Terms of Service

1. The agreement

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are between you and Tearleads, LLC (“Tearleads,” “we,” “us,” or “our”), based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, United States. They cover our website, applications, and hosted Sync and Sharing services (together, the “Services”).

By accepting these Terms or using the Services after being given notice of them and an opportunity to review them, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Services. You must be at least 18 and legally able to enter this agreement. If you act for an organization, you confirm that you have authority to bind it, and “you” includes that organization.

Our Privacy Policy explains information handling. Agreeing to these Terms does not replace any separate privacy consent required by law. Mandatory consumer protections remain in effect regardless of these Terms.

2. Using Tearleads

Tearleads provides device-first tools for working with your information, with optional paid Sync and Sharing. Available features can differ by platform, version, plan, and connectivity. Local functionality does not require a paid sync subscription. Hosted functionality requires the relevant service access and, where applicable, an active subscription.

Subject to these Terms, you may use the Services for lawful personal or organizational purposes. We retain rights in the Services, our branding, and our materials, excluding your content. Software supplied under a separate license remains subject to that license; these Terms do not take away rights that license grants you.

You are responsible for the devices, connectivity, permissions, and authorized activity needed to use the Services. Keep billing and contact information you provide accurate. Do not use another person’s identity or credentials without permission.

3. Protect your keys and keep backups

Your cryptographic identity controls access to your encrypted content. You are responsible for protecting your devices, recovery phrase, recovery QR code, private keys, and backup passwords. Anyone with your recovery material may be able to act as you and access your data.

We cannot reset your identity keys or recover encrypted content without the necessary keys. Losing your keys and every usable recovery copy can mean permanent loss of access, even if a subscription is still active.

Keep independent backups of important information and verify that they can be restored. Sync is not a guarantee of permanent archival storage or a substitute for backups. An export may include only files available locally, not every remote file. Clearing browser storage, uninstalling, destroying a local identity, or losing a device can remove unsynced data. Contact us promptly if you suspect unauthorized service access, but do not email us your recovery material.

4. Your content and sharing

You retain ownership of the content you create, import, store, or share. You give us a limited, non-exclusive permission to store, copy, transmit, and otherwise process content only as needed to provide the Services you request, carry out your instructions, secure the Services, and meet applicable legal obligations. This permission does not transfer ownership or grant a right to use your content for advertising.

Our ability to process encrypted content is limited by the encryption design. The permission above does not give us keys we do not possess. It continues only as needed for those purposes, including retained copies and records described in the Privacy Policy after use ends.

You must have the rights and permissions needed to use and share your content, including personal information about other people. You are responsible for choosing recipients and access levels. Authorized users may read, edit, download, or further share content as their permissions allow. Removing access cannot erase copies or keys already received, and retained history may be available to later authorized recipients.

Organization administrators can manage membership, billing, and service access within their authority. Changes by an administrator, including removal from an organization or a subscription lapse, may affect your access. You and your organization are responsible for agreeing on content ownership and administration. We do not resolve ownership disputes merely because one party possesses a key or pays an invoice.

5. Acceptable use

Do not use the Services to:

• Break applicable law or violate intellectual property, privacy, or other rights.
• Distribute malware, commit fraud, threaten or exploit others, or facilitate child sexual exploitation.
• Access identities, content, infrastructure, or systems without authorization, or bypass access controls or billing restrictions.
• Disrupt the Services, overwhelm infrastructure, or interfere with other users’ access.
• Misrepresent your identity or authority, or use sharing and communications for unsolicited abusive activity.

These restrictions do not prohibit activity protected by applicable law or rights under a separate software license. If you discover a security issue, report it to legal@tearleads.com without accessing other people’s data or disrupting the Services. This invitation does not authorize testing systems you do not control.

6. Subscriptions, renewal, and cancellation

Prices and payment

Paid plans, included capacity, currency, billing interval, taxes, and applicable charges are shown at checkout. Our pricing page describes the standard plans; store pricing and regional charges may differ. A subscription applies to the organization or entitlement identified at purchase, not automatically to every identity or organization you create. Unless checkout states otherwise, subscriptions are monthly.

When you confirm a recurring purchase, you authorize the payment provider to charge the disclosed amount and applicable taxes for each billing period until canceled. Plan or capacity changes may change the price and may involve prorated charges, as disclosed by the billing provider. We will give notice of changes to recurring prices before they apply and obtain additional consent where required by law.

How to cancel

For web subscriptions, use Manage subscription to access Stripe with the billing email used at checkout. This route can be used even if you have lost your Tearleads identity keys. For App Store or Google Play purchases, cancel through that store’s subscription settings. Contact us if you cannot access the cancellation route.

Cancellation stops future renewals after the current paid period; paid access generally continues through that period unless a refund, store rule, legal requirement, or suspension changes it. Cancel before the renewal deadline shown by your provider. Deleting the app, removing a local identity, leaving an organization, or ceasing to use the Services does not cancel a subscription.

Refunds and failed payments

Except where required by law or expressly offered at purchase, payments for the current billing period are non-refundable and we do not provide partial-period credits merely because you stop using the Services. Contact us about billing errors or refund requests. Store purchases are also subject to the store’s refund process. Nothing here removes statutory cancellation, withdrawal, refund, or service-quality rights.

Failed payments or an expired entitlement may restrict hosted features. After the applicable grace period, remote organization data may be permanently purged. Reactivating billing does not guarantee recovery of purged data. Keep local copies and independent backups of anything important.

7. Ending or suspending service

You may stop using the Services at any time. Cancel any subscription separately, export information you wish to keep, and use the available deletion controls or contact us about remote records. Uninstalling or destroying a local identity does not erase all remote information. Retention and deletion limits are explained in the Privacy Policy.

We may restrict or suspend hosted access for a material breach of these Terms, nonpayment, a legal requirement, or a credible security or abuse risk. Where reasonably practicable and lawful, we will explain the reason and offer an opportunity to address it. Urgent threats or legal restrictions may require action without advance notice. You may contact us to ask for review.

If we discontinue a paid hosted service for reasons unrelated to your breach, we will give reasonable advance notice where practicable and refund prepaid fees for the unused discontinued portion. We will provide a reasonable opportunity to export available data where technically feasible and lawful. Ending hosted access does not let us erase copies already on your devices or guarantee that remote-only data remains recoverable.

8. Availability and warranties

We work to provide useful, reliable, and secure Services, but outages, bugs, compatibility changes, network failures, and data loss are possible. Encryption has limits, particularly on compromised devices or when keys are exposed. Unless separately agreed in writing, we do not promise an uptime level, uninterrupted access, or permanent storage of every version or attachment. The Services are not designed for emergency or safety-critical use.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, the Services are provided “as is” and “as available,” without implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. This does not exclude an express commitment in these Terms or any warranty, guarantee, reasonable-care obligation, or consumer remedy that the law does not allow us to exclude.

Third-party stores, payment systems, devices, and services have their own terms. Their outages or decisions can affect your use of Tearleads. Their terms do not displace your mandatory rights against us.

9. Limits on liability

To the extent permitted by applicable law, Tearleads is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or lost profits, arising from the Services. Our total liability arising from or relating to the Services is limited to the greater of US $100 or the amount you paid us for the affected Services in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

These exclusions and limits do not apply to fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, death or personal injury caused by negligence, or any liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded. They do not reduce mandatory consumer remedies or privacy rights. Where local law does not permit a particular limitation, that limitation does not apply to you.

10. Governing law and disputes

Tennessee law governs these Terms, without its conflict-of-laws rules, except that mandatory protections of the law where you live continue to apply. Courts with jurisdiction in Hamilton County, Tennessee may hear disputes. This is not an exclusive venue requirement and does not prevent you from bringing a claim in another court where applicable law permits it.

Please contact us if there is a problem so we can try to resolve it. Doing so is not a condition of exercising your legal rights and does not shorten or extend a legal deadline. These Terms do not require private arbitration or waive your right to participate in a class action.

11. Changes and general terms

We may update the Services and these Terms. Revised Terms will have a new effective date, and we will give reasonable advance notice of material changes through the Services or another appropriate channel. Changes needed urgently for security, legal compliance, or to introduce an optional feature may take effect sooner. We will obtain acceptance where required by law; changes will not retroactively alter an existing dispute.

If you do not agree to revised Terms, stop using the affected Services and cancel any applicable subscription before the next renewal. Any refund rights required by law remain available.

These Terms and any separate written service agreement form our agreement about the Services. If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue to apply. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. Neither party may transfer this agreement in a way that reduces the other party’s mandatory rights; we may transfer it with a merger or sale of the relevant business if the successor assumes our obligations. Provisions that by their nature must continue, including accrued payment obligations, ownership, lawful retention, liability, and dispute terms, survive termination.

12. Contact us

For questions about these Terms, billing concerns, or legal notices: