Terms of Service

1. The agreement

These terms are an agreement between the firm that subscribes ("you") and Blindfold, a VAIC product ("Blindfold", "we", "us"). By subscribing, or by signing in as a preparer your firm has added, you accept them. The person who subscribes confirms they have authority to bind the firm.

2. The service

Blindfold reads tax documents in your browser, replaces identifying details with tokens, shows the original and the clean copy side by side for review, and records each release in your firm's audit log. Document contents are processed on your device and are not sent to our servers. Our Privacy Policy describes what we do and don't receive.

3. Accounts and seats

• Each seat is for one named preparer. Sign-in links are personal and must not be shared.
• Your firm's admin controls who holds a seat and is responsible for activity under the firm's account.
• Tell us promptly if you believe an account has been accessed without permission.

4. Subscriptions and billing

• Price. Monthly: $50 for the first preparer and $35 for each additional preparer. Annual: $500 and $350. Applicable taxes are added at checkout.
• Renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically each month or year until cancelled. Stripe processes payments on our behalf.
• Changing seats. Seats added during a billing period are prorated. Removed seats end at the next billing date.
• Cancelling. You can cancel any time from the billing page. Access continues to the end of the period you've paid for.
• Refunds. Fees already paid are not refunded, except where the law requires it.
• Failed payments. If a payment fails we'll notify the admin and may pause access until it's resolved.
• Price changes. We'll give at least 30 days' notice by email before a price change takes effect at your next renewal.

5. Your responsibilities

• Review every release. Blindfold flags what it finds and what it's unsure of. A preparer must review the clean copy against the original before it leaves your firm.
• Your professional obligations stay yours. You remain responsible for client confidentiality and for complying with the laws and rules that apply to your firm, including Internal Revenue Code section 7216, the FTC Safeguards Rule, IRS Publication 4557, state law and your professional standards.
• You decide where clean copies go. Your use of any AI tool is governed by that tool's terms, and you are responsible for choosing tools appropriate for your firm.
• Keep your keys. Re-identification keys and passphrases are held only by you. We cannot recover a lost key or passphrase.
• Use documents you're entitled to use. Load only documents your firm has the right to process.

6. Acceptable use

You agree not to resell or share access outside your firm, copy or reverse engineer the service, interfere with its operation or security, or use it for unlawful purposes.

7. What Blindfold is not

• Not a guarantee. Automated detection can miss identifying information, especially in free-text notes, and OCR can misread characters. We do not promise that every clean copy is free of identifying details.
• Not professional advice. Blindfold does not provide tax, legal, accounting or compliance advice, and using it does not by itself make your firm compliant with any law or standard.

8. Your data and ours

Your documents, clean copies, keys and audit log entries belong to your firm. You can export your audit log at any time. The Blindfold software, site and brand belong to us, and we grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the service during your subscription. If you send us feedback, we may use it to improve the product.

9. Availability and changes

We work to keep Blindfold available and may update, add or remove features. We'll give reasonable notice before a change that materially reduces what the service does. Planned or unplanned downtime can occur.

10. Warranty disclaimer

The service is provided "as is" and "as available." To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

11. Limit of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue or data. Our total liability for any claim relating to the service is limited to the amount your firm paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose.

12. Indemnity

You agree to defend and indemnify us against third-party claims that arise from your firm's use of the service in breach of these terms or of the law, including claims by your clients about information your firm released.

13. Ending the agreement

You may cancel at any time. We may suspend or end access if you materially breach these terms or don't pay. After the agreement ends, your right to use the service stops, and your firm's audit log remains available for export on request for a reasonable period.

14. General

• Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Missouri, and disputes will be heard in the state or federal courts located in Missouri.
• Changes to these terms. We'll update the date above and email firm admins at least 30 days before material changes take effect. Continuing to use the service after that date means you accept them.
• Whole agreement. These terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between us about the service. If part of them is unenforceable, the rest stays in effect.
• Contact. Reach us through the contact form.