Terms of Service

These Terms include, and you also agree to, the following documents, each as updated from time to time:

• the End User Licence Agreement, which governs the software the Service delivers to your browser;
• the Acceptable Use Policy, which sets out what you may and may not do with the Service;
• the Content and Source Disclaimers, which explain the limits of what the Service shows; and
• the Copyright, Takedown and Corrections, which sets out how we handle copyright notices, corrections and removal requests.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect and use personal information. It is a notice, not a contract term, and you acknowledge that you have read it. If these Terms conflict with another of the documents listed above, these Terms control, except that the EULA controls on the licence to the software and the Acceptable Use Policy controls on what conduct is prohibited.

• You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract. The Service shows armed conflict, casualties, abuse and other distressing material and is not directed at minors.
• You may not use the Service if we have previously suspended or removed your access, or if the law of the United States or of the place you are in forbids you from receiving it.
• You represent that you are not located in, organised under the laws of, or ordinarily resident in a country or region subject to comprehensive U.S. sanctions, and that you are not named on, or owned or controlled by anyone named on, a U.S. government restricted-party list, including the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, except to the extent U.S. law permits you to receive informational materials such as the Service.
• If you use the Service on behalf of an organisation, you represent that you are authorised to accept these Terms for it, and “you” includes that organisation. Your organisation is responsible for your use.

• Each account is for one person. Give accurate information, including an email address you control, and keep it current. We send sign-in codes and important notices there.
• You may sign in with an email address and password, an emailed code, Google, or a Surf account. Google sign-in passes through the authentication service Surf Platforms operates for its Surf app, as the Privacy Policy describes. Your Google or Surf account remains governed by Google’s or Surf’s own terms.
• Keep your password and sign-in methods confidential. You are responsible for everything done through your account unless it results from our breach of these Terms. Tell us at once at legal@surfplatforms.com if you believe your account has been used without your permission.
• Accounts are personal. You may not sell, transfer, lend or share your account or its access level.

• What it does. The Service gathers material published by third parties, including news, official statements, court records, government releases, research datasets, aircraft and ship position reports, satellite products, trade statistics and published documents. It translates, links and summarises that material, and grades how well each claim is supported. It also offers an analyst that answers questions with language models.
• It is free. We currently charge nothing for the Service. If we ever introduce a paid feature, we will present its price and terms before you are charged, and nothing will be charged without your express agreement.
• Access levels. New accounts are readers and see sources whose licences allow public display. We may grant, change or withdraw wider access at our discretion. Some features, including the analyst, are subject to daily allowances and overall budgets, and pause when those run out.
• Changes. We may add, change, suspend or remove any part of the Service, any source or any feature, at any time and without liability. Features marked beta, preview or experimental may be less reliable and may be withdrawn. We are under no obligation to keep any source, record or dataset available.
• No support or uptime commitment. We do not promise that the Service will be available at any time or that any problem will be fixed.

The Content and Source Disclaimers explain these points in full. By using the Service you acknowledge each of them:

• Third-party material. Almost everything the Service shows was created by others. We do not author, verify or endorse it, and the views in it are not ours. To the fullest extent permitted by law, including 47 U.S.C. § 230, we are not the publisher or speaker of information provided by third parties.
• Grades are assessments. A grade, confidence level, link, cluster, label or score is an automated or editorial assessment of the evidence available at a point in time. It is not a finding of fact and may be wrong. Disputed, low-grade and leaked material is labelled as such and must not be repeated as established fact.
• Named people. The appearance of a person’s or organisation’s name in a document, flight log, contact list, cable, court file, dataset or graph on the Service does not mean that the person or organisation did anything wrong, was involved in any event, or is accused of anything. Allegations are allegations.
• Released and leaked documents. The Service includes documents released by governments and courts and documents that have already been widely published by others. Their inclusion does not mean we vouch for their authenticity or completeness. We do not solicit, accept or publish newly leaked or classified material.
• Machine output. Summaries, translations, extracted facts, links, forecasts and analyst answers are produced by software, including language models. They may be inaccurate, incomplete, outdated or offensive, and are not reviewed by a person before you see them.
• Not advice. Nothing on the Service is legal, financial, investment, trading, tax, medical, security, military, travel or other professional advice, and no professional relationship is formed by your use of it.

You must use the Service lawfully and in line with the Acceptable Use Policy. In particular, you may not use the Service or anything obtained from it to locate, track, target, surveil, harass, threaten or harm any person; to plan or support violence, an attack or military targeting; to defame anyone or to present a graded or disputed claim as proven; to evade sanctions, export controls or law enforcement; or to scrape, bulk-download, mirror, resell or commercially exploit its contents. We may investigate suspected violations and take any action we consider appropriate, including removing content, limiting features and suspending or closing accounts, and we may report conduct to law enforcement where we believe the law requires or permits it.

• Your licence. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a personal, limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licence to access and use the Service for your own research, reporting, education and non-commercial analysis. The End User Licence Agreement sets out the licence to the software itself.
• Our rights. The Service, including its software, design, interfaces, maps as styled by us, gradings, classifications, summaries, compilations and the selection and arrangement of its contents, is owned by Surf Platforms or its licensors and protected by intellectual-property laws. “Meridian”, “Surf” and “Surf Platforms” and their logos are our trademarks. These Terms grant you no right to them except as expressly stated.
• Third-party material. Source material belongs to its owners and is made available under their licences and terms, which may restrict what you can do with it. Each item names its source; keep that attribution when you quote it. Map data includes data © OpenStreetMap contributors under the Open Database License. Short quotation with attribution for research, reporting, criticism and commentary may be permitted by law; anything more needs the owner’s permission, which is your responsibility to obtain.
• Feedback. If you send us suggestions or feedback, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use them for any purpose without obligation to you.

• “Your Content” means the investigations, notes, pins, saved views and questions you create in the Service, and the answers generated for you. As between you and us, you keep whatever rights you have in Your Content.
• You grant Surf Platforms a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, process, transmit and display Your Content only as needed to operate, secure and provide the Service to you, including sending your questions to the model providers named in the Privacy Policy. This licence ends when Your Content is deleted, except for copies in backups that are overwritten in the ordinary course and as needed to comply with law. Your Content is not shown to other users unless a future feature asks you first.
• You are responsible for Your Content and represent that you have the rights needed to submit it and that it does not violate the law or anyone’s rights. Do not submit classified information, export-controlled technical data, trade secrets, other people’s sensitive personal information, or anything you are not permitted to disclose.
• We may remove or refuse to process any of Your Content that we reasonably believe violates these Terms or the law.

• The analyst and other AI features use language models run for us on Microsoft Azure. Outputs are generated automatically, may contain errors or fabricated details, including invented citations, and may differ for the same question. Check every output against its sources before relying on it.
• You are responsible for how you use outputs. Do not present an output as a statement by Surf Platforms or as verified fact.
• We do not use Your Content to train models, and our model providers process it under terms that do not permit them to train on it.
• You may not use the analyst to produce content that is unlawful or that the Acceptable Use Policy prohibits, to attempt to extract other users’ data, system instructions or credentials, or to circumvent the Service’s safeguards.

The Service links to and loads material from third parties, including source publishers, map and imagery providers, Google and Surf. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content, availability, accuracy or practices, and a link is not an endorsement. Your dealings with any third party are between you and that third party, under its terms.

We respect intellectual-property rights and respond to notices of claimed infringement under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act as set out in the Copyright, Takedown and Corrections, which also explains how to ask for a correction or for material about you to be reviewed. We terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of repeat infringers.

• You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time from the account page.
• We may suspend, restrict or terminate your access to all or part of the Service at any time, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms, if the law requires it, to protect the Service, its users, third parties or us, or if we discontinue the Service. Where reasonable and lawful we will tell you why.
• When your access ends, your licence ends. Sections 5, 7 (except your licence), 8 (as to responsibility), 12 and 14 through 27 survive.

The Privacy Policy describes what we collect, why, who processes it, how long we keep it and the rights you have. We keep a record of each version of these Terms you accept, with the date, time, network address and browser used, as evidence of the agreement.

The Service and all content, data, grades and outputs are provided “as is” and “as available”, with all faults and without warranties of any kind, express, implied or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, completeness, timeliness and quiet enjoyment, and any warranties arising from course of dealing or usage of trade.

Surf Platforms does not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free, that any defect will be corrected, that any content is accurate, complete, authentic or current, or that the Service or anything obtained through it is free of harmful components. You use the Service and rely on its content at your own risk.

No advice or information obtained from us or through the Service creates any warranty not expressly stated in these Terms. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of these exclusions may not apply to you; where that is so, they apply to the fullest extent permitted by law.

• Aircraft and ship positions, tracks, alerts, imagery and event locations can be delayed, incomplete, spoofed, misattributed or wrong. The Service is not a navigation, aviation, maritime, air-traffic, emergency, evacuation, travel-safety or early-warning service and must never be relied on to protect life, health or property. If you or anyone else is in danger, contact local emergency services or your government’s official channels.
• The Service must not be used for military targeting, weapons employment, intelligence operations against individuals, or any decision about the use of force.
• Sanctions, ownership and entity information on the Service is compiled automatically from public lists and records, and matches between names are probabilistic. The Service is not a sanctions-screening, know-your-customer, anti-money-laundering, export-control or due-diligence tool, and must not be used as the basis for a compliance decision. Consult the official lists and qualified advisers.
• Forecasts, indicators and probabilities are model estimates, not predictions you can rely on, and must not be used to make investment or trading decisions.

Offering any feature creates no duty on us to monitor, detect, warn, or act on anything. This section does not limit any liability the law does not allow us to limit.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, in no event will Surf Platforms or its affiliates, or their officers, directors, employees, contractors, agents, licensors or suppliers, be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, goodwill, use or data, or for any damages arising from reliance on any content, data, grade or output, or from the conduct of any third party, arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability or otherwise, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the total liability of Surf Platforms and its affiliates for all claims arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service is limited to the greater of (a) the amounts you paid us for the Service in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars (US$100).

One cap. This cap is a single aggregate cap across these Terms and every document listed in section 1; the same cap restated in another of them does not add to it. These limitations apply to any theory of liability and even if a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose. They reflect an allocation of risk that is part of the basis of the bargain, without which we would not offer the Service free of charge.

Carve-outs. Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability for (a) death or personal injury caused by our negligence; (b) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; (c) willful injury to the person or property of another, or violation of law, to the extent California Civil Code section 1668 or a comparable law makes a limitation unenforceable; or (d) any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you.

To the extent permitted by law, you will defend, indemnify and hold harmless Surf Platforms, its affiliates, and their officers, directors, employees, contractors, agents, licensors and suppliers from and against any third-party claim, and any resulting liability, damages, losses, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees), arising out of or relating to (a) your violation of these Terms or any document they include; (b) Your Content; (c) your use of the Service or of anything obtained from it, including any republication; (d) your violation of any third party’s rights, including intellectual-property, privacy and publicity rights; or (e) your violation of any law.

We will notify you promptly of any claim for which we seek indemnity, and may assume the exclusive defence and control of it, in which case you will cooperate with us. You may not settle any such claim without our prior written consent. This section does not require you to indemnify us for our own negligence or wrongdoing.

Before starting an arbitration or a court proceeding, you and we agree to try to resolve any dispute informally for at least 30 days after written notice. Send notice to legal@surfplatforms.com describing the dispute and the relief sought; we will send notice to the email address on your account. Applicable limitation periods are tolled during this 30-day period.

• Agreement to arbitrate. You and Surf Platforms agree that any dispute, claim or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service (a “Dispute”) that is not resolved informally will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by JAMS under its Comprehensive Arbitration Rules and Procedures (or, for claims that qualify, its Streamlined Arbitration Rules and Procedures) and the JAMS Consumer Minimum Standards, as modified by these Terms. The Federal Arbitration Act governs the interpretation and enforcement of this section.
• Sexual assault and sexual harassment claims. Consistent with the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (9 U.S.C. §§ 401–402), if you assert a claim relating to conduct alleged to constitute sexual assault or sexual harassment, you may elect to bring it in court rather than in arbitration, and the class action waiver in section 20 does not apply to it.
• Carve-outs (apply equally to both parties). Either party may (a) bring an individual claim in small-claims court if it qualifies, and (b) seek injunctive or other equitable relief in a court of competent jurisdiction to prevent the actual or threatened infringement or misuse of intellectual-property rights or unauthorised access to the Service. Nothing in this section waives the right to seek public injunctive relief in court to the extent such a waiver would be unenforceable; any such claim is severed and may proceed in court, stayed until the arbitrable claims are decided.
• Delegation. The arbitrator, and not any court, has exclusive authority to decide all questions about whether this section applies and whether it is valid, enforceable, unconscionable, formed, waived or breached, except that a court decides the validity and scope of the class action waiver in section 20 and the questions reserved to a court in the coordinated-filings paragraph below.
• If JAMS is unavailable. If JAMS declines or is unable to administer the arbitration under these terms, the American Arbitration Association will administer it under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, and if neither is available either party may petition a court under 9 U.S.C. § 5 to appoint an arbitrator.
• Procedure. The arbitration will be conducted in English by a single arbitrator, in Santa Clara County, California, or, at your election, by video, telephone or written submissions, or in the county where you live. We will pay all filing, administration and arbitrator fees to the extent the JAMS Consumer Minimum Standards require. Each party otherwise bears its own costs and fees unless the arbitrator awards them under applicable law. The arbitrator may award any individual relief a court could award, and the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.
• Coordinated filings. If 25 or more demands raising substantially similar claims are filed against us within any 90-day period by or with the assistance of the same or coordinated counsel, the parties will ask JAMS to administer them under its mass-arbitration procedures then in effect. Any batching or staging applies equally to both parties and does not deprive you of an individual decision on your claim, and limitation periods are tolled for any demand awaiting its turn. If a court finds this paragraph unenforceable, it is severed and the rest of this section applies.
• 30-day right to opt out. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement within 30 days after you first accept these Terms by emailing legal@surfplatforms.com with your name, the email address of your account and a clear statement that you opt out of arbitration. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms or your use of the Service. If you opted out of an earlier version, your opt-out continues.
• Changes to this section. If we change this section, the change does not apply to any Dispute of which we had written notice before the change took effect.
• Survival and severability. This section survives termination. If any part of it other than the class action waiver is found unenforceable, that part is severed and the rest enforced.

You and Surf Platforms each agree that each may bring claims against the other only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, consolidated, private attorney general or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person’s claims or preside over any form of class or representative proceeding.

This waiver does not apply to a claim for public injunctive relief, which section 19 addresses. If this waiver is found unenforceable as to a particular claim or request for relief, that claim or request is severed and decided in court after the arbitrable claims are decided. If the entire waiver is found unenforceable, the agreement to arbitrate in section 19 is void as to the affected Disputes only.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service must be filed within one (1) year after it arises, or it is permanently barred. Where the law that applies to you does not permit a limitation period to be shortened, or sets a longer minimum, that law applies instead.

These Terms and any Dispute are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules, and, as to arbitration, by the Federal Arbitration Act. To the extent any matter may be litigated in court, you and we submit to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the state and federal courts in Santa Clara County, California, except that either party may enforce a judgment or award in any court of competent jurisdiction. These choices do not deprive you of the protection of mandatory consumer-protection law of the place where you live.

Under California Civil Code section 1789.3, California users are entitled to the following notice. The Service is provided by Surf Platforms Inc., San Jose, California, United States, and is currently free of charge. Questions or complaints may be sent to legal@surfplatforms.com. California residents may also contact the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs in writing at 1625 North Market Blvd., Suite N 112, Sacramento, CA 95834, or by telephone at (800) 952-5210.

• The Service is operated from the United States. You will comply with all export-control and sanctions laws that apply to your use of it, and you will not use it for any end use those laws prohibit or on behalf of any person they restrict.
• If you access the Service from outside the United States, you do so on your own initiative and are responsible for complying with local law.
• The Service and its software are “commercial products”, “commercial computer software” and “commercial computer software documentation” as those terms are used in the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Defense Federal Acquisition Regulation Supplement. U.S. government users receive only the rights set out in these Terms.

We may change these Terms from time to time. The date and version at the top show the version in force. If a change is material, we will ask you to accept the new version before you continue to use the Service, or tell you by email or in the Service at least 14 days before it takes effect, unless a shorter period is needed for legal or security reasons. Changes do not apply retroactively. If you do not agree to a change, stop using the Service and delete your account.

You consent to receive communications from us electronically, by email to the address on your account or in the Service, and agree that they satisfy any legal requirement that they be in writing. Notices to us must be sent to legal@surfplatforms.com and are effective when received. We may send you service and security messages that you cannot opt out of while you have an account; we do not send marketing email from the Service.

• Entire agreement. These Terms, with the documents listed in section 1, are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service and supersede any prior agreement on that subject.
• Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it is enforced to the maximum extent permissible and the rest of these Terms remain in effect, subject to sections 19 and 20.
• No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it.
• Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign them, including in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganisation or sale of assets, or to an affiliate.
• Force majeure. We are not liable for any delay or failure caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including outages of the third-party sources, networks or cloud providers the Service depends on, armed conflict, cyberattack, natural disaster or government action.
• Relationship. No agency, partnership, joint venture, employment or fiduciary relationship is created by these Terms.
• Third-party beneficiaries. Our affiliates and the persons named in sections 16 and 17 are intended third-party beneficiaries of sections 14 through 21 and may enforce them. Otherwise there are no third-party beneficiaries.
• Interpretation. Headings are for convenience only. “Including” means “including without limitation”. These Terms are written in English, and any translation is for convenience only; the English version controls.

Surf Platforms Inc., San Jose, California, United States. Legal notices, arbitration opt-outs and questions about these Terms: legal@surfplatforms.com. General enquiries: contact@surfplatforms.com.