, Content, Grate Marks, and underlying software, methodologies, algorithms, models, designs, and data compilations belong to AIDE Global LLC or its licensors and are protected by pending patent applications, trademark applications, copyright, trade-secret, and unfair-competition law.

No rights are granted except those expressly stated. You must not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, create derivative works from, or use the Service to build a competing product. Grate’s eligibility criteria and weighting methodology are confidential trade secrets and must not be derived, inferred, or reconstructed.

Subject to these Terms, Grate grants a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Service for its intended purpose. Providers may share earned Badges using Grate’s tools in the supplied form and linked to their alwaysgrate.com record.

Organizations may use aggregate analytics only for internal business purposes and may not resell, publish, or disclose them to third parties unless Grate expressly permits it.

Your use of the Service is subject to the Acceptable Use Policy. Conduct prohibited by that policy is a material breach of these Terms.

Grate monitors for coordinated, inauthentic, anomalous, and unlawful activity and acts on user reports without disclosing its detection methods. When Grate reasonably believes a breach has occurred, it may remove or annotate Recognition, revoke Badges, require return of Artifacts, suspend or terminate accounts, notify affected parties, and preserve relevant records.

Where conduct appears unlawful, AIDE Global LLC may pursue available civil remedies, refer the matter to law enforcement or regulators, cooperate with resulting proceedings consistent with privacy and applicable law, and respond to valid legal process.

Grate processes personal information as described in the Privacy Notice and in accordance with the Philippine Data Privacy Act of 2012, its implementing rules, National Privacy Commission issuances, and other applicable data-protection laws.

Providers control through consent settings what Recognition detail is visible to Organizations. Recognition is intended to be permanent, subject to rights available under applicable law.

You may close your account, but Recognition you gave or received remains part of the immutable record. Grate may suspend or terminate access for a breach, conduct reasonably believed unlawful or harmful, or a legal requirement. The provisions identified in the source draft survive termination.

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available.” To the fullest extent permitted by law, Grate disclaims express and implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

Grate does not warrant that Recognition, Badges, or analytics are accurate, complete, or suitable for a decision, including an employment decision. Organizations remain responsible for their decisions and legal compliance. Grate does not guarantee uninterrupted, secure, or error-free operation, or that an Artifact cannot be imitated. Non-waivable consumer rights remain preserved.

The source draft proposes exclusions for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages and losses of profits, revenue, goodwill, or data, to the fullest extent permitted by law.

This clause is not release-ready. The proposed aggregate liability cap still contains an unresolved Philippine-peso amount and requires counsel confirmation. The draft also addresses third-party phishing, malware, fraud, and counterfeit Artifacts, subject to Grate’s own legally determined fault.

The source draft requires users to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless AIDE Global LLC and its officers, members, employees, and agents from claims, damages, liabilities, and expenses arising from their Recognition, breach, misuse of Grate Marks or Artifacts, violation of law, or violation of a third party’s rights.

The source draft proposes Philippine law, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. The final venue and dispute-resolution mechanism have not been approved. The draft contains alternatives between court proceedings and arbitration and therefore does not state an effective dispute process.

The source preserves Grate’s ability to seek appropriate equitable relief and preserves non-waivable consumer rights before competent Philippine authorities.

The source draft permits Grate to modify the Service and amend the Terms by posting a new version with a new effective date. Its proposed advance-notice period for material changes remains bracketed and unresolved.

The Terms, AUP, and Privacy Notice are intended to form the entire agreement regarding the Service. If a provision is unenforceable, the remainder stays in effect. Failure to enforce is not a waiver. Users may not assign the Terms; Grate may assign them to an affiliate or successor on notice.

Legal notices may be sent to legal@alwaysgrate.com. The agreement is written in English, with translations offered only for convenience. AIDE Global LLC’s final legal addresses remain unresolved in the source draft.