Terms of Service

These Terms of Service govern your use of HowItStands, including howitstands.com, the app, accounts, templates, status trackers, public status links, reports, and any status links you create, share, view, update, or report.

By using the service, you agree to these terms. If you use the service for an organization, you represent that you have authority to accept these terms for that organization.

Who Uses the Service

These terms apply to:

• Account holders and owners who create templates, create status trackers, manage public links, invite collaborators, or send notifications.
• Collaborators who are invited to view or update status trackers.
• Public viewers who open, view, favorite, revisit, share, or report public status links.

Accounts and Security

Accounts are intended for users who are at least 18 years old. You can sign in with Google or with an email and password. You are responsible for your account, login sessions, sign-in credentials, and all activity that occurs under your account. Keep your credentials and devices secure, and contact us if you believe your account has been misused.

Public Status Links

Public status links are designed to be accessible without an account. Anyone with a public status link may view the public fields attached to that status. Public links can be forwarded, copied, screenshotted, saved, or seen by unintended recipients once shared.

Owners are responsible for public titles, custom aliases, step names, public notes, and other public fields. Do not place sensitive, private, confidential, regulated, or third-party personal information in public fields unless you have all required rights and permissions.

User Content

You retain ownership of content you submit to the service. You grant HowItStands a limited license to host, process, display, transmit, format, back up, and otherwise use that content as needed to operate the service, provide public status links, support collaborators, send notifications, prevent abuse, and maintain the service.

You are responsible for the accuracy, legality, and rights to the content you submit. HowItStands does not verify owner-provided status content. Public viewers should treat status content as information supplied by the owner, not by HowItStands.

No Sensitive or Critical Use

Do not use the service to store or share medical records, financial account data, government IDs, passwords, legal notices, emergency communications, safety-critical workflow updates, regulated recordkeeping, or other highly sensitive information. The service is not designed for urgent, safety-critical, legal-notice, medical, financial, or compliance-required communications.

Collaborators

Owners are responsible for inviting the right collaborators and assigning appropriate roles. Collaborators may only access or update status trackers they are authorized to use. Owners remain responsible for activity on status trackers they own, including collaborator activity.

Custom Aliases

Custom aliases are not guaranteed. We may reserve, reject, revoke, rename, or disable custom aliases or links that are infringing, misleading, abusive, impersonating, confusing, illegal, or in conflict with reserved pages or service requirements. Receiving a custom alias does not grant trademark, brand, or ownership rights in that alias.

Notifications

Owners must only add notification recipient email addresses when they have an appropriate and lawful reason to contact those recipients. Do not use the service for spam, harassment, unsolicited marketing, or abusive email activity. Notification delivery is not guaranteed and may fail, be delayed, or be limited.

Reports and Moderation

Public viewers may report a status. We may review, restrict, disable, revoke, delete, or remove accounts, public links, custom aliases, or content for abuse, privacy violations, illegal content, impersonation, spam, security risk, or violations of these terms. We do not promise to monitor all content.

Content that sexually exploits or endangers minors is strictly prohibited. Where required by law we remove it and report it to the appropriate authorities, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. We may also preserve and disclose account or content information to comply with law, respond to valid legal process, or protect the safety of any person or the service.

Copyright and Intellectual Property Complaints

If you believe content on a public status infringes your copyright or other rights, you can send a complaint through the contact form with: your contact details; identification of the work and the specific material at issue, including the status link; a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorized; a statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and that you are the rights holder or authorized to act on their behalf; and your name as a signature. We may remove or disable reported material, ask for additional information, notify the owner, or allow the owner to respond. We may suspend or terminate accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate cases.

Prohibited Uses

• Posting sensitive personal data in public fields.
• Impersonation, deception, harassment, doxxing, or abuse.
• Phishing, scams, malware, spam, or unsolicited marketing.
• Violating another person's privacy, intellectual property, or other rights.
• Scraping, probing, abusing service limits, or interfering with security controls.
• Using public links as authentication or authorization for another system.
• Misleading viewers about ownership, affiliation, official status, or endorsement.

Availability and Changes

The service is provided as-is and as-available. We do not guarantee uninterrupted access, error-free operation, an SLA, or that any public status link will remain available. Links may be unavailable because of maintenance, expiration, revocation, deletion, usage limits, security controls, moderation, or technical issues.

We may change, suspend, or discontinue features, routes, limits, or parts of the service. We may update these terms from time to time. The updated date above shows the latest version.

Our Intellectual Property

HowItStands owns the service design, software, branding, product names, visual systems, and platform technology. These terms give you only a limited right to use the service as described here. They do not transfer ownership of our intellectual property.

Suspension and Termination

We may suspend or terminate accounts, access, public links, custom aliases, or content if we believe there is a violation of these terms, legal risk, security risk, abuse, or a need to protect the service or others. You may request account closure through the contact form.

Disclaimers and Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the service is provided without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory. We do not provide professional, legal, medical, financial, logistics, or compliance advice.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, HowItStands will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, lost goodwill, service interruption, or unauthorized access arising from or related to use of the service.

Indemnity

You agree to defend and indemnify HowItStands from claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses arising from your content, your use of the service, your public status links, your invitations or notifications, your violation of these terms, or your violation of another person's rights.

Privacy and Contact

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle information. For questions, account closure requests, or legal notices, use the contact form.