Terms of Service

The short version

• You must be 18 or older.
• You own what you post. You let us store it and show it to the people you sent it to.
• Be decent: no harassment, no illegal content, no spam, and never use CicadaChat to find or follow someone.
• The people you meet are strangers. Take care, especially if you meet anyone in person.
• We can remove content or accounts that break these rules.

1. Agreeing to these terms

These Terms are an agreement between you and CicadaChat (“we”, “us”) about your use of the chat service at cicadachat.com, any CicadaChat app, and this blog (together, the “Service”). By using the Service, as a guest or with an account, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you don't agree, please don't use the Service.

2. Who can use CicadaChat

You must be at least 18 years old. CicadaChat puts you in conversation with strangers based on where you are, and it is not suitable for children. You may not use the Service if we have previously banned you, or if the law where you live forbids it.

3. Guest and registered accounts

• When you first open CicadaChat, you get a guest account tied to your browser. If you clear your browser's data, you may lose it, and we cannot recover it.
• A registered account keeps your name, history and private chats across devices. Give us a real email address that you control, and keep your password to yourself. You are responsible for what happens under your account.
• Don't impersonate anyone or choose a name that suggests you are someone you are not. We may reclaim or change a username that is misleading or infringes someone's rights.
• If you think someone else is using your account, change your password straight away. That signs out every device. Then tell us.

4. Your content

You keep ownership of everything you post: messages, photos, voice notes, documents, shared locations, your business card and blog comments (“your content”). To run the Service, you give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, copy, process and display your content. We use it only to show your content to the people it was meant for, in the room, chat, private room or article you posted it to, and to keep the Service safe. This licence ends when your content is deleted, except for copies we must keep by law.

You are responsible for your content. You promise you have the right to post it, and that posting it does not break these Terms or anyone's rights. Remember that anyone who can see a message can copy it, that a public room is public to everyone within the distance you chose, and that an approved blog comment is public to everyone.

5. Rules

When you use CicadaChat, including when you comment on the blog, you must not:

1. Harass, threaten, bully, stalk or intimidate anyone, or encourage others to.
2. Use CicadaChat to work out where someone is, track their movements, or reveal someone's home, workplace or other location without their consent. This includes using distances shown in the app to locate a person, and sharing another person's location or photos without their permission.
3. Post hate speech, or content that promotes violence or terrorism, or that attacks people for who they are.
4. Post sexual content involving anyone under 18, which we report to the authorities. Don't post sexual content involving anyone who has not consented, and don't send sexual content to people who have not asked for it.
5. Post content that is illegal, or that promotes illegal activity such as selling drugs or weapons.
6. Share someone's private information, such as contact details, documents or photos, without their consent.
7. Infringe copyright, trademarks or other rights.
8. Spam, scam, phish, run pyramid schemes, or advertise in a way that floods rooms or comment threads.
9. Upload malware or anything designed to harm devices or data.
10. Fake your location, or automate accounts, messages, comments or scraping, or get around limits, bans or security measures.
11. Interfere with the Service, or try to access accounts, data or systems that aren't yours.

6. Your safety

The people you talk to on CicadaChat are strangers, and we cannot verify who anyone is. Be careful what you share. That includes photos, which can reveal where you are, and locations shared in public rooms, which everyone in range will see. If you decide to meet someone in person, meet in a public place and tell someone you trust. If you are in danger, contact your local emergency services.

7. Business cards

If you add a business card, its details must be accurate and you must be allowed to represent that business. You are responsible for any offer, sale or dealing with people you meet through CicadaChat. We are not a party to them.

8. The blog

Articles, pictures and other material we publish on the blog belong to us or to the people who licensed them to us. You are welcome to link to them and to quote short passages with a link back. Please ask us before republishing more.

Comments are moderated. A comment appears only once we approve it, and we may decline, shorten or remove any comment, for example one that is off-topic, promotional or breaks section 5. Articles are for general information and are not professional advice.

9. Reporting and enforcement

To report content or a user that breaks these Terms, email support@cicadachat.com. Include what was said, the room, chat or article, the approximate time and the person's name as shown. We are not obliged to monitor the Service, but we may review content that is reported or that we otherwise come across. We may remove any content, and warn, limit, suspend or close any account, if we reasonably believe it breaks these Terms or the law, or puts someone at risk. Where appropriate, we will tell you why and give you a chance to respond.

10. Our service and our rights

CicadaChat's software, design, name and logo belong to us. These Terms don't give you any right to use them beyond using the Service as intended. We are always changing the Service. We may add, change or remove features, or stop offering the Service, and will give reasonable notice of anything that significantly affects you when we can. CicadaChat is currently free to use.

If you send us feedback or ideas, we may use them without owing you anything.

11. Other services

Some features rely on other companies' services, such as Google for “Sign in with Google”, and messages, articles and comments may contain links to other websites. Those services have their own terms, and we are not responsible for them.

12. Ending your use

You can stop using CicadaChat at any time, and ask us to delete your account as described in the Privacy Policy. We may suspend or close your account under section 9. The sections on your content licence (for content kept by law), disclaimers, liability and governing law continue to apply after your use ends.

13. Disclaimers

We work hard to keep CicadaChat running well, but the Service is provided “as is” and “as available”. As far as the law allows, we make no promises that it will be uninterrupted, secure or free of errors, or that distances and locations will be exact. They depend on the location your device reports. We are not responsible for what other users say or do, on or off the Service.

14. Limitation of liability

As far as the law allows, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for lost data, profits or goodwill, that arises from your use of the Service. Our total liability to you for any claim about the Service is limited to 100 US dollars. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot legally be limited, such as for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud. Nothing in these Terms affects your rights as a consumer under the laws of the country where you live.

15. Responsibility for misuse

If someone brings a claim against us because of your content, or because you broke these Terms or the law, you agree to cover our reasonable costs of dealing with it, as far as the law allows.

16. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the place where CicadaChat's operator is established, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory laws of the country where you live, and you may bring a claim in its courts. Before bringing any claim, please contact us first. Most problems can be solved quickly by email.

17. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. The “Last updated” date at the top will change, and for significant changes we will tell you in the app, or by email if you have an account, before they take effect. If you keep using CicadaChat after that, you accept the new Terms. If you don't accept them, stop using the Service and ask us to delete your account.

18. General

These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service. If a court finds part of these Terms unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we don't enforce a provision straight away, we can still enforce it later. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms. We may transfer ours to a successor that continues the Service.

19. Contact

Questions about these Terms: support@cicadachat.com.