FEED Site User Agreement

1. PLATFORM DEFINITION AND NATURE OF SERVICE

FEED is a technology marketplace platform operated by Automate America, Inc. ("Automate America," "AA," "we," "us," or "our") that facilitates connections between businesses seeking professional services ("Customers") and independent professionals offering such services ("Suppliers" or "Professionals").

AUTOMATE AMERICA IS NOT A STAFFING AGENCY, EMPLOYMENT AGENCY, OR EMPLOYER OF ANY USER.

We provide technology tools that enable Customers and Professionals to find each other, communicate, and enter into direct business relationships. We do not employ, supervise, direct, or control the work performed by Professionals.

2. EMPLOYMENT DISCLAIMER

NO EMPLOYMENT RELATIONSHIP: By using FEED, you acknowledge and agree that:

• Automate America is NOT the employer of any Professional or Supplier on this platform
• Automate America does NOT provide workers, staffing services, or employment services
• All Professionals are independent contractors operating their own businesses
• Customers who engage Professionals are solely responsible for all employment-related determinations
• Automate America has NO control over how, when, or where work is performed
• Automate America does NOT set rates, hours, or working conditions

WHEN CUSTOMERS ENGAGE PROFESSIONALS THROUGH THIS PLATFORM, THE CUSTOMER BECOMES THE EMPLOYER OR CONTRACTING PARTY - NOT AUTOMATE AMERICA.

3. INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR CLASSIFICATION ACKNOWLEDGMENT

For Professionals/Suppliers:

By registering as a Professional on FEED, you represent and warrant that:

• You operate an independent business providing professional services
• You have the right to perform services for multiple clients
• You control the means and manner of your work performance
• You provide your own tools, equipment, and supplies
• You are responsible for your own taxes, including self-employment taxes
• You are NOT entitled to employee benefits from Automate America
• You maintain (or will obtain) appropriate business insurance
• You are customarily engaged in an independently established trade, occupation, or business

For Customers:

By registering as a Customer on FEED, you acknowledge and agree that:

• YOU are responsible for determining proper worker classification under applicable law
• YOU are responsible for all employment law compliance when engaging Professionals
• YOU bear all liability for worker misclassification claims
• Automate America has made NO representations about classification status
• You should consult with legal and tax professionals before engaging workers

4. LIABILITY WAIVER AND RELEASE

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, YOU HEREBY WAIVE, RELEASE, AND DISCHARGE AUTOMATE AMERICA FROM ANY AND ALL CLAIMS, DEMANDS, DAMAGES, LOSSES, AND CAUSES OF ACTION ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO:

• Worker Classification Disputes: Any claims that a Professional should have been classified as an employee
• Wage and Hour Claims: Any claims for minimum wage, overtime, meal breaks, or other wage-related matters
• Employment Benefits: Any claims for health insurance, retirement benefits, vacation pay, sick leave, or other employee benefits
• Workers' Compensation: Any claims for workers' compensation benefits or workplace injury coverage
• Workplace Injuries: Any claims arising from injuries sustained while performing services
• Tax Obligations: Any claims related to tax withholding, reporting, or compliance
• Unemployment Insurance: Any claims for unemployment compensation or related benefits
• Employment Discrimination: Any claims under Title VII, ADA, ADEA, or similar employment discrimination laws
• Wrongful Termination: Any claims for termination of engagement or platform access

THIS WAIVER APPLIES REGARDLESS OF WHETHER CLAIMS ARE BROUGHT BY USERS, GOVERNMENTAL AGENCIES, OR ANY OTHER THIRD PARTIES.

5. INDEMNIFICATION

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Automate America, its officers, directors, employees, agents, and affiliates from and against any and all claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from or related to:

• Your use of the FEED platform
• Your breach of this Agreement or any other agreement with Automate America
• Any employment-related claims brought by or on behalf of you or any Professional you engage
• Your violation of any law, regulation, or third-party right
• Any dispute between you and another user of the platform
• Any claim that Automate America should be treated as an employer

This indemnification obligation shall survive the termination of this Agreement and your use of the platform.

6. DISPUTE RESOLUTION AND ARBITRATION

BINDING ARBITRATION: Any dispute, controversy, or claim arising out of or relating to this Agreement, or the breach, termination, or validity thereof, shall be resolved by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association in accordance with its Commercial Arbitration Rules.

• The arbitration shall take place in Greenville County, South Carolina
• The arbitrator's decision shall be final and binding
• Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction
• Each party shall bear its own costs, with arbitration fees split equally

BY ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT, YOU WAIVE YOUR RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL AND TO PARTICIPATE IN CLASS ACTION LAWSUITS.

7. COMMUNICATIONS AND SMS CONSENT (TCPA)

FEED sends text (SMS) messages that fall into three categories. We distinguish them so you know which you can turn off and which are part of using the platform:

(a) Security messages — required

When you register and each time you sign in, we send a one-time verification code (OTP) by SMS to confirm it is really you. This protects your account and the platform. Because this code is a security control rather than a marketing message, SMS delivery of the verification code is required to register and to sign in. We do not offer an email-based alternative for the sign-in code.

(b) Contract & account messages — required while you have an active engagement

If you accept or post a contract, job, or RFQ, we send operational messages about that engagement — for example, a reminder that a timesheet is due or late, a notice that an invoice or payment is past due, and other contract status notices. These are transactional messages tied to a commitment you chose to make, not marketing. They are required for the duration of an active engagement and cannot be turned off while that engagement is open, because they keep the people relying on the contract informed and paid on time.

(c) Marketing & promotional messages — optional

Promotional texts (new features, tips, offers, and similar marketing) are entirely optional. You control them in your Notification Settings and may turn them off at any time there, or by replying STOP to a marketing message. Turning off marketing texts has no effect on your ability to sign in and does not stop the required security messages in (a) or the contract messages in (b) for any engagement you are part of.

Standard message and data rates from your carrier may apply to all SMS messages. You may contact us at legal@automateamerica.com with any question about message categories or your preferences.

8. GOVERNING LAW

This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of South Carolina, United States of America, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. The state and federal courts located in Greenville County, South Carolina shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any disputes not subject to arbitration.

9. PAID PROFESSIONAL REQUESTS ("REQUEST A PROFESSIONAL")

FEED offers a paid feature that lets a Customer send a private hiring request directly to a specific Professional ("Request a Professional"). The following terms apply to every such request:

• Service fee. For a Standard request, Automate America charges a flat service fee of $10.00 USD per request (the "Request Fee"). The Request Fee amount is set by Automate America and may change; the amount in effect is always shown to you before you confirm a request. White Glove requests carry no Request Fee.
• What you are paying for. The Request Fee pays for delivering your private request to the selected Professional and notifying them across available channels (in-app, email, and SMS where applicable). The Request Fee is a fee for the delivery and routing service. It is not a payment to the Professional, a guarantee that the Professional will respond, accept, reply, or be hired, and it is not a deposit toward any future engagement.
• When you are charged. When you submit a Standard request, Automate America places a temporary authorization (hold) of the Request Fee on your payment method. The Request Fee is captured only when the requested Professional opens (views) your request. If the Professional does not open your request within seven (7) days, the authorization is released and you are not charged.
• Non-refundable. Once the Professional opens your request, the Request Fee is fully earned and is non-refundable, including where the Professional declines, does not reply, is unavailable, or where you and the Professional do not enter into any engagement. This reflects that the service you paid for — delivering and presenting your request to the Professional — has been performed.
• Professional consent. By maintaining an active Professional profile, each Professional agrees that their profile may be presented as available to receive Requests a Professional, and consents to receiving such requests and the associated notifications. Professionals are never charged a Request Fee and are under no obligation to accept, respond to, or act on any request.
• Contact exchange on accept (Standard requests only — P914 Doug, TCPA-aligned). When the Professional accepts a Standard Request a Professional, both parties' verified email and verified phone number are released to each other so they can communicate about the engagement. Where the Customer has previously shortlisted the Professional through the marketplace, the Customer is similarly released the Professional's verified contact at shortlist. By submitting or accepting a Standard request you authorize this contact-information release for that engagement only. White Glove requests do not trigger any direct contact exchange — all communication runs through Automate America's in-app channels and the assigned White Glove account manager. A pro who does not wish to share contact information should decline the request before accepting; once accepted, the release is final for that request. Outbound notifications about a Request a Professional (in-app, email, and SMS) follow the categories in Section 7 above — the request notification itself is a transactional message tied to the engagement, and SMS marketing follow-ups are optional per Section 7(c).
• Disputes and billing errors. If you believe a Request Fee was charged in error (for example, a duplicate charge, or a charge where the Professional never opened your request), contact billing@automateamerica.com within thirty (30) days of the charge. Automate America will review the request-view record and refund any fee charged in error. Disagreement with a Professional's decision to decline or not respond is not a billing error and is not grounds for a refund. All other disputes are governed by Sections 6 and 8 of this Agreement.

10. PUBLIC VISIBILITY OF YOUR PROFILE

FEED is a professional marketplace, so parts of your profile are public by design — that is how customers find and evaluate you. Other parts are released only as a working relationship forms, and the most sensitive information is never shown to other users at all. What follows describes exactly who can see what. The platform enforces these rules on our servers for every request, including requests from search engines and bots.

Always public (visible to everyone, including search engines and AI crawlers)

• Your first name and profile photo.
• The hourly rate you set as a professional, and the rates posted on contracts, jobs, and RFQs.
• Your city, state, and country (never your exact street address or precise GPS location).
• Your occupation, classification, trade, and availability; your skills, tools, software and professional competencies, certifications, licenses-on-file indicators, education, and work history; your "about" / bio and willingness-to-work answers (travel, weekends, relocation, work-eligibility yes/no flags).
• Trust and reputation signals: ratings, review count and review text, endorsements, badges, member-since date, verification status, and on-file / on-record indicators (e.g. "resume on file", "N references on file").
• For companies and business groups: company name, logo, website, description, products and services, industries, other locations, public social links, and public activity counts.

Released only as a relationship forms (conditional)

• Last name: shown only to people you have an accepted connection with (and to AA administrators). Until then, only your first name appears.
• Email and phone number: shown only to a customer who has shortlisted you, to your accepted connections, and to a customer with whom you have an active engagement (and to AA administrators). They are never shown to the general public.
• References, social-media links, emergency contact, and uploaded documents(resume, background check, drug test, tax forms, certificate of insurance): other users see only a presence indicator or a count — the actual contents are shown only to you and AA administrators (a reference list may also be released to a direct-job shortlist you were told about in advance).
• White Glove contracts: on a White Glove engagement, the exact rate you entered is shown only to the posting customer and AA administrators; other viewers see an adjusted public rate, and the customer's identity stays anonymous until hire or interview.

Never shown to other users

The following are accessible only to authorized Automate America administrators, on audit-logged internal tools, and are never released to any other user or to the public on any tier: banking and payment account details; Social Security number, tax ID, or other government identifiers; government-ID, passport, and driver's-license documents; your exact street address and precise geolocation; accounts-payable / accounts-receivable / HR billing contacts; and Automate America's internal margin or commission figures.

You control much of what you publish through your profile editor and Notification / Privacy Settings. The visibility rules above are enforced server-side and apply regardless of how a page is requested.

11. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING

Effective June 4, 2026.

(a) Use of public content to improve our AI features. The license you grant Automate America by accepting this Agreement includes the right to use the content you make public on the platform — such as your public profile, skills, and work history — to develop, train, and improve Automate America's artificial-intelligence and machine-learning features. This use is limited to public fields. It never includes your private or gated information (for example: last name, email, phone, references, uploaded documents, banking, government identifiers, exact address, or anything in the "never shown to other users" list in Section 10). You continue to own your content.

(b) Public pages and third-party crawlers. Pages on Automate America that are publicly accessible may be indexed by search engines and AI crawlers, as is standard for public websites. Automate America manages this through its robots.txt file; authorized access includes crawlers explicitly permitted via automateamerica.com/robots.txt. We do not control what independent third parties do with content that is publicly accessible.

(c) Your opt-out. You may opt out of Automate America using your identifiable content for generative AI training at any time from your Privacy Settings ( /dashboard/settings/privacy). The opt-out is prospective only — it applies to use after we receive and process your request and does not require deletion or retraining of AI features already built. Opting out of AI/ML training use does not affect the license that permits Automate America to display, transmit, and distribute your content on the platform; your profile remains visible to other users per Section 10.

(d) No unauthorized scraping. Scraping or harvesting Automate America content for AI training or any other purpose without our written permission, or in violation of our robots.txt directives, is a material breach of this Agreement.

(e) Consent. Your acceptance of this Agreement is your consent for the use described in (a); no separate opt-in is required, and the opt-out in (c) is your mechanism to decline.

12. PRIVACY

This Section 12 is the binding privacy notice for FEED users. Where this Section references a longer policy or specific procedure, the longer document supplements but does not override this Section.

12.1 What we collect

We collect the information you provide to register and use the platform — your name, contact details, profile information (occupation, skills, work history, rates, availability, location), verification documents you upload (resume, certifications, government ID, tax forms, insurance, background-check consent), payment and bank details, messages you send through the platform, and notification preferences. We also automatically collect device and usage information (IP address, browser, pages visited, search queries) and approximate location from your IP address. Precise location is collected only with your consent. We use cookies and similar technologies as described in our Cookie Policy.

12.2 How we use it

We use your information to operate the marketplace — to display your profile to other users per Section 10, to facilitate connections and engagements, to process payments on White Glove contracts, to send security and transactional messages, to improve our AI features as described in Section 11 (public fields only, with the opt-out at /dashboard/settings/privacy), to comply with law, and to protect FEED and its users.

12.3 Who sees it

Server-enforced visibility rules in Section 10 govern who can see which fields. Always-public fields are visible to everyone including search engines and authorized AI crawlers; conditional fields are released only as a relationship forms (connection accepted, shortlisted, active engagement, hire/interview on White Glove); banking, tax IDs, government-ID documents, exact address, and precise geolocation are never shown to other users. We do not sell your personal information. We share information with service providers acting on our behalf (payment processor, hosting, email/SMS delivery, identity verification, background check vendors when you consent), with customers and professionals you choose to engage with, and where required by law or to enforce this Agreement.

12.4 Your choices

You can view, correct, export, and delete the information on your profile from your account settings. You can change notification preferences (including opting out of marketing SMS and email per Section 7) at any time. You can opt out of AI/ML training use of your public content per Section 11(c). California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and other state residents have additional rights described in the California Privacy Notice and applicable state notices linked from the legal menu — including the right to know, the right to delete, the right to correct, the right to portability, and the right to opt out of "sale" or "sharing" (as those terms are defined under applicable state law). Submit requests by email to privacy@automateamerica.com.

12.5 How long we keep it

We retain your information for as long as you maintain an account and as needed to provide the platform, comply with legal obligations (including tax, accounting, and payment-record retention), resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Specific retention periods are in our Data Retention Policy.

12.6 How we protect it

We use industry-standard encryption in transit and at rest, role-based access controls, and audit logging on administrative tools. No method of internet transmission or storage is 100% secure; we will notify affected users and applicable regulators of a security breach as required by law.

12.7 Children

FEED is not directed to and is not intended for individuals under 18. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18; if you believe a minor has registered, contact us and we will delete the account and associated data.

12.8 International data transfers

FEED is operated from the United States. If you access the platform from outside the United States, your information is transferred to and processed in the United States under appropriate safeguards.

12.9 Contact

Privacy questions or requests: privacy@automateamerica.com. Mailing address: Automate America, Inc., PO BOX 1638, Greer, SC 29652. By phone: 586-770-8083.

Required Acknowledgments

Contact Information

For questions about this Agreement, contact us at: legal@automateamerica.com

Automate America, Inc.
PO BOX 1638
Greer, SC 29652
Phone: 586-770-8083