Terms of service.
This is a draft
These terms describe what Newsful is, what we do and don't promise, and what we ask of you in return. We have tried to write them in the same plain language as the rest of the site. Where a section matters more than its length suggests, we have said so.
What Newsful is
Newsful is a news reader. It gathers stories from publishers, assesses them, and surfaces the ones likely to be relevant and actionable where you live. It shows you a headline, a short summary, and a link to the original. It is not a publisher, and it does not host the journalism it points at.
Newsful is an independent commercial product. It is free to use today, and we plan to offer paid features later. We mention this because our address ends in .org, which people reasonably read as nonprofit — we would rather tell you now than surprise you at a paywall.
Who can use it
You need to be at least 13 years old. If you create an account, you are responsible for what happens under it and for keeping your sign-in secure. Tell us if you think someone else is using it.
The articles are not ours
Every story Newsful shows you was reported and published by someone else, and it belongs to them. We show a headline, a brief summary, and a link out. We do not reproduce full articles, and we do not claim any right to the underlying work.
We are not responsible for what publishers write, and including a story is not an endorsement of it. If an article is wrong, unfair, or should not have been published, the publisher is the one who can correct or remove it — take it up with them, not us. If you believe Newsful itself is displaying something it should not, write to us and we will look at it.
Our summaries and scores are automated
The summaries, suggested actions, deadline notes, and the bias, sensationalism, and depth assessments attached to each story are generated by a machine-learning model. They are not written or checked by a person before you see them.
That means they can be wrong. A deadline can be misread. A story's scope can be mischaracterized. A score can flatter a source that does not deserve it. Read the original before you rely on anything — and do not use Newsful as your basis for a legal, financial, medical, or safety decision. It is a way of finding stories worth your attention, not a source of advice.
Newsful is not an emergency service
This section matters more than the others, so we will be blunt about it.
Newsful surfaces some safety-related stories — severe weather, public safety events, environmental hazards — and marks them for people nearby. That is a convenience built on top of ordinary news feeds. It is not an alert system, we make no promise that it is timely or complete, and a warning that matters to you may arrive late or never arrive at all.
Do not rely on Newsful to keep you safe. For emergencies and hazard warnings, use the sources built for it: the National Weather Service, your local emergency management agency, official alerts on your phone, and 911. If Newsful and an official source disagree, the official source is right.
What we ask of you
Use Newsful as a reader. Don't scrape it, don't hammer it with automated requests, don't try to break or circumvent its limits, and don't use it to harass anyone or to do anything illegal. Don't resell access to it or pass off its output as your own product.
That is the whole list. We are not trying to police how you read the news.
Your account
When accounts exist, you will be able to delete yours at any time, and doing so removes the record we hold. What is stored on your device is yours to clear whenever you like. Our privacy policy explains which is which.
We may suspend or close an account that is being used to abuse the service or other people. We would rather explain the problem first, and in most cases we will.
Availability and changes
Newsful is a small operation and we make no uptime promise. It may be unavailable, slow, or missing stories, sometimes without warning. Features may change or be removed as we learn what works.
We may update these terms. When a change materially affects you, we will say so directly rather than quietly moving the date at the top.
No warranty
Newsful is provided as is, without warranties of any kind, express or implied — including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, or that anything it shows you is accurate or complete.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, Newsful is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or any harm arising from your reliance on anything the service showed you or failed to show you.
Where liability cannot be excluded, it is capped at [LIABILITY CAP — pending counsel review]. Like the governing-law section below, this is a deliberate placeholder rather than a number we picked: the figure belongs to whoever reviews this document, not to whoever drafted it.
Some jurisdictions do not allow these exclusions, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of [JURISDICTION — pending counsel review], without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. This placeholder is deliberate: Newsful is not yet an incorporated entity, and naming a jurisdiction before there is one to name would be guesswork. It will be settled before launch.
Contact
Questions about these terms, or about anything else: hello@newsful.org. For data and privacy requests specifically, use privacy@newsful.org, which is the address named in our privacy policy.