The Boot Ledger Terms of Service

1. The service

The Boot Ledger is a community service for documenting, discussing, and identifying western boots.

Community identifications, proposals, evidence, markings, brand information, model information, and other content may be incomplete, disputed, or incorrect.

The Boot Ledger does not provide professional authentication, appraisal, valuation, provenance certification, warranty, legal advice, purchasing advice, insurance advice, or guarantees concerning the authenticity, value, safety, condition, ownership, or legality of any item.

You are responsible for independently verifying information before relying on it in a purchase, sale, appraisal, insurance claim, legal matter, or other consequential decision.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to accept these Terms or submit, modify, resolve, archive, or otherwise make public contributions through an account.

Accounts that have not accepted the current Terms may browse the service and access limited account-management functions but may not make public contributions.

The service is not directed to children. Do not sign in or provide personal information if you are under 13.

3. Accounts and security

Google provides authentication for Boot Ledger accounts.

You are responsible for maintaining control of your Google account and devices and for activity performed through your authenticated Boot Ledger session.

Do not:

• Share an authenticated session
• Access another person’s account
• Attempt to bypass account, contribution, privacy, or security controls
• Misrepresent your identity or impersonate another person, business, moderator, or service representative

Notify legal@thebootledger.com if you believe your account has been compromised.

Public handles are not login credentials and should not contain your real name, email address, or other identifying information.

4. Your content and ownership

You retain ownership of photographs, text, and other original content that you submit.

Submitting content does not transfer ownership to The Boot Ledger.

You grant The Boot Ledger a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license limited to what is reasonably necessary to:

• Store and host the content
• Make technical and backup copies
• Resize, compress, re-encode, or otherwise technically process files
• Display and distribute public content through the service
• Associate public content with your public handle
• Search, organize, archive, and preserve contribution history
• Moderate, investigate, and respond to abuse, security, copyright, and legal reports
• Use service providers acting on our behalf to perform those functions

This license does not permit The Boot Ledger to sell ownership of your content or license it to unrelated parties for their independent advertising.

The license continues while the content remains available through the service.

After deletion or de-identification, limited copies may remain temporarily in backups, security records, legal records, or historical contribution records until overwritten or no longer reasonably necessary.

Collaborative identification history may be preserved in de-identified form when removing it entirely would damage the integrity of other users’ contributions.

5. Your responsibilities for submitted content

You may submit content only when you have sufficient rights or another lawful basis to do so.

You represent that your content and use of the service will not:

• Infringe copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights
• Contain knowingly false claims presented to deceive others
• Contain another person’s sensitive or private information without permission
• Impersonate another person or falsely imply affiliation
• Contain malware, destructive code, or attempts to exploit the service
• Promote unlawful activity
• Harass, threaten, stalk, or abuse another person
• Contain nonconsensual intimate images
• Contain sexual images involving minors
• Contain digitally altered or AI-generated intimate depictions published without the depicted person’s consent
• Interfere with the operation or security of the service
• Use automated access in a manner that materially burdens the service or ignores published restrictions
• Circumvent moderation, account restrictions, or rate limits

Disagreement about a boot identification is not itself prohibited. Good-faith disagreement and correction are expected parts of the community.

6. Moderation

The Boot Ledger may review, label, limit, archive, remove, restore, or refuse content when reasonably necessary to:

• Enforce these Terms
• Protect users or the service
• Address legal or copyright reports
• Correct technical problems
• Limit spam, fraud, harassment, or abuse
• Preserve the integrity of identification history

The Boot Ledger may suspend or terminate accounts for material or repeated violations.

Where practical and appropriate, we may explain significant moderation actions or allow correction. We are not required to provide advance notice where immediate action is reasonably necessary for security, legal compliance, or user protection.

The Boot Ledger does not undertake a general obligation to monitor every contribution or verify every identification.

7. Copyright

Respect the intellectual-property rights of others.

Copyright concerns may be sent to:

A copyright report should include:

• Identification of the copyrighted work
• Identification and location of the allegedly infringing material
• Contact information for the reporting party
• A statement of good-faith belief that the use is unauthorized
• A statement that the information is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that the reporting party is authorized to act
• A physical or electronic signature

The Boot Ledger may request additional information where reasonably necessary to identify the material or evaluate the request.

We may remove or disable access to material in response to a sufficiently supported report and may notify the affected user.

A user who believes material was removed by mistake may submit a counter-notice containing the information required by applicable law.

The Boot Ledger may terminate accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances.

See the copyright-reporting page for the full notice and counter-notice process.

8. Public information and attribution

Public contributions may be viewed, indexed, quoted, linked, copied, or discussed by other people.

The Boot Ledger cannot control copies made independently by third parties.

Your current public handle may be displayed with historical contributions. If your public profile is deleted or de-identified, content may instead display a neutral label such as “Former member.”

Your private email address and Google account identifier are not intended to be public.

The Privacy Policy explains how account and service information is handled.

9. Third-party services and links

The Boot Ledger relies on third-party services, including Google for authentication and Cloudflare for infrastructure.

Use of those services may also be governed by their own terms and privacy notices.

The Boot Ledger may link to third-party websites, evidence, manufacturers, sellers, archives, or community resources. A link does not mean that The Boot Ledger controls, endorses, guarantees, or assumes responsibility for the third party or its content.

10. Service availability and changes

The Boot Ledger is provided as a developing community service.

Features may change, be interrupted, or be discontinued.

We will use reasonable care in operating the service, but we do not guarantee:

• Continuous or error-free availability
• Permanent storage of every contribution
• That every defect will be corrected
• That every identification is accurate
• That the service will always remain free
• That a particular feature will continue indefinitely

Where reasonably practical, we will try to avoid unnecessary loss of public contribution history.

11. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the service is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis.

The Boot Ledger disclaims implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement to the extent those warranties may legally be disclaimed.

Nothing in these Terms excludes rights or warranties that applicable law does not permit us to exclude.

12. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, The Boot Ledger and its operator will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost opportunities, loss of data, or decisions made in reliance on community identifications.

The total aggregate liability arising from the service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of:

• One hundred U.S. dollars; or
• The amount you paid directly to The Boot Ledger during the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim

These limitations do not apply where prohibited by law or to liability that cannot legally be limited, including liability resulting from fraud, willful misconduct, or gross negligence where applicable law prevents limitation.

13. Limited indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold The Boot Ledger and its operator harmless from third-party claims, damages, and reasonable costs arising directly from:

• Content you submitted without sufficient legal rights
• Your intentional unlawful use of the service
• Your material violation of another person’s intellectual-property, privacy, or publicity rights
• Your deliberate attempt to compromise or abuse the service

This provision does not require you to indemnify The Boot Ledger for claims caused by its own fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, or conduct that applicable law does not permit it to shift to you.

We will provide reasonable notice of a covered claim and reasonable cooperation. You may not settle a claim in a manner that admits wrongdoing or imposes obligations on The Boot Ledger without written approval.

14. Suspension, termination, and deletion

You may stop using the service at any time.

You may request account deletion or de-identification using the process described in the Privacy Policy.

The Boot Ledger may suspend or terminate access for material or repeated violations, security threats, legal requirements, or discontinuation of the service.

Termination does not erase provisions that reasonably need to survive, including ownership, limited licenses for retained records, copyright procedures, disclaimers, liability limits, dispute terms, and accrued obligations.

15. Disputes and governing law

Before filing a legal claim, you and The Boot Ledger agree to make a good-faith effort to resolve the dispute informally for at least thirty days after written notice is sent to legal@thebootledger.com.

This informal period does not prevent either party from seeking urgent injunctive relief, preserving a limitation period, filing an eligible small-claims matter, or complying with a legal deadline.

These Terms are governed by the laws of South Carolina, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except where federal law applies or applicable consumer law requires otherwise.

Legal proceedings that are not resolved informally may be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction located in South Carolina.

These Terms do not require mandatory arbitration and do not waive rights to participate in a class or representative proceeding.

16. Changes to these Terms

The Boot Ledger may update these Terms when the service, law, or operational practices change.

The Last Updated date and Terms version will be revised.

Material changes may require users to accept the new version before making further public contributions.

Changes do not retroactively transfer ownership of user content or authorize materially different uses without the notice or consent required by law.

17. General provisions

If one provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain effective to the extent permitted by law.

Failure to enforce a provision once does not waive the right to enforce it later.

These Terms, together with any policies expressly referenced in them, constitute the agreement governing use of the service.

You may not transfer your account or rights under these Terms without permission.

The Boot Ledger may transfer operation of the service and these Terms as part of a legitimate reorganization, sale, or transfer, subject to applicable law and the privacy notices required for personal information.