Terms of service

Quick summary (not a substitute for the full terms below): Use VptTips responsibly. We provide it “as is.” Disputes are handled in Maryland courts or arbitration. You can opt out of arbitration within 30 days of first signing in.

1. Acceptance

These Terms form a binding agreement between you and Vanpaultek (“Company,” “we,” or “us”). By accessing or using the VptTips website and related services (collectively, the “Service”), you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old. If you are between 13 and 18 you may use the Service only with the involvement of a parent or legal guardian. If you are using the Service on behalf of an organization you represent that you have authority to bind it to these Terms.

3. Your account

• You are responsible for keeping your sign-in credentials secure and for all activity under your account.
• Report suspected unauthorized access to security@vpttips.com.
• You may delete your account at any time by emailing privacy@vpttips.com.

4. Acceptable use

Do not use the Service to:

• Violate any applicable law or the rights of others.
• Upload malicious code, attempt to breach security controls, or probe for vulnerabilities outside the scope of our security policy.
• Violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030) or any state analog (e.g., Maryland’s unauthorized-access statute, Md. Code, Crim. Law § 7-302).
• Scrape, harvest, or mass-download content without permission.
• Impersonate another person or misrepresent your affiliation with any organization.
• Submit unlawful, infringing, harassing, or defamatory content, or content that invades another person’s privacy.
• Use the Service for any purpose prohibited by US export-control laws (including the Export Administration Regulations and OFAC sanctions programs).

4a. Prohibited content & conduct — zero tolerance

In addition to § 4, the following uses of the Service are categorically prohibited. They are grounds for immediate suspension or termination of your account, retention of forensic logs, and — where the law requires — reporting to the relevant authorities.

1. Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and child exploitation. Any content that sexualises, exploits, or endangers a minor, including generated, altered, drawn, or fictional depictions. Vanpaultek is obligated under 18 U.S.C. § 2258A to report suspected CSAM to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline and to preserve related records under 18 U.S.C. § 2258A(h). We will cooperate with law-enforcement requests.
2. Weapons & mass-harm instructions.Instructions, blueprints, precursor sourcing, or operational planning for firearms conversions (auto-sears, Glock switches, drop-in auto sears), untraceable / ghost guns, explosives (pipe bombs, IEDs, TATP, ANFO), chemical agents, biological agents, or radiological / nuclear devices.
3. Targeted violence & terrorism.Planning, coordinating, inciting, celebrating, or providing material support for violence against a specific person, identifiable group, event, or venue. “Swatting,” stalking, and coordinated harassment campaigns are included.
4. Self-harm method coaching.Dosing, technique, or encouragement directed at the user’s or another person’s suicide or serious self-injury. Educational discussion of mental health with appropriate resources is not prohibited.
5. Controlled-substance synthesis. Clandestine manufacturing steps, precursor sourcing, or counterfeit-pill pressing for any Schedule I / II substance, fentanyl analog, methamphetamine, or related compound.
6. Unauthorised malware & intrusion.Ransomware, credential stealers, info stealers, stalkerware, rootkits, RATs, botnet operation, or exploit code directed at systems you do not own or are not explicitly authorised to test. Legitimate authorised penetration testing and CTF work is not prohibited but must remain lawful.
7. Non-consensual intimate imagery(sometimes called “revenge porn”), synthetic sexual imagery of real people without their consent (including “deepfakes”), and content that violates state NCII statutes (e.g. Md. Code, Crim. Law § 3-809).
8. Hate, harassment, and dehumanising content.Content that targets, threatens, or dehumanises a person or group based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or immigration status.
9. Fraud, scams, and impersonation. Phishing kits, social-engineering scripts for identity theft, fake identification documents, tax / benefits fraud, romance scams, and impersonation of real people or organisations for deceptive purposes.
10. Privacy-invading content. Doxxing, non-consensual surveillance instructions, or unlawful collection of personal information about a third party.
11. Election-integrity interference. False instructions on when / where / how to vote, forged official communications, or synthetic media impersonating public officials for deception.
12. Circumvention attempts. Jailbreak prompts, repeated attempts to evade content filters, chaining prompts to extract prohibited output, or re-packaging outputs for distribution in violation of this section.

Violating § 4a may result in immediate termination under § 12, retention of relevant records for legal-hold purposes, and, where CSAM is implicated, mandatory NCMEC reporting and preservation under 18 U.S.C. § 2258A.

4b. AI-assisted features — acceptable use

VptTips offers AI-assisted features (search answers and the writing-helper tasks in the top search pill). By using them you acknowledge:

• Outputs are not professional advice.The “Legal suggestion,” “Tax related,” “Medical & health,” and “Finance related” tasks produce general information only. Each reply carries a mandatory disclaimer directing you to a licensed professional. Do not rely on AI output for medical diagnosis, prescription, legal advice, tax filing decisions, or investment decisions.
• Outputs may be wrong. AI answers can be inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date. You are responsible for verifying anything you act on.
• Do not submit third-party personal data through the writing helpers without a lawful basis and, where required, the subject’s consent.
• You agree not to use AI outputsto produce content in violation of § 4 or § 4a, to train a competing model, or to circumvent Anthropic’s own acceptable-use policies.

4c. Content moderation

To enforce § 4 and § 4a, Vanpaultek operates a layered moderation pipeline:

• Input pre-screen. Every prompt sent to the AI features is scanned for categorical red-flag content (CSAM, weapons-synthesis, targeted violence, self-harm method coaching, malware, controlled-substance synthesis) before it reaches the model. Blocked prompts receive a categorical refusal and are logged with category + input length (not the raw text) for abuse review.
• Model-layer refusals. The underlying AI model applies its own safety policy and will refuse additional categories even when the route-level screen passes.
• Human review on escalation. Repeated or egregious violations may be reviewed by Vanpaultek staff under a strict need-to-know basis for the sole purpose of enforcing these Terms, investigating abuse, or complying with a lawful request.
• Appeal. If you believe a moderation decision was in error, write to legal@vpttips.com with the date, time (UTC), and a description of what you were trying to do. We aim to respond within 10 business days.

5. Intellectual property

The VptTips source code is made available under the MIT License (see LICENSE). All third-party trademarks appearing on the Service — including but not limited to Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, SoundCloud, Pandora, JioSaavn, Gaana, Wynk Music, and Last.fm — are the property of their respective owners. Their appearance is nominative fair use; VptTips is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any of them.

5.1 VptTips name, logo, and brand assets

The names “VptTips” and “Vanpaultek”, the VptTips logo (the rounded blue tile containing a white “V” and sparkle mark), any stylized wordmarks or combination marks incorporating them, and the VptTips color palette and visual identity (collectively, the “Brand Assets”) are the exclusive property of Vanpaultek, protected under U.S. and international copyright and trademark law. All rights reserved, including rights under Title 17 of the U.S. Code and the Lanham Act (15 U.S.C. § 1051 et seq.).

The Brand Assets are not licensed under the MIT License that covers the source code. Nothing in these Terms, and nothing in the source-code license, grants you any right, title, or interest in or to the Brand Assets by implication, estoppel, or otherwise.

You may:

• Use the name “VptTips” in plain text to refer to this Service (descriptive nominative use) — e.g. in news articles, reviews, blog posts, academic references.
• Display an unmodified VptTips logo to link back to our Service from your site, provided the link is not misleading and you do not imply sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation.

You may not, without our prior written consent:

• Reproduce, alter, recolor, rotate, distort, animate, or incorporate the logo into another design or mark.
• Use the Brand Assets as part of your own product name, service name, domain name, username, social-media handle, or company name.
• Sell, sublicense, or include the Brand Assets in merchandise.
• Suggest — through visual proximity, co-branding, or otherwise — that Vanpaultek sponsors, endorses, or is affiliated with your work.

Brand-asset requests (press kit, partnership marks, co-branding) may be sent to brand@vpttips.com. We aim to respond within 10 business days.

5.2 Fonts, colors, and bundled assets

To avoid any third-party licensing ambiguity, the Service:

• Ships no proprietary font files.All text renders in the visitor’s operating-system UI font, selected via the standard CSS keywords -apple-system and BlinkMacSystemFont with a generic fallback stack (Segoe UI, Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif). No Google Fonts or paid webfont service is loaded; no font file is transferred with the page.
• Uses an original color palette. Brand blues (#155dfc CTA, #1352c0 link, #2264ff → #0a3ab8 logo gradient) and neutrals (#18181b ink, #71717a ink-muted) were selected for WCAG 2.1 AA contrast and are not copied from any identifiable third-party brand identity.
• Uses custom SVG icons and logo. Every icon in the account menu, music drawer, auth forms, and the VptTips logo itself is drawn by Vanpaultek. No external icon library (Font Awesome, Lucide, Material Icons, Heroicons, etc.) is imported.
• Bundled audio is procedurally synthesized. The demo tracks under /public/audio are generated by a build-time script included in the repository. They are not recordings, covers, or adaptations of any copyrighted musical work and contain no third-party audio samples.

6. DMCA copyright policy

We respect the rights of copyright holders. If you believe content made available through the Service infringes a copyright you own or control, please follow the procedure on our DMCA page. Notices that do not include the statutory elements (17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3)) may not be actionable. Repeat infringers have their accounts terminated.

7. Third-party content

The Service embeds content from third parties (for example YouTube’s privacy-enhanced embed at youtube-nocookie.com). Your use of that content is also governed by the third party’s terms. Under 47 U.S.C. § 230 we are not the publisher or speaker of any such third-party content.

7a. Phone Link (device-to-device)

Phone Link pairs your phone’s browser with the desktop session over an end-to-end-encrypted WebRTC channel. See Privacy § 6a for the data minimization details. Your use of the feature is subject to the additional rules below.

7a.1 You are responsible for what you send

Because Phone Link is peer-to-peer, Vanpaultek has no ability to read, scan, filter, or preserve clipboard text, files, or camera frames you transmit through it. You — as the person initiating the pairing and the person on the other end — are solely responsible for the content that crosses the channel.

7a.2 Prohibited uses

You may not use Phone Link to:

• Transmit content that violates § 4 (Acceptable use) above — including, but not limited to, child sexual abuse material (CSAM), non-consensual intimate imagery, content infringing someone else’s copyright, malware, or content subject to U.S. export-control or sanctions programs.
• Pair with a device that is not yours or on which the owner has not consented to a paired session.
• Circumvent, reverse-engineer, or abuse the pairing-code rate-limiting to probe for active sessions.

7a.3 Termination of the peer session

Pairing codes expire after 5 minutes of idle time or 30 minutes of absolute age, whichever comes first. Either party may terminate the session at any moment by closing the tab or tapping the close button.

7a.4 No warranty on delivery

WebRTC connectivity depends on network conditions (NATs, firewalls, carrier-grade NAT, VPNs). We do not guarantee that a pair session will establish or remain stable for any particular duration. Failed or dropped transfers are your responsibility to retry.

7a. Admin two-factor authentication

Accounts with the administrator role are contractually obliged to enrol in two-factor authentication before exercising any admin capability (broadcast, user-list access, audit viewing). By accepting the admin role, you agree that:

• You will enrol one of: an authenticator app (TOTP), a recovery email address, or a real mobile carrier number. Virtual, forwarded, or VoIP numbers (including Google Voice) are not accepted and any attempt to register one will be rejected at enrolment.
• You will not share your TOTP secret, recovery email, or SMS device with anyone. Revealing those factors is treated the same as sharing your password.
• You will re-verify 2FA as prompted (every 4 hours of active use). Failing to do so terminates access to admin pages until verification completes.
• Losing access to your 2FA factor means losing admin access until a different account owner resets it; Vanpaultek does not offer over-the-phone admin-account recovery.

7b. Admin screen broadcast

An administrator may start a live invitation-only screen broadcast to up to 5 concurrent signed-in viewers whose email address is on the broadcast’s allowlist. See Privacy § 6b for the data-minimization details. Additional rules:

• The administrator is responsible for the content of any screen they share. Vanpaultek has no ability to view, scan, or record the broadcast stream and therefore cannot moderate its content.
• Administrators must only share screens that they are authorized to share. Broadcasting customer records, colleagues’ unmasked data, licensed third-party software UI in breach of that software’s terms, or any content covered by the Acceptable-use clause (§4) is prohibited.
• Viewersconsent to receiving the broadcast by visiting the /watch URL after signing in. Viewers must not record or redistribute the stream without the administrator’s explicit permission.
• Broadcasts auto-stop after 2 hours. The administrator can end a session at any time; sessions cannot be resumed — start a new one.

8. Disclaimer of warranties

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND — EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY — INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE.

9. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, VANPAULTEK AND ITS AFFILIATES, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES; FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, OR GOODWILL; OR FOR ANY AMOUNT EXCEEDING THE GREATER OF (a) THE FEES YOU PAID US IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM OR (b) US $100. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages, so these limits may not apply to you to the extent prohibited by your local law.

10. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Vanpaultek and its officers, employees, and agents from any claim, damage, or expense (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising from your breach of these Terms, your violation of applicable law, or your content submitted to the Service.

11. Changes to the Service or Terms

We may update the Service and these Terms from time to time. For material changes we will post notice or request renewed consent on your next sign-in.

12. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you materially breach these Terms or violate applicable law.

13. Governing law & venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland, without regard to its conflict of laws rules, and by applicable federal law of the United States. Subject to § 14, any action or dispute not resolved in arbitration shall be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Maryland, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

14. Dispute resolution — arbitration & class waiver

Please read this section carefully — it affects your rights.

Any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service shall be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. Arbitration shall take place in Maryland or remotely. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Class-action waiver. You and we agree that disputes will be brought only in an individual capacity and not as part of a class, consolidated, or representative action.

Opt out. You may opt out of this arbitration clause within 30 days of first accepting these Terms by emailing legal@vpttips.com with “Arbitration opt-out” in the subject line and your name, email, and signup date in the body. Opt-outs are irrevocable.

Small claims. Either party may bring an individual action in small-claims court in Maryland instead of arbitration.

15. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, that provision shall be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions shall remain in full force.

16. Entire agreement

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, the DMCA policy, and the Accessibility statement, constitute the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service.

17. Contact

General: hello@vpttips.com
Privacy: privacy@vpttips.com
Security: security@vpttips.com
Legal notices: legal@vpttips.com

These Terms provide a reasonable baseline but are not legal advice. Review with a Maryland-licensed attorney before commercial launch.