If your account or an assistant is suspended
Occasionally we suspend an assistant, or a whole account. Whenever we do, we email the account holder to say what we did and why. This page explains what a suspension stops, how long it lasts, and what to do if you think we've got it wrong.
When an assistant is suspended
A suspended assistant answers nobody. No new conversation can be started with it, and it doesn't reply in the conversations it's already in.
It isn't the same as the switch an owner uses to turn their own assistant off and on again. A suspension is ours, and its owner can't lift it.
The conversations the assistant was in stay exactly where they are. Nothing is deleted, and everything is still there if the suspension is lifted.
When an account is suspended
If your account is suspended you can't sign in. If you were signed in already, that stops working too.
Assistants you own stop answering for as long as the account is suspended, in the same way as above. The people chatting with them aren't told anything about your account.
Both can be lifted
A suspension is a pause, not an ending. There's no fixed length to one: it lasts until we lift it, and we email you when we do.
What we tell you
We email the account holder at the address on the account. The email says what we did and the reason for it.
The reason in that email is the whole reason. There's no second, private version of it that we're holding back.
If you think we've got it wrong
Reply to that email, or write to our safety team, and say what you think we got wrong. If there's context we wouldn't have seen, that's the thing to send.
A person reads it and looks at what we did again. There's no form to fill in and no separate appeals process.
A suspension is not a deletion
Nothing is deleted when an assistant or an account is suspended. Your conversations, your assistants and the details on your account are all still there.
Deleting an account is a different thing, and it's permanent. A suspension can be lifted; an account that has been removed isn't coming back. Deleting your own account is something you do signed in, so while your account is suspended it waits until the suspension is lifted. If you'd rather not wait, write to our safety team and say you want the account deleted, and a person can do it for you. Managing your account explains what deletion takes with it.
Where the rules are written down
What we may do, and the behaviour that leads to it, is set out in our acceptable use policy and our terms of service.