Terms of Service

1. Who we are and what this covers

Rho MD and the rho.md cloud service are operated by Digital Factory Australia Pty Ltd (ABN 16 694 991 243), trading as rho.md ("we", "us"). These terms cover both: the App — the Rho MD desktop and mobile application you install — and the Service — accounts, storage, sync, sharing, and publishing at rho.md. By installing or using the App, or by creating an account, you agree to these terms. Cloud accounts are for people aged 13 or over, or the higher minimum age where you live.

2. The App: your licence

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use the App on devices you own or control, for personal or internal business use. The App is licensed, not sold: we and our licensors keep all rights, title, and interest in it.

You may not, except where the law expressly permits despite this limitation:

• copy (other than reasonable backup), modify, or create derivative works of the App;
• reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the App;
• redistribute, sell, rent, lease, sublicense, or bundle the App;
• remove or alter proprietary notices in the App.

We may issue updates that add, change, or remove features; these terms apply to updates unless an update comes with its own. The App includes open-source components licensed under their own terms — the full notices ship with the App as licenses.txt in its resources directory.

3. Your documents, and what leaves your device

Your documents stay yours. The App is local-first: your files live on your device and are not transmitted to us unless you explicitly use a cloud feature (publish, sync, Discover) or configure a third-party AI provider. API keys you add for AI providers are stored in your operating system's keychain, not in our infrastructure.

Optional features connect to services under their own terms — the rho.md cloud service (these terms and our Privacy Policy), and any AI provider you configure with your own key (that provider's terms). We are not responsible for third-party services.

4. What you upload, and your responsibility for it

You keep all rights to documents you upload. By uploading, you grant us the limited licence needed to store, render, and deliver your documents to the readers you choose (unlisted links and their access lists) or to the public (publishing).

You warrant that you have the right to share everything you upload. When you publish a document to the public index you additionally attest that it is your original work or that you hold the necessary rights. You agree to indemnify us against claims arising from content you upload in breach of this warranty.

5. What you may not do

You must comply with all laws that apply to you in the place where you live and use the Service, as well as the laws of Australia and the United States that apply to content hosted on the Service. Do not upload, share, or publish:

• unlawful content, or content that facilitates or instructs illegal activity;
• child sexual abuse material or any content that sexualizes minors — such content is removed immediately and reported to the relevant authorities;
• content that promotes, incites, or glorifies violence or terrorism;
• hate speech, or harassment, threats, or doxxing directed at any person or group;
• content that encourages self-harm or suicide;
• spam, scams, phishing, or anything else designed to trick readers out of money, credentials, or personal information;
• impersonation — passing yourself off as another person or organisation, or misrepresenting who you are affiliated with;
• malware or code designed to harm devices, data, or networks;
• content that infringes others' rights (copyright, trademark, privacy);
• abuse of the Service — scraping at scale, quota circumvention, attacks, or interfering with other users.

We may remove or restrict access to any content, and may suspend accounts, where we reasonably consider the content to violate these terms, to be unlawful, or to be otherwise harmful — with or without prior notice. We cooperate with lawful requests from courts, regulators, and law enforcement, including removal notices under Australia's Online Safety Act 2021. For repeated copyright infringement (three effective takedowns under our Copyright Policy) we terminate publishing rights and unpublish all public content of the account.

6. Free and paid tiers

The App is free to download and use, and reading on rho.md requires no account. Free accounts can store documents and share unlisted links within the storage and document-count quotas shown in your console. The paid subscription (Rho Cloud Pro, USD $5/month) adds public publishing, sync, higher quotas, and private reading stats. We may adjust quotas over time; we will not reduce what an active paid account already stores.

7. Billing

Payments are processed by Stripe as Merchant of Record — your purchase, receipts, and applicable taxes are handled by Stripe, and we never see your card details. Subscriptions renew monthly until cancelled. You can cancel any time from your console; cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid period, and §9 describes exactly what happens to your content. Refunds are handled in line with Stripe's consumer terms and applicable consumer law.

If we change the price of a plan we will tell you at least 30 days before it applies to you, and the new price only takes effect at your next renewal — so you can always cancel first and keep everything you have already paid for.

8. Warranties and liability

The App and the Service are provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by law we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement; we aim for high availability of the Service but do not guarantee it.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or exemplary damages, or for loss of data, profits, or revenue. Our total liability will not exceed the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or USD 10 if you paid us nothing. Nothing in these terms excludes rights or liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law, including the Australian Consumer Law, whose statutory guarantees may apply to you.

9. Cancellation and your data

If your subscription ends: published documents revert to unlisted (existing links keep working), your author page goes dormant (handle reserved), and sync stops. Nothing on your devices is touched, and re-subscribing restores everything with one click. You can delete your cloud documents at any time, and you can request account deletion as described in our Privacy Policy. Deleting your account also ends your subscription — we cancel it as part of processing the request, so you are not billed again.

10. Automated organization

We use automated processing (including machine learning) to organize public topics and to power discovery — for example grouping public tags into shared topics. This processing uses only public data and the signals described in the Privacy Policy, never the content of your local or unlisted documents.

11. Changes, suspension, and termination

We may update these terms; material changes will be announced on the site or by email at least 14 days in advance, and continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance. We may suspend or terminate accounts for serious or repeated violation of these terms; where reasonable we will warn you first. Your licence to the App ends automatically if you breach §2, and on termination you must stop using and uninstall it.

If we discontinue a paid plan, or the Service itself, we will give you notice, refund the unused portion of anything you have prepaid, and leave you a window to export your cloud documents. The App and everything already on your device keep working either way — your documents are ordinary files you hold, not rows in our database.

Sections 3, 4, 8, and 12, and our rights under §2, survive termination.

12. Governing law and contact

These terms are governed by the laws of Victoria, Australia, and disputes are subject to the courts of Victoria — without limiting any mandatory consumer protections where you live. If a provision is held unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. These terms are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the App and the Service. Contact: legal@rho.md — Digital Factory Australia Pty Ltd, trading as rho.md.