Terms of Service

1. What AdShield is

AdShield is an automated pre-review tool. You submit ad copy (as text, URL, or image) and we check it against a rulepack derived from FTC guidance and published enforcement cases. Output includes flagged phrases, suggested rewrites, and citations to real FTC enforcement actions.

We publish measured accuracy (currently 0.874 macro F1 on a 212-example test set) so you can calibrate your trust in the results. The tool catches most risk phrasing, but not all. Human review remains essential.

2. What AdShield is NOT

• Not legal advice. Nothing AdShield returns should be treated as the opinion of a lawyer. Our findings are automated pattern matches, not legal conclusions.
• Not an attorney-client relationship. Using AdShield does not retain us as your counsel, create privilege, or establish any duty we owe you beyond the service terms below.
• Not a guarantee of compliance.Passing an AdShield scan does not mean your ad is FTC-compliant. It means our tool didn’t detect a known violation pattern. Regulators may still take action on content we didn’t flag.
• Not a substitute for substantiation. If you make an efficacy claim, you need the underlying scientific evidence. AdShield cannot verify that you have it.

3. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Submit content you don’t own or have permission to scan.
• Use AdShield to evaluate content outside its intended purpose (advertising claims for DTC brands — not legal briefs, news articles, code review, etc.).
• Scrape, automate, or otherwise circumvent our rate limits.
• Resell AdShield’s scan output as a standalone product.
• Use AdShield to generate deceptive content (e.g. reverse- engineer rewrites to maximize violation risk).

We may rate-limit, block, or terminate access for accounts violating these terms. No notice required for clear abuse.

4. Warranty and liability

AdShield is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind, express or implied. We do not guarantee:

• The accuracy of scan results (we publish our measured accuracy for transparency, not as a guarantee).
• Uninterrupted service availability.
• That any specific ad copy will or won’t face FTC action.

In no event shall AdShield, its operators, or its contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of your use of the service. Your sole remedy for any dissatisfaction with the service is to stop using it.

5. Your content

You retain all rights to content you submit. By submitting ad copy for scanning, you grant us a narrow license to process it through our pipeline — that’s it. We do not use your content for marketing, training AI models, or any purpose other than running the scan you requested. See our Privacy Policy for data retention details.

6. Enforcement case citations

AdShield references publicly available FTC enforcement actions. Citation to a case is a statement that “copy like yours resembles language that resulted in the named action” — not a legal opinion about your specific liability. The FTC, DOJ, and court filings are the authoritative sources. We link to primary sources wherever possible.

7. Third-party services

AdShield uses Anthropic’s Claude API for language model inference and Cloudflare Turnstile for bot detection. Your use of AdShield is subject to their respective terms, but we are responsible to you for their performance within our service.

8. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the product and regulatory landscape evolve. Substantive changes will be communicated to email subscribers; the “Last updated” date at the top of this page always reflects the current version. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance.

9. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute will be resolved in the state or federal courts of Delaware.

10. Contact

Questions about these terms: legal@adshield.dev. For privacy-specific questions, see privacy@adshield.dev.