Terms of Service

1. What Ballast Is

Ballast is a data integration platform that connects to your existing tools and services, syncs your data, and enables unified search and insights across your organization.

Our role: We provide the infrastructure to connect, sync, and search your data. We don't access your synced content, make decisions for you, or provide consulting services unless separately agreed.

2. Your Account

Account creation: You must provide accurate information when creating an account. You're responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials.

Workspace ownership: The person who creates a workspace is the owner. Workspace owners are responsible for their team's use of the platform.

Age requirement: You must be at least 18 years old to use Ballast.

3. Third-Party Integrations

Ballast connects to third-party services (like GitHub, Slack, Google Drive, Salesforce, databases, and others) on your behalf.

Your responsibility: You must have the right to connect and sync data from any service you integrate. By connecting a service, you represent that:

• You have authorization to access and sync that data
• Connecting the service doesn't violate any agreements with the third party
• You'll comply with that service's terms of use

Third-party terms: Your use of connected services is also subject to their respective terms and privacy policies. We're not responsible for third-party service availability, changes, or data practices.

4. Acceptable Use

You agree not to use Ballast to:

• Violate any laws or regulations
• Infringe on intellectual property rights
• Connect services or sync data you don't have rights to access
• Transmit malware or harmful code
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to our systems or other users' data
• Circumvent security measures or access controls
• Resell, sublicense, or provide access to Ballast to third parties without authorization

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules.

5. Your Data

You own your data. We don't claim ownership of anything you create, upload, or sync to Ballast.

License to us: You grant us a limited license to store, process, index, and generate embeddings from your data as needed to provide our services. This license ends when you delete your data or account.

Data isolation: Ballast uses a single-tenant data architecture. Your synced content is stored in a dedicated database isolated at the infrastructure level, accessible only through your authenticated API or MCP endpoints. See our Privacy Policy for details.

Data deletion: If you delete your account, we'll delete your synced content and credentials within 30 days, and account records within 90 days (except as required for legal compliance).

6. AI Processing

Ballast uses AI to generate embeddings for semantic search. By using our service, you acknowledge:

• Your content is processed by AI providers (such as OpenAI) to generate searchable embeddings
• AI providers do not store or retain your content after processing
• Your content is not used to train AI models

We use enterprise API agreements that prohibit AI providers from retaining or training on your data.

7. API & MCP Access

API access: You may access your data programmatically via our API or MCP (Model Context Protocol) endpoints using your authenticated credentials.

API keys: You're responsible for keeping your API keys secure. Treat them like passwords. We're not liable for unauthorized access resulting from compromised credentials.

Rate limits: We may impose rate limits to ensure fair usage and system stability. Abuse of API access may result in throttling or suspension.

8. Payment & Billing

Paid plans: If you subscribe to a paid plan, you agree to pay the fees as described. Fees are billed in advance and are non-refundable except as required by law.

Price changes: We may change our pricing with 30 days notice. Changes won't affect your current billing period.

Cancellation: You can cancel your subscription at any time. Your access continues until the end of the current billing period.

9. Service Availability

We aim for high availability, but we don't guarantee 100% uptime. We may have scheduled maintenance or unexpected outages.

Third-party dependencies: Ballast depends on third-party services (cloud infrastructure, AI providers, connected integrations). We're not responsible for outages or changes to these services.

No SLA is provided unless separately agreed in writing for enterprise customers.

10. Intellectual Property

Our platform belongs to us. Ballast, including all software, designs, APIs, and documentation, is our intellectual property.

License to you: We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use Ballast for your internal business purposes while your subscription is active.

11. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

• We are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages
• We are not liable for lost profits, data loss, or business interruption
• We are not liable for issues caused by third-party services you connect
• Our total liability is limited to the fees you paid in the 12 months before the claim

Translation: We provide infrastructure to connect and search your data. We're not liable for the content of that data, decisions you make based on it, or problems with services you connect.

12. Termination

You can leave anytime. Cancel your account through your settings or by contacting support.

We can terminate your account if you violate these terms, with or without notice depending on the severity.

After termination: Your access ends immediately. All connected integrations are disconnected. We'll delete your synced data and credentials within 30 days, and account records within 90 days unless legally required to retain them.

13. Governing Law & Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Utah, United States.

Dispute resolution: If there's a problem, we'll try to resolve it directly. If that fails, disputes will be resolved through binding arbitration in Utah under JAMS rules, not litigation.

14. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms as our service evolves. Material changes will be communicated via email to active users. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance.

15. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Contact us:

Email: legal@ballast.sh

The bottom line: You own your data. It lives in a dedicated database isolated at the infrastructure level. Connect services you have rights to use. We provide the infrastructure; we don't access your content during normal operations.