FamilyTreeIQ (the "Service") is owned and operated by MKN Web Solutions, LLC ("we," "us," "our"). By accessing or using FamilyTreeIQ, you ("you," "user") agree to these Terms of Service and the Privacy Policy below. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
Terms of Service
1. The Service
FamilyTreeIQ is a collaborative web application that lets users build and share family trees, invite collaborators, and preserve family history (names, dates, places, relationships, notes, and stories). The Service is offered through the website at familytreeiq.com.
2. Eligibility & Accounts
You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. By registering, you represent that the information you provide is accurate and that you will keep it up to date. You are responsible for safeguarding your password and for any activity that occurs under your account.
3. User Content
The information you enter - people, relationships, dates, places, photos, notes, comments - is your "User Content." You retain ownership of your User Content. By posting it, you grant MKN Web Solutions a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide license to host, store, transmit, and display it solely for the purpose of providing the Service to you and the collaborators you have invited.
Photos and media. We do not claim ownership of photos or other media you upload. We will not use uploaded photos in marketing materials, promotional content, public examples, sales decks, social-media posts, or product demonstrations without your separate, explicit permission.
Living individuals. Family-tree data routinely involves people other than the person entering it. Treat that responsibility seriously. Before you add detailed personal information about a living person - birthdays, addresses, contact details, sensitive notes - ask them. Do not upload information about a living person if you have reason to believe they would not want it shared with the collaborators you have invited. Living individuals (or their legal guardians) may request that information about them be removed from your tree by contacting privacy@mkn.us; we will work with you to address such requests.
You are solely responsible for the accuracy, legality, and content of what you post.
4. Permitted Use
You may use the Service for personal, non-commercial purposes: building, organizing, and sharing your family tree with relatives and invited collaborators. You may export your data via GEDCOM at any time.
5. Prohibited Use
You may not, and may not permit anyone else to:
- Use the Service to violate any law or the rights of others;
- Upload content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, obscene, infringing, or invasive of another person's privacy;
- Attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service, other users' accounts, servers, or networks;
- Interfere with or disrupt the Service, including by introducing viruses, attempting denial-of-service attacks, or scraping the Service in bulk;
- Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive the source code of the Service except where such restriction is prohibited by law;
- Resell, sublicense, or commercially exploit the Service or any portion of it without our prior written consent;
- Use the Service to send unsolicited communications or for any commercial advertising purpose.
6. Intellectual Property
The Service, including all software, designs, text, graphics, logos, and trademarks, is owned by MKN Web Solutions, LLC or its licensors and is protected by U.S. and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. Except for the limited rights expressly granted to you in these Terms, no rights are granted in or to the Service.
7. Service Provided "AS IS"
THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHERWISE. MKN WEB SOLUTIONS, LLC SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTIES ARISING OUT OF COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE.
WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, SECURE, OR FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS, NOR DO WE WARRANT THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, OR USEFULNESS OF ANY GENEALOGICAL DATA EXPORTED, IMPORTED, OR DISPLAYED BY THE SERVICE.
8. Limitation of Liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL MKN WEB SOLUTIONS, LLC, ITS AFFILIATES, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, OR AGENTS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, USE, GOODWILL, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, RESULTING FROM (A) YOUR ACCESS TO OR USE OF, OR INABILITY TO ACCESS OR USE, THE SERVICE; (B) ANY CONDUCT OR CONTENT OF ANY THIRD PARTY ON THE SERVICE; OR (C) UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS, USE, OR ALTERATION OF YOUR TRANSMISSIONS OR CONTENT.
OUR AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (i) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM, OR (ii) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100).
9. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless MKN Web Solutions, LLC and its affiliates from and against third-party claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) to the extent arising from: (a) your unlawful conduct; (b) your knowing or reckless violation of these Terms; or (c) your upload of content that infringes another person's intellectual-property, privacy, or other rights. This obligation does not apply to claims based on our own negligence, willful misconduct, or breach of these Terms.
10. Termination & Service Discontinuation
You may delete your account at any time from your account settings. We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service, with or without notice, if you violate these Terms.
If we discontinue the Service (in whole or in a way that materially affects your account), we will give you at least 60 days' advance notice by email and an in-app notice, and we will keep GEDCOM export available throughout the notice period so you can take your tree with you. Upon termination of your account, your right to use the Service ends immediately. Sections 3 (last paragraph), 6, 7, 8, 9, and 13 survive termination.
11. Modifications to the Service or Terms
We may modify the Service or any feature of it at any time. We may revise these Terms from time to time; the most current version will always be posted at /terms with an updated effective date. If we make a material change, we will make reasonable efforts to notify you (for example, by email or an in-app notice). Your continued use of the Service after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.
12. Governing Law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, U.S.A., without regard to its conflict-of-law principles. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in California, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.
13. Miscellaneous
If any provision of these Terms is held to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full effect. Our failure to enforce any right or provision will not be deemed a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our prior written consent; we may assign them freely.
Privacy Policy
14. Information We Collect
Account information. When you register, we collect your name, email address, and a hashed password. We never store your password in plain text.
Tree content. We store the family-tree information you enter - people, relationships, dates, places, notes, photos (when supported), comments, and the activity log of changes.
Usage information. We log standard request data (IP address, user-agent string, timestamp) for security, debugging, and abuse prevention.
Cookies. We use a small number of essential cookies to keep you signed in and to remember your preferences. We do not use third-party advertising or tracking cookies.
15. How We Use Your Information
- To provide, maintain, and improve the Service;
- To authenticate you and prevent unauthorized access to your account;
- To send you transactional email (verification, invitations from collaborators, password resets);
- To investigate and prevent fraud, abuse, or violations of these Terms;
- To comply with legal obligations.
We do not sell your personal information. We do not share your tree content with advertisers, data brokers, or any third party for marketing.
16. No AI Training, No Research, No Public Datasets
We do not use your tree content - names, dates, places, relationships, notes, photos, or any combination thereof - to train, fine-tune, or evaluate any artificial-intelligence or machine-learning model. We do not use your tree content to build genealogy datasets, perform research, enrich third-party databases, or generate aggregated or "anonymized" data products. We will not begin any such use without your separate, explicit opt-in consent obtained at a future date.
We may use anonymous, aggregated operational metrics (for example, total tree count, average people per tree, error rates) to monitor and improve the Service. These metrics are derived from internal counters, not from your tree content, and never identify you or anyone in your tree.
17. No Genetic Data
FamilyTreeIQ does not collect, request, store, or process DNA, genetic, or biometric data. The Service is not connected to any DNA-testing provider. If you choose to type genetic information into a free-form notes field yourself, that text is treated as ordinary tree content; we do not parse it as genetic data and we do not share it.
18. Sharing
Your tree is private. The only people who can view it are you and the collaborators you explicitly invite by email. There are no public share links and no public-by-token access - every viewer must sign in to a real account that you have explicitly added to the tree.
We may share information only:
- With infrastructure providers we use to operate the Service (currently: cloud hosting, transactional email delivery, server monitoring, and DNS). These providers process data only on our instructions, under written confidentiality and data-processing obligations, and are contractually prohibited from using your data for their own purposes. A current list of sub-processors is available on request from privacy@mkn.us.
- If required by law, court order, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of MKN Web Solutions, LLC, our users, or the public;
- In connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, in which case we will provide notice before your information is transferred and becomes subject to a different privacy policy.
19. Data Storage & Security
Your data is stored on infrastructure operated by MKN Web Solutions, LLC. We use TLS 1.2 or higher to encrypt data in transit, encryption at rest for database storage, and modern bcrypt password hashing. We follow the security and infrastructure standards published at mkn.us/software-security and mkn.us/infrastructure.
Breach notification. If we become aware of a security breach that affects the confidentiality, integrity, or availability of your personal information, we will notify affected users by email without unreasonable delay, and in any event as required by applicable law. The notice will describe what happened, what information was involved, and what steps we and you can take in response.
No system is perfectly secure. While we take reasonable measures to protect your data, you use the Service at your own risk.
20. Data Retention
We retain your account information and tree content for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, we will delete or de-identify your personal information from our active systems within 30 days, except where we are required to retain it to comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.
Backups. Like every responsible service, we keep encrypted backups for disaster recovery. Deleted content may persist in those backups for up to 90 days after deletion before it cycles out, after which it is permanently destroyed. Backups are not used for any purpose other than restoring the Service after a failure; we will not restore deleted content into your account.
Server logs are retained for up to 90 days for security and debugging.
You may export your tree at any time from the Export section of the tree menu.
21. Your Rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights under applicable data-protection law to access, correct, port, or delete the personal information we hold about you, or to object to certain processing. You can exercise most of these rights directly inside the application (account settings, GEDCOM export, account deletion). For requests we cannot fulfill in-app, email privacy@mkn.us.
22. Children
The Service is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, please contact us and we will promptly delete the account.
23. International Users
The Service is operated from the United States. By using the Service, you consent to the transfer, storage, and processing of your information in the United States, which may have different data-protection laws than your country of residence.
24. Changes to this Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The most current version is always at /terms, with an updated effective date. Material changes will be communicated to you in the application or by email.
25. Contact
Questions about these Terms or this Privacy Policy:
MKN Web Solutions, LLClegal@mkn.us · privacy@mkn.us
mkn.us