1. Purpose

The mission of QS is to enable motivated people around the world to fulfil their potential be fostering international mobility, educational achievement and career development. To achieve our Mission, we make services available through our website and mobile applications.

2. Scope and Intent

2.1 You agree that by registering on QS, or by using our websites, including www.topuniversities.com and www.topmba.com (our websites) or other information provided as part of the QS services (collectively “QS” or the “Services”), you are entering into a legally binding agreement with QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd, 1 Tranley Mews, Fleet Road, London, NW3 2DG, United Kingdom, if you reside outside the United Kingdom (“we,” “us,” “our,” and “QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd”) based on the terms of this QS User Agreement and the QS Privacy Policy, which is hereby incorporated by reference (collectively referred to as the “Agreement”) and become a QS user (“User”).

If you are using QS on behalf of a company or other legal entity, you are nevertheless individually bound by this Agreement even if your company has a separate agreement with us. If you do not want to register an account and become a QS User, do not conclude the Agreement, do NOT click “Register” in any of our websites and do not access, view, download or otherwise use any of our websites information or services. By clicking “Register” you acknowledge that you have read and understood the terms and conditions of this Agreement and that you agree to be bound by all of its provisions. By clicking “Register,” you also consent to use electronic signatures and acknowledge your click of the “Register” button as one.

2.2 By submitting your information you are indicating your consent to receive up to date information, newsletters and other communications from QS and selected third parties. You may opt out at any time by sending an email to [email protected].

3. YOUR OBLIGATIONS

3.1 Applicable laws and this Agreement

You must comply with all applicable laws, the Agreement, as may be amended from time to time with or without advance notice, and the policies and processes explained in the following sections:

You own the information you provide QS under this Agreement, and may request its deletion at any time, unless you have shared information or content with others and they have not deleted it, or it was copied or stored by other users. Additionally, you grant QS a nonexclusive, irrevocable, worldwide, perpetual, unlimited, assignable, sublicenseable, fully paid up and royalty-free right to us to copy, prepare derivative works of, improve, distribute, publish, remove, retain, add, process, analyze, use and commercialize, in any way now known or in the future discovered, any information you provide, directly or indirectly to QS, including, but not limited to, any user generated content, ideas, concepts, techniques or data to the services, you submit to QS, without any further consent, notice and/or compensation to you or to any third parties.

By providing information to us, you represent and warrant that you are entitled to submit the information and that the information is accurate, not confidential, and not in violation of any contractual restrictions or other third party rights.

3.2 Service Eligibility

To be eligible to use the Service, you must meet the following criteria and represent and warrant that you: (1) are not currently restricted from the Services, or not otherwise prohibited from having a QS account, (2) are not a competitor of QS or are not using the Services for reasons that are in competition with QS; (3) will only maintain one QS account at any given time; (4) have full power and authority to enter into this Agreement and doing so will not violate any other agreement to which you are a party; (5) will not violate any rights of QS, including intellectual property rights such as copyright or trademark rights; and (6) agree to provide at your cost all equipment, software, and internet access necessary to use the Services.

3.3 Sign-In Credentials

You agree to: (1) Keep your password secure and confidential; (2) not permit others to use your account; (3) refrain from using other Users’ accounts; (4) refrain from selling, trading, or otherwise transferring your QS account to another party. Further, you are responsible for anything that happens through your account until you close down your account or prove that your account security was compromised due to no fault of your own. To close your account, please contact [email protected]

3.4 Indemnification

You indemnify us and hold us harmless for all damages, losses and costs (including, but not limited to, reasonable attorneys’ fees and costs) related to all third party claims, charges, and investigations, caused by (1) your failure to comply with this Agreement, including, without limitation, your submission of content that violates third party rights or applicable laws, (2) any content you submit to the Services, and (3) any activity in which you engage on or through QS.

3.5 Notify us of acts contrary to the Agreement

If you believe that you are entitled or obligated to act contrary to this Agreement under any mandatory law, you agree to provide us with detailed and substantiated explanation of your reasons in writing at least 30 days before you act contrary to this Agreement, to allow us to assess whether we may, at our sole discretion, provide an alternative remedy for the situation, though we are under no obligation to do so.

3.6 Notifications and Service Messages

For purposes of service messages and notices about the Services to you, QS may place a banner notice across its pages to alert you to certain changes such as modifications to this Agreement.

Alternatively, notice may consist of an email from QS to an email address associated with your account, even if we have other contact information. You also agree that QS may communicate and market to you through email, mobile number, telephone, or delivery services including the postal service about your QS account or services associated with QS. Please review your Settings to control what kind of messages you receive from QS. You acknowledge and agree that we shall have no liability associated with or arising from your failure to do so maintain accurate contact or other information, including, but not limited to, your failure to receive critical information about the Service.

3.7 QS Applications

QS offers various forums on our websites where you can post your observations and comments on designated topics. QS also enables sharing of information by allowing users to post updates, comment in articles and QS blogs.

Please note that ideas you post and information you share may be seen and used by other Users, and QS cannot guarantee that other Users will not use the ideas and information that you share on our websites, forums and blog posts comments.

Therefore, if you have an idea or information that you would like to keep confidential and/or don’t want others to use, or that is subject to third party rights that may be infringed by your sharing it, do not post it to any QS Applications into QS IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR A USER’S MISUSE OR MISAPPROPRIATION OF ANY CONTENT OR INFORMATION YOU POST IN ANY QS FORUMS, BLOGS POST COMMENTS AND ARTICLES COMMENTS.

3.8 Privacy

You should carefully read our full Privacy Policy before deciding to become a User as it is hereby incorporated into this Agreement by reference, and governs our treatment of any information, including personally identifiable information you submit to us. Please note that certain information, statements, data, and content which you may submit to QS might, or are likely to, reveal your gender, ethnic origin, nationality, age, and/or other personal information about you. You acknowledge that your submission of any information, statements, data, and content to us is voluntary on your part.

3.9 Contributions to Our Websites

By submitting ideas, suggestions, ("Contributions") to QS through its suggestion or feedback webpages, you acknowledge and agree that: (a) your Contributions do not contain confidential or proprietary information; (b) QS is not under any obligation of confidentiality, express or implied, with respect to the Contributions; (c) QS shall be entitled to use or disclose (or choose not to use or disclose) such Contributions for any purpose, in any way, in any media worldwide; (d) QS may have something similar to the Contributions already under consideration or in development; (e) you irrevocably assign to QS all rights to your Contributions; and (f) you are not entitled to any compensation or reimbursement of any kind from QS under any circumstances.

4. YOUR RIGHTS

On the condition that you comply with all your obligations under this Agreement, including, but not limited to, the Do’s and Don’ts, we grant you a limited, revocable, nonexclusive, nonassignable, nonsublicenseable license and right to access the Services, through a generally available web browser, mobile device or application (but not through scraping, spidering, crawling or other technology or software used to access data without the express written consent of QS), view information and use the Services that we provide on QS webpages and in accordance with this Agreement. Any other use of QS contrary to our mission and purpose (to enable motivated people around the world to fulfil their potential be fostering international mobility, educational achievement and career development) is strictly prohibited and a violation of this Agreement. We reserve all rights not expressly granted in this Agreement, including, without limitation, title, ownership, intellectual property rights, and all other rights and interest in QS and all related items, including any and all copies made of our websites.

5. OUR RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS

5.1 Services Availability

For as long as QS continues to offer the Services, QS shall provide and seek to update, improve and expand the Services. As a result, we allow you to access our websites as it may exist and be available on any given day and have no other obligations, except as expressly stated in this Agreement. We may modify, replace, refuse access to, suspend or discontinue our websites, partially or entirely, or change and modify prices for all or part of the Services for you or for all our users in our sole discretion. All of these changes shall be effective upon their posting on our site or by direct communication to you unless otherwise noted. QS further reserves the right to withhold, remove and or discard any content available as part of your account, with or without notice if deemed by QS to be contrary to this Agreement. For avoidance of doubt, QS has no obligation to store, maintain or provide you a copy of any content that you or other Users provide when using the Services.

5.2 Third Party Sites and Developers

QS may include links to third party web sites (“Third Party Sites”) on www.topuniversities.com and www.topmba.com and elsewhere. QS also enables third party developers (“Platform Developers”) to create applications (“Platform Applications”) that provide features and functionality using data and developer tools made available by QS through its developer platform.

You are responsible for evaluating whether you want to access or use a Third Party Site or Platform Application. You should review any applicable terms and/or privacy policy of a Third Party Site or Platform Application before using it or sharing any information with it, because you may give the operator permission to use your information in ways we would not.

QS is not responsible for and does not endorse any features, content, advertising, products or other materials on or available from Third Party Sites or Platform Applications.

5.3 Disclosure of User Information

You acknowledge, consent and agree that we may access, preserve, and disclose your registration and any other information you provide if required to do so by law or in a good faith belief that such access preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary in our opinion to: (1) comply with legal process, including, but not limited to, civil and criminal subpoenas, court orders or other compulsory disclosures; (2) enforce this Agreement; (3) respond to claims of a violation of the rights of third parties, whether or not the third party is a User, individual, or government agency; (4) respond to customer service inquiries; or (5) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of QS, our Users or the public.

Disclosures of User information to third parties other than those required to provide customer support, administer this agreement, or comply with legal requirements are addressed in the Privacy Policy.

5.4 Interactions with other Users

You are solely responsible for your interactions with other Users. QS reserves the right, but has no obligation, to monitor disputes between you and other members and to restrict, suspend, or close your account if QS determines, in our sole discretion, that doing so is necessary to enforce this Agreement.

6. DISCLAIMER

SOME COUNTRIES AND JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE DISCLAIMER OF IMPLIED TERMS IN CONTRACTS WITH CONSUMERS AND AS A RESULT THE CONTENTS OF THIS SECTION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

DO NOT RELY ON QS, ANY INFORMATION THEREIN, OR ITS CONTINUATION. WE PROVIDE THE PLATFORM FOR QS AND ALL INFORMATION AND SERVICES ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS. QS DOES NOT CONTROL OR VET USER GENERATED CONTENT FOR ACCURACY. WE DO NOT PROVIDE ANY EXPRESS WARRANTIES OR REPRESENTATIONS.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, WE DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND REPRESENTATIONS, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, ACCURACY OF DATA, AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IF YOU ARE DISSATISFIED OR HARMED BY QS OR ANYTHING RELATED TO QS, YOU MAY CLOSE YOUR QS ACCOUNT AND TERMINATE THIS AGREEMENT AND SUCH TERMINATION SHALL BE YOUR SOLE AND EXCLUSIVE REMEDY.

QS IS NOT RESPONSIBLE, AND MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES FOR THE DELIVERY OF ANY MESSAGES (POSTING OF ANSWERS OR TRANSMISSION OF ANY OTHER USER GENERATED CONTENT). IN ADDITION, WE NEITHER WARRANT NOR REPRESENT THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE WILL NOT INFRINGE THE RIGHTS OF THIRD PARTIES. ANY MATERIAL, SERVICE, OR TECHNOLOGY DESCRIBED OR USED ON OUR WEBSITES MAY BE SUBJECT TO INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS OWNED BY THIRD PARTIES WHO HAVE LICENSED SUCH MATERIAL, SERVICE, OR TECHNOLOGY TO US.

QS DOES NOT HAVE ANY OBLIGATION TO VERIFY THE IDENTITY OF THE PERSONS SUBSCRIBING TO ITS SERVICES, NOR DOES IT HAVE ANY OBLIGATION TO MONITOR THE USE OF ITS SERVICES BY OTHER USERS; THEREFORE, QS DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY FOR IDENTITY THEFT OR ANY OTHER MISUSE OF YOUR IDENTITY OR INFORMATION.

QS DOES NOT GUARANTEE THAT THE SERVICES IT PROVIDES WILL FUNCTION WITHOUT INTERRUPTION OR ERRORS IN FUNCTIONING. IN PARTICULAR, THE OPERATION OF THE SERVICES MAY BE INTERRUPTED DUE TO MAINTENANCE, UPDATES, OR SYSTEM OR NETWORK FAILURES. QS DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES CAUSED BY ANY SUCH INTERRUPTION OR ERRORS IN FUNCTIONING. FURTHERMORE, QS DISCLAIMS ALL LIABILITY FOR ANY MALFUNCTIONING, IMPOSSIBILITY OF ACCESS, OR POOR USE CONDITIONS OF THE QS SITE DUE TO INAPPROPRIATE EQUIPMENT, DISTURBANCES RELATED TO INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS, TO THE SATURATION OF THE INTERNET NETWORK, AND FOR ANY OTHER REASON.

7. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

SOME COUNTRIES DO NOT ALLOW THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY IN CONTRACTS WITH CONSUMERS AND AS A RESULT THE CONTENTS OF THIS SECTION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

Neither QS nor any of our subsidiaries, affiliated companies, employees, shareholders, or directors (“QS Affiliates”) shall be cumulatively liable for (a) any damages in excess of US $100 or (b) any special, incidental, indirect, punitive or consequential damages or loss of use, profit, revenue or data to you or any third person arising from your use of the Service, any platform applications or any of the content or other materials on, accessed through or downloaded from our websites. This limitation of liability is part of the basis of the bargain between the parties and without it the terms and prices charged would be different. This limitation of liability shall:

Apply regardless of whether (1) you base your claim on contract, tort, statute or any other legal theory, (2) we knew or should have known about the possibility of such damages, or (3) the limited remedies provided in this section fail of their essential purpose; and

Not apply to any damage that QS may cause you intentionally or knowingly in violation of this Agreement or applicable law, or as otherwise mandated by applicable law that cannot be disclaimed from in this Agreement.

8. TERMINATION

8.1 Mutual rights of termination

You may terminate this Agreement, for any or no reason, at any time, with notice to QS. This notice will be effective upon QS processing your notice. QS may terminate the Agreement and your account for any reason or no reason, at any time, with or without notice. This cancellation shall be effective immediately or as may be specified in the notice. Termination of your QS account includes disabling your access to our websites and may also bar you from any future use of our websites and applications.

8.2 Misuse of the Services

QS may restrict, suspend or terminate the account of any User who abuses or misuses the Services. Misuse of the Services includes inviting other Users with whom you do not know to connect; creating multiple or false profiles; using the Services commercially without QS’s authorization, infringing any intellectual property rights, violating any of the Do’s and Don’ts, or any other behavior that QS, in its sole discretion, deems contrary to its purpose.

8.3 Effect of Termination

Upon the termination of your QS account, you lose access to the Services. The terms of this Agreement shall survive any termination, except “Your Rights” and 4.a-b, and “Our Rights and Obligations” hereof.

9. GENERAL TERMS

9.1 Severability

If any provision of this Agreement is found by a court of competent jurisdiction or arbitrator to be illegal, void, or unenforceable, the unenforceable provision will be modified so as to render it enforceable and effective to the maximum extent possible in order to effect the intention of the provision; and if a court or arbitrator finds the modified provision invalid, illegal, void or unenforceable, the validity, legality and enforceability of the remaining provisions of this Agreement will not be affected in any way.

9.2 Language

English language versions of this Agreement, the Privacy Policy, and any other documentation, including additional terms of services, will govern your relationship with QS.

9.3 Notices and Service of Process

You may contact us here.

QS Headquarters:

1 Tranley Mews Fleet Road
London, NW3 2DG
United Kingdom

Additionally, QS accepts service of process at this address. Any notices that you provide without compliance with this section on Notices shall have no legal effect.

9.4 Entire Agreement

You agree that this Agreement constitutes the entire, complete and exclusive agreement between you and us regarding the Services and supersedes all prior agreements and understandings, whether written or oral, or whether established by custom, practice, policy or precedent, with respect to the subject matter of this Agreement. You also may be subject to additional terms and conditions that may apply when you use or purchase certain other QS services, third-party content or third party software.

9.5 Amendments to this Agreement

We reserve the right to modify, supplement or replace the terms of the Agreement, effective upon posting at www.topuniversities.com and www.topmba.com or notifying you otherwise. For example, QS presents a banner on the site when we have amended this Agreement or the Privacy Policy so that you may access and review the changes prior to your continued use of the site. If you do not want to agree to changes to the Agreement, you can terminate this Agreement at any time per Section “Termination”.

9.6 Potential Other Rights and Obligations

You may have rights or obligations under local law other than those enumerated here if you are located outside the United Kingdom.

10. QS USER “DOS” and “DON’TS.”

As a condition to access QS, you agree to this User Agreement and to strictly observe the following DOs and DON’Ts:

Do undertake the following:

• Comply with all applicable laws, including, without limitation, privacy laws, intellectual property laws, export control laws, tax laws, and regulatory requirements;
• Provide accurate information to us and update it as necessary;
• Review and comply with our Privacy Policy;
• Review and comply with notices sent by QS concerning the Services; and
• Use the Services in a professional manner.

Don’t undertake the following:

• Act dishonestly or unprofessionally by engaging in unprofessional behavior by posting inappropriate, inaccurate, or objectionable content to or websites;
• Publish inaccurate information in the designated fields on the profile form (e.g., do not include a link or an email address in the name field). Please also protect sensitive personal information such as your email address, phone number, address, or other information that is confidential in nature;
• Create a user profile for anyone other than a natural person;
• Harass, abuse or harm another person;
• Upload a profile image that is not your likeness or a head-shot photo;
• Use or attempt to use another's account without authorization or create a false identity on QS;
• Adds to a content field content that is not intended for such field (i.e. submitting a telephone number in the “title” or any other field, or including telephone numbers, email addresses, street addresses or any personally identifiable information for which there is not a field provided by QS);
• Publishes information that you do not have the right to disclose or make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (such as insider information, or proprietary and confidential information learned or disclosed as part of employment relationships or under nondisclosure agreements);
• Content that infringes upon patents, trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights or other proprietary rights;
• Publishes any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, “junk mail,” “spam,” “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” or any other form of solicitation.
• Promote, publish, add, insert, paste software viruses, worms, or any other computer code, files or programs that interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment of QS or any User of QS;
• Forges headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any communication transmitted through the Services; and/or
• Participate, directly or indirectly, in the setting up or development of a network that seeks to implement practices that are similar to sales by network or the recruitment of independent home salespeople to the purposes of creating a pyramid scheme or other similar practices;
• Duplicate, license, sublicense, publish, broadcast, transmit, distribute, perform, display, sell, rebrand, or otherwise transfer information found on QS (excluding content posted by you) except as permitted in this Agreement;
• Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, decipher or otherwise attempt to derive the source code for any underlying intellectual property used to provide the Services, or any part thereof;
• Utilize or copy information, content or any data you view on and/or obtain from QS to provide any service that is competitive, in QS’s sole discretion, with QS;
• Imply or state, directly or indirectly, that you are affiliated with or endorsed by QS unless you have entered into a written agreement with QS (this includes, but is not limited to, representing yourself as an accredited QS trainer if you have not been certified by QS as such);
• Adapt, modify or create derivative works based on QS or technology underlying the Services, or other Users’ content, in whole or part;
• Rent, lease, loan, trade, sell/re-sell access to QS or any information therein, or the equivalent, in whole or part;
• Sell, sponsor, or otherwise monetize a QS Application or any other service or functionality of our websites, without the express written permission of QS;
• Deep-link to our websites for any purpose unless expressly authorized in writing by QS;
• Remove any copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights notices contained in or on our websites, including those of both our websites and any of its licensors;
• Remove, cover or otherwise obscure any form of advertisement included on QS;
• Collect, use, copy, or transfer any information, including, but not limited to, personally identifiable information obtained from QS except as expressly permitted in this Agreement or as the owner of such information may expressly permit;
• Share information of non-Users without their express consent;
• Infringe or use QS, TopUniversities, and TopMBA’s brand, logos and/or trademarks, including, without limitation, using the word “QS, Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd, TopUniversities and TopMBA” in any business name, email, or URL or including trademarks and logos except as provided in the Brand Guidelines or as expressly permitted by QS;
• Use manual or automated software, devices, scripts robots, other means or processes to access, “scrape,” “crawl” or “spider” any web pages or other services contained on our website;
• Use bots or other automated methods to access our websites, add or download contacts, or perform other activities through our websites, unless explicitly permitted by QS;
• Access, via automated or manual means or processes, our websites for purposes of monitoring our availability, performance or functionality for any competitive purpose;
• Engage in “framing,” “mirroring,” or otherwise simulating the appearance or function of our websites;
• Attempt to or actually access our websites by any means other than through the interfaces provided by QS such as its mobile application or by navigating to www.topuniversities.com and www.topmba.com using a web browser. This prohibition includes accessing or attempting to access our websites using any third-party service, including software-as-a-service platforms that aggregate access to multiple services;
• Attempt to or actually override any security component included in or underlying  our websites;
• Engage in any action that directly or indirectly interferes with the proper working of or places an unreasonable load on QS’s infrastructure, including, but not limited to, sending unsolicited communications, attempting to gain unauthorized access to our websites, or transmitting or activating computer viruses through or on our websites;
• Interfere with or disrupt or game QS or the Services, including, but not limited to, any servers or networks connected to QS, in particular QS's search algorithms.

11. COMPLAINTS REGARDING CONTENT POSTED ON OUR WEBSITES

Accordingly, this Agreement requires that information posted by Users be accurate and not in violation of the intellectual property rights or other rights of third parties. To promote these objectives, QS provides a process for submission of complaints concerning content posted by our Users. Complaints can be sent to [email protected].