ARGUS Terms of Service
Effective August 10, 2026
These Terms govern your access to and use of ARGUS, a deterministic manuscript-analysis service operated for The First Generation Series. By signing in, submitting a manuscript, or otherwise using ARGUS, you agree to these Terms and the Privacy Policy.
1. The service
ARGUS accepts supported EPUB files, performs reproducible measurements and pattern-based checks, produces a private diagnostic report, and may send a report-ready notification. ARGUS provides evidence and review locations; it is not an automated editor and does not replace professional editorial, legal, publishing, or other advice.
2. Accounts and access
You must use accurate account information and keep control of the Google account used to sign in. You are responsible for activity performed through your account. Access may be limited during testing, including limits on the number of users and manuscript submissions. Accounts may not be transferred or shared to bypass those limits.
3. Your manuscripts
You retain ownership of your manuscript and other content you submit. You grant the operator a limited, nonexclusive permission to receive, copy, extract, process, store, and display that content only as reasonably necessary to provide, secure, troubleshoot, and improve ARGUS as described in the Privacy Policy.
You represent that you own the submitted material or have all permissions necessary to submit and process it. You must not upload content that is unlawful, malicious, infringes another person’s rights, violates confidentiality obligations, or is intended to disrupt or probe the service.
4. Deterministic findings
ARGUS reports measured patterns and potential review items. A flagged pattern is not necessarily an error, and the absence of a finding does not establish that a manuscript is error-free. Results depend on EPUB structure, parsing, rule definitions, thresholds, and software versions. The author’s creative and editorial judgment remains authoritative.
5. Acceptable use
You may not attempt unauthorized access; interfere with service operation; evade upload, account, or rate limits; introduce malware; scrape or automate access without permission; reverse engineer security controls; impersonate another person; or use ARGUS in violation of applicable law.
6. Privacy and retention
The Privacy Policy explains how account data, manuscripts, reports, structured findings, short excerpts, logs, and backups are processed and retained. Do not submit a manuscript if you do not have authority to permit that processing.
7. Service changes and availability
ARGUS may be modified, suspended, limited, or discontinued at any time. Features, deterministic rules, report formats, limits, and retention periods may change. Reasonable efforts will be made to operate the service reliably, but uninterrupted access, successful report generation, email delivery, or preservation of any report is not guaranteed. Download reports you wish to keep.
8. Third-party services
ARGUS relies on third parties such as Google for authentication and may use hosting, infrastructure, and transactional-email providers. Their services and policies are outside the operator’s control, and their availability may affect ARGUS.
9. Intellectual property
Except for your submitted content, ARGUS and its software, interface, branding, report design, documentation, and original materials are owned by or licensed to the operator and are protected by applicable law. These Terms do not grant rights to use ARGUS branding or redistribute the service itself.
10. Suspension and termination
The operator may disable or terminate access when reasonably necessary to enforce these Terms, protect the service or others, comply with law, address security risk, or conclude a testing program. You may stop using ARGUS and request account deletion using the contact information below.
11. Disclaimers
To the fullest extent permitted by law, ARGUS is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, noninfringement, accuracy, completeness, or uninterrupted availability. Nothing in these Terms excludes a warranty or right that cannot lawfully be excluded.
12. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, the operator will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, opportunities, data, manuscripts, or goodwill arising from or related to ARGUS. Where liability cannot be excluded, it will be limited to the amount you paid to use ARGUS during the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
13. Changes to these Terms
These Terms may be updated as the service changes. The effective date will be revised, and material changes may be announced within the service. Continued use after updated Terms take effect constitutes acceptance where permitted by law.
14. Contact
Questions about these Terms may be sent to mcloide1977@gmail.com.