Terms of Service.

The short version.

• LOKIO is a place-anchored social product. You drop a thought on a map, people physically nearby see it, conversation happens.
• You must be at least 18 years old.
• Real-world meetings happen at your own discretion and your own risk. We do not run background checks.
• Trust indicators on profiles (phone verified, Telegram verified, passkey enabled) are information, not guarantees.
• You are responsible for what you post. We will remove content and accounts that break the rules.
• LOKIO is provided "as is." We disclaim warranties and we cap our liability.
• Disputes are resolved by individual arbitration. No class actions.

The full Terms below are the legally binding version. The summary above is for orientation only and does not modify the rest.

How you accept this contract.

You accept these Terms and the Privacy Policy by any of the following:

• Creating an account on LOKIO.
• Signing in to an existing account.
• Opening the map at app.lokio.org.
• Publishing a topic, sending a chat message, or filing a report.

If you are using LOKIO on behalf of an organisation (for example, a small business publishing a banner pin), you confirm that you have authority to bind that organisation to these Terms. The organisation is bound jointly with you.

You must be 18 or older.

::: callout-warn LOKIO is not for anyone under 18. The product enables real-world meetings between strangers. We have decided that this is not appropriate for minors and we do not knowingly accept users under 18.

One person, one account, your responsibility.

• Authentication. Sign-in is via Google OAuth or a WebAuthn passkey. You do not set a password with us. Anything that happens through your authenticated session is presumed to be done by you.
• Optional verification layers. LOKIO offers optional identity-strengthening layers: phone verification (via the LOKIO Telegram bot), Telegram account linking, and passkey enrolment. Each layer, when enabled, displays a publicly visible trust badge on your profile and on the posts you publish. Trust badges are an information signal to other users. They are not a guarantee, and they are not a substitute for your own judgement when interacting with others. See Real-world meetings.
• One account per person. You may not maintain multiple accounts to evade safety actions, manipulate reports, or inflate engagement.
• No sharing. You may not give your sign-in credentials to anyone or let another person use your account.
• No impersonation. You may not impersonate another person, organisation, or LOKIO itself.
• Accuracy. Profile information you publish must be accurate to the extent it makes claims about you (for example, occupation in your bio if you state one). You are not required to publish a real name.
• Compromise. If you suspect your account has been compromised, you must notify us immediately at hello@lokio.org. We may revoke sessions globally and require re-authentication.

Meetings are at your own risk.

::: shield "Important · Read carefully" LOKIO connects strangers in physical proximity. If you choose to meet someone you encountered through LOKIO, you do so at your sole discretion and at your sole risk.

We do not conduct background checks, criminal record checks, identity verification, or psychological screening on users. Authentication confirms only that an account is bound to a Google identity or a WebAuthn passkey. Authentication is not character.

You are solely responsible for evaluating with whom you communicate and meet. We make no representations or warranties about any user. We are not your safety provider.

What you may not do on LOKIO.

You agree not to do, attempt, or assist any of the following:

• Illegal conduct. Use LOKIO to commit, plan, or facilitate any criminal activity.
• Harassment and threats. Threaten, stalk, defame, harass, or intimidate any person.
• Hate and discrimination. Post content that promotes violence or hatred against people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or any protected characteristic under applicable law.
• Sexual exploitation. Post sexually explicit content, solicit sexual services, or engage in any conduct involving the sexual exploitation of any person, especially anyone under 18. We report child sexual exploitation material to the appropriate authorities and preserve relevant data accordingly.
• Spam and commerce abuse. Post repetitive or unsolicited promotional content outside the paid Boost upsell. The free-baseline product is not an advertising surface.
• Phishing and fraud. Impersonate a business, mislead users about the source of an offer, or attempt to obtain credentials or money under false pretences.
• Personal data scraping. Collect, scrape, or aggregate user data systematically, by automated means or otherwise, except as expressly permitted in writing.
• Anti-product behaviour. Bypass the contentGuard (server-side filters that block URLs, phone numbers, and card numbers in topic content), Proof of Presence, rate limits, or any other security or safety mechanism.
• Reverse engineering and probing. Decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to derive source code, except where such restriction is prohibited by applicable law. Penetration testing requires our prior written permission.
• Interference. Introduce malware; engage in denial-of-service activity; manipulate the service to a degree that affects others' use.
• Intellectual property abuse. Post content that infringes another person's copyright, trademark, trade secret, right of publicity, or other intellectual or proprietary right.
• False reports. File reports you know to be false. Pattern-of-falsity is itself a violation.

Violation of any of the above is a material breach of these Terms and may result in immediate suspension or termination, with or without notice, and without refund of any paid upsell consumed.

Post only where you are.

To publish a topic, your device must be physically within 1 km of the publishing coordinates, with location freshness no older than 120 seconds. The server enforces this constraint.

You agree not to spoof, mock, simulate, or otherwise misrepresent your device location for the purpose of publishing a topic from a place where you are not. This includes use of GPS spoofing apps, virtual machines, or proxy services that present a false location.

Spoofing of location is a violation of these Terms and may result in immediate account termination and, where harm has occurred, civil liability.

Reports are private. Bans are silent and structural.

Other users can report you. Reports are private: the identity of the person who filed a report is not disclosed to the reported party. Reports are reviewed by our moderation function (automated systems and, where required, human review). Reports are not a public conversation between users.

To file a report, the reporting user must hold a verified phone number on their account. This caps the rate at which a single physical person can generate reports and discourages mass false reporting.

If three or more reports from verified users accumulate against an account in a 30-day window, we may apply an automatic shadow ban for up to 7 days. Posts during shadow ban are visible only to the author. Three shadow bans in a six-month period may result in a permanent ban, applied silently, without an obligation to notify or refund.

We may also act on reports manually, or take action without a report when our internal systems detect likely abuse.

Decisions to suspend or terminate are at our discretion. We are not required to provide a hearing or a right of appeal, except where applicable law expressly requires it.

You own it. You give us a licence to host it.

You retain all ownership rights in the topics, messages, profile information, and other content you publish through LOKIO ("Your Content").

By publishing Your Content on LOKIO, you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, display, distribute, transmit, modify (only to the extent necessary for technical operation, such as encoding for delivery), and remove Your Content, solely for the purpose of operating, providing, improving, and securing the service, and for moderation and enforcement of these Terms.

This licence ends when the corresponding piece of content is deleted, with the following exceptions:

• Backups, where the content remains until the backup is rotated on its scheduled lifecycle.
• Anonymised or aggregated derivatives, which contain no information that can identify you.
• Content held under a legal preservation obligation.

You represent and warrant that you own or hold all necessary rights to grant this licence, and that publication of Your Content does not violate any law or any other person's rights.

What you pay for. What is non-refundable.

The free baseline of LOKIO is permanently free. Posting, reading, joining, and chatting are not gated by payment, in any city, on any device, forever.

Boost — paid visibility amplification

A single paid product is offered, called Boost. Boost amplifies a pin's reach (geographic radius, time-to-live, priority in the map view, optional banner styling). Boost is the only paid surface in the product.

Boost is available in single purchases and a monthly bundle:

• Boost 1 day. From $2 at the published base tier.
• Boost 7 days. From $10 at the published base tier.
• Boost 30 days. From $25 at the published base tier.
• Boost Monthly. From $30/month at the published base tier. Every pin you publish during the month is boosted for 24 hours. No automatic re-billing — each month is a separate, deliberate purchase.

City tier ramp

The prices above are the base tier. Each city has a tier multiplier that ramps with platform activity in that city. The ramp starts after a free SEED_FLOOR threshold of approximately 500 active users in the city, after which prices begin to grow gradually with density. Early users in low-density cities pay close to zero; the price approaches the full base tier only as the city scales.

The current charged price for your city is displayed before purchase confirmation. By confirming the purchase, you accept that price.

Billing mechanics

• Payment is processed by Apple Pay or Google Pay. Your card data is never seen or stored by LOKIO.
• Each purchase is a single, discrete transaction. We do not run automatic subscription renewal. Boost Monthly does not auto-renew.
• Boost delivers visibility. Once a Boost has been delivered (the pin has been published with the paid amplification active), it is non-refundable.
• If a payment fails or is reversed by the platform, the corresponding amplification will be removed.
• Fraudulent purchases or chargebacks may result in immediate account suspension.

Tax (VAT, GST, sales tax) is charged where required by your jurisdiction and is included in or added to the published price as applicable. Prices are quoted in USD.

Service is provided as is.

::: shield "Disclaimer of warranties" To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranty of any kind, whether express, implied, statutory, or otherwise.

We expressly disclaim all warranties, including but not limited to: warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, reliability, availability, completeness, currency, security, or absence of errors or harmful components.

We do not warrant that the service will meet your requirements; that the service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free; that any content you encounter will be accurate, lawful, or non-infringing; or that any user you meet through the service is the person they appear to be, regardless of any trust indicators displayed for that user.

Our maximum liability to you is capped.

::: shield "Limitation of liability" To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall LOKIO, its operator, its affiliates, officers, directors, employees, contractors, agents, or licensors be liable to you for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, including but not limited to damages for loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, business opportunities, or intangible losses, regardless of the theory of liability (contract, tort, statute, or otherwise) and regardless of whether we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, our aggregate liability to you arising out of or relating to the service or these Terms shall not exceed the greater of (a) the total amount you paid to us in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred United States dollars (US $100).

The foregoing limitations apply whether the alleged liability is based on contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, or any other basis.

If your conduct causes us a loss, you reimburse us.

::: shield "Indemnification" You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless LOKIO, its operator, and its affiliates, officers, directors, employees, contractors, agents, and licensors from and against any and all claims, liabilities, damages, losses, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or relating to:

• Your access to or use of the service;
• Your violation of these Terms;
• Your violation of any applicable law or any rights of any third party, including any privacy, intellectual property, or publicity right;
• Any content you publish through the service;
• Your interactions with any other user, including any in-person meeting and any harm arising from it.

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 will cooperate with our defence.

Disputes are resolved one-on-one. No class actions.

::: shield "Binding individual arbitration" You and LOKIO agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the service ("Dispute") shall be resolved exclusively by final and binding individual arbitration, except for the carve-outs below.

Arbitration shall be administered by a recognised arbitration body in the jurisdiction of the operating company's incorporation. Until incorporation, arbitration shall be administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, in English, in Wilmington, Delaware, United States, or by remote videoconference at the consumer's request.

The arbitrator's decision shall be final and may be entered as a judgement in any court of competent jurisdiction.

How accounts end.

By you

You may delete your account at any time from settings, or by emailing hello@lokio.org.

When you initiate deletion, your account is immediately deactivated: your profile, your pins, your messages, and your presence become invisible to other users from that moment.

A 30-day grace period then begins. During the grace period:

• Your account is hidden but recoverable. If you sign in again at any point within 30 days, your account is fully restored, and your content reappears for other users.
• After 30 days without sign-in, your data is permanently and irreversibly deleted. This deletion cascades to your topics, messages, presence, and trust indicators.

Some records (payment records, anonymised logs, content held under legal preservation) are retained beyond the grace period as described in the Privacy Policy.

By us

We may suspend or terminate your account at any time, with or without notice, if:

• You violate these Terms or any applicable law;
• Your use creates risk or possible legal exposure for us or other users;
• Your account has been inactive for a prolonged period;
• We are required to do so by law or by a regulator;
• We discontinue the service in your jurisdiction or in general.

On termination, your right to use the service ends immediately. Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination will survive (Survival, below).

How to report infringement.

We respect intellectual property rights and respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with applicable law, including the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

To submit a notice, send the following to hello@lokio.org:

• Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed.
• Identification of the material on LOKIO that is claimed to be infringing, with sufficient specificity to permit us to locate it.
• Your contact information (name, address, telephone, email).
• A statement that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material is not authorised by the copyright 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 copyright owner or are authorised to act on the owner's behalf.
• Your physical or electronic signature.

We may forward your notice to the user who posted the allegedly infringing content. We may terminate the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe.

Counter-notices may be submitted by the affected user to the same email address with the corresponding statutory elements. We may restore the content if the original claimant does not file a court action within the period required by law.

Events beyond reasonable control.

Neither party shall be liable for any failure or delay in performance under these Terms (other than payment obligations) caused by events beyond that party's reasonable control, including acts of God, natural disasters, war, terrorism, riots, embargoes, acts of civil or military authorities, fires, floods, accidents, network outages, internet or hosting provider failures, cyberattacks, strikes, or shortages of transportation facilities, fuel, energy, labour, or materials. The affected party will use reasonable efforts to mitigate the effects.

Mechanics of this contract.

Entire agreement

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and us regarding the service and supersede any prior or contemporaneous understandings or communications.

No waiver

Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of the right to enforce it later. A waiver is effective only if in writing and signed by us.

Severability

If any provision of these Terms is held to be unenforceable or invalid, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect.

Assignment

You may not assign these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign these Terms, in whole or in part, in connection with a merger, acquisition, sale of assets, or by operation of law. The assignee will be bound by the same obligations.

No agency

No agency, partnership, joint venture, or employment relationship is created between you and us by these Terms.

Survival

The following sections survive termination: User Content (with respect to backups and anonymised data), No Warranties, Limitation of Liability, Indemnification, Arbitration and Class Action Waiver, DMCA, Governing Law, and any other section that by its nature should survive.

Contact and notices

Notices to us must be sent by email to hello@lokio.org. Notices to you may be delivered by email to the address associated with your account, by an in-product notice, or by posting to this page when these Terms are updated.

Which law applies.

Until incorporation of the operating company, these Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States of America, without regard to its conflict-of-laws provisions. Any disputes not subject to arbitration shall be brought exclusively in the state and federal courts located in Wilmington, Delaware, and you and we consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

At incorporation, this section will be updated to reflect the laws of the operating company's place of incorporation, and reasonable advance notice will be given.

Mandatory consumer protections in your country of residence (for example, the consumer protections of EU member states or the United Kingdom) apply regardless of the choice of law above, to the extent required by applicable law.

How updates work.

We may update these Terms to reflect changes in the product, the law, or the operating entity. Material changes will be:

• Posted to this page with an updated "Last updated" date.
• Announced inside the product to all signed-in users at least 14 days before they take effect, unless a faster change is required by law or to address an active risk to users.
• Logged in a publicly accessible changelog.

If you continue to use the service after the effective date of an updated version of these Terms, you accept the updated Terms. If you do not accept them, your remedy is to stop using the service and delete your account.

How to reach us.

::: contact-block hello@lokio.org

For DMCA notices, account compromise, GDPR/CCPA requests, arbitration opt-outs, and any other formal correspondence, write to the address above with the subject line indicating the type of request.