Terms of Use

1. Agreeing to these terms

By creating an account or using Spot, you agree to these Terms of Use and to our Privacy Policy. Spot is operated by [PLACEHOLDER: company legal name and address] ("Spot", "we", "us"). If you don't agree with these terms, please don't use the service.

2. Your account

• You sign in with your email address and a one-time code — verifying your email creates your account. Keep access to that email address secure: anyone who controls it controls your Spot account.
• You must be at least [PLACEHOLDER: minimum age — must match the Privacy Policy] years old to use Spot.
• Your account is for you. Don't share it, sell it, or use someone else's.
• You're responsible for activity that happens through your account.

3. Profiles and identity

• Your username (handle) is global — it's the same in every spot you join.
• You may hold multiple profiles (for example, a personal profile and a creator or stage-name profile). All of them are still you, and all are covered by these terms.
• Don't impersonate other people, brands, or organizations, or use a profile to mislead people about who you are. Parody and fan accounts must be clearly identified as such.

4. Your content

You own what you create on Spot. Posts, comments, images, and everything else you make remain yours. You give us the license we need to operate the service: to host, store, reproduce, and display your content to the people your settings and each spot's rules allow to see it. This license exists so Spot can function, not so we can exploit your work — it ends for content you delete, except where a copy must be retained for legal or moderation reasons (see our Privacy Policy).

• Only post content you have the right to post. Respect copyright and other intellectual-property rights.
• Where a post appears depends on where you post it: content posted into a spot is shown under that spot's rules, and a post shown on both a spot and your profile is one post, not two.
• Content that isn't suitable for people under 18 must be marked as sensitive. Marked content is only shown to members who are over 18 and have opted in to seeing it.

5. Spots (communities)

Communities on Spot — "spots" — are run by their owners, admins, and moderators, not by us. Each spot sets its own rules within these terms:

• A spot decides who can join (open, request-to-join, or invite-only), who can see each topic, and who can post or comment in it.
• A spot may require you to accept its rules, or to share your email address with it, as a condition of joining. Email sharing is always shown to you at the point of joining and only happens with your consent.
• Spot admins and moderators can remove content from their spot, restrict members, or ban them. Their decisions apply within their spot; ours apply platform-wide.
• If you run a spot, you're responsible for moderating it in line with these terms, and for being honest with your members about your spot's rules.

6. Acceptable use

Don't use Spot to:

• Break the law, or push others to.
• Harass, threaten, or abuse people, or organize harassment.
• Post content that sexualizes minors — this results in immediate account termination and reporting to authorities.
• Post other people's private information without their consent.
• Spam — Spot enforces posting rate limits, and evading them (or any technical restriction) is a violation in itself.
• Distribute malware, phish, or interfere with the operation of the service.
• Scrape or bulk-collect other users' data.
• Misrepresent sensitive content by leaving it unmarked.

7. Moderation and enforcement

• Members can report posts; reports go to the relevant spot's moderators. Reporting never notifies the author.
• Spots may require posts to be approved by a moderator before they become visible; you'll see your own pending posts marked as such.
• Content removed by a moderator is hidden from everyone and retained as a moderation record.
• We (the Spot platform team) may remove content or restrict accounts that violate these terms, anywhere on the platform. We don't pre-screen content and can't guarantee we'll catch everything — but we act on what we find and what's reported.
• Basic safety tools — blocking, muting, and reporting — are available to everyone, always, for free.

8. Free and paid features

Spot's core is free: joining spots, reading content you have permission to see, posting and commenting, basic moderation tools, and data export. We may introduce paid features in the future — such as subscription tiers for communities or individuals, or transaction fees when creators earn money through Spot. If we do, we'll present the pricing and any additional terms clearly before you pay for anything, and features we've committed to keeping free will stay free.

9. Data export and portability

Community portability is a core commitment: a spot's owner can export their community's data, and data export will never be used as leverage or locked behind a paywall. Content you contribute to a spot forms part of that community's exportable record — see the Privacy Policy for exactly what that includes.

10. Ending your account

• You can stop using Spot at any time, and can request deletion of your account and data as described in the Privacy Policy.
• We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms. Where reasonable, we'll tell you why.
• Sections that by their nature should survive termination (like content licenses for retained moderation records, disclaimers, and governing law) survive it.

11. Disclaimers and liability

Spot is provided "as is" and "as available". We work to keep the service reliable, but we can't promise it will always be uninterrupted, error-free, or that content you encounter will be accurate or acceptable to you — content on Spot comes from its members and communities.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our liability to you is limited to the amount you've paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose (which, while Spot is free, is zero), and we're not liable for indirect or consequential damages. Nothing in these terms limits liability that can't legally be limited. [PLACEHOLDER: liability clause needs review by counsel for the chosen jurisdiction]

12. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of [PLACEHOLDER: governing law and venue — business decision + legal review], without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Consumers in the EU/EEA and UK keep any mandatory protections of their home country's law.

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as Spot evolves. For material changes, we'll notify you — by email or a prominent notice on Spot — before they take effect. Continuing to use Spot after changes take effect means you accept the updated terms.

14. Contact

Questions about these terms: legal@spot.com [PLACEHOLDER: confirm legal contact address]. For privacy matters, use privacy@spot.com.