Terms of use

Effective 11 September 2026.

A note on this document. These terms describe the service accurately, but they have not been reviewed by a lawyer, and the commercial basis on which episodes are processed is still being settled. They will be revised before Podcast Filter accepts its first paying customer.

Podcast Filter is provided by John Higgins. Using the app means agreeing to these terms. If you do not agree with them, do not use it.

What the app is

Podcast Filter is a tool for a parent to review a podcast episode and prepare a version of it for their own child. You request an analysis of a specific episode, the app shows you the passages it flagged, you decide what to remove, and you approve the result for a named child in your family.

It is a tool for your judgement, not a replacement for it.

Your account

You must be 18 or older and legally able to enter into a contract. You are responsible for your account, for keeping your password to yourself, and for the approvals made from it. The account is for you and your own household; do not share it.

Credits

Analysis is paid for with credits, bought in packs through your App Store account. A credit covers up to an hour of episode, and longer episodes cost proportionally more; the exact cost is shown before you confirm.

Credits are a prepaid entitlement to have episodes analysed. They are not money, they have no cash value, they cannot be transferred between accounts or exchanged for cash, and they do not expire while your account is open. Deleting your account removes any unused credits without an automatic refund.

If an analysis cannot be completed, the credit reserved for it is returned to your balance.

Payments and refunds

Apple processes every purchase under the terms of your App Store account, and Apple’s refund policy applies. Refunds are requested from Apple, not from us; the app can take you to that request. If Apple refunds a pack, the credits it granted are removed from your balance. If you have already spent them, the shortfall is carried against your account until later purchases cover it.

What is not promised

The analysis is not complete or perfect. It can miss content you would have removed and flag content you would have kept. It works from spoken words only and does not detect music, sound effects, or meaning carried by tone alone. Reviewing the findings before you approve an episode is your responsibility, not an optional step.
Approval enforcement is not invulnerability. The passages you removed are absent from what your child receives, and playback follows the approved timeline. That does not extend to a device that has been deliberately modified, nor to anything outside this app: Podcast Filter does not control other apps, other podcast players, or the rest of the phone.
Offline copies lag your decisions. A copy already downloaded to a child’s device keeps working under the approval it was given until that device reconnects and synchronises. The app shows you what each device has acknowledged.
Availability is not guaranteed. The service depends on third-party providers and on podcast audio remaining reachable. Some episodes cannot be processed.

Acceptable use

Use Podcast Filter for reviewing episodes for children in your own family. Do not use it to redistribute podcast audio, publish or share the edited versions it produces, resell access, circumvent the child restrictions, or attack the service.

Content and rights

Podcast episodes belong to their publishers. Podcast Filter does not claim any rights in them, is not affiliated with any publisher, and does not give you rights to a podcast beyond private review and private listening within your own family. Edited versions exist for that purpose alone. Podcast and episode information comes from Apple’s public directory.

The app itself, its design and its analysis remain the property of John Higgins.

Ending it

You can delete your account at any time from inside the app. We may suspend or end access for a serious or repeated breach of these terms, or where required by law. If your account ends, unused credits are removed as described above.

Liability

The app is provided as it is. To the fullest extent the law allows, John Higgins is not liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for the content of any podcast episode you choose to analyse or approve. Nothing here limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited. Where liability cannot be excluded, it is limited to the amount you paid in the twelve months before the claim.

You remain the person who decides what your child listens to. That decision, and its consequences, are yours.

Changes and law

These terms may change. If a change materially affects your rights, the app will tell you before it takes effect, and continuing to use it afterwards means accepting the change. These terms are governed by the laws of the United States and the state in which the provider resides.

Questions: johnbhiggins7@gmail.com