Terms of Service
Terms of Service · Contest Rules · Safety Rules
How these documents fit together
PlacePrize runs on three documents, because PlacePrize works in three parts.
The Terms of Service govern your relationship with PlacePrize: who we are, what we are and are not, what you grant us, and how disputes are handled.
The Contest Rules govern every prize: how a prize is posted, funded, claimed, proven, judged, and paid.
The Safety Rules govern the work itself: what is allowed, what is forbidden, and the single rule that overrides all the others.
They work as one agreement. When you create an account, fund a prize, submit a photo, or claim a prize, you agree to all three. Where a term is defined in one, it carries the same meaning in the others.
We have tried to write them in plain English. We have not tried to make them soft. The plain language is so you can understand what you are agreeing to. The firmness is so the platform stays fair, safe, and hard to abuse, which is what protects the people using it in good faith, who are almost everyone.
Our philosophy
A prize is care made portable.
Care for the places we share is everywhere. People volunteer, they donate, they report problems, they look after their neighborhoods in a hundred ordinary ways. PlacePrize adds a new one: a real-world prize board where anyone can fund an improvement to a place they value, and anyone willing to do the work can earn the prize by making it real.
That is what a prize is. It lets one person's commitment to a place become another person's chance to improve it, and it pays only when the improvement is real and proven. That is the whole idea, and these documents exist to protect it.
A few beliefs sit underneath all the legal language, and they explain why the rest of it reads the way it does.
Proof is everything. Money moves on evidence, never on trust alone. The before-and-after photograph is the heart of the system, which is why we ask so much from your camera and so little from your word.
The work must be safe, or it does not happen. Every rule that narrows what you can do is there to keep a stranger from getting hurt for a prize. No prize is worth an injury, and that is not a slogan, it is the rule that beats every other rule in these pages.
Honesty is built to be the easy path. The systems that catch fraud are deliberately unforgiving, because the people funding prizes and doing honest work deserve a platform that protects them from the few who would game it.
The places belong to everyone, and so does the pride. PlacePrize is a tool in the hands of the people who already love these places. It does not replace them. It extends their reach.
By using PlacePrize, you are joining that. The documents below are the terms of joining.
Put a prize on a place. Leave it proud.
Document 1: Terms of Service
1. Agreement to these Terms
These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and PlacePrize LLC ("PlacePrize," "we," "us"), a Connecticut limited liability company. They govern your use of the PlacePrize website, applications, and services (the "Service"), and they incorporate the Contest Rules and the Safety Rules, which apply with equal force.
What a prize is, in law. A prize on PlacePrize is a public offer of a reward for a specified, verified outcome, accepted by performance. It is a unilateral contract of the classic kind, the long-settled "reward for the lost dog" offer: the Funder publishes an open offer, no one is selected or assigned, and the offer is accepted only when a person chooses to complete the requested act and proves it. There is no employment, no engagement of services, no negotiation, and no acceptance before performance. Every term below follows from this single structure.
By creating an account, clicking "I agree," submitting any content, funding a prize, or otherwise using the Service, you accept all three documents in full. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
You confirm that your acceptance is informed and voluntary, and you acknowledge that the licenses, consents, disclaimers, and waivers in these Terms are a material condition of the Service: it is offered to you only because you accept them, and you would not be permitted to use it if you objected to any of them.
2. Eligibility
You must be 18 or older and able to form a binding contract. The Service is intended for users in the United States. By using it, you represent that you meet these requirements.
3. Definitions
Funder: a user who posts and pays for a prize. Hunter: a user who performs work to claim a prize. Spotter: a user who photographs and nominates a place without funding it. Keeper: a user who holds a recurring prize on a place over time. Referee: the verification system, automated and human, that determines whether a prize's conditions are met. Prize: a published offer of payment for a specified, verifiable outcome. User Content: anything you submit. Proof pair: the before-and-after evidence for a prize.
4. What PlacePrize is, and is not
PlacePrize is a venue and a verification service. You acknowledge and agree that:
We are not an employer. We do not employ, engage, supervise, direct, schedule, or dispatch any user. We publish open prize offers that anyone may accept by performance, and acceptance occurs only by completing and proving the requested outcome. There is no assignment, no duty to accept any prize, and no guarantee of earnings.
We are not a party to the work. Whether to fund a prize, and whether, when, where, and how to perform work, is the user's decision alone. Disputes about work performed, or between users, are between those users.
A prize is a prize, not a wage. Amounts paid to Hunters are prizes for verified outcomes and may be reported as such (for example, on IRS Form 1099) where required.
We never take custody of your money. All payments and identity verification are processed by Stripe under Stripe's terms and licenses. When a Funder pays for a prize, the funds are authorized, held, and settled entirely within Stripe's regulated payment rails, and they move only as the outcome of the prize directs: to the Hunter on a passing verdict, or back to the Funder on an unclaimed expiry, as set out in the Contest Rules. PlacePrize holds no balances of its own and never takes custody of user funds. PlacePrize orchestrates payments as a platform; Stripe is the regulated party that holds and moves the money.
5. Accounts
You must create an account to fund prizes, submit photos, or claim prizes. You agree to provide accurate information, keep it current, and remain responsible for activity under your account. Identity verification is performed by Stripe; no claim activates before it completes.
6. Payments
Fees are disclosed at the time of payment. Payment terms, boosts, refunds, and the mechanics of prize funding are governed by the Contest Rules.
7. Your Content, and the license you grant us
Read this section carefully.
You keep ownership of your User Content. You grant us a license broader, in practice, than ownership would give us.
When you submit any photograph, video, image, text, caption, comment, label, annotation, measurement, GPS or location data, timestamp, device or sensor metadata, or other material ("User Content"), you retain ownership of it, and you grant PlacePrize a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, fully paid-up, transferable, and sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, modify, crop, adapt, combine, publish, publicly display, distribute, archive, create derivative works from, and commercialize that User Content, for any lawful purpose connected with PlacePrize or any successor business.
This license expressly includes the right to use your User Content, and any data derived from it, to develop, train, evaluate, and benchmark artificial-intelligence and machine-learning systems, including the Referee and fraud-detection systems; to build training, benchmark, and synthetic datasets; to conduct commercial and academic research; and to develop future products and technologies, including technologies not yet conceived at the time of your submission.
You agree that this license is perpetual and irrevocable, that it survives termination of your account or these Terms, and that deleting your account does not revoke it. You waive any right to compensation, accounting, or attribution, and, to the maximum extent permitted by law, you waive any moral rights in your User Content.
Your promises. You represent and warrant that you captured the User Content yourself through the Service; that you own or hold all rights necessary to grant this license; and that the User Content infringes no rights and violates no law.
8. Derived Data
PlacePrize exclusively owns all data and works derived from User Content, including without limitation annotations, labels, classifications, embeddings, confidence scores, Referee determinations, verification reports, fraud indicators, quality metrics, machine-generated features, and any training, benchmark, or synthetic datasets. Users receive no ownership interest in any derived data.
9. Evidence Retention
PlacePrize may permanently retain any evidence submitted through the Service, including photographs, metadata, GPS data, timestamps, EXIF and device information, reviewer notes, correspondence, and automated analyses. We may retain it indefinitely for fraud prevention, auditing, legal compliance, AI development, research, quality assurance, archival, and publication consistent with these Terms and the Privacy Policy. To the maximum extent permitted by law, you waive any expectation that submitted evidence will be deleted.
10. Privacy and consent to data use
Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect and how we use it, and is incorporated into these Terms. By using the Service, you consent in advance to that collection and use, including the use of your data and images to train and improve the Referee and other AI systems, and you acknowledge that this use is disclosed to you before you submit anything and accepted knowingly.
11. PlacePrize intellectual property
The Service and everything that makes PlacePrize recognizable, including the PlacePrize™ and Leave It Proud™ marks, the star-and-pin logo, the Referee, the software, the scoring and verification methods, the poster and badge formats, the page designs, trade dress, and documentation, are owned by PlacePrize and protected by law. We grant you a limited, revocable, non-transferable license to use the Service for its intended purpose only. You may not copy, modify, reverse-engineer, scrape, or build a competing service from it.
We encourage you to celebrate completed prizes by sharing PlacePrize-generated before-and-after images, certificates, and social graphics for non-commercial purposes, provided all PlacePrize branding, logos, watermarks, and attribution remain intact. By participating, you authorize PlacePrize to create branded versions of submitted images, including overlays, frames, logos, certificates, animations, and promotional materials, and to use them to promote the Service.
12. Verification and the limits of AI
The Referee's determination of whether a prize's published conditions were met is the contractually agreed basis for whether the prize is paid. Human review, under Section 7 of the Contest Rules, is the sole and exclusive administrative remedy for a disputed verdict, and the before-and-after proof pair is the controlling evidence. You agree not to relitigate the Referee's factual determination of performance as the basis for a claim.
The Referee uses a combination of artificial intelligence, computer vision, automated analysis, statistical systems, and human review. No verification system is perfect, and you acknowledge that correct claims may occasionally be denied, that incorrect claims may occasionally be approved, that results may change as the systems improve, and that PlacePrize may revisit a determination when fraud is later discovered. Participation constitutes acceptance of these limitations.
One protection survives this disclaimer: a Hunter who believes a claim was wrongly denied may request human review, and PlacePrize will provide it. A wrongly denied claim is treated as a serious error.
13. Platform discretion
PlacePrize may suspend, investigate, modify, remove, reject, delay, cancel, reverse, or refuse any account, prize, submission, payment, or transaction whenever we reasonably believe it necessary to protect users, prevent fraud, or preserve the integrity of the Service. Our first obligation in any dispute is to the integrity of the marketplace. We are not obligated to explain every moderation, verification, or fraud-detection decision, and we do not disclose the internal workings of our fraud and verification systems.
14. Disclaimer of warranties
To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, that any prize will be claimed or paid, that any verdict will be correct, or that any work will be performed safely or at all.
15. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, PlacePrize and its owners, members, and agents will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, data, or goodwill. Our total aggregate liability for all claims will not exceed the greater of (a) the fees you paid PlacePrize in the three months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars ($100). Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law, including for our own gross negligence, willful misconduct, or fraud.
16. Assumption of risk
Physical work carries risk, and you accept it. If you choose to perform work, you do so voluntarily and at your own risk. You understand the work may involve hazards including weather, terrain, traffic, and contact with waste, and that injury or property damage is possible. To the maximum extent permitted by law, you assume all such risk, take full responsibility for your own safety, equipment, and judgment, and agree that PlacePrize does not supervise, inspect, or control any work or work site.
17. Release
To the maximum extent permitted by law, you release PlacePrize and its owners, members, and agents from all claims and damages arising out of your use of the Service, any prize, any work, any verdict, any interaction with another user, or any condition you encounter while performing work.
18. Indemnification
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless PlacePrize and its owners, members, and agents from any claim, loss, fine, citation, or expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from your use of the Service, your User Content, your work, your disposal of collected material, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any law, ordinance, or any third party's rights. This includes any municipal fine or citation arising from improper disposal or staging of collected material.
19. Dispute resolution: arbitration and class-action waiver
PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. IT AFFECTS YOUR RIGHT TO SUE IN COURT AND TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION.
Except as stated below, you and PlacePrize agree that any dispute will be resolved by final and binding individual arbitration, administered by [AAA / JAMS] under its rules, governed by the Federal Arbitration Act, rather than in court. You and PlacePrize each waive the right to a jury trial and the right to participate in any class, collective, consolidated, or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person's claims.
Carve-outs: either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court, and either may seek injunctive relief to protect intellectual property or stop misuse of the Service.
30-day opt-out: you may opt out of this Section by written notice to [opt-out address] within 30 days of first accepting these Terms; the rest of the Terms still apply. Arbitration is seated for New Haven County, Connecticut.
20. Termination
We may suspend or terminate access at any time, with or without cause. Provisions that should survive, including the content license, Derived Data, Evidence Retention, disclaimers, limitation of liability, release, indemnification, and dispute resolution, survive termination.
21. Changes
We may update these Terms and will give reasonable notice of material changes. Continued use after changes take effect is acceptance.
22. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of Connecticut, except that the Federal Arbitration Act governs Section 19. Subject to Section 19, the courts of New Haven County, Connecticut have exclusive jurisdiction.
23. General
These Terms, the Contest Rules, the Safety Rules, and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement about the Service. If any provision is unenforceable, the rest stands and that provision is enforced to the greatest extent permitted. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms; we may.
24. Contact
PlacePrize LLC · [mailing address] · info@placeprize.com
Document 2: Contest Rules
These Contest Rules govern every prize on the platform and are part of your agreement with PlacePrize. Terms defined in the Terms of Service carry the same meaning here.
1. A prize is a standing public offer
A prize is a public offer of a reward for a specified, verifiable outcome at a specified place, open to anyone eligible, accepted only by performance: no one is selected, assigned, or engaged, and the offer is accepted when a Hunter completes the outcome and proves it. When you fund a prize, you authorize payment through Stripe, and you agree that the prize's location, scope, proof requirements, and expiration are fixed once posted.
The prize pays for the whole job. A prize is payment for the complete removal of the specified litter: the site cleared, the collected material bagged and shown in the after photo, and lawful haul-off completed by the Hunter. By claiming a prize, the Hunter accepts responsibility for the entire job, including carrying the bagged material away and disposing of it lawfully. PlacePrize verifies only that the site is cleared and the collected trash is bagged in frame; it does not require any receptacle to be shown and does not direct where the material goes.
2. Prizes are irrevocable once work begins
Once published, a prize becomes a standing offer governed by its published terms. After a Hunter has materially begun performance, a prize may not be withdrawn, modified, or cancelled by the Funder, and may be cancelled only by PlacePrize. Funders may not pull a prize because someone has started the work. Before any claim is active, an unclaimed prize may expire or be cancelled as described below.
3. Funding, boosts, and refunds
Funds are held within Stripe's payment rails, not by PlacePrize, and are directed only by the outcome: released to the Hunter on a passing verdict, or returned to the Funder if the prize expires unclaimed. Anyone may add to an existing prize (a "boost"). Boosts are contributions to the place and are not refundable. If a prize expires unclaimed, the original Funder's principal may be returned, while boosts may roll forward to another prize or into the place rather than being returned. Prizes may remain open for extended periods, including recurring standing prizes (for example, a monthly prize on a schoolyard); funds for long-lived prizes rest within Stripe's rails, never in PlacePrize's custody, until the outcome directs them.
4. Expiration
Each prize carries an expiration. A prize unclaimed at expiration returns to the board or closes, and refunds follow Section 3.
5. Claiming
A Hunter takes an exclusive, time-limited claim, one active claim at a time, so two people never collide at the same site. A claim that expires undone returns the prize to the board, with no penalty and no payment.
6. Proof requirements
Submitted photographs become evidence within the PlacePrize verification system. Proof must be captured in the app only, at the prize location, within the required frame. A locked before, a matching after, and the associated GPS and device attestations are required. Library uploads, edited images, AI-generated images, and images captured outside the app are not valid evidence. The after must show the site clear with the collected trash bagged and shown in frame; an after that shows bags abandoned, misplaced, or creating a new mess does not satisfy the proof contract and will not pass. A Spotter's nomination follows the same capture standard, and Spotters never claim their own finds, so the evidence always originates with someone not paid for the work. Submitted evidence is evaluated by the Referee, archived, may be re-reviewed, and is retained and used as described in the Terms of Service.
7. The Referee
The Referee is the sole authority that determines whether a prize's published conditions have been met. The Referee may consist of artificial intelligence, computer vision, automated fraud systems, human reviewers, or any combination. Its determinations are final unless PlacePrize elects to reopen a case, including when fraud is later discovered. The Referee is not required to disclose its reasoning, models, confidence scores, fraud indicators, or decision processes.
Human review is the sole and exclusive administrative remedy for a disputed verdict, and the before-and-after proof pair is the controlling evidence. A Hunter who believes a claim was wrongly denied may request human review, performed within the Service; review may overturn a denial but does not place anyone above the Referee. A wrongly denied claim is treated as a serious error.
8. Fraud
PlacePrize treats fraud as a serious matter and pursues it. Fraud includes, without limitation: staging, moving, or creating a mess to provoke or claim a prize; recycling or reusing photographs; submitting edited or AI-generated imagery; GPS spoofing or timestamp or metadata manipulation; operating multiple or false-identity accounts; collusion or coordinated submissions; automation; interfering with, probing, or attempting to reverse-engineer the Referee or fraud systems; and circumventing capture or verification controls.
Fraud also includes improper disposal. Dumping or abandoning collected material on private property, in someone's yard, against a building, in or beside a receptacle you are not authorized to use, creating a new mess, or otherwise failing to dispose of the material lawfully, is fraud. The Hunter attests, on claiming and on turn-in, that they will haul the collected material away and dispose of it lawfully.
Suspected fraud may result, at PlacePrize's discretion, in immediate payout freeze and forfeiture of the prize and any associated funds, permanent termination of the account, loss of future eligibility, reporting to payment providers, referral to law enforcement, and civil action. Through the indemnification in the Terms of Service, the user is responsible for any municipal fine or citation arising from improper disposal. PlacePrize is not required to disclose how fraud is detected.
9. Eligibility and conduct
Participation requires an account, identity verification through Stripe, and compliance with these Contest Rules, the Terms of Service, and the Safety Rules. There is no in-app messaging between users, and no attempt to identify or contact other users is permitted.
Document 3: Safety Rules
These rules are written plainly on purpose. They are still binding conditions of participation: breaking them voids eligibility, forfeits any prize, and releases PlacePrize from any resulting claim. Safety only works if it is understood, so clarity wins here over ornament. Work outside these limits is unauthorized and undertaken entirely at the user's own risk.
What PlacePrize work is
PlacePrize work is light, surface-level litter cleanup on public ground: loose trash you can pick up by hand, on a public path, sidewalk, or open civic space, collected into tied bags you carry away. That is the whole of it.
Leave the place better, never worse
The entire point is to improve a place, so the one thing you must never do is create a new mess. Collected material is bagged and carried off by the Hunter for lawful disposal. You may never leave bags on private property, in someone's yard, against a building, in or beside a receptacle you are not authorized to use, or anywhere that creates a new mess.
What is never allowed
Work is never permitted, and no prize may target, the following, including without limitation:
- Roadways, highways, traffic lanes, or road shoulders.
- Water, waterways, banks at the waterline, storm drains, or anything requiring entry into water.
- Railroads or rail corridors.
- Heights, roofs, ladders, or anything off the ground.
- Private property, posted property, or anywhere requiring entry or trespass; abandoned or unsafe structures.
- Any work requiring a permit, a license, or special training.
You must never handle the following, including without limitation:
- Needles or sharps; broken-glass hazards.
- Chemicals, fuels, or hazardous materials; biohazards or human or animal waste.
- Power equipment, chainsaws, blades, or tools of any kind beyond gloves and bags.
You must never target people or their lives. Never a person, an encampment, a vehicle, personal belongings, or a memorial, and never confront, photograph for identification, or interfere with any person. Published images never contain identifiable people.
Two protocols
Sharps are never collected. If you encounter needles, glass hazards, or hazardous material, do not touch them. Flag the location so a report goes to the city. That is a city job, not a prize.
Bags are carried off, not abandoned. The work is done when the site is clear and the collected trash is shown bagged in the after photo. Lawful haul-off is part of the job you claimed, not an extra: the prize pays for it. You carry the bagged material away yourself and dispose of it lawfully. Where and how you lawfully dispose of it is your responsibility.
The rule that beats every other rule
If a task feels unsafe, if you are unsure whether it is allowed, if the conditions have changed, or if anything about it gives you pause, walk away. You will lose nothing but a prize. No prize is worth an injury. That sentence overrides everything else in these documents.
Put a prize on a place. Leave it proud.