Terms of Service

Overview & acceptance

Action Over Words LLC ("we," "us," or "our") operates ActionOverWords Index ("AOW Index"), this website, which tracks specific promises made by elected officials and what actually happened to them. These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the site — browsing, creating an account, submitting a message or appeal, or paying for a membership or leaving a tip.

By using this site, you agree to these Terms. If you don't agree, please don't use the site. We may update these Terms from time to time — see "Changes to these terms" below — and continuing to use the site after an update means you accept the revised version. If you're using the site on behalf of an organization, you're confirming you have the authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

What this site is

AOW Index is an independent tracker of specific promises made by elected officials — federal and state — and what actually happened to them: kept, broken, or somewhere in between. It's a civic-information and commentary project, not a government service, a news wire, or a fact-checking authority with any official standing. "Editorial content, sourcing & disclaimer" below explains what that means for the accuracy of what you read here.

Accounts & eligibility

You don't need an account to browse the site. Creating one lets you set preferences, follow officials on a watch list, and pick a membership tier.

You must be at least 13 years old to create an account, consistent with our Privacy Policy. If you're younger than the age your jurisdiction requires to agree to these Terms on your own, please have a parent or guardian handle it for you.

You're responsible for the accuracy of the information you give us, for keeping your password confidential, and for everything that happens under your account. Tell us right away if you think someone else has gotten access to it. This project is still early-stage on the security side — see the Security section of our Privacy Policy — so please don't reuse a password here that also protects something more important to you elsewhere.

We may suspend or terminate an account that violates these Terms, including the Acceptable Use rules below.

Membership tiers & tips

Some features — following officials, saved lists, comparison tools, an ad-free experience, and others — are limited to paid membership tiers, described on the Support Us tab along with current pricing. Free browsing and the core promise tracker are, and will stay, free to everyone.

Tips and memberships are paid on the checkout page of Stripe, a third-party payment provider. We never see or store your card details, as described in our Privacy Policy, and Stripe's own terms govern the transaction itself.

This is an actively developing project, and at any given time some parts of billing may still be in preview. Where that's the case, the product itself says so; we won't silently charge you for something the interface describes as free or as a preview.

Tips are voluntary, one-time payments to Action Over Words LLC for the site. They aren't tax-deductible, and they give the payer no say in editorial decisions: no tip, membership or ad changes a promise's status or the AOW Score. Tips are generally non-refundable, except where required by law or where we've made a billing error — use the Contact form and we'll make it right.

Editorial content, sourcing & disclaimer

The heart of this site is a set of judgment calls: has a given promise been kept, broken, or something in between? We take that seriously, and we try to be transparent about how we get there.

Every promise is checked against three sources before we assign it a status: one official government source (a vote record, a signed bill, an agency filing, or similar primary record), one mainstream/left-leaning news source, and one right-leaning news source. All three are linked directly on the promise, so you can check the underlying reporting instead of taking our word for it. Full methodology is on the About tab and in our FAQ.

Even so, a promise's status, its category, any note attached to it, and the AOW Score are our editorial judgment applied to those sources — not a government record, not a court finding, not a certified fact, and not an accusation of wrongdoing. They reflect our good-faith reading of publicly reported information about a public official's actions in their official or campaign capacity, as of the date shown. We may have it wrong; sources get updated, retracted, or reported differently by different outlets, and a status that was accurate when set can become outdated as events unfold. That's what the correction and appeal process described below is for.

Nothing on this site is legal, financial, or investment advice, and nothing here should be treated as a comprehensive record of an official's conduct — we cover specific tracked promises, not everything an official has ever said or done.

No official affiliation

AOW Index is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or operated on behalf of any elected official, candidate, political party, campaign, government agency, or news organization referenced on this site. Names, titles, party affiliations, and photographs of public officials appear for identification and civic commentary only — the same way any news or reference publication would use them — not as an implied endorsement of this site by that person or entity, and not as commentary on them outside their public, official, or campaign capacity.

User submissions

The Contact form lets you send a general message, suggest a correction, or appeal a promise's status. Appeals require you to name a source — the outlet and headline you're citing — so it can be checked against the same standard as everything else on the site.

By submitting anything through the Contact form, you confirm it's accurate to the best of your knowledge and that you have the right to share it, and you give us permission to review, use, and act on it — including referencing it internally while we evaluate a correction — without owing you compensation. Don't submit anything defamatory, harassing, deliberately false, or that infringes someone else's rights.

We review every submission, but we can't promise a specific timeline or outcome, and reasonable people can disagree about how a promise should be characterized. If we decline a correction, that's a judgment call, not a refusal to engage with it.

Acceptable use

Beyond the submission rules above, when using this site please don't:

• try to gain unauthorized access to another user's account, our admin tools, or the systems behind the site;
• scrape, systematically copy, or bulk-download the site's data in a way that's disproportionate to normal browsing — reasonable personal or research use is fine; rebuilding a competing database from a full scrape isn't;
• use the site to harass, threaten, or dox any person, official or otherwise;
• impersonate any person or misrepresent your affiliation with anyone;
• upload or transmit malicious code, or attempt to disrupt or overload the site;
• artificially generate clicks or impressions on ads (for example, clicking ads repeatedly or using automated tools);
• use an account you're not authorized to use, or share admin access outside the Team Access process described in the Privacy Policy; or
• use the site for any unlawful purpose.

We may investigate and take appropriate action — including suspending access — for anything that looks like a violation of this section.

Intellectual property

The site's own design, code, compiled promise database, and original written content belong to Action Over Words LLC, except for material we've clearly sourced from someone else (a quoted headline, a linked article, a government record) and are using for commentary, citation, or reference. You're welcome to link to the site, quote a promise with attribution, or use small excerpts for commentary, criticism, or news reporting, the way you would with any published source. Wholesale copying or republishing of the site or its underlying database isn't permitted without our permission.

Third-party links & services

This site links out to government records, news articles, and payment processors we don't control. We're not responsible for the accuracy, availability, or practices of those third-party sites, and a link doesn't mean we endorse everything on the other end of it. Your use of any third-party site is governed by that site's own terms and privacy policy.

Advertising

To help fund the project, signed-out visitors and free accounts may see ads served by third parties — currently Google AdSense. Paid membership tiers are ad-free. Our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy explain what the ad services collect and the choices you have.

Ads are provided by third parties. We don't write them, and an ad appearing near an official's name or a promise doesn't mean we, or that official, endorse the advertiser. Advertisers have no influence over which officials or promises we track, how they're sourced, or the status and AOW Score they receive. Please don't click ads for any reason other than genuine interest.

An actively developing project

AOW Index is a young, actively developed project — described that way throughout the site, not just here. Features change, the data storage behind the site may migrate to new infrastructure, and parts of the product (like billing) may be in preview at any given time, as described above. We'll try to communicate meaningful changes, but we don't guarantee the site, any specific feature, or any specific piece of data will be available, uninterrupted, or error-free at all times.

Disclaimer of warranties

The site is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied — including, to the fullest extent the law allows, any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. We don't warrant that the site will be secure, uninterrupted, or error-free, that defects will be corrected, or that any promise's status is complete or free from mistakes. As our Privacy Policy also says plainly: no method of storage or transmission is completely secure, so please use good judgment about what you share with us.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Action Over Words LLC and anyone who builds or maintains the site won't be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, revenue, or goodwill, arising from your use of — or inability to use — the site, even if we've been told that kind of loss was possible. Where liability can't be fully excluded under applicable law, our total liability to you for any claim relating to the site is limited to the greater of $50 or the amount you've paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose. Nothing in these Terms limits any right you have as a consumer that can't be waived under the law of your jurisdiction.

Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold Action Over Words LLC harmless from any claim, loss, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your misuse of the site, your violation of these Terms, or content you submit that turns out to be false, infringing, or otherwise unlawful.

Termination

You can stop using the site, or ask us to delete your account, at any time — see "Your choices" in the Privacy Policy for how. We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms, and we may discontinue all or part of the site at any time. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including Editorial content, sourcing & disclaimer, Intellectual property, Disclaimer of warranties, Limitation of liability, and Indemnification — continue to apply after your access ends.

Governing law & miscellaneous

These Terms are governed by United States federal law, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles, and any dispute not resolved informally through the Contact form will be handled in federal court. If you're visiting from outside the United States, see "International visitors" in our Privacy Policy — your use of the site is still governed by U.S. law.

If any part of these Terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still applies. Our failure to enforce a provision isn't a waiver of it. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and Action Over Words LLC about your use of the site.

Changes to these terms

We'll update this page as the site and the law around it change. The date at the top will change whenever we do, and anything that meaningfully changes your rights or obligations will be called out here, not just quietly edited in. Continuing to use the site after an update means you accept the revised Terms; if you don't agree with a change, please stop using the site — and if you have an account, you're welcome to delete it.

October 14, 2026: we now name the company that operates the site, name Stripe as the payment provider, replace donations with one-time tips, and say that no payment changes a promise's status or the AOW Score.

Contact us

Questions about these Terms, corrections, and status appeals all go through the same Contact form, on the About tab back on the Index. You can also reach us directly at info@action-over-words.com.