Terms and Conditions

1. Introduction and Acceptance

These Terms and Conditions ("Terms") are a legally binding agreement between you ("you") and Zcribbler Software Labs Private Limited, a company incorporated in India ("Zcribbler", "we", "us", "our").

They govern your use of the Zcribbler mobile application, the zcribbler.com website, and everything we provide through them (the "Service"). By creating an account or using the Service, you confirm that you have read and agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, which forms part of them.

If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

The Service is provided free of charge. There are no fees, no subscriptions, and no in-app purchases.

2. Definitions

• "Content" — anything you create, upload, or send through the Service: words, photographs, video, audio recordings, replies, reactions, and messages.
• "Zcribble" — a single piece of Content you author. A zcribble is private to you until you distribute it.
• "Instant" — a short video or photograph captured in the app and distributed the same way as a zcribble.
• "Distribution" — one act of sending a zcribble or instant to an audience. Distributing the same Content twice creates two separate audiences with two separate conversations.
• "Audience" — the people a Distribution reaches: one named person, a set of people and circles you assemble, or all of your followers.
• "Circle" — a private list of people you keep so you can reuse an audience. A circle is visible only to the person who created it.
• "Library" — where your own Content, and Content sent to you individually, is held.
• "Follow" — a one-directional link. Following someone does not require their approval unless they have turned approval on, and it does not oblige them to follow you.
• "Reaction" — an emoji applied to a Distribution or a reply. Reactions and their counts are visible to everyone in that audience.
• "Direct Message" — a private message between two people.
• "Personal Data", "Data Fiduciary", and "Data Principal" — as defined in the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and, where applicable, the GDPR.

3. What the Service Does

Zcribbler holds your Content and distributes it to people you select. Two rules govern everything else, and both are enforced by the Service rather than left to your care:

• Content you have not distributed has no audience. It is not shown to anybody, and there is no setting that could accidentally reveal it.
• Every Distribution reaches the audience you named, and no one else. We do not add recipients, we do not distribute your Content to strangers, and we do not repost it anywhere.

Some parts of the Service are automated: the order of your feed, and the people the app suggests you might know. These affect the order in which you see things and nothing else. They never widen the audience of a Distribution. Our Privacy Policy, Section 13 explains this in full.

Zcribbler is an intermediary within the meaning of the Information Technology Act, 2000. We do not author Content, and we do not select or modify the Content you distribute.

4. Eligibility and Age

You must be at least 16 years old to create an account and use the Service.

• Under 16: you may not use the Service. You are asked for your date of birth during sign-up and an account cannot be created if it shows you are under 16. If we learn that an account holder is under 16, we will close the account and delete the data.
• 16 and 17: you may use the Service only if a parent or legal guardian has given you permission. By creating an account you represent and warrant that you have that permission, and that your parent or guardian has read and agrees to these Terms and our Privacy Policy on your behalf. A parent or guardian may write to [email protected] to ask about or close an account belonging to someone in their care.
• 18 and over: you may use the Service subject to these Terms.

You must also not be barred from using the Service under the laws that apply to you, and you must not be using it to circumvent a previous ban.

Your date of birth is never shown on your profile or anywhere else in the Service. These measures are designed to meet our obligations under Section 9 of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and Article 8 of the GDPR.

5. Your Account

You sign in with Google or Apple. These are the only sign-in methods, and we neither create nor store a password for you.

• You may hold one account per sign-in identity. Creating additional accounts to evade a restriction, suspension, or ban is a breach of these Terms.
• You are responsible for the security of the Google or Apple account you sign in with. We are not liable for access obtained through a compromise of that account.
• You are responsible for everything done through your account.
• You can see and end your active sessions at any time in Settings → Privacy & account → Logged-in devices.
• Choosing a username that impersonates a person or organisation, or that suggests an official or Zcribbler-operated account, is not permitted and the username may be reclaimed.
• Closing your account requires you to re-authenticate with Google or Apple, which is what protects you from someone else doing it.

6. Your Content

6.1 You own it

You keep full ownership of everything you create and distribute through the Service. Zcribbler claims no ownership of your Content and acquires no rights in it beyond the limited licence in section 6.2.

6.2 The licence you give us, and its limits

To operate the Service we need your permission to handle your Content. By distributing Content you grant Zcribbler a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, reproduce, process, transmit, and display that Content, solely in order to deliver it to the audience you selected and to operate, secure, and support the Service. The licence is sublicensable only to the infrastructure providers listed in our Privacy Policy, and only so they can perform that same function on our behalf.

6.3 What you promise about your Content

You represent and warrant that, for everything you distribute:

• you own it or have the rights necessary to distribute it;
• it does not infringe anyone's copyright, trade mark, privacy, publicity, or other rights; and
• any identifiable person in a photograph or recording has consented to your distributing it.

6.4 What we do to your Content

We process your Content only as far as delivering it requires: we compress and re-encode photographs, video, and audio so they transfer and play properly, generate thumbnails, and index the words you write so that you can search your own Library. Capture metadata — including GPS coordinates — is removed from every file before anyone else can receive it, and retained separately for you alone, as described in Privacy Policy, Section 3.4. We do not analyse your Content to infer things about you, and it is never sent to a third-party AI service.

6.5 Feedback

If you send us suggestions about the Service, we may use them without obligation or payment to you. This applies to feedback about Zcribbler only, never to your Content.

7. Distribution, and What Others See

You are responsible for choosing your audience. Before you distribute anything, understand the following, each of which is also set out in Privacy Policy, Section 6:

• People in the same audience can see one another. If you send to several people, each of them is told who else received it.
• Reactions are visible within the audience, including who reacted.
• The sender is told when a recipient has seen a Distribution. This applies to you as a recipient as much as it does to the people you send to.
• Content sent to one person stays in that person's Library for as long as they keep it. Content sent to a wider audience appears in their feed and cannot be filed by them.
• A recipient's device can copy anything you send. Screenshots and recordings are outside our control and outside anyone's. Do not distribute something you could not bear a recipient to keep.
• Your circles remain private to you. Nobody is told they have been added to one, and nobody sees what you called it.

Three ways Content is removed, and they are not the same. You can stop distributing something, which withdraws it from the people you sent it to. A recipient can remove it from their own Library, which affects only them and does not notify you. Either of you can delete Content you authored, which removes it for everyone.

8. Prohibited Content and Conduct

You must not create, distribute, or send Content, or behave, in any of the following ways. This list applies everywhere in the Service, including in Direct Messages.

• Child sexual abuse material or child exploitation. Any Content that sexualises, depicts, or promotes the abuse or exploitation of a minor, and any attempt to solicit or groom a minor. We have zero tolerance. A single report triggers immediate action; the account is terminated permanently and the matter is reported to the competent authorities, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and Indian law-enforcement authorities, in accordance with the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.
• Harassment and abuse. Targeted abuse, threats, intimidation, stalking, bullying, or encouraging others to do any of these.
• Hate speech. Content promoting violence, hatred, or discrimination against people on the basis of race, caste, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or any comparable characteristic.
• Non-consensual and sexual content. Sexually explicit material, sexual content involving anyone who has not consented to its distribution, and intimate images shared without consent.
• Violence and self-harm. Graphic violence, glorification of violence, and Content that encourages suicide, self-harm, or disordered eating.
• Impersonation and deception. Passing yourself off as another person or organisation, or misrepresenting your affiliation with one.
• Spam and manipulation. Bulk or repetitive messaging, unsolicited commercial solicitation, artificial inflation of followers or reactions, and mass or automated account creation.
• Privacy violations. Publishing another person's private information — address, phone number, identity documents, financial details — without their consent.
• Illegal activity. Anything unlawful under applicable law, including under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
• Infringement. Content that infringes copyright, trade marks, or other intellectual property rights.
• Interference with the Service. Circumventing rate limits, authentication, or any security measure; probing or attacking our systems; scraping or bulk-collecting data about people; reverse-engineering the app except where the law expressly permits it; and using automated clients or unofficial clients.

Zcribbler has zero tolerance for objectionable Content and for abusive users. By using the Service you agree not to post objectionable Content and not to behave abusively toward anyone. Content that breaches these standards will be removed, and accounts responsible may be restricted, suspended, or permanently terminated without prior notice.

9. Reporting, Moderation, and Appeals

9.1 Your tools

• Report. Any Content, reply, message, or account can be reported from the app, under one of seven reasons, with a required written explanation.
• Block. You can block anyone. Blocking is immediate, works in both directions, and the person you blocked is not told.
• Control who reaches you. You can require approval for new followers, and you can restrict Direct Messages to people you follow.

9.2 How we review

Every report is reviewed by a person at Zcribbler. No Content is hidden automatically and no account is restricted automatically; there is no report count that removes Content on its own. We aim to act on reports of objectionable Content within 24 hours, and immediately on reports involving child safety.

Depending on what we find, we may take no action, remove the Content, restrict or suspend the account, or terminate it and ban the associated sign-in identity.

9.3 Restriction and suspension

• Restricted: you can still read your feed and send Direct Messages, but you cannot distribute new Content and you do not appear in suggestions.
• Suspended: your access is limited to seeing your own profile, contacting us, and signing out.
• Terminated: the account is closed permanently, and the sign-in identity may be banned from creating another.

Suspensions may be temporary or indefinite. Where a suspension is temporary, the app shows you when it ends.

9.4 Appeals

You may appeal any moderation decision. The app shows you the reason for the action and the email address to write to; you can also write to [email protected] directly. A person reviews every appeal, and we respond within 15 days of receiving it, consistent with Rule 3(2) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

9.5 Intellectual property complaints

If you believe Content on Zcribbler infringes your copyright or trade mark, write to [email protected] with a description of the work, where the infringing Content is in the app, your contact details, and a statement that you hold the rights and are complaining in good faith. We will investigate and remove infringing Content. We may terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

9.6 Our decision

We aim to moderate fairly, consistently, and transparently, and to explain what we did and why. Final decisions on removal, restriction, and termination rest with us. This does not affect any right you have to complain to a supervisory authority or to bring a claim.

10. Closing Your Account

You may close your account at any time from Settings → Account → Delete account. You will be asked to re-authenticate with Google or Apple.

Closing your account is immediate and cannot be undone. There is no grace period and no way for us to restore it. Signing in again with the same identity creates a new, empty account.

On closure, your profile, your username, your zcribbles, your instants, and every Distribution of them stop existing across the Service — including Content you sent to one person, which leaves that person's Library. Your username is released and may later be taken by someone else. Replies, reactions, and Direct Messages you sent on other people's Content remain, under your name: what you said on someone else's Content is part of that Content's record.

Retention and erasure after closure are set out in Privacy Policy, Section 11, and the full procedure — including how to request closure if you have lost access to your device — is on the Delete Your Account page.

We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these Terms, if we are required to by law, or if it is necessary to protect other people or the Service. Except where the breach is serious or the law requires immediate action, we will tell you why and how to appeal.

Sections 6.3, 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16 survive the end of this agreement.

11. Third-Party Services

The Service depends on:

• Google — Sign in with Google, push notification delivery, crash reporting, anonymous usage analytics, and the Play Integrity device check.
• Apple — Sign in with Apple and the App Attest device check.
• Microsoft Azure and Cloudflare — servers, database, media storage and delivery, and protection against attacks.

These providers act on our instructions under data processing agreements. What each handles is set out in our Privacy Policy, Section 7. Your use of Google's and Apple's own services is governed by their terms, not ours.

We use no advertising networks, no data brokers, and no third-party tracking services.

Links to external websites that appear in Content, including profile links, are not under our control. We do not endorse them and are not responsible for them.

12. Availability and Changes to the Service

The Service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free access, and features may be added, changed, or removed.

We will give reasonable advance notice of a change that materially reduces a core function of the Service, unless the change is required for security, safety, or legal reasons.

You are responsible for your own device, your internet connection, and any data charges.

13. Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, we disclaim all warranties not expressly stated in these Terms, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the Service will meet your requirements, that it will be secure or error-free, or that defects will be corrected. We are not responsible for Content created by other people, and we do not endorse it.

Zcribbler is not a backup service. Keep your own copies of anything you cannot afford to lose.

Nothing here excludes a warranty or right that cannot be excluded under the law that applies to you, including consumer rights under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 in India and equivalent consumer law elsewhere.

14. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law:

• We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for loss of data, revenue, profits, or goodwill, arising out of or relating to the Service.
• Our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you have paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or INR 5,000. The Service is free, so in most cases this is INR 5,000.
• Nothing in these Terms limits our liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, gross negligence, wilful misconduct, death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or any liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

15. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Zcribbler Software Labs Private Limited, its directors, officers, employees, and agents against claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and reasonable legal costs arising from:

• your use of the Service in breach of these Terms;
• Content you create, distribute, or send;
• your breach of any applicable law; or
• your infringement of anyone's rights, including intellectual property and privacy rights.

This does not apply to the extent a claim arises from our own breach, negligence, or wilful misconduct.

16. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of India, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

Before starting legal proceedings, please write to us at [email protected] so we can try to resolve the matter. Most disputes are settled this way.

Disputes arising out of these Terms or the Service are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Kannur, Kerala, India.

If you are a consumer resident in the EU, the EEA, or the UK, this does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory consumer-protection law of your country of residence, and you may bring proceedings in the courts of that country.

17. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms. When a change is material, we will:

• give at least 30 days' notice before it takes effect;
• notify you in the app, and by email where we can; and
• publish the updated Terms with a new effective date and version number.

Continuing to use the Service after the effective date means you accept the updated Terms. If you do not accept them, stop using the Service and close your account.

18. Our Data Commitments

These are contractual commitments, not statements of current practice we could quietly change:

• We do not sell, rent, lease, or trade your personal data.
• We do not share your personal data with advertisers or data brokers, and we operate no advertising network.
• We do not use your Content to train artificial-intelligence models, and we do not supply it to anyone who would.
• We do not use your Content, your name, or your likeness in advertising or marketing without asking you first.

If we ever intend to change any of these, we will amend these Terms and our Privacy Policy and give notice under Section 17, so that you can close your account before the change takes effect. Business transfers are addressed in Privacy Policy, Section 7.4.

19. Grievance Officer

Appointed under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, and Section 13 of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023:

• Office: Grievance Cell, Zcribbler Software Labs Private Limited
• Designation: Grievance Officer
• Email: [email protected]
• Location: Kannur, Kerala, India

We acknowledge a grievance within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days of receipt.

20. General

20.1 Severability

If any provision is held invalid or unenforceable, the rest remains in force and the provision is treated as modified to the minimum extent needed to make it enforceable.

20.2 No waiver

If we do not enforce a right or provision, that is not a waiver of it.

20.3 Entire agreement

These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and Zcribbler about the Service, and replace any earlier version, including the Terms that governed version 1 of the Zcribbler app.

20.4 Assignment

You may not assign your rights or obligations under these Terms. We may assign ours in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, in which case your personal data continues to be handled under our Privacy Policy.

20.5 Contact

• Support and appeals: [email protected]
• Privacy and grievances: [email protected]
• Everything else: [email protected]

Zcribbler Software Labs Private Limited, Kannur, Kerala, India.