Terms of Service

These Terms govern your use of GChat — the mobile applications, the server infrastructure, and this website (together, the "Service"). By using the Service you agree to what is below. If you disagree, don't use it; that is a valid choice and we take no offence.

1. Acceptance

Using the Service means you accept these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you are using the Service on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you are authorised to bind that organisation.

2. Eligibility

The Service is available to anyone 13 or older. If local law requires a higher minimum age for consent to data processing, that higher age applies to you. We do not knowingly support accounts for children who do not meet this threshold.

3. Your account

• You are solely responsible for your device, your recovery word, and everything that passes through your account.
• We cannot reset passwords, recover accounts, or decrypt your data. That is a design choice, not an oversight.
• Some things you publish are visible beyond your chats: your public profile (when people search is on), public channels and groups, and the posts in public channels, which any user can find through search. Channel posts are not end-to-end encrypted.
• Chat backup is optional. If you enable it, you are responsible for your recovery word and, if you use it, the security of the Apple or Google account that holds your keys — we cannot restore a backup without them.
• You agree to keep your handle and display name free of content that impersonates other people, violates laws, or is intended to harass.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to use the Service to:

• Distribute child sexual abuse material, ever, under any pretext.
• Conduct unsolicited bulk messaging (spam) or run message-flood attacks against other users.
• Attempt to compromise the server infrastructure, reverse-engineer protections that are not documented as open, or exfiltrate data belonging to other users.
• Harass, threaten, or incite violence against identifiable individuals.
• Circumvent technical or legal limits imposed by your local jurisdiction, if any.

There is zero tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users. You can block any user and report users, messages, stories, groups and channels from inside the app. We review reports within 24 hours, remove offending content and terminate the accounts of users who post it; where appropriate we refer cases to law-enforcement. Because message content is end-to-end encrypted, we do not and cannot scan it; a report of a message includes its text, sent by the reporter's device.

5. Intellectual property

We own the GChat name, logo, marketing assets, and the code hosted under a license we designate. The content you send through the Service remains yours. By sending content you grant us the minimum license required to route and briefly store ciphertext for delivery, and to store your encrypted chat backup if you enable it. For content you publish to others without end-to-end encryption — your profile, stories, playlists, channel posts — you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to store it and show it to the audience you chose, including in search for public channels, until you delete it.

6. Fees

The Service is free during the pre-beta phase. We may introduce optional paid features in the future. Any paid feature will be clearly labelled, its pricing published before purchase, and it will be possible to use the core Service (chats, calls, media) without payment.

7. Availability

We aim for high availability but do not guarantee an uninterrupted Service. The Service is provided on a best-effort basis. Scheduled maintenance windows are announced in the app and on our status page.

8. Warranty disclaimer

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. Nothing in this section limits rights you have by local law that cannot be disclaimed.

9. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, GChat's total liability to you for any claim arising out of or relating to the Service is limited to the greater of (a) the amounts you paid us for the Service in the 12 months preceding the claim or (b) USD 50.

10. Termination

You can stop using the Service at any time and delete your account from within the app. We may suspend or terminate accounts that materially breach these Terms, with notice where feasible. On termination your profile, keys, chat backup and undelivered messages are purged from our systems, as described on the account deletion page.

11. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which the operating entity is registered, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Disputes are to be resolved in that jurisdiction's courts, unless mandatory local law requires otherwise.

12. Changes

We may revise these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be surfaced inside the app. Continued use after a revision constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

13. Contact

General questions: hello@gchat.tech. Legal notices: legal@gchat.tech.