Terms of Service

1. Agreement

1.1. Agreement and acceptance
  • This agreement (the "Agreement") is entered into by and between you and Highwood & Badland, LLC, d.b.a. Babelbee ("Babelbee") regarding your use of babelbee.com (the "Service"). By using babelbee.com, you are entering into this Agreement with Babelbee and indicating that you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions.
  • If you do not agree with these terms and conditions, please do not use the Service. Contact us if you have any questions or comments.

1.2. Modifications to the Agreement
  • Babelbee shall have the right to modify the terms of this Agreement at any time. The new agreement shall be effective immediately, and your continued use of the Service will constitute acceptance of the new agreement.

1.3. Language of the Agreement

  • Babelbee may provide you with a translation of the English version of this agreement, for your convenience only. If any contradiction exists between The English language version of the agreement and the translation, the English language version of the agreement takes precedence.

2. Usage of the service

2.1. Description of Service & availability
  • Babelbee.com is a service that matches requests for translations with translators. Babelbee charges a commission on any transaction completed through babelbee.com, except voluntary translations.
  • You understand and agree that the Service is provided on an AS IS and AS AVAILABLE basis. Babelbee disclaims all responsibility and liability for the availability, timeliness, security or reliability of the Service.
  • Babelbee also reserves the right to modify, suspend or discontinue the Service with or without notice at any time, and without any liability to you other than the outstanding balance of your Babelbee account, as well as a portion of any money deposited into escrow for pending transactions, in proportion to the work already completed by the translator, as determined by Babelbee.

2.2. Proper use
  • You may not use babelbee.com for illegal purposes, including but not limited to:
    • purposes that are considered illegal in the place where you are, or in the State of New York, USA where Babelbee is incorporated.
    • unauthorized use of copyrighted material.
  • You agree that you will use the Service in compliance with all applicable local, state, national, and international laws, rules and regulations. You shall not, shall not agree to, and shall not authorize or encourage any third party to: (a) use the service to harass other users; (b) prevent others from using the Service; (c) use the Service for any fraudulent or inappropriate purpose. Any violation of the above may result in immediate termination of this Agreement, and may subject you to state and federal penalties and other legal consequences. Babelbee reserves the right, but shall have no obligation, to investigate your use of the Service in order to determine whether a violation of the Agreement has occurred or to comply with any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request.

2.3. Personal Use
  • Babelbee.com is made available to you for your personal use only. You must provide current, accurate identification, contact, and other information that may be required as part of the registration process and/or continued use of babelbee.com.
  • You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your babelbee.com password and account, and are solely responsible for all activities that occur thereunder.
  • You may only display the content of the Service for your own personal use (i.e., non-commercial use) and may not otherwise copy, reproduce, alter, modify, create derivative works, or publicly display any content, without the prior written permission of Babelbee. See section 2.5 for specific conditions governing the use of the Babelbee jobs RSS feed.

2.4. Copyright and Content Ownership
  • Babelbee claims no intellectual property rights to any uploaded documents or translations. Any documents you upload remain property of the original owner.
  • Babelbee does not actively monitor uploaded documents, but reserves the right to take down any uploaded document. If a transaction is already pending for a document Babelbee decides to remove from babelbee.com, the transaction will be canceled and the client will be refunded part of the amount deposited into escrow, in proportion to the work already completed by the translator, as determined by Babelbee.

2.5. Use of the Babelbee jobs RSS feed
  • Babelbee makes translation requests available as an RSS feed in XML format. The Babelbee RSS feed may be subscribed to for personal use in a news reader or as part of a non-commercial Web site or blog.
  • The Babelbee public feed may also be freely posted to commercial web sites. However, Babelbee requires proper attribution whenever content from our feed is posted on a commercial web site. Babelbee reserves the right to require that you cease posting content from the Babelbee public feed to a commercial web site.

3. User responsibilities

3.1. User Representations & Warranties
  • You represent and warrant that (a) all of the information provided by you to participate in babelbee.com is correct and current; (b) all of the information provided by you about your language qualifications, translation skills and experience is correct and current; (c) you have all necessary right, power and authority to enter into this Agreement and to perform the acts required of you hereunder.
  • When entering a transaction with another Babelbee member, you do so under the Babelbee conditions:
    • As a translator, you commit to delivering the translation in full, on time.
    • As a client, you agree to request bids with the intention of selecting a translator. You agree to put the payment for the contract in escrow with Babelbee upon awarding the contract, and to confirm acceptance of the translation or to request dispute resolution by Babelbee within 7 days. Without any action on your part, after 7 days, the translation will be automatically approved, the payment will be released to the translator, and you will be unable to dispute the translation.
    • As a client or translator, you agree that Babelbee's decision will be binding in case of dispute resolution. See section 4.3 of this agreement for our dispute resolution process.

3.2. Suspension, Termination or Refusal of Service
  • Babelbee reserves the right in its sole discretion to refuse, suspend, or terminate the Service to anyone at any time without notice for any reason.
  • If you are registered as a translator, you will not be allowed to terminate your account if you have any transactions pending. You will need to wait until transactions are completed and any disputes are resolved to close your account. In any other circumstances, you may terminate your account at any time.
  • If you terminate your account, your forfeit any money left in your Babelbee account.
  • If you delete your account while transactions in which you are a client are still pending, you forfeit any money you deposited in escrow, which would then be released to the translator even if the completed translation has not been delivered yet.

4. Babelbee responsibilities

4.1. Privacy
  • As a condition to using the Service, you agree to the terms of the Babelbee Privacy Policy. We understand that privacy is important to you. You do, however, agree that Babelbee may monitor, edit or disclose your personal information, including the content of your emails, if required to do so in order to comply with any valid legal process (such as a search warrant, subpoena, statute, or court order), or as otherwise provided in these Terms of Use and the Babelbee Privacy Policy.

4.2. Definition of Babelbee's role
  • Babelbee acts as a broker that brings two parties together. The agreement to provide a translation is between the Client and the Translator.
  • Babelbee does not guarantee the accuracy of translations provided. Any dispute arising in relation to the quality of the translation provided will be resolved following our dispute resolution policy, described in section 4.3.

4.3. Dispute resolution
  • If you do not accept a translation delivered to you upon completion of a translation request, you must start a dispute resolution process. The Babelbee dispute resolution process is the only method available under this Agreement to challenge a translation received through babelbee.com.
  • You may request a dispute resolution process for any completed request, except voluntary requests and any other requests of an amount under $10.
  • Babelbee's decision at the outcome of the dispute resolution process will be binding to both parties. Your acceptance of this agreement makrs your acceptance of Babelbee's decision as binding for any disputer resolution initiated through babelbee.com. A copy of this agreement will be forwarded to any financial institution submitting a chargeback for an unsatisfactory translation.
  • The following are valid reasons for a client to initiate a dispute:
    • The translation was not delivered.
    • The translation was not delivered on time.
    • The translation is incomplete.
    • The quality of the translation is not satisfactory, as determined by the client.
  • Babelbee will evaluate the following information in order to come to a decision:
    • The original request from the client, including the source document and skills level requested.
    • Any messages exchanged through the Babelbee messaging system during the transaction. (Outside exchanges between client and translator, e.g. via e-mail, cannot be taken into account.)
    • The recorded history of the transaction.
    • Partial and full translations provided by the translator.
  • The possible outcomes of dispute resolution are:
    • If a completed translation was not provided by the agreed deadline, the deposit will be refunded in full to the client.
    • If the quality of the translation is disputed, Babelbee will subjectively assign an accuracy & effort percentage to the translation, and the deposit will be assigned in proportion to that percentage. For instance:
      • 0% means that Babelbee determined that no valuable work was provided. The client would get a full refund of the deposit.
      • 40% means that Babelbee determined that the translator provided a translation where 40% of the work is done to match the requirements described in the original translation request. The translator would receive 40% of the deposit amount, and the client 60%.
      • 100% means that Babelbee determined that the translator completed the work as requested. The translator would receive the full amount in deposit.
    • Babelbee may use a third-party translator to determine the accuracy & effort percentage. In that case, the third-party translator will be given access to all information evaluated by Babelbee regarding the disputed transaction.
  • Babelbee will make a decision on any dispute within 10 calendar days.
  • Babelbee must disclose that a conflict of interest exists in the dispute resolution process, whereby Babelbee will receive a commission only if the accuracy & effort percentage is not 0%.


5. General Legal Clauses

5.1. Warranty
Babelbee does not represent that the Service is reliable, accurate, complete, or otherwise valid. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITH NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND AND YOU USE THE SERVICE AT YOUR OWN RISK. BABELBEE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE SERVICE, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

5.2. Damages
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL BABELBEE BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH USE OF THE SERVICE WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL BABELBEE BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY AMOUNT FOR SERVICES RENDERED PURSUANT TO THIS AGREEMENT.

5.3. Indemnification
You agree to hold harmless and indemnify the Company, and its employees, agents and representatives, from and against any third party claim arising from or in any way related to your use of the Service, including any liability or expense arising from all claims, losses, damages (actual and consequential), suits, judgments, litigation costs and attorneys' fees, of every kind and nature.

5.4. Severability
If any provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision shall be deemed superseded by a valid enforceable provision that most closely matches the intent of the original provision and the remaining provisions shall be enforced.

5.5. Exercise
The failure of Babelbee to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these terms and conditions shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.

5.6. Choice of Law; Jurisdiction
This agreement shall be interpreted in accordance with the laws of the State of New York.

5.7. Entire Agreement
This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between Babelbee and you with respect to the subject matter hereof.