Terms of Service

These terms, the Acceptable use rules, and the Privacy Policy are the agreement for ZimData. Creating an account means you accept them. If you use the site without an account, the parts about browsing and acceptable use still apply. The operator is named in the Privacy Policy.

The public pages describe datasets and notebooks. A file download is issued only when the access check passes. Refreshing a page does not count as a download. Competitions shown on the site are not open and do not offer a prize.

Only cite rows that name a source and licence you accept.

You must be at least 13 to create an account. You need an account to upload, and to download files that are gated. You can sign up with email or with Google or GitHub. Google and GitHub give us your name, email address, and avatar only.

You are responsible for the activity on your account. If we suspend uploads, you can still sign in and download public files.

You keep the rights in datasets, notebooks, comments, and other material you submit. You grant ZimData the licence you select, so we can store the file, display it, and give a copy to someone the access rules allow.

The catalogue offers CC0 1.0, CC BY 4.0, CC BY-SA 4.0, ODC-BY 1.0, ODC-ODbL 1.0, or custom terms. The dataset page shows the choice. We do not relicense the file onto a different licence. Custom terms are the text you supply. Readers must follow the licence you chose.

Comments, use-case cards, and issues stay yours. You grant us a licence to display them on the site while they remain published.

If you publish a dataset or notebook, you confirm that:

• You have the right to publish the file and to apply the licence you select.
• The file does not include personal data you are not allowed to share. A background check may flag an email, a phone number, or a national id number. That check does not replace your duty.
• The description is a fair account of what the file contains. Source attribution and licence must be stated honestly.
• You will answer a takedown that concerns your file, and you will accept our decision to unpublish it.

A takedown path is described on the takedown page. We may unpublish a dataset that breaks these terms, a takedown we accept, or the law of Zimbabwe.

ZimData Pro is a paid subscription. While it is active, it includes datasets and notebooks offered in the Pro pool. It does not include a file the publisher sells at their own price. That file stays locked until you buy it, unless a Pro discount is shown on the page and you pay that price.

You can cancel a subscription. Access continues until the end of the period you have already paid. We do not refund a partly used period unless the law requires it, the merchant of record requires it, or we took the payment in error.

Prices shown before you pay are the prices for that checkout. Card payments go through a merchant of record. In Zimbabwe, EcoCash, OneMoney, and ZimSwitch use a local payment provider. Until checkout is connected, the button says coming soon and nothing is charged.

A publisher can offer a dataset or notebook in one of three ways: free, included in the Pro pool, or at a price the publisher sets. Free is the default. A priced or pool listing needs an admin to approve it. The publisher must be verified, and the file must meet the usability bar an admin has set. The price must sit inside the range an admin has set.

An admin sets the commission on a paid sale, the share of Pro subscription revenue that goes into the monthly creator pool, the price range, and any Pro-member discount. Those figures are shown in the publisher tools before a listing is approved. They are not a fixed rate in these terms. A completed sale stores the commission rate used for that sale. The pool is split by Pro-member use of the included files, weighted by the usability score.

Payouts are calculated once a month for the previous month. We do not send the money from this site until a payout account is connected. International payouts use the card merchant account. Local payouts use a local payment provider or EcoCash. If those are not connected, an admin can export the payout list and pay it outside the site. A publisher who has not completed the identity check we ask for is held back until they do.

Refunds and disputes:

• Ask within 14 days of the purchase if you could not download the file, or within 14 days of us removing it for a rights or personal-data complaint.
• An admin records the dispute and can mark the sale refunded. The publisher’s share and our commission for that sale come off the ledger. If that month was already paid out, the amount is deducted from a later payout.
• Card payments also follow the buyer terms of the merchant of record.

Support ZimData is an optional payment toward the cost of running the free catalogue. It does not unlock files, and it is not a purchase of a dataset.

You can ask us to delete the account from Settings. The account is removed after confirmation. You can also export a JSON copy first. The Privacy Policy describes what we delete and what we may have to keep.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms or the acceptable-use rules. We will tell you the reason unless the law stops us, or telling you would defeat a security or legal investigation.

The service is provided as available. A maintenance window is announced on the status page. We do not warrant that a dataset is complete, current, or fit for a particular decision. Notebooks on the site are rendered for reading. We do not execute them.

To the extent the law of Zimbabwe allows, our liability in a year is limited to the fees you paid us for ZimData in the 12 months before the claim, or nothing if you paid no fees. This does not limit liability that the law does not let us limit, including liability for fraud.

These terms are governed by the law of Zimbabwe. Write to hello@zimdata.org before you start a formal complaint, so we have a chance to fix it. The courts of Zimbabwe hear disputes, without taking away a right you have as a consumer that cannot be waived.

If a sentence in these terms cannot be enforced, the rest still stands. We will change the date at the top when we update the terms. The date on this version is 15 October 2026.