A federal-compatible Terms of Service (TOS) agreement is required for official government use of social media tools that are offered to the agency at no cost. At HHS, these TOS agreements are signed by the Digital Communications Division on behalf of the entire department. Use the lists below to determine if a "federal friendly" TOS is available for a given tool. Some of the services on this list are asterisked and refer to the following language: “The HHS Office of General Counsel (OGC) has determined that these tools are acceptable for use without an HHS TOS agreement.”
The Terms of Service listed here apply to no-cost (free) tools only. If you wish to pay for a fee-based product, the TOS agreement and any specific issues should be negotiated by the OpDiv/StaffDiv during the procurement process.
All third-party social media technologies are still subject to the standards and policies that govern web communications. Terms of Service agreements reflect the ability of the government to legally do business with a company (for a no-cost tool), but do not necessarily address privacy, security, accessibility, records, etc. All of those must be evaluated by the relevant agency in the context of the how the tool will be used. A signed TOS does not indicate that a tool meets these requirements and additional considerations may be necessary.
- Learn more about federal-compatible Terms of Service agreements.
- Use this guide to negotiate a Terms of Service agreement with a vendor.
Tools with Signed Terms of Service
This list includes Third Party Websites and Applications (TPWAs) for which HHS has signed a federal-compatible TOS agreement, or for which the standard TOS have been cleared for use. The list below also indicates if a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) is necessary for a given tool.
| Tool | Function | TPWA PIA required |
|---|---|---|
| 4Q Survey.com/iPerceptions | satisfaction measurement tool | yes |
| Amazon Appstore | Mobile app store | |
| AddThis | bookmarking/sharing | yes |
| Apple iOS* | iphone, iPad, app development | no |
| Asana | Collaborative software; mobile- and web-based project management | |
| Bing* | search engine | no |
| bitly | bookmark, organize, share | yes |
| Blackberry App World | Blackberry app development | no |
| Blip.tv | video hosting/sharing | yes |
| Blogger | blogging | yes |
| CartoDB* | Government challenge platform | |
| Challenge.gov* | gov contests/challenges platform | yes |
| ChatWING* | Website/app chat client | |
| ClassMarker* | online testing and training program | yes |
| Cyfe | All-in-one dashboard | no |
| Dialogue App | crowdsourcing and ideation | yes |
| Dipity | show multimedia in timelines | yes |
| Eventbrite* | event registration platform | yes |
| social network | yes | |
| Figure1 | social media, photo sharing for doctors | yes |
| Flickr | photo sharing service, owned by SmugMug as of May 25, 2018 | yes |
| magazine format social network aggregation | ||
| FourSquare | location based software | no |
| GitHub* | collaborative software dev | yes |
| Google+ | social networking platform | yes |
| Google Analytics | website analytics tool | no |
| Google Android Market | Android platform app development | no |
| Google Blogger* | Blogging | |
| Google FeedBurner | RSS feed | yes |
| Google Moderator | social commenting and discussion | yes |
| Google Visualization | display of multimedia, data | yes |
| Google Webmaster Tools | analytics and search engine optimization | yes |
| GovLoop* | knowledge network | yes |
| Hackpad* | Wiki and real-time collaborative documents | yes |
| HootSuite | social media dashboard | no |
| Hulu | video streaming | yes |
| IdeaScale* | users submit, vote, and comment on ideas | yes |
| IFTTT* | Use/create channel “recipes” for data integrations | |
| Instagram* | photo sharing | yes |
| IntenseDebate | social commenting | yes |
| professional networking | yes | |
| MapBox | maps | no |
| Measured Voice* | social media productivity tool | no |
| Medium | blogging | yes |
| Meetup Everywhere | social networking platform | yes |
| Mendeley* | social networking platform | yes |
| MixedInk | wiki | yes |
| My.comMetrics* | tracking and benchmarking of blogs | no |
| MySpace | social Network | yes |
| News Genius* | Wiki & real-time collaborative documents | yes |
| OpenCalais | automates metadata generation | no |
| Plotly* | Graph and share data | |
| Piktochart | infographic creation | no |
| Pinterest* | photo sharing | yes |
| POP | Prototyping on paper | No |
| Quora* | question and answer community website | yes |
| Screendoor* | Online forms | |
| Scribd | document sharing | yes |
| Slack* | Searchable team communication platform | |
| SlideShare | PowerPoint & word doc sharing, webinars | yes |
| Snapchat* | messaging app | |
| Sniply* | Content Sharing | |
| SocialOomph* | social media productivity tool | yes |
| Socialtext | internatl social networking | yes |
| SocialTwist/TAF4Free | bookmarking & sharing tool | yes |
| Socrata | formerly named blist; data display | no |
| SourceForge | open source software development & sharing | no |
| StackExchange | Question and answer communities | Yes |
| STCI/VenCorps | challenges, contests, and prizes tool | yes |
| Storify* | social media curation | yes |
| Stumbleupon | content discovery | yes |
| Survey Analytics | survey software | no |
| Survey Monkey* | survey tool | yes |
| Tableau Public | data visualization | yes |
| Thunderclap* | Crowdspeaking Platform | yes |
| Tint* | social media aggregator | yes |
| Trello | Project management | no |
| TubeMongul | upload video once to and get analystics for top videos | no |
| Tumblr* | blogging | yes |
| Twitter* | micro blogging | yes |
| Vine* | video sharing service | yes |
| Wikispaces | collaboration | yes |
| Wordpress | blogging | yes |
| Yammer | microblogging | no |
| Yelp | crowd-sourced local reviews and social networking | no |
| YouTube | video hosting/sharing | yes |
| ZeeMaps | maps | no |
Related Resources
- Federal-Compatible Terms of Service Agreements
- HHS Enterprise Applications and Tools (Syndication, WCMS, GovDelivery, others)
- Accessibility Testing Results of Web2.0 Tools
