1. Agreement to Terms
By accessing or using the Yapper platform — including our website at yapperhq.com, our web application at app.yapperhq.com, our desktop application, or our mobile apps (collectively, the "Service") — you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms") and our Privacy Policy.
These Terms form a binding legal agreement between you and Yapper Technologies, Inc. ("Yapper," "we," "our," or "us"), a company registered in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service.
2. Eligibility
2.1 Minimum Age
You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. If you are under 13, you may only use Yapper with verifiable parental consent, and a parent or guardian must create the account on your behalf. By creating an account, you represent that you meet these age requirements.
2.2 Parental Consent for Minors (Under 13)
If you are a parent or guardian creating an account for a child under 13, you represent that you have authority to agree to these Terms on behalf of the minor, and you accept responsibility for the minor's use of the Service. You acknowledge that Yapper's parental controls are available to help manage your child's activity on the platform.
2.3 Legal Capacity
By agreeing to these Terms, you represent that you have the legal capacity to enter into a binding agreement, and that you are not prohibited from using the Service under applicable laws.
3. Accounts
3.1 Registration
To access most features of the Service, you must register for an account. You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete information during registration and to keep your account information up to date.
3.2 Account Security
You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account. You must notify us immediately at security@yapperhq.com if you become aware of any unauthorized access to your account.
3.3 One Account Per Person
Each user may maintain only one personal account. You may not create accounts on behalf of others without authorization. Automated account creation is prohibited.
3.4 Username Policy
Usernames must not impersonate other people or organizations, include offensive or harmful language, or otherwise violate these Terms or our Community Guidelines. We reserve the right to reclaim usernames that violate this policy.
4. Acceptable Use
4.1 You May Not Use the Service To:
- Violate any applicable law or regulation, including laws governing privacy, data protection, intellectual property, spam, export controls, or anti-money laundering.
- Harass, bully, threaten, intimidate, or harm any person.
- Post, transmit, or distribute child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or any content that sexually exploits or harms minors. We report all CSAM to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and relevant law enforcement.
- Distribute malware, spyware, ransomware, or other malicious code.
- Attempt to gain unauthorized access to Yapper's systems, infrastructure, or user accounts.
- Conduct denial-of-service attacks or otherwise disrupt the Service.
- Scrape, crawl, or systematically extract data from the Service without our written permission.
- Circumvent rate limits, authentication, or access controls.
- Use the Service for spam, phishing, or any unsolicited bulk communications.
- Impersonate any person, organization, or brand in a way that is deceptive or misleading.
- Facilitate real-money gambling without appropriate licensing in applicable jurisdictions.
- Coordinate real-world violence, terrorism, or other illegal activities.
4.2 Bot and Automation Policy
You may create and operate bots on Yapper in accordance with our Bot Developer Terms. Bots must be clearly identified as bots and must not be used to violate these Terms or to manipulate the Service.
4.3 Rate Limits
The Service enforces rate limits (100 requests per minute per IP, 5 messages per second per user via WebSocket). Attempting to circumvent these limits is prohibited and may result in temporary or permanent suspension.
5. Your Content
5.1 Ownership
You retain ownership of all content you post, send, or share through the Service ("Your Content"). By using the Service, you do not transfer ownership of Your Content to Yapper.
5.2 License to Yapper
For non-encrypted content (such as server names, descriptions, icons, custom emojis, profile information, and poll content), you grant Yapper a limited, worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to display, store, transmit, and cache Your Content as necessary to provide and operate the Service.
For end-to-end encrypted content (messages, Voice Yaps, Video Clips, and file attachments), Yapper receives only encrypted ciphertext and cannot access or use the content itself. No content license is granted for such encrypted material beyond the technical operations needed to route and store ciphertext.
5.3 Content Responsibility
You are solely responsible for Your Content and the consequences of sharing it. You represent and warrant that you have all necessary rights to share Your Content and that it does not violate these Terms, applicable law, or the rights of any third party.
5.4 Content Removal
Yapper reserves the right to remove or disable access to any non-encrypted content that violates these Terms or our Community Guidelines, or that we are required to remove by law. Due to E2EE, we cannot proactively review encrypted message content.
6. Encryption and Privacy
6.1 End-to-End Encryption
Yapper uses the Signal Protocol (X3DH + Double Ratchet for direct messages, Sender Keys for group channels) to provide end-to-end encryption for your messages. Your private encryption keys are generated on your device and never transmitted to Yapper's servers in plaintext.
6.2 Key Responsibility
You are responsible for maintaining access to your encryption keys. Loss of your device without an active key backup means you may lose access to your encrypted message history. Yapper is not liable for lost message access due to key loss.
6.3 No Backdoors
Yapper has no backdoor access to the plaintext content of your E2EE communications. We cannot decrypt your messages even in response to law enforcement requests. We will provide only encrypted ciphertext and metadata in response to valid legal demands.
6.4 Reporting Encrypted Content
If you report a message to Yapper, you acknowledge that you are consenting to transmit the decrypted content of that specific message to our Trust & Safety team for the purpose of investigation. Yapper will use the reported content only to investigate the report and take appropriate action.
7. Premium Subscriptions and Payments
7.1 Premium Features
Yapper offers optional paid features through Yapper Premium subscriptions and server boosts. By subscribing, you agree to pay the applicable fees displayed at the time of purchase.
7.2 Billing
All payments are processed by Stripe. Your subscription will automatically renew at the end of each billing period unless cancelled. Prices are listed in USD and are exclusive of applicable taxes, which may be added at checkout.
7.3 Cancellation and Refunds
You may cancel your subscription at any time from your account settings. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; you will retain access to Premium features until that date. We do not offer refunds for partial billing periods, except where required by applicable law.
7.4 Promo Codes
Promotional codes may be used once per account and are subject to expiry dates and restrictions communicated at the time of distribution. Promo codes have no cash value and cannot be transferred.
7.5 Price Changes
We may change subscription prices with at least 30 days' advance notice via email and in-app notification. Your continued subscription after the effective date of a price change constitutes acceptance of the new price.
8. Desktop and Mobile Applications
8.1 License to Use
We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to download and use the Yapper desktop application (Tauri) and mobile applications (iOS and Android) solely for your personal, non-commercial use on devices you own or control.
8.2 Updates
The desktop application may download and install updates automatically. We recommend keeping your applications up to date to benefit from security patches and new features.
8.3 App Store Terms
Your use of the mobile applications may also be subject to the terms of the App Store (Apple App Store or Google Play) through which you downloaded the application. These Terms govern your use of the Yapper application itself; App Store terms govern the distribution relationship.
9. Third-Party Services and Integrations
The Service integrates with third-party services including Discord (profile and bot import), Google (OAuth sign-in), Stripe (payments), and others. Your use of these third-party services is subject to their own terms and privacy policies. Yapper is not responsible for the practices or content of third-party services.
Third-party bots and integrations added to servers operate independently of Yapper. You should review the permissions requested by any bot before adding it to your server. Yapper is not liable for the actions of third-party bots or integrations.
10. Intellectual Property
10.1 Yapper's IP
The Yapper name, logo, branding, design, and software (excluding Your Content) are owned by or licensed to Yapper Technologies, Inc. and protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. These Terms do not grant you any rights to use Yapper's intellectual property except as expressly permitted.
10.2 Feedback
If you submit feedback, suggestions, or ideas about the Service, you grant Yapper a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to use that feedback for any purpose without compensation to you.
10.3 Copyright Complaints (DMCA)
If you believe that content on the Service infringes your copyright, please contact us at legal@yapperhq.com with a DMCA takedown notice containing: identification of the copyrighted work, identification of the allegedly infringing content, your contact information, and a statement made under penalty of perjury that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.
11. Termination
11.1 Termination by You
You may delete your account at any time from Settings → Account → Delete Account. Upon deletion, your account and associated Personal Data will be permanently removed from our systems within 30 days, subject to data we are legally required to retain (see our Privacy Policy, Section 12).
11.2 Termination by Yapper
We may suspend or terminate your account at any time if we determine, in our sole discretion, that you have violated these Terms, applicable law, or our Community Guidelines. We will make reasonable efforts to notify you before termination except where immediate action is required (e.g., for serious violations involving harm to others).
11.3 Effect of Termination
Upon termination, your right to use the Service ceases immediately. Provisions of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 5.1, 10, 12, 13, and 14) will survive.
12. Disclaimers
THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
YAPPER DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR SECURE. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED OR THAT THE SERVICE IS FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS.
YOU USE THE SERVICE AT YOUR OWN RISK. YAPPER IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENT, ACTIONS, OR OMISSIONS OF THIRD PARTIES, INCLUDING OTHER USERS, BOTS, OR EXTERNAL SERVICES.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so some of the above exclusions may not apply to you.
13. Limitation of Liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, YAPPER AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF (OR INABILITY TO USE) THE SERVICE.
IN NO EVENT SHALL YAPPER'S TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING FROM THESE TERMS OR YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO YAPPER IN THE TWELVE MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM, OR $100 USD, WHICHEVER IS GREATER.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation of liability for certain types of damages, so some of the above limitations may not apply to you.
14. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Yapper Technologies, Inc. and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from or related to: (a) your use of the Service; (b) Your Content; (c) your violation of these Terms or applicable law; or (d) your violation of any third party's rights.
15. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution
15.1 Governing Law
These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of South Africa, without regard to its conflict of law principles. Users in the EEA may also have rights under applicable EU consumer protection laws that cannot be excluded by this clause.
15.2 Dispute Resolution
We encourage you to contact us first at legal@yapperhq.com to attempt to resolve any dispute informally. If a dispute cannot be resolved informally, it shall be submitted to the courts of competent jurisdiction in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, unless applicable law requires otherwise.
15.3 Class Action Waiver
To the extent permitted by applicable law, you waive any right to participate in a class action lawsuit or class-wide arbitration against Yapper.
16. Changes to These Terms
We may modify these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will notify you via in-app notification and email at least 30 days before the new Terms take effect. Material changes include changes to your rights, our liability, or the dispute resolution process.
Your continued use of the Service after the effective date of the revised Terms constitutes your acceptance of the changes. If you do not agree to the new Terms, you must stop using the Service before the changes take effect.
17. Contact
If you have questions about these Terms, please contact: