Terms of Service for Our Inner Hearth™

1. Who We Are

The Service is operated by Benson Enterprises LLC, a Maryland limited liability company, doing business as Our Inner Hearth, P.O. Box 19, Bowie, Maryland 20719-0019, United States ("Our Inner Hearth", the "Company", "we", "us", or "our"). You can reach us at any time at support@ourinnerhearth.com. Our Privacy Policy governs how we handle personal information and is part of this agreement.

Certain trademarks, software, designs, and other intellectual-property rights used in connection with the Service may be owned by the Company or licensed to it by their respective owners.

2. Description of the Service

Our Inner Hearth is a private, invitation-based software-as-a-service platform, accessible through supported web browsers and, where available, as an installable Progressive Web Application (PWA), that lets families build a family tree and store and share content such as photographs, videos, recipes, calendar events, discussions, comments, audio recordings, family stories, written digital letters, music playlists and tracks, family movie picks, monthly Family Movie Night submissions, votes and chatter, and an annual Year in Review slideshow built from photos already shared in that family space. Music tracks and movie trailers may be linked to or streamed through third-party services such as YouTube. Features may change, improve, or be discontinued over time.

Certain features may be available only to eligible account roles or subscription levels, may depend on compatible devices or third-party services, or may be introduced, modified, suspended, or discontinued over time. We will provide notice of material changes where required by applicable law.

2A. Third-Party Content and Services

Family Book Club is a private reading-log and discussion tool. We do not sell or distribute e-books or provide copyrighted book texts. Participants must obtain their own lawful library, physical or digital copies. Public bibliographic information may be incomplete or edition-specific; verify details before planning a reading.

Virtual Family Movie Night is a social communication, scheduling and countdown companion, not a movie streaming or rebroadcasting service. Our Inner Hearth does not host, broadcast or transmit copyrighted movie streams, control external players, or guarantee synchronized playback. Each participant must access the movie lawfully through their own subscription, purchase, rental or physical media and follow the provider's terms. Public metadata supplied by OMDb and family-entered streaming labels may be incomplete or outdated; availability varies by country and must be checked.

Some parts of the Service rely on third-party providers. In particular, music tracks, playlists, and movie trailers may link to or embed videos hosted by YouTube. When you play an embedded YouTube video, the video is streamed from YouTube's servers and is subject to YouTube's Terms of Service and Google's privacy practices. We do not own, control, or host those videos, and we make no representations about their availability, accuracy, or legality.

• Your responsibility. You are responsible for ensuring that any music, video, or other third-party content you add to a family space is content you have the right to share with your family members and does not infringe any copyright, trademark, or other rights.
• No endorsement. The presence of a third-party link or embed does not mean we endorse that content or provider.
• Changes by providers. Third-party providers may change, restrict, or remove content or features at any time. We are not liable if a video becomes unavailable, if a provider's terms change, or if a provider discontinues a service.

Third-party content may be governed by the provider's own terms and privacy practices. When you activate or interact with embedded media or external links, the provider may receive technical information associated with that interaction. We do not control the provider's independent collection or processing of information.

2B. Time Capsules and Scheduled Content

The Service lets you create content — such as written letters, audio recordings, or video stories — and set a future date and time on which it will become visible to other members (a "Time Capsule").

• Sealed until unlock. Before the scheduled unlock date, a Time Capsule is intended to remain unavailable to other family members through the ordinary Service interface, subject to authorized operational access, legal requirements, and applicable security procedures.
• Editing and deletion. You may change the unlock date or delete a Time Capsule at any time before it unlocks. Once a Time Capsule has unlocked, it is treated like any other content in the family space and is subject to the same deletion and retention rules.
• Account deletion. If you request account deletion before a Time Capsule unlocks, the Time Capsule will be handled in accordance with the account-deletion process described in Section 13 and the Privacy Policy. Following expiration of the applicable grace period, unpublished Time Capsule content will be deleted from active systems unless retention is legally required or otherwise expressly disclosed.
• We do not guarantee exact timing. We use reasonable efforts to make unlocked content visible on the unlock date, but minor delays may occur.

3. Eligibility and Your Account

• Age: The Service is not intended for children under 13 to create or independently maintain accounts. Users under the age of majority in their jurisdiction must use the Service with the involvement of a parent or legal guardian. Family-tree records may contain information about children who are not account holders. Users submitting such information are responsible for having an appropriate lawful basis to do so, and the Company may restrict or remove information where required by law or appropriate under its privacy and safety procedures.
• One account per person: Each account is personal to one individual. You may not share your login credentials, allow another person to use your account, or transfer or sell your account to anyone else.
• Accuracy: You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete registration information and to keep it up to date.
• Account security: You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for promptly notifying us of suspected unauthorized access. You must comply with the authentication and security requirements presented during account creation and use any available security controls responsibly. We may require additional verification or authentication for sensitive actions when reasonably necessary to protect accounts and family information.
• No impersonation: You may not impersonate any person or entity, or register an account using another person's information without their authorization.
• Verification: We may, but are not obligated to, require verification of your email address or identity, or require you to re-authenticate before performing sensitive actions.

4. Your License to Use the Service

Subject to your compliance with these Terms and, where applicable, your payment of subscription fees, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, and revocable right to access and use the Service for your own personal and family purposes.

This is a license to use the Service, not a sale. You acquire no ownership interest in the Service or in any software, source code, object code, databases, platform architecture, interfaces, designs, trademarks, or other proprietary technology underlying it. Any use of the Service outside the scope of this license — including commercial resale, service-bureau use, or any use not expressly permitted here — is prohibited.

Nothing in this Section restricts any right that applicable law expressly provides and does not permit the Company to exclude or limit.

5. Subscriptions, Trial, Renewal, Cancellation, and Refunds

• 14-day free trial: Your free trial begins automatically when you create your account and ends 14 days later. No payment method is required to start or use the trial. During the trial your account has Premium status.
• No automatic conversion: The trial does not automatically convert into a paid subscription, and we will not charge you when it ends. If you have not purchased a subscription by the end of the trial, your account simply changes to Viewer status.
• Premium subscription: Premium currently costs $5.00 per month, billed monthly in advance. Your first charge occurs when you purchase the subscription, and each subsequent charge occurs on the same day of each following month.
• Automatic renewal: Your subscription continues and renews automatically for successive monthly billing periods, at the then-current price, until you cancel. You expressly authorize us and our payment processor to charge your payment method for each renewal.
• Premium vs. Viewer: Premium members can upload and share new content within their family space. Viewers can continue to browse existing family content (read-only) and edit their own profile, but cannot upload new shared content. Content you uploaded while Premium remains stored and visible to your family when your account becomes a Viewer; it is not deleted because your subscription ended.
• How to cancel: You can cancel at any time from the billing area of your account settings, or by emailing us at support@ourinnerhearth.com.
• When cancellation takes effect: Cancellation stops future renewals. You keep Premium functionality through the end of the billing period you have already paid for, and your account changes to Viewer status at the end of that period. Canceling a subscription does not delete your account or your content — see Section 13.
• Refunds: Except where a refund is required by applicable law, all subscription fees are non-refundable, and we do not provide refunds or credits for partial billing periods, unused time, or periods in which you did not use the Service.
• Price changes: We may change subscription pricing prospectively. We will give you at least 30 days' notice by email or in-product notice before a price change takes effect, and the new price applies to billing periods beginning after that notice. If you do not agree, you may cancel before the change takes effect.
• Failed payments: If a recurring charge cannot be processed, we (or our payment processor) may retry the charge. If payment still fails, your Premium status may be suspended or downgraded to Viewer until payment succeeds. You remain responsible for amounts properly owed.
• Payment processing: Payments are processed by Stripe. We do not receive or store your full card number. Your use of Stripe is also subject to Stripe's own terms and privacy policy.
• Taxes: Prices exclude any applicable taxes, which may be added where required.

Before you purchase a paid subscription, we will present the material recurring-payment terms, including the subscription price, billing frequency, automatic-renewal arrangement, and cancellation method. By affirmatively authorizing the paid subscription through the checkout process, you authorize the recurring charges disclosed at checkout until the subscription is canceled. The free trial does not automatically convert to a paid subscription, and no payment method is required to begin the trial.

You may cancel your subscription using the cancellation mechanism made available through your account or by contacting support. Cancellation will stop future renewal charges, subject to processing requirements permitted by applicable law. Unless applicable law requires otherwise, cancellation does not entitle you to a refund for a billing period already paid. We will provide notices, obtain any required additional consent, and honor cancellation or refund rights as required by applicable law.

5A. Gifted Subscriptions and Payment Hand-off

A member may choose to pay for another member's Premium membership (a "gifted membership"). The following terms apply in addition to Section 5.

• Who is responsible for payment: the person who pays (the "payer") is the customer for that charge and is solely responsible for it. The member who receives the membership (the "recipient") owes us nothing while the gift is active.
• The recipient must already have an account: gifted memberships can only be sent to an email address that already belongs to a registered Our Inner Hearth account. Invite the person to create a free account first.
• It is a recurring subscription, not a one-time credit: a gifted membership renews automatically each month at the then-current price and charges the payer's payment method until it is cancelled or taken over.
• Either party may end it: the payer may cancel the gifted subscription from their own billing area at any time, and the recipient may take over payments using their own payment method. When a hand-off completes, the payer's gifted subscription for that member is cancelled and the payer will not be billed for it again.
• No refunds or proration: consistent with Section 5, amounts already paid for a gifted membership are non-refundable and are not prorated on cancellation or hand-off. The recipient keeps Premium functionality through the end of the period already paid for.
• Paying does not create any rights over the other account: a payer gains no access to the recipient's account, content, or family space, no administrative authority over them, and no ability to view, edit, export, or delete their content. The recipient's account remains entirely their own.
• The recipient's terms are otherwise unchanged: a gifted member is simply a Premium member, with the same rights, cancellation rules, and downgrade behavior described in Section 5.
• What each party can see: the payer can see the recipient's email address and the status of the gifted membership in their own billing settings, and the recipient is shown the payer's name so they know who is funding their membership. Nothing else is disclosed between the two accounts by gifting. See the Privacy Policy for details.
• Failed payments: if the payer's payment method fails, the gifted membership may be suspended or the recipient's account may change to Viewer status until payment succeeds or the recipient takes over payments.

A payment hand-off is completed only when the recipient affirmatively authorizes a paid subscription using their own payment method and the applicable checkout process confirms the new billing arrangement. The original payer's recurring subscription for that recipient will be canceled in accordance with the hand-off process. We will not intentionally maintain overlapping recurring charges for the same gifted membership. Any prepaid period, billing transition, and applicable refund rights will be handled as disclosed during the hand-off and in accordance with applicable law.

6. Roles, Family Administrators, and Founders

Each family space has its own roles, and your rights inside a space depend on the role you hold there:

• Founder. The person who created the family space. A Founder has full authority over the space and cannot be edited, demoted, or removed by other members through the Service.
• Co-Founder. The Founder of a family space that was absorbed into another space by a Tree Merge. Co-Founder status is assigned automatically by a merge and carries the same protection from being edited, demoted, or removed.
• Family Administrator ("Admin"). Full management rights — inviting members, assigning roles, removing members, deleting content in the space, and initiating a Tree Merge — except that an Admin cannot change or remove a Founder, Co-Founder, or another Admin. Only a Founder or Co-Founder may promote a member to Admin or demote an Admin.
• Contributor. May view the family space and add or edit content in it.
• Viewer. Read-only. A Viewer may edit only their own profile information (such as their biography, birthday, and photo) and may not add content, upload media, or edit other relatives.
• Tree-Only Access. An Admin or Founder may restrict a Viewer to the family tree alone. A Viewer with Tree-Only Access cannot open the gallery, recipes, stories, discussions, calendar, or news sections of that family space.
• Ownerless spaces are not permitted. No role change may leave a family space without an administrator. A Founder who is the sole Founder of a space must use Transfer Ownership to hand the Founder role to another member of that space before leaving it, stepping down, or deleting their account. The new Founder is notified in the app and by email when the role is transferred.
• Selective and restricted content. When a contributor restricts an item (such as a private photo album, shared recipe, or personal letter) to specific family members, that content is accessible only to the author and the specifically invited recipients. Family Administrators and Founders cannot view, edit, or delete private items to which they have not been granted access.
• Our override. If a family space is left with no active Founder — for example because the Founder's account was closed, deleted, or suspended — we may designate an existing active member of that space as Founder so the space remains manageable. We log such actions.
• Administrator representation: By taking administrative actions, an Admin represents that they have an appropriate basis and authority within their family to do so, and accepts responsibility for those actions.
• Notice: Where technically feasible, we provide members with in-product or email notice of significant administrative actions such as removal from a family space or a completed Tree Merge.
• We do not adjudicate family disputes: We do not mediate or decide disputes about who "owns" family information, who should be an Admin, or whether a particular administrative action was appropriate. Those matters are between family members.
• Removal: Being removed from a family space ends your access to that space. It does not necessarily remove content you contributed from the space, and it cannot recall copies that other members legitimately viewed, saved, or downloaded while you were a member.

Administrative authority is limited to the permissions provided by the Service and does not authorize an administrator to violate another person's legal rights, circumvent restricted-content controls, or access information that the administrator is not otherwise authorized to view. The Company may limit, suspend, or reverse administrative actions where reasonably necessary to address security concerns, legal obligations, or violations of these Terms.

If a family space has no active Founder and cannot be managed through the ordinary transfer process, we may designate an eligible existing member as Founder when reasonably necessary to preserve continuity and administration of the family space. Where practical and appropriate, we will provide notice to affected members and maintain an internal record of the reassignment. We may decline or delay a reassignment where there is a credible security concern, conflicting claim, legal restriction, or other circumstance requiring additional review. Such reassignment does not constitute a legal determination of ownership of family records or other intellectual property.

7. Tree Merge

Please read this section carefully — it affects who can see your content. The Service includes a Tree Merge feature that allows two separate family spaces — typically the same extended family recorded twice by relatives who did not know about each other's space — to be combined into a single unified family tree.

• Who may initiate it: The Founder or a Co-Founder of one family space may request a merge with another space, and the Founder or a Co-Founder of that other space must approve it before anything is combined. No one needs to be a Founder of both spaces, and no single Founder can complete a merge alone. Family Administrators who are not Founders or Co-Founders may suggest a merge, but cannot request, approve, execute, or un-merge one. Any member may suggest a merge for the Founders to consider.
• Automated suggestions: The Service suggests a possible duplicate only when the two spaces share at least five of the same joined members, at least five additional placeholder relatives whose names match, and at least one shared family relationship. These suggestions are intended to identify the same extended family recorded twice, not overlapping in-law trees. The absence of a suggestion does not prevent Founders from intentionally searching for and requesting a merge with another tree, including an in-law tree. By approving that request, the Founders accept the access consequences described in this Section.
• Cancellation before completion: After a request is approved but before the merge is completed, a Founder or Co-Founder of either tree may cancel it. The cancellation closes the request and clears review decisions, and no profiles, content, memberships, or relationships are changed.
• What transfers: When a merge completes, the profiles, family-tree records, photographs, videos, recipes, stories, comments, events, and other content in each space are migrated into the combined family tree and become accessible to the members of that combined family. Your content remains private to the merged family, but it is no longer isolated from the members of the family you have joined.
• Consent: Individual member consent is not required for a merge. By joining a family space, you accept that its Founder or a Co-Founder may execute a merge affecting content you contributed.
• Un-merging after completion: A completed Tree Merge is reversible. Two Founders or Co-Founders of the merged space can request and approve an un-merge from the Merge Room, and the Service will return the profiles, relationships, media, recipes, stories, events, and memberships that moved in the merge to the family space they came from. Content created after the merge remains with the merged space, content deleted after the merge is not restored, and reversal cannot recall content that members of the merged family already viewed, saved, or downloaded while the merge was active. Merges completed before this feature was introduced cannot be reversed automatically; contact support for assistance.
• Relationship to deletion: Deleting your account after a merge removes your account and your personal profile data as described in Section 13 and in the Privacy Policy, but content you contributed that has been incorporated into a shared family tree may remain accessible to that family.
• Responsibility: We are not liable for family-level disputes, loss of privacy, or other consequences arising from a Founder's decision to execute or undo a merge. Communicating and governing that decision is the responsibility of the Founders involved.

A Tree Merge may materially expand the group of family members able to access information and content previously maintained in separate family spaces. Before a merge is completed, the authorized Founders or Co-Founders of both participating spaces must approve the proposed merge through the Service's designated approval process. Individual account-holder approval is not ordinarily required by the Service's family-administration workflow. However, this provision does not eliminate any consent, privacy, or other rights that applicable law independently requires or provides. By approving a merge, the approving Founders or Co-Founders acknowledge the potential expansion of access to family information and represent that they have an appropriate basis for authorizing the action.

Certain completed Tree Merges may be reversed through the Service's supported un-merge functionality, subject to the technical and operational limitations described below. An eligible un-merge requires the applicable authorization through the Merge Room and may restore qualifying records, relationships, memberships, and content to their originating family spaces. An un-merge does not necessarily restore content deleted after the original merge, relocate content created after the merge, or reverse access that occurred while the family spaces were combined. Information previously viewed, downloaded, copied, saved, or independently disclosed by another member cannot necessarily be retrieved or recalled. Some historical merges or exceptional circumstances may require support assistance and may not be capable of automated reversal.

Founders and Co-Founders are responsible for evaluating the appropriateness of a proposed merge and communicating with affected family members. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, we are not responsible for disputes arising solely from authorized family decisions or the lawful sharing of content resulting from those decisions. Nothing in this Section excludes liability for our own conduct where such liability cannot lawfully be excluded.

8. Your Content and the License You Grant Us

• You keep ownership. You retain all rights you hold in the content you submit, post, or display through the Service ("Your Content"). We do not claim ownership of it and we do not sell it.
• Operational license. You retain the ownership rights you hold in Your Content. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license, solely as reasonably necessary to operate, maintain, secure, and provide the Service, to host, store, reproduce, format, transmit, display, back up, and technically process Your Content; to make it available to persons authorized through the Service; and, when you affirmatively use an optional feature, to transmit the relevant content to service providers necessary to perform that feature. This license continues for as long as the applicable content is maintained through the Service in accordance with these Terms and the Privacy Policy, including where content remains in an authorized shared family space after the contributing user's account is closed. The license does not transfer ownership of Your Content to us and does not authorize unrelated commercial exploitation of Your Content.
• Uploading to multiple family spaces. If you belong to more than one family space, you may choose to upload a single photo or other item to several of your spaces at the same time. Selecting multiple spaces makes that item visible to the members of each selected space, and each copy is governed by the rules of its own family space. You are responsible for choosing which spaces receive your content; we do not share it anywhere you did not select.
• Your representations. You represent and warrant that you own Your Content or have all rights, licenses, consents, and permissions necessary to upload it and to grant the license above. This matters particularly for older family photographs, professional or studio photographs, scanned documents, published recipes, music, video taken by others, and music videos or other third-party content linked or embedded from services such as YouTube.
• Prohibited content. You agree not to upload content that is unlawful, abusive, harassing, defamatory, obscene, fraudulent, or that infringes another person's intellectual property, privacy, or publicity rights. We may, but are not obligated to, remove content that violates these Terms or is otherwise objectionable.
• Lawful links only. Any external content you link to or embed — including music tracks, videos, and movie trailers — must be lawful and must not infringe any copyright or other rights. You may not link to pirated, unauthorized, or illegal streams or downloads, or to sites whose purpose is to distribute them. Where the Service accepts a third-party link (for example, a YouTube video for a song or movie trailer), we may restrict which providers are allowed and remove links that violate this rule.
• Keep your own copies. The Service is not a substitute for your own backups. Please keep independent copies of irreplaceable photographs, recordings, and documents.

9. Information About Other People

A genealogy service inevitably contains information about people other than you — parents, grandparents, siblings, children, living relatives, deceased relatives, and individuals who have never created an Our Inner Hearth account.

You represent that you have an appropriate basis to submit information about other individuals, that you will not knowingly submit such information unlawfully or in violation of another person's rights, and that you will respond reasonably to requests from family members about information you have contributed concerning them. If a living person asks us to remove information about them, we may contact the relevant Family Administrator and may remove or restrict that information.

If you submit information about another living individual, you must have an appropriate lawful basis to do so and must not knowingly violate that individual's privacy or other legal rights. A person whose information appears in the Service may contact us at support@ourinnerhearth.com to request review, correction, restriction, or removal, as applicable. We may request information reasonably necessary to evaluate the request, consult relevant family administrators where appropriate, and take action consistent with applicable law, the Privacy Policy, and the rights of affected persons. We do not guarantee that every request will result in deletion of all related genealogical records, particularly where information is independently maintained by other users or retention is legally permitted or required.

10. AI-Powered Features

Some features use artificial intelligence — for example scanning a handwritten recipe, enhancing a photograph, transcribing an audio or video recording, or suggesting story prompts. Photo tagging is always done manually by members; we do not use facial recognition or automated person suggestions. These features are optional: they run only when you choose to use them.

• When you use an AI feature, the relevant content (such as the recipe image, the photo, or the audio track) is transmitted to a third-party AI provider for processing, as described in the Privacy Policy.
• AI output can be inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading. You should not rely on it as a statement of fact, and you are responsible for reviewing and correcting anything you choose to save.
• AI-enhanced photographs are altered representations, not originals, and we do not warrant that an enhancement preserves the accuracy of the original image.
• You remain responsible for having the rights necessary to submit content to an AI feature.

Certain optional Service features use artificial intelligence to process content that you choose to submit, including recipe scanning, audio transcription, photo enhancement, and writing prompts. When you activate an AI-powered feature, the information reasonably necessary to perform that feature may be transmitted to an applicable third-party processing provider, as further described in our Privacy Policy. AI-generated or AI-assisted results may be inaccurate, incomplete, altered, or unsuitable for a particular purpose. You are responsible for reviewing outputs before saving, publishing, or relying upon them. You remain responsible for having the rights and permissions necessary to submit content for processing, including content depicting or identifying other individuals. The availability and functionality of AI features may change over time.

11. Prohibited Uses

You agree not to:

• use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of any applicable law;
• infringe the intellectual property, privacy, or publicity rights of others;
• harass, threaten, abuse, or defame any person;
• impersonate any person or misrepresent your affiliation with anyone;
• access or attempt to access any account, family space, or data you are not authorized to access;
• scrape, crawl, harvest, or use automated means to extract data from the Service;
• invite others except through the approved in-app invitation and referral tools, or use those tools — or any contact information obtained through the Service — for mass messaging, spam, unauthorized commercial solicitation, or contact-list harvesting;
• introduce viruses, malware, or any other harmful code;
• probe, scan, or attempt to circumvent any security, authentication, or rate-limiting measure;
• reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble any part of the Service, except to the extent applicable law prohibits that restriction;
• interfere with, disrupt, or place an unreasonable load on the Service or its infrastructure;
• use the Service, or data extracted from it, to build or improve a competing product or service;
• upload content you do not have the rights or authorization to upload; or
• use the Service in any way that violates another person's privacy rights.

11A. Community Guidelines and Enforcement

Use of the "Our Inner Hearth" service is a privilege, not a right. To maintain a safe, respectful, and lawful environment for all families, the following actions are strictly prohibited. Violation of these guidelines may lead to enforcement actions, including content removal and permanent account termination.

Prohibited Content and Activities:

• Illegal Content: This includes, but is not limited to, Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM), which will be reported to law enforcement authorities.
• Hate Speech: Content that attacks or demeans an individual or group based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender, or other protected characteristics.
• Harassment and Bullying: Targeted, unwanted, or repetitive abusive behavior, including threats and shaming.
• Incitement of Violence: Any content that encourages or calls for violence against individuals or groups.
• Sharing of Private Information (Doxxing): Publishing another person's private information without their explicit consent.
• Platform Integrity Violations: Spam, phishing, malware, or attempts to impersonate another person or entity.
• Intellectual Property Infringement: Uploading content for which you do not own the copyright or other intellectual property rights.

Enforcement Policy:

We reserve the right to enforce these Community Guidelines at our sole discretion. Enforcement actions may include, but are not limited to, removing content, issuing warnings, restricting account privileges, temporarily suspending accounts, and permanently terminating accounts. The severity of the action will be determined by the severity of the violation, and certain violations may result in immediate account termination without prior notice. If an account with an active subscription is terminated due to a violation, no refund will be issued for the current billing period.

Reporting content. Members can flag photos, videos, comments, and discussion posts for review from within the app. Reports go only to us, not to the person who shared the content. Reported material is reviewed manually; when we remove content we hide it from everyone and keep a record of the report and the material for our enforcement, legal, and safety purposes.

We may investigate reported content and take proportionate action based on the nature of the conduct, available information, applicable law, and the need to protect users and the Service. Actions may include warnings, restrictions, content removal, temporary suspension, permanent termination, or referral to appropriate authorities where required or permitted by law. We may preserve relevant records where reasonably necessary for safety, security, enforcement, dispute resolution, or compliance with legal obligations.

12. Our Intellectual Property and Your Feedback

Except for User-Generated Content, the Service and its associated software, designs, features, branding, and other proprietary materials are owned by Benson Enterprises LLC or its respective licensors and rights holders. The OUR INNER HEARTH name, trademarks, logos, and associated brand elements may be owned by a separate rights holder and used by Benson Enterprises LLC under license. Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership of any intellectual-property rights to users or grants rights beyond the limited license expressly provided.

Feedback. If you voluntarily send us suggestions, ideas, feature requests, or other feedback, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free license to use and implement that feedback for any purpose, without obligation to compensate you or keep it confidential. You are never required to send us feedback.

13. Termination, Cancellation, and Account Deletion

These are three different things, and we use these terms consistently in these Terms and in the Privacy Policy:

• Subscription cancellation stops future billing and changes your account to Viewer status at the end of the paid period. Your account and content remain. Ending a gifted membership — whether the payer cancels or the recipient takes over payments — affects billing only, and never the recipient's account or stored content.
• Account termination or suspension ends or pauses your ability to access the Service. We may suspend or terminate your account immediately, with or without notice, if you breach these Terms, if we reasonably suspect fraud or a security risk, or if required by law. Where practical, we will give you notice and an opportunity to cure.
• Account deletion is a request by you to delete your account and associated personal information. You may delete your account at any time from Profile & Settings or by emailing us. When you do, your subscription billing is canceled immediately and your account enters a 30-day grace period during which it is deactivated but not yet erased. We send an immediate confirmation email and an automated reminder approximately 7 days before the grace period ends. Logging back in and choosing "Reactivate" within those 30 days restores your account in full. During the grace period (days 1–30), your account is deactivated — you cannot sign in or use the Service — but your profile, bio, photos, and contributed content remain visible to your family members so that a reactivation restores everything exactly as you left it. Once the 30-day grace period expires, your sign-in credentials and personal account data (including your bio and profile photo) are permanently deleted, and your place in each family tree becomes an unclaimed relative profile that family administrators may continue to maintain and update with genealogical facts such as dates, milestones, and family connections. Content you contributed to shared family spaces remains accessible to your family, attributed to a "Former Member" rather than to you. No refund is issued for the current billing period when you delete your account. If you are the only administrator of a family tree, you must first appoint another administrator, and if you are the sole Founder of a family tree you must first complete Transfer Ownership, before the account can be deleted. Leaving a family space ends your access but does not delete you from that family's tree — your place in the tree remains, marked as no longer having access, so the family's genealogy stays intact.

Effect on content. Deleting your account removes your account, profile, and personal information from our primary systems within a reasonable period, and residual copies may persist in encrypted backups until those backups expire. However, content you contributed to a shared family space — including content incorporated into a family tree, content shared with other members, and content carried into a combined tree by a Tree Merge — may remain in that family space and accessible to its members, and we cannot recall copies other members have already saved or downloaded. Where retained content is attributed to a "Former Member," this changes the account attribution but does not necessarily render the underlying content anonymous or eliminate all information identifying the former user. If you want specific shared content removed, delete it before requesting account deletion, or ask the Family Administrator of that space.

Unpaid amounts and survival. Termination does not relieve you of the obligation to pay amounts already owed. Sections 8 (license grant, as to content still hosted), 9, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 19 survive termination.

Account deletion is separate from subscription cancellation and account suspension. When you request deletion, recurring subscription billing will be canceled as described in this Section, and your account will enter the stated 30-day deactivation and reactivation period. After the applicable grace period, we will delete or de-identify eligible account credentials and personal profile information from active systems, subject to applicable legal obligations, permitted retention, and the practices described in the Privacy Policy. Certain family-tree records and content previously shared with other family members may remain in the applicable family space to preserve authorized family records. Where retained content is attributed to a 'Former Member,' this changes the account attribution but does not necessarily render the underlying content anonymous or eliminate all information identifying the former user. Users may request review of specific retained content through the procedures described in our Privacy Policy. We cannot guarantee retrieval or deletion of copies independently downloaded or retained by other users.

If your account is the sole Founder account for a family space, we may require you to complete the available ownership-transfer process before the account can be closed through the ordinary self-service workflow. If you cannot complete that process, contact support so we can evaluate an appropriate administrative resolution consistent with applicable law and the rights of other affected members.

14. Disclaimers

Your use of the Service is at your sole risk. The Service is provided on an "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" basis, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and course of performance.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, we do not warrant that:

• the Service will be uninterrupted, timely, or continuously available;
• the Service will be error-free or that defects will be corrected;
• every item of content will be preserved, retrievable, or free from loss;
• genealogy information, names, dates, or family relationships submitted by users are accurate or complete;
• relationship classifications recorded on a family tree (such as biological, adopted, step, or foster relationships) reflect anything beyond user-provided family context. They are not legal proof of parentage, custody, guardianship, or adoption, and we do not certify, verify, or adjudicate legal family status;
• AI-generated or AI-enhanced output is accurate, complete, or reliable;
• the Service is compatible with every device, browser, or operating system;
• any particular feature will remain available indefinitely; or
• the Service will meet your specific requirements.

Because family photographs and recordings are often irreplaceable, you should maintain your own independent copies of anything you cannot afford to lose.

These disclaimers apply only to the fullest extent permitted by applicable law. Nothing in these Terms excludes any warranty, remedy, or consumer right that cannot lawfully be excluded.

15. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Our Inner Hearth and its owner, employees, contractors, partners, agents, suppliers, and affiliates will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, including loss of profits, data, use, goodwill, or other intangible losses, arising out of or relating to your use of, or inability to use, the Service.

This limitation applies to claims arising from, among other things: loss, corruption, or deletion of data or content; service interruptions or downtime; the conduct or content of other users; actions taken by a Family Administrator; the execution or reversal of a Tree Merge; User-Generated Content; AI-generated or AI-enhanced functionality; and unauthorized access to your account.

Aggregate cap. To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability for all claims arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) the total subscription fees you actually paid us in the twelve (12) months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars ($100).

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

Nothing in this Section limits liability to the extent such limitation is prohibited by applicable law, including liability arising from conduct for which applicable law does not permit contractual exclusion or limitation. The limitations in this Section apply only to the extent enforceable under the law governing the particular claim.

16. Indemnification

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Benson Enterprises LLC and its officers, employees, contractors, and agents from third-party claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and reasonable legal expenses to the extent arising from: (a) content you submitted without the necessary rights or authorization; (b) your infringement or misappropriation of another person's intellectual-property rights; (c) your unlawful violation of another person's privacy or publicity rights; (d) your material breach of these Terms; or (e) your unlawful or intentionally wrongful use of the Service. This obligation does not apply to the extent the claim results from the Company's negligence, willful misconduct, violation of applicable law, or other conduct for which indemnification cannot lawfully be required. The Company will provide reasonably prompt notice of a covered claim and a reasonable opportunity to participate in its defense, subject to appropriate protection of the Company's interests.

17. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or relating to them or the Service are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You and Our Inner Hearth agree that the exclusive venue and forum for any such dispute is the state or federal courts located in or serving Anne Arundel County, Maryland, and each party consents to the personal jurisdiction of those courts. These Terms contain no arbitration requirement and no class-action waiver. Nothing here prevents either party from seeking relief in a small-claims court of competent jurisdiction.

Before filing a claim, please contact us at support@ourinnerhearth.com so we can try to resolve the matter informally.

The foregoing choice-of-law and forum provisions do not deprive a consumer of mandatory protections or remedies that cannot lawfully be waived under applicable law.

18. Changes to These Terms

We may modify these Terms from time to time. For material changes, we will provide notice at least 30 days before they take effect by email, an in-product notice, or an account notification, and we will update the "Last Updated" date above. Continued use of the Service after the effective date means you accept the revised Terms. If you do not agree, you may cancel your subscription and stop using the Service.

We may revise these Terms periodically. For material changes, we will provide advance notice as required by applicable law, generally at least 30 days before the changes become effective. Where applicable law or the nature of a change requires affirmative acceptance or additional consent, we will request that acceptance or consent before applying the change. If you do not agree to revised Terms, you may discontinue use of the Service and cancel any active subscription, subject to applicable rights and obligations.

19. General Provisions

• Entire agreement: These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service.
• Severability: If any provision is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions stay in effect.
• No waiver: Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
• Assignment: You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them to a successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets.
• Force majeure: We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.

Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, employment, fiduciary, or agency relationship between you and the Company. We may deliver notices electronically to the email address associated with your account or through the Service, except where applicable law requires another method. Any assignment of these Terms remains subject to applicable law and any legally required notice or consent.

20. Contact Us

Questions about these Terms? Write to us at support@ourinnerhearth.com or Our Inner Hearth, P.O. Box 19, Bowie, Maryland 20719-0019, United States.

Privacy-related requests, including requests concerning information about individuals who do not maintain accounts, may also be submitted to support@ourinnerhearth.com and will be handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable law.