Terms of Service

Sidedoor (“Sidedoor,” “we,” “us,” or “the Service”) is an anonymous, company-verified discussion platform for verified employees of participating organizations. These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of the Service. By verifying a work email address and using Sidedoor, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Sidedoor is currently available only to users located in the United States. You may use Sidedoor only if you are of legal age to form a binding agreement in your jurisdiction and are a current employee or affiliate of an organization whose email domain you can verify. You are responsible for ensuring that your use of Sidedoor does not violate any agreement you have with your employer.

Sidedoor is designed so that content is not linked to your real-world identity. Your work email address is hashed and discarded during verification and is never stored in readable form; your username is randomly generated and is not derived from your identity. A practical consequence of this design is that we generally cannot determine who posted a given piece of content, and we cannot verify the truth, accuracy, or authorship of anything posted. This affects what we are able to do in response to complaints (see Section 7).

All content on Sidedoor — including text, images, photos, video, links, and any other material shared by any means — is created by users, not by Sidedoor. Such content reflects the views of the individual users who posted it and does not represent the views of Sidedoor.

Sidedoor does not create, endorse, verify, monitor, or take responsibility for user-generated content, and to the fullest extent permitted by law, Sidedoor is not liable for any user-generated content or for any loss or harm arising from it. You are solely responsible for the content you post and for any consequences of posting it. You should not rely on content posted by other users as fact, advice, or an official statement of any kind.

You retain ownership of the content you post. By posting, you grant Sidedoor a limited, non-exclusive license to store, display, and distribute that content within the Service for the purpose of operating it.

You agree that you will not use Sidedoor to:

• post content that is unlawful, harassing, threatening, defamatory, or hateful;
• target, harass, or attack a specific individual, including by name or by clearly identifying details;
• post another person’s private, personal, or confidential information without authorization;
• post content you do not have the right to share, including material protected by confidentiality obligations or intellectual-property rights held by others;
• impersonate any person or organization, or misrepresent your affiliation;
• post spam, advertising, or automated/bulk content;
• attempt to de-anonymize other users or to identify who posted particular content;
• attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service, other accounts, or related systems, or otherwise interfere with the normal operation of the Service.

Sidedoor’s behavioral expectations are described in more detail in the Community Guidelines, which are incorporated into these Terms by reference.

Sidedoor does not currently have active content-moderation or content-review infrastructure. Content is not reviewed before it is posted, and we do not monitor content in real time. We may add moderation capabilities in the future, but you should not assume that objectionable content will be detected or removed promptly, if at all.

If you believe content on Sidedoor is unlawful, infringes your rights, or violates these Terms or the Community Guidelines, you may send a complaint to admin@usesidedoor.app. Please include enough detail to identify the specific content (for example, what it says and where you saw it) and describe the problem.

We review complaints on a best-effort basis and may remove content or take other action at our discretion. Because of how Sidedoor is designed, we can generally act on the content itself (for example, removing a specific post) but cannot identify the person who posted it. We do not guarantee any particular response time or outcome. This process is provided in good faith and is not a formal legal notice-and-takedown procedure; a formal process may be established later.

You may stop using Sidedoor at any time. We may suspend, restrict, or terminate your access to the Service, or remove content, at our discretion — including, without limitation, if we believe you have violated these Terms or the Community Guidelines, or if required to protect the Service, its users, or others. Because access is tied to email-domain verification rather than a stored identity, termination may take the form of removing content or restricting the relevant account or domain. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 4, 9, and 11) continue to apply after your access ends.

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, to the fullest extent permitted by law. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, error-free, or that content posted by users is accurate or reliable.

Voluntary support. Sidedoor is free to use. Donations are entirely voluntary and are not required to create an account, verify your employment, or access your company’s feed. No feature, content, or level of access is gated behind a donation of any amount.

No tax-deductible status. Sidedoor is an independent, self-funded project and is not a registered nonprofit or tax-exempt organization. Donations to Sidedoor are not tax-deductible, and no tax receipt will be issued.

Use of funds. Donations are used to help cover the costs of operating Sidedoor, including hosting, infrastructure, security tooling, email delivery, and ongoing development. Any funds received beyond what it costs to run Sidedoor may be retained by the project’s operator as compensation for that work.

Refunds. Donations are generally non-refundable. If you believe a donation was made in error or by mistake, contact us at admin@usesidedoor.app within 14 days and we’ll review it on a case-by-case basis.

Payment processing. Donations are processed through third-party payment providers (Stripe and/or PayPal). Your payment information is handled directly by these providers in accordance with their own terms of service and privacy policies, which you should review separately. Sidedoor does not store your payment card details.

No guarantee of continued operation. While we intend to use donations to keep Sidedoor running, we do not guarantee any specific level of service, uptime, or that the project will continue operating indefinitely. Sidedoor reserves the right to modify, pause, or discontinue the donation program at any time.

Separation from account data. Donation payments are processed entirely through Stripe or PayPal and are never linked to your verified account, work-email verification, or anonymous posting identity. Sidedoor does not keep a record of donations on its own systems at all.

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date above. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms. While the draft notice at the top of this document remains, you should expect these Terms to change.

Questions about these Terms can be sent to admin@usesidedoor.app.