Terms of Service

1. Agreement to These Terms

By using sosbusiness-search.org/ (the "Site"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you don't agree, please don't use the Site. These Terms form a legally binding agreement between you and the publisher of SOSBusinessSearch.org ("we," "us," "our").

Read these Terms alongside our Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Disclaimer, which together govern your use of the Site.

2. About This Site

SOSBusinessSearch.org is an independent editorial reference site that publishes guides to U.S. Secretary of State business entity search portals across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and U.S. territories. We are not a Secretary of State, state agency, corporate-formation service, or registered-agent provider.

3. Eligibility

The Site is intended for use by adults. If you are under 13, please do not use the Site. The Site complies with the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) and does not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13.

4. Permitted Use

You may use the Site for personal and business purposes — looking up business entities, finding state portal links, checking fees, and similar uses. You may share links to our pages on social media, in personal correspondence, or in business communications. Journalists, researchers, and law-firm professionals may quote short excerpts under fair use, with attribution to SOSBusinessSearch.org and a link back to the source page.

5. Prohibited Use

• Using the Site in violation of any applicable federal, state, or local law
• Scraping, harvesting, or systematically extracting content from the Site for resale, republication, or to power a competing service
• Using automated tools to send a high volume of requests that interferes with normal Site operation
• Attempting to gain unauthorized access to the Site, our systems, or any account or data — which may also be an offense under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act
• Introducing malware, viruses, trojans, worms, or any other malicious code
• Using the Site to send unsolicited communications (spam) or to harvest email addresses
• Misrepresenting your identity or affiliation when contacting us
• Reproducing or displaying content in a way that suggests endorsement by any state agency
• Using the Site to commit fraud, harass others, or facilitate illegal activity, including acts that would violate state or federal anti-fraud or consumer-protection statutes

6. Intellectual Property

All content on the Site — text, layout, design, graphics, logos, organization, and code — is owned by us, licensed to us, or used with permission, and is protected by United States copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property law.

You may view and print pages for personal or business reference. You may not copy substantial parts of the Site, reproduce our editorial structure, or republish content commercially without our prior written permission.

State names, agency names, and official seals belong to the relevant state. Our use of those names is for the practical purpose of identifying the agency each page covers and does not imply sponsorship, endorsement, or affiliation. Full position is in our Disclaimer.

7. User-Submitted Content

If you submit content to us — a correction report, feedback, or comment — you confirm that you own it or have the right to share it, that it does not infringe anyone else’s rights, and that it is not defamatory, threatening, harassing, obscene, or unlawful. You give us a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use the submission for the purpose of operating and improving the Site, including publishing it where relevant (for example, in an anonymized correction note).

8. Third-Party Links and Services

The Site links extensively to state Secretary of State websites, FinCEN, the IRS, the U.S. Department of State, NASS, and other authoritative sources. We have no control over those sites and cannot guarantee their availability, accuracy, security, or accessibility. A link from us is not an endorsement beyond the specific information we are pointing to.

9. Advertising

The Site is funded by display advertising. Advertisements are served by recognized ad networks and labeled as advertising where required. We do not allow advertisers to dictate editorial content. Affiliate links are disclosed where they appear, consistent with FTC endorsement guidance. Full position in our Editorial Policy.

10. Changes to the Site or These Terms

We may add to, change, or remove parts of the Site at any time. We may also update these Terms from time to time. The “Last reviewed” date at the top reflects the current version. Substantive changes will be flagged on the homepage banner for at least 30 days before they take effect.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

• The Site is provided on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis
• WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT
• We make no warranty that the Site will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or free from viruses or other harmful components
• We make no warranties about the accuracy, completeness, currency, reliability, or suitability of any information on the Site for any particular purpose

The full operational disclaimer is on the Disclaimer page.

12. Limitation of Liability

• WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES — INCLUDING LOSS OF PROFIT, LOSS OF BUSINESS, LOSS OF DATA, LOSS OF GOODWILL, OR LOSS OF GOODS — ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE SITE
• OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY MATTER RELATING TO THE SITE IS LIMITED TO ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100), EXCEPT WHERE A HIGHER AMOUNT IS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW
• Examples of losses we are not liable for include: missed annual report deadlines, denied entity-name registrations, incorrect fee assumptions, business-formation errors, and any payment or fee incurred in reliance on Site content

13. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from any claims, losses, costs, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising from your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Site, or your infringement of any third-party right through your use of the Site. This clause does not apply to consumers using the Site for personal, non-commercial purposes except where the loss arises directly from a deliberate or reckless breach.

14. Suspension and Termination

We may suspend or restrict your access to the Site without notice if you breach these Terms in a material way, your use causes a security risk or operational problem, we are required to do so by law or court order, or we discontinue all or part of the Site. You may stop using the Site at any time. Sections that by their nature should survive (intellectual property, limitation of liability, dispute resolution, governing law) will continue to apply.

15. Dispute Resolution

If a dispute arises out of these Terms or your use of the Site, please contact us first at info@sosbusiness-search.org with subject line “Dispute resolution” so we can try to resolve the matter informally. We commit to a good-faith response within 30 days.

If we cannot resolve the dispute informally, you and we agree to binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, except that:

• Either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court if it qualifies, instead of arbitration
• Either party may seek injunctive or other equitable relief in court for intellectual-property infringement
• The arbitration will take place in Delaware, or, by agreement of the parties, in the state where you reside
• Class-action waiver: You and we agree that arbitration will be conducted on an individual basis only — no class actions, class arbitrations, or representative proceedings

AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules: adr.org/Rules.

16. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms and any dispute arising under them are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles, and (where applicable) the federal laws of the United States. Delaware is chosen because of the maturity and predictability of its commercial-law jurisprudence, which is well-suited to a site about state-level business entity records.

For any matter that is not subject to arbitration under Section 15, the courts of the State of Delaware (and the federal courts located in the District of Delaware) have exclusive jurisdiction, except that:

• If you are a consumer in another U.S. state, nothing in these Terms deprives you of the protections of mandatory state consumer law in your state of residence
• If you are a consumer outside the U.S., you may have rights to bring proceedings in your jurisdiction of residence under applicable consumer-protection law

17. General Provisions

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Disclaimer linked from this page, set out the entire agreement between you and us in relation to the Site.

Severability. If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the rest continues in full force.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later.

Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or obligations without our written consent. We may transfer ours to a successor in business as part of a corporate restructuring.

Force majeure. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control.

Headings. Section headings are for convenience and do not affect interpretation.

18. Contact

For any question about these Terms, email info@sosbusiness-search.org with the subject line “Terms inquiry.” For privacy questions, see our Privacy Policy; for accessibility questions, see our Accessibility Statement.