Clearance — Terms and Conditions

Effective date: [●]

1. Who we are and what these terms cover

1.1 Clearance is operated by S Squared Digital (company number 11921000), a company registered in England and Wales, trading as "Clearance" ("we", "us", "our"). Our registered office is at 13 FBX, The Boulevard, Imperial Wharf, London SW6 2TL, United Kingdom. You can contact us at saif@ssquareddigital.com.

1.2 These terms govern your use of the Clearance website, the Clearance compliance-screening tool (including the media text-extraction features), the Clearance application programming interface (the "API"), and any related services (together, the "Service").

1.3 By using the Service, creating an account, or making an API request, you agree to these terms. If you are using the Service on behalf of a company or other organisation, you confirm you have authority to bind that organisation, and "you" means that organisation.

2. What the Service is

2.1 The Service provides automated risk screening of advertising copy and the text content of advertising creative against a curated database of wording patterns associated with publicly available United Kingdom advertising rules and guidance (including areas covered by the CAP Code and related regulatory guidance).

2.2 The Service produces indications of potential risk ("flags"), editorial explanations, and suggested revisions. These are generated by deterministic automated rules applied to the text you submit.

3. Important limits of the Service — please read carefully

3.1 The Service is not legal advice. We are not a law firm, we do not provide legal services, and no output of the Service constitutes legal, regulatory or compliance advice. Outputs are automated informational indications only.

3.2 No guarantee of compliance. A result with no flags (or a "green" verdict) does not mean an advertisement complies with the CAP Code, the BCAP Code, consumer protection law, sector regulation, or any other law, code or platform policy. A flag is not a finding or prediction that an advertisement breaches any rule. The Service screens wording patterns; it does not assess imagery content, audience targeting, media placement, the truth of your claims, or whether you hold substantiation.

3.3 You remain responsible. You are solely responsible for your advertising, including obtaining appropriate professional advice for high-stakes or regulated material, holding evidence for your claims, and complying with all applicable laws, codes and platform rules. You must not represent to any third party that an advertisement has been "approved", "cleared" or "certified" by us.

3.4 Independence. Clearance is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), or any other regulator. References to rules in our outputs are editorial descriptions of publicly available material, provided to help you locate the relevant rules at source.

3.5 Rules change. Advertising regulation changes frequently. While we update our rule database from time to time, we do not warrant that it reflects the current state of any rule at any given moment.

4. Accounts

4.1 Some features require an account. You must provide accurate information, keep your credentials confidential, and tell us promptly of any unauthorised use. You are responsible for activity under your account.

4.2 The Service is intended for business and professional use by persons aged 18 or over.

5. Plans, billing and cancellation

5.1 Free tier. We offer a limited number of free checks per month, as described on our pricing page. We may change free-tier limits at any time.

5.2 Paid subscriptions. Paid plans (including web plans such as Pro and Agency, and API plans) are billed in advance on a recurring monthly basis at the prices shown at the point of purchase, via our payment processor. Prices include VAT where stated.

5.3 Cancellation. You may cancel at any time via your account's billing management. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; you keep access until then. Except where required by law, fees already paid are non-refundable.

5.4 Quota and fair use. Plans include usage allowances (for example, monthly API call quotas) as described on the pricing page. We may apply reasonable technical limits (including rate limits) to protect the Service. Allowances do not roll over.

5.5 Price and plan changes. We may change prices or plan features by giving you at least 30 days' notice by email or in-product notice. Changes apply from your next billing period; if you do not agree, you may cancel before they take effect.

5.6 Pay-per-call payments. Where we enable per-request payment for the API (including via the x402 protocol in supported digital assets), the price per request is stated in the payment requirements returned by the API. Pay-per-call payments are final when settled and are non-refundable except where required by law. We may enable, change or withdraw pay-per-call payment methods at any time.

6. API terms

6.1 API keys are personal to your account. You must keep them confidential, must not share or sell them, and must use one key per integration where practicable. We may revoke keys that we reasonably believe are compromised or misused.

6.2 You may use the API to integrate the Service into your own products, workflows and automated agents, provided that: (a) you pass on the disclaimer included in API responses wherever outputs are shown to end users or principals; (b) you do not present outputs as legal advice or as regulatory approval; and (c) you comply with the acceptable-use rules in clause 8.

6.3 We aim for high availability but do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation, and we may modify the API with reasonable notice for breaking changes (which we will make at a new version path where practicable).

7. Your content

7.1 You retain all rights in the advertising copy, images, video and other material you submit ("Your Content"). You grant us only the limited licence necessary to process Your Content for the purpose of providing the Service to you.

7.2 As described in our Privacy Policy: copy and creative submitted through the web tool are processed on your device and are not transmitted to us; material submitted through the API is processed in memory to produce a response and is not stored by us.

7.3 You are responsible for Your Content, including ensuring you have the rights to submit it and that it is not unlawful.

8. Acceptable use

You must not: (a) use the Service for any unlawful purpose; (b) attempt to probe, reverse engineer, scrape, extract or reconstruct our rule database, patterns or engine, except as permitted by law; (c) interfere with or disrupt the Service, circumvent usage limits, metering or access controls; (d) resell or provide the Service to third parties as your own service without our written agreement; (e) use the Service to develop a competing rules database; or (f) submit malicious code or content designed to disrupt the Service.

9. Intellectual property

9.1 We (and our licensors) own all rights in the Service, including the software, rule database, editorial content, reports format, branding and documentation. These terms grant you no rights in them except the limited right to use the Service in accordance with these terms.

9.2 Reports generated for you may be used within your organisation and shared with your clients and advisers for the purpose for which they were produced. You must not remove disclaimers from reports.

10. Liability

10.1 Nothing in these terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under the law of England and Wales.

10.2 Subject to clause 10.1, we shall not be liable for: (a) any losses arising from your publication of, or failure to publish, any advertisement, including regulatory complaints, rulings, investigations, fines, media costs, or reputational harm; (b) loss of profits, revenue, business, goodwill, anticipated savings, or data; or (c) any indirect or consequential loss.

10.3 Subject to clauses 10.1 and 10.2, our total aggregate liability to you arising out of or in connection with the Service in any 12-month period shall not exceed the greater of (a) the fees you paid to us for the Service in that period and (b) £100.

10.4 If you use the Service as a consumer, nothing in these terms affects your statutory rights, and clause 12 applies.

11. Indemnity (business users)

If you use the Service in the course of business, you will indemnify us against losses, claims and costs arising from: (a) your advertising and Your Content; (b) your breach of clause 8; or (c) claims by your clients or end users relating to your use of our outputs, except to the extent caused by our breach of these terms.

12. Consumer rights

12.1 If you are a consumer in the United Kingdom: you have legal rights in relation to digital services not provided with reasonable care and skill, and these terms do not limit those rights.

12.2 14-day cancellation right. You may cancel a paid subscription within 14 days of purchase for a refund. By starting to use the paid Service during that period you acknowledge that, if you cancel, we may reduce your refund proportionately to reflect the service provided before cancellation. To cancel, contact us at saif@ssquareddigital.com or use your billing management page.

13. Suspension and termination

13.1 We may suspend or terminate your access (in whole or in part) if you materially breach these terms, if required by law, or if your use poses a risk to the Service or other users. Where practicable we will give notice and an opportunity to remedy.

13.2 You may stop using the Service and close your account at any time. Clauses which by their nature should survive termination (including 3, 7, 9, 10, 11 and 15) survive.

14. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. For material changes we will give at least 30 days' notice by email or in-product notice. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance; if you do not agree, you may cancel before the changes take effect.

15. General

15.1 These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction, except that consumers resident elsewhere in the UK may bring proceedings in their local courts where the law allows.

15.2 If any provision is found unenforceable, the remainder continues in effect. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. These terms, together with the Privacy Policy and the plan descriptions on our pricing page, are the entire agreement between us regarding the Service. We may assign these terms as part of a business transfer; you may not assign them without our consent. No third party has rights under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce these terms.

S Squared Digital (company number 11921000), trading as Clearance
Registered office: 13 FBX, The Boulevard, Imperial Wharf, London SW6 2TL, United Kingdom · Contact: saif@ssquareddigital.com