Legal

Terms of Service

Effective

Last updated

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of the website located at vcso.ai and any related subdomains (collectively, the “Site”), operated by Secoyascent LLC DBA vCSO.ai, a California limited liability company (“vCSO.ai,” “we,” “us,” or “our”). By accessing or using the Site, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Site.

These Terms do not govern any separate engagement for advisory, consulting, or other professional services. Those services are provided exclusively under a separate written engagement letter or statement of work signed by both parties.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and have the legal capacity to form a binding contract to use the Site. If you access or use the Site on behalf of a business or other legal entity, you represent that you have the authority to bind that entity to these Terms, in which case “you” refers to both you individually and that entity.

2. The Site Is Informational

The Site is provided for general informational purposes only. Content on the Site — including articles, posts, research, frameworks, commentary, book excerpts, and other materials — is published to inform and educate. It does not constitute legal, accounting, tax, investment, regulatory, or cybersecurity advice, and no attorney-client, advisor-client, fiduciary, or professional relationship is created by your use of the Site.

If you wish to engage vCSO.ai for advisory, consulting, assessment, or executive placement services, those services are provided only under a separate executed written engagement. Nothing on the Site constitutes an offer to provide such services, and no engagement exists until such a written agreement is signed.

3. Contact Form and Communications

The Site includes a contact form and other means to initiate communication with us. When you submit information through the form or otherwise contact us, you may share personal and business information such as your name, email address, company, role, phone number, and the content of your message, and may reference your LinkedIn profile or other publicly available information.

We use this information to respond to your inquiry, evaluate whether a potential engagement is appropriate, follow up with you about vCSO.ai services and related content, and improve our offerings. We do not sell or rent this information. Our handling of personal information is further described in our Privacy Policy.

You represent that any information you submit is accurate and that you have the right to provide it. Do not submit information that is confidential, subject to a duty of non-disclosure you owe to a third party, privileged, or protected by law unless it is necessary and you have the authority to share it.

4. Acceptable Use

You agree to use the Site only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You will not:

  • Use the Site in a manner that violates any applicable federal, state, local, or international law or regulation;
  • Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Site, its servers, its underlying infrastructure, or any systems connected to the Site;
  • Interfere with or disrupt the operation of the Site, including by introducing malware, mounting denial-of-service attacks, or exploiting vulnerabilities;
  • Scrape, crawl, harvest, or otherwise systematically collect data from the Site by automated means, except by search engines operating in accordance with commonly accepted robots.txt conventions;
  • Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of any portion of the Site or its software, except to the extent permitted by applicable law;
  • Use the Site to transmit unsolicited communications, spam, advertising, or promotional materials;
  • Impersonate any person or entity or misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity;
  • Use the Site to harass, abuse, threaten, or defame any person; or
  • Use the Site to collect personal information about other users.

5. Intellectual Property

The Site and all content on it — including text, articles, images, photographs, videos, graphics, logos, trademarks, design elements, code, and the overall look and feel — are owned by vCSO.ai or its licensors and are protected by United States and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws.

Subject to your compliance with these Terms, vCSO.ai grants you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to access and view the Site for your own personal or internal business informational use. No other rights are granted. You may not reproduce, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, create derivative works from, or otherwise exploit any content on the Site without our prior written permission, except that you may download or print single copies of individual articles for your personal, non-commercial use provided you retain all copyright and other proprietary notices.

“vCSO.ai,” “Cyber War and Peace,” “Theodolite,” and related names, logos, taglines, and brand marks are trademarks of vCSO.ai or its affiliates. Other names and marks referenced on the Site are the property of their respective owners and are used for identification purposes only.

6. User Submissions and Feedback

If you send us ideas, suggestions, feedback, proposals, or other communications regarding the Site or our services (“Feedback”), you agree that:

  • The Feedback is non-confidential, regardless of how it is marked or described;
  • vCSO.ai may use, reproduce, disclose, publish, and otherwise exploit the Feedback for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, without any compensation to you; and
  • You will not assert any intellectual property rights against vCSO.ai in connection with the Feedback.

This Section does not apply to information you provide in the context of a signed advisory engagement, which is governed by the confidentiality terms of that engagement.

The Site may contain links to third-party websites, publications, products, or services that are not owned or controlled by vCSO.ai. We provide these links as a convenience. We do not endorse, and are not responsible for, the content, accuracy, privacy practices, or operations of any third-party site or resource. Your use of any linked site is at your own risk and subject to that site’s own terms and policies.

8. Books, Publications, and External Content

References on the Site to books, podcasts, articles, interviews, or other external publications authored by or featuring principals of vCSO.ai are provided for informational and promotional purposes. Purchase of any such publication from a third-party seller (including Amazon or other retailers) is governed by that seller’s terms and is not a transaction with vCSO.ai.

9. Disclaimers

THE SITE AND ALL CONTENT, INFORMATION, AND MATERIALS PROVIDED ON OR THROUGH IT ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, vCSO.ai DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, TITLE, AND QUIET ENJOYMENT.

Without limiting the foregoing, vCSO.ai does not warrant that the Site will be uninterrupted, secure, error-free, or free of viruses or other harmful components, that defects will be corrected, or that any content is accurate, current, or reliable.

Content on the Site is not professional advice. Cybersecurity, regulatory, legal, financial, and other decisions should not be made solely on the basis of information obtained from the Site. You should consult qualified professionals and enter into an appropriate written engagement before acting on any information on the Site.

10. Limitation of Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL vCSO.ai, ITS OFFICERS, MEMBERS, MANAGERS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AGENTS, AFFILIATES, OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, OR BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SITE, REGARDLESS OF THE LEGAL THEORY (CONTRACT, TORT, STATUTE, OR OTHERWISE) AND EVEN IF vCSO.ai HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, vCSO.ai’S TOTAL CUMULATIVE LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SITE OR THESE TERMS SHALL NOT EXCEED ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100.00).

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages, so some of the above limitations may not apply to you. In such jurisdictions, vCSO.ai’s liability is limited to the greatest extent permitted by law.

11. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless vCSO.ai, its officers, members, managers, employees, contractors, agents, affiliates, and licensors from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to: (a) your access to or use of the Site; (b) your violation of these Terms; (c) your violation of any law or the rights of any third party; or (d) any content you submit through the Site, including any claim that such content infringes, misappropriates, or violates any third-party right.

12. Privacy

Your use of the Site is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which describes how we collect, use, and protect personal information. By using the Site, you agree to the collection and use of information as described in the Privacy Policy.

13. Termination

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Site at any time, with or without cause and with or without notice. Upon termination, your right to use the Site ceases immediately. Provisions of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination — including intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, governing law, and dispute resolution — will survive.

14. Governing Law and Venue

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or relating to them or the Site are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict of laws principles. Subject to Section 15, the state and federal courts located in Santa Clara County, California have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute not subject to arbitration, and you consent to personal jurisdiction and venue in those courts.

15. Dispute Resolution; Arbitration

Please read this section carefully. It affects your legal rights.

Any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Site (“Dispute”) shall first be addressed through good-faith negotiation. If the parties cannot resolve the Dispute within thirty (30) days of written notice, the Dispute shall be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by JAMS under its applicable rules in Santa Clara County, California. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Class action waiver. You and vCSO.ai each agree that any Dispute will be brought only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, consolidated, or representative action.

Exceptions. Notwithstanding the foregoing, either party may (a) seek injunctive or other equitable relief in court to protect its intellectual property or confidential information, and (b) bring an individual action in small claims court.

Opt-out. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by sending written notice to legal@vcso.ai within thirty (30) days of first accepting these Terms, stating that you opt out of arbitration. Opting out does not affect any other provision of these Terms.

16. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the “Last Updated” date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, provide additional notice (such as a notice on the Site). Your continued use of the Site after the updated Terms take effect constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms.

17. Miscellaneous

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and vCSO.ai regarding the Site and supersede all prior or contemporaneous understandings.

Severability. If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible and the remaining provisions will continue in full force.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision of these Terms is not a waiver of that provision or our right to enforce it later.

Assignment. You may not assign or transfer your rights under these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms, including in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

No agency. Nothing in these Terms creates any partnership, joint venture, agency, or employment relationship between you and vCSO.ai.

Notices. We may provide notices to you by posting them on the Site or by emailing you at the address you provided. You may provide notices to us at the contact information below.

18. Contact

For questions about these Terms, please contact us at:

Email: legal@vcso.ai

Mail: Secoyascent LLC DBA vCSO.ai, PO Box 1878, Los Gatos, CA 95031

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