Terms of Use
Effective October 18, 2026 · Last updated October 18, 2026
These Terms explain the use of dobias.ai, practical learning resources, project descriptions, and initial inquiries. They distinguish general website information from a separately agreed professional engagement and preserve rights that applicable law does not allow to be waived.
Operator: Richard Dobias · California, United States
Contact: richard@dobias.ai
- Operator, scope, and agreement
- Eligibility and authority
- What the Site offers
- Inquiries, proposals, and professional engagements
- Your information and participation
- Confidential information and secure channels
- Educational materials, prompts, and practical use
- AI limitations and human review
- No regulated professional advice or government endorsement
- Site ownership, intellectual property, and attribution
- Acceptable use and security research
- External tools, links, costs, and availability
- Feedback, ideas, and submissions
- Availability and warranty limitations
- Limitations of liability and nonwaivable exceptions
- Responsibility for deliberate misuse
- Access restrictions and preservation of records
- California law and dispute resolution
- Changes to these Terms
- General provisions and legal rights
- Contact and accessibility
01 — Operator, scope, and agreement
These Terms of Use describe the conditions for using dobias.ai, including its public pages, educational materials, portfolio descriptions, and inquiry features (the “Site”). The Site is operated by Richard Dobias personally from California, United States. “I,” “me,” and “my” refer to Richard Dobias; “you” refers to the person using the Site.
Please read these Terms before using the Site. Where these Terms are presented with appropriate notice and you affirmatively accept them, they form an agreement to the extent provided by applicable law. Accessing a page alone does not establish consent to optional tracking, marketing, or every contractual provision regardless of the notice and assent required by law. If you do not agree to applicable conditions, do not use the affected feature.
The Privacy Policy describes information practices. It is a notice, not a request to waive privacy rights or authorize every possible future use of information. These Terms do not override mandatory law or a separately signed agreement for services or software.
02 — Eligibility and authority
The Site is intended for a general adult audience. You must be at least 18 and legally able to enter into a contract to submit an inquiry for your own engagement, accept a proposal, or purchase services. The Site is not directed to children under 13. A minor must not use a false age or another person’s identity to request an engagement.
If you act for a business or another person, you are responsible for having authority to provide the information you submit and, where relevant, to enter an agreement on that party’s behalf. A job title, company email address, or inquiry alone does not establish that authority.
03 — What the Site offers
The Site shares Richard Dobias’s work, project concepts, methods, and lessons concerning applied AI and software. It also provides a way to discuss workflow assessment, software review, training, and possible collaboration. Content may be updated, reorganized, corrected, or removed.
A project listing is an explanation of purpose and intended value. Unless expressly stated in a specific offer, it is not a representation that a product is commercially available, fully tested, independently audited, certified, compliant with a particular regulation, or suitable for a particular task. An illustration, conceptual cover, or mockup is not proof of a working product or an actual user interface.
Examples are used to make ideas understandable. They are not promises of a particular saving, business result, return on investment, security outcome, or software capability in your environment.
04 — Inquiries, proposals, and professional engagements
Submitting an inquiry does not purchase a service, reserve capacity, establish a fiduciary relationship, or require either party to proceed. A confirmation message acknowledges receipt by the form system; it is not acceptance of a project, a promise of a response time, or confirmation that an email notification reached a person.
Any paid or substantive engagement requires a separate agreement addressing the actual parties, scope, deliverables, assumptions, fees, payment schedule, third-party costs, timetable, access, confidentiality, ownership or licenses, acceptance criteria, support, and termination. The description of an inquiry topic does not supply all of those terms.
I may decline work that is outside my availability, competence, lawful authority, or agreed risk boundaries. No obligation to perform work or meet a deadline arises solely from an initial discussion. A signed engagement agreement controls its subject matter over conflicting general website language.
No recurring charge, token budget, hosting cost, subscription commitment, refund policy, or product license is created merely by browsing or sending the form. Such matters must be disclosed and agreed for the relevant purchase or engagement.
05 — Your information and participation
Provide accurate contact information and a truthful, high-level description of the task you want to discuss. Do not impersonate someone, misrepresent your authority, submit unlawful material, or provide data you are not entitled to disclose.
You retain your rights in information you submit. You authorize its receipt, storage, and use as reasonably needed to process and answer the inquiry and administer your choices, as described in the Privacy Policy. This is not a transfer of ownership, an unrestricted license to commercialize your idea, or permission to publish a testimonial.
You should keep your own copies of important information. Do not rely on a public web form as a records archive, guaranteed delivery channel, emergency service, or secure repository for confidential material. If a message is time-sensitive, arrange a suitable channel and confirm receipt.
06 — Confidential information and secure channels
An unsolicited inquiry does not by itself create a nondisclosure agreement, professional privilege, or a commitment to accept confidential material. Share the goal and general context first. Discuss and agree any necessary confidentiality and secure-transfer arrangements before sending trade secrets, source code, regulated records, or detailed proprietary designs.
Do not send passwords, API keys, access tokens, financial account credentials, identity documents, medical records, third-party client files, classified material, controlled government information, or export-restricted technical data through the public form or ordinary unsolicited email.
I will handle information actually received consistently with the Privacy Policy and applicable duties. This section is not permission to misuse your information or a waiver of confidentiality obligations imposed by law or a separate agreement. If sensitive material was submitted accidentally, contact richard@dobias.ai promptly.
07 — Educational materials, prompts, and practical use
Articles, working notes, checklists, prompts, and examples are general educational material. They are not a substitute for task-specific engineering review, security testing, legal analysis, or professional judgment. A short example cannot account for every dependency, permission, failure mode, legal requirement, or operational constraint.
Unless a particular resource states a different license, you may use and adapt the prompts, checklists, and exercises expressly offered for practical use for your own personal or internal business work. You may not present the original resource as your authorship, resell it as a standalone resource collection, or reproduce the Site’s substantial editorial content without permission. Applicable fair use and other statutory rights remain unaffected.
Before applying a method or running generated code, use an appropriate test environment, review permissions and outputs, protect credentials, and maintain a way to recover. Never paste secrets or someone else’s confidential information into a third-party AI tool merely because an example asks for context. Actual accounts, contracts, and technical controls determine access; a prompt alone does not enforce a security boundary.
08 — AI limitations and human review
AI tools can produce inaccurate, incomplete, insecure, biased, or fabricated results. They may misunderstand instructions, mishandle context, or behave differently as models and services change. Descriptions of a useful workflow are not a guarantee that an AI system will act correctly or stay within permissions unless suitable controls actually enforce them.
You are responsible for deciding whether an output is appropriate for your circumstances and for arranging qualified review before relying on it for important decisions. Do not delegate legal, medical, financial, employment, safety-critical, or consequential security decisions to an example workflow without suitable professional and human oversight.
Some Site illustrations are AI-generated or conceptual. They communicate an editorial idea and should not be interpreted as photographs of Richard, actual clients, completed installations, endorsements, or verified product performance unless expressly identified that way.
09 — No regulated professional advice or government endorsement
General discussions of finance, health-related workflows, law, cyber risk, contracting, or engineering do not create an investment-adviser, medical-provider, attorney-client, licensed professional-engineering, or other regulated advisory relationship. Seek an appropriately qualified professional for advice in those areas. The Site is not intended for emergencies.
References to military service, education, experience, or government-related projects describe background or subject matter. They do not imply endorsement by the U.S. Navy, Department of Defense, another government agency, a university, or a third-party organization. Nothing on the Site authorizes access to government systems or restricted information.
10 — Site ownership, intellectual property, and attribution
Except for material owned by others, rights in the Site’s original text, layout, branding, code, and other protected material belong to Richard Dobias or the relevant rights holder, to the extent those rights exist under applicable law. Names and marks belonging to others remain theirs. No trademark or third-party license is granted merely by displaying a name.
You may view the Site, link to public pages, share the public URL, and use limited quotations with accurate attribution where the law permits. The practical-use permission in the educational-materials section applies to resources expressly provided for that purpose. A separate open-source or resource license controls material expressly released under it.
Do not copy or republish substantial protected material, remove ownership notices, falsely imply an affiliation, or distribute a replica of the Site without permission. This section does not claim ownership of unprotectable ideas, public-domain facts, your independent work, or rights the law gives you. AI-generated material may have different copyright protection from human-authored material.
11 — Acceptable use and security research
Do not use the Site to violate law or another person’s rights; send spam or malicious content; phish for credentials; interfere with service; circumvent access controls; obtain nonpublic information without authorization; or perform automated extraction that unlawfully infringes rights or materially burdens the Site.
Public availability does not authorize vulnerability exploitation, access to another user’s data, destructive testing, denial-of-service activity, credential attacks, or attempts to bypass a security control. If you discover a suspected vulnerability, contact richard@dobias.ai with a concise description. Do not include a live secret or other people’s personal information.
A request for authorization must be agreed before active testing beyond ordinary public browsing. These Terms do not prohibit legally protected activity, truthful criticism, lawful reporting, or security research independently protected by applicable law. No promise of a bounty or unrestricted safe harbor is made by this page.
12 — External tools, links, costs, and availability
Links may lead to software vendors, learning resources, social profiles, or other websites. Their operators control their services, terms, privacy practices, pricing, availability, and security. A reference is not a warranty or endorsement of every aspect of a third-party service.
If you choose to use a third-party AI tool, integration, account, subscription, or API, review its current terms and data practices. Usage charges, token limits, model changes, rate limits, and data-retention settings may affect cost and results. No Site example authorizes an expense on your behalf or promises that a third-party service will remain free.
I am responsible for my own representations and duties under law; linking to another service does not remove those responsibilities. Your separate contract with a provider continues to govern your use of that provider.
13 — Feedback, ideas, and submissions
If you voluntarily send feedback about the Site, I may use the feedback to improve it without an obligation to pay for unsolicited suggestions, to the extent permitted by law. This permission does not authorize disclosure of your identity in marketing, publication of confidential information, or appropriation of your protected work.
For a business idea, proposed collaboration, invention, or material requiring ownership or confidentiality terms, discuss the applicable agreement before submitting details. I may already be working on similar general ideas, but an unsolicited message does not transfer your rights or establish joint ownership.
14 — Availability and warranty limitations
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the free public Site and its general informational material are provided “as is” and “as available.” I do not warrant that the Site will always be available, error-free, current, compatible with every device, or free of every harmful component. General information and examples do not carry an implied promise of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or noninfringement to the extent those warranties may lawfully be disclaimed.
I may perform maintenance, correct content, limit a feature, or discontinue a free resource. This does not excuse a duty owed under a separate engagement or mandatory law. I do not disclaim an express written commitment in an applicable signed agreement by pointing to this general page.
No disclaimer in these Terms excludes a warranty, duty, or remedy that applicable law does not allow to be excluded. Consumers may have statutory rights that apply despite this language.
15 — Limitations of liability and nonwaivable exceptions
Subject to the exceptions below and only to the extent permitted by law and an enforceable agreement, Richard Dobias is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages arising from use of the free public Site, including lost profits, business interruption, or loss of data. Whether a particular loss falls within a category is governed by applicable law, not merely by a label.
On the same conditions, aggregate liability arising from the free public Site and its general informational material is limited to US $100. This proposed limit concerns the free public website; it does not establish a liability limit for separately contracted services, a purchased product, or conduct for which limitation is not permitted.
These exclusions and the cap do not apply to fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, injury, statutory violations, data-security obligations, or any other liability to the extent that applicable law or public policy prohibits exclusion or limitation. They do not waive nonwaivable consumer or privacy rights, eliminate legally available public injunctive relief, or reduce remedies that cannot lawfully be reduced. A court or other competent authority determines the effect of these provisions.
If a limitation is unenforceable, it applies only to the lawful extent, if any; it is not a demand that you release a protected claim. The Site does not promise that posting these Terms alone makes every limitation enforceable.
16 — Responsibility for deliberate misuse
To the extent permitted by law and an enforceable agreement, you are responsible for third-party claims and reasonable resulting costs caused by your intentional unlawful misuse of the Site or your knowing infringement of another person’s rights through material you submit.
This provision does not require you to defend or indemnify me for my own negligence, wrongdoing, legal violations, ordinary good-faith use of the Site, or exercise of a protected right. It does not impose an automatic obligation to pay disputed legal fees. Any claimed responsibility remains subject to notice, a fair opportunity to respond, and applicable law.
17 — Access restrictions and preservation of records
I may restrict activity reasonably believed to threaten the Site, violate applicable conditions, or infringe rights. Security systems may block a request mistakenly. If you believe you were blocked in error, contact richard@dobias.ai with non-sensitive details about what happened.
Restrictions do not eliminate a right to make a privacy request, retain your own records, report wrongdoing, or pursue a lawful remedy. Necessary evidence may be preserved for security or legal purposes consistently with the Privacy Policy and applicable law.
18 — California law and dispute resolution
To the extent a governing-law agreement is enforceable, California law and applicable United States federal law govern these Terms. Mandatory protections of another jurisdiction that cannot lawfully be displaced remain in effect.
You may contact richard@dobias.ai to try to resolve a concern informally. Doing so is encouraged but is not a mandatory waiting period, a restriction on reporting to a regulator, or a bar to urgent relief or a claim before a deadline.
A dispute may be brought in a court with lawful jurisdiction and venue. These Terms do not impose mandatory arbitration, waive a jury trial or class proceeding, shorten a statutory claim deadline, or require you to give up small-claims or other nonwaivable rights. A different dispute provision for a future engagement requires a separate valid agreement.
19 — Changes to these Terms
The effective date appears at the top of this page. I may revise these Terms as the Site changes. Material revisions will receive appropriate notice, and affirmative acceptance will be requested where required to bind you to a change. A revision does not retroactively rewrite a separate agreement or resolve an existing dispute on new terms without a lawful basis.
A current version will remain available on this page. Keep a copy of the terms applicable to an important transaction or engagement. If you do not accept revised conditions for an optional feature, stop using that feature and contact me about any existing obligations.
20 — General provisions and legal rights
These Terms and any applicable separate agreement address their respective subject matter. No partnership, employment, agency, fiduciary duty, or joint venture is created merely by visiting the Site or making an inquiry. No third party receives enforcement rights merely because a provider or organization is mentioned.
A failure to enforce a provision once is not an automatic waiver for the future. If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue only to the extent they can fairly and lawfully operate independently. No severability language authorizes a court to impose a bargain that applicable law prohibits.
Nothing restricts lawful consumer reviews, truthful statements, regulatory complaints, reporting potential illegality, protected whistleblowing, or rights that cannot be waived. The Privacy Policy and these Terms do not create a blanket consent to monitoring, sale of information, AI training, or marketing.
21 — Contact and accessibility
Questions about these Terms, permission to reuse material, suspected rights infringements, accessibility barriers, or concerns about the Site can be sent to Richard Dobias at richard@dobias.ai. Describe the relevant page or issue and provide a way to respond. Do not include passwords or sensitive documents in an initial message.
If you cannot access a policy or form, ask for an accessible text copy or another suitable way to communicate. This page is available at dobias.ai/terms/.