Over the last couple years, I have received questions regarding whether we were officially approved by GSA with our terms of service, and now I have an answer: YES!
I’m excited to announce that GovLoop has a new GSA-approved Terms of Service (ToS). We’ve made changes to the ToS to cover all federal employees signing up with .gov email address and agencies creating specific groups. This is based on GSA’s model social media terms of service agreement
Most government employees use GovLoop in a personal capacity (use a non .gov email for example) and were already covered appropriately. However some federal employees use GovLoop in an official capacity (using their .gov email address and official portraits) and GSA suggested we create a federally-friendly ToS in place to cover these members.
We’ve taken the suggested approach by GSA and created federally-friend ToS and embedded these new terms in our general terms of service (check ’em out). Embedding in the general terms is the new suggested approach from GSA versus signing separate agreements with agencies. We will be in the same boat as Twitter, Measured Voice, and Social Oomph in that we will not have a separate, signed amendment with the government, but instead it will be integrated into a singular document which is much more efficient for the agencies, our organization and, you, our community members.
What does it mean for you:
-GSA’s position is that all current GovLoopers who may have signed up in the past using their .gov email address would now be covered by the updated ToS
-GSA’s position is that any new members who sign up using their .gov email address would also be covered.
-If you signed up using a non .gov email or are a state/local employee, you are already covered appropriately.
I have to thank the GSA team for all their help in this process – they have a great model template and the process was super smooth. I also encourage agencies to check out the 60+ federally-compatible ToS ready to use ranging from LinkedIn to Tumblr and more (check ’em out)
Any questions? Send me a note (steve at govloop.com) or comment below.