You may submit user content ("User Content"), such as meal logs, notes, optional profile photos, and meal photos. As between you and Big Lever, you retain ownership of your User Content, subject to the licenses granted below. You represent and warrant that you have the rights needed to submit User Content and that your User Content does not violate law or third-party rights.

By submitting User Content, you grant Big Lever a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, process, display, and use your User Content to operate, provide, maintain, and improve the Services, including for customer support, security, and feature delivery.

If you upload meal photos, you grant Big Lever (and its successors and service providers acting on its behalf) a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, process, analyze, and use those meal photos to provide, maintain, secure, and improve the Services, including for research and development, quality assurance, feature improvement, and machine learning and related techniques.

Identifiable vs. non-identifiable photos. Meal photos may sometimes include personal or identifying information (for example, a face, address, mail, government ID, or other sensitive identifiers). For clarity:

Account deletion and Identifiable Meal Photos. If you delete your account, we will delete Identifiable Meal Photos associated with your account within the same deletion timelines described in our Privacy Policy for account deletion and related deletion requests, subject to limited legal, security, and operational exceptions (for example, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, or compliance with law). We may retain a limited record that a deletion request was processed.

Non-Identifiable Meal Photos and training. We reserve the right to retain and use Non-Identifiable Meal Photos (and/or de-identified, aggregated, or derived versions of meal-photo data) for training and product improvement purposes, including machine learning, even after account deletion, to the extent permitted by applicable law.

No guarantee of de-identification. We may reduce embedded metadata (such as EXIF) and/or take steps to dissociate meal photos from direct account identifiers where feasible, but we do not guarantee that any particular photo can be fully de-identified.

Choice. You can use PlateSage without uploading meal photos, though some photo-based features may be reduced or unavailable.

Do not upload personal identifiers. Do not upload photos containing faces, addresses, mail, government IDs, medical documents, or other sensitive identifiers. We may remove, restrict, or delete content that violates these requirements.

Before starting arbitration or a court proceeding (where permitted), you agree to first send a written notice of the dispute to help@platesage.com with: (a) your name and the email associated with your PlateSage account; (b) a description of the dispute; and (c) the relief you are requesting. We will attempt to resolve the dispute informally within 60 days after receiving your notice. You and we agree to participate in good faith in this informal resolution process.

If we cannot resolve the dispute informally, you and Big Lever agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services (each, a "Dispute") will be resolved by binding, individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") under its Consumer Arbitration Rules (the "AAA Consumer Rules"), as modified by this Section 15. Arbitration means there is no judge or jury, and court review of an arbitration award is limited.

AAA consumer arbitration fees and costs will be governed by the AAA Consumer Rules and the applicable AAA fee schedule. The consumer's filing fee (if any) will be capped at the amount set by the AAA Consumer Rules. The business generally pays the arbitrator's compensation and AAA case-management fees as required by AAA policy, subject to reallocation as permitted by applicable law and AAA rules. Each party is responsible for its own attorneys' fees unless a statute or regulation provides otherwise, or the arbitrator awards fees as permitted by applicable law.

Arbitration will be conducted remotely (by video or phone) unless the arbitrator determines an in-person hearing is necessary. If an in-person hearing is required, it will take place in the county (or equivalent) of your residence, unless the parties agree otherwise or AAA rules or applicable law require a different location.

You and Big Lever agree that Disputes will be brought only in an individual capacity and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, consolidated, private attorney general, or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person's claims and may not otherwise preside over any form of representative proceeding.

Either party may: bring an individual claim in small claims court if it qualifies and remains in small claims court; and seek injunctive or equitable relief in court to prevent actual or threatened infringement, misappropriation, or violation of intellectual property rights or unauthorized access to the Services.

If 25 or more similar Disputes (or such other threshold as AAA applies under its mass arbitration framework) are asserted against Big Lever by the same or coordinated counsel or organization, or otherwise meet AAA's criteria for mass arbitration, the parties agree that AAA's Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules and the applicable AAA mass arbitration fee schedule will apply. To promote efficient resolution, the parties agree (to the extent permitted by AAA rules and the arbitrator/process arbitrator) to: comply with Section 15.1 (informal resolution) as a condition precedent to filing; work with AAA on a fair batching or staging plan for merits proceedings; and participate in good-faith settlement discussions as reasonably requested by AAA or a designated process arbitrator/mediator. Nothing in this subsection prevents either party from raising any defenses (including failure to satisfy conditions precedent) that may be available under applicable law or AAA rules.

You may opt out of arbitration and the class action waiver by sending an email to help@platesage.com within 30 days of first accepting these Terms stating that you want to opt out of arbitration. Your email must include your name and the email address associated with your account. If you opt out, Disputes will be resolved in court as permitted by these Terms, and Section 15.5 (Class Action Waiver) will not apply to you to the extent allowed by law.

This Section 15 and any Dispute will be governed by the laws of South Carolina, excluding conflict-of-law rules, except where superseded by applicable consumer protection law.