Terms of Use

Last updated: [DATE]

1. About these terms

These terms are an agreement between you and WAALYX LLC ("we", "us"). They cover the Y app (store name "Y: Friends, Dating & Chat") for iOS and Android, our website at y.waalyx.com, and everything you can do in them (together, "Y").

By creating an account you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you don't agree, don't use Y.

2. Who can use Y

• You must be at least 18 years old to create an account and to use any part of Y, including looking for dates in Discover. We check this from the birthday you give at sign-up.
• You must give your real birthday. Giving a false birthday to get around these limits breaks these terms, and we will close the account.
• You may not use Y if we have banned you before, or if the law where you live doesn't allow you to.
• You may not look for dates on Y ("Looking for: Date" or "Both") if you have been convicted of a sexual offence or a violent crime, or are required to register as a sex offender anywhere.
• One person, one account. Business accounts are covered in section 8.

3. Your account

• You sign in with your phone number and a code we send by SMS, or with an email address and a code. Keep your phone and email safe: anyone who can get your codes can get into your account.
• You are responsible for what happens on your account. Tell us at support@y.waalyx.com if you think someone else is using it.
• Your username is private. Other people never see it, but they can find you if they type it exactly.
• Your encrypted messages live on your phone. Personal chats, business chats, match chats and private spaces are end-to-end encrypted. We can't read them, and we don't keep a copy we could give back to you. If you lose or reset your phone, your chat history is gone. (Encrypted backups are planned but not available yet.)

4. Privacy and encryption

Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect and why. In short:

End-to-end encryption protects your messages from us and from anyone who breaks into our servers. It doesn't stop the people you talk to from saving, screenshotting or sharing what you send them.

5. Rules for everyone

Y is for making friends, dating and talking. You agree not to use Y to:

Zero tolerance

We remove the content, ban the account straight away and, where the law requires or allows it, report to the police or other authorities, for any of these. There is no warning first.

1. Child sexual abuse or exploitation of any kind: images, videos, drawings, text, links, grooming, sexual talk with anyone under 18, or trying to meet a minor for sex. We report child sexual abuse material to the US National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), as US law requires.
2. Harassment, bullying, threats or stalking, including sending unwanted sexual messages or images, and contacting someone again with a new account after they blocked you.
3. Spam: bulk or automated messages, fake accounts, fake likes or friend requests, or using bots or scripts.
4. Scams and fraud: romance scams, asking for money or gifts, investment or crypto schemes, phishing, fake businesses, or pretending to be someone else.

Also not allowed

5. Hate speech, or attacking people for who they are (for example race, ethnicity, religion, disability, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation).
6. Violence: threats, promoting or praising violence, terrorism or violent extremism.
7. Sexual content in public spaces or on profiles (nudity or sexual images or videos). Never share sexual images of anyone without their consent.
8. Selling or promoting illegal goods or services, weapons, drugs, or sex work.
9. Encouraging self-harm or suicide.
10. Sharing other people's private information (phone numbers, addresses, private photos) without their permission.
11. Breaking the law, or someone else's copyright, trademark or other rights.
12. Pretending to be another person, brand or business, or claiming a "verified" badge you weren't given.
13. Attacking or overloading Y: hacking, scraping, reverse engineering the service to get around its limits or security, getting around blocks or rate limits, or collecting data about other users.
14. Using Y for any commercial purpose not allowed in section 8, such as advertising in requests.

These rules apply everywhere in Y, including end-to-end encrypted chats and private spaces. We can't read those, but people in them can report what they see (section 10).

6. Discover and dating

• Discover shows you one person at a time, for friends, dates or both. You choose what you're looking for, and it's shown on your card.
• Your card shows your first name, age, photos, bio, interests, what you're looking for, and a rough distance or your city. It never shows your gender, who you want to see, or where you are.
• Be honest: use recent photos of yourself, your real age, and a true "I am" and "Looking for". Don't say you're looking for friends if you're only after dates.
• A like is private. If you both like each other, a chat opens straight away. Liking someone doesn't mean they have to talk to you: anyone can leave, block or report a chat at any time.
• We do not run criminal background checks or verify identity on profiles. Photo verification isn't available yet. You are responsible for your own safety when you talk to or meet people.
• Safety tips: meet in a public place, tell a friend where you'll be, never send money to someone you met online, and report anyone who asks for money. More tips are on our support page.

7. Spaces

• Public spaces can be seen and joined by anyone on Y. We can read them, and we check photos for child abuse images when they are uploaded.
• Private spaces are end-to-end encrypted and only members can read them. Anyone who has the invite link can join, and any member can share the link, so think about who you trust with it.
• Space owners and admins set the rules of their space and can remove posts and members. They must still follow these terms. We may remove a space, or anything in it, that breaks these terms.
• Space owners and admins are not our staff and don't speak for us.

8. Business accounts

A creator, small business or company can turn a public space into a business. Customers can then open a business chat with it, and the business answers from a shared inbox (New, Open and Done).

If you run a business on Y:

• You must have the right to use the name, logo and photos you show, and you must not pretend to be another business.
• Only Y can give the "verified" badge. It means we checked the business is who it says it is, at the time we checked. It is not a recommendation.
• You can't message a customer first. You may only reply to people who message you.
• Your team. You can add people as Admin, Staff or Editor. Owners, Admins and Staff can read and answer new messages in your business chats; Editors can only post on your page and edit it. Business chats are end-to-end encrypted, so everyone with chat access can read new customer messages: only add people you trust. You are responsible for what your team does on Y.
• Inviting people. Only invite someone by phone number if they're happy for you to share it with us. We keep only a scrambled code (hash) of the number, never the number (Privacy Policy §3.12). Don't send invites as spam.
• Hours and replies. Keep your opening hours, away message and usual reply time honest. Don't use them to make claims you can't keep.
• Ownership. Only the owner can delete the business or hand it to an Admin. If the owner deletes their account, the business passes to its longest-standing admin, or is deleted if it has none.
• You must follow the laws that apply to you, including consumer, advertising and data protection laws. If you collect personal data from customers in a business chat, you are responsible for it (you are its "controller").
• Y is not part of any deal between a business and a customer. We don't process payments, and we aren't responsible for products, services, prices, deliveries or refunds.
• You may not use business chats to send spam or unrequested marketing.

9. Your content

"Your content" means anything you post, upload or send on Y: messages, photos, shorts, voice notes, posts, comments, reactions, your profile and your space's name and description.

• You own your content. We don't claim ownership of it.
• Encrypted content (personal, business and match chats, private spaces): we can't read it, and you give us no rights to it, except to store and deliver the scrambled data until it reaches the people you sent it to.
• Your profile (name, age, photos, shorts, bio, interests, what you're looking for, city): you give us permission to store it and show it to other people as your settings allow (for example on Discover cards, in search results and on your profile). This permission ends when you delete it or delete your account.
• Public spaces: when you post in a public space (posts, comments, reactions, photos, and the name, description and photo of a public space you own), you give Y a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, resize, display and share that content inside Y, to anyone who can see that space, for as long as it stays in the space. We may also use it to run, protect and improve Y (for example to check it for child abuse images or to handle a report). This licence ends when the content is deleted (by you, by a space admin, or with your account), except that we may keep it for longer if the law requires it or it is part of an open report (see the Privacy Policy). We don't sell your content and we don't use it in ads.
• You promise you have the right to share your content, and that it follows these terms.
• Other people can see, save and share what you post in public spaces, and what you send to them. We can't take that back for you.

10. Reporting and blocking

• Block: you can block anyone from their profile or a chat. They can't see you, message you or find you.
• Report: you can report a person, a message, a post, a comment or a space, and pick a reason.
• Reports from encrypted chats and private spaces: we can't read these, so when you report something there, your phone sends us a copy of only the item you report (for example one message and who sent it). The app tells you this before you send. We never get the keys to the chat or the space.
• The person you report is never told who reported them.
• We review reports within 24 hours and act on them: a warning, removing the content, restricting features, or banning the account. Urgent reports about child safety or a threat to someone's life are handled first.
• If you don't have the app, or someone is in danger, write to safety@y.waalyx.com. If someone is in immediate danger, call your local emergency number first.

11. What we can do

To keep Y safe and to follow the law, we may:

• remove or hide content that breaks these terms (in public spaces and on profiles, and anything reported to us);
• check photos and shorts uploaded to public spaces and profiles for known child sexual abuse material, block matches and report them to NCMEC;
• warn you, limit what you can do, suspend your account, or ban it;
• keep information about a report, and share it with the police or other authorities when the law requires it, or when we believe someone's life or safety is at risk.

We usually tell you if we remove your content or close your account, and why, unless the law stops us or telling you would put someone at risk.

Appeals: if you think we got it wrong, write to support@y.waalyx.com within [30] days. A person will look at it again.

12. Deleting your account

• In the app: Settings › Delete account. We send an SMS code to confirm it's you.
• Without the app: follow the steps at y.waalyx.com/delete-account, or email support@y.waalyx.com from the email on your account.
• When you delete your account, you are signed out everywhere at once, and other people can no longer see or find you. We delete your profile, photos, shorts, public posts and comments, and your encryption keys within 30 days. Some things are kept longer, as the Privacy Policy explains (for example records of a ban, or what the law makes us keep).
• Messages you already sent stay on the phones of the people you sent them to. We can't delete those.
• Deleting an account can't be undone.

13. When we can end your access

We may suspend or close your account, with or without notice, if you break these terms, if the law requires it, or if we must to protect other users or Y. We may also stop offering Y, or part of it. If we close Y completely, we will try to give you at least [30] days' notice.

You can stop using Y and delete your account at any time.

Sections 9 (the licence for content still in public spaces), 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21 continue after your account ends.

14. Changes

Y is new and will change. We may add, change or remove features.

We may change these terms. If a change is important, we will tell you in the app or by email at least [14] days before it applies, and ask you to accept the new version. If you don't accept, you can delete your account.

15. Apple and Google

If you got Y from Apple's App Store or Google Play, their terms also apply to how you download and update it.

If you use Y on an Apple device:

• These terms are between you and us, not Apple. Apple is not responsible for Y or its content.
• Apple has no duty to provide support or maintenance for Y.
• If Y fails to meet any warranty that applies, you may tell Apple, and Apple will refund the price you paid for the app (Y is free, so this is $0). Apple has no other warranty duty.
• Apple is not responsible for any claims about Y, including product liability claims, claims that Y breaks a law or regulation, or consumer protection claims.
• If someone claims Y breaks their intellectual property rights, we, not Apple, are responsible for dealing with it.
• You confirm you are not in a country under a US government embargo, and are not on a US government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

16. Other services

Y may show links to websites or content from other people or companies. We don't control them and aren't responsible for them.

17. Disclaimers

Y is provided "as is" and "as available". As far as the law allows, we make no promises that Y will always work, be free of errors, be secure, or keep your content.

We are not responsible for what other users say or do, on Y or offline, including people you meet through Y. We don't check who users are, and a "verified" badge on a business only means what section 8 says.

Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have by law that can't be taken away (for example, consumer rights in the EU or UK).

18. Limits on our liability

As far as the law allows:

• We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential losses, lost profits, lost data or lost goodwill.
• Our total liability to you for all claims about Y is limited to the greater of [US$100] and the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim (Y is free, so usually $0).

These limits don't apply to liability that can't be limited by law, such as for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud.

19. Your responsibility to us

If you break these terms or the law, and someone makes a claim against us because of it, you agree to cover our reasonable losses and costs (including legal fees), as far as the law allows.

20. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of [GOVERNING LAW: COUNTRY / STATE].

[DISPUTE RESOLUTION: courts of [PLACE], or arbitration, plus any class-action waiver]

If you live in the EU or UK, you can also bring a claim in the courts where you live, and the consumer protection laws of your country still apply.

21. General

• These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about Y.
• If a court finds part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies.
• If we don't enforce a term straight away, we can still enforce it later.
• You can't transfer your account or these terms to someone else. We may transfer them if Y is sold or reorganised, and will tell you if we do.
• If we translate these terms, the English version wins if they differ.

22. Contact

WAALYX LLC (Texas, USA)

• Help: support@y.waalyx.com
• Safety and reports: safety@y.waalyx.com
• Privacy: privacy@y.waalyx.com
• In the app: report a person, message, post or space from its ⋮ menu › Report. Help pages: y.waalyx.com/support.