Terms of Service

Last updated: 2026-05-14

This is a courtesy English translation. The legally binding original is the Japanese version at /tos.html. In case of any conflict or ambiguity between this translation and the Japanese version, the Japanese version prevails. These Terms are governed by the laws of Japan, and Section 19 sets forth Tokyo as the agreed forum.

These Terms of Service (hereinafter, the "Terms") set out the conditions of use of the Japanese public-record evidence/output API and MCP server (collectively, the "Service") provided under the name "jpcite" by Bookyou Inc. (Bookyou Kabushiki Kaisha; hereinafter, the "Company"). Any legal entity or individual using the Service (hereinafter, "User") shall use the Service only after agreeing to all provisions of these Terms. The Service returns source-linked Evidence Packets and output artifacts before AI answer generation, internal decisions, or customer review; it does not provide tax advice or legal advice.

Section 1 (Definitions)

The terms used in these Terms are defined as set out below.

• API means the program interface provided by the Company over HTTP/HTTPS or other network protocols for invoking the functions of the Service.
• MCP means the Company's server compliant with the Model Context Protocol, providing functions equivalent to the API via AI agents.
• End User means any individual or legal entity that indirectly comes into contact with the Service's output through a product or service developed or operated by the User.
• Request means a single API or MCP invocation made by the User or the User's system to the Service. Normal search and detail calls are one request = one billable unit; batch, export, fanout, and similar endpoints may consume multiple billable units according to formulas shown before use.
• Evidence Packet / output artifact means a Service response that bundles primary-source URLs, fetched timestamps, citation candidates, known gaps, quality information, and related structured fields in a format usable by downstream AI or human review.
• Service collectively means the API and MCP server defined above, related documentation, the dashboard, accompanying website, and the support channel.
• User means any legal entity or individual that, after agreeing to these Terms, registers to use the Service or uses the Service within the unregistered scope.
• AI Output means any text, summary, answer, calculation result, or other output generated by a large language model, machine-learning model, or other generative artificial-intelligence system. Some functions of the Service may present AI Output combined with structured data returned by the Service.
• External Provider Charges means fees charged by third-party LLMs, AI agents, cloud providers, search APIs, vector databases, browser automation tools, telecommunications providers, external SaaS products, or other third-party services used by the User. Such fees are not included in the Service fees.

Section 2 (Agreement to the Terms; scope of application; target jurisdiction)

• These Terms apply to all matters relating to the use of the Service and to the entire relationship between the Company and the User concerning the Service.
• The User shall be deemed to have agreed to these Terms at the earlier of (i) the time at which the User sends the first request to the Service, or (ii) the time at which an API key is issued.
• The Privacy Policy, individual rules, guidelines, rate-limit values, and the Service Level Targets separately presented by the Company on the website, in documentation, or via API responses form a part of these Terms. In case of conflict, these Terms prevail.
• The User shall, at the User's own cost and responsibility, prepare the communications environment, terminals, and software necessary to use the Service.
• The Service is primarily intended to provide service in Japanese to individuals residing in Japan or legal entities incorporated in Japan (hereinafter, "Target Users"). For users other than Target Users, the Company makes no express or implied warranty regarding the provision of the Service, and such users use the Service at their own risk. The Company may restrict access from particular countries or regions for reasons of statutory compliance or reasonable business necessity.
• Where a User uses the Service as an individual (a "consumer" as defined in Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Consumer Contract Act), such use is treated as B2C use; where the User uses the Service for or as a business, such use is treated as B2B use. For B2C Users, in accordance with Section 16, the disclaimers and limitation-of-liability clauses do not apply to the extent they conflict with mandatory provisions of law.
• If the User combines the Service's structured data with an external AI client, the resulting output may contain inaccuracies, staleness, or factual misattribution. The Company will not incorporate the User's request bodies, data uploaded by the User, or API-key identifiers into machine-learning training datasets operated by the Company itself or by any third party.

Section 3 (Account registration and API key management responsibility)

• To use the paid features of the Service, the User shall submit the required information by the means designated by the Company, and shall use the Service via the API key issued by the Company.
• The User shall provide the Company with truthful and accurate information, and shall update such information promptly upon any change.
• Upon commencement of use of the Service, the User represents and warrants that the User is a Target User as defined in Section 2, paragraph 5, or, if not a Target User, is using the Service at the User's own risk.
• The API key is confidential information uniquely issued to the User. The User shall manage the API key with the care of a prudent manager and shall not disclose, lend, share, transfer, or pledge the API key to any third party. The Company recommends enabling two-factor authentication (2FA) on the Stripe Customer Portal, periodic API-key rotation, and least-privilege environment-variable management.
• If the API key is leaked, lost, or at risk of misuse, the User shall immediately notify the Company and shall revoke the relevant API key. The Company will, within a reasonable period after receiving such notice, deactivate the API key.
• Requests made using the API key, and any fees arising from such requests, are attributable to the User in whose name the API key is issued where they result from the User's credential management failure or other causes attributable to the User. This does not apply where liability cannot be excluded due to a compromise of the Company's systems, the Company's wilful misconduct or gross negligence, or other mandatory law.

Section 4 (Content of the Service)

• The Service collects, organises, and structures information on subsidies, grants, financing programs, tax incentives, certification programs, administrative dispositions, court decisions, and other public-program-related information (collectively, "Program Information") published by Japanese public agencies and other organisations from primary sources, and provides such information as Evidence Packets / output artifacts through the API and MCP.
• The Service is strictly limited to public-source evidence retrieval, structuring, and output assistance. None of the following are within the scope of the Service:
  • Preparing or filing application documents for subsidies, grants, or financing on a User's behalf
  • Specific tax-advisory consultation or preparation of tax documents
  • Specific legal-advisory consultation or legal services
  • Accounting work, bookkeeping outsourcing, or preparation of financial statements
  • Procedural agency or labour consultation under labour and social-insurance laws and regulations
  • Preparing documents for submission to administrative agencies on a User's behalf
  • Other services requiring a national professional license
• The Company may, with prior notice to Users, change the functions, specifications, and conditions of the Service. Provided, however, that material changes adverse to Users are subject to Section 18.

Section 5 (Compliance with professional-statute laws and AI Business Operator Guidelines)

• The Company complies with Article 72 of the Attorneys Act, Article 52 of the Certified Tax Accountants Act, Article 47-2 of the Certified Public Accountants Act, Article 27 of the Labour and Social Security Attorneys Act, Article 1-2 and Article 19 of the Administrative Scriveners Act, Article 3 of the Judicial Scriveners Act, Article 75 of the Patent Attorneys Act, Article 36 of the Labour Standards Act, and other professional-statute or labour-related laws, and does not provide any of the services that those laws reserve to licensed professionals or regulated parties.
• The information provided by the Service consists of organised and structured general public information on program requirements, eligible applicants, subsidy ratios, application periods, and required documents, and does not constitute legal or tax advice based on the specific circumstances of any particular User.
• The calculation, eligibility-evaluation, and estimate features of the Service are rough-estimate features based on general formulae for subsidy ratios, ceilings, income deductions, and the like, and do not constitute specific tax-advisory consultation or legal-advisory consultation for tax filing, accounting, or subsidy applications. Estimate results are reference values only, and the Company makes no warranty of accuracy, validity, or fitness for any particular purpose.
• The Company aims to provide data in a verifiable form, including primary-source URLs, fetched-at timestamps, and source-attribution fields where available. These operational targets do not constitute legal warranties.
• The Company strongly recommends that Users consult individually with a Certified Tax Accountant, attorney, Certified Public Accountant, Labour and Social Security Attorney, Administrative Scrivener, or other licensed professional before making concrete decisions in reliance on information or estimate results provided by the Service.

Section 6 (Prohibited acts)

The User shall not engage in any of the following acts in connection with the use of the Service. Acts the Company determines fall within these categories are subject to measures under Section 10.

• (1) Using the Service for the purpose of violating Article 29 of the Act on Proper Execution of Budget Pertaining to Subsidies (補助金等に係る予算の執行の適正化に関する法律) or any other laws and regulations
• (2) Using the Service to prepare false or untruthful application documents or supporting materials for subsidies, grants, financing, or tax incentives
• (3) Presenting or submitting the Service's output as if the Company, a public authority, a bank, a shinkin bank, a credit cooperative, the Japan Finance Corporation, or any other third party had created a credit report, rating, guarantee, lending-review document, certificate, or authenticity warranty; or using the Service's output as the sole or primary basis for credit, investment, adoption, lending, or similar decisions without primary-source verification and any necessary professional judgment
• (4) Acquiring large volumes of data significantly exceeding reasonable use, by means of scraping, crawling, parallel concurrent requests, or otherwise
• (5) Lending, disclosing, sharing, or reselling an API key issued to the User to any third party
• (6) Circumventing the Company's rate limits or use ceilings by switching IP addresses, rotating API keys, or other technical means
• (7) Reverse engineering, decompiling, or disassembling the API, MCP server, dashboard, or related software of the Service
• (8) Constructing, operating, or selling a database or information service that competes with the Service, using the Service's output as raw material
• (9) Acts that violate laws, regulations, or public order and morals, that infringe the rights of any third party, or that contribute to such acts
• (10) Using the Service for credit assessment, investment solicitation, financing intermediation, fund transfer, or other regulated activities in a manner that conflicts with the Banking Act, the Money Lending Business Act, the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act, the Capital Subscription Act (出資法), the Act on Prevention of Transfer of Criminal Proceeds, or other industry-specific laws
• (11) Using improper instructions, bypass attempts, unauthorised access, prompt injection, requests to disclose system prompts, jailbreaks, "DAN"-style attempts, or other means to cause the Service, MCP server, API, or User-side AI client integration to deviate from its intended scope of operation; or attempting to extract, infer, bypass, or test without authorisation any Company or third-party API key, secret, system prompt, internal log, credential, or non-public data
• (12) Processing or editing the Service's output or responses so as to cause third parties to misperceive program contents, subsidy ratios, ceilings, adoption track records, or other facts (including misrepresentation of superiority or favourability prohibited under Article 5 of the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations / 景品表示法)
• (13) Other acts that the Company reasonably determines to interfere with the operation of the Service

Section 7 (Disclaimer of information accuracy)

• The Company makes no warranty, express or implied, regarding the completeness, accuracy, currency, fitness for any particular purpose, usefulness, continuity, or non-infringement of third-party rights of the information provided through the Service.
• Information on subsidies, grants, financing, taxation, and similar programs depends on the update timing, program revisions, and operational changes of the supervising authorities, local governments, incorporated administrative agencies, and other primary sources. Even where the Company endeavours to keep its information current, time lags or content discrepancies may arise between the primary source and the Service.
• Users shall, prior to making decisions about applications, contracts, investments, or otherwise in reliance on information from the Service, themselves verify the primary sources defined in Section 8; if the verification result differs from the Service's information, the primary-source description shall prevail.
• Evidence Packets, Source Receipts, source_fetched_at, content hashes, corpus_snapshot_id values, and other metadata indicate the time and scope of the Company's retrieval or structuring of the information. They do not guarantee the publication date, update date, expiration date, legal effective date, current program operation, acceptance status, legal interpretation, or continued availability of any primary-source or third-party website. An empty known_gaps field does not guarantee completeness or absence of risk.
• The Company is exempted from liability, in accordance with Sections 14 and 15, for damages incurred by Users or End Users on grounds of errors, omissions, or update delays in information contained in the Service.

Section 7-2 (External AI Output)

• Output generated by the User's external AI client, RAG pipeline, summary generator, or other generative-AI system using the Service's structured data may contain factual inaccuracies, staleness, source misattribution, rounding errors, or context-dependent reasoning errors.
• The User shall not rely on external AI output as the basis for any final decision without expert verification, and shall use primary sources together with the advice of a licensed professional when making concrete decisions.
• The Company makes no warranty of any kind regarding the factuality, consistency, or comprehensiveness of external AI output generated outside the Service.

Section 7-3 (Cost-saving and input-context reduction estimates)

• Any input-token reduction estimate, break-even indicator, cost comparison, latency-reduction statement, or other efficiency-related display shown on the website, in documentation, in API responses, or in calculators is an estimate based on assumptions specified by the User or reference conditions stated by the Company.
• The Company does not guarantee that use of the Service will actually reduce the User's external LLM fees, search API fees, labour costs, work time, total system costs, or any other costs.
• Actual costs may differ from displayed reference values depending on third-party LLM pricing, exchange rates, caching, reasoning tokens, tool use, search API charges, output tokens, prompt design, User-side implementation, and other conditions.

Section 8 (Third-party sources and the duty to verify primary sources)

• The information provided by the Service is collected, organised, and structured by the Company from public sources including e-Gov Statutory Search (e-Gov 法令検索), J-Grants, Mirasapo Plus, the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the National Tax Agency, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, the Ministry of the Environment, the official websites of prefectures and municipalities, the Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation, JAPAN (SMRJ), the Japan Finance Corporation, the courts' website (case-law search), and the Official Gazette.
• The reuse of case-law information, statutory citations, Official Gazette announcements, NTA notifications, and other administrative information included in the Service is subject to Article 13 of the Copyright Act (works that are not the subject of rights), Article 32 (quotation), and Article 47-5 (incidental light use accompanying information processing by a computer). Any use beyond such scope is subject to the User's confirmation, at the User's own responsibility, of the primary-source license.
• Qualified invoice issuer registration data (invoice_registrants) published by the National Tax Agency (NTA) of Japan and incorporated into the Service is redistributed under the NTA's Public Data License (PDL) v1.0; the Company expressly attributes the source (NTA) and includes editorial-modification notices in the API response where the Company has applied any processing or editing. e-Gov statutory data is redistributed under the CC-BY 4.0 license. Where the User makes secondary use of such data, the User bears responsibility for the attribution and editorial-modification notices required by each primary-source license.
• Prior to making any application or contract for subsidies, grants, financing, tax incentives, or otherwise in reliance on the Service's information, the User has the duty to access the primary source of such information directly and to verify the latest call-for-application notice, application guidelines, application form, submission deadline, and eligibility requirements.
• To the extent feasible, the Service includes a URL or attribution to the primary source for each piece of information. The Company is not liable for any damages arising from the User's failure to verify directly via such URL.

Section 9 (Fees and payment)

• The paid usage fee for the Service is JPY 3 per billable unit (tax exclusive), and the Company invoices JPY 3.30 per billable unit (tax inclusive at 10% Japanese Consumption Tax (JCT)). Normal search and detail calls are one request = one billable unit; batch, export, fanout, and similar endpoints may consume multiple billable units according to formulas shown before use. The fee display, in the spirit of the Premiums and Misrepresentation Act (景品表示法) and the Consumer Contract Act, shall include both tax-exclusive and tax-inclusive prices.
• The billing period runs from 00:00 on the first day of each month to 23:59 on the last day of that month (Japan Standard Time / JST). The amount obtained by multiplying the number of completed billable units during such period by the unit price is invoiced automatically from the first day of the following month (JST), in accordance with Stripe's billing cycle.
• Payment shall be processed automatically from the credit card the User registers with Stripe via the payment processor designated by the Company, Stripe Payments Japan K.K. (hereinafter, "Stripe"). Supported card brands are Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB, Diners Club, and Discover (subject to change with Stripe's coverage).
  * The cross-border data transfer to Stripe, Inc. (US) via Stripe Payments Japan KK is disclosed in our Privacy Policy.
• Payment processing on Stripe, addition / change / deletion of payment methods, invoice issuance, and viewing of receipts shall be performed by the User through the Customer Portal provided by Stripe.
• Qualified invoices based on Qualified Invoice Issuer Registration Number are generated automatically by Stripe and delivered to the User electronically.
• Anonymous use without registration is free for up to 3 requests per IP address per day, reset at JST 00:00 daily. Authenticated API-key usage is metered from the first successful paid request; registered users do not receive a separate free request bundle.
• Service fees do not include External Provider Charges. The User is responsible for the contracts, terms of use, billing, refunds, caps, search or tool-use charges, cache application, exchange-rate exposure, and disputes relating to third-party LLMs and other external providers. Monthly caps, X-Cost-Cap-JPY, cost previews, idempotency, and similar controls provided by the Service are auxiliary controls for Service fees only and do not limit or guarantee External Provider Charges.
• If the User fails to pay fees by the due date, the Company may, in addition to suspension under Section 10, charge late-payment damages at the rate of 14.6% per annum.

Section 10 (Suspension; rate limits; payment-delay handling)

• The Company may, without prior notice, take measures including revocation of the API key, refusal of requests, and temporary suspension of use, where the User falls under any of the following:
  • Engages in any of the prohibited acts under Section 6
  • Has not paid fees by the due date and remains in default after the demand procedure in the next paragraph
  • Causes excessive load on the Service's infrastructure due to a User-side system
  • Has filed for bankruptcy, civil rehabilitation, corporate reorganisation, special liquidation, or any other insolvency proceeding
  • Otherwise as the Company reasonably determines that material interference with the operation of the Service has arisen
• In the case of payment delay, the Company will, when payment remains outstanding 21 days after the due date, issue a demand by email or via the dashboard, and will only thereafter, when payment remains outstanding 14 days after such demand reaches the User, suspend the API key. If the User completes payment within 14 days of demand, the Company will promptly resume use of the API key.
• For the purpose of stable operation of the Service, the Company may apply rate limits at the IP address, API key, or endpoint level, and such rate limits are published in the documentation.
• Even if the measures under the preceding three paragraphs cause damage to the User, the Company is not liable, in accordance with Sections 14 and 15.

Section 11 (Intellectual property)

• Copyrights, patent rights, trademarks, trade secrets, and all other intellectual property rights in the Service, the API, the MCP server, the dashboard, the documentation, the logo, the trademarks, and any other deliverable comprising the Service belong to the Company or to third parties that have duly licensed them to the Company.
• The database constructed by the Service, by virtue of the creativity in the selection or systematic configuration of its information, is protected as a database work under Article 12-2 of the Copyright Act.
• Subject to compliance with these Terms and the applicable billing rules, the User may use the responses returned by the Service for the User's own product or service's internal processing, generation of individual answers to End Users, integration into AI/tool-use pipelines, and similar purposes. Provided, however, that the following acts are expressly prohibited:
  • Redistributing, reselling, or publicly releasing the Service's responses in their entirety or at large scale
  • Constructing bulk training datasets for large language models or other machine-learning models using the Service's responses as raw material
  • Embedding the Service's responses on a third party's website or application in a way that presents that third party as if it were the source
  • Modifying or removing the source_url, fetched_at, tier, lineage, or other metadata supplied by the Service when presenting to third parties
• Where the User violates the preceding paragraph, the Company may immediately revoke the license, suspend use, and claim damages.

Section 11-2 (Attribution duty)

• Where the User presents the content of the Service's responses to End Users with processing, the User shall, by reasonable means, indicate that the source of the information is the Service (jpcite) or each program's primary source. The following methods are recommended:
  • Display "Source: jpcite (jpcite.com) / primary-source URL" at the bottom of the End User-facing screen, at the end of the response message, or in a footnote
  • Display or link the source_url contained in the API response in the End User-facing UI
  • List the Service as a source on the help page, privacy policy, or Third-party Notices of the User's product
• The attribution duty under the preceding paragraph is for the purpose of preserving the credibility of the Service, preventing violations of Article 5 of the Premiums and Misrepresentation Act (景品表示法), and reflecting the spirit of Article 48 of the Copyright Act (indication of source). The Company is not liable for disputes with third parties arising from the User's failure to provide attribution.

Section 12 (Handling of personal information and customer data)

• The Company complies with the Act on the Protection of Personal Information and other applicable laws and regulations, and handles User personal information and customer data acquired in connection with the provision of the Service in accordance with the Privacy Policy separately set forth.
• For the operation of the Service, the Company may entrust portions of its operations relating to infrastructure, payments, email delivery, log management, and similar matters to third-party providers in Japan or abroad. Major outsourcing providers and the scope of their entrustment are disclosed in the Privacy Policy.
• Where the User transmits End Users' personal information to the Company's system through the Service, the User shall do so only after obtaining all consents from End Users necessary for such transmission, and shall bear the responsibilities of a data provider under the Act on the Protection of Personal Information.
• The User represents that it has the necessary rights, authority, consents, and legal basis for prompts, search terms, corporate numbers, customer data, files, URLs, and any other input data sent to the Service. Where the User sends third-party confidential information, personal information, or regulated information, the User is responsible for appropriate controls, anonymisation, consent acquisition, and confirmation of handling by any external AI integration provider.

Section 13 (Service level)

• The Company operates the Service targeting a monthly availability of 99.0%. The figure in this paragraph is a target, not a warranty by the Company. Specific measurement methods and exclusion conditions are described in the Service Level Targets; in case of conflict, these Terms prevail.
• As a data-protection measure, the Company sets, as operational targets for the production database, a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 24 hours and a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 4 hours. The figures in this paragraph are also targets and not a warranty by the Company.
• The Company may temporarily suspend all or part of the Service due to system maintenance, security updates, infrastructure migration, or other reasons. In the case of planned suspension, the Company will use reasonable efforts to give prior notice through the website or the dashboard.
• For suspensions due to emergency incident response, security-incident response, upstream-provider outages, or other situations where prior notice is not feasible, the Company is not under a duty of prior notice.
• Given the Service's metered-pricing nature, no billable-unit charges accrue for requests that do not complete. Refunds for downtime do not, as a rule, arise except for confirmed billing errors or confirmed material defects that caused chargeable use and are reported within a reasonable period.
• For interruption, suspension, or termination of the Service within the anonymous allowance, the Company is not liable for compensation or any other liability to Users.

Section 14 (Disclaimers)

• The Company is not liable for any of the following damages incurred by the User or End Users in connection with use of the Service:
  • Incidental damages
  • Indirect damages
  • Special damages (regardless of whether the Company foresaw or could have foreseen the occurrence)
  • Future lost profits
  • Damages arising from loss of data, credit, reputation, or business opportunities
  • Damages arising from disputes with third parties
• Even where the User makes an application for subsidies, grants, financing, tax incentives, or otherwise in reliance on the Service's information and such application is not adopted, or where the User receives a refund demand after adoption, the Company is not liable.
• The Company is not liable for the consequences of decisions made by the User in reliance on the Service's output.

Section 14-2 (Disclaimer relating to external AI output and third-party content)

• The Company is not liable for any damages incurred by the User or End Users arising from inaccuracies in external AI output as defined in Section 7-2.
• The Company makes no warranty regarding the contents, accuracy, legality, or update frequency of primary-source content incorporated into the Service (including documents, court decisions, and Official Gazette announcements published by supervising authorities, local governments, incorporated administrative agencies, and the courts), and the Company is not liable for any damages arising from defects in such content.
• The Company is also not liable for damages arising from the User giving improper instructions to external AI clients or integrations through prompt-injection attacks or other means.

Section 15 (Limitation of liability)

• Notwithstanding the preceding two Sections, where the Company's liability in connection with the Service is recognised, the amount of damages, except in cases of wilful misconduct or gross negligence on the part of the Company, shall be limited to the amount of fees corresponding to one (1) calendar month immediately preceding the month in which the event giving rise to the damages occurred.
• For Users that use the Service only within the anonymous allowance, the cap in the preceding paragraph is JPY 0. Provided, however, that for Users to whom the Consumer Contract Act applies under Section 16, clauses fully exempting the Company from liability for damages caused by wilful misconduct or gross negligence will not be effective with respect to such Users, by virtue of Articles 8 and 8-2 of the Consumer Contract Act.
• Claims for damages against the Company based on default or tort shall be extinguished by prescription if not exercised within one (1) year from the time the User became aware of the damages and the party causing them.

Section 16 (Application of the Consumer Contract Act)

• Where the User falls within the definition of "consumer" under Article 2, paragraph 1 of the Consumer Contract Act (Act No. 61 of 2000), the portions of Sections 14, 14-2, and 15 that exempt the Company from liability for damages caused by wilful misconduct or gross negligence, and the portions that unjustly limit the total amount of liability, shall not apply to such Users.
• In the case of the preceding paragraph, the scope of liability between the Company and such User shall be governed by the Consumer Contract Act and other mandatory provisions of law.
• Even where any provision of these Terms is held invalid for violating Article 10 of the Consumer Contract Act, such invalidity does not affect the validity of any other provision.

Section 16-2 (Compliance with the Premiums and Misrepresentation Act / 景品表示法)

• The Company complies with Article 5 of the Act against Unjustifiable Premiums and Misleading Representations (景品表示法; prohibition of misrepresentation of superiority or favourability) for its own advertising and disclosures relating to the Service (including on the website, in documentation, in press releases, and in social-media posts). Numerical figures published by the Service (e.g., 14,472 programs, 2,286 case_studies, tier classifications, source_url coverage) are, as a rule, actual measurements at the time of publication; the Company does not exaggerate or inflate such figures.
• The Company expressly discloses in Section 7 that the Service's responses may differ from primary sources; accordingly, the Service's responses, taken alone, do not constitute "representations" prohibited under Article 5 of the Premiums and Misrepresentation Act.
• Where the User presents the Service's responses to End Users with processing, responsibility for compliance with the Premiums and Misrepresentation Act and related laws and regulations regarding such presentation rests with the User; the Company is not liable for disputes with third parties arising from the User's representations.
• If the Company detects representations by a User suspected of violating the Premiums and Misrepresentation Act, the Company may, pursuant to Section 6 (12), suspend the API key and take other measures.

Section 17 (Termination, withdrawal, and data-deletion SLA)

• The User may at any time cancel/terminate paid use from the Stripe Customer Portal. API access remains valid through the end of the current billing month, and current-month usage is billed at the metered rate. Deactivating, deleting, or rotating an API key only disables that key and does not constitute billing cancellation. There are no termination penalties, no minimum-use periods, and no cancellation/termination fees.
• Where the Company terminates all or part of the Service for reasonable business reasons, the Company will use reasonable efforts to notify Users by website, dashboard, or email at least 90 days prior to the termination date. The foregoing does not apply where prior notice is not feasible due to emergency statutory-compliance demands, security-incident response, upstream-provider withdrawal, or similar circumstances.
• After cancellation/termination, the Company will retain access logs, billing records, and API-key history relating to the relevant User for up to 90 days, for purposes of unpaid-fee settlement, tax response, and fraud investigation, after which such data will be deleted or anonymised. Provided, however, that records subject to mandatory retention under the Corporation Tax Act, the Consumption Tax Act, and other laws (billing records, books and documents) shall be retained for the period prescribed by such laws (as a rule, 7 years).
• Where the User requests erasure of retained personal data under the Act on the Protection of Personal Information, the Company will, except for the scope of statutory retention obligations, complete the deletion within 30 days of receipt of the request. Users may, on a self-service basis through the Stripe Customer Portal and the Company's dashboard, electronically export (data portability) personal data linked to the User's account.
• Where the User engages in any prohibited act under Section 6, or where there is otherwise any material breach of these Terms, the Company may terminate these Terms without prior demand and is not liable for damages arising from such termination.

Section 18 (Amendments to the Terms)

• The Company may amend these Terms in accordance with Article 548-4 of the Civil Code.
• Where the Company makes material amendments adverse to the User (e.g., increase of unit price, expansion of limitation of liability, addition of new prohibited acts), the Company will notify Users of the amended Terms and the effective date by website, dashboard, or email at least 30 days prior to the effective date.
• Minor amendments such as correction of typographical errors, updates of cited laws, or changes to contact information take effect immediately upon posting on the website.
• Amendments under this Section shall be made within the scope not contravening Article 10 of the Consumer Contract Act and other mandatory provisions of law; amendments contravening such mandatory provisions are without effect to the extent of such contravention.
• If the User continues to use the Service after notice of an amendment, the User shall be deemed to have agreed to the amended Terms.

Section 19 (Governing law and jurisdiction)

• The formation, effect, interpretation, and performance of these Terms are governed by the laws of Japan.
• Any and all disputes between the Company and the User arising out of or in connection with the Service or these Terms shall be submitted to the Tokyo District Court or Tokyo Summary Court as the court of exclusive agreed jurisdiction in the first instance, depending on the amount in dispute.

Section 19-2 (International posture; response to law-enforcement requests)

• As stated in Section 2, paragraph 5, the Service primarily targets Users located in Japan and does not actively assume the application of foreign laws such as the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), the EU AI Act, or the U.S. CLOUD Act. Provided, however, that where such laws apply due to the User's location or processing activities, the Company will use reasonable efforts to comply with such laws to the minimum extent necessary.
• The Company complies with the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act (外為法) and other export-related laws and regulations, and the User shall not provide or re-provide the Service to any country or person subject to economic sanctions.
• If the Company receives a formal disclosure request based on law from a law-enforcement agency, court, administrative agency, or other authorised body (e.g., a search-and-seizure warrant, a court order, or an order from the Personal Information Protection Commission), the Company will respond to the necessary extent under the laws of Japan and, except where confidentiality is imposed, will use reasonable efforts to notify the affected User by reasonable means. For disclosure requests under the U.S. CLOUD Act directed at U.S.-based providers (Stripe, Fly.io, Cloudflare, Sentry), the Company follows such providers' disclosure policies; further, as set out in section 5 of the Privacy Policy, the Company has implemented reasonable safeguards in its agreements with outsourcing providers.

Section 20 (Exclusion of antisocial forces)

• The Company and the User each represent and warrant that they themselves and their officers and major employees do not fall within (a) organised-crime groups (boryokudan), (b) members or former members thereof until five (5) years have passed since cessation, (c) quasi-members of organised-crime groups, (d) enterprises related to organised-crime groups, (e) corporate racketeers (sokaiya), (f) groups engaging in social-movement-style intimidation, (g) special-intelligence violent groups, or (h) any party equivalent to the foregoing (collectively, "Antisocial Forces"), and that they will not engage in any of the following acts:
  • Violent demands
  • Unjust demands beyond legal responsibility
  • Threatening conduct or use of violence in connection with transactions
  • Damaging the credibility of, or interfering with the business of, the counterparty by spreading rumours, by deception, or by force
  • Other acts equivalent to the foregoing
• If the Company determines that the User has breached the representations and warranties in the preceding paragraph, the Company may terminate these Terms and deactivate the API key without prior demand. The Company is not liable for damages arising from such termination.

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Last updated: 2026-05-14
Operator: Bookyou Inc. (Bookyou Kabushiki Kaisha)
Address: 2-22-1 Kohinata, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan
Representative: Shigeto Umeda, Representative Director
Contact: [email protected]

Related documents: Privacy Policy / Specified Commercial Transactions Act disclosure / Service Level Standard (SLA)