Terms of Use

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) are a binding agreement between you and the operator of Burn Note (“Burn Note,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) governing your use of burnnote.io and related pages, APIs, tools, and services (collectively, the “Service”). By accessing or using the Service, you accept these Terms and the Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Eligibility

You may use the Service only if you are at least 18 years old, can legally enter into these Terms, and are not prohibited from using the Service by applicable law. If you use the Service for an organization, you represent that you are authorized to bind that organization, and “you” includes the organization.

2. The Service

Burn Note currently provides tools for temporary notes, one-time encrypted file sharing, local image compression, and local password generation. Features, limits, retention periods, encryption methods, storage providers, and availability may change or be discontinued at any time.

The Service is designed to minimize retained data, not to preserve it. Do not use Burn Note as your only copy of information. Do not rely on it for emergency communications, regulated recordkeeping, legal holds, medical care, financial transactions, critical infrastructure, or any situation where delay, loss, unauthorized access, or deletion could cause serious harm.

3. Temporary and one-time behavior

• A note or file may expire, be deleted, be consumed, become unavailable, or fail before the displayed limit.
• Opening a one-time file link may retrieve and consume the encrypted object before the browser completes a local download. Refreshing or reopening may make it unavailable.
• Recipients may screenshot, copy, save, forward, or otherwise retain content before it expires.
• Deletion from active application storage does not guarantee immediate erasure from every cache, log, backup, security system, browser, device, or third-party service.
• Burn Note cannot restore expired content, recover lost links or passwords, or identify an anonymous sender or recipient.

4. Your responsibilities

You are solely responsible for the content you create, upload, transmit, receive, decrypt, download, or share; the people with whom you share a link or password; maintaining any necessary backup; confirming recipient identity through a separate trusted channel; and complying with laws, contracts, professional obligations, confidentiality duties, and organizational policies.

You represent and warrant that you own or have all rights and permissions necessary to use and share your content, and that your use will not violate another person’s privacy, publicity, intellectual-property, contractual, employment, or other rights.

5. Prohibited use

You may not use, facilitate, encourage, or attempt to use the Service to:

• Create, possess, distribute, solicit, or link to child sexual abuse material or any sexual exploitation of a minor.
• Distribute non-consensual intimate images, sexual extortion material, human-trafficking content, or content that unlawfully exploits or endangers another person.
• Make credible threats, facilitate violence, stalking, harassment, doxxing, coercion, blackmail, or targeted abuse.
• Commit fraud, phishing, impersonation, credential theft, identity theft, extortion, money laundering, sanctions evasion, or other deceptive or unlawful activity.
• Upload or distribute malware, ransomware, spyware, destructive code, botnet instructions, stolen access credentials, or tools primarily intended to compromise systems or data.
• Infringe copyright, trademark, trade-secret, privacy, publicity, or other rights.
• Sell, distribute, or facilitate illegal drugs, weapons, contraband, stolen property, or unlawful services.
• Interfere with, probe, scrape, overload, reverse engineer, bypass limits of, or gain unauthorized access to the Service, APIs, storage, or another user’s content.
• Use automated means at a volume that impairs the Service, circumvents rate limits, or avoids abuse controls.
• Misrepresent Burn Note’s security properties, falsely claim endorsement, or use the Service to conceal conduct that is illegal or violates these Terms.

This list is illustrative, not exhaustive. Content being encrypted does not make prohibited conduct acceptable.

6. Abuse reports, enforcement, and legal process

Report suspected abuse to [email protected]. Do not email unlawful content, plaintext secrets, decryption keys, or a complete private link. Provide the minimum available identifier, the nature of the concern, and lawful supporting context.

We may block requests, restrict domains or network ranges, disable identifiers, remove available content, preserve available records, suspend features, cooperate with service providers, or report apparent criminal activity where we reasonably believe it is necessary to enforce these Terms, comply with law, protect people, or secure the Service. Because content may be encrypted and anonymous, we may be unable to inspect or identify it. We have no general duty to monitor all content and do not guarantee that we can act before content expires.

7. Encryption and security limitations

The current frontend uses browser cryptography for shared note content and file bytes. Encryption protects content only to the extent that implementation, devices, browsers, links, keys, passwords, and recipients remain secure. Anyone with the complete link or password may gain access. Filename, file size, expiry settings, request metadata, and other operational data may not be encrypted end to end.

You must not represent that Burn Note provides guaranteed anonymity, immunity from lawful process, perfect “no logs,” certified compliance, or absolute deletion. We do not provide penetration-test results, compliance certifications, business associate agreements, data-processing addenda, service-level agreements, or contractual security commitments unless separately signed in writing.

8. Your content and limited license

You retain whatever ownership rights you have in your content. You grant Burn Note and its service providers a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide license to host, store, transmit, reproduce, process, secure, delete, and otherwise handle your content and associated metadata solely as reasonably necessary to provide, protect, troubleshoot, and legally operate the Service. This license ends when the content is deleted from active systems, subject to limited residual copies and legal obligations.

9. Burn Note materials

The Service, branding, visual design, software, text, and other materials provided by Burn Note are owned by or licensed to Burn Note and are protected by applicable law. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, revocable, non-transferable, non-exclusive right to use the public Service for its intended purpose. No other rights are granted.

10. Third-party services

The Service relies on Cloudflare and may link to third-party websites. Third parties have their own terms, privacy practices, availability, and security. Burn Note is not responsible for third-party services or content. Your internet provider, browser, operating system, extensions, messaging platform, employer, and recipient may independently collect or retain information.

11. Feedback

If you submit feedback or suggestions, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free right to use them without restriction or compensation, provided we do not publicly identify you without permission.

12. No warranties

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” BURN NOTE DISCLAIMS ALL EXPRESS, IMPLIED, AND STATUTORY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, QUIET ENJOYMENT, SECURITY, AVAILABILITY, ACCURACY, CONFIDENTIALITY, AND PERMANENT DELETION. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, IMMUNE FROM ATTACK, OR SUITABLE FOR YOUR PURPOSE.

13. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, BURN NOTE AND ITS OWNER, OPERATORS, AFFILIATES, SERVICE PROVIDERS, LICENSORS, AND CONTRIBUTORS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES; LOSS OF DATA, SECRETS, REVENUE, PROFITS, BUSINESS, REPUTATION, OR OPPORTUNITY; UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS; EARLY OR FAILED DELETION; MALWARE; OR ACTIONS OF SENDERS, RECIPIENTS, OR THIRD PARTIES.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY OF THE BURN NOTE PARTIES FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF US$100 OR THE AMOUNT YOU PAID BURN NOTE FOR THE SERVICE DURING THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limits, so portions of this section may not apply to you.

14. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the Burn Note parties from claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your content, your use or misuse of the Service, your violation of these Terms or law, or your infringement of another person’s rights.

15. Suspension, termination, and changes

You may stop using the Service at any time. We may restrict, suspend, discontinue, or modify any part of the Service immediately, with or without notice, including to address security, abuse, legal, operational, or cost concerns. Sections that by their nature should survive termination will survive, including ownership, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnification, and dispute provisions.

16. Governing law and venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and applicable United States federal law, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Except where applicable law requires otherwise, any dispute must be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Massachusetts, and you consent to their personal jurisdiction. Before filing a claim, you agree to send a concise written notice to [email protected] and allow 30 days for an informal resolution.

17. General terms

If any provision is unenforceable, it will be modified to the minimum extent necessary and the remaining provisions will remain effective. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent; we may assign them as part of a reorganization, transfer, or sale. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement concerning the public Service unless we sign a separate written agreement.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. The “last updated” date identifies the current version. Continued use after an updated version becomes effective constitutes acceptance to the extent permitted by law. Material changes may also be highlighted on the website.

19. Contact

Legal and privacy questions: [email protected]
Abuse and safety reports: [email protected]