Terms of Use

Welcome to TellSpot. These Terms of Use (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of the TellSpot mobile and web applications, websites and services (together, the “Service”), operated by TellSpot (“TellSpot”, “we”, “us”, “our”). By creating an account, sending a message, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

TellSpot is a neutral platform for anonymous, peer-to-peer communication. We do not generate, endorse, verify, monitor in advance, or guarantee any User Content. Read sections 3, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13 and 14 carefully — they describe what you accept, what we do not warrant, and the limits of our responsibility.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old (or the minimum digital-consent age in your country, whichever is higher) to use TellSpot. By using the Service you confirm that you meet this requirement and that you have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms. If you are under 18, you confirm that a parent or legal guardian has reviewed these Terms with you. We may suspend or terminate accounts we reasonably believe to belong to underage users.

2. Your account and anonymity

TellSpot is designed for anonymous expression. You can use most features without registering. When you do create an account, you agree to provide accurate information and to keep your credentials secure. You are solely responsible for any activity that happens under your account, whether or not you authorised it.

Anonymity is a feature, not a shield. Behaviour that violates these Terms — even when it is anonymous — can lead to message removal, account suspension, device-level blocks, or, in cases involving serious harm or illegal conduct, disclosure to law enforcement, courts or regulators when we are legally compelled to do so or believe in good faith it is necessary to prevent imminent harm.

3. User Content — your responsibility

“User Content” means every message, reply, photo, audio, video, quiz, poll, vote, link, name, hint, password clue or other material you create, upload, transmit, or share through the Service.

You — and not TellSpot — are entirely responsible for your User Content and for any consequences of sharing it. You represent and warrant that, for every piece of User Content you submit:

• you own it, or have obtained every right, licence, consent and permission necessary to share it on the Service (including, where applicable, the right of publicity of the people depicted);
• it does not infringe any copyright, trademark, trade secret, patent, privacy right, publicity right, moral right or any other legal right of any third party;
• it does not violate any law, court order, contractual obligation, or these Terms;
• it is not defamatory, fraudulent, deceptive, threatening, harassing, hateful, sexually exploitative of minors, or otherwise tortious;
• where it concerns or depicts another identifiable person, you have their informed consent to share that content on a public, anonymous platform.

By submitting User Content, you grant TellSpot a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable licence to host, store, cache, transmit, display, reformat and distribute it solely as needed to operate, secure, and improve the Service, to enforce these Terms, and to comply with legal obligations. This licence ends when your content is deleted from our systems, except for copies kept for limited time for security, backup, audit, or legal-hold purposes.

We do not pre-screen, moderate, endorse, ratify, or otherwise vouch for User Content. Opinions, statements and material from users do not represent TellSpot. We make no representation about the accuracy, reliability, safety, legality, decency, or quality of any User Content, and we have no obligation to verify the identity, age, or qualifications of any user.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to use the Service to:

• send messages that harass, threaten, intimidate, defame, dox, stalk, blackmail or extort another person;
• share, generate, request or solicit child sexual abuse material (CSAM), or any content that exploits, endangers or sexualises minors in any way;
• incite, promote, glorify or facilitate violence, terrorism, self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, or hate or discrimination against any person or group based on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, serious disease or any other protected characteristic;
• impersonate another person, organisation, public figure or brand, or misrepresent your identity, affiliation or role in a way that could deceive, mislead, defraud or harm others;
• share non-consensual intimate imagery (“revenge porn”) or any sexual or nude depiction of any person without their explicit, ongoing consent;
• share content that infringes intellectual property, trade secrets, privacy rights, publicity rights, contractual rights or any other legal right of others;
• send spam, chain messages, phishing or scam links, malware, ransomware, cryptominers, or any content designed to manipulate, defraud or extract money or credentials;
• collect, harvest, scrape, infer or otherwise extract personal data, share-tokens, slugs, message contents or media from the Service, whether manually or via automated means (bots, crawlers, scrapers, headless browsers, AI agents);
• attempt to bypass, disable or circumvent moderation, age verification, rate limits, anti-abuse systems, security measures or technical access controls;
• reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble or attempt to derive source code or trade secrets from the Service;
• use the Service to support, fund or coordinate illegal activity, weapons sale, drug trafficking, human trafficking, sanctions evasion or any conduct prohibited by applicable law.

5. Synthetic media, deepfakes and impersonation

You may not use the Service to create, upload or distribute synthetic, manipulated, AI-generated, deepfake, voice-cloned or otherwise altered media that:

• depicts a real, identifiable person without their explicit consent — including (but not limited to) sexually explicit deepfakes, fake confessions, fake compromising photos/videos, or fake voice messages attributed to them;
• impersonates a real person, public figure, organisation or brand in a way that could deceive, defraud or damage their reputation;
• falsely attributes statements, opinions, beliefs or actions to a real person;
• is reasonably likely to mislead a viewer into believing it is genuine, when it is not.

You are solely and entirely responsible for any synthetic or manipulated media you share through the Service, and for any civil or criminal liability arising from its publication. TellSpot has no obligation and no practical ability to verify whether a piece of media is authentic. We will take reasonable steps to remove reported deepfakes or impersonations and to cooperate with lawful investigations, but we are not the publisher of, and accept no responsibility for, such content.

6. No identity verification — assumption of risk

TellSpot is an anonymous messaging platform. We do not verify the real-world identity, age, qualifications, professional credentials or intentions of users. A message, quiz, TellMe or TellYou received through the Service may have been sent by anyone, may contain false, misleading, fabricated, manipulated or AI-generated material, and may be intended to deceive or harm.

You acknowledge and accept this risk and agree to use the Service at your own discretion and at your own risk. TellSpot is not a substitute for professional medical, mental health, legal, financial or any other professional advice. If a message describes a crisis, harm or illegal activity, contact local emergency services or appropriate authorities; do not rely on TellSpot or expect us to intervene.

7. Reporting, moderation and safe harbor

Safety is a core priority at TellSpot. We design the Service to give users control over what they receive, to make reporting frictionless, and to act quickly on the reports we receive.

TellSpot relies on a combination of community reporting and a moderation team. Any message can be reported from the app. We review reports and may, at our sole discretion, remove content, restrict accounts, block devices or take any other measure we deem appropriate. We reserve the right to remove any User Content at any time, with or without notice, when we reasonably believe it violates these Terms, is harmful, or exposes TellSpot, our users or third parties to legal risk.

We may also remove content proactively when, in our reasonable opinion, it presents an imminent risk to a person's safety, is manifestly illegal, or violates these Terms.

Child sexual abuse material (CSAM). TellSpot has zero tolerance for content that sexually exploits or endangers minors. We use automated detection where available, we remove such content as soon as we become aware of it, and we report confirmed CSAM and credible threats against minors to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), Canadian authorities (Cybertip.ca / RCMP), and any other competent law-enforcement authority required by applicable law. We may also preserve and disclose related account data, device identifiers and communications to support these investigations.

Repeat-offender policy. In line with the Copyright Act, the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the EU Digital Services Act and applicable safety regulations, accounts and devices that repeatedly violate these Terms — including but not limited to intellectual-property infringement, impersonation, harassment, deepfake distribution, or other safety violations — will be permanently banned. We maintain internal records of strikes and final-action decisions for as long as necessary to enforce this policy.

TellSpot acts as a neutral intermediary for the transmission and storage of User Content. To the maximum extent permitted by law — including but not limited to Section 230 of the U.S. Communications Decency Act, the EU Directive on Electronic Commerce (2000/31/EC), the EU Digital Services Act, Canadian intermediary liability principles, and any equivalent local safe-harbor regime — TellSpot shall not be liable for User Content created or transmitted by users, and removal decisions are made in good faith without admission of liability.

8. Copyright and intellectual-property complaints

We respect intellectual-property rights and expect users to do the same. If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, trademark or another IP right, send a notice to legal@tellspot.ca including:

• a description of the work or right you claim has been infringed;
• a precise reference to the allegedly infringing content (URL, share-token, slug or screenshot);
• your contact information (name, address, phone, email);
• a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use of the material is not authorised by the rights owner, its agent or the law;
• a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the rights owner or authorised to act on their behalf;
• your physical or electronic signature.

Materially incomplete or bad-faith notices may be ignored. Repeat infringers will have their accounts and content removed.

9. TellSpot's intellectual property

The Service, including its design, code, logo, brand, trademarks and content owned by TellSpot, is protected by intellectual-property laws and belongs to TellSpot or its licensors. You are granted a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable and revocable licence to use the Service strictly for personal, non-commercial purposes, in compliance with these Terms.

10. Termination

You can stop using TellSpot at any time and request deletion of your account from the in-app settings. We may suspend, restrict or terminate your access — with or without notice — at our sole discretion, including if we reasonably believe you have breached these Terms or applicable law, if we are legally required to do so, or if continuing to provide the Service to you presents a risk to TellSpot, other users or third parties. Sections 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 survive termination.

11. No expectation of permanence

TellSpot is built around ephemeral, expiring and revocable communication. You should not rely on TellSpot as a storage system, archive, or backup of important information.

Without limiting the disclaimers in section 12, you acknowledge that messages, replies, photos, audios, videos, quizzes, share-tokens, slugs, QR codes, password-protected TellYous, links, scans and any other content or material on the Service may expire, be deleted, become inaccessible, fail to deliver, or otherwise disappear at any time — for any reason, including expiry timestamps set by the sender, account deletion, moderation actions, retention policies, technical failures, third-party outages, or changes to the Service. We do not guarantee that any content can be recovered, restored, exported or accessed once it is gone.

If a piece of content matters to you, save a personal copy outside TellSpot. We will not be liable for any inability to retrieve, replay or share past content.

12. Disclaimer of warranties

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without any warranty of any kind, whether express, implied, statutory or otherwise. To the maximum extent permitted by law, TellSpot, its officers, directors, employees, agents, affiliates and licensors disclaim all warranties, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, reliability, availability and uninterrupted operation.

TellSpot does not guarantee end-to-end encryption. Messages, media, quizzes, replies and other User Content are transmitted over HTTPS and stored on encrypted object storage, but they are accessible to TellSpot in plaintext for the purposes of operating the Service, complying with applicable law, and enforcing these Terms (including safety moderation and legal-process compliance). Do not use TellSpot to share confidential information that requires a true end-to-end encrypted channel.

Without limiting the foregoing, TellSpot does not warrant that:

• the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure or free of viruses or other harmful components;
• communications on the Service are end-to-end encrypted, secret from TellSpot or invisible to law-enforcement requests;
• any User Content, including any message, quiz, photo, audio, video or claim communicated through the Service, is accurate, truthful, authentic, lawful, safe or free of harmful or objectionable material;
• any sender or recipient is who they appear to be, or has the rights, age, consent or capacity they appear to have;
• messages, media or other data will be delivered, preserved, decrypted, restorable, exportable or recoverable;
• moderation actions will catch every infringement, abuse or illegal content before harm occurs.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties; in those jurisdictions our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

13. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, TellSpot, its officers, directors, employees, agents, affiliates and licensors will not be liable, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability or any other legal theory, for any indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, punitive or consequential damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, business opportunity, reputation or other intangible losses, arising out of or relating to your use of, or inability to use, the Service or any User Content available through it.

Without limiting the foregoing, TellSpot is not liable for:

• damage caused by any User Content, including defamatory, infringing, deceptive, harassing, threatening, unlawful or manipulated content (including deepfakes);
• impersonation, identity theft, fraud or social engineering carried out by another user via the Service;
• actions a user takes (or refrains from taking) in reliance on a message, quiz answer or other User Content received through the Service;
• disclosure of information by a user, including disclosure of their own identity, location or sensitive information to a recipient;
• loss of access, loss of message content, expiry of share-tokens, forgotten passwords on password-protected TellYous, or any permanent data loss;
• third-party services, platforms, app stores, payment processors or networks used to access or distribute the Service.

TellSpot's total aggregate liability for any claim relating to the Service is limited to the greater of (i) the amount you paid us in the twelve (12) months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (ii) one hundred Canadian dollars (CAD 100). These limitations apply even if a remedy fails of its essential purpose.

14. Indemnification

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

• your User Content;
• your use or misuse of the Service;
• your breach of these Terms or of any applicable law or right of a third party (including IP, privacy, publicity and consumer- protection laws);
• any synthetic, manipulated or deepfake content you upload, share or facilitate;
• your impersonation of another person, organisation or brand;
• any dispute between you and another user.

We reserve the right, at our own expense, to assume the exclusive defence and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in which case you agree to cooperate with our defence of that claim.

15. Force majeure

TellSpot will not be liable for any failure or delay in performing any obligation under these Terms caused by circumstances beyond our reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, natural disasters, war, terrorism, civil unrest, government action, epidemics, internet or telecommunications outages, third-party cloud-provider failures, denial-of-service attacks or supply-chain disruptions.

16. Governing law and dispute resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Quebec and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute relating to the Service or these Terms will be brought exclusively before the competent courts of Montréal, Quebec, except where mandatory consumer-protection laws of your country of residence grant you the right to bring proceedings in your local courts.

Before filing a claim, you agree to first attempt to resolve the dispute informally by contacting legal@tellspot.ca. We will engage in good faith for at least thirty (30) days before any formal proceeding.

17. Severability and entire agreement

If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable, that provision will be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, or, if it cannot be so modified, will be severed; the remaining provisions remain in full force and effect. Our failure to enforce any right or provision is not a waiver of that right or provision.

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any additional terms TellSpot may publish for specific features, constitute the entire agreement between you and TellSpot regarding the Service and supersede any prior or contemporaneous agreement.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page and, when changes are material, notify you in the app or by other reasonable means. Continued use of the Service after changes take effect means you accept the new Terms.

19. Contact

Questions, complaints, takedown requests or legal notices about these Terms can be sent to legal@tellspot.ca.