Terms of Service

Mastiff Defense is operated by CapyBearHug LLC, a Wyoming limited liability company ("we", "us"). These Terms of Service, together with the Data Processing Addendum below (together, the "Terms") and our Privacy Policy, govern your use of the Mastiff Shopify app, the Mastiff Defense compliance API, the chat widget, and the related services at mastiffdefense.com (the "Service").

By installing the app, choosing a subscription plan, or using the Service, you ("the merchant", "you") agree to these Terms. If you use the Service on behalf of a business, you represent that you have authority to bind that business.

01 The Service

Mastiff Defense screens the messages that pass through your storefront chatbot. Each message travels through three guardrail layers (keyword rules, your store's policy rules, and an AI semantic evaluation) before your customers see a reply, and each reply is screened on the way out. The Service also includes the storefront chat widget, order and product lookup tools, the store settings page, audit logging of screening decisions, and the middleware API described in our documentation.

02 What Screening Is and Is Not

Automated screening reduces risk. It is not perfect, and we do not promise that it is. False positives (a legitimate message blocked) and false negatives (a message that should have been caught but was not) will occur. You should treat the Service as one layer of your own compliance and security practices, not a replacement for them.

03 Fail Modes, Availability, and Support

If the AI evaluation layer is temporarily unavailable, the Service degrades according to your configured fail mode. The default is fail open: messages that passed the first two layers are allowed through so your chatbot keeps working. You can switch your store to fail closed (all messages blocked until the layer recovers) on your store settings page. The first two layers always run, and screening of outgoing replies always fails closed. By using the Service you accept the behavior of the fail mode configured for your store.

We work to keep the Service continuously available, but we do not offer a service level agreement, uptime guarantee, or service credits. For support, email [email protected]; we aim to respond within one business day.

04 Your Account and Responsibilities

You agree to:

• Keep your Shopify account and your Mastiff API keys secure, and tell us promptly if you believe a key has been compromised
• Use the Service only for lawful purposes and only with your own store's data
• Not probe, overload, resell, or attempt to bypass the Service or its guardrails
• Own responsibility for your catalog, published policies, and storefront content, which the chatbot draws on to answer customers
• Own responsibility for your own regulatory duties toward your customers, including any notices your jurisdiction requires you to give them (for example privacy notices and automated-assistant disclosures) and the accessibility of your storefront as a whole. The widget ships with an AI-assistant disclosure and an accessibility-conscious design; keeping them intact and lawful in your storefront context is your responsibility

05 Fees and Billing

The Service is billed through the Shopify Billing API on your Shopify invoice. Current plans, included message volumes, and overage rates are published on our pricing page and shown in the in-app plan picker before you subscribe. The free trial is available once per store and covers the monthly plan fee only; usage-based overage still accrues during the trial. After your plan's included messages, usage-based overage accrues at your plan's per-message rate, up to a spending cap you approve and can change at any time; when overage is disabled or the cap is reached, the Service pauses instead of billing further. Plan changes, refunds, and billing disputes are handled through Shopify's billing system.

06 Term and Termination

These Terms apply from the moment you install the app or use the Service, and end when you uninstall the app. We may suspend or terminate the Service for a store that breaches these Terms, abuses the Service, or has an unpaid subscription. On termination, your API keys are revoked immediately and your data is deleted as described in the Privacy Policy (deletion follows Shopify's shop erasure webhook, approximately 48 hours after uninstall, with narrow carve-outs for billing records and our record of data-protection requests).

07 Intellectual Property

We own the Service and its software, including the widget, the screening pipeline, and the documentation. You own your store's data and content. Each party grants the other only the limited rights needed to operate and use the Service: you allow us to process your store data to provide the Service, and we allow you to use the Service for your store while these Terms are in effect.

08 Warranty Disclaimer

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE". TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT SCREENING WILL DETECT OR BLOCK ANY PARTICULAR MESSAGE OR CATEGORY OF CONTENT.

09 Limitation of Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, NEITHER PARTY IS LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, OR DATA, ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE IS LIMITED TO THE FEES YOU PAID US FOR THE SERVICE IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM. THESE LIMITS APPLY REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY AND EVEN IF A REMEDY FAILS OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE.

10 Indemnification

You will defend and indemnify CapyBearHug LLC against third-party claims arising from your store's catalog, policies, and content; your own regulatory obligations toward your customers; or your breach of these Terms.

11 Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Wyoming, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules.

12 Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the effective date and version at the top of this page, and for material changes we will notify installed stores by email where possible. Continued use of the Service after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

13 Contact

DPA Data Processing Addendum

This Data Processing Addendum ("DPA") is part of these Terms and applies whenever we process personal data of your storefront customers on your behalf.

D1. Roles. For your customers' chat data and the store data used to answer them, you are the data controller (or, under US state privacy laws, the "business") and CapyBearHug LLC is your processor (or "service provider"), consistent with our Privacy Policy. For your own account and billing data, we are the controller.

D2. Details of processing. Subject matter: real-time compliance screening of storefront chat messages and generation of chatbot replies using your catalog, order, and policy data. Duration: while the app is installed, plus the deletion window in D10. Data subjects: your storefront customers. Data categories: whatever customers type into the chat (which may include their name, email, address, and order number), processed transiently; stored audit data is limited to screening-decision metadata whose rationale is redacted of common personal-data patterns on a best-effort basis.

D3. Documented instructions. We process customer personal data only to provide the Service under these Terms and your configuration of it (your policy settings, sensitive-data rules, and fail mode), and not for any other purpose. We will inform you if, in our view, an instruction infringes applicable data protection law.

D4. Confidentiality. Persons we authorize to process customer personal data are bound by confidentiality obligations.

D5. Security. We maintain appropriate technical and organizational measures, including TLS encryption in transit, encryption at rest, API keys stored only as SHA-256 hashes, HMAC verification of platform webhooks, rate limiting, and best-effort redaction of personal-data patterns from stored decision rationales. Our security practices are described further in the Privacy Policy.

D6. Subprocessors. You authorize the subprocessors listed in our Privacy Policy, which we keep current. If we add or replace a subprocessor that materially handles personal data, we will notify installed merchants (by email where possible) with a reasonable opportunity to object before the change takes effect for their store. We impose data-protection obligations on subprocessors consistent with this DPA.

D7. Data subject requests. We assist you in fulfilling data subject requests, including through Shopify's customer data-request and erasure webhooks, each of which we durably record and act on within the 30-day window. Because chat processing is stateless and logs hold decision metadata rather than message content, there is typically no stored customer data to return or erase.

D8. Personal data breaches. We will notify you without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal data breach affecting customer personal data we process for you, describing, to the extent known, the nature of the breach, the categories affected, the likely consequences, and the measures taken or proposed.

D9. Assessments. We will provide reasonable assistance with data protection impact assessments and state-law data protection assessments that concern the Service.

D10. Deletion and return. On termination, customer-related data is deleted through the shop erasure process described in the Privacy Policy (approximately 48 hours after uninstall, with the billing-records and data-protection-request-record carve-outs stated there). You may request earlier deletion at any time.

D11. Audit and information. On reasonable written request, we will make available the information reasonably necessary to demonstrate compliance with this DPA and respond to reasonable audit inquiries from you or your appointed auditor.

D12. CCPA/CPRA service provider terms. To the extent the California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended, applies to personal information we process for you: we will not sell or share that personal information; we will not retain, use, or disclose it for any purpose other than providing the Service (or as otherwise permitted by the CCPA), including not outside the direct business relationship between us; we will not combine it with personal information from other sources except as permitted by regulation; we impose equivalent obligations on our subcontractors; we certify that we understand and will comply with these restrictions; and we will notify you if we can no longer meet them, in which case you may take reasonable and appropriate steps to stop and remediate unauthorized use.

D13. Other US state privacy laws. Where a US state privacy law (such as those of Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, or Texas) applies to our processing for you, we will comply with the processor duties it imposes, including confidentiality, deletion or return of personal data at your direction, assistance with your compliance obligations, engaging subcontractors under written contracts imposing equivalent duties, and cooperating with reasonable assessments. Our stateless, metadata-only design collects and retains only what is reasonably necessary to provide the Service.

D14. International transfers. Processing takes place in the United States as described in the Privacy Policy. This baseline DPA does not yet incorporate the EU Standard Contractual Clauses; if you are established in the EEA, the UK, or Switzerland and require them, contact us at [email protected].

D15. Precedence and survival. This DPA is part of these Terms, controls over them with respect to the processing of personal data, and survives for as long as we process personal data on your behalf.