Terms of Use

This page is a draft. We'll finish it before Pebble & Moss opens.

Pebble & Moss is a place to remember pets who have died. These terms are the agreement between you and us. They're written to be read, so please do.

Who "we" are: Pebble & Moss is run by [legal name], [virtual mailbox street address], USA. Write to us any time at hello@pebbleandmoss.com. We usually reply within a couple of days.

By using Pebble & Moss, making an account or leaving a note, you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy.

1. Who can use it

  • Anyone can visit a memorial, leave a note, or light a candle or leave a flower. You don't need an account for that.
  • To make a memorial you need an account, and you must be at least 13.
  • Pebble & Moss isn't made for children under 13. If you're under 13, please ask a grown-up to post a note for you. If we learn that a child under 13 has given us their name or a photo, we remove it.

2. Your memorials

  • The account holder controls the memorial. Whoever holds the account that made a memorial decides what's on it, who can see it, and whether it stays up.
  • We don't settle disputes between people, for example between family members or after a breakup. We may hide a memorial while we look into a credible complaint, for example that it uses someone else's pet or someone else's photos. In the cases our ownership policy covers, we may move a memorial to another account. Our ownership policy explains what proof we accept when someone loses access to their email, when an owner has died, and when someone is impersonated.
  • Who sees it. A memorial starts as "Only people I share it with". Anyone with the link can see it. It isn't listed anywhere, and search engines are asked not to show it.
  • If you choose "Everyone", it appears in the Memorial Garden and can show up in Google searches. The first time, it joins the Memorial Garden after a quick look from us, usually within a day. Notes already on the wall become visible to everyone too.
  • Deleting. You can delete a photo, a note on your memorial, a memorial or your whole account. Deleted things can be restored for 30 days, then they're permanently deleted. If you delete your account, logging in within 30 days brings everything back.
  • Download everything. Every memorial has a free "Download everything" button: all photos plus the story and notes. Your memories are always yours to take.

3. Our "forever" promise

Memorials stay up for as long as Pebble & Moss runs, even if you never log in again. We'll never delete a memorial for being inactive.

If Pebble & Moss ever has to close:

  • we'll email every owner at least 90 days ahead;
  • "Download everything" keeps working until the last day.

We may still remove a memorial that breaks these terms (section 5), or that the owner deletes.

4. What you post, and what you let us do with it

You keep ownership of the photos, stories and notes you post.

You give us permission to store, copy, resize and show them, only to run Pebble & Moss. That covers the memorial page, the Memorial Garden when the owner chooses "Everyone", share images when someone shares the link, backups and the owner's "Download everything" file. This permission ends when the item is permanently deleted, except for copies that are part of backups until those expire, and anything we must keep by law (section 6).

Notes from visitors. When you leave a note, you also let the memorial's owner keep it. Your note, your name as you wrote it and your photo may go into the family's "Download everything" file. Once the family has downloaded or printed it, we can't take it back from them.

You promise that you have the right to post what you post. For a photo, that means you took it, or the person who did is fine with you sharing it.

Photos are checked automatically. Every photo is checked by an automated service (Google Cloud Vision) for explicit or violent content before anyone else sees it. A photo flagged as explicit isn't used. A photo flagged as violent (a hard vet photo can be) isn't shown to visitors. If it's the owner's photo, only the owner sees it until they ask us to look. If a visitor added it, it waits for the owner to approve or remove it. Automated checks make mistakes. If we got one wrong, write to us.

5. Content rules

Pebble & Moss is a gentle place. Please don't post:

  • anything illegal, including any sexual content involving a minor. We report child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, as US law requires;
  • intimate or sexual images of anyone, or anything sexually explicit;
  • photos or words that are cruel, hateful, threatening or harassing;
  • accusations against a named person or business, for example blaming a named vet or clinic for a pet's death. Write about your pet and your loss, not about who you blame;
  • someone else's personal details, such as their address, phone number or email;
  • photos or writing you don't have the right to share;
  • spam, adverts, links to sell things, or contact details meant to draw people elsewhere;
  • a memorial pretending to be someone else's, or for a pet that isn't yours to remember, without the family's say.

The owner of a memorial can delete any note on it. We may hide or remove anything that breaks these rules, and we may suspend an account that does it again or on purpose. We may hold some notes for the owner to see first, for example notes with certain words.

To report something, use "Report" on the page, or see our report and takedown page. Reports about intimate images shared without consent are handled within 48 hours.

If you think something on Pebble & Moss uses your work without permission, send a notice to our copyright agent. The details and what to include are on our report and takedown page. We follow the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Repeat infringers: if an account gets valid copyright notices more than once, we may close it.

We may keep material and related records when the law requires it, for example after a report to NCMEC, even if it was deleted.

7. Things we can't promise

We work hard to keep Pebble & Moss running and your memories safe, with nightly backups and copies in more than one place. But it's a website, run by a small team, and things can go wrong. So:

  • Pebble & Moss is provided "as is". We don't promise it will always be available or free of mistakes.
  • As far as the law allows, we aren't responsible for indirect losses.
  • Our total responsibility to you for anything is limited to what you paid us in the 12 months before the problem, or $50 if that's more.
  • We aren't responsible for what other people post. Each person is responsible for their own notes and photos.

Some places don't allow these limits, so they may not all apply to you.

8. Ending things

You can delete your account at any time from Account settings. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms. If we do, we'll tell you why. If you ask, and it isn't about illegal content, we'll send you a copy of your photos and words.

9. Changes to these terms

If we change these terms in a way that matters, we'll email owners at least 30 days before the change applies and show a note on the site. The date at the top says when they last changed.

10. Law

These terms are governed by the laws of [Teis's state], USA. If there's a disagreement, please write to us first. Most things can be sorted out with a conversation.

11. Contact

hello@pebbleandmoss.com · [virtual mailbox street address]

Emoji graphics by Twemoji, CC BY 4.0.