Terms of Use

Effective date: 2026-04-22. Last updated: 2026-04-22.

1. Welcome to the Plaza

Word Exchange Plaza is a free, browser-based language learning web app currently in alpha. It's built and run by a small team — solo dev most days — and it's changing quickly. By creating an account, signing in, or otherwise using the service, you agree to these Terms of Use. If you don't agree with them, please don't use the plaza. These terms took effect on the date above and were last updated on the same day.

2. Who can use the Plaza

You need to be at least 13 years old to use Word Exchange Plaza. Some places set the bar higher: under EU data protection law and Canada's PIPEDA, users in certain jurisdictions may need parental consent below age 16. If you're a minor where you live, ask a parent or guardian to read these terms and agree on your behalf. If we find out an account belongs to someone too young under local law, we may suspend it until a parent or guardian is in the loop.

3. Your account

You sign in with Google OAuth — we don't store passwords. Keep your Google account secure; anyone who can get into it can get into your plaza account. You're responsible for what happens under your account.

If you want to delete your account, email support@wordexchangeplaza.com and we'll remove your data within 30 days. We may keep anonymized aggregate data (things like "how many people answered this item correctly") and a minimal audit trail for abuse prevention, but nothing tied to your identity.

4. Acceptable use

Don't abuse the service. In plain terms that means:

• No automated scraping, crawling, or bulk-downloading of the dashboard, audio files, or course data.
• No attempts to break authentication, impersonate other users, or access accounts that aren't yours.
• No submitting corrections or custom vocabulary that are hateful, harassing, sexually explicit, spammy, or otherwise abusive.
• No using the service to attack, overload, or probe our infrastructure or anyone else's.

We may rate-limit, suspend, or ban accounts that do any of the above. We try to use a light touch, but the plaza has to stay usable for everyone.

5. User-submitted corrections and content

When you submit a correction, a custom vocabulary item, or any other content to the plaza, you grant Word Exchange Plaza a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, adapt, and distribute it as part of the service and its course data. You still own what you submit — we're just getting permission to use it so the plaza works.

We may edit, reject, or remove submitted content at our discretion, especially if it conflicts with the acceptable-use rules above or if it's simply wrong. If you don't want us to use something, don't submit it.

6. Alpha disclosures (important)

The plaza is in active development. By using it, you explicitly acknowledge and accept that:

• (a) your progress, scores, streaks, and other user data may be reset as we restructure the database — sometimes with notice, sometimes not;
• (b) features may be added, changed, or removed at any time without warning;
• (c) course content — vocabulary, translations, audio, examples — is being actively curated and may contain errors; if you find one, submit a correction and we'll fix it;
• (d) the service may be slow, broken, or unavailable at any time, for any length of time.

This is what "alpha" means. If you want guarantees, come back after launch.

7. Intellectual property

The plaza's software, design, course content (outside of user corrections), branding, and associated materials are owned by Word Exchange Plaza and Outdoor Devs. You get a personal, non-transferable, revocable license to use the service for your own language learning. That's it — no resale, no redistribution, no training your own models on our content, no copying the UI and slapping a new logo on it.

8. Pricing, free tier, and grandfather rate

The plaza is completely free during alpha. After public launch, some features may require a paid subscription so we can keep the lights on (speech recognition and text-to-speech aren't cheap).

Alpha testers who used the service during the alpha period keep a grandfather rate for the lifetime of their account, subject to the account remaining active and in good standing. That's our thank-you for putting up with rough edges. We'll give you at least 30 days' notice before any pricing change takes effect, via email, the blog, or an in-app notice.

9. Third-party services

The plaza depends on a handful of external services: Google (authentication), Deepgram (real-time speech recognition), ElevenLabs (text-to-speech audio), MongoDB (data storage), and Cloudflare (edge delivery and TLS). Their terms apply to the parts of the service they provide. See the Privacy Policy for details on what data flows where and why.

10. No warranty

The plaza is provided "as is" and "as available," with no warranties of any kind — express, implied, or otherwise. We don't guarantee you'll become fluent. We don't guarantee uptime. We don't guarantee that every translation is correct, that every audio clip matches the text, or that the reaction-time tracking is medically accurate. If you find a translation that's wrong, submit a correction.

11. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Word Exchange Plaza and Outdoor Devs are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the service. Our total liability, for any and all claims combined, is capped at the greater of (a) the amount you've paid us in the past 12 months (which during alpha is $0), or (b) CAD $50.

12. Termination

We can suspend or terminate your access for violating these terms, for operational reasons (for example, if we shut the service down or change direction), or if running your account becomes legally or financially unreasonable. You can stop using the service and delete your account at any time — see section 3.

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. Small fixes (typos, clarifications) can happen at any moment. Material changes will be announced at least 14 days before they take effect, via the blog or an in-app notice. Continued use of the plaza after the effective date of an update means you accept the new terms. If you don't accept them, stop using the service and delete your account.

14. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario, Canada, and by Canadian federal law where applicable, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Any disputes arising from these terms or your use of the plaza will be resolved in the courts located in Ontario, and you agree to their jurisdiction.

15. Contact

Questions about these terms? Email support@wordexchangeplaza.com. Real human on the other end — usually within a day or two.

Last updated 2026-04-22. Thanks for being here while the plaza is still finding its shape — alpha testers are the reason this thing gets better every week.