Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are entered into by and between you and Butler Technology Concepts, LLC d/b/a BBQuill ("Company," "we," or "us"). These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and any other documents expressly incorporated by reference, govern your use of the website bbquill.com and any subdomains, together with our iOS and Android mobile applications and all related materials, resources, information, and services (collectively, the "Service"), whether you access it as a guest or a registered user.

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using the Service in any way — including browsing our website or creating an account — you agree to be bound by these Terms, without modification, and you acknowledge that you have read them. These Terms apply to all visitors, users, customers, and others who access or use the Service. If you do not agree to any part of these Terms, do not access or use the Service.

If you use the Service on behalf of a business, household, homeowners' association, or other organization, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms, and "you" includes that organization.

2. Description of Service

Butler Technology Concepts, LLC d/b/a BBQuill is a barbecue and smoking log and guidance platform that allows users to record cooks — cooker and probe temperatures, wraps, spritzes, fuel additions, and related notes — receive informational guidance, and organize their cooking history. The Service is provided for informational and organizational purposes only.

3. Informational Purposes Only — No Professional Advice

All recommendations, guidance, and suggestions provided by Butler Technology Concepts, LLC d/b/a BBQuill—including those generated by AI-powered features—are for informational purposes only and do not constitute professional food-safety, culinary, nutritional, medical, or any other professional advice.

Always follow current food-safety guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), read and follow the instructions supplied with your cooker, fuel, and ingredients, and seek professional advice where your circumstances call for it. Butler Technology Concepts, LLC d/b/a BBQuill is not responsible for outcomes resulting from following its suggestions.

4. Food Safety and Safe Operation

Food safety is your responsibility. Any safe-minimum internal temperatures, danger-zone warnings, time limits, or doneness targets shown by the Service are advisory only and are drawn from publicly available USDA guidance. The Service does not measure anything itself — it records the values you enter — and it does not prevent you from choosing a target below a published safe minimum. You are solely responsible for verifying doneness with a calibrated thermometer and for deciding whether food is safe to serve.

Safe operation is your responsibility. You are solely responsible for the safe use of cookers, fuel, fire, electricity, and gas — including grills, smokers, griddles, ovens, and any other equipment (collectively, "Equipment") — in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions, applicable laws, and local regulations, including fire codes and burn restrictions. Butler Technology Concepts, LLC d/b/a BBQuill disclaims all liability for personal injury, illness, property damage, fire, or other harm arising from your use of Equipment, fuel, or ingredients, or from the consumption of food you prepare.

5. Eligibility — No Use by Minors

To access or use the Service, you must be 18 years of age or older and have the requisite power and authority to enter into these Terms. Children under the age of 18 are prohibited from using the Service.

6. User Accounts

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials and for all activities under your account. You must promptly notify us of any unauthorized use of your account, and we are not responsible for losses arising from your failure to keep your credentials secure. You agree to provide accurate information during registration and to be financially responsible for all purchases made by you or someone acting on your behalf through the Service. You may delete your account and associated data at any time — see our account & data deletion instructions.

7. Acceptable Use

You may use the Service for lawful purposes only. You shall not post or transmit through the Service any material that violates or infringes the rights of others, or that is threatening, abusive, defamatory, libelous, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, vulgar, obscene, profane, or otherwise objectionable, that contains injurious formulas, recipes, or instructions, or that encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any law. In addition, you agree not to:

• Use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of these Terms
• Upload or share content that infringes third-party intellectual property rights
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any part of the Service
• Interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of the Service
• Use automated tools to scrape, crawl, or extract data from the Service
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive the source code of the Service, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by applicable law
• Introduce malware or other malicious code, or use the Service to transmit spam or unsolicited messages
• Use the Service — or automated data collection from it — to build, train, or operate a competing product or service
• Use the Service in any way that violates applicable law or that could cause illness, fire, or other harm through the unsafe handling of food or Equipment (see Sections 3 and 4)

8. Material You Submit to the Service

You retain ownership of, and any copyrights or other rights you rightfully hold in, any artwork, photos, written works, notes, feedback, suggestions, or other media you post, upload, submit, input, provide, or otherwise make available through the Service (collectively, "Submissions"). By making a Submission, you grant Butler Technology Concepts, LLC d/b/a BBQuill a limited, non-exclusive license to store and process that Submission for the purpose of operating, providing, and improving the Service. We do not sell your personal content to third parties, and we claim no intellectual property rights over your Submissions.

You shall not make available any Submission protected by copyright, trademark, or other proprietary right without the express written permission of the owner, and the burden of determining that a Submission is not so protected rests entirely with you. By making a Submission, you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all rights to it and that its use as contemplated here will not violate any law or the rights of any third party. You agree to hold us harmless from and against all claims, liabilities, and expenses arising out of any actual or alleged infringement or misappropriation arising from your Submissions.

We may create and use aggregated or de-identified data derived from your use of the Service — which does not identify you — to operate, analyze, and improve the Service and to develop new features. We are under no obligation to post or use any Submission and may remove any Submission at any time at our sole discretion. If you send us unsolicited ideas, such ideas will be deemed non-confidential, and we will not be required to acknowledge their source or to compensate you for their use.

9. Our Intellectual Property

The Service contains intellectual property owned by us, including common law (unregistered) trademarks and service marks, copyrights, proprietary information, and other intellectual property, including but not limited to text, graphics, photographs, video, software, design, and compilations thereof ("IP"). We reserve all rights in and to our IP. Except as expressly permitted by these Terms, you may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, create derivative works from, distribute, display, reproduce, or perform, or in any way exploit any of our IP, in whole or in part, without our prior written consent. We reserve the right to immediately block your access to the Service, without refund, if you are found violating this intellectual property policy.

Subject to your compliance with these Terms, you are granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to access and use the Service and the resources made available through it (the "Content") strictly in accordance with these Terms. The Content is not for resale, and your use of the Content does not entitle you to make any unauthorized use of it or to acquire any ownership rights in it. You agree not to delete or alter any proprietary rights or attribution notices in any Content. We do not grant you any licenses, express or implied, to our intellectual property or that of our licensors except as expressly authorized by these Terms.

Our name, logo, slogan, and all related names, logos, product and service names, designs, and slogans are trademarks (™) of our Company or of our affiliates or licensors. You must not use such marks without our prior written permission. All other names, logos, product and service names, designs, and slogans on the Service are the trademarks of their respective owners.

10. AI-Generated Guidance

Butler Technology Concepts, LLC d/b/a BBQuill may use artificial intelligence to generate cooking suggestions, cook plans, and timing guidance. AI-generated content may be inaccurate, incomplete, or inappropriate for your specific situation, including any temperature, timing, or food-safety statement it produces. You acknowledge that reliance on AI-generated guidance is at your own risk, and that it does not replace verifying doneness yourself.

11. Artificial Intelligence and Our Content

The Company may use software or platforms that employ machine learning, large language models, or natural language processing to generate, analyze, or refine creative and technical outputs ("Generative AI") to create certain aspects of the Content or IP included on the Service, including but not limited to written copy, summaries, guidance content, and visual aids ("AI-Generated Content"). All AI-Generated Content shall be considered IP of the Company — whether as protected work product, derivative works of copyrighted materials, proprietary information, or otherwise — and is protected by and subject to the intellectual property provisions of these Terms.

12. Subscriptions, Plan Limits, and Payments

Certain features of the Service may require a paid subscription. Subscription terms, pricing, and refund policies will be presented at the time of purchase and are incorporated herein by reference. All fees are in US dollars unless otherwise stated. Subscriptions auto-renew unless cancelled before the renewal date. Except where required by applicable law or by the refund terms presented at purchase, fees for direct web subscriptions are non-refundable; app-store purchases are handled under the applicable store's refund policy (see below).

Plan limits. Each plan includes defined limits — the number of active cookers, saved cook plans, photos per cook, and AI Pitmaster messages per month — shown at the time of purchase.

What happens on a downgrade. Nothing you have logged is deleted. If your account is over the lower plan's cooker limit, the surplus cookers are paused: a paused cooker stays fully readable, keeps every cook ever logged on it, cannot take new cook items, and becomes active again if you upgrade. When you downgrade yourself, you choose which cookers to pause; if paid access ends some other way — an expired or transferred subscription — we keep the cookers you have held longest active and pause the rest. Cooks, cook items, probes, readings, pantry items, cook plans, and photos already saved are retained and remain readable in every case, and creating new ones is subject to the lower plan's limits.

AI Pitmaster messages. AI-powered features are metered in messages allotted to your plan per billing period. An allotment does not carry over between periods and has no cash value. Messages already used are non-refundable. We may change the allotment or what counts against it on a going-forward basis, with notice.

App store purchases. If you purchase a subscription through the Apple App Store or Google Play, billing, renewals, and refunds are handled by that platform under its terms, and you manage or cancel the subscription through your platform account.

13. Third-Party Services and Integrations

The Service relies on third-party data sources such as weather providers, and may in future let you connect optional third-party services (for example, a thermometer that reports readings automatically — there are none today). These services are provided by third parties under their own terms, and we do not control and are not responsible for their availability, accuracy, or content. Data from third-party sources may be unavailable, delayed, or inaccurate, and you should not rely on it for decisions where errors could cause harm — which for cooking means your own thermometer, not a forecast, decides when food is done. You are responsible for keeping any credentials for a service you connect in future secure.

14. Third-Party Links and Resources

The Service may contain links to external websites that are not provided by, maintained by, or in any way affiliated with us. We do not guarantee and are not responsible for the availability, accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of these external websites or any information thereon. Links to such websites or resources do not imply any endorsement by or affiliation with us. You acknowledge sole responsibility for, and assume all risk arising from, your use of any such websites or resources.

15. Mobile Applications and App Store Terms

We offer native mobile applications for iOS and Android. Your use of an application obtained through a third-party app store is also subject to that store's terms. The iOS application is distributed under Apple's standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement; the following clauses supplement that agreement and these Terms as required by Apple.

Acknowledgment. These Terms are concluded between you and Butler Technology Concepts, LLC d/b/a BBQuill only, and not with Apple. Apple is not responsible for the application or its content, and has no obligation to furnish any maintenance or support services for the application.

Warranty. In the event of any failure of the application to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple will refund the purchase price you paid for the application. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Apple will have no other warranty obligation with respect to the application; all other warranty claims are our sole responsibility.

Product claims. We, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claims you or any third party have relating to the application or your possession and use of it, including: (i) product liability claims; (ii) claims that the application fails to conform to any applicable legal or regulatory requirement; (iii) claims arising under consumer protection or similar legislation; and (iv) the investigation, defense, settlement, and discharge of any third-party intellectual property infringement claim.

Third-party beneficiary. Apple and Apple's subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms. Upon your acceptance of these Terms, Apple will have the right — and will be deemed to have accepted the right — to enforce these Terms against you as a third-party beneficiary.

Export compliance. You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo and that you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.

Google Play. Android applications obtained through Google Play are also subject to the Google Play Terms of Service. As between you and us, we (not Google) are responsible for the application and any claims relating to it.

16. Changes to Terms

We may at any time amend these Terms, including any policies incorporated by reference. The date of the last revision is indicated by the "Last updated" date at the top of this page, and any such changes are effective upon posting. If you have an account, we will notify you of material changes by requiring re-acceptance upon your next login. If you continue to use the Service after we post revisions, your continued use constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms.

17. No Warranties

While we make reasonable efforts to keep the Content on the Service accurate and available, we do not warrant the accuracy, completeness, timeliness, or fitness for any particular purpose of the Content beyond those reasonable efforts. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. BUTLER TECHNOLOGY CONCEPTS, LLC D/B/A BBQUILL DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR FREE OF HARMFUL COMPONENTS.

18. No Guarantee of Availability

Your use of the Service may sometimes be subject to interruption or delay. We reserve the right to withdraw or amend the Service, and any feature or material provided through it, at our sole discretion and without notice. Due to the nature of the Internet and electronic communications, we and our service providers do not warrant that the Service will be error-free, without interruption or delay, or free from defects in design, and we will not be liable to you should the Service become unavailable, interrupted, or delayed for any reason. From time to time, we may restrict access to some or all of the Service, including to registered users.

19. Malicious Code

Although we endeavor to prevent the introduction of viruses or other malicious code ("malicious code") to the Service, we do not guarantee or warrant that the Service, or any data available through it, is free of malicious code. We will not be liable for any damages or harm attributable to malicious code. You are responsible for ensuring that the process you employ for accessing the Service does not expose your systems to the risk of interference or damage from malicious code.

20. Security

The security of your information is important to us; however, you acknowledge the risk of unauthorized access to, or alteration of, your data. We do not accept responsibility or liability of any nature for any losses you may sustain as a result of such unauthorized access or alteration. All information transmitted to or from you is transmitted at your own risk, and you assume all responsibility and risk arising in relation to your use of the Service and the Internet.

21. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, BUTLER TECHNOLOGY CONCEPTS, LLC D/B/A BBQUILL AND ITS OWNERS, OPERATORS, AND AFFILIATES SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE, OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU SHALL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID TO BUTLER TECHNOLOGY CONCEPTS, LLC D/B/A BBQUILL IN THE TWELVE MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM, OR $100, WHICHEVER IS GREATER.

For clarity, and to the maximum extent permitted by law, the excluded indirect and consequential damages include any loss of or damage to food, ingredients, or Equipment, and any illness or other harm arising from food prepared or served. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limitations of liability, so some of the above may not apply to you, and nothing in these Terms limits rights that cannot be waived under applicable law.

22. Reliance, Results, and Endorsements

Your responsibility. By using the Service, you accept personal responsibility for the results of your actions. You agree to use your own judgment and to conduct appropriate due diligence before taking any action or implementing any plan or suggestion provided through the Service, and to take full responsibility for any harm or damage you may suffer as a result of using, or not using, the information available through the Service.

No guarantee of results. We make no guarantee about the results of taking any action, whether suggested through the Service or not. Cooking outcomes depend on your particular situation, your equipment, fuel, ingredients, weather, technique, effort, and many other circumstances beyond our control or knowledge, and prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Results obtained by others are no guarantee that you will achieve similar results.

No endorsements. The Service — including its AI features — may name, describe, look up, or link to third-party products, brands, services, or resources (for example, rubs, sauces, wood, fuel, thermometers, or cookers). Any such reference is provided for informational purposes only and is not an endorsement, recommendation, or warranty that the product, service, or information is accurate, safe, or suitable for you. You are responsible for conducting your own investigation, reading and following all product labels, and making your own decisions.

No professional relationship. Your use of the Service does not create any professional-client or advisory relationship between you and Butler Technology Concepts, LLC d/b/a BBQuill.

Testimonials and reviews. If and where the Service displays testimonials, reviews, or success stories, they reflect the genuine experiences or opinions of real users and are not a guarantee of the results you will obtain; individual results are not typical and vary based on your situation and effort. Where we have provided any incentive (such as a free or discounted product, contest entry, or other benefit) in connection with a testimonial or review, we will disclose that material connection at or near the testimonial or review.

23. Indemnification

You shall indemnify and hold us harmless from and against any and all losses, damages, settlements, liabilities, costs, charges, assessments, and expenses, as well as third-party claims and causes of action, including, without limitation, attorney's fees, arising out of your breach of any of these Terms, your use of the Service and any product or service obtained through it, or your failure to maintain the confidentiality or security of your credentials. You shall provide us with such assistance, without charge, as we may request in connection with any such defense. You shall not settle any third-party claim or waive any defense without our prior written consent.

24. Governing Law; Jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Oklahoma, USA, and applicable United States federal law, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree that the state and federal courts located in Oklahoma shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service, and you submit to the jurisdiction of those courts and waive any objection based on an inconvenient forum.

25. Alternative Dispute Resolution

The parties agree to attempt to resolve any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms by mediation. The parties further agree that their respective good-faith participation in mediation is a condition precedent to pursuing any other available legal or equitable remedy, including litigation.

26. General

Headings; severability. Section headings are for convenience only and do not affect the interpretation of these Terms. If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable or contrary to law, that provision will be construed to best accomplish its original objective to the fullest extent allowed, and the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect.

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any other policies referenced here, constitute the entire agreement between you and Butler Technology Concepts, LLC d/b/a BBQuill regarding the Service and supersede all prior and contemporaneous agreements, representations, and understandings on that subject.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce any provision, or any waiver of a breach or right under these Terms, is not a waiver of any other or subsequent breach or right and will not be binding unless made in writing.

Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our prior consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

27. All Rights Reserved

All rights not expressly granted in these Terms are reserved by us. If you do not see a usage scenario here that applies to your intended use, contact us at groundskeeper@bbquill.com.

28. Contact

The owner of the Service is Butler Technology Concepts, LLC d/b/a BBQuill. For questions about these Terms, contact us by email at groundskeeper@bbquill.com.