Terms of Service

1. Agreement to these Terms

These Terms of Service (the Terms) are a binding agreement between you and CLV Media, LLC, a North Carolina limited liability company (we, us, the Company), which operates the ShelfStamp website and service (the Service).

By using the Service — including by running a free screening, without creating any account and without paying us anything — you accept these Terms. If you do not accept them, do not use the Service.

If you use the Service on behalf of a business, a consignment sale, a childcare program or any other organisation, you represent that you are authorised to bind that organisation, and you means both you and that organisation.

2. What the Service is, and what it is not

This section governs. Where anything else — marketing copy, a help article, a support email, or an inference you drew from a page — conflicts with it, this section controls.

2.1 What we actually do

The Service compares information about a children’s product — a brand, a model number, and optionally a date of manufacture, which you either type in or which we read from a photograph of the product’s tracking label — against records published by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), and it reports one of three results:

• RECALL MATCHED — the information you gave us matches a published recall record.
• POSSIBLE MATCH — we found records that resemble the item, but we cannot confirm a match from what you gave us.
• NO MATCH FOUND — nothing in the records we searched matched the information you gave us.

That is the entire product. It is a search of a database, performed at a moment in time, against the information you supplied.

2.2 NO MATCH FOUND is not a clearance

NO MATCH FOUND means we did not find a matching recall record. It does not mean the item is free of defects, fit for its purpose, or appropriate for a child to use. It is a statement about our search. It is not a statement about the object.

We do not inspect the item. We never see the item. We cannot see the item. The Service operates on a string of characters and, at most, a photograph of a label.

2.3 What a screening does not cover, ever

A screening does not detect, and is not capable of detecting, any of the following:

• The condition of the item — wear, cracks, corrosion, missing hardware, structural fatigue, or damage of any kind, including damage that makes an otherwise un-recalled product lethal.
• Prior damage or misuse, including a car seat that has been in a crash, which is invisible to any database.
• Counterfeit, grey-market, or unregistered items, which may carry a label that matches a legitimate product while being an entirely different object.
• Missing, altered, defaced, or fraudulent labels. If the label is wrong, our answer is wrong, and we have no way to know.
• Defects that have not been recalled — including defects that are known to the manufacturer, are the subject of litigation, or will be recalled tomorrow.
• Recalls we do not ingest, including state and local recalls, recalls by foreign regulators, voluntary manufacturer notices that are not published as a recall, and any record the federal agencies have not published or have published in a form we cannot parse.
• Anything about the seller, their honesty, or whether the item they ship you is the item they photographed.

2.4 We are not a safety authority and we do not certify products

We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting under the authority of the CPSC, NHTSA, the FDA, any state licensing agency, or any other government body. We do not test, inspect, approve, certify, or clear products. We do not issue safety certifications and no document we produce is one.

2.5 No professional advice, and no professional relationship

The Service is informational. It does not constitute legal, regulatory, compliance, licensing, medical, engineering, or product-safety advice, and using it does not create an attorney-client relationship, a consultant relationship, or any other professional relationship between you and us.

Nothing produced by the Service — a result, a certificate, a state documentation record, or a childcare page — may be relied upon as the sole basis for any decision about whether a child may use a product, whether a product may be sold, or whether you are in compliance with any law or licence condition. Those decisions are yours, and they require your own judgement and, where the stakes warrant it, a professional’s.

2.6 The duty to act on what you learn is yours

If the Service tells you an item matches a recall, acting on that — removing it, ceasing to sell it, contacting the manufacturer, notifying a buyer, reporting it to a licensing authority — is your responsibility and yours alone. We do not do any of those things, we do not notify anyone on your behalf, and we do not follow up.

3. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service. The Service is intended for adults making decisions about children’s products. It is not directed to children, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. See the Privacy Policy.

4. The free screening

Screening is free, requires no account, and is offered as-is. We may change it, limit it, rate-limit it, or withdraw it at any time and without notice. We do not promise it will be available, and we do not promise a result will be returned.

In particular, we will deliberately refuse to return a result when the recall data we screen against has not refreshed recently enough for us to stand behind the answer. A refusal is a feature. We would rather give you nothing than give you a result we cannot honestly date.

5. Certificates

5.1 What a certificate is

A certificate costs $4.99. It is a cryptographically signed, timestamped record of one screening event. It records:

• what you told us the item was;
• the photograph of the label you supplied, identified by its SHA-256 hash;
• which recall databases were searched, and how fresh each was at that moment;
• the result the search returned; and
• the date and time it happened.

The signature attests to those facts and to nothing else. It proves that a screening occurred, that it produced the stated result, and that neither the result nor the data freshness has been altered since.

5.2 What a certificate is not

5.3 A certificate speaks as of its date

Recalls are issued continuously. An item that matched nothing yesterday may match a recall tomorrow. A certificate is a photograph of one moment and it does not update itself.

The public verification page for every certificate re-runs the screening against current data each time it is loaded, and states plainly whether the item’s status has changed since issue. That is a service we provide voluntarily. It is not a monitoring service, we do not promise to perform it, and we will not notify you if something changes.

5.4 Publication, and taking it down

Certificates are private by default and are marked noindex. A certificate’s address contains 160 bits of randomness: it cannot be guessed and certificates cannot be enumerated. You may choose to make a certificate publicly listed, and if you do, you are publishing it.

We may revoke a certificate — that is, mark it revoked on its public page — if we determine it was issued in error, was obtained by fraud or misrepresentation, or is being used to make a claim about a product that the certificate does not support. We may do this without refunding you.

6. Payment, cancellation, and refunds

6.1 Payment

Payments are processed by Stripe, Inc. You provide your card details to Stripe, on Stripe’s form. We never receive, see, or store your card number. Your payment is also governed by Stripe’s terms.

6.2 A flagged result is a successful screening

This is the clause most likely to be argued about, so it is stated plainly.

You are paying for a screening with a documented result — not for a particular result. If you buy a certificate and it records RECALL MATCHED, the Service worked. It did precisely what you paid it to do, and it did it well. You are not entitled to a refund because you did not like the answer, and a chargeback on that basis is a chargeback made in bad faith.

6.3 When we do refund

We will refund you, in full and without argument, if:

• you were charged and no certificate was issued;
• the certificate we issued was wrong through our fault, and we cannot correct it;
• you were charged more than once for the same screening; or
• you ask within 24 hours of purchase and the certificate has not been shared, made public, or embedded anywhere.

Refund requests go to support@shelfstamp.com. Quote the certificate number.

7. Label photographs and content you give us

7.1 The licence you grant us

When you upload a photograph of a tracking label, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store it, process it, transmit it to the automated label-reading provider named in section 10, hash it, and serve it from the certificate it is bound to. That licence exists so that we can run the Service and so that the certificate remains verifiable. It exists for no other purpose.

We do not use your photographs to train models, we do not sell them, and we do not licence them to anyone else.

7.2 What you promise us about a photograph

You represent and warrant that:

• you took the photograph, or you have the right to give it to us;
• it is a photograph of a product label, and it does not contain a person’s face, a document, a screen, or anything else you would not want stored; and
• it is not an attempt to have us record a screening of an item you do not have, or to attach a screening to an item other than the one photographed.

We strip EXIF and GPS metadata from every photograph on our server before storing it. That protects the location where you took it. It cannot protect you from what is in the frame. Photograph the label, not the room.

7.3 Photographs are permanent, because certificates are

The certificate binds to the hash of the photograph. That is what makes it verifiable: a sceptic can fetch the image, hash it themselves, and check it against the document. If we deleted the photograph, the certificate would become an unverifiable assertion.

So while a certificate exists, the photograph it is bound to exists. If you want the photograph gone, the certificate has to go with it. Write to us and we will do both.

8. Intellectual property

8.1 What we own

The Service, the ShelfStamp name and mark, the site, the design system, the software, the extraction and matching engines, and the structure and selection of our database are ours, and are protected by copyright, trademark and trade-secret law. ShelfStamp™ is a trademark of the Company. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of it to you.

8.2 What we do not own, and will not pretend to

The underlying recall records come from the CPSC and NHTSA. They are works of the United States Government and, under 17 U.S.C. § 105, they are not subject to copyright. We claim no ownership of the federal recall data, and we never will. It is public, it belongs to the public, and anyone is free to go and get it.

What we claim is what we built on top of it: the extraction of model numbers from unstructured recall prose, the matching engine, the compilation, and the software. Those are ours. The underlying public record is not, and a company that told you otherwise would be claiming a monopoly on a safety notice.

8.3 Your certificate

The certificate we issue to you is yours to use, display, share, embed in a listing, and hand to a buyer, an inspector, or a licensing authority — provided you do not alter it and do not represent it as saying something it does not say.

9. Acceptable use, scraping, and reverse engineering

The full Acceptable Use Policy is a separate document and is incorporated into these Terms by reference. In summary, and without limiting it, you may not:

• use automated means to extract our database, our extractions, or our match results in bulk. Access in excess of what the interface permits, or in circumvention of any technical limit, may violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030;
• use the Service, or any output of it, as training, fine-tuning, evaluation or benchmark data for any machine-learning model;
• reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive our matching or extraction logic;
• forge, alter, or misrepresent a certificate, or present a certificate as attesting to something it does not attest to;
• screen an item you do not have, in order to produce a certificate for an item you are selling that is not the item screened; or
• use the Service to represent to a buyer, a parent, or a regulator that a product is safe.

The last two are the ones we care about most, because they are the ones that turn this Service into a fraud instrument. We will revoke certificates and terminate access for them without notice and without refund.

10. Automated label reading

10.1 What happens to your photograph

When you photograph a tracking label, the image is sent to Anthropic, PBC, whose vision model reads the text on it and returns the brand and model number it believes it sees. This happens on our server, after EXIF and GPS metadata have been stripped.

We are telling you this in the body of the contract rather than burying it under “automated processing”, because it is the disclosure that would matter to you: a photograph you took in your home is transmitted to a third party. Anthropic does not use it to train models. You can read their privacy terms yourself; we link to them in our Sub-processors list.

10.2 A machine reading is a guess until you confirm it

The model misreads labels. It confuses characters, it invents plausible brand names, and it is more confident than it should be. We treat every read as provisional, we show you what we read and require you to confirm it before screening, and we discard any value the model returns that does not literally appear in the text it was given.

None of that makes it correct. If you confirm a misread label, we will screen the wrong item and tell you the wrong thing. Check what we read against the label in front of you. That is why we ask.

11. Business, consignment, and childcare accounts

11.1 Documentation records are not government forms

For some states we can assemble a record of the screenings you have run, formatted to resemble what that state’s licensing rules describe. That record is a convenience document produced from your own screening history. It is not a state form, it is not issued or approved by any licensing authority, and filing it does not discharge any obligation you have.

Where a state prescribes no recall-screening record at all, we will tell you so and we will not generate one, because an official-looking document for a requirement that does not exist is a document you would be signing.

11.2 You perform your own inspection

Where a record carries a signature line, the signature is yours and it attests to your inspection. We assembled the record. We did not perform your inspection, we cannot perform it, and we cannot sign for you.

11.3 Our state summaries are summaries

Our pages describing what a given state requires are summaries of publicly available licensing rules, prepared with care and cited to primary sources. Rules change, and we may be wrong. They are not legal advice and they are not a substitute for reading your own state’s rules or asking your licensing authority.

11.4 Coverage is limited to what was screened

Any register, pull-list, or documentation record we produce covers only the items that were actually screened through the Service. It does not cover items you did not screen, and the absence of an item from such a record is not a clean result for that item. It is silence.

12. Third-party services and government data

The Service depends on data published by the CPSC and NHTSA. We do not control that data. It may be incomplete, delayed, mis-keyed, ambiguous, or withdrawn. Recall notices are often written in prose that does not state a model number at all, and where that is so, no screening service — ours or anyone’s — can match on one.

We publish the freshness of every feed on every result, and we will refuse to screen rather than screen against stale data. That is the most we can do, and it is not a warranty of the data’s completeness or accuracy.

The Service also links to third-party sites, including official recall records. We do not control them and are not responsible for them.

13. Disclaimer of warranties

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so some of the above may not apply to you.

14. Limitation of liability

14.1 Exclusion of indirect damages

14.2 The kinds of loss this expressly reaches

Without limiting the above, and so that there is no argument later about what was contemplated, the exclusion in 14.1 applies to claims for:

• loss arising from a product that the Service screened and for which it returned NO MATCH FOUND, and which was in fact recalled, defective, damaged, or unfit;
• loss arising from a product the Service could not screen because its label was missing, unreadable, altered, or counterfeit;
• loss arising from a recall published after the screening, or never published at all;
• loss arising from a machine misread of a label that you confirmed;
• a licensing citation, a failed inspection, a suspension, or a revocation suffered by a childcare provider, consignment organiser, or reseller;
• a claim brought against you by a buyer, a parent, or a regulator in reliance on a certificate; and
• the reputational and commercial consequences of any of the above.

14.3 Aggregate cap

14.4 What this clause does not do

We are not going to pretend otherwise, so we will say it ourselves: nothing in these Terms limits or excludes our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other liability that cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law. Many states hold a limitation of liability for personal injury to a consumer void as against public policy. Where that is the law, it is the law, and this section yields to it.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you. This section applies to the fullest extent permitted, and no further.

14.5 Essential basis

The limitations in this section are an essential basis of the bargain, and they apply even if a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose. Screening is offered free, and a certificate is offered for $4.99, because these limits exist. Without them the Service would not be offered at all.

15. Indemnification

You will indemnify, defend and hold harmless the Company and its officers, members, employees and agents from any claim, demand, loss, liability, damages, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or relating to:

• your use of the Service;
• any content or photograph you upload;
• your breach of these Terms or of any law;
• any representation you make to a third party about a product, a certificate, or a screening result — including any representation that a product is safe, fit, or cleared; and
• any decision you make in reliance on the Service, including a decision to sell an item, to buy an item, to keep an item in service, or to place a child in contact with it.

16. Dispute resolution and arbitration

16.1 Talk to us first

Before starting an arbitration, you agree to write to legal@shelfstamp.com describing the dispute and what you want, and to give us 30 days to resolve it. Most things are fixable by an email from a person who wants to fix them.

16.2 Binding arbitration

If we cannot resolve it, any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by final and binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, seated in Charlotte, North Carolina. If you are an individual consumer, you may elect to have the hearing conducted by telephone or video conference, or on the papers.

16.3 Your right to opt out of arbitration

You can decline arbitration entirely. Write to legal@shelfstamp.com within 30 days of first accepting these Terms and say that you opt out of section 16. That is all it takes. We will not treat you differently for it, we will not charge you more, and we will not withdraw the Service from you. If you opt out, sections 16.2 and 16.4 do not apply to you and disputes go to the courts described in section 16.6.

16.4 Class action and jury trial waiver

16.5 Exceptions

Either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court, and either party may seek injunctive relief in court to protect intellectual property or to stop unauthorised access to the Service. Nothing in this section prevents you from reporting a safety concern to the CPSC, NHTSA, or any other regulator, and any term purporting to prevent that would be void.

16.6 Governing law and venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of North Carolina, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Where a dispute is not subject to arbitration, the state and federal courts located in Charlotte, North Carolina have exclusive jurisdiction, and both parties consent to that venue.

17. Survival

Sections 2 (what the Service is and is not), 5.2 (what a certificate is not), 7.1 (licence), 8 (intellectual property), 13 (warranties), 14 (liability), 15 (indemnification), 16 (disputes), this section, and 18 (general) survive any termination or expiry of these Terms and any cessation of your use of the Service.

18. General provisions

18.1 Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms. If a change is material, we will post the revised Terms with a new version number and effective date at least 14 days before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Service after that date means you accept the change. If you do not, stop using the Service.

We will not apply a changed term retroactively to a certificate already issued. The certificate you hold was issued under the Terms in force on its date, and that is a property of the document, not of this page.

18.2 Entire agreement, severability, waiver, assignment

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, the Acceptable Use Policy, the Cookie Policy and the Refund Policy, are the entire agreement between us and supersede anything said before. If any provision is held unenforceable, it is severed and the rest survives. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them to a successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

18.3 Force majeure

We are not liable for any failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including the unavailability, alteration, or withdrawal of the federal recall data on which the Service depends.

18.4 No third-party beneficiaries

These Terms create no rights in anyone who is not a party to them. In particular, a person who is shown a certificate — a buyer, a parent, an inspector — acquires no rights against us by reason of having been shown it.

19. Contact

CLV Media, LLC
10850 Providence Rd, Suite 1325, Charlotte, NC 28277
legal@shelfstamp.com for legal notices · support@shelfstamp.com for everything else