Terms of use

Terms of Use

Last updated 23 August 2026

These terms govern the use of the website machinewitness.eu, the public root log, and the documented verification method, operated by Martin Schenk S.L. ("we"). By using them you accept these terms.

1. What MachineWitness is

MachineWitness is a neutral, factual, evidentiary archive. Each day it records what public domains served to machines and seals that record cryptographically. It documents a fact ("this domain served this on this day") and nothing more. We do not judge, rank, accuse, or advise.

2. Not legal advice; nature of the record

Nothing on this site or in the archive is legal advice, and it is not a substitute for a lawyer. A MachineWitness record is evidentiary material for evaluation by a court and its appointed experts. It is not itself a legal determination, and it does not prove the origin or truth of any content beyond the technical provenance we captured (such as the response headers and the fingerprint of the TLS certificate observed at the time). What weight a record carries in any proceeding is for the competent court to decide.

3. No warranty

The archive and the site are provided "as is", on a best-effort basis. We do not warrant that the record is complete, uninterrupted, or free of error, for example, a domain may be unreachable on a given day, and that too is recorded honestly. We make no warranty of fitness for any particular purpose.

4. Using the record

The daily fingerprints (root log) and the documented verification method are public so that anyone can independently check a record. You may access, cite, and reproduce them for that purpose. The methodology texts are published under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0). You may not present a MachineWitness record as a court ruling, alter it, or misrepresent what it shows.

5. Evidence extracts and daily observation

The public pages of this archive never publish content. What a file served on a given day is issued as an evidence extract, on request, against a fee. What an extract contains, what it proves and does not prove, and how to request one are set out on the evidence extract page, and the current fees in the fee table on the services page; both form part of these terms.

Four terms apply to every extract, and we state them here because they define what kind of witness this archive is:

• The fee is fixed and does not depend on the outcome. There is no success fee and no arrangement that gives us an interest in how a dispute ends.
• Either side of a dispute receives the same extract on the same terms. We do not ask why an extract is wanted, and we do not decline one because the other side asked first.
• We take on no obligation to participate in proceedings: no expert witness work, no representation, no hearings, no appearances. What we provide is written and is provided from Madrid. Statutory duties of a witness, should a court impose them, remain unaffected.
• Our documents are produced with the help of AI under human supervision. They contain no opinion and no assessment, only recorded facts, the cryptographic chain, and the instructions to verify both independently.

Daily observation. Anyone may subscribe one or more domains, their own or another's, to daily observation in the core of this archive, for the published fee per domain, paid monthly or yearly in advance. What is promised is the observation: admission within five working days of the first payment, on both witnesses, with a dated entry in the public record of this archive, and from then on daily retrieval and sealing like every other domain in the core, for as long as the subscription runs. A failed retrieval is recorded as such, neither repeated nor concealed. What is paid for is the measurement, not a document; the recorded data are issued only as an evidence extract, at the published fee. The subscription renews for the same period unless it is ended, and ending it takes effect at the end of the period already paid. Everything recorded until then remains in this archive and in the sealed days for good; nothing is withdrawn. The domain then returns to the broad set of this archive, where its machine-readable files are retrieved daily and its front page weekly. The subscriber receives nothing a third party would not also receive: no content, no notifications, no priority, no mention, and extracts at the same published fees as anyone else. A domain already observed in the core is not charged. Where a subscription covers more than twenty domains, the observed domains are published as part of the record of this archive, without naming who subscribed. An exclusion under the privacy notice takes precedence; where it ends an observation, the fee for the unused part of the period paid is refunded.

Operating limit. A single retrieval larger than 32 MB is cut off at that size and recorded as cut off. The limit applies to every domain and every service; it concerns media files, faulty servers and endless streams, not documents, and it does not change what the record proves for what it holds.

A request under Article 17 GDPR to remove personal data is free of charge, requires no reason, and is unaffected by anything in this section.

6. Availability and changes

We may change, suspend, or withdraw parts of the site or service, and we may update these terms as the archive develops. Material changes will be reflected on this page with a new date.

7. Governing law and language

These terms are governed by Spanish law. The courts of Madrid, Spain, have jurisdiction, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer-protection rules of your place of residence.

8. Contact

contact@machinewitness.eu. For questions about the crawler or to request exclusion or removal, see Crawler & contact.