One of the things our team constantly respond to is the question about security and safety of ideas on IdeaGist. Many people reaction to a site like IdeaGist is “What! Do you want me put my idea on a website?”,

This article is about the security of your idea on IdeaGist and how do we give you tools to protect your idea, even better than what you can do, most of the time, in real life. Of course, your best protection against someone using your ideas (however they got access to them) is through securing them as intellectual property.

First of all, you are storing your ideas on a cloud based service, just like storing a document on Google Drive™ or on DropBox™. It does not mean that you share it with the world.

Storage of your ideas is done on a tested platform, which is being used by millions of websites worldwide. All the communication between you and our servers is encrypted, using the Secure Sockets Layer or SSL (same security protocol used by your bank’s website).  This is more of standard security that you will find on many sites. There is a security overview document available on our Terms and Conditions page.

Let’s talk about additional security measures that we offer to you, helping you in protecting your ideas. Ideas on IdeaGist have four level of protection on sharing or visibility:

  • Private – Private ideas are only visible to idea owner. You can keep all your ideas private. This is also the default setting on IdeaGist Global site. Which means that you can simply store an idea on IdeaGist with the confidence that it is visible only to you. Please keep in mind that individual communities may have different default settings, set by their administrators so always check Idea Visibility on the Idea Add Page, before saving.
  • Limited Shared – Once your thoughts are formed, you may want to get some feedback from your trusted friends or from general public. When an idea is shared with limited people, you can decide who to include in your trusted circle. You can even ask them to sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), before looking at your idea details. Details of a Limited Shared idea are visible to your selected people but you must share a short blurb on the idea so that people can understand the subject matter, before signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement. Picture, title and Short Blurb of a Limited Shared idea are visible to everyone. If you don’t want to share even a Short Blurb, you can just type “I am not ready to share yet” in the text section.
  • Public – As name indicates, Public ideas are visible to everyone. You may want to share your world changing idea with everyone. Mostly ideas with social benefits are good candidates to be visible to everyone.
  • Encrypted – Encrypted ideas are private ideas with another layer of protection. All data about that idea will get encrypted in our database and even you will need a password to access it.

We would like to remind you that IdeaGist is also a Collaboration and Networking Platform. When you share information with other people that you believe is patent-able, you should always use a legally written Non-Disclosure Agreement, in a manner that is legally acceptable in the applicable jurisdiction.

All employees and sub-contractors at IdeaGist have a Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) in place. Please rest assured that our business is to help you with your ideas. Not respecting your ideas will be self-destructive for us.

Come on, join us and thousands of entrepreneurs worldwide on www.ideagist.com with the confidence that your ideas are safe with us.