Terms of Use

2. Searching is risky; you are responsible for your safety

Searching outdoors involves real risks, including terrain, water, weather, darkness, wildlife, traffic, and your own health, fitness and equipment. GPS positions can be off by many meters, maps can be wrong or out of date, and recording can stop when your phone's battery, signal or settings fail. Do not rely on Area Watcher to navigate, to stay safe, or as your only basis for deciding where to search. You decide whether and where to search and you assume the risks of doing so.

3. Who may use Area Watcher, and where

The Service is intended for use only in the United States. We make no claim that it is appropriate, lawful or available anywhere else. If you access or use it from outside the United States, you do so on your own initiative and at your own risk, you are responsible for complying with local law, and to the fullest extent permitted by law the Area Watcher Parties have no liability for that use. We may limit or block access from outside the United States.

You must be at least 18, located in the United States, and able to form a binding contract. Area Watcher is an independent app: it is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting for any law enforcement agency or search-and-rescue organization, and users are not our agents or employees.

4. Your account

One person per account. Give accurate information, keep your sign-in methods secure, and tell us promptly at support@areawatcher.com if you believe your account has been misused. You are responsible for activity on your account.

5. Subscriptions and payment

• Using Area Watcher requires a paid auto-renewing subscription (Searcher, Search Lead or Command, monthly or yearly) purchased through Apple's App Store. There is no free tier or free trial. Prices and what each plan includes are shown before you buy.
• Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase. Your subscription renews automatically at the then-current price for the same period unless you turn off auto-renew at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account is charged for the renewal within 24 hours before the period ends.
• Manage or cancel at any time in your iPhone's Settings → your name → Subscriptions. Cancelling stops the next renewal; you keep access until the end of the period you paid for.
• Apple handles billing and refunds under its own terms (reportaproblem.apple.com); we cannot issue refunds ourselves. Deleting your Area Watcher account does not cancel your subscription.
• We may change prices or what plans include. Apple notifies you of price increases as its rules require, and you can cancel before a new price applies.

6. Your content and sharing

You keep ownership of the paths, names and profile details you add ("Your Content"). You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, process, reproduce and display Your Content only as needed to operate and improve the Service, including showing it to other users when your sharing settings allow. This license ends when you delete Your Content or your account, except for copies in backups until they expire and anything other users already viewed.

You are responsible for Your Content. It must be accurate to the best of your knowledge, and you must have the right to share it. Do not include other people's personal information, including details about a missing person or their family, in names or anything else you add. If you send us suggestions, we may use them without obligation to you.

Other users' content. Shared paths, display names and anything else other users add come from them, not from us. We do not review, verify or endorse it in advance; it reflects what their phones recorded and may be incomplete or wrong. You use it at your own risk.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• enter private property without permission, or search anywhere you are not legally allowed to be, including closed areas and active scenes;
• use the Service to stalk, harass, monitor, locate or harm any person, or to find someone who does not want to be found;
• record or share paths you did not actually search, or otherwise mislead other searchers;
• use offensive, misleading or impersonating display names or content;
• share your account, use someone else's, or create accounts by automated means;
• copy, scrape, resell, reverse engineer, overload or disrupt the Service, get around its security or payment, or access it other than through the app and website;
• break any law or anyone's rights while using the Service.

8. Our intellectual property and your license

The Service, including its software, design, text and the Area Watcher name and logo, belongs to us and our licensors. Subject to these Terms and Apple's Usage Rules, we grant you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the app on Apple devices you own or control, for your own non-commercial search activity. Map data is © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License.

9. Changes to the Service

We may add, change, suspend or remove features, and outages happen. If we discontinue the Service entirely, we will give reasonable advance notice where we can.

10. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service at any time by deleting your account in the app and cancelling your subscription with Apple. We may warn you, hide your shared paths, remove content, or suspend or close your account if you break these Terms, put others at risk, or if the law requires it. We moderate in good faith and record each decision and its reason; if you think we got it wrong, email us and we will review it. We are not obligated to monitor the Service or to act on any content. Sections 2, 6 (as to backups), 11 through 14, and 16 survive termination.

11. Disclaimer of warranties

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, reliability, availability and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service, any map, position or path is accurate, complete or error-free, or that the Service will help find anyone.

12. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Area Watcher Parties will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any personal injury, death, property damage, lost data, or outcome of any search, arising out of or related to the Service, even if advised of the possibility. The Area Watcher Parties' total liability for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid for Area Watcher in the 12 months before the claim arose or $50.

Some states do not allow certain exclusions or limits, so some of the above may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, such as for our gross negligence or intentional misconduct.

13. Release and indemnity

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you release the Area Watcher Parties from claims arising from your participation in any search or your interactions with other searchers. You agree to defend, indemnify and hold the Area Watcher Parties harmless from claims, losses and costs (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from Your Content, your use of the Service, or your breach of these Terms or of anyone's rights.

14. Disputes

• Talk to us first. Before filing any claim, email support@areawatcher.com describing the problem; we will both try in good faith to resolve it within 60 days.
• Governing law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Florida and applicable federal law, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.
• Where. Any dispute will be decided exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Florida, and both of us consent to their jurisdiction. Either of us may instead bring an individual claim in small claims court where it qualifies.
• Individual claims. To the fullest extent permitted by law, claims may be brought only individually, not as a plaintiff or class member in a class, collective or representative action.
• Jury waiver. To the fullest extent permitted by law, you and we waive any right to a jury trial.
• Time limit. Any claim must be brought within one year after it arises, to the extent the law allows such a limit.

15. Apple

These terms apply because you obtained Area Watcher from Apple's App Store:

• These Terms are between you and us only, not Apple. We, not Apple, are solely responsible for Area Watcher and its content.
• Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for Area Watcher.
• If Area Watcher fails to conform to an applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any) for it; to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation with respect to Area Watcher.
• We, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claims by you or a third party relating to Area Watcher or your possession and use of it, including product liability claims, claims that it fails to conform to any legal or regulatory requirement, and claims under consumer protection, privacy or similar laws.
• If a third party claims that Area Watcher or your possession and use of it infringes their intellectual property rights, we, not Apple, are solely responsible for the investigation, defense, settlement and discharge of that claim.
• You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated as a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not listed on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• You must comply with applicable third-party terms when using Area Watcher, such as your carrier's.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms, and upon your acceptance Apple will have the right (and will be deemed to have accepted the right) to enforce them against you.

16. General

• These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service. If any part is unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Not enforcing a part is not a waiver of it.
• You may not transfer your rights under these Terms. We may transfer ours to a successor of the Service.
• We are not responsible for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
• You agree that we may communicate with you electronically, in the app or by email, and that these communications satisfy any requirement for written notice.
• We may update these Terms. We will post the new version here with a new date and, for material changes, notify you in the app or by email before they take effect. Continuing to use the Service after that means you accept the updated Terms.

17. Contact

Michael Scholz, Area Watcher, Florida, United States
Email: support@areawatcher.com