The Conversation Terms Scorecard

Grade C — Standard consumer terms (score 61/100)

Grants a perpetual irrevocable license to submitted content and requires broad user indemnification, but is silent on data retention, security, and portability.

Perpetual content license, broad indemnification, silent on data practices.

Terms at a glance

Sells your data
NO
Forced arbitration
NO
Trains AI on your content
NO
Collects biometric data
NO
Shares data with government
UNCLEAR
Easy to cancel
UNCLEAR
Tells you before changes
NO
Deletes data on request
UNCLEAR

What the terms actually say

User-Generated Content — Term 2

You grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide license to publish and communicate to the public any material you submit to us in any format...

Once you submit an article, The Conversation can publish it forever in any format, with no obligation to remove it if you leave.

User-Generated Content — Indemnity

You agree to indemnify us in full and permanently against any third-party liabilities, claims, costs, loss or damage we incur as a result of your breach...

You must personally cover all legal costs and damages if anything you submit causes The Conversation to be sued.

Registration — Term 4

we may, at our discretion, cancel your access to the registration areas of theconversation.com immediately and without notice.

Your account can be terminated at any moment, for any reason, with no warning and no appeal process.

User-Generated Content — Liability

We accept no liability in respect of any material submitted by users and published by us, and we are not responsible for its content and accuracy.

The Conversation bears no responsibility for the accuracy of user-submitted content; the risk falls entirely on the author.

User-Generated Content — Term 1

Publication of any material you submit to us will be at our sole discretion. We reserve the right to make additions or deletions to the text or graphics prior to publication, or to refuse publication.

The Conversation can edit, alter, or refuse to publish anything you submit, at its sole discretion.

Footer — Last Updated

LAST UPDATED: FEB 2021

The terms can change without any commitment to notify users in advance.

General Principles for Authors

We ask that authors do not use generative AI to create the content of articles. In line with our policy of disclosure of conflicts of interest, authors must disclose to their editor if generative AI tools have been employed for any part of their article.

Authors are expected to write articles themselves and must disclose any use of generative AI tools.

Last reviewed 2026-07-28 under rubric v3.5.

Other scorecards