COPYRIGHT & QUOTE POLICY

These are the terms (“Copyright and Quote Policy” or this “Policy”) pertaining to use of CyberRatings.org (“we,” “us,” “our,” or “CyberRatings”) name, trademarks, logos, brand, research, publications, and/or copyrighted materials (as it’s further defined below, this is called our “Covered IP”). Any commercial use of our Covered IP requires our pre-approval and your compliance with this Policy. The term “you” (or “your”) refers to either (a) the entity which executed a marketing rights agreement or marketing rights addendum (“Agreement”) with us[1], or (b) any other entity that commercially quotes or uses (or desires to quote or use) any of our Covered IP.

Definitions of Certain Terms We Use in this Policy:

“Commercial purposes” or “commercial use” means any use (other than limited internal use) you, or any entity representing you, make of our Covered IP for your commercial benefit (including but not limited to use in advertising, marketing, promoting your brand, press releases, advertorials, “native advertising”, sponsored posts, or any other sponsored or subsidized content or any similar usage). “Covered IP” means collectively our Marks, Quotes and/or Published Materials. “Limited internal use” means using our Covered IP only inside your organization, in a manner consistent with any limitations imposed by your Agreement (and any other contract in place with us) and consistent with all guidelines in this Policy and marked “for internal use only”. “Marks” means all CyberRatings names, trademarks, trade names, service marks, logos, domain names and other distinctive brand features. “Published Materials” means all research, product and group reports, testing results, analysts’ briefs, documents, graphs, multi-media materials, and all published material whatsoever on www.cyberratings.org or any other of our websites, or that CyberRatings creates, publishes, produces, makes available and/or disseminates in any form, format or place. “Quotes” means any statement made by or behalf of us by any of our employees or representatives (except those made to the press/journalists in the context of formal interviews).

Who and What is Covered by this Policy:

Commercial use of our Covered IP is restricted. Any commercial use by any party of our Covered IP is intended to be covered by this Copyright and Quote Policy. If you have entered into an Agreement with us, this Policy is in addition to the Agreement, and any service you receive under the Agreement is offered to you conditioned on your acceptance of this Policy, as updated from time to time. Notwithstanding the foregoing, this Policy applies to any and every person/entity that uses our Covered IP for commercial purposes whether or not they have executed a separate Agreement with us.

Internal use of our Covered IP is also restricted. In addition, any internal use of our Covered IP (i.e., within your organization) must comply with this Policy, your Agreement and any other contract in effect with us, in addition to the requirements of this paragraph. If you do not have any Agreement or other contract in place with us which expressly allow the uses set forth in this paragraph, then you must obtain our prior written permission if you want to use any of our Covered IP in the following ways: (1) Scanning, or otherwise importing Published Materials into an electronic storage/retrieval system; (2) Distribution of our Published Materials to other divisions or units of your organization or other internal users through electronic data transmission systems such as email without the purchase of reprints (3) distribution of Published Materials to anyone outside of your organization without the purchase of reprint distribution rights; (4) posting excerpts of our Published Materials (or whole documents) on an Internet or Intranet site without the purchase of reprint distribution rights or our pre-approval.

Any permission granted to use any of our Covered IP is limited to one-time use, exactly in the form for which permission was sought in the specified medium and campaign only (unless our permission or your Agreement expressly grants you any broader usage rights). If you fully comply with your Agreement, this Policy, any conditions in our approval, and are granted the right to use our Covered IP for a specific situation, you may use our Covered IP in the specifically permitted manner. However, in no case do you gain any other or broader intellectual property rights of any kind in any of our Covered IP; we reserve all rights throughout the world in our Covered IP. Our Marks and Covered IP are subject to trademark and copyright protection regardless of source.

Why this Policy:

This Copyright and Quote Policy is designed to allow parties desiring to use our Covered IP for appropriate, lawful, and ethical commercial purposes (“Requesting Party(ies)”) to have a path to do so, subject to coming to agreement with us on equitable commercial terms, so long as they comply with the requirements of this Policy. Furthermore, this Policy is designed to promote a fair and uniform policy to Requesting Parties and not favor any particular product or Requesting Party.

Basic Requirements of this Policy:

Our Covered IP may only be used commercially with our explicit written approval for each instance of use, unless your Agreement with us expressly grants you broader rights. To use any of our Covered IP (for example using any of our Marks, or taking excerpts of our research/Published Materials or quoting any of our analysts, employees, or leadership), you must (a) comply with the Agreement permitting you to do so if one exists, (b) submit a usage request by email to us for approval, and (c) use our Covered IP strictly in compliance with the permission you receive and all provisions of this Policy, including all applicable guidelines set forth below. Granting such approval is at our absolute discretion.

The following are items of Covered IP that can be used by a Requesting Party subject to an Agreement, and with our approval: (a) The CyberRatings name and logo and certain other Marks; (b) Direct quotations from product ratings or other reports published in the last 12 months; (c) Quotes from CyberRatings executives and/or analysts made in publicly published materials or public forums (d) Charts and graphs, taken directly and fully from published research conducted within the last 12 months; (e) Multi-media materials associated with webcasts, podcast or webinars as a complete, unedited presentation. All such items must be used in accordance with the detailed usage guidelines that follow.

The following usages/items are expressly NOT permitted under this Policy: (a) Statements taken from non-published or private or custom research; (b) Any content for which you have not already acquired marketing rights (you may only use approved information from reports in which you have purchased marketing rights).

How to Submit a Request for Approval to use our Covered IP:

Requests to quote, excerpt, reference or otherwise use our Covered IP must be submitted to info@cyberratings.org.

To approve your request we require: (1) a copy of the Quote, Marks or Published Materials you wish to use, along with the original source of such materials attached (or linked); and (2) a copy of the materials in which our Covered IP will appear (linked or attached) with the location of our Covered IP clearly indicated in both documents. We endeavor to take action (approve, deny or request further information) on your complete and compliant request within 72 business hours of the request, but we do not guarantee action within such timeframe. If your request is complex and requires multiple rounds of review, that will take longer.

Required Disclaimers:

Any document that includes claims based on Covered IP should include this disclaimer: “CyberRatings.org. does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings. CyberRatings expressly disclaims any warranties with respect to any research cited herein, including those of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.”

You are not permitted to make any use of our Covered IP in any Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing, prospectus, registration statement, or any filing made with a stock exchange, alternative trading system, or analogous state or foreign securities agency, nor in any private placement offering memorandum, stockholder report or any other securities-related document UNLESS you fully comply with this Policy AND add our Securities Disclaimer on the first page on which you use our Covered IP and execute an Indemnification Agreement. We will supply the disclaimer and Indemnification Agreement to you after your request.

Guideline 1: General Requirements Pertaining to any use of our Marks and Covered IP (including but not limited to Press Releases)

(1) Any usage of our Covered IP (whether in Press Releases or any other usage) must be pre-approved in writing by CyberRatings (for each usage, e.g., white paper, advertisement, press release, presentation (external), web site, datasheet). If there are any changes to the use case (e.g., the white paper, ad, press release, etc. changes in any way) after receipt of approval from CyberRatings, the revised document must be re-submitted in its entirety for final approval.

(2) Use of the CyberRatings Marks (and Covered IP in general) in corporate boilerplate, or “about us”/signatures, is not permitted.

(3) Covered IP may only be used in the context of a product that we reviewed in the past 12 months. Any quotation must be taken from the most recent version of a product or group report, even if the previous version is less than 12 months old. A quotation may not be used more than 12 months from the date of initial publication of reference material, except in instances where we have expressly stated that a publication is still current and may still be quoted.

(4) Our full name – CyberRatings.org – must be used on first reference, but may be shortened to CyberRatings on subsequent references within the same document. The Marks must include the appropriate ® or ™ symbol at least at the first and most prominent mention on each visually distinguishable page of material. The Marks shall be attributed to us.

(5) Any usage of our Covered IP must be made in a way that is contextually complete, appropriate and not misleading. For example, in citing to a ranking, relevant geographic and temporal scope must be included (e.g., “CyberRatings has ranked [us] the leader in performance on [specific tested metric] for the third quarter of 2020 in the US. “)

(6) Quotes attributed to a CyberRatings executive or analyst will be considered a custom quote and may only contain general, industry-related commentary. No quotes will be approved that are Requesting Party or product specific; seem to endorse or promote ranking of the Requesting Party over a competitor; or make comparative statements between the Requesting Party and a competitor.

(7) Quotes and direct quotations from our research or Published Materials must be full sentence, exact quotations with no paraphrasing, omissions or additions, unless approved by CyberRatings in cases where clarity or ease of reading warrants minor changes. Direct quotes should be attributed to CyberRatings only and with reasonable specificity (e.g. According to CyberRatings.org’s recent report dated ) and shall not be attributed to any CyberRatings executives or analysts specifically.

(8) Our Marks and Covered IP shall not be used or included: (a) in any manner that expresses or might imply our affiliation, sponsorship, endorsement, certification, or approval; (b) in association with any third party trademarks in a manner that might suggest co-marketing or otherwise create potential confusion; (c) in any non-CyberRatings trade name, business name, domain name, product or service name, logo, trade dress, design, slogan, or other trademark.

(9) Except for simple textual use of the CyberRatings.org name or simple textual quotations of our Published Materials, the Covered IP shall be used only as provided by us electronically or in hard copy form. Except for size, our Marks shall not be altered in any manner, including proportions, colors, elements, etc., or animated, morphed, or otherwise distorted in perspective or dimensional appearance. The Marks may not be combined with any other symbols, including words, logos, icons, graphics, photos, slogans, numbers, or other design elements. The Marks shall not be imitated in any of your materials. The Marks may not be used as a design feature in any of your materials. The Marks must stand alone. A minimum amount of empty space must surround the Mark separating it from any other object, such as type, photography, borders, edges, and so on. The required area of empty space around our Marks must be equal to at least ½ the height of the Mark.

(10) There may be additional branding guidelines in effect at any time. On an on-going basis, you will be required to comply with the then-current branding guide (available upon request from us, to the extent there are any requirements in addition to the ones found in this Policy at any given time).

Guideline 2: Additional Provisions specifically applicable to Charts, Graphics, Tables and Data

(1) Charts, graphs and/or data must be taken directly and fully from the most recently published CyberRatings report (most recent quarter or year) and include the original figure title, report name and date.

(2) Ranking claims must include the relevant product rating or testing area and product category specifically. For example, “CyberRatings has ranked Company X as the leader in overall security effectiveness in Enterprise Firewall” not “CyberRatings has ranked Company X as the leader in Enterprise Firewall.”

(3) Ranking claims shall not refer to any other company (e.g. Requesting Party X ranked highest in Test Name ahead of Companies Y and Z.) This also prohibits the creation of any comparative graphics citing CyberRatings results for products of the Requesting Party and products of other companies. Requesting Parties may ONLY use information related to their own products.

(4) To excerpt tables, charts and data points from CyberRatings research reports you must do the following: (a) Request approval for the specific table, charts or data points; (b) Remove all other named competitors’/entities’ names, unless otherwise approved; (c) note the excerpted CyberRatings research report in the attribution as “Source: CyberRatings.org, [Name of Report], [Date]”; and (d) if you provide your own data points in addition to our data points, include the following attribution: “Calculations performed by [your company’s name].” Any potential implication, however slight, that a Requesting Party’s own calculations and claims are actual CyberRatings results will cause the quote to be rejected. In addition, you shall not commingle your or anyone else’s data with CyberRatings data.

(5) In any given document, you may publish up to three tables or charts that are based on, or contain excerpts from, CyberRatings.org.

(6) Please include the following wording in any materials in which a graphic is excerpted: “This [Title of Graphic] graphic was published by CyberRatings.org as part of a larger research note and should be evaluated in the context of the entire report. The CyberRatings report is available upon request from (Requesting Party name or CyberRatings).”

(7) When submitting requests for quotation of table-based content, please make sure to provide the report name, date and relevant figure numbers. This speeds the approval process.

In certain rare cases, when the usage appears to be justified, defensible and otherwise wholly consistent with the spirit and intent of this Policy, we may permit usage of tables, charts and data points that have been slightly modified by you so that they function more effectively in your desired presentation. For any such modified items (usage in any way that is not verbatim or any derivative usage whatsoever): you must have an Agreement in place; you must request our permission under this Policy; at the time you request our permission for use, you must explain the deviations and modifications in clear and specific detail; and your usage needs to be consistent with the spirit of this Policy. Any work we do to approve such modifications or to work with you to further develop such modifications to be acceptable will be considered “custom” work and will incur a charge, and whether to allow the modification remains at our sole and absolute discretion.

Breach of Policy:

Should any party commercially use our Covered IP while failing to comply with this Policy, we reserve all rights available to us at law and equity. Without limitation, we have the right to invoice you for any usage you made that required an Agreement/marketing rights which you did not have. We will invoice you the full cost of the appropriate marketing rights or subscription program that would have been required to distribute the report(s) legitimately. For example, if reports are distributed internally to the Requesting Party’s organization, an enterprise subscription will be invoiced; if distributed externally (including to channel partners, etc.), an enterprise subscription PLUS appropriate report marketing rights will be invoiced. We may also restrict or prohibit your future use of any of our Covered IP in any way we see fit. We may require you to inform your audience to which any Covered IP was or may have been inappropriately distributed of your misuse. In addition, we may seek any other remedies available to us, including, without limitation, seeking monetary damages and/or obtaining an injunction against continued breaches of this Policy. Our remedies under this paragraph are intended to be cumulative and not exclusive.

Changes to Policy:

We reserve the right to change this Policy at any time, without notice. These explanations and Polices do not constitute a waiver with respect to any of CyberRatings.org’s rights, all of which are specifically reserved.