Terms of Service – Smart Search for Ghost

These Product Terms supplement the Website Terms of Service published at https://visitingobjects.com/docs/legal/terms (the "Site Terms"). By enabling or continuing to use Smart Search for Ghost (the "Service") you accept both sets of terms. Capitalised words not defined here have the meanings given in the Site Terms.

1. Service description

The Service provides a managed search engine, UI components, and automated synchronisation of Ghost‑CMS content. It is offered remotely as software‑as‑a‑service; no on‑premise installation is provided.

2. Service Quotas and Usage Limits

Your subscription includes specific quotas for indexed documents (posts + pages) and search requests measured on a rolling 30-day basis. Quota details are provided in your account dashboard and confirmed at the time of subscription.

• Usage is calculated on a rolling 30-day basis, not by calendar month.
• When you exceed a usage quota we will e-mail a notice; you have 7 days to upgrade to a higher plan or enable overage billing.
• We do not hard-fail or throttle during the grace period, but may do so if no upgrade, overage billing, or payment is made after 7 days.
• Overage billing: Instead of upgrading, you may opt to pay overage fees for usage beyond your plan limits:
  • Search overages: Charged per 1,000 searches over your monthly limit.
  • Document overages: Charged per 1,000 indexed documents over your plan limit.
  • Overage rates vary by plan tier; higher tiers receive lower per-unit rates.
  • Current overage rates are published on the pricing page and in your account dashboard.
• Overages are calculated at the end of each billing cycle and charged to your payment method on file.
• You may set a monthly overage spending cap in your account settings to avoid unexpected charges.

3. Reasonable Use Limits

In addition to plan quotas, the Service is subject to reasonable use limits including:

• Rate limits on API requests and webhook deliveries.
• Restrictions on frequency of re-indexing operations.
• Limits on concurrent search queries per instance.
• Storage quotas for indexed content and metadata.

Exceeding reasonable use limits may result in temporary throttling, suspension of service, or account termination. We will make reasonable efforts to notify you before taking action except in cases of abuse or security threats.

4. Fees, Trials and Refunds

• A thirty‑day free trial is available once per person, business, or organization. No card is charged until the trial ends.
• Monthly and annual plans may be refunded within 30 days of purchase. Contact support to request a refund.
• After 30 days, plans are non-refundable. Cancellation stops future billing and takes effect at the end of the current paid period.
• Prices exclude applicable taxes. VAT will be added at checkout for EU and UK customers as required by law. Sales tax or GST may apply in other jurisdictions based on your location and our registration status.
• Overage charges: If you exceed your plan's included usage and have overage billing enabled, additional charges apply at the rates published on the pricing page. Overages are billed at the end of each billing cycle.
• Prices may change; notice will be posted on the pricing page and e-mailed to active subscribers at least 30 days in advance.

Plan Changes and Cancellations

• Downgrades: If you downgrade to a lower-tier plan, the change takes effect at the end of your current billing period. You retain access to your current plan's features through the period you have paid for.
• Cancellations: Canceling your subscription stops future billing and takes effect at the end of your current billing period. You continue to have access to paid features until that date.
• No Prorations or Credits: We do not issue prorated refunds or account credits for plan changes. You receive the full value of what you paid by retaining access through your paid period.
• Simple Policy: If you paid for a plan through a specific date, you have access through that date. No complex calculations, no credits to track.

5. Acceptable Use and Content Restrictions

You must not index or cause the Service to process content that is illegal, hateful, exploitative, extremist, infringes third‑party intellectual property, or contains medical, financial, or children's personal data without proper consent.

6. Prohibited Commercial Activities

You may not use the Service to:

• Create, develop, or operate a competing search or content indexing product.
• Resell, sublicense, or redistribute the Service or its components to third parties.
• Extract, reverse-engineer, or replicate the Service's search algorithms, ranking methods, or UI components for use in other products.
• Provide search-as-a-service to third parties using your subscription.
• Use the Service's API or functionality to build wrapper services or derivative products.
• Benchmark the Service for competitive analysis or public performance comparisons.

Violations of these restrictions may result in immediate service termination and legal action.

7. Customer Responsibilities

• Maintain accurate billing details and secure API keys.
• Ensure that you hold all rights necessary for the content you index.
• Comply with all laws applicable to your site visitors, including children's‑privacy statutes. Self‑service sign‑ups are restricted to users 18 or older.

8. Integration and Maintenance Requirements

• You must maintain the required integration code in your Ghost site, either through the code injection feature or directly in your theme template.
• You must create and maintain a Custom Integration within your Ghost instance to provide our system with access to your content and admin APIs.
• It is your responsibility to ensure the integration code remains current and that our access to your Ghost API is not interrupted. Service disruptions may occur if these requirements are not met.
• When new major versions or breaking changes are released, we will post notices on our site and may send email notifications. However, it remains your responsibility to keep your integration up to date.
• If you experience service disruptions, your first troubleshooting step should be to verify that your integration code is current and that our API access remains valid.

9. Availability and Support

• The Service is provided on a best‑effort basis without an uptime guarantee. Custom‑plan customers may obtain a separate SLA.
• Standard e‑mail support responds within 48 business hours; critical incidents are prioritised.

10. Data Processing and Security

• Visiting Objects acts as a processor for indexed content and as a controller for account data. Paddle is the controller for billing data; Visiting Objects stores only Paddle customer and subscription identifiers.
• Indexed data is stored in United States cloud infrastructure (see Privacy Policy). Backups are encrypted server‑side and retained for 14 days.
• When a user deletes a search instance, all associated data — including index entries, analytics, and configuration — is permanently deleted without delay. The only remaining data may exist in encrypted system-level backups retained for disaster recovery and security purposes. These backups are automatically purged within 14 days in accordance with our data retention policy.
• We log search terms and usage statistics for 30 days to power analytics dashboards.

11. Intellectual Property

The Service's software and UI snippet are proprietary. You may embed the snippet unmodified on your Ghost site for as long as your subscription is active. Reverse‑engineering, sublicensing, or redistribution are forbidden.

12. Suspension and Termination

We may suspend or terminate the Service immediately for:

• material breach of these Terms or the Site Terms;
• non‑payment beyond the 7‑day grace period;
• content or behaviour posing legal risk;
• repeated quota overages without upgrade;
• violations of reasonable use limits or prohibited commercial activities.

In cases of account termination due to violations of our Terms of Service or applicable law, Visiting Objects may retain certain account and usage data as necessary to comply with legal obligations, enforce our terms, or defend against legal claims. Such data will be retained only for as long as reasonably necessary for these purposes and handled in accordance with our data protection policy.

13. Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability

The Service is provided "as is". To the maximum extent permitted by law, total liability arising from or related to the Service is limited to the greater of 100 USD or the fees you paid in the 30 days prior to the event giving rise to the claim. We are not liable for indirect, special, or consequential damages.

14. Changes to These Terms

We may modify these Terms by posting a revised version 30 days before it becomes effective. Continued use after that date constitutes acceptance.

15. Contact

Questions regarding these Terms: legal@visitingobjects.com