Terms of Service

1. Introduction

Welcome to Epsu ("we," "us," "our"). These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Epsu mobile application, website (https://epsu.site), and all related services (collectively, the "Service"). Epsu is a mobile-first local community platform that organizes participation around place-based and institution-based communities called "Epsus," including regional (city, state, country) and school-based communities. Posts are identity-hidden to ordinary users, while backend records are retained for moderation, safety, and account management.

These Terms also serve as the End User License Agreement ("EULA") for the Epsu application except to the extent that a platform storefront's mandatory standard terms apply and cannot be displaced. By downloading, installing, accessing, or using the application or Service, you accept this license and agree to use the application only as permitted by these Terms.

Please read these Terms carefully before using the Service. By accessing or using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy and Community Guidelines, which are incorporated herein by reference. If you do not agree to these Terms, you may not access or use the Service.

2. Acceptance of Terms

By creating an account, accessing the Service, or using any features of the Service, you represent that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms. If you are accepting these Terms on behalf of a company, school, or other legal entity, you represent that you have the authority to bind that entity to these Terms, in which case "you" will refer to that entity.

We may update these Terms from time to time in accordance with Section 15 below. Your continued use of the Service after any such update constitutes your acceptance of the updated Terms.

3. Eligibility

To use the Service, you must meet the following eligibility requirements:

• You must be at least 18 years old to create an account, access, or use the Service.
• You must have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract.
• You may not use the Service if you have been previously suspended or terminated from the Service.
• You may not use the Service if you are prohibited from receiving services under applicable law.

4. Account Registration and Security

To access most features of the Service, you must create an account using a valid email address and password. You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete information during registration, including username, date of birth, country of residence, and acceptance of these Terms and our Privacy Policy. You agree to update such information to keep it accurate, current, and complete.

You are solely responsible for:

• Maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials (email and password).
• All activities that occur under your account.
• Notifying us immediately at epsu.site@protonmail.com of any unauthorized use of your account or any other breach of security.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your account if any information you provide is inaccurate, false, or violates these Terms.

5. Description of Service

Epsu provides an anonymous community platform where users can:

• Join regional Epsus (city, state, country) or apply to school-based Epsus, with a hard limit of 3 regional Epsus and 3 school Epsus per user.
• Submit posts that are hidden from ordinary users' identity view, with posting governed by hourly UTC batch limits enforced by backend RPCs. The current Service design allows up to 2 top-level posts and 1 reply per Epsu per hourly cycle.
• View released posts from Epsus they have access to, with posts automatically removed from the user's feed after reacting to them.
• Reply to released posts within the same Epsu, with reply-to-post scope enforced by backend RPC validation.
• React to posts with likes or dislikes, with a progressive auto-deletion threshold based on participation rates and dislike ratios (0.80+ dislike ratio for low participation, 0.51+ for high participation).
• Report posts for violations of Community Guidelines, with reports reviewed by moderators, hosts, or platform admins as applicable.
• Block post authors to hide their future posts and replies from their feed, via backend-stored block relationships.
• For school Epsus: apply for membership with a short answer, with hosts reviewing applications; hosts and moderators have scoped governance tools including report resolution, post removal, Epsu-scoped 24-hour muting, member management, moderator invite creation via QR code/deep link, and moderation records access.
• For regional Epsus: view country-scoped communities, suggest new regional Epsus, with suggestions reviewed by platform admins before approval.
• Receive optional push notifications for app events supported by the Service, including moderation-related actions, hourly post-drop updates, and invite or community activity, with push tokens stored per device.

Posts are temporary and deleted after their lifecycle ends, as described in our Privacy Policy. The Service is currently provided on an "as-is" beta basis, and we may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service at any time without notice.

Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to install and use the Epsu application on devices that you own or control solely for your personal, non-commercial use of the Service. This license does not transfer any ownership rights in the application or Service to you.

6. User Content

"User Content" means any content you submit, post, or transmit through the Service, including post titles, bodies, replies, report reasons and explanations, school application answers, and invite token generations.

You retain all ownership rights to your User Content. By submitting User Content, you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, sublicensable, and transferable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, transmit, and display such User Content solely for the purpose of operating, developing, and providing the Service.

You represent and warrant that:

• You own or have the necessary rights to your User Content.
• Your User Content does not violate these Terms, our Community Guidelines, or any applicable law.
• Your User Content does not infringe the intellectual property rights, privacy rights, or other rights of any third party.
• Your User Content does not include malicious code, viruses, or harmful data.

We reserve the right to remove or modify any User Content at our sole discretion, including for violations of these Terms or Community Guidelines, or for any other reason without notice. We may also retain User Content metadata (e.g., authorship records) after deletion to comply with legal obligations and moderation integrity.

7. Prohibited Conduct

We have zero tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users. Accounts, posts, replies, application materials, and other activity may be restricted, removed, or terminated where we determine that a user has engaged in harassment, hate speech, threats, sexual exploitation, doxxing, scams, spam, illegal activity, impersonation, or other abusive conduct.

We prioritize objectionable-content reports for review within 24 hours. When we confirm objectionable content, we remove the content and eject or suspend the offending user.

You agree not to engage in any of the following prohibited conduct:

• Violating any applicable law, regulation, or third-party right, including data protection, intellectual property, and criminal laws.
• Posting content that violates our Community Guidelines, including harassment, hate speech, sexual exploitation of minors, doxxing, scams, spam, illegal content, or impersonation.
• Attempting to circumvent any security or access control measures of the Service, including unauthorized access to other users' accounts, backend systems, Supabase databases, or Edge Functions.
• Using the Service to transmit any viruses, malware, or other harmful code, or attempting to overload our servers via denial-of-service attacks.
• Scraping, crawling, or harvesting any data from the Service, including user content, membership data, post data, or moderation records.
• Creating multiple accounts for the purpose of evading moderation actions, such as muting, post removal, or reaction threshold limits.
• Abusing the invite system, including generating or redeeming invites for unauthorized users, fake accounts, or automated bots.
• Interfering with the operation of the Service, including disrupting the hourly post queue, release system, or push notification delivery.
• Using the Service for any commercial purpose not explicitly authorized by us, including advertising, solicitation, or selling access to Epsus without our written consent.
• Sharing your account credentials with third parties or allowing unauthorized access to your account.

8. Intellectual Property Rights

All content, features, and functionality of the Service, including but not limited to text, graphics, logos, icons, images, audio clips, video clips, data compilations, software, and Supabase/Expo/Render integrations (collectively, "Epsu Content"), are the exclusive property of Epsu and its licensors, and are protected by copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, and other intellectual property laws.

You may not use, reproduce, modify, distribute, display, perform, or create derivative works of any Epsu Content without our prior written consent, except as necessary to use the Service as permitted by these Terms.

The Epsu name, logo, "epsu" slug, and all related marks are trademarks of Epsu. You may not use these marks without our prior written consent.

All third-party trademarks, service marks, and logos appearing on the Service are the property of their respective owners.

9. Moderation and Enforcement

We reserve the right to monitor, review, and moderate User Content and user conduct at our sole discretion, including:

• Reviewing user reports of violating content, with reports grouped by post and resolved as dismissed, post removed, or user muted.
• Reviewing keyword-flagged posts before release from the hourly queue, with pre-release moderation by assigned moderators, hosts, or platform admins.
• Taking enforcement actions, including removing posts, muting users for 24 hours within the relevant Epsu, dismissing reports, revoking moderator or host privileges, and restricting or terminating accounts where appropriate.
• Appointing moderators and hosts for Epsus, with scoped authority to manage their communities as defined in our Community Guidelines.
• Using progressive auto-deletion thresholds to remove posts with high dislike ratios, as defined in Section 5.

We are not responsible for any User Content posted by users, and we do not guarantee that all violating content will be removed. Moderation decisions are final unless appealed in accordance with our Community Guidelines. We may retain moderation action records indefinitely for audit and safety purposes.

10. Termination of Accounts

You may terminate your account at any time by following the deletion process in your Settings menu, which requires password confirmation. You may also request deletion via email at epsu.site@protonmail.com if you cannot access the app.

We may suspend or terminate your account, or restrict your access to the Service, at any time without notice if:

• You violate these Terms, our Community Guidelines, or any applicable law.
• You engage in prohibited conduct as outlined in Section 7.
• You are inactive for an extended period (as determined by us in our sole discretion, typically 12+ months without login).
• We are required to do so by applicable law or government request.
• Your account is associated with fraudulent or harmful activity.

Account deletion will remove your auth account and profile-linked records (such as username, date of birth, country, notification preferences, memberships, suggestions, push tokens, presence, and authored posts). You may not delete your account while you are the host of an active Epsu; you must resolve that management status first.

11. Disclaimers of Warranties

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND TITLE.

WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR FREE OF HARMFUL COMPONENTS, OR THAT ANY DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT USER CONTENT IS ACCURATE, COMPLETE, OR USEFUL.

THE SERVICE IS CURRENTLY IN BETA, AND WE MAY CHANGE, SUSPEND, OR DISCONTINUE ANY PART OF THE SERVICE AT ANY TIME WITHOUT NOTICE OR LIABILITY. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE HOURLY POST QUEUE, RELEASE SYSTEM, OR PUSH NOTIFICATIONS WILL FUNCTION AS INTENDED AT ALL TIMES.

12. Limitation of Liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL EPSU, ITS AFFILIATES, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

IN NO EVENT SHALL OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO US (IF ANY) FOR ACCESS TO THE SERVICE IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM, OR (B) €100.

THESE LIMITATIONS APPLY REGARDLESS OF THE LEGAL THEORY ON WHICH THE CLAIM IS BASED, INCLUDING BREACH OF CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), OR STRICT LIABILITY. THESE LIMITATIONS APPLY EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Epsu, its affiliates, officers, directors, employees, and licensors from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or relating to:

• Your use of the Service.
• Your User Content.
• Your violation of these Terms, our Community Guidelines, or any applicable law.
• Your violation of any rights of another user or third party, including privacy, intellectual property, or contract rights.
• Your negligent or willful misconduct.

14. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Estonia, without regard to its conflict of law principles. If you are a consumer resident in the European Union, you may also rely on the mandatory consumer protection laws of your country of residence.

Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service shall be resolved exclusively in the courts of Tallinn, Estonia, unless you are a consumer resident in the EU, in which case you may bring proceedings in your local court of residence.

For users in the EU, you may also use the Online Dispute Resolution platform provided by the European Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.

Before filing a lawsuit, you agree to first send a written notice of dispute to us at epsu.site@protonmail.com and attempt to resolve the dispute informally within 30 days.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in the Service, applicable law (including GDPR, DSA updates), or our business practices. We will notify you of material changes by posting the updated Terms on the Service, updating the "Last Updated" date, and if you have an account, sending a notification via email or in-app message.

Your continued use of the Service after the effective date of the updated Terms constitutes your acceptance of the changes. If you do not agree to the updated Terms, you must terminate your account and stop using the Service.

Non-material changes (e.g., correcting typos, updating contact info) will be effective immediately upon posting.

16. Contact Information

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us at:

Epsu Tehnoloogiad OÜ
Email: epsu.site@protonmail.com
Registered office: Lääne maakond, Haapsalu linn, Estonia

Privacy contact: epsu.site@protonmail.com

17. Supplementary Terms for EU Users

If you are a user resident in the European Union, the following additional terms apply:

• We comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Digital Services Act (DSA) 2024.
• You have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority if you believe our processing of your personal data violates GDPR.
• We provide in-app and web-based reporting channels for illegal content and will review such reports as promptly as reasonably practicable.
• If we take moderation action against your content or account, we may communicate the basis for that action through available in-app records, account history, or support correspondence, depending on context and system behavior.
• We do not use automated decision-making with legal or similarly significant effects, including fully automated moderation decisions that result in account termination.

18. Miscellaneous

These Terms constitute the entire agreement between you and Epsu regarding the Service, and supersede all prior agreements, oral or written, between you and Epsu.

If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect.

Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not constitute a waiver of such right or provision, unless acknowledged and agreed to by us in writing.

You may not assign or transfer these Terms or your account to any third party without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms without restriction, including in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

Nothing in these Terms constitutes a partnership, joint venture, employment, or agency relationship between you and Epsu.