Affective TechnologiesIHNYC Service Docs

Terms of Use

Active8 min read

Table of Contents

Effective date: August 31, 2026

These Terms of Use (the Terms) apply to International House New York (IHNYC) Service Docs and to any House Desk or Pub surface that presents or incorporates them, or for which a separate agreement makes them applicable. Together, those applicable surfaces are the Covered Services. The Covered Services are operated or technically stewarded by Affective Technologies LLC (“Affective Technologies,” “we,” “us,” or “our”).

By using a Covered Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use that Covered Service.

You may agree to these Terms only if you can form a binding agreement. If you use a Covered Service for an organization, you represent that you are authorized to accept applicable terms for that organization.

1. Scope and relationship

The Covered Services include:

  • public documentation at docs.ihnyc.affectivetech.com;
  • House Desk resident, calendar, Bulletin, and protected staff surfaces at desk.ihnyc.affectivetech.com;
  • long-lived private Programs-feed delivery at calendar.ihnyc-rc.org; and
  • Pub patron, media, scheduling, venue, and protected staff surfaces at pub.ihnyc.affectivetech.com and the compatibility hostname pub.ihnyc-rc.org. The compatibility hostname does not indicate Resident Council ownership or operation.

Affective Technologies is an independent technical steward. It does not speak for the IHNYC Resident Council, International House New York, AVI Foodsystems, a separate food-service organization, or another venue operator or institution. Their policies, operating procedures, and formal agreements may create additional obligations that these Terms do not replace.

2. Use of the Covered Services

You may use public pages and ordinary resident or patron features for their intended purposes. Protected staff features may be used only by a person with current authorization for the specific product and task.

You are responsible for:

  • providing information you are authorized to provide;
  • reviewing consequential choices before submitting them;
  • keeping private links, tokens, and sign-in material secure;
  • using your own staff identity rather than a shared account; and
  • following applicable institutional, venue, employment, safety, and community rules.

A Programs Calendar URL, one-time email action, personal availability form, protected session, and similar link may grant access to information or an action. Treat it like a credential.

You must not forward, publish, sell, or deliberately expose a private link or another person’s access. If a link is lost or exposed, use the documented renewal, replacement, revocation, or administrator path rather than attempting to reuse another person’s access.

Passing staff sign-in or edge admission does not grant every product action. House Desk enforces each person’s managed role or custom permission set, and Pub enforces each person’s exact permission assignment. Do not attempt an action that has not been assigned to you.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

  • gain or attempt to gain unauthorized access to an account, private feed, staff tool, venue control, record, or infrastructure;
  • evade verification, moderation, rate limits, access controls, or other safety measures;
  • submit unlawful, deceptive, harassing, intimate, malicious, or rights-infringing content;
  • upload media without the rights and permissions needed for public venue display;
  • probe undocumented or protected interfaces, or use production records to test a guessed interface;
  • scrape, automate, overload, disrupt, or interfere with a Covered Service beyond ordinary browser, calendar-client, and documented integration behavior;
  • impersonate another person or misrepresent your authorization; or
  • use a Covered Service in a way that creates a safety risk or violates applicable law.

Security research or integration work requires prior written authorization unless a published program or contract expressly permits it.

5. Resident, patron, and operator content

You retain the rights you hold in content you submit. You grant Affective Technologies a limited, non-exclusive license to receive, validate, store, prepare, moderate, reproduce, display, transmit, and remove that content only as needed to operate and protect the feature you chose.

For Photo Flash and similar venue features, that limited license includes preparing and displaying an approved copy on public venue screens. A display can be photographed or recorded by people in the room; removing the product’s copy cannot recall those independent recordings.

You represent that you have the rights and permissions required for the submitted content and its intended use. An authorized operator may reject or remove content when it creates a legal, safety, privacy, policy, or operational concern.

Published events, notices, profiles, schedules, specials, media metadata, and venue information may come from residents, staff, institutions, operators, or other sources. Their respective rights remain with them or the applicable rights holder.

6. Documentation and public information

The documentation describes current behavior and responsibility boundaries. It is not a production runbook, security specification, legal opinion, emergency instruction, or promise that an interface will never change.

Events, hours, schedules, prices, availability, media identification, and other operational information can be delayed, incomplete, or wrong. Confirm time-sensitive, safety-critical, employment, payment, dietary, or institutional information with the responsible person or official source.

7. Service availability and changes

The Covered Services are provided on a best-effort basis. Affective Technologies may change, suspend, restrict, or discontinue a feature to maintain security, comply with law or policy, address abuse, or evolve the service.

A calendar application, browser, email provider, network, venue device, or other third party may delay or prevent an update even when the Covered Service has accepted it. We do not control the availability or behavior of a third-party service.

8. Intellectual property and trademarks

The Covered Services, and the House Desk, Pub, and shared platform technology behind them, are the intellectual property of Affective Technologies LLC. That includes their source code, software, architecture, algorithms, data models, interfaces, visual and interaction designs, integrations, documentation, and other technical materials. Affective Technologies reserves all rights not expressly granted in these Terms or in a written agreement signed by Affective Technologies LLC.

Third-party and open-source components remain subject to their own licenses. Content that residents, patrons, operators, institutions, and other sources provide is addressed in Section 5.

Using or operating a Covered Service, supplying content, or hosting a Covered Service under an International House New York or IHNYC Resident Council name or address does not transfer or license any ownership of the technology. If you send ideas, suggestions, or feedback about a Covered Service, Affective Technologies may use them without restriction or obligation to you.

Access to a Covered Service does not grant a license to proprietary source code, private design records, operating playbooks, or protected interfaces. You may not copy, modify, reverse engineer, or create derivative works of the Covered Services’ software or designs except as applicable law expressly permits. You may read, link to, and use the public documentation for ordinary personal or organizational reference. Any broader reuse remains subject to applicable law and an express license where one is provided.

International House New York, IHNYC Resident Council, AVI Foodsystems, Affective Technologies, and other names, marks, and content remain the property of their respective rights holders. A link or factual reference does not imply endorsement or affiliation.

9. Third-party services

The Covered Services rely on or link to third-party hosting, security, email, identity, calendar, form, media, payment, and other services. Their terms and privacy practices apply when you interact with them directly. Affective Technologies is not responsible for third-party content, decisions, availability, or practices.

10. Privacy

Affective Technologies LLC processes the information handled by the Covered Services. When you choose to submit information to a Covered Service, you provide it voluntarily and authorize Affective Technologies LLC to process it for the purposes described in the Privacy Policy, which explains how information is handled across the Covered Services. Do not submit a password, payment credential, medical record, private calendar URL, recovery material, or other unnecessary sensitive information through a public message or general-purpose channel.

11. Disclaimers

To the extent permitted by law, the Covered Services and their content are provided as is and as available, without a promise that they will be uninterrupted, error-free, complete, or suitable for every purpose. Nothing in these Terms limits a right or responsibility that cannot lawfully be limited.

12. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Affective Technologies LLC will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for loss of data, revenue, or goodwill arising from your use of an applicable Covered Service or from your inability to use it.

This limitation does not exclude liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

13. Indemnification

If your misuse of an applicable Covered Service or violation of these Terms causes claims or costs for us, you agree to cover those losses and expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, to the extent permitted by law.

14. Suspension and termination

Affective Technologies may limit or revoke access when reasonably necessary to protect a person or system, respond to misuse, enforce these Terms, follow an authorized operational decision, or comply with law. Staff access should also end when the assigned work or relationship ends.

Ending product access does not necessarily erase audit, security, publication, or operational records that must be retained for a legitimate purpose.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the Covered Services or their obligations change. The effective date above identifies the current version. Continued use after an updated version takes effect means the updated Terms apply to that later use.

16. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except where applicable law requires otherwise.

17. Contact

Questions about these Terms may be sent to hello@affectivetech.com. Do not include credentials, private links, or unnecessary personal information.

See also Privacy Policy and Platform Stewardship.