Terms of Service

Version 2026-10-25. Published 25 October 2026.

These Terms govern the use of SecureThread, an email composition, approval and sending service offered by ArcByte Studios, a sole proprietorship of Aidan Daniel Rodrigues, registered in India as a micro enterprise under the MSME Udyam scheme, Udyam Registration No. UDYAM-KR-03-0759003, with its registered address at GoSpace, Shelter 2, The Defence Enclave, K Narayana Pura Road, Kothanur, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560077, India. "ArcByte", "we" and "us" mean that sole proprietorship. "Service" means SecureThread as offered on the web, on Android and as a desktop application. "Customer" means the organization that holds a workspace. "User" means a person the Customer lets use the Service, including its administrators.

1. Parties and documents#

1.1 These Terms form an agreement between ArcByte and the Customer. Users act for the Customer and must follow these Terms.

1.2 The agreement consists of these Terms and the following documents, each with a version:

• the Acceptable Use Policy;
• the Data Processing Agreement (the "DPA"), which governs Customer Data that ArcByte processes for the Customer;
• the Privacy Policy, which explains how ArcByte handles account and website data as the controller of that data;
• the Sub-processors list.

1.3 If these Terms conflict with the DPA on the processing of Customer Data, the DPA prevails on that processing. In every other case of conflict, these Terms prevail over the other documents listed in clause 1.2.

2. Workspaces, accounts and sign-up#

2.1 A workspace is the Customer's own area of the Service. Its data is kept apart from every other workspace.

2.2 Sign-up asks for an organization name, the name of the person signing up, and a work email address. Addresses at free-mail providers are not accepted for sign-up. The verification link is single use and expires. The password is chosen after the link has been followed.

2.3 Depending on how ArcByte has set up sign-up, a new workspace either waits for ArcByte to approve it, and until then nobody can sign in to it and nothing is sent from it, or it opens in the sandbox under clause 2.6 and stays flagged for review until ArcByte approves it. ArcByte may decline to approve a workspace, or approve it on conditions. ArcByte does not promise any time for approval.

2.4 Users join a workspace by invitation. Invitations are limited to the email domains that the workspace allows. An administrator may also let accounts be created when someone signs in with Google or Microsoft from a domain the workspace has verified for sign-in, or provision accounts from an identity provider through SCIM, limited to the email domains the workspace allows. Administrators assign roles, and each role grants only the permissions it lists.

2.5 Sign-in uses a password and an authenticator app (two-step verification). Two-step verification is required for administrators by default. Administrators must keep their own credentials secure and must not share accounts.

2.6 A new workspace starts in a sandbox. While it is in the sandbox it can send only to its own people, to domains it has verified, and to up to ten test recipients who have confirmed their address. It may send no more than 50 messages and 100 recipients in any rolling 24 hours. Campaigns are not available in the sandbox. A first paid period lifts the sandbox for ordinary sending, once, unless ArcByte still has to review the workspace or an abuse report against it is open. In that case the sandbox stays until ArcByte lifts it. Campaigns still wait for ArcByte to review the workspace.

3. The Service and its limits#

3.1 The Service lets Users:

• compose and preview email in HTML and plain text, using templates;
• require approval of a message, or of a request from an AI agent, before it is sent;
• send through mailboxes and providers that the Customer connects: Gmail, Microsoft 365, approved SMTP servers, and HTTP email APIs (Amazon SES, SendGrid, Mailgun, Postmark and Resend);
• read and organize connected inboxes when a User opens them;
• schedule messages and, where allowed, run campaigns;
• keep an audit log of security-relevant actions;
• export and delete data as described in section 10;
• use the AI features described in section 6, where the Customer has enabled them.

3.2 The Service does not guarantee that a message reaches an inbox, is read, or avoids spam filters. When a provider accepts a message, it has taken responsibility for it. That acceptance does not prove that the message arrived. Where a provider reports nothing after acceptance, the Service cannot know the outcome. Outcomes that are unclear are flagged for a person to review and are not sent again automatically.

3.3 Attachments are checked for type and size. Where a malware scanner is configured for the Service, each attachment is scanned before it is stored and an infected file is refused; otherwise the attachment is recorded as not scanned for malware.

3.4 The content policy checks outgoing mail against a word list and, where an administrator enables it, an AI review. Neither check is complete, and neither is a legal review.

3.5 SecureThread does not keep copies of mail that stays in a connected inbox, other than the sender, subject line and a short preview of new mail that it holds in server memory for about ten minutes to prepare push notifications, and a notification showing them, encrypted for the receiving device alone, until the push service accepts it or it expires (see the Trust page). It fetches that mail from the provider when a User opens it. It keeps a copy of each message the Service sends until the retention period that the Customer sets has passed, as section 4.7 describes.

3.6 Sign-in is available with a password and two-step verification (a code from an authenticator app, or a passkey), and with Google or Microsoft sign-in where the Customer has set it up. The Service does not currently offer other single sign-on protocols.

3.7 Each workspace is approved by ArcByte as clause 2.3 describes. Unless ArcByte agrees otherwise in writing, ArcByte does not promise any particular service level, uptime, availability or response time. The live state of the Service is published at status.securethread.co.

4. Customer responsibilities#

4.1 Connected mailboxes and providers. The Customer chooses which mailboxes, relays and providers to connect. It must have the right to send from every address and domain it connects, and it must set up the DNS records for its own domains (for example SPF, DKIM and DMARC). Administrators must approve SMTP servers and relays only where the Customer is entitled to use them.

4.2 Provider terms. Use of Gmail, Microsoft 365, SMTP servers and HTTP email APIs stays subject to those providers' terms. The Customer is responsible for its own accounts with them.

4.3 Content and recipients. The Customer is responsible for the content it composes, imports, sends or approves, and for the recipients it chooses. It must have a lawful basis for each message it sends, and any consent that the law requires.

4.4 Approvals. A person who approves a message makes that decision. The Service shows what is being approved and records who decided. Approval does not make content lawful.

4.5 Users. The Customer is responsible for its Users, the roles it grants and their use of the Service.

4.6 AI agents. The Customer is responsible for the AI agents it connects, as section 6 describes.

4.7 Your own copies. Retention settings can delete message content after the period the Customer sets. The Customer keeps its own copies of anything it needs to keep.

5. Customer data and the DPA#

5.1 "Customer Data" means the data that the Customer and its Users put into the Service or that the Service handles for them, including messages, attachments, contacts, templates, approvals, connected mailbox data and AI requests made in the workspace.

5.2 For Customer Data, ArcByte acts as the Customer's processor. It processes that data only on the Customer's documented instructions, as the DPA sets out. The DPA is accepted for a workspace when one of its administrators who can manage its settings ticks the confirmation in the Service and selects accept. The Service records the acceptance with the DPA version, the time and the administrator. A signed copy is not required.

5.3 For account, sign-up, billing and website data, ArcByte acts as an independent controller under the Privacy Policy, except that the sign-in accounts of Users that a workspace administrator creates, changes or removes are Customer Data, and for them ArcByte acts as the Customer's processor under the DPA.

5.4 The Customer grants ArcByte a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence, for as long as the agreement lasts and until Customer Data is deleted under section 10 (and, for copies in backups, until those backups expire under clause 10.4), to host, store, copy (including in backups), process, transmit and display Customer Data. The licence is solely to provide the Service, to support the Customer and to comply with law, and is limited as the DPA allows. ArcByte acquires no ownership of Customer Data.

6. AI features and AI agents#

6.1 AI features are optional. They are off by default. An administrator of the workspace must:

• turn on AI drafting for the workspace;
• choose and enable the provider: Anthropic, or an OpenAI-compatible endpoint that the administrator supplies;
• supply that provider's API key; and
• acknowledge that drafting content is processed by the AI provider.

6.2 Where AI features are on, the Service sends the content needed for the request to the chosen provider. That can include the subject, body, thread and sender of a message. Contact details can be redacted before the content is sent; that setting is on by default. Memory and stored conversations are separate settings, and both are off by default.

6.3 AI review of outgoing mail. The optional AI review of outgoing mail is switched off by default. When an administrator turns it on, it sends the subject, preview text, sender name and body of each outgoing message that the word list and the Service's outbound checks have not already blocked, to the AI provider the administrator has configured. Contact details are redacted first if the administrator has chosen that setting, as clause 6.2 describes. The review does not require the external-processing acknowledgement that governs AI drafting.

6.4 AI output is a draft. The Customer and its Users must review it before they use it. ArcByte's servers send each request to the provider that the administrator has chosen (Anthropic, or the OpenAI-compatible endpoint the administrator supplies), using the API key of the Customer's own account with that provider, on the Customer's instruction. The provider is engaged by the Customer under that account, and its terms govern how it stores, processes or uses the content, including for training. The Customer should read those terms before it turns on AI features. ArcByte does not use Customer Data to train any model.

6.5 AI agents connected by Users. A User can connect an AI assistant to the Service with consent. The assistant can act only with the permissions that the connecting person holds and the scopes that person grants. An assistant's requests to send email wait for a person's approval, except where clause 6.6 allows automatic sending. A schedule that an assistant creates waits for a person's approval before it can fire, and a workflow run that an assistant starts waits for approval before its first sending step. An assistant can create a campaign only as a draft: a person adds the recipients and launches it in the app. An assistant cannot approve its own requests.

6.6 Automatic sending by assistants is off by default. An administrator can switch it on for reviewed, published shared templates. When it is on, it is limited by default to internal recipients, to a single recipient, and to published templates. The administrator can raise the recipient limit up to 50.

6.7 A person can revoke an assistant's access at any time, and administrators can revoke it too. Revocation declines the assistant's requests that are still pending.

6.8 The Customer is responsible for the AI agents it connects, the instructions they are given, and the content they produce and that the Customer sends. AI output is generated automatically, and ArcByte does not check it for accuracy, completeness or lawfulness. Liability relating to the AI features, including for AI output that the Customer or its Users use or send, is subject to clause 14.

7. Acceptable use#

7.1 The Customer and its Users must follow the Acceptable Use Policy. A breach can lead to the measures in section 9.

8. Fees and billing#

8.1 Each plan's fees are the prices shown to the Customer in the Service when it chooses the plan, payable in the currency shown there (Indian rupees (INR) or US dollars (USD)). ArcByte does not change the fees for a paid period that has already started, and gives the notice in clause 17.1 before any change to the fees for a later period.

8.2 Payments are handled by Razorpay, a third-party payment processor. ArcByte charges a payment only for a plan that the Customer has selected and confirmed in the Service, and only while live payments are enabled for the Service. While live payments are not enabled, no charge is made.

8.3 The Customer gives a billing profile: a legal name, a billing email address, a postal address and, where it has one, a GST identification number (GSTIN). ArcByte keeps the profile while the workspace exists, to issue invoices. The profile is deleted with the workspace under clause 10.3, and invoices already issued are kept as clause 10.4 describes.

8.4 (a) Prices are shown without GST, and no GST is charged while ArcByte Studios is not registered for it. If ArcByte Studios registers, GST is added to the fees as the law requires and shown on the invoice. (b) An invoice is issued through Razorpay for each payment to the billing profile in clause 8.3, and the Service shows it to the workspace. (c) A refund must be requested within 7 days of the charge, by writing to [email protected] with the workspace name, the payment reference and the reason. ArcByte Studios approves a refund only for a genuine reason, such as a charge taken in error, a duplicate charge, or a service that did not work as described and that ArcByte could not fix, and it decides each request. No refund is given after those 7 days, or for the rest of a period after cancellation, except where the law requires one. An approved refund goes back through Razorpay to the method charged. This does not limit the refund of prepaid fees under clause 17.2 and section 6.3 of the DPA. (d) A paid plan renews for the same period unless the Customer cancels it in the Service before the renewal date. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period, and there is no refund for the unused part. During a free period, before the first charge, cancelling ends the plan at once and nothing is charged. (e) If a payment fails, Razorpay may retry it, and the workspace's administrators are emailed about each failed attempt. If every attempt fails, the workspace returns to the free limits of its plan and nothing is deleted. A workspace over those limits has a grace period set by its plan (14 days by default). After it, agents and sending domains beyond the limits cannot send, and no one can be added, until the workspace is back within its plan. ArcByte may suspend a workspace for unpaid fees under clause 9.3, after written notice to its administrators. (f) Ending a paid subscription does not by itself delete the workspace; deletion follows only closing under clause 10.

9. Suspension and other measures#

9.1 Automatic sending pause. The Service pauses sending from a workspace when its recent mail crosses a threshold set out in the Acceptable Use Policy (section 9). Only ArcByte can lift a pause. A Customer may ask for a review of a pause by a support request in the Service, or by email to [email protected]. ArcByte reviews the workspace's recent sending figures and the cause of the pause, and tells the workspace's administrators in writing whether the pause is lifted and why. ArcByte does not promise a time for its decision.

9.2 Content policy. Repeated attempts to send prohibited language lead to a warning and then to suspension of the sending User's account. Only an administrator can reactivate that account. The Acceptable Use Policy describes this.

9.3 Suspension by ArcByte. ArcByte may suspend a workspace where that is needed to protect the Service, other customers or recipients, or where the law requires it. While a workspace is suspended, nobody can sign in to it and nothing is sent from it. The grounds for suspension are: (a) a breach of these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) a risk to the Service, to other customers or to recipients; (c) a requirement of law; or (d) unpaid fees under clause 8.4. Unless the law or the need to protect the Service or recipients prevents it, ArcByte tells the workspace's administrators by email, as soon as practical, the reason for the suspension. A suspension ends when ArcByte has removed the cause and reinstates the workspace in writing, or when the workspace is closed under clause 10. An administrator may ask ArcByte in writing to review a suspension, and ArcByte decides the request in writing. ArcByte may end the agreement with the Customer for a serious breach of the Acceptable Use Policy with immediate effect; in any other case it gives 30 days' notice.

9.4 Platform-wide stop. ArcByte may stop sending on the whole platform for a short time to protect the Service or recipients. ArcByte tells affected Customers by email to their administrators, as soon as practical, why sending has been stopped and what it is doing about it, and tells them when sending resumes.

10. Closing a workspace, export and deletion#

10.1 Closing. An administrator can ask SecureThread to close the workspace from its settings by typing the workspace name. SecureThread closes it, and from then nobody can sign in and nothing is sent.

10.2 Grace period. After closing, the workspace has a grace period of 14 days. During that time it is not available for sign-in. ArcByte can reinstate a closed workspace during the grace period. A Customer may ask ArcByte in writing to reinstate a closed workspace. ArcByte decides the request. A reinstated workspace returns to active status and its data is kept.

10.3 Deletion. When the grace period ends, every row of the workspace's data is deleted. The workspace's own record remains, marked as deleted. That data includes messages, contacts, templates, connected mailboxes and their stored credentials, sessions, AI data and the workspace audit log. Deletion waits until any paid subscription has stopped, so that nothing more is charged. A deletion certificate is sent by email. It gives counts of the records deleted and does not list their contents.

10.4 What remains after deletion. The following are kept outside the workspace:

• billing payment records and invoices (amounts, dates, payment references and the billing details shown on each invoice), which are kept and can be deleted on request to [email protected] where the law allows;
• SecureThread's own record of system emails, including the recipient addresses, the purpose and the dates. While a workspace is active, a record is removed after the audit retention period (365 days by default). After a workspace is deleted, its records are kept until they are deleted on request to [email protected];
• records of the deletion itself, ArcByte's internal notes about the workspace and its record of any support access to it;
• abuse reports and privacy requests that name the workspace, and records of product usage;
• payment-provider event records (identifiers, statuses, amounts and times only) and any legal hold record under clause 10.5;
• backups, which may keep deleted data for up to 14 days, until those backups are replaced.

10.5 Legal obligations. ArcByte may pause the deletion of Customer Data, or of the records described in clause 10.4, where the law requires ArcByte to keep them or a court or authority has ordered it. The pause lasts only as long as that requirement lasts, and ArcByte releases it when the requirement ends. ArcByte tells the workspace's administrators that deletion is paused, unless the law prevents it.

10.6 Export. An administrator can export workspace data while the workspace is active. The export covers people, roles, contacts, groups, templates, messages, mailboxes, suppressions, AI agents, assistant credentials, approvals, schedules, campaigns, workflows, subscriptions, domains, settings and the audit log. It does not cover every kind of record the Service holds (for example tracking and delivery events), it does not include attachment files, and it leaves out other people's personal items. An administrator should export before closing. During the grace period, the Customer may ask ArcByte to reinstate the workspace so that it can be exported; once the workspace is deleted, its data cannot be returned.

10.7 Return and deletion of Customer Data at the end of the agreement follows the DPA.

11. Intellectual property#

11.1 ArcByte and its licensors own the Service, its software, its documentation and its brand. The starter templates supplied with the Service are licensed to the Customer, not sold, for use in its own email through the Service while the Customer has access to it. The Customer may not resell, redistribute or publish them outside the Service. "SecureThread" and "ArcByte" are names used by ArcByte Studios for the Service and the company. The Customer may use them only to identify the Service and its own use of it, and not in a way that suggests ArcByte endorses the Customer or its messages.

11.2 The Customer owns Customer Data.

11.3 If the Customer or a User gives ArcByte feedback, suggestions or ideas about the Service, ArcByte may use them without restriction and without payment, and the Customer has no claim to them. Feedback does not include Customer Data.

12. Confidentiality#

12.1 Each party keeps confidential the non-public information it receives from the other under these Terms, and uses it only to perform them. This does not apply to information that is or becomes public through no breach of this clause, that the receiving party already lawfully knew, that it develops independently, or that it lawfully receives from a third party free of a duty of confidence. A party may disclose information where the law requires it, and gives the other party notice where the law allows. This clause applies while these Terms are in force and for three years after they end. Trade secrets remain confidential for as long as they remain secret.

13. Warranties and disclaimers#

13.1 To the fullest extent the law allows, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available". ArcByte does not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free, that a message will reach an inbox, be read or avoid spam filters, that AI output is accurate, complete or lawful, or that attachments are free of malware. Nothing in these Terms excludes a right that the law does not allow to be excluded.

14. Limitation of liability#

14.1 To the extent the law allows, each party's total liability arising out of or relating to these Terms and the Service, for all claims together, is limited to the fees the Customer paid to ArcByte for the Service in the twelve months before the event that gave rise to the claim. Where no fees have been paid, for example in the sandbox or on a free plan, this limit is zero. Neither party is liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for lost profit. Nothing in this clause limits liability that the law does not allow to be limited, for example for fraud.

15. Indemnities#

15.1 The Customer will defend ArcByte against, and pay the amounts finally awarded or agreed in a settlement of, any claim by a third party that arises from: (a) content that the Customer or a User composes, imports, sends or approves; (b) the recipients the Customer chooses, and any consent or lawful basis that the law requires for a message; (c) any mailbox, relay, provider or AI agent that the Customer connects, including a breach of that provider's terms; or (d) a breach of these Terms by the Customer or a User. ArcByte gives no indemnity to the Customer.

16. Governing law and courts#

16.1 These Terms, and any dispute arising from them or from the Service, are governed by the laws of India. The courts at Bengaluru, Karnataka, have exclusive jurisdiction.

17. Changes to these Terms#

17.1 ArcByte publishes each new version with a summary of what changed and an effective date. A material change takes effect at least 30 days after ArcByte announces it, by email to the workspace administrators and in the Service. A change that only clarifies the wording or corrects a mistake is not material, and it takes effect when it is published.

17.2 For these Terms, the Acceptable Use Policy and the DPA, ArcByte asks each workspace's administrators who can manage its settings to accept each new version. The app shows the new version to those administrators, and it records each acceptance for the workspace. Continued use of the Service after the effective date of a material change is acceptance of that change. An administrator who does not agree to a material change may close the workspace before its effective date under clause 10.1. A material change to the Privacy Policy takes effect at least 30 days after ArcByte announces it, by email to the workspace administrators and in the Service; a change that only clarifies the wording or corrects a mistake takes effect when it is published. ArcByte gives at least 30 days' notice of a change to the Sub-processors list before a new or replaced Sub-processor processes personal data within Customer Data. The Customer may object within that period. If ArcByte cannot address the objection, the Customer may close the affected workspace and receive a refund of prepaid fees for the unused period.

18. Notices and contact#

18.1 ArcByte sends notices about a workspace to the workspace's administrators by email, or publishes them in the Service.

18.2 Notices to ArcByte go to [email protected]. Written notices may also be sent to ArcByte Studios at its registered address, GoSpace, Shelter 2, The Defence Enclave, K Narayana Pura Road, Kothanur, Bengaluru, Karnataka 560077, India, for the attention of Aidan Daniel Rodrigues, Proprietor. Questions about the Service go to [email protected]. Privacy questions and grievances go to the Grievance Officer named in the Privacy Policy, at [email protected].