Terms of service

Draft for legal review — not legal advice, not published, not accepted. Prepared 27 September 2026; revised 28 September 2026; revised 29 September 2026 for a worldwide listing.

Revised under task pollinate-1m3kn9zj2nkfc against the PDPL (Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021), Apple's App Review Guidelines and Google Play's User Data and User Generated Content policies. No lawyer has reviewed it (Rohit's no-lawyer decision, 28 September 2026). The research behind it did not cover consumer, e-commerce or copyright law, so the liability, disputes and content-licence clauses are plain first drafts, not settled wording. Changes and sources: docs/policies/2026-09-28-policy-revision-notes.md.

Worldwide revision (29 September 2026, issue #150). Rohit chose a worldwide store listing (19:30 UTC, "worldwide obviously"; every storefront except mainland China, and Israel by his choice at 21:00 UTC). This revision adds what the worldwide recheck found the terms need: home-country consumer protections (Rome I Art. 6(2)), the EU Digital Services Act ("DSA") contact points, notice-and-action and statements of reasons (Arts 11, 12, 16 and 17), the UK Online Safety Act ("OSA") terms duties (s.10(5) to (7)), India's IT (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2021 grievance officer, and local laws for gatherings. Worldwide legal clearance is not verified.

Markers: R# open questions for Rohit, L# uncertain legal points, G# product gaps; all in README.md.

Welcome to Pollinate. These terms are the agreement between you and Entropy Negative Technologies [registered legal name and address — to be confirmed; R1] ("Pollinate", "we"), a company in the United Arab Emirates, for using the Pollinate app and website, wherever you are. We've tried to write them so you can actually read them.

They sit alongside:

• our privacy notice, which says what we do with your data;
• our community rules, which say what's not allowed and how moderation works;
• our legal-request process;
• our guest content policy, for people browsing without an account;
• the guidelines of each community you join.

You agree to these terms and the community rules before you first post or create anything on Pollinate, and to each community's guidelines as you join it. The app asks for this and records which version you accepted. [G29] Agreeing to these terms is not consent to anything the privacy notice asks for separately, such as AI moderation: we ask for that on its own.

Where you live matters. Some of these terms say "as far as the law that applies to you allows". Where the law of the country you live in gives you rights these terms can't take away, those rights win.

1. What Pollinate is

A social network for people to find interest communities in their city, talk in lasting forums, and meet in person. Communities are organised by real places (country, city, area) and broad interests. Communities run themselves, under visible governance, inside a short list of safety rules that Pollinate enforces. Every city in the world is open.

2. Who can use Pollinate

• Anyone can browse public content without an account (see the guest content policy).
• To take part you need an account, and you must:
  • be 18 or older, in every country, even where the local age for social media is lower, and pass our age check (a selfie age estimate, or an ID check if needed, through our vendor Didit). We don't accept a self-declared age. [G1] The age check is being built. Where the age of adulthood where you live is higher than 18, you confirm you may accept these terms under your local law. [L26]
  • verify a phone number you control, with a code sent to you on WhatsApp. At launch there is no SMS option, so you need WhatsApp on that number;
  • be one real person. One account per person; no bots, fake or shared accounts.
• You must not use Pollinate if we've banned you, or where using it is against the law where you are.

3. Verification

• Level 1 is your phone and device. It lets you join communities, post, comment, vote and say yes to gatherings.
• Level 2 is government ID: in the UAE, UAE PASS for Emirates ID holders; everywhere else, and for anyone who prefers it, a document and liveness check with Didit. It's needed to host gatherings, vote on admin actions, handle money (in later releases) and own or co-found a community of more than 500 members. It's free during launch; later it may cost what the check costs us, paid through the app store where its rules require. UAE PASS verification is always free to you. [G2] Level 2 isn't built yet.
• Verification confirms who you are to Pollinate. It never makes your private details visible to other members: they see only your verification level.

4. Your account

• Keep your phone and sign-in codes to yourself. Signing in on a new device needs your code plus one more proof: approval from a device you're already signed in on, or your recovery code. Keep your recovery code safe; if you lose your devices and your code, you can get back in only by verifying your ID, once that is available.
• Tell us at support@pollinate.social if you think someone else has got into your account. [R5]
• You choose a handle and display name; real names are optional. Handles may repeat; your account has its own hidden unique ID.
• You have one residence city and optionally one home city, anywhere in the world; each gives you full participation across its country. You can change your residence once every 90 days and your home city once a year, and swap the two.
• Outside those countries you can read what communities allow, and take part through a visa (paid in pollen), by meeting a member in person there, or, from release 1.1, a Passport membership. Each community decides whether visitors may post.

5. Pollen, standing and approval

• Pollen is earned when people upvote you and lost when they downvote you, and you spend it on things like visas. Standing is your reputation, and approval is the share of upvotes.
• Pollen has no money value. It is never sold for money, can't be bought, transferred for money or cashed out, and isn't property.
• We may change how pollen, standing and approval work, including every default value, to keep Pollinate fair. We'll tell you about changes that affect you.

6. Automated decisions

Part of how Pollinate works is automatic, and by using it you agree to these parts:

• posts fade as they lose approval, but can always be opened and read;
• your abilities (such as commenting and posting) shrink when your approval rating over 90 days falls, and come back as it recovers, as the community rules explain;
• AI moderation may hide content until a person reviews it; it never deletes anything;
• groups of accounts that vote together to push posts up may be flagged, and their votes discounted in the city Pulse;
• the age check may turn you down or ask for an ID.

A person at Pollinate, never a machine alone, decides to suspend or ban an account.

You can always ask a person at Pollinate to review an automated decision about you, give your side and challenge it, from You → Restrictions in the app or by email. The UAE's data law gives you this right (PDPL Art. 18(4)); so do the GDPR and UK GDPR (Art. 22(3), in the cases it covers), and Brazil's LGPD Art. 20 gives a right to a review. We give a person's review to everyone for every automated decision. [L14]

7. Communities

• Any eligible member can start a community. Its creator is its owner and may name up to five co-founders and any number of admins.
• Owners choose their community's visibility and write its guidelines, which must fit inside our community rules.
• Governance follows the community rules: consensus votes for admin actions, members judging admins, crisis mode when a community breaks down.
• A community isn't yours to sell. If an owner is inactive for 60 days, co-founders may take over. In crisis mode, Pollinate may hand a community to a steward chosen by its members.
• Owners and admins may have legal duties for what's in their communities, under the law where they are. UAE law, for example, may treat someone who runs an online space as responsible for unlawful content they know about. Use Pollinate's tools to act on it, and report anything unlawful to us. [L8]

8. Your content

• You own what you post. You give us a worldwide, free, non-exclusive licence to host, store, copy, show, adapt (for example resizing photos) and distribute your content, on Pollinate and its public web pages, as far as each community's visibility allows, only to run Pollinate. The licence ends when your content is deleted, except for copies in backups until they expire, content held for moderation or a legal order, and content you chose to keep as a "ghost" when closing your account. The licence goes no further than the law where you live allows. [L19]
• Public means public. What you post in a public community can be read by anyone, including people without an account, on Pollinate's public web pages, and may show in search engines. [R9] A switch to keep your posts out of search engines is not built yet. [G38]
• You're responsible for what you post. Only post what you have the right to post, and only photos of people who agreed to be in them.
• Posts can be edited within 15 minutes without an "edited" mark, and after that with one; earlier versions are kept for moderators.
• A post of yours may reach a city's Pulse. You can keep your posts out of it. [G21] The app's switch for this isn't built yet.
• Deleting. You can delete your posts and comments. Content under moderation, or named in a legal order, stays for its reviewers. We aim to stop serving deleted or removed content within 60 seconds, but copies people saved outside Pollinate are beyond our control.

Reporting illegal content and copyright

• Anyone can tell us about content they believe is illegal, with or without an account: in the app, with the "breaks the law" reason, or by email to support@pollinate.social with "Illegal content" in the subject. [R5, R17] To act quickly we need: why you believe it is illegal (and, if you can, under which country's law); the link to it, or where it is; your name and email address (not needed if you are reporting child sexual abuse material); and a statement that you believe the report is accurate and complete, in good faith. We confirm we received it, decide carefully and without delay, and tell you what we decided and how you can challenge it (DSA Art. 16). [G35] The in-app report doesn't yet ask for the good-faith statement.
• Copyright and other rights. If you think something on Pollinate infringes your copyright or other rights, write to support@pollinate.social with "Copyright" in the subject, giving: the work you own; the link to the content; your contact details; a statement that you believe in good faith the use isn't authorised; and a statement that the notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act for them. We remove or restrict what infringes, tell the person who posted it, and let them reply. [L27]

9. Gatherings and meeting in person

• In version 1.0 every gathering is free and an informal social gathering in a public place.
• Hosts must follow the local laws and get the permits needed where they meet. Rules differ by country and city. For example, in Dubai, organised entertainment, sport, charity, religious or business events can need a permit from the Department of Economy and Tourism (DET). The host is responsible for any permit their gathering needs. When you plan a gathering, the app asks what kind it is and won't publish the kinds that often need a permit unless you confirm you hold one; confirming falsely breaks these terms. [L10] Pollinate doesn't check permits.
• Don't use a gathering to break the law where it happens. In the UAE, for example, calling for demonstrations is prohibited (see "In the UAE" in the community rules).
• You meet people at your own risk. Pollinate introduces verified adults; it doesn't vet, supervise or attend gatherings, and hosts are responsible for their gatherings. Meet in public, tell someone where you're going, and call your local emergency number if anyone is in danger (999 in the UAE, 112 in the EU, 911 in the US and Canada).
• Saying yes, handing over and checking in follow the rules in the app, including pollen costs for no-shows and abandoned gatherings.

10. Messages

Gathering chats are private to the host and the people going, and direct messages are private to the two people in them. Neither is end-to-end encrypted, so reported abuse can be reviewed. Direct messages are open between people who share a community or have met; anyone else sends a request first. [G24]

11. Rules and enforcement

• Follow the community rules and each community's guidelines, and the law where you are and where your audience is.
• Pollinate enforces a short list of safety rules above community governance: we remove unlawful content, act on official orders, and deal with child-safety material immediately, outside community votes.
• We can restrict what your account can do, put it on notice, suspend it pending review in an emergency, or ban it, as the community rules describe. Only Pollinate can ban someone from Pollinate.

How we protect people from illegal content

This part is for everyone, and is what the UK Online Safety Act (s.10(5) to (7)) and the EU Digital Services Act (Art. 14) ask us to set out.

• What we look for. Content that is illegal where it is posted or seen, and content our community rules ban. We treat the most serious kinds first: terrorism content, and child sexual abuse and exploitation content, then threats, intimate-image abuse, hate, harassment and stalking, fraud, selling drugs or weapons, and encouraging suicide or self-harm.
• Terrorism content is removed as soon as we find it or are told about it; we may suspend the account while a person looks, and we tell the authorities where the law requires.
• Child sexual abuse and exploitation content is never shown, is removed and reported to the relevant hotline or authority (see the legal-request process), and we may suspend the account while a person looks. [G7] The external report isn't built yet. Every photo is held from view until it passes our checks.
• The tools we use (proactive technology):
  • AI text moderation: OpenAI's moderation model, then Cloudflare Workers AI, check posts, comments, gathering chat, profiles, and gathering and community descriptions against the law, these rules and each community's guidelines. It can hide content until a person looks, or queue it for people; it never deletes. It is used only for members who agreed to it (members who don't agree can't post). [G5] Built, not yet live.
  • Image checks: OpenAI's moderation model checks every photo before anyone else sees it.
  • Hash matching: matching photos against known child sexual abuse images (Microsoft PhotoDNA), once approved. [G20] Not in place yet, so in production every photo stays hidden until it is.
  • People: Rohit, Pollinate's only team member, reviews what the tools flag, every report, and every request for review.
  • Direct messages are not checked by AI; reports are the route.
• Reporting and complaints. Anyone can report content (above, and in the community rules). You can complain to us about a decision on a report, about content being removed or restricted, about your account being restricted, and about the age check, by writing to support@pollinate.social. A person answers.

When we act on your content or account

• We tell you why. When we remove or hide something you posted, restrict what you can do, suspend or ban your account, we tell you in the app: what we did and to what; the facts we relied on; whether automated tools were used to find it or decide; which of these terms, rule or law it broke; and how you can challenge it, by asking a person to review it, and in the courts (DSA Art. 17). We don't when a legal order stops us, or for high-volume deceptive commercial spam. [G35]
• Threats to life. If we learn of something that suggests a crime threatening someone's life or safety, we tell the police or authorities of the country concerned (DSA Art. 18).

12. Notifications

We send no push notifications unless you switch them on, for exactly what you choose. Account and safety messages (sign-in codes, restrictions, legal notices) always reach you, in the app first. [G22] Push notifications aren't built yet.

13. Paid features

• Version 1.0 has no payments, no advertising and no tracking.
• From release 1.1, Passport is a paid membership bought through Apple's or Google's in-app purchase, under their terms for billing, renewal and refunds.
• Paid tickets, community earnings and promoted posts come in later releases, each with its own terms. These terms will change before any of them launch.

14. Closing your account

You can close your account in the app at any time (You → Close your account), or by email if you no longer have the app (see pollinate.social/delete-account). You choose what happens: delete everything; keep your posts without your name; review and delete chosen posts first; or keep everything as a dormant account for two years to reclaim later. [G15] Reclaiming isn't built yet. The privacy notice says what each choice deletes and what we keep.

We may close an account that breaks these terms (a ban), and we tell you why. [R11] What happens to a dormant account after two years is not decided.

15. Changes to Pollinate and to these terms

Pollinate is new and will change. We'll tell you in the app before changes to these terms take effect. If you don't agree, you can close your account.

16. Liability, disputes and the law

[L12, L26] This section is a plain first draft; no lawyer has written or reviewed it.

• Pollinate is provided as it is, and we can't promise it will always be available or error-free.
• As far as the law that applies to you allows, we aren't responsible for what members post or do, including at gatherings, or for losses that come from using Pollinate. Nothing in these terms limits a responsibility that the law says can't be limited, such as for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud.
• These terms are governed by the laws of the United Arab Emirates as applied in the Emirate of Dubai. [L12; R1]
• If you use Pollinate as a consumer (for yourself, not for a business), and you live in the EU, the UK or another country whose consumer laws can't be set aside by a contract, nothing in these terms takes away the protection those laws give you (for the EU, Rome I Regulation, Art. 6(2)).
• Courts. The courts of Dubai can decide disputes. If you are a consumer, that is not exclusive: you can also bring proceedings in the courts where you live, and where your local law says so, we must bring proceedings against you there. [L26] Which Dubai courts is uncertain until the company's registration is confirmed. [R1]
• If these terms are translated, the English version is the one we wrote; [L12] which language prevails in a dispute is uncertain, since UAE courts work in Arabic.
• Before going to court, please write to us at support@pollinate.social; most problems can be put right that way.

17. App stores

If you downloaded Pollinate from the App Store or Google Play, their terms also apply to the download, and Apple and Google aren't responsible for Pollinate or its content. [L12] Apple's standard end-user licence applies unless we publish our own. The store-required wording is to be checked before submission.

18. Contact

Entropy Negative Technologies [registered address — to be confirmed] · support@pollinate.social for support, safety reports, illegal-content and copyright notices, privacy requests and legal requests [to be set up; R1, R5]. We answer in English; we also accept Arabic.

• For members and anyone using Pollinate (DSA Art. 12 point of contact): support@pollinate.social. A person reads and answers every message; it is not an automated inbox. English.
• For authorities of EU countries, the European Commission and the European Board for Digital Services (DSA Art. 11 point of contact): support@pollinate.social, with "Authority" in the subject. English.
• EU legal representative (DSA Art. 13) and EU data protection representative (GDPR Art. 27): not appointed at present (R18).
• UK data protection representative (UK GDPR Art. 27): not appointed at present (R19).
• Japan: representative or agent in Japan for the Telecommunications Business Act notification, if it applies: not appointed at present (R20, L22).
• Grievance officer (India), under the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, rule 3(2): Rohit Sabu, support@pollinate.social, with "Grievance" in the subject. We acknowledge a complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days; a complaint asking us to remove content the Rules prohibit is acted on within 72 hours. [L23]