Terms of Service

Agreeing to these Terms

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") are a legal agreement between you and [Operator legal name] ("Whisp," "we," "us"). They cover your use of the Whisp app for iPhone and iPad and the website whisptea.com (together, "Whisp").

By creating an account or using Whisp, you agree to these Terms, our Privacy Policy and our Community Guidelines, which are part of these Terms. If you don't agree, please don't use Whisp.

Who can use Whisp

You can use Whisp only if all of these are true:

• You're at least 13 years old.
• You're a current student at the school you join on Whisp.
• If you're under 18 (or under the age of majority where you live), your parent or legal guardian has read these Terms and agrees to them on your behalf. If you're a parent or guardian and you let your child use Whisp, these Terms apply to you as well, and you're responsible for your child's use of Whisp and any purchases made on their account.
• You've never been banned from Whisp, and you're not barred from using it under the law that applies to you.
• You're not required to register as a sex offender in any jurisdiction.

If we find that you don't meet these requirements, we may suspend or delete your account. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 13, we will delete it.

Your account

• Be accurate. Give your real name, school, grade and date of birth. Clues are built from your profile, so a false profile makes every clue you send misleading.
• One person, one account. Don't share your account, use someone else's, or make extra accounts — and never make a new account to get around a block or a ban.
• Keep it secure. You're responsible for activity on your account. Keep your password private, and tell us straight away if you think someone else has used it.
• Usernames. Don't pick one that impersonates someone, is offensive, or infringes anyone's rights. We may change or reclaim a username that breaks these rules. Accounts and usernames can't be sold or transferred.

Schools

• Join codes are for your school only. Don't share yours with anyone who doesn't attend.
• Classmate verification. If you join without a code, students who already belong will be asked whether you really attend. Until enough say yes, some features are limited. When you're asked about someone else, answer honestly — knowingly verifying someone who doesn't attend your school breaks these Terms.
• New schools. If you add a school that isn't listed, its name must be its real name. We may edit, merge or remove school listings.
• No affiliation. Whisp isn't affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any school or school district. School names are used only so students can find each other, and any names and marks belong to their owners.

Anonymity, and its limits

Whispers and poll votes don't show your name to the person who gets them. Whisp is designed so they can find out who you are in only two ways: by unlocking clues that are drawn from your real profile, or by buying a reveal or subscribing to Whisp Unlimited. A whisper sent sealed can't be revealed by anyone.

That anonymity has limits, and you need to understand them:

• You're never anonymous to us. We always know who sent every whisper and vote. A moderator can see it if something is reported, and we may share it as described in our Privacy Policy — for example, with law enforcement or, in serious situations, with school officials.
• Clues are real. Anything in your profile may be shown as a clue to someone you whisper or vote for.
• People can guess. Others may work out who you are from what you wrote or from context. We can't stop that and aren't responsible for it.
• Don't try to unmask people any other way. Using clues and reveals is the game. Hacking, scraping, comparing records outside the app, pressuring someone to confess, or threatening someone to find out who sent something is not allowed.

The rules

Our Community Guidelines explain the rules in detail, with examples. In short, you agree not to use Whisp to:

• bully, harass, threaten, intimidate, shame or target anyone;
• post hate speech or slurs, or attack people for who they are;
• post sexual content, sexualise anyone, or ask anyone for sexual images — any sexual content involving a minor will be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and to law enforcement;
• encourage self-harm, suicide or eating disorders;
• threaten violence or make "jokes" about school violence — we treat these as real;
• share anyone's private information, or reveal or speculate about anyone's sexual orientation, gender identity, health, or other personal matters without their consent;
• spread false or damaging rumours about real people, or impersonate anyone, including Whisp staff;
• promote illegal activity, drugs, alcohol, vaping or weapons;
• send spam, ads or scams, or sell anything;
• infringe anyone's copyright, trademark, privacy or other rights;
• game whisprs, votes, verification or the leaderboard, including with multiple accounts or coordinated activity;
• scrape, copy, reverse engineer, decompile or modify the app, or access Whisp by any automated means;
• break, probe or get around any security, rate limit, block or ban, or interfere with Whisp working normally;
• break any law that applies to you.

Your content

You own what you write. "Your content" means anything you post or send on Whisp, like whispers, poll questions and your profile. We don't claim ownership of it.

The permission you give us. So that we can run Whisp, you give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, use, reproduce, display, deliver and adapt your content (for example, to format it, filter it or remove it), only for operating, securing and improving Whisp. We can let our service providers do the same on our behalf, and we can transfer this licence as part of a business transfer described in our Privacy Policy. This licence ends when your content is deleted from Whisp — except for content you sent to other people, which stays with them, and content we need to keep for the reasons in our Privacy Policy.

Your promises. You confirm that you have the right to post your content, that it doesn't break these Terms or the law, and that it doesn't infringe anyone else's rights.

Feedback. If you send us ideas or suggestions, we may use them without owing you anything.

Moderation and enforcement

Whisp filters content automatically, both in the app and on our servers, and people review reports. We may remove or restrict any content, and limit, suspend or permanently ban any account, if we believe it breaks these Terms or the law, puts anyone at risk, or exposes Whisp or others to harm. How we respond depends on how serious the problem is — see the Community Guidelines — and for the most serious cases we act immediately, without warning.

We aren't obliged to monitor content, and we don't review everything before it's posted, so we can't promise that Whisp is free of content that breaks the rules. Content on Whisp is the responsibility of whoever posted it.

Appeals. If you think we got a decision wrong, email downloadwhisp@gmail.com with "Appeal" in the subject within 30 days. A person will look at it again.

Reporting, blocking and emergencies

Tap ••• on any whisper, poll or vote to report it or block the sender. Blocking is silent, and it doesn't reveal who they were.

Whisprs

Whisprs are points you earn by voting, whispering and starting polls, and spend on clues. They're a feature of the game, not money:

• They have no cash value and can't be bought, sold, traded, transferred or exchanged for anything outside Whisp.
• You don't own them. We give you a limited, revocable licence to use them inside Whisp.
• We may change how they're earned or spent, adjust balances that were earned by breaking the rules or because of a bug, or reset them, at any time.
• They end when your account does.

Purchases and subscriptions

Clues are unlocked with whisprs and can't be bought. Seeing a sender's name is a paid feature, sold through Apple's App Store. Apple processes every payment, under Apple's own terms, and we never see your payment details.

One reveal

A one-time purchase (US$0.99) that lets you reveal who sent one whisper or poll vote. It doesn't renew. Once you've used it, it can't be undone or reused. A sealed whisper can't be revealed.

Whisp Unlimited — automatic renewal terms

• What you get: unlimited reveals while it's active (except sealed whispers), profile auras and avatar rings, an Unlimited badge you can turn off, ghost mode, and the option to send sealed whispers. We may add, change or remove features, but we won't reduce the core of what you've paid for during a period you've already paid for.
• Price and term: US$4.99 per month, or the price shown in your App Store, which may vary by country.
• Automatic renewal: your subscription renews automatically every month, and your Apple Account is charged the then-current price within 24 hours before the end of each period, until you cancel.
• How to cancel: on your device, open Settings → your name → Subscriptions → Whisp, and turn off renewal at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Whisp Unlimited's settings in the app also link straight there ("Manage or cancel subscription").
• What cancelling does: it stops the next charge. You keep access until the end of the period you've already paid for. We don't give partial refunds for unused time.
• Deleting your account doesn't cancel your subscription. Only Apple can do that, so cancel it first.
• Price changes: if the price goes up, Apple will tell you in advance and, where required, ask for your consent before charging the new price.

Refunds and parental controls

Because Apple handles payments, refunds are requested from Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com, under Apple's policies — we can't issue them ourselves. If something went wrong with a purchase, tell us and we'll help. If you're under 18, ask the person who manages your Apple Account before buying; Apple's Ask to Buy and Screen Time controls work with Whisp. Nothing in these Terms takes away any refund right you have by law.

Your licence to use Whisp, and our intellectual property

We give you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to download and use the app on Apple devices you own or control, for your own non-commercial use, in line with these Terms and the App Store's usage rules.

Whisp — including the app, website, design, mascot, the name "Whisp" and our logos — belongs to us and our licensors and is protected by law. These Terms don't give you any right to use our name, logos or other brand features.

Copyright complaints

We respect copyright and respond to notices under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If you believe content on Whisp infringes your copyright, send our designated agent a notice that includes:

1. your physical or electronic signature;
2. a description of the copyrighted work you say is infringed;
3. enough information to find the material on Whisp (such as a screenshot, username and date);
4. your name, address, phone number and email;
5. a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use isn't authorised by the copyright owner, its agent or the law; and
6. a statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and that you're the copyright owner or authorised to act for them.

Designated agent: Copyright Agent, [Operator legal name], [Mailing address] · downloadwhisp@gmail.com (subject "DMCA notice").

If your content was removed and you believe that was a mistake, you can send a counter-notice that meets the requirements of 17 U.S.C. §512(g). We disable the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances.

Other services

Whisp relies on services from other companies, such as Apple and Google, and may link to other websites. Those services have their own terms and privacy policies, and we aren't responsible for them.

Ending things

You can stop using Whisp and delete your account at any time: Profile → Delete account. Remember to cancel any subscription in your Apple settings first.

We may suspend or end your access if you break these Terms, if we have to by law, or if continuing would put people or Whisp at risk. We may also change, pause or stop offering all or part of Whisp. If we stop offering Whisp entirely, we'll give you reasonable notice where we can.

When your account ends, your licence to use Whisp ends, and you lose your whisprs and any unused features. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should continue — including 7, 10, and 16 to 22 — continue to apply.

Disclaimers

To the fullest extent allowed by law, Whisp is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied — including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement. We don't promise that Whisp will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free, that our content filter will catch everything, that other users will follow the rules, or that your identity can't be worked out by other people.

We aren't responsible for what other users post or do. Nothing on Whisp is professional, medical or mental-health advice. Some places don't allow these disclaimers, so some of them may not apply to you.

Limits on our liability

To the fullest extent allowed by law, Whisp and its owners, employees and agents won't be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, goodwill or profits, arising from or related to Whisp or these Terms — even if we were told they were possible. Our total liability for all claims related to Whisp or these Terms is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose, or (b) US$50.

These limits don't apply to liability that can't be limited by law — such as for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by our negligence where the law forbids limiting it — and some places don't allow them, so they may not apply to you.

Indemnity

To the extent the law allows, you agree to defend and compensate Whisp and its owners, employees and agents for any claims, losses and costs (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your content or from your breaking these Terms or the law. We'll tell you about any such claim and may choose to handle its defence ourselves.

Resolving disputes

Talk to us first

Most problems can be fixed quickly. Before bringing any formal claim, email downloadwhisp@gmail.com with "Dispute" in the subject, describing the issue and what you'd like us to do. We'll do the same if we have a dispute with you. Each of us agrees to try to resolve it informally for at least 60 days before starting arbitration or a court case.

Agreement to arbitrate

If we can't resolve it, you and Whisp agree that any dispute, claim or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or Whisp will be resolved by binding individual arbitration, instead of in court — except that either of us may (a) bring an individual claim in small claims court if it qualifies, and (b) ask a court to stop infringement or misuse of intellectual property. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this section.

• The arbitration will be run by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules (at adr.org), by a single arbitrator.
• It will take place in the county where you live, or by video or written submissions if you prefer.
• Fees will be paid as the AAA's consumer rules require. If the arbitrator finds your claim wasn't frivolous, we won't seek to recover our fees or costs from you.
• The arbitrator can award the same individual relief a court could, but only to you individually.
• If 25 or more similar arbitration demands are brought against us by or with the help of the same lawyers or organisations, they'll be administered in batches under the AAA's rules for mass or multiple filings.

No class actions

You and Whisp may each bring claims against the other only individually, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective or representative proceeding. The arbitrator can't consolidate claims or preside over any form of class or representative proceeding.

Opting out

You can opt out of this agreement to arbitrate by emailing downloadwhisp@gmail.com with the subject "Arbitration opt-out" and your name and username, within 30 days of first agreeing to these Terms. Opting out won't affect anything else in these Terms.

If part of this doesn't hold up

If the class action waiver is found unenforceable for a particular claim, that claim (and only that claim) will be decided in court, not in arbitration. If any other part of this section is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we change this section, we'll give you 30 days' notice, and the change won't apply to a dispute you told us about before then.

Governing law and courts

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of [State] and applicable US federal law, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Any claim not subject to arbitration will be brought only in the state or federal courts located in [County, State], and you and Whisp consent to their jurisdiction. If you live somewhere whose law gives you the right to bring claims in your local courts, or protections these Terms can't override, nothing here takes that away.

Apple App Store terms

If you got the app from Apple's App Store, these terms also apply:

1. Who this agreement is with. These Terms are between you and Whisp only, not Apple. Whisp, not Apple, is solely responsible for the app and its content.
2. Scope of licence. Your licence to use the app is limited to use on Apple-branded products you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in Apple's Media Services Terms and Conditions, except that the app may be accessed by other accounts associated with you through Family Sharing or volume purchasing.
3. Maintenance and support. Whisp alone is responsible for maintenance and support of the app. Apple has no obligation to provide any maintenance or support for it.
4. Warranty. Whisp alone is responsible for any product warranties, whether express or implied by law, to the extent they're not effectively disclaimed. If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any) of the app to you. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation for the app, and any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs or expenses attributable to a failure to conform to a warranty are Whisp's responsibility.
5. Product claims. Whisp, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims by you or a third party relating to the app or your possession or use of it, including: (i) product liability claims; (ii) claims that the app fails to conform to any applicable legal or regulatory requirement; and (iii) claims arising under consumer protection, privacy or similar laws.
6. Intellectual property. If a third party claims that the app or your possession and use of it infringes their intellectual property rights, Whisp, not Apple, is solely responsible for investigating, defending, settling and discharging that claim.
7. Legal compliance. You represent and warrant that you're not located in a country that is subject to a US Government embargo or has been designated by the US Government as a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you're not listed on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
8. Developer contact. Questions, complaints or claims about the app go to [Operator legal name], [Mailing address], downloadwhisp@gmail.com.
9. Third-party terms. You must comply with any applicable third-party terms when using the app, such as your wireless data service agreement.
10. Third-party beneficiary. Apple and Apple's subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms, and once you accept them, Apple will have the right (and will be deemed to have accepted the right) to enforce these Terms against you as a third-party beneficiary.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as Whisp changes, and the date at the top will always show when they last changed. If a change is significant, we'll tell you in the app at least 30 days before it takes effect (unless it's needed sooner for legal or safety reasons). If you keep using Whisp after a change takes effect, you're agreeing to the new Terms. If you don't agree, stop using Whisp and delete your account.

General terms

• Whole agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and Community Guidelines, are the whole agreement between you and us about Whisp, and replace any earlier ones.
• If part of it fails. If any part of these Terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies, and the unenforceable part is changed only as much as needed to make it enforceable.
• No waiver. If we don't enforce something straight away, we can still enforce it later.
• Transfer. You can't transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms. We can transfer ours as part of a merger, acquisition or sale of assets.
• Things outside our control. We're not responsible for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
• Notices. We may send you notices in the app or by email. You agree that electronic notices satisfy any legal requirement for written communication. You can send us notices at the contact details below.
• Export laws. You'll comply with US export and sanctions laws when using Whisp.
• Interpretation. Headings are just for convenience. "Including" means "including without limitation." If these Terms are translated, the English version controls.
• Third parties. Apple (see section 20) is the only third party with rights under these Terms.

Contact

• Email: downloadwhisp@gmail.com
• Post: [Operator legal name], [Mailing address]