Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") are a binding agreement between you and Viscous Bits Computing Solutions Inc., a corporation incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act and based in Ontario, Canada, operating as ReceiveVault ("Viscous Bits", "we", "us", "our"). They govern your use of the ReceiveVault service at receivevault.com, at securefiles.viscousbits.ca, and at any custom domain a Customer connects to it (the "Service").

In short. This summary is not part of the Terms and does not change them; the numbered sections govern.

• The beta is free and by invitation (section 3.6).
• The Service is for business use only, not for consumers (section 3.1).
• Your files stay yours, and we do not use them to train artificial intelligence (section 6).
• The Service is not a backup: keep your own copies (sections 2.3 and 3.6).
• We may suspend an account that is misused (section 13).
• Ontario law applies (section 14).
• We email account owners at least 30 days before a material change to these Terms (section 15).

1. Acceptance of these Terms

1.1 You accept these Terms by creating an account, by accepting an invitation to join an account, or by signing in. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1.2 If you create or join an account for a business, you confirm that you have authority to bind that business, and "you" in these Terms means that business as well as you personally.

1.3 People who upload or download files through a link a Customer sent them ("Contacts") do not need an account and are not Customers. Section 7 says which parts of these Terms apply to them.

2. The Service

2.1 The Service lets account holders ("Customers") request files from Contacts by sending them a single-use secure link. The Contact uploads through that link without creating an account. The files are scanned for malware where we can read them, stored encrypted, and made available to the Customer to download.

2.2 On plans that include it, Customers can also send files to Contacts through a delivery link, with an expiry date, an optional download limit, optional email verification of the recipient, and optional password protection.

2.3 The Service is for transferring files, not for storing them. Every file has a deletion date (section 6.4), and every link expires.

2.4 The features available to you depend on your plan. The current plans and their limits are shown on our pricing page.

3. Accounts

3.1 Who may hold an account

You may create an account only if:

• you are using the Service for business or professional purposes and are not contracting as a consumer;
• you have reached the age of majority in the province, territory or state where you live; and
• you have authority to bind the business named at signup.

We rely on these statements and do not verify them. If they are untrue, we may close the account.

3.2 Account security

You are responsible for keeping your password, second-factor devices, passkeys and recovery codes secure, and for everything done through your account. Do not share credentials. Tell us promptly at support@receivevault.com if you believe your account has been accessed without authorization. We strongly recommend turning on multi-factor authentication, and an account owner may require it for every user on the account.

3.3 Team accounts

An account may have several users with different roles (owner, admin, member). The owner is responsible for who they invite and for what those users do. Users accept these Terms when they accept an invitation. Removing a user ends their access but does not remove records of what they did.

3.4 Subscription and billing

During the beta. Accounts opened during the private beta are free (section 3.6). We do not ask for a payment method, there is no trial, and we charge nothing. The rest of this section applies only once paid plans launch and the account owner subscribes to one.

Plans and payment. Paid plans are billed monthly or annually in advance through our payment processor, Stripe. You add a payment method when you subscribe. Prices are shown in Canadian dollars or US dollars according to the region detected from your connection. You can switch regions before you subscribe, and the currency chosen when you subscribe applies for the life of the subscription.

Renewal. A subscription renews automatically at the end of each billing period, monthly or annually, at the price then in effect for your plan, and the payment method on file is charged.

Cancellation. You may cancel from the billing settings in your account at any time. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. You keep full access until then. There is no refund for the remainder of the period, except as set out in the Refund and Cancellation Policy. After the period ends the account becomes read-only; you can still sign in, download your files, export your records, or resubscribe. If it is still read-only 90 days later, we mark it for deletion, after warning emails around day 60 and day 83; the account and everything in it are removed from the live Service within a further 31 days, and drop out of our backups within 30 days after that. The same applies to an account that stays read-only for non-payment.

Plan changes. An upgrade takes effect immediately and you are charged the prorated difference for the rest of the period. A downgrade takes effect at the next renewal.

Price changes. We may change prices. We will email the account owner at least 30 days before a price change applies to you, and it applies from your next renewal after that date. Annual subscribers keep their price until their annual renewal.

Failed payment. If a renewal charge fails, we will email you and retry the payment. During this time you keep access. If payment has not succeeded 21 days after the end of the paid period, the account becomes read-only until payment succeeds.

Taxes. Prices exclude taxes. When paid plans launch, where we are required to collect GST/HST or other sales taxes, the tax will be added at checkout and shown on your invoice, together with our GST/HST registration number. If you give us a tax registration number, you are responsible for its accuracy.

Refunds. Our Refund and Cancellation Policy is part of these Terms and sets out when a refund is available.

3.5 Closing your account

The account owner may close the account at any time from the account settings. When you close the account:

• the account becomes read-only immediately, and we start deleting it;
• for 30 days, the owner can reopen the account by signing in;
• after 30 days, the account, its users, contacts, requests, deliveries and files are removed from the live Service, and copies drop out of our backups within a further 30 days;
• files that were due to be deleted earlier under your retention settings are deleted on their original schedule.

Records that the law requires us to keep (for example invoices) and audit log entries, which are kept for 12 months, survive closure. Closing the account does not entitle you to a refund except as the Refund and Cancellation Policy provides.

3.6 The private beta

Invitation only, and free. During the private beta, new accounts are opened by invitation. A beta account costs nothing and needs no payment method.

Limits. A beta account has the features of the Pro plan, subject to beta limits on storage, active requests, file size, downloads (an amount of data per day and per 30 days, and a number of downloads of any one file per day), and the number of emails the Service sends to Contacts at your account's request per day. The download limits are currently 5 GB per day, 30 GB per 30 days and 20 downloads of any one file per day, and the email limit is currently 100 per day. The current limits are shown in your account or on request. We may also refuse uploads or downloads for a short time when the Service as a whole is at capacity. Our capacity during the beta is limited. We may change these limits, for one account or for all beta accounts, and we tell the account owner by email at least 7 days before a reduction takes effect, except where a change is needed at once to protect the Service or other customers. Lowering a limit does not delete anything, apart from automatic storage cleanup if a user on the account has turned it on: if the account is then over a limit, new uploads are refused until it is back under it.

As is. The beta is provided "as is" and "as available" (section 10). We do not promise any uptime during the beta, and features may change while it runs.

Not a backup. Files in the Service are not a backup. Keep your own copies of anything you need (sections 2.3 and 4.6).

End of the beta. The beta ends on February 28, 2027, unless we change that date under "Changes to the beta" below. We will email account owners at least 30 days before the end date. When the beta ends, a beta account is not suspended or deleted because the beta ended. Unless its owner subscribes to a paid plan, it moves to the Free plan, which currently allows 5 active requests and 0.25 GB of storage. If the account then holds more than the Free plan allows, nothing is deleted because of the move: new uploads are refused until the account is back under the limit or on a paid plan, and files already stored can still be downloaded. The Free plan has the same download limits as the beta. Files keep their normal deletion dates under section 6.4, and automatic storage cleanup still runs if a user on the account has turned it on.

Changes to the beta. We may end the beta for everyone earlier than the date above, or extend it, on at least 30 days' email notice to account owners. We may decline or revoke any invitation before it is redeemed, limit the number of beta accounts, and decline new beta accounts when the beta is full. If we close a beta account for capacity rather than for a breach, we give 30 days' notice and section 3.5 applies as if you had closed the account.

Founding offer. The owner of a beta account may subscribe to the Pro plan at 50% off the regular Pro price, with monthly or yearly billing, once paid plans launch. The offer can be claimed until 30 days after the beta ends. The founding price lasts for as long as that subscription stays active. If the subscription lapses, is cancelled or ends, the offer ends with it and a later subscription is at the regular price. Section 3.4 applies to the subscription in every other respect.

Invitations. You may invite only people you know personally or professionally and who you reasonably believe would welcome the invitation. We send invitation emails in our name. You are responsible for your choice of invitee.

4. Acceptable use

4.1 What you must not do

You must not use the Service to:

• upload, store or transmit material that infringes anyone's rights, including copyright, trademark, trade-secret and privacy rights;
• upload, store or transmit material that is unlawful, defamatory or harassing;
• distribute malware, ransomware or any code meant to disrupt, damage or gain unauthorized access to a system;
• interfere with the Service, circumvent technical limits, probe for vulnerabilities outside our responsible disclosure policy, or extract data by automated means beyond what the Service's interface offers;
• send links or messages to people who have no reason to expect them, or send bulk unsolicited messages;
• break any law that applies to you, including export-control, sanctions, anti-money-laundering and privacy law;
• exchange personal health records between health information custodians, or use the Service as a health information network. It may be used to collect documents from a patient or client at the Customer's request.

4.2 Your Contacts

You are responsible for having a lawful basis to contact each Contact and to collect from them what you ask for. The emails the Service sends to a Contact (invitations, reminders, receipts, access codes) are sent at your request and on your behalf. Contacts can stop reminder emails with one click, and you must not use another channel to get around that.

4.3 Government identification

The Service can ask a Contact for an image of a government-issued identity document. If you use this feature:

• you collect the image only for a purpose the law allows, with any consent the law requires, and you are the organization accountable for it;
• you must not collect a health card, a social insurance number or any document showing one through the identification feature. Health cards are not offered as a document type;
• you must not collect identification from a Contact you know to be under 16;
• you acknowledge that ReceiveVault stores and transmits the image and does not check that the document is genuine, current, or belongs to the person who uploaded it. Any verification is yours to do.

4.4 Children

You must not send a request to a Contact you know to be under 13 (under 14 in Quebec) except through a parent or guardian.

4.5 Notes and tags

Notes and tags in your address book are free text you write about your Contacts. Do not record sensitive information there, such as health details or identity numbers.

4.6 Your own record-keeping

You decide how long a request record is kept, subject to the maximums in section 6.4. If a law that applies to you requires you to keep records for longer (for example anti-money-laundering, law society, or tax rules), you meet that duty by exporting your data or by keeping your own copy. The Service is not a records archive.

5. Virus scanning

5.1 Every uploaded file we can read, up to the scanning size limit published on our Security page, is scanned with ClamAV before it can be downloaded. If a file is identified as malicious, we delete it, record the event in your audit log and email you.

5.2 Files above the scanning size limit, files whose scan failed, and end-to-end encrypted files (whose contents we cannot read) are not scanned. They are marked as unscanned, and you must explicitly acknowledge that before downloading one.

5.3 Scanning reduces risk; it does not remove it. We do not warrant that every malicious file will be detected, and scanning is not a substitute for your own security practices.

6. Your content

6.1 Ownership

You keep all rights to the files, address-book entries, messages and other material you or your Contacts put into the Service ("Your Content"). We claim no ownership of it.

6.2 Licence to operate the Service

You grant us a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, transmit, scan, back up and delete Your Content for the sole purpose of providing the Service to you and to the Contacts you choose. The licence ends when Your Content is deleted, except for backup copies, which drop out within 30 days of deletion.

6.3 No training of artificial intelligence

We do not use Your Content to train or improve any machine-learning or artificial-intelligence model, and we do not permit our sub-processors to do so.

6.4 Deletion schedule

Files received through a request are permanently deleted 90 days after the request's last activity unless you set a different window, from 7 to 365 days. Files sent through a delivery are permanently deleted 30 days after the delivery expires. One year is the maximum retention of any file at any plan level. We email you 7 days before the first deletion in your account. The request record itself (title, filenames, sizes, hashes, uploader details and timestamps) stays until you delete the request, one year after you archive it, or the account closes, whichever comes first. Keeping your own copy of anything you must retain is your responsibility.

6.5 Export

The account owner can export the account's records (users, contacts, requests, deliveries, audit log and settings) as a ZIP archive at any time. The export does not include file contents; download those separately before they are deleted.

6.6 Our access to Your Content

Our staff can see account details and file metadata (names, sizes, dates, scan results) to run the Service, provide support, handle abuse reports and meet legal duties. Our administrative tools cannot open file contents. We open the contents of a file only at your written request or when the law requires it, and each such access is recorded. End-to-end encrypted files cannot be read by us at all.

6.7 Your name and logo

We will not use your name, logo or the fact that you are a customer in marketing without your separate written permission.

6.8 Feedback

If you send us feedback, suggestions or bug reports, you give us a non-exclusive, perpetual, royalty-free licence to use them to improve the Service, without any duty to credit or pay you. Feedback is not Your Content.

7. Files uploaded by Contacts

7.1 When a Contact uploads a file in response to your request, or receives a file you send, you are the organization accountable for that information under privacy law. We process it only as your service provider, on your instructions, as described in these Terms and in the Privacy Policy. Business customers may sign our Data Processing Addendum, which adds detail and a schedule for health information custodians.

7.2 The upload and download pages carry a short notice to Contacts describing how their files are handled. That notice is given on your behalf, names you as the requester, and directs the Contact to you first with any question about their information.

7.3 Contacts are not party to these Terms and take on no obligations under them. You are responsible to us for what your Contacts upload in response to your requests, as if you had uploaded it yourself, and section 12 applies to it. We may refuse, remove or report any upload that would breach section 4.1 if you had made it, whoever uploaded it.

8. Intellectual property complaints

8.1 Files in the Service are never publicly hosted. Each is reachable only by the Customer who requested it and the Contact who supplied it. The Service is not a public host or a network service for making works available to the public.

8.2 If you believe a file in the Service infringes your intellectual property, write to legal@receivevault.com with your name, contact details, the work concerned, your interest in it, and enough detail to identify the file or link. We forward complaints we consider credible to the Customer concerned, we do not decide who is right, and we may suspend accounts that repeatedly infringe under section 13.

9. Service availability and support

9.1 We aim to keep the Service available, but we do not promise any specific uptime, latency or response time. We may perform maintenance, change features or take the Service offline temporarily. Where reasonable we give advance notice of planned maintenance, and our status page is the record of incidents.

9.2 Support is by email to support@receivevault.com. We aim to respond within one business day, Enterprise customers first. This is a target, not a warranty.

10. No warranty

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties or conditions of any kind, express, implied or statutory, including any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, or that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free. We do not warrant that any file is free of malware, even though we scan for it. Some laws do not allow these exclusions, in which case they apply only to the extent the law permits.

11. Limitation of liability

11.1 To the extent the law permits, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss of profits, revenue or goodwill, or for loss of, or damage to, data or files, arising out of or related to the Service, under any legal theory.

11.2 Our total liability for all claims arising out of or related to the Service will not exceed the greater of (a) the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim and (b) CAD 100.

11.3 These limits do not apply to liability for our gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or to any liability that a law says cannot be limited.

12. Indemnification

You will defend and indemnify us against any third-party claim, and the costs that come with it (including reasonable legal fees), arising out of Your Content, your use of the Service in breach of these Terms or the law, or your infringement of a third party's rights. We will tell you promptly about any such claim and let you control the defence, provided you do not settle in a way that admits fault on our part without our consent.

13. Suspension and termination

13.1 Suspension with notice

If we believe you have breached these Terms, we will email the account owner with the reason and give you 10 days to fix it before we suspend the account.

13.2 Immediate suspension

We may suspend an account without prior notice only where:

• it is being used to distribute malware or to attack the Service or others;
• it contains content we reasonably believe is unlawful;
• the law or a court order requires it;
• an invoice remains unpaid past the grace period in section 3.4; or
• there is an imminent risk of harm to a person.

In these cases we email the reason as soon as practicable and in any case within two business days.

13.3 Effect of suspension

A suspended account is read-only. For 30 days you keep the ability to download your files and export your records, unless the law or the reason for the suspension prevents it. Contacts see that the request is closed; they are not told the reason.

13.4 Your reply

You may reply to a suspension notice within 30 days, and we will answer within 10 business days. The decision is ours.

13.5 Termination

We may terminate the account if a breach is not fixed within the cure period, or on a repeated breach. On termination the closure timeline in section 3.5 runs from the termination date.

13.6 Survival

Sections that by their nature should survive (including 6.1, 6.6, 6.8, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14 and 16) survive termination or closure.

14. Governing law and disputes

14.1 These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

14.2 Before starting any legal proceeding, you and we will try to resolve the dispute by email in good faith for 30 days. Either party may seek an injunction at any time to stop misuse of the Service.

14.3 The courts of Ontario sitting in Hamilton have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or related to these Terms or the Service, and you and we submit to that jurisdiction.

15. Changes to these Terms

15.1 We may change these Terms. The version number and effective date at the top of this page identify the current version, and a dated list of what changed is published below the Terms.

15.2 For a material change, we email account owners at least 30 days before the new version takes effect, and a banner in the dashboard links to the change until then. Continued use after the effective date is acceptance. If you do not agree, you may close your account before the effective date under section 3.5, and the Refund and Cancellation Policy applies.

15.3 Non-material changes, such as typographic corrections or clarifications that do not change meaning, take effect when published and are listed in the change log.

16. General

16.1 Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Refund and Cancellation Policy and, where signed, the Data Processing Addendum are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service. If a signed Data Processing Addendum conflicts with these Terms, the Addendum governs the handling of Contact data and files.

16.2 Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them to a successor to the business, who takes on the privacy pledge in the Privacy Policy.

16.3 Severability and waiver. If a clause is unenforceable, the rest stays in force. Not enforcing a clause is not a waiver of it.

16.4 Language. These Terms are in English. If you are in Quebec, a French version of these Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Refund and Cancellation Policy and the Contact notice is made available to you at signup, and you may choose to be bound by the English version after examining the French one. Si vous êtes au Québec, une version française vous est remise à l'inscription et vous pouvez choisir d'être lié par la version anglaise après avoir examiné la version française.

16.5 Notices. Notices to us go to legal@receivevault.com. Notices to you go to the account owner's email address on file. Keep it current.

17. Contact us

Legal notices and questions about these Terms: legal@receivevault.com
Support: support@receivevault.com
Security reports: see our responsible disclosure policy.

Viscous Bits Computing Solutions Inc., operating as ReceiveVault, Ontario, Canada.

What changed

• 2.0.1 (this version). Beta end date extended from January 31, 2027 to February 28, 2027 (section 3). Nothing else changed.
• 2.0.0 (2026-10-05). Full rewrite. Contracting party named as Viscous Bits Computing Solutions Inc. Business-use-only eligibility and age of majority replace the age-16 rule. Private beta terms added: free accounts by invitation; storage, request, file-size, download and email limits, refusals when the Service is at capacity, and 7 days' notice before a limit is reduced; no uptime promise; files not a backup; the end date, what happens at it, and our right to end or extend the beta, to decline or revoke invitations and to cap beta accounts; rules for inviting others; and the founding offer. A non-binding summary added above section 1. Feedback licence added (section 6.8). Loss of or damage to data or files named among excluded losses. Reason for an immediate suspension emailed within two business days. Billing, failed-payment grace, plan changes, price-change notice and taxes disclosed for paid plans once they launch. Self-serve account closure with a 30 + 30 day deletion timeline. Government identification clause and disclaimer. Health-record exchange between custodians excluded. Scanning scope and unscanned-file acknowledgement described. Intellectual property complaints section added (no statutory notice-and-notice regime; files are never publicly hosted). Support target defined. One suspension ladder replaces two conflicting sentences. Liability cap becomes the greater of 12 months' fees and CAD 100 with statutory carve-outs. Hamilton courts, 30-day negotiation before proceedings. Change notice process formalized. Contact address moved to legal@receivevault.com.
• 1.1.0 (2026-06-20). Retention schedule added to section 6.2.
• 1.0.0. First version.