Terms of Use

Effective: July 26, 2026

These Terms of Use describe what is—and is not—acceptable when interacting with Hearth. They form part of our broader Terms of Service.

Hearth is designed to be thoughtful, useful, and safe. These rules apply to every message, file, prompt, instruction, and other interaction you send to or through the Service.

1. Use Hearth lawfully and respectfully

You may use Hearth for personal conversation, reflection, creativity, planning, learning, and other lawful purposes.

You are responsible for your use of Hearth, the content you submit, and actions you take based on a response. You must comply with applicable law and respect the rights, safety, and dignity of other people.

2. Prohibited conduct

You may not use Hearth to:

1. commit, facilitate, promote, or conceal illegal activity;
2. threaten, harass, stalk, exploit, abuse, or defame another person;
3. sexualize, exploit, groom, or endanger a minor;
4. encourage suicide, self-harm, eating-disorder behavior, or violence;
5. create or distribute hateful content targeting a protected characteristic;
6. impersonate another person or misrepresent Hearth-generated content as authentic human communication where that would be deceptive or harmful;
7. invade privacy, expose personal information, or monitor someone without lawful authority;
8. infringe copyright, trademark, publicity, privacy, or other rights;
9. create malware, phishing, credential theft, fraud, spam, or other abusive automation;
10. evade rate limits, safety controls, access restrictions, or technical protections;
11. probe, scan, disrupt, overload, or compromise Hearth or connected systems;
12. scrape, harvest, or systematically extract content or data from the Service;
13. reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to discover non-public components of the Service, except where law expressly permits it;
14. use Hearth or its outputs to develop, train, or benchmark a competing AI system without written permission;
15. make automated decisions about another person in high-impact areas such as employment, credit, housing, insurance, education, legal services, or healthcare; or
16. engage in any activity that creates an unreasonable risk of harm to Hearth, our users, our providers, or the public.

Attempts to do these things are also prohibited.

3. Prohibited content

Do not submit content that:

• depicts or facilitates child sexual exploitation or abuse;
• contains non-consensual intimate imagery or sexual violence;
• provides another person’s highly sensitive personal data without permission;
• contains malicious code or instructions intended to compromise a system;
• unlawfully infringes intellectual property or confidentiality obligations; or
• is otherwise illegal to possess, share, or process.

If you encounter content involving child sexual exploitation or an imminent threat of serious harm, contact the appropriate authorities. Hearth may preserve and report information where required or permitted by law.

4. Emotional wellbeing and crisis situations

Hearth may discuss emotions and personal experiences, but it is not a therapist, crisis counselor, medical provider, or emergency service. It cannot guarantee that it will recognize distress or provide an appropriate response.

Do not use Hearth to replace professional care or emergency help. If there is an immediate risk of harm, contact local emergency services or a qualified crisis service.

You may not manipulate Hearth to encourage another person’s dependency, isolate them from real-world support, or misrepresent an AI response as professional advice.

5. High-impact and professional uses

Hearth is not designed to provide medical, legal, financial, employment, or other regulated professional decisions.

You may ask general informational questions, but you must independently verify important information and consult a qualified professional where appropriate. You may not use Hearth’s output as the sole basis for a decision that determines another person’s rights, access to essential services, or legal status.

6. Privacy and consent

Only share information you have the right to share. Before sending another person’s messages, photos, recordings, or private details to Hearth, consider whether you have their permission and whether sharing is lawful.

Do not use Hearth to identify anonymous people, infer highly sensitive traits about others, or build dossiers about individuals.

Our Privacy Policy explains how Hearth processes information you send.

7. Intellectual property and authenticity

Respect creators and rights holders. Do not ask Hearth to reproduce or distribute material where doing so would violate copyright, trademark, confidentiality, or other rights.

AI-generated content can be incorrect and may resemble existing material. You are responsible for reviewing content before publishing or relying on it. When context requires transparency, disclose that content was generated or materially edited with AI.

You may not remove ownership notices, falsely claim Hearth’s branding as your own, or imply that Hearth endorses you or your content without written permission.

8. Security research

We value responsible security research. Do not test Hearth in a way that accesses another person’s data, disrupts the Service, creates excessive traffic, or violates law.

If you believe you found a vulnerability, stop testing once you have enough information to explain it and report it to security@hearth.ai. Do not publicly disclose an unresolved vulnerability or demand payment as a condition of withholding harmful activity.

9. Enforcement

Hearth may use automated systems and human review to detect violations. Depending on the seriousness, context, and history of conduct, we may:

• refuse or limit a response;
• warn you;
• restrict a feature;
• temporarily suspend access;
• permanently terminate access;
• preserve relevant information; or
• report conduct to authorities where required or permitted by law.

We may act immediately where needed to address safety, security, fraud, legal, or operational risk.

10. Appeals and reporting

If you believe we made an enforcement decision in error, contact support@hearth.ai with the phone number associated with Hearth and an explanation. We may request additional information to verify your identity and review the decision.

To report misuse, harmful content, or a safety concern, contact safety@hearth.ai. Do not use email for an emergency.

11. Changes

We may update these Terms of Use as Hearth and its safety practices evolve. We will post the updated version with a new effective date. Material changes will receive additional notice where required.

12. Contact

Questions about acceptable use can be sent to:

Hearth Safety Team
safety@hearth.ai