Terms of Service

What the service is

Answers to Answers sends one question at a time to a group of people - usually a family. Everyone answers privately. When the question closes, everyone can read what the others wrote, and the answers are kept as an archive you can come back to for as long as the service exists.

You can take part on the web, in the iOS app, or by replying to the email. They are three doors into the same thing.

Answers to Answers is operated by Thede Technologies, LLC. In these terms, "we" and "us" mean that company, and "you" means the person using the service.

Your account

• You need an account, and you must be at least 13 years old to hold one of your own. For a younger child, a parent or guardian creates and controls the account and remains responsible for everything done through it. The account belongs to the adult; the child answers through it.
• Give us a real email address and keep it current. It is how the service reaches you and how you get back in if you are locked out.
• Keep your password to yourself. What happens under your account is your responsibility. Tell us if you think someone else has gotten in.
• One account per person. Do not sign up as someone else.

Acceptable use

This is a product for families, so most of this goes without saying. Saying it anyway:

• Do not use the service to harass, threaten, or abuse anyone, including the people in your own circle.
• Do not post anything illegal, or anything that infringes someone else's rights.
• Do not upload material that sexualizes a child, ever, under any framing.
• Do not use the service to send bulk unsolicited mail, or to distribute malware.
• Do not attack the service - no attempts to break into other people's accounts, no scraping, no deliberately overloading it, no probing for holes without asking us first.
• Do not resell the service or pass your account around.

If someone in your circle is using the service to make life miserable for the rest of it, tell us. We would rather hear about it than not.

Your content

You own what you write. Your answers, your photos, your recordings, the questions you add - all of it stays yours. We do not claim ownership of any of it, and we never will.

To actually run the service, we need your permission to handle it. So you give us a limited license to store your content, to back it up, to process it as needed to operate the service, and to display it to the members of the circles you posted it in. That is the whole scope of the license. It exists so the software can do its job.

The license ends when you delete the content or your account, with three exceptions: backups that age out on their own schedule, copies already delivered in a digest email to your family's inboxes, which we cannot reach, and questions you contributed to a circle. A question you add becomes part of that circle's queue and archive, and other members' answers are attached to it, so it stays after you go - no longer attributed to you, but still there. Your answers are yours alone and they go.

We do not use your content to advertise to you, we do not sell it, we do not license it to anyone else, and we do not use it to train machine-learning models. See the Privacy Policy for what we do with it in detail.

You are responsible for what you post - including having the right to post it. If you upload a photograph someone else took, that is between you and them.

Circles and other members

A circle is a group of people who answer the same questions. Whoever creates it can invite people, remove them, and set the rhythm of the questions.

Understand what you are joining: when a question closes, your answer becomes readable by everyone in that circle. Write accordingly. We cannot control what your relatives do with something you wrote once they have read it, any more than we could if you had said it at the table.

Removing someone from a circle stops them seeing future answers. It does not unsend what they have already read.

Subscriptions and billing

• There is a free tier, and there are paid plans. What each one includes is shown on the pricing section of our home page, and it is what you get.
• Subscriptions are purchased on our website. Payment is processed by Stripe - we never see or store your card number. Stripe's own terms and privacy policy apply to that transaction.
• Paid plans renew automatically at the end of each period, monthly or annually, at the price you agreed to, until you cancel.
• You can cancel any time from the billing page in your account. Cancelling stops the next renewal; it does not refund the period you are in. You keep your paid access until that period ends.
• If we ever raise the price of a plan you are already on, we will email you at least 30 days before it takes effect. A price increase applies to renewal periods only, never to the period you have already paid for. If you do not want the new price, cancel before the renewal and nothing more is charged.
• If a payment fails, we may pause the paid features. Your answers do not go anywhere - the archive stays, and reverting to the free tier does not delete anything you have written.
• Refunds are not automatic, but we are a small company and we would rather you were treated fairly than technically correctly. Ask us.

Ending things

You can leave whenever you want. Delete your account from Profile in the app, or email us and we will do it. Deletion is permanent and covers your answers, your photos, and your recordings. Questions you contributed to a circle stay with that circle, unattributed. The privacy policy sets out exactly what goes and what stays, step by step.

We can end it too, if you break these terms in a way that matters - abuse, illegal content, attacks on the service. We will tell you why, and where it is a fixable mistake rather than something serious, we will give you the chance to fix it first. If we suspend or close a paid account for cause, we do not owe a refund for the remaining period.

If we ever shut the service down, we will give you notice and a way to take your archive with you before it goes. Your family's answers should not disappear because a company did.

What we can and cannot promise

We take this seriously. It is also a small company - one person, most days - so here is an honest accounting rather than a wall of capital letters.

We will look after your archive as carefully as we know how, keep backups, and fix things quickly when they break. We cannot promise the service will never go down, that email will always arrive on time, or that we will never lose data through a failure outside our control. The service is provided as it is, without warranties beyond what the law requires us to give you. If your answers matter to you as much as they matter to us, keep your own copy of anything irreplaceable. Ask us and we will send you one.

Limitation of liability

To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential losses - lost profits, lost opportunities, or the value you place on lost data - arising from your use of the service.

Where we are liable, our total liability is limited to the greater of what you have paid us in the twelve months before the claim or one hundred dollars. The hundred dollars is a floor rather than a ceiling: if you have paid us more than that in the year before the claim, the higher figure is the limit.

The company is what you have a claim against, not the person behind it. Answers to Answers is run by Thede Technologies, LLC, and the LLC is the sole party liable under these terms. To the fullest extent the law allows, no claim arising from these terms or from your use of the service may be brought personally against any owner, member, officer, employee, or agent of the company in their individual capacity. That limit does not cover gross negligence, deliberate misconduct, or fraud, and nothing here is an attempt to shelter any of those.

Some places do not allow limits like these. If you live somewhere that does not, they do not apply to you, and nothing here takes away a right you have by law.

Covering us for what you post

You are responsible for what you put into the service, and if what you put in causes us a legal problem, you agree to cover us for it. In plain terms: to the fullest extent the law allows, you agree to defend and reimburse Thede Technologies, LLC and the people who work for it against claims, damages, and reasonable legal costs arising from

• your use of the service,
• what you post, including any claim that it infringes somebody else's rights,
• your breach of these terms, and
• your breach of any law that applies to you.

In practice this is about the unusual case - somebody uploading a photograph they had no right to, or a recording of a person who never agreed to be recorded. It is not a trap for ordinary family use.

Copyright complaints

If you believe something on the service infringes your copyright, write to our designated agent at support@answers2answers.com with a notice that meets the requirements of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Tell us what work you say was infringed, where it is on the service, how to reach you, and include the statements the DMCA requires.

We respond to valid notices as the law requires, and we will remove or disable access to material where the notice is proper. If your material was removed and you think that was wrong, send a counter-notice to the same address.

If the company changes hands

If Thede Technologies, LLC is acquired by or merges with another company, we will tell you within 30 days, and the acquiring company is bound by these terms for the remainder of any subscription period you have already paid for.

If a new owner wants to change how your family's answers are handled, you will be told and given a real chance to export your archive before that change takes effect. A change of ownership is not a back door around the promises on this page or in the privacy policy.

Settling a dispute

Read this section. It changes how any dispute between us gets decided, and it limits some rights you would otherwise have in court.

Talk to us first

If you have a problem with us, email support@answers2answers.com and give us 30 days to sort it out with you before either of us starts a formal proceeding. Most things end here.

Otherwise, arbitration rather than court

If we cannot settle it informally, you and Thede Technologies, LLC agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these terms or the service will be resolved by binding individual arbitration, administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, and not in a court of law. How that works:

• One arbitrator, chosen under the AAA's Consumer Arbitration Rules.
• The arbitration takes place in Davidson County, Tennessee, unless we agree on somewhere else or the arbitrator decides a hearing should be held elsewhere.
• The arbitrator can award anything a court could award, including an order to do or stop doing something, but only as far as needed to settle your own individual claim.
• The decision is final and binding, and either of us can have a court enter judgment on it.
• Each side pays its own costs and legal fees, unless the arbitrator decides otherwise under the applicable law.

The AAA's Consumer Arbitration Rules are published at adr.org. If the AAA is not available, we will agree on another arbitrator, or a court will appoint one.

Small claims court is still open to you

Either of us can still bring an individual case in small claims court, in Davidson County, Tennessee or in the county where you live, as long as the claim fits within that court's limits. If such a case is moved up to a general court, the arbitration terms above apply again.

Individually, not as a class

To the fullest extent the law allows, you and Thede Technologies, LLC each agree to bring claims only in your own individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, consolidated, or representative action. The arbitrator cannot combine more than one person's claims or preside over any class proceeding. If this paragraph is found unenforceable for a particular claim, that claim is separated out and goes to a court in Davidson County, Tennessee, while everything else stays in arbitration.

You can opt out, and you have 30 days

You do not have to agree to arbitration. Email support@answers2answers.com and say plainly that you want to opt out of arbitration. Include your name and the email address on your account.

You have 30 days from the day you create your account. If your account is older than these terms, you have 30 days from the effective date at the top of this page instead. Both are dates you can look up, so there is no argument to be had about when your window opened or closed.

That is the whole procedure. Opting out costs you nothing, takes nothing else away, and changes nothing about your account or your subscription. If you opt out, disputes go to the state or federal courts in Davidson County, Tennessee instead.

Governing law, and a time limit

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Tennessee, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The Federal Arbitration Act governs how the arbitration parts of this section are interpreted and enforced.

Any claim relating to these terms or the service must be brought within one year of when it arose, unless the law where you live requires longer, in which case that longer period applies. After that, the claim is barred.

If you are a consumer somewhere whose law guarantees you your local courts or overrides any of this, that law wins and this section does not take it away from you.

Changes to these terms

We will update these terms occasionally. If a change is material, we will email the address on your account at least 30 days before it takes effect, and the effective date at the top of this page moves to the new date. Fixing a typo or making a sentence clearer changes the last-updated date only, because nothing about your deal has actually changed.

If you keep using the service after a material change takes effect, that is your acceptance. If you would rather not accept it, close your account and we will part on good terms.

The remaining small print

These terms are the whole agreement. These terms and the privacy policy are the entire agreement between you and Thede Technologies, LLC about the service, and they replace anything said or written beforehand.

If one part fails, the rest holds. If a court or arbitrator finds any provision invalid or unenforceable, it is enforced as far as it can be, and everything else stays in force.

Not enforcing something once does not give it up. If we do not enforce a provision straight away, that is not a waiver of it, and we can still enforce it later.

Transfers. We may transfer these terms as part of a merger, acquisition, reorganisation, or sale of assets, subject to the change-of-ownership promises above. You may not transfer your rights under these terms to somebody else without our written agreement.

What survives if you leave. The sections on your content, ending things, what we can and cannot promise, limitation of liability, covering us for what you post, copyright complaints, settling a dispute, and this section all continue to apply after your account is gone.

Things outside anyone's control. We are not liable for failing to deliver the service when the cause is genuinely beyond our reasonable control - natural disasters, war, terrorism, government action, pandemics, strikes, fire, flood, cyberattacks, or the failure of the hosting, cloud, or telecommunications providers the service is built on.

Contact us

Write to support@answers2answers.com. A person reads it. We aim to respond within 30 days, and usually a great deal sooner.

Thede Technologies, LLC
Knoxville, Tennessee, United States