Terms of Service.

Acceptance of these terms

By creating an account on getsturgeon.com or a Sturgeon-powered mobile app (such as Metroparks Toledo) or by accessing the platform at getsturgeon.com, you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, please don't use the service.

Who provides the service

Sturgeon ("we", "us") operates the underlying platform. Each park system on the platform ("tenant") is responsible for the content of their own app: campaigns, stamps, events, photos, and rewards offered.

Who can have an account

Sturgeon accounts are for people 13 and older. When you create an account, we ask for your birth month and year to confirm you meet that minimum; we keep only the birth year. If you are under 13, you can still enjoy the parks with your family, but you cannot hold an account, and we do not keep anything entered during a refused sign-up. If you are between 13 and 17, you should have a parent or guardian's permission to use Sturgeon.

Your account

You're responsible for keeping your account credentials secure. We use magic-link sign-in by default, so the most important thing is to keep your email account secure. If something looks off, email us at email support.

Profile information and measurement

When you create or continue using an account, profile information you choose to provide may be used to personalize Sturgeon and to measure Great Lakes engagement. By accepting these Terms, you agree that community profile details you provide may be included in de-identified, minimum-group-size reporting for participating park systems and Whole Atlas research. This reporting is part of the service by default and is not a separate opt-in. Every reported group must include at least five people; individual answers and names are not provided to a park system. Providing these profile details remains optional, and you can edit or remove them at any time. See our Privacy Policy for details.

Data sources, ownership, and derivatives

You keep ownership of information and content you submit. A park system keeps ownership of the records and content it supplies. Sturgeon does not acquire ownership of either merely by processing it to provide the service.

Sturgeon also uses datasets, directories, taxonomies, benchmarks, and related materials owned, controlled, or licensed by Whole Atlas LLC, an Ohio limited liability company ("Whole Atlas Data"). Sturgeon licenses Whole Atlas Data from Whole Atlas LLC. Whole Atlas Data remains the property of Whole Atlas LLC or its licensors, and your use of Sturgeon does not transfer ownership of it to you, Sturgeon, or a park system.

Whole Atlas LLC owns aggregated and de-identified statistics, benchmarks, patterns, classifications, taxonomies, models, insights, metadata, and service improvements derived from use of Sturgeon ("Derived Data"). Derived Data does not include personal information, your content, a park system's source records, or confidential information; it may not identify a person or park system or permit a reasonable person to reconstruct the source records. To the extent permitted by law and an applicable written agreement, Whole Atlas LLC's ownership of Derived Data is perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, and survives account deletion, data export, and termination of the service.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Spoof your location to claim stamps you didn't earn. Stamps are about being there.
• Upload photos that aren't yours, or photos that violate someone else's privacy.
• Harass other users, park staff, or our team.
• Post hate speech, sexual content, threats, graphic violence, dangerous activity, spam, scams, or someone else's private information.
• Reverse engineer, scrape, or attempt to break into parts of the system you weren't given access to.
• Use the platform for anything illegal under United States federal or state law.

Content you upload

You keep ownership of your photos and any content you upload. By submitting a photo, you grant the relevant park system, Sturgeon, and Whole Atlas LLC a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to review, resize, crop, reproduce, and display it on Sturgeon-powered services. If selected, it may appear—with your profile-name attribution—in the Great Lakes network feed, the relevant park-system feed, the selected park's feed or gallery, and related Sturgeon promotion of that feature. You can withdraw a pending submission or delete your content from your account.

Photo challenge submissions must be photographs you took at the park you select. Selecting a park is part of the submission and does not guarantee publication. Every submission enters a staff review queue; it is not public unless approved. We may decline, remove, or stop featuring any submission, and we do not promise compensation, prizes, or a particular period of display.

Park systems and Sturgeon may review, limit, or remove content that violates these terms or our Community Standards. We may suspend or ban accounts when needed to protect the community.

Before creating, joining, or contributing to a group, you must separately accept the current Community Standards. In-app reporting and blocking controls are available on community content and profiles.

Stewardship reports and trail alerts

Stewardship reporting is not an emergency service and is not continuously monitored. If anyone is in immediate danger or needs medical help, move to safety and contact 911 or the appropriate local emergency service. A report does not guarantee that Sturgeon or a park system will respond within a particular time.

Submit reports honestly, only from a location you are permitted to access, and do not confront another person or enter a hazardous area to collect a photo. Park systems and Sturgeon may review and forward the precise location, notes, and evidence to personnel or public agencies responsible for assessing or resolving the issue. Evidence submitted for a stewardship case is not licensed for public promotional display merely because it was attached to the report.

Nearby alerts are approximate, temporary, and community-informed. They are not official trail-closure notices and may be incomplete or outdated. Follow posted signs, closures, staff instructions, and your own judgment. Confirm an alert only when you are nearby and can do so safely.

Rewards and physical fulfillment

Some campaigns include physical rewards (a pin, a print, an event credit). The park system running the campaign is responsible for shipping or delivering those rewards. If you have an issue with a reward you earned, contact the park system directly first; if that doesn't resolve it, email email support.

Service availability

We aim for high availability but the platform is provided "as is." Stuff happens: outages, bugs, edge cases. We'll communicate clearly when things go wrong and fix issues as quickly as we can.

Termination

You can delete your account at any time. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms, with notice when reasonable. The data-ownership and Derived Data provisions above survive termination.

Changes

We may update these terms. If a change materially affects your rights, we'll notify you by email before it takes effect.

Contact

Questions: email Sturgeon.