Terms and Conditions — HandlerWatch

These Terms and Conditions govern your use of HandlerWatch ("the Service"), operated by HandlerWatch. By accessing or using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. No Professional Advice or Certification

HandlerWatch is a monitoring and notification tool. It is not a certifying agent, a regulatory body, or a legal advisor. The Service provides information for convenience and oversight purposes only. Use of this Service does not constitute an official organic audit or guarantee compliance with USDA or international regulations.

2. "As-Is" Data & Source Disclaimer

The Service relies entirely on the USDA Organic Integrity Database (OID) API.

Accuracy: We do not generate, verify, or modify the certification data. We cannot guarantee that the information provided by the USDA is accurate, complete, or up-to-date.
Availability: We are not responsible for downtime, errors, or "404" responses from the USDA OID API. Service availability is subject to the USDA's own system uptime, technical changes, and API rate limits.
Mandatory USDA Disclosure: "This product uses USDA's Organic Integrity Database API but is not endorsed or certified by USDA."

3. Limitation of Liability (CRITICAL)

To the maximum extent permitted by law, HandlerWatch, its owners, and operators shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or special damages arising out of or in any way connected with:

Any decisions made or actions taken by you in reliance upon the Service's data.
Financial losses, loss of business, or brand damage resulting from an operation's certification status change (or any related certification data) that was missed, delayed, or incorrectly reported.
Any failure to receive a notification or alert due to technical errors, network issues, or email provider filtering.
Liability Cap: In no event shall our total liability to you for all damages exceed the actual amount of fees paid by you to the Service during the 12-month period prior to the event giving rise to the liability.
The "As-Is" Clause: The Service is provided on an 'AS-IS' and 'AS-AVAILABLE' basis without warranties of any kind.

4. Data Privacy & Security Appendix

We prioritize the confidentiality of your supply chain data and operational privacy.

Data Ownership: You retain all rights to the lists of operations and "watched items" you upload or select within the Service. We do not claim ownership over your specific supply chain data.
Confidentiality of Watchlists: We treat your 'Watchlists' as strictly confidential. HandlerWatch will not sell, rent, or share your specific monitoring lists with third parties.
Data Collection & Usage: We collect email addresses for account access, billing information (processed securely via Lemon Squeezy), and technical log data necessary to maintain service health.
USDA Data Caching: To improve performance, we may cache public data from the USDA OID. This cached data is public information and is not subject to confidentiality.
Security Measures: We implement industry-standard encryption (SSL/TLS) for data in transit and follow best practices for database isolation. No method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure; we cannot guarantee absolute security.
Payment Processing: We do not store credit card information. All payments are handled by Lemon Squeezy and are subject to their Privacy Policy.

5. Intellectual Property

All content, features, and functionality of the Service—including but not limited to software code, website design, text, graphics, logos, and the arrangement thereof—are the exclusive property of HandlerWatch and are protected by international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws.

Limited License: We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to access and use the Service for your internal business purposes.
Prohibited Actions: You may not decompile, reverse engineer, or attempt to derive the source code of the Service. You may not "scrape" or replicate the HandlerWatch interface for use in a competing service.

6. User Responsibilities

You are responsible for:

Account Security: Maintaining the absolute confidentiality and security of your account, passwords, and any associated API keys or access tokens. You agree to notify HandlerWatch immediately of any unauthorized use of your account.
Access Management: Any actions taken through your account are deemed to be your own. HandlerWatch is not liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to protect your login credentials.
Final Due Diligence: You agree that HandlerWatch is a secondary monitoring tool. You are responsible for performing final due diligence and verifying an operation's status directly via official USDA documentation.
Compliance: Ensuring your use of the Service complies with all local and international laws regarding organic trade, record-keeping, and data privacy.

7. Termination of Service

We reserve the right to modify, suspend, or terminate the Service or your access to it for any reason, subject to the following:

Termination for cause: Where your access is terminated due to a material breach of these Terms (including but not limited to unauthorized use, non-payment, or violation of applicable law), termination may take effect immediately and without prior notice.
Termination without cause: Where we elect to discontinue the Service or terminate your account for reasons other than a breach, we will endeavour to provide at least 30 days' prior written notice to your registered email address. In such cases, any prepaid and unused subscription fees covering the period beyond the termination date will be refunded on a pro-rata basis.
Modification of Service: We reserve the right to modify, limit, or alter features of the Service at any time. Material reductions in functionality will be communicated with reasonable notice where practicable.

8. AI and Automated Access Policy

In alignment with our commitment to data integrity and privacy:

No AI Training: HandlerWatch does not use your private Watchlists, operational data, or search history to train Large Language Models (LLMs) or artificial intelligence systems.
Automated Scraping Prohibited: You are strictly prohibited from using AI "agents," automated bots, or scrapers to access, extract, or monitor data from the Service for the purpose of training third-party AI models or replicating our proprietary interface.
Human-Centric Design: The Service is designed for use by human professionals. We reserve the right to throttle or terminate accounts that demonstrate non-human patterns of interaction that threaten system stability or data security.

9. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of North Macedonia, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or in connection with these Terms or your use of the Service shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent courts of North Macedonia. If you are a consumer located in the European Union, you may also have the right to bring a claim in the courts of your country of residence under applicable EU consumer protection law.

10. Payments, Billing & Credits

10.1 Subscription Plans and Billing

HandlerWatch is a paid subscription service. By subscribing, you authorize us and our payment processor (Lemon Squeezy, operated by Lemon Squeezy LLC) to charge your designated payment method on a recurring basis at your selected billing interval (monthly or annual) until your subscription is cancelled. All prices are displayed in US Dollars (USD) and are exclusive of applicable taxes unless stated otherwise.

10.2 Payment Processor

All payment transactions are processed by Lemon Squeezy (lemonsqueezy.com). HandlerWatch does not collect, store, or process your payment card details directly. By completing a purchase, you agree to Lemon Squeezy's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy in addition to these Terms.

10.3 Refund Policy — 30-Day Money-Back Guarantee

We offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on all new subscriptions. If you are not satisfied with the Service for any reason within the first 30 days of your initial purchase, you may request a full refund by contacting us. Refunds are processed to your original payment method within a reasonable timeframe, subject to the conditions below.

The following conditions apply to the money-back guarantee:

The guarantee applies to first-time subscriptions only and covers the initial payment. It does not apply to subsequent renewal charges, plan upgrades, or billing cycle changes.
Refund requests must be submitted within 30 calendar days of the initial purchase date.
Only one refund per customer account is permitted under this guarantee.

Outside of the 30-day guarantee window, all sales are final. We do not offer refunds for unused time remaining on an active subscription after the guarantee period has expired, except:

(a) where required by applicable law; or
(b) at our sole discretion in exceptional circumstances, assessed on a case-by-case basis (for example, a verified extended service outage caused solely by HandlerWatch).

To request a refund under the money-back guarantee or under (b), contact us directly. We reserve the right to decline requests that do not meet the applicable criteria.

10.4 Cancellation

You may cancel your subscription at any time via the billing portal accessible from your account Settings page. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid billing period. You will retain full access to the Service until that period end date, after which your account access will end. HandlerWatch will not refund any unused portion of a prepaid billing period following a customer-initiated cancellation, except as required by applicable law.

10.5 Account Credits

An "Account Credit" is a monetary value held against your HandlerWatch account that may be applied toward future invoices. Credits arise in the following circumstances:

Plan upgrade (proration): If you upgrade to a higher-tier plan mid-billing-cycle, the unused value of your current plan for the remaining period may be applied as a prorated credit toward your new plan's charge. The exact proration calculation is performed by Lemon Squeezy's billing engine at the time of the upgrade.
Goodwill credit: At our sole discretion, we may issue account credits in response to documented service disruptions, billing errors, or other exceptional circumstances that we determine warrant compensation.
Custom plan adjustments: For custom enterprise plans, where a pricing adjustment, plan modification, or early termination initiated by HandlerWatch results in a surplus payment, the surplus amount will be issued as a credit applicable to future invoices rather than as a cash refund, unless otherwise agreed in writing.
Overpayment: In the event that you are charged an amount in excess of what was owed due to a billing error on our part, the surplus will first be offered as an account credit. A cash refund may be issued instead upon written request, subject to verification of the error.

The following conditions apply to all Account Credits without exception:

Credits are non-transferable and may not be assigned to another account.
Credits have no cash redemption value and will not be paid out as currency under any circumstances, except where a verified billing error as described above has occurred and a cash refund has been explicitly approved by HandlerWatch.
Credits expire immediately upon permanent account closure or cancellation without renewal.
Credits cannot be combined with promotional discount codes or other promotional pricing unless explicitly permitted in writing by HandlerWatch.
HandlerWatch reserves the right to modify, reduce, or revoke credits that were issued in error or obtained through fraudulent means.

10.6 Price Changes

We reserve the right to modify subscription prices at any time. For existing active subscribers, any price increase will take effect at the start of the next billing period following at least 30 days' prior written notice sent to your registered email address. Continued use of the Service after the effective date of a price change constitutes your acceptance of the new pricing. If you do not accept the new price, you may cancel your subscription before the change takes effect as described in Section 10.4.

10.7 Failed Payments and Account Suspension

If a scheduled payment fails, our payment processor may attempt to re-process the charge over a period of several days ("dunning period"). During this time, your account will generally remain active. If payment is not successfully collected by the end of the dunning period, your subscription may be moved to a delinquent or past-due status, and access to the Service may be suspended or restricted until payment is received.

It is your sole responsibility to maintain accurate, valid payment information in your account. HandlerWatch is not liable for any loss of data, loss of access, or business disruption resulting from account suspension due to non-payment or failed payment.

10.8 Taxes

You are solely responsible for all taxes, duties, levies, or similar governmental charges applicable to your subscription in your jurisdiction. Where required by law, HandlerWatch or Lemon Squeezy may collect and remit applicable taxes on your behalf. If you are a tax-exempt entity, it is your responsibility to provide valid supporting documentation prior to or at the time of purchase. Taxes already collected cannot be refunded.

11. Modifications to These Terms

We reserve the right to update or modify these Terms at any time. When we make material changes, we will notify you by sending an email to your registered email address and by updating the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. The updated Terms will become effective on the date stated in the notice.

Your continued use of the Service after the effective date of the revised Terms constitutes your acceptance of the changes. If you do not agree to the revised Terms, you must stop using the Service and cancel your subscription before the effective date. We encourage you to review these Terms periodically to stay informed of any updates.

For changes that are required by law or that do not materially affect your rights or obligations, we may update the Terms without providing advance notice, though we will always update the "Last updated" date.