OwnTongue

Terms of Service

Effective date: 2026-06-10 (draft — not yet in force; pending attorney review)

1. Who we are

OwnTongue is operated by OwnTongue LLC [REVIEW: exact registered name + state TBD] ("OwnTongue", "we", "us"). These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a contract between you and OwnTongue and govern your use of the OwnTongue website and service at owntongue.com.

2. Accepting these terms

By creating an account, starting a session, or otherwise using the service, you agree to these Terms. If you are using OwnTongue on behalf of an organization (for example, a congregation, school, or city office), you confirm that you have authority to bind that organization, and "you" means the organization.

3. The service

OwnTongue is a live speech translation service. A presenter's speech is transcribed in real time, translated, and broadcast as live captions to audience members' own devices. Audience members join a session by entering a join code — they do not need accounts. The service is offered in the United States only at launch.

4. Accounts and eligibility

  1. Accounts are held by presenters (the people or organizations who run sessions). Audience viewers do not create accounts.
  2. You must be at least 18 years old to create an account.
  3. You sign in with Microsoft Entra ID, Google, or an email magic link. You are responsible for keeping access to your sign-in email and identity provider secure, and for activity that happens under your account.
  4. You agree to provide accurate account information and keep it up to date.

5. Audience viewers

Anyone with a valid join code may view a session's captions. Viewers must use the service lawfully and in line with our Acceptable Use Policy. The account holder who runs a session is responsible for how the session is used, including who is given the join code.

6. Subscriptions and billing

  1. Paid plans are billed monthly through Stripe, our payment processor. Your payment card details are collected and stored solely by Stripe; they never reach our servers.
  2. Plans include monthly usage quotas. When you reach your quota, the service blocks new sessions until the next billing period (an in-progress session may stop shortly after the cap is reached).
  3. You can cancel at any time through the billing portal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and you keep access until then.
  4. We may change prices with advance notice. Price changes apply from your next billing period after the notice.

7. Refunds

Charges already billed are non-refundable except where required by law or where we decide, in our discretion, to issue a refund.

8. Acceptable use

Your use of OwnTongue is subject to our Acceptable Use Policy, which is part of these Terms. In short: use the service lawfully, do not broadcast harassing, hateful, or illegal content, do not try to bypass quotas or probe our security, and make sure you have any consent you need to transcribe speakers at your event.

9. Your content and your responsibility

  1. You (the presenter) are responsible for the speech you transcribe and broadcast through the service, and for having the rights and any required consent to do so.
  2. You retain all rights in your content. You grant us only the limited license needed to operate the service: to process your audio and caption text in real time in order to transcribe, translate, and display it during your session.
  3. We do not store audio and we do not retain caption text after a session ends. See our Privacy Policy for details.

10. Machine-generated captions

Captions and translations are generated by automated speech recognition and machine translation. They are provided as an aid to understanding and may contain errors, omissions, or mistranslations. The original speaker's words are authoritative; the captions are not. Do not rely on captions for legal, medical, safety-critical, or other decisions where accuracy is essential. The service presents a notice to this effect, and these Terms repeat it.

11. Intellectual property

  1. The service, including its software, design, and branding, belongs to OwnTongue and its licensors. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the service while these Terms are in effect.
  2. You may not copy, modify, reverse engineer, or create derivative works of the service except where the law allows it despite this restriction.
  3. Feedback you send us may be used to improve the service without obligation to you.

12. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what data we process and how. Headline commitments: audio is never stored, caption text is not retained after the session, and we do not sell personal data.

13. Third-party services

The service depends on third-party providers, including Microsoft Azure (speech recognition, translation, hosting, and email), Stripe (payments), and Google and Microsoft (sign-in). Their performance is subject to their own terms, and we are not responsible for their independent acts or outages, though we choose and monitor them with care. The current sub-processors list is published at owntongue.com/sub-processors.

14. Availability and changes to the service

We work to keep the service available and reliable, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted operation. Live transcription depends on your network conditions and on third-party providers. We may add, change, or remove features; if a change materially reduces what your paid plan includes, we will give you notice and you may cancel.

15. Warranty disclaimer

The service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory — including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that captions or translations will be accurate or error-free.

16. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows: (a) neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, or data; and (b) our total liability arising out of or related to the service is limited to the amounts you paid us in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to the claim. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

17. Indemnification

If you use the service for an organization or in the course of business, you will defend and indemnify OwnTongue against third-party claims arising from your content, your sessions, or your breach of these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, including claims that you transcribed a speaker without required notice or consent.

18. Suspension and termination

  1. You may stop using the service and cancel your subscription at any time.
  2. We may suspend or terminate your access if you materially breach these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, if required by law, or if your use creates risk or harm to the service or others. Where practical, we will notify you and give you a chance to fix the problem first.
  3. On termination, your right to use the service ends. Sections that by their nature should survive (including Sections 10, 11, and 15–21) survive termination.

19. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of [REVIEW: governing-law state TBD], without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Before filing any claim, you agree to contact us at legal@owntongue.com and give us 30 days to try to resolve the dispute informally.

20. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. For material changes we will give notice (for example, by email to account holders or a notice in the product) before the changes take effect. Continued use after the effective date of an update means you accept the updated Terms. The effective date at the top of this page always shows the current version.

21. General

  1. Severability. If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect, and the unenforceable part is modified to the minimum extent needed to make it enforceable.
  2. Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Acceptable Use Policy, Privacy Policy, and (where executed) the Data Processing Addendum, are the entire agreement between you and OwnTongue about the service.
  3. Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, with notice to you.
  4. Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control.
  5. Notices. We send notices to your account email; you send notices to legal@owntongue.com.

22. Contact

Questions about these Terms: legal@owntongue.com.
Mailing address: [REVIEW: mailing address TBD].