# HoundLine Terms of Use

Effective September 24, 2026. Alpha policy edition.

1. Who may use HoundLine. You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter a binding agreement. Alpha access may be limited, changed, or withdrawn. Keep your credentials secure and provide accurate account information.

2. HoundLine is independent research. HoundLine is not a registry, veterinary service, genetic-testing provider, or legal authority. Registry names identify reported sources only and do not imply affiliation, approval, or endorsement. Research may be incomplete or conflicting, so verify important facts with original sources.

3. Your private workspace. Private pedigrees, saved items, and personal profile material remain private unless a feature clearly tells you otherwise. Deleting an account erases the private workspace and sign-in data, but does not reverse public research already supported by a contribution. Accepted source evidence, scan results, corrections, security records, and public research may be retained as described in the Privacy Policy and Data Use disclosures.

4. Rights you keep and license you grant. You keep whatever rights you lawfully hold in content you submit. You grant HoundLine a worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, reproduce, store, normalize, analyze, combine, adapt for HoundLine formatting, display, distribute, and commercially use eligible dog-specific pedigree and research content to operate, protect, improve, and offer HoundLine, including through paid access. This license does not give HoundLine rights you do not possess and does not convert personal information, private account data, or entire third-party documents into HoundLine property. HoundLine's commercial product is its dog-information research service and compilation, not the sale of users' personal information.

5. What you promise when uploading. You represent that you lawfully possess submitted material and have the rights, authority, permission, or other lawful basis needed for HoundLine's stated uses. Do not upload material obtained through unlawful access, confidentiality violations, or bulk copying of another registry, publication, or database. Keep unnecessary human-identifying information out of uploads. If a document mixes dog facts with personal information, HoundLine may separate, redact, restrict, or remove the personal portion.

6. Source documents and registry material. Original certificates, pedigree pages, magazine pages, photos, advertisements, artwork, logos, and seals remain private unless HoundLine has a separate lawful basis to publish them. HoundLine may extract and present uncopyrightable facts in its own format while preserving useful source provenance. Vintage material is not automatically public domain.

7. Internal testing and improvement. Submitted material may be processed for scanning, matching, fraud and security prevention, support, quality assurance, scanner evaluation, and model evaluation under restricted access. This permission does not itself authorize public release of a private document, sale of personal information, cross-context behavioral advertising, unrelated external AI training, or an unrelated use.

8. Paid features. HoundLine may charge for search, research profiles, lineage tools, kennel pages, or other services. Paying for access does not transfer ownership of individual source documents or make uncertain research official. Price, renewal, cancellation, and refund terms shown at purchase will also apply.

9. Acceptable use. The Acceptable Use Policy is part of these Terms. HoundLine may restrict material, suspend access, preserve evidence, or close accounts to protect users, sources, rights holders, and the service.

10. Complaints and corrections. Use the public legal-request form for privacy, copyright, trademark, and source-accuracy concerns. HoundLine may temporarily restrict credibly disputed material while investigating, request supporting information, correct attribution, or remove material.

11. Service limitations. HoundLine is provided as is and as available to the extent permitted by law. We do not promise uninterrupted access or perfect research. To the extent permitted by law, HoundLine is not responsible for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages. Nothing here excludes rights or liability that law does not allow us to exclude.

12. Changes and governing rules. We may update these Terms as the service changes. Material updates receive a new version and effective date, and HoundLine requires renewed agreement before continued ordinary use. Applicable law governs without taking away mandatory consumer protections. A specific forum, arbitration clause, or class-action waiver will not be added without appropriate legal review.


Document SHA-256: ee8eea2c877951f212f86a4cf387a4950ed42c867bf839b029b3d79cd91ef7c6
Effective: 2026-09-24T00:00:00+00:00