Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) are a legal agreement between you and 17449275 Canada Inc., operating as GIS4AG, a corporation based in Manitoba, Canada (“GIS4AG”, “we”, “us” or “our”). They govern your access to and use of Geo-Surface, as defined below. By creating an account, purchasing a membership, clicking to accept, or accessing or using Geo-Surface in any way, you agree to these Terms, our Privacy Policy and our Refund Policy. If you do not agree, do not use Geo-Surface.

1) Definitions

• “Geo-Surface” or the “Services” means the geo-surface.com website and every product and feature we make available through it, including Geo-Surface Pro (also shown as Geo-Surface Drain Pro), any Beta or earlier version of it, the Geo-Surface Pro demo, the free Geo-Surface Viewer, the LiDAR Extractor, the free calculators and tools, the user manual, the support assistant and member support, and any updates to them.
• “Membership” means paid access to Geo-Surface Pro under a plan described on our website (for example Pro, Duo, Team or Corporate).
• “Seat” means the right to use a Membership for one Design Desk, and “Design Desk” has the meaning given in Section 3.
• “Organization” means the company or other entity that purchases a multi-user plan, and “Administrator” means the person who purchases and manages that plan.
• “Your Data” means the field boundaries, survey files, elevation data, designs, projects and other files and information you create, load or import in Geo-Surface.
• “Outputs” means maps, layers, designs, profiles, volumes, sizes, estimates, reports, machine files, exports and any other results produced by Geo-Surface, including responses from the support assistant.
• “Public Data” means elevation, imagery, soil, parcel, hydrology, weather and other data supplied by governments, agencies and other third parties that Geo-Surface reads or displays.
• “Beta Features” means any feature, version or file format labelled Beta, preview, early access or similar.
• “Free Services” means any part of Geo-Surface you use without paying us a fee, including the demo, the Viewer, the LiDAR Extractor where offered free, the calculators, trials and limited-time access, and “Paid Services” means a Membership for which you have paid.

2) Who may use Geo-Surface

Geo-Surface is intended for business and professional use in agriculture, drainage and earthmoving. You must be at least the age of majority where you live and able to form a binding contract. If you use Geo-Surface on behalf of a company or other organization, you confirm that you have authority to bind it to these Terms, and “you” includes that organization. You may not use Geo-Surface if you are barred from doing so under the laws of Canada or any other applicable jurisdiction, including sanctions and export-control laws.

3) Accounts, seats and organization plans

• You must give accurate, current information when you register and keep it up to date. You are responsible for keeping your login credentials confidential and for all activity under your account.
• One Seat, one Design Desk. Each Seat is registered to one named designer. It covers that designer and the employees of the same business who help that designer on the same projects, for the same Clients and the same field crews, at the same location (together, a “Design Desk”). In particular:
  1. a contractor and staff who design for the same jobs and the same crew may use one Seat;
  2. a consultant and staff who work on the same Clients’ projects may use one Seat;
  3. each person who designs independently, whether for their own Clients or to direct their own field crew, needs their own Seat, even within the same business;
  4. each office, branch or other location that serves its own client base needs its own Seat for every designer working there; and
  5. a Seat may never be used by people in different businesses.
  Credentials may be used only within the Design Desk and may not be pooled or rotated among independent designers, locations or businesses. If you are unsure how many Seats you need, ask us through the contact form before relying on one; our reasonable written determination applies. A Seat may be reassigned to a different named designer only when the original designer permanently stops using it.
• Multi-user plans provide several Seats, each for its own Design Desk and each with its own login, for the employees and contractors of a single Organization. Unless we agree otherwise in writing, every user on the plan must work for that Organization and use an email address on its domain. The Administrator is responsible for adding and removing users, for their compliance with these Terms, and for keeping the user list current.
• We may verify eligibility and compliance, including by reviewing account activity, and may suspend or terminate an account that is shared or used in breach of these Terms, without refund.
• Tell us promptly through the contact form if you believe your account has been accessed without authorization.

4) Your licence to use Geo-Surface

Subject to these Terms and, for Paid Services, to payment of the applicable fees, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable licence to access and use Geo-Surface during your Membership (or, for Free Services, while we make them available) for your own internal business purposes and to provide services to your own clients as described in Section 5. All rights not expressly granted are reserved by us.

5) Work you do for clients

You may use Geo-Surface and its Outputs to plan, quote, design and deliver drainage and earthmoving work for your own customers, landowners and clients (“Clients”). If you do:

• You are solely responsible to your Clients for the work, advice, designs, reports and files you provide, and for their accuracy and suitability.
• Your Clients are not our customers, have no agreement with us and may not rely on us for anything. Nothing in these Terms creates any duty from us to any Client or other third party.
• You must not present any Output as certified, sealed, surveyed or engineered unless a qualified professional has independently prepared or verified it and takes responsibility for it.
• You must not give Clients or others access to Geo-Surface Pro through your account, and you must not resell, rent or provide Geo-Surface itself as a service. Giving a Client an Output, a report or a project backup to open in the free Viewer is allowed.

6) Geo-Surface is a planning tool, not professional advice

Geo-Surface and its Outputs are planning and design aids. They are not engineering, surveying, hydrological, agronomic, environmental, legal or regulatory advice, and they are not a substitute for a site inspection, a survey or the judgement of a qualified professional. In particular, and without limitation:

• Everything must be verified in the field. Elevations, grades, depths, profiles, flow paths, depressions, watersheds, pipe sizes, capacities, drained areas, volumes, cut and fill, haul distances, time and cost estimates and every other Output are estimates derived from data that may be inaccurate. Before any construction, excavation, grading or installation, you must verify the design against a current ground survey (for example an RTK survey) and site conditions.
• Laws, permits and neighbours. You are solely responsible for determining and complying with all laws, drainage and water rights, municipal and drainage-district rules, permits, licences, approvals, setbacks, environmental and wetland protections, and the rights of neighbours and downstream landowners, and for any effect your work has on land or water beyond the field.
• Underground and overhead hazards. Geo-Surface does not show buried utilities, pipelines, cables, existing drains, structures or other hazards. You are responsible for all utility locates and site safety before any ground is disturbed.
• Land forming designs, borrow plans, earthwork volumes and staged topsoil files are estimates. Actual volumes, soil behaviour, compaction, topsoil depth, drainage performance and costs will differ.
• Hydrology and sizing. Drainage coefficients, rainfall figures, flow, capacity and sizing results depend on the inputs and assumptions you choose and on Public Data, and may not reflect actual conditions or design storms.
• No outcome is promised. We do not promise any drainage, yield, crop, soil, water, financial or environmental result from using Geo-Surface or following an Output.

7) Public Data and third-party services

• Geo-Surface reads Public Data from third parties, including the U.S. Geological Survey, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Natural Resources Canada, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the provincial soil surveys of Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan, the national elevation services of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium (Flanders), Germany (North Rhine-Westphalia), France, Switzerland, Czechia, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, New Zealand and Australia (including the Environment Agency, the Scottish Remote Sensing Portal, PDOK, Digitaal Vlaanderen, Geobasis NRW, IGN, swisstopo, ČÚZK, Klimadatastyrelsen, Kartverket, Lantmäteriet, the National Land Survey of Finland, Maa- ja Ruumiamet, Toitū Te Whenua Land Information New Zealand and Geoscience Australia), Esri, OpenStreetMap contributors and public archives hosted by Amazon Web Services. We do not create, control or warrant Public Data. It may be inaccurate, incomplete, coarse, out of date (for example flown before recent land changes), misregistered, interrupted, rate-limited, changed or withdrawn at any time.
• Geo-Surface also relies on third-party infrastructure and services, such as content delivery networks, hosting, payment processing, email and form services, and artificial-intelligence providers. We are not responsible for their availability, performance or acts.
• Public Data is subject to its providers’ licences and terms. USGS data is generally in the public domain; NRCan data is provided under the Open Government Licence – Canada; other sources have their own terms. You are responsible for any attribution and licence requirements when you export, publish or share data or Outputs.
• We are not affiliated with or endorsed by any data provider.

8) Machine files, exports and equipment

• Exports and machine files (including grade-control design files, reference layers, point grids, shapefiles, DXF and similar) are provided for your convenience. We do not guarantee that any file will load, display, align or behave correctly on any particular display, controller, firmware version or software, or that it is suitable for any machine operation.
• Before operating any machine from a file produced by Geo-Surface, you must check the file on the display, confirm its position, elevations, benchmarks and units against the site, and supervise the operation. You are solely responsible for machine set-up, calibration, GNSS accuracy, operation and safety.
• We are not responsible for equipment damage, grading or installation errors, rework, lost time or any other consequence of using an export or machine file.
• Product and brand names of third-party equipment and software belong to their owners. They are used only to describe compatibility and do not imply any affiliation with, or endorsement by, those owners.

9) Beta Features, the demo and other Free Services

• Beta Features (currently including land forming, the Drainage simulation, Beta versions of Geo-Surface Pro and some machine-file formats) are experimental. They may contain errors, may change or be withdrawn without notice, and are provided “as is” with no commitment that they will become generally available. The Drainage simulation is an illustration of how a design may behave in a modelled rain event. It is not a forecast of any actual weather, water level or field condition, and not a guarantee of drainage performance.
• The demo is limited to designated demonstration areas and may differ from Geo-Surface Pro. Trials and limited-time access we offer by invitation end automatically at the end of their term.
• Free trial. We may offer a free trial of Geo-Surface Pro for a limited period (currently 7 days). No payment details are required, nothing is charged, and the trial ends automatically at the end of its term. One free trial is allowed per person and per farm, business or organization. You may not take a trial for a farm, business or organization that has already had one, and no one may take a further trial under a different name, email address or account, or ask someone else to do so for them. We check sign-ups for repeat trials using the account details, IP address and device information received at sign-up and while Geo-Surface is used. If we find that this rule has been broken, we may end the trial without notice, permanently close every account involved, and refuse future sign-ups and purchases from the people, farms and businesses concerned.
• Free Services are provided without charge and without any warranty or support commitment, and we may change, limit or discontinue them at any time.

10) The support assistant

• The support assistant uses artificial intelligence to answer questions about Geo-Surface. Its responses are generated automatically, can be wrong, incomplete or out of date, and are Outputs. Do not rely on them for decisions that affect field operations, safety, money or compliance without verifying them independently.
• If you choose to share project context or a screenshot with the assistant, it is sent to our artificial-intelligence service provider to generate a response, as described in our Privacy Policy. Do not submit confidential information, or personal information about other people, in the assistant.
• We may change, limit or discontinue the assistant at any time.

11) Your Data

• You own Your Data and your Outputs, subject to our rights in Geo-Surface itself and to the licences that apply to any Public Data they contain.
• Your Data stays on your device. Geo-Surface Pro does its processing in your web browser. Your projects are stored in your browser, in a projects folder you choose on your own computer, or in backup files you save. We do not host, back up or have access to them, and we cannot recover them.
• You are responsible for backups. Clearing browser data, changing browsers or devices, device failure, deleting a folder or file, or an update to your browser can permanently remove Your Data. Keep your own backups. We are not liable for any loss of Your Data.
• Sharing is your decision. A project backup you send to someone contains your full design and the elevation and other data in it. You are responsible for whom you share it with and for having the right to share it.
• Information you send us. If you send us information (for example a support message, a diagnostic bundle or a file), you grant us a non-exclusive licence to use it to provide support, investigate problems and improve Geo-Surface. You confirm that you have the right to send it.
• Feedback. If you give us ideas, suggestions or feedback, we may use them for any purpose without obligation or payment to you.

12) Fees, renewal and taxes

• Membership fees are shown on our website and at checkout, are stated in U.S. dollars unless shown otherwise, and are billed annually in advance. Payments are processed by Stripe through our membership system.
• Automatic renewal. Unless your plan states otherwise, your Membership renews automatically for another year at the end of each term, and the card or payment method on file is charged the then-current renewal price, until you cancel. You can cancel at any time from your account page; cancellation stops the next renewal and your access continues to the end of the paid term.
• We may change prices. A price change applies from your next renewal, and we will give you reasonable notice before it takes effect so you can cancel if you do not wish to continue.
• Adding seats or changing plans may be charged or prorated as shown at checkout.
• Fees exclude taxes. You are responsible for all applicable sales, use, goods and services, value-added and similar taxes, other than taxes on our income.
• If a payment fails or is reversed, we may suspend access until it is resolved. Please contact us before disputing a charge with your bank; an unfounded chargeback is a breach of these Terms.
• Refunds are available only as set out in our Refund Policy, which includes a 30-day money-back guarantee on your first direct purchase. Except as stated there or required by law, fees are non-refundable, including for partial terms, unused seats, outages, Public Data unavailability or changes to features.
• If you bought through a reseller or other third party, that seller’s terms govern pricing, billing and refunds, and these Terms govern your use of Geo-Surface.

13) Availability and changes

• Geo-Surface is provided without any service-level commitment. It may be unavailable because of maintenance, updates, failures, Public Data or third-party outages, or events beyond our control.
• Geo-Surface Pro requires a supported browser and device, as described in our documentation. We may change those requirements.
• We may add, change, replace or remove features, methods, data sources and file formats at any time. Updates may produce different Outputs for the same inputs.

14) Acceptable use

You must not, and must not help anyone else to:

1. share, sell, rent, lend or transfer access to Geo-Surface, or use one Seat beyond its Design Desk;
2. copy, modify, decompile, reverse engineer or disassemble Geo-Surface, or try to extract its source code, algorithms or methods, except to the extent the law expressly permits despite this restriction;
3. remove, disable or get around any licensing, domain, access, security or usage control;
4. use bots, scrapers or automated means to access Geo-Surface or its data, or place an unreasonable load on it or on any Public Data service through it;
5. use Geo-Surface or its Outputs to build or train a competing product or model;
6. use Geo-Surface in breach of any law, licence or third-party right, or to upload anything unlawful or malicious;
7. misrepresent an Output as certified, surveyed or engineered, or as our advice; or
8. remove or obscure any proprietary, trademark or attribution notice.

15) Intellectual property

Geo-Surface, including its software, design, documentation, content, methods and all improvements to them, is owned by us or our licensors and protected by copyright, trade secret and other laws. “GIS4AG”, “Geo-Surface” and related names and logos are our trademarks. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of these rights to you.

16) Disclaimer of warranties

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Geo-Surface, its Outputs, the Public Data and the support assistant are provided “as is” and “as available”, with all faults, and we disclaim all warranties, conditions and representations, whether express, implied, statutory or otherwise, including any implied warranties or conditions of merchantability, merchantable quality, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness, availability, non-infringement and quiet enjoyment, and any warranty arising from a course of dealing or usage of trade. We do not warrant that Geo-Surface will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free, that any Output or Public Data will be accurate or suitable for your purpose, or that any file will work with your equipment. You use Geo-Surface and its Outputs at your own risk.

17) Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

1. We will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, business, contracts, goodwill, crops or yield; flooding, ponding, erosion, water or property damage; damage to equipment, drains, structures or utilities; costs of rework, repair, delay or cost overruns; fines, penalties or regulatory action; claims by your clients, landowners, neighbours, drainage authorities or other third parties; or loss or corruption of data, in each case however caused and on any theory of liability (including contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, statute and misrepresentation), even if we were told such loss was possible.
2. For Free Services, including the demo, the Viewer, trials, Beta Features used without payment, the calculators and the support assistant, we have no liability to you of any kind, and your only remedy is to stop using them.
3. For Paid Services, our total liability for all claims arising out of or relating to Geo-Surface or these Terms is limited to the fees you actually paid to us for your Membership in the twelve (12) months before the event that first gave rise to liability (or, for a purchase through a reseller, the amount we actually received for it in that period).
4. These limits apply in aggregate to all claims, and even if a remedy fails of its essential purpose. They reflect the allocation of risk on which our prices are based.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law, including any non-waivable rights you may have as a consumer. Where the law does not allow an exclusion or limit, it applies to the fullest extent the law allows.

18) Indemnity

You will defend, indemnify and hold harmless GIS4AG, 17449275 Canada Inc. and their directors, officers, employees, contractors and agents from and against all claims, demands, proceedings, losses, damages, fines, penalties, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or relating to: (a) your use of Geo-Surface or any Output; (b) any work, design, advice, report or file you provide to a Client or anyone else; (c) any construction, excavation, grading, drainage or installation carried out by you or on your behalf; (d) Your Data or anything you send us; (e) your breach of these Terms; or (f) your violation of any law or third-party right. We may take part in the defence of any claim with counsel of our choice at our own cost.

19) Suspension and termination

• You may stop using Geo-Surface at any time and cancel renewal of your Membership from your account page.
• We may suspend or terminate your access, with or without notice, if you breach these Terms, if a payment fails, if required by law, or to protect Geo-Surface, other users or third parties. We may also discontinue Geo-Surface or any part of it; if we permanently discontinue Geo-Surface Pro during a paid term for reasons other than your breach, we will refund the unused portion of your prepaid fee.
• When your access ends, your licence ends. Your Data remains on your device and in your backups, and Outputs you have already exported remain yours to use.
• Sections 5 through 8, 10, 11 and 14 through 24, and any other terms that by their nature should survive, survive the end of these Terms.

20) Time limit for claims

To the extent permitted by law, any claim arising out of or relating to Geo-Surface or these Terms must be commenced within one (1) year after the claim arises, after which it is permanently barred.

21) Governing law, venue and disputes

• These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Manitoba and the federal laws of Canada that apply there, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.
• Before starting any proceeding, you agree to contact us through the contact form and give us thirty (30) days to try to resolve the matter informally.
• Subject to any non-waivable right to proceed in your own jurisdiction, the courts of Manitoba have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, and you consent to their jurisdiction and venue.
• To the extent permitted by law, claims may be brought only on an individual basis and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class or representative proceeding.

22) Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will post the updated Terms on this page with a new effective date and, for material changes affecting Memberships, give reasonable notice through the website or by email. Changes apply from the new effective date; for a paid Membership, material changes apply from your next renewal unless they are required by law or relate to new features. If you do not agree to the updated Terms, stop using Geo-Surface and cancel renewal.

23) General

• Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Refund Policy and the plan details shown at purchase are the entire agreement between you and us about Geo-Surface, and replace any earlier terms, statements or understandings. If they conflict, these Terms prevail, except that the Refund Policy governs refunds.
• Severability and waiver. If any provision is found unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent possible and the rest of these Terms remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver.
• Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms or your Membership without our written consent. We may assign them in connection with a reorganization, merger, acquisition or sale of all or part of our business.
• Force majeure. We are not responsible for any failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including outages of Public Data or third-party services, internet or power failures, government action, labour disputes, natural disasters and pandemics.
• Relationship. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, agency, fiduciary or employment relationship. There are no third-party beneficiaries of these Terms.
• Notices. We may give you notice by email to the address on your account or by posting on the website. You may give us notice through the contact form.
• Electronic agreement. You agree that these Terms may be accepted electronically and that electronic records and notices satisfy any requirement that they be in writing.
• Language. The parties have required that these Terms and all related documents be drawn up in English. Les parties ont exigé que la présente convention et tous les documents connexes soient rédigés en anglais.

24) Contact

Questions about these Terms can be sent through our contact form.

17449275 Canada Inc., operating as GIS4AG, Manitoba, Canada. Geo-Surface and GIS4AG are trademarks of 17449275 Canada Inc.