Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of sirj.ca, insights.sirj.ca, demo.sirj.ca, and any related sub-domains, content, communications, and services (collectively, the “Services”) operated by SIRJ (“SIRJ,” “we,” or “us”). By using the Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be communicated by email or by a prominent notice on sirj.ca. Continued use of the Services after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

2. Eligibility

You may use the Services only if you are at least the age of majority in your jurisdiction and have the legal capacity to enter into a binding agreement. If you use the Services on behalf of a business, you represent that you are authorized to bind that business to these Terms.

3. The Insights audit

The Insights audit available at insights.sirj.ca is a non-binding educational artifact. It is generated based on information you provide and our general understanding of workflow patterns common to similar businesses. The audit:

• Is provided free of charge for evaluation purposes only
• Does not constitute professional, legal, accounting, financial, or technical advice
• Describes systems we “could” build, expressed as patterns and ideas, not commitments
• Does not create any obligation on SIRJ to build, deliver, support, or maintain anything described
• Has no defined service level, uptime guarantee, or warranty

Any actual build engagement is governed by a separate written proposal and Master Services Agreement signed by both parties.

4. Discovery Calls

A Discovery Call is a free initial consultation. It does not create a contract for services and does not obligate either party to proceed. Anything discussed during a Discovery Call is held in mutual confidence; neither party should rely on verbal statements as final commitments unless reduced to a written, signed agreement.

5. Build engagements

Where you proceed to a paid build engagement with SIRJ, the specific scope, price, deliverables, milestones, payment terms, warranties, and dispute resolution are set out in a separate proposal and Master Services Agreement. To the extent of any conflict between these Terms and that signed agreement, the signed agreement controls.

6. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the Services in violation of any law or regulation
• Submit information that is false, misleading, infringing, or that you do not have the right to share
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Services, scrape or automate access in a way that bypasses normal use, reverse engineer non-public components, or interfere with the operation of the Services
• Use the Services to send unsolicited communications, host malicious content, or harm other users
• Use SIRJ branding, trademarks, or confidential materials outside the scope of a written engagement without prior written consent

We may suspend or terminate access to the Services for any violation of these Terms.

7. Intellectual property

Our content

All content on the Services — text, graphics, logos, animations, code, system designs, the SIRJ name and brand, and the Insights and demo materials — is owned by SIRJ or our licensors and is protected by Canadian and international intellectual property laws. Except as expressly permitted, you may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, or create derivative works from our content.

Your content

You retain ownership of any information you submit to us. By submitting it (for example, through the Insights questionnaire), you grant SIRJ a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use that information to deliver the Services to you and to improve the Services in aggregate, anonymized form.

Customer-built systems

For a paid build engagement, ownership of the resulting custom system, code, configurations, and deliverables is set out in the signed proposal and Master Services Agreement. Absent a specific provision to the contrary, custom code we deliver to a customer becomes the customer's property upon final payment, while underlying tools, libraries, and methodologies developed by SIRJ remain SIRJ's property.

8. Third-party services

The Services may integrate with or link to third-party services (such as Calendly for scheduling, FormSubmit for form delivery, Supabase, hosting providers, and the third-party applications a customer asks us to connect during a build). Your use of those services is subject to their own terms and privacy policies. SIRJ is not responsible for third-party services and does not endorse them beyond stating that we work with them.

9. Disclaimers

The Services are provided “as is” and “as available.” To the maximum extent permitted by law, SIRJ disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and any warranties arising out of course of dealing or usage of trade.

Without limiting the foregoing, SIRJ does not warrant that the Services will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or free of viruses or other harmful components, that any defects will be corrected, or that the information presented is accurate, complete, or current.

Statistics, examples, screenshots, and outcomes shown on the Services (including in the Insights audit, demo dashboard, and Recent Builds section) reflect either anonymized real customer outcomes or representative scenarios; individual results vary and are not guaranteed.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, SIRJ and its owners, employees, contractors, and affiliates will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, or business interruption, arising out of or relating to your use of the Services, even if SIRJ has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

In jurisdictions that do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law. Where SIRJ may be held liable, our aggregate liability for all claims arising out of or related to the Services (excluding paid build engagements, which are governed by their own agreement) will not exceed one hundred Canadian dollars (CAD $100).

11. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless SIRJ from any claims, damages, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to: (a) your use of the Services; (b) your violation of these Terms; (c) your violation of any law or third-party right; or (d) information you submit to the Services.

12. Governing law and dispute resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles.

Before filing a formal claim, the parties will attempt in good faith to resolve any dispute through informal negotiation by contacting js@sirj.ca. If the dispute is not resolved within thirty (30) days, the parties consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located in Ontario, Canada, except that either party may seek injunctive or equitable relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to protect its intellectual property or confidential information.

If you are a consumer in a jurisdiction that grants you non-waivable rights to bring claims in your local courts under local law (for example, residents of Quebec, certain US states, or the European Economic Area), nothing in this section limits those rights.

13. Compliance with applicable laws

SIRJ aims to operate in compliance with applicable Canadian and United States laws, including PIPEDA and provincial privacy acts (Quebec Law 25, PIPA Alberta, PIPA British Columbia), Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), the US CAN-SPAM Act, the US Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the California Consumer Privacy Act / California Privacy Rights Act (CCPA / CPRA), and analogous state privacy laws (Virginia, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah, Texas, Oregon, Montana, Tennessee, Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska, and others as enacted). For visitors from the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, we honor the corresponding rights under the GDPR / UK GDPR / FADP. Specific privacy rights and how to exercise them are described in our Privacy Policy.

14. Severability and waiver

If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of our right to do so later.

15. Entire agreement

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any signed proposal or Master Services Agreement, constitute the entire agreement between you and SIRJ regarding the Services, and supersede any prior or contemporaneous understandings.

16. Contact

Questions about these Terms: js@sirj.ca.