Terms of service

A free service

dotvitals is provided free of charge, without requiring an account, for the diagnostic checks described on the about page. There is no paid tier at launch. Certain heavier or ownership-gated checks require verifying ownership of a domain, as described on the scanner policy page.

Nothing in these terms creates a right to any particular level of service, uptime, or continued availability at no cost.

You must be authorised to test the target

dotvitals is a scanner. Pointing it at a system causes traffic to reach that system, and you are responsible for having the right to do so. Each time you run a check you confirm that you own the target, operate it, or are otherwise authorised to test it — or that the check is within the ordinary, read-only, publicly observable limits the acceptable use policy describes.

The acceptable use policy sets out what that means in practice. It is incorporated into these terms by reference: violating it is violating these terms.

No warranty

dotvitals is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.

Scan results reflect what a check observed at a specific point in time; they can be wrong, incomplete, cached, or out of date by the time you read them, and dotvitals does not guarantee their accuracy, completeness or timeliness. A clean result is not a certification of security, and a failing result is not proof of an active vulnerability.

Rate limits, refusal and fair use

dotvitals applies rate limits per visitor, per network and per target. They exist to keep the service usable for everyone and to protect the third-party domains being checked, and they can change at any time without notice.

dotvitals may throttle a request, ask you to pass a human-verification challenge, temporarily block access, or simply refuse to run a check — including because the target's owner has opted out, because the request pattern looks like reconnaissance rather than diagnosis, or because the service is under load. A refusal is not an accusation; most are automatic and time-bounded, and the appeal path is on the acceptable use page.

Your reports

A report is private by default and reachable only by its unguessable id. Sharing one is your decision, every share link expires, and you can revoke a link at any time. Anyone holding a link can read that report, so treat a share link as you would any unguessable URL.

Reports are deleted 30 days after they are created, and share links cannot outlive the report they point at. If you need a result for longer, export or screenshot it. The privacy policy has the full retention table.

You may use the results of a scan you ran however you like, including commercially. dotvitals claims no rights over your configuration or your domain; the wording of the explanations, and the site itself, remain ours.

Changes to the service

dotvitals may add, change, or remove checks, features, limits, or pages at any time, and may suspend or discontinue the service, in whole or in part, without prior notice. dotvitals does not guarantee that any specific check, page, or API endpoint will remain available or unchanged.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, dotvitals and the people operating it will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or any loss of data, revenue or goodwill, arising from or related to your use of, or inability to use, the service, or from any action taken or not taken based on a result the service produced.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

Changes to these terms

These terms may be updated from time to time; the date at the top of this page shows when it was last changed. Continued use of dotvitals after a change means you accept the updated terms. Material changes will be reflected here with an updated date, and significant ones may also be noted on the about page.

Governing law

TODO (owner): specify the governing law and jurisdiction for these terms (which country or region's law applies, and which courts have jurisdiction over a dispute), aligned with the legal entity and address to be added on the about page. This section must not be treated as final until that decision is made and reviewed by counsel.