# Customer paper

URL: /systems/legal-and-corporate/paper · Id: `page:systems/legal-and-corporate/paper`

> Terms, privacy notice, refund terms, DPA, SLA and the rest, generated from the Startup's definition, versioned on every publish, and required for launch.

[Customer](/business/nouns/customer) paper is every document a Customer agrees to or is told: terms, notices, and the contracts a larger buyer asks for. [StartupBuilder](/code/builders/startup) generates it from the [Startup](/business/nouns/startup)'s definition, versions it on every publish, and refuses launch without it.

## What a Startup publishes
Paper comes in two kinds. Contracts bind both sides and become [Agreements](/business/nouns/agreement) when accepted. Notices tell the reader what the Startup does and ask nothing in return, except where the law requires a choice.

| Paper | Kind | Present when |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Terms of service | Contract | Always |
| Privacy notice | Notice | Always |
| Refund and cancellation terms | Contract | Any paid [Offer](/business/nouns/offer) |
| Acceptable use | Contract | Customers write, upload, or send anything |
| Cookie notice and choice | Notice | The [Site](/business/nouns/site) serves a [Visitor](/business/nouns/visitor) in the EU or UK |
| AI-use notice | Notice | An [Agent](/business/nouns/agent) talks to people or generates media |
| SLA, the promised outcome and uptime | Contract | Any [Service](/business/nouns/service) Offer, or a plan that promises uptime |
| Data processing agreement | Contract | A business Customer's personal data passes through the Startup |
| Subprocessor list | Notice | Always, beside the privacy notice |

Each piece serves at a fixed path on the Site, `/terms` and `/privacy` first, as a page for people and as Markdown for agents. A buyer's agent reads the same text a buyer does.

## Generated from the definition
Nobody writes paper from a blank page. Each piece is a [Template](/business/nouns/template) of reviewed clauses, filled from records the Startup already keeps.

The Offers and their [Prices](/business/nouns/price) set the payment, renewal, and refund clauses. Each [Product](/business/nouns/product)'s stored data and declared [Purposes](/business/nouns/purpose) write the privacy notice.

Each service Offer's [Outcome Contract](/business/nouns/outcome-contract) writes the SLA. The upstreams that process personal data write the subprocessor list.

Take a meal-planning app sold to consumers by monthly [Subscription](/business/nouns/subscription). Its paper gains the [renewal disclosures](/systems/legal-and-corporate/floor/renewals) every [Renewal](/business/nouns/renewal) needs and a cancel-online clause. Its cookie notice wakes the day it serves a reader in the EU.

A sibling selling an invoice-matching API to finance teams gets a DPA and an SLA instead. It shows no cookie banner, because its Site sets no tracking cookies.

A change to the definition changes the paper. Adding a usage-priced plan rewrites the payment clause on the next publish; nobody remembers to update the terms, because nobody has to.

## Versions and acceptance
Every publish of a piece of paper is a [Version](/business/nouns/version). Every Version stays served at its own address forever, so any Customer can read exactly what they accepted.

Acceptance records the Version: a checkout or click-through accepts the terms at their current Version and forms the Agreement. A cookie choice records a [Consent](/business/nouns/consent) carrying the notice Version it answered. When a dispute arrives years later, the record already says which words applied.

A material change reaches every affected Customer before it takes effect, on the notice period the terms state. Customers who keep using the Product after that date accept the new Version; a Customer who objects cancels on the old terms. Notices that need a fresh choice, such as a new tracking Purpose, ask again instead.

## Launch requires paper
Launch refuses a Startup whose paper is missing or stale. [Publish terms](/workflows/processes/contracting/publish-terms) runs when the Startup is created, so the paper is ready before the first Offer is. Each [legal floor](/systems/legal-and-corporate/floor) row that wakes later, such as [Tracking](/systems/legal-and-corporate/floor/tracking) or [AI disclosure](/systems/legal-and-corporate/floor/ai-disclosure), adds its clause on the next publish.

An enterprise buyer that sends its own paper follows [Review a contract](/workflows/processes/contracting/review-contract) instead. Their Agreement replaces the click-through terms for that Customer only.

## Next
- [Who signs](/systems/legal-and-corporate/who-signs): how click-through paper forms a contract with no human signature.
- [Notices](/systems/legal-and-corporate/floor/notices): the floor row behind terms and privacy notices.
- [Privacy](/systems/privacy): the [System](/business/nouns/system) that keeps Purposes, Consent, and privacy notices.