Terms of Service

1. The service and these Terms

These Terms govern the Orbis messaging, community and calling service, its website and connected applications. Orbis is operated by George Evans as an individual in Germany:

The account-creation notice links to these Terms and the Privacy policy. Before entering the chat interface, new and existing accounts are asked to review and explicitly agree to the current version. Your agreement is saved to your account. You can instead access account export, closure and support. The Privacy policy explains processing of personal data; agreeing to these Terms is not blanket consent to every use of data. Mandatory consumer and data-protection rights remain unaffected.

2. Eligibility and account security

You must be at least 16 years old to use Orbis. If you are under 18, obtain a parent or guardian’s permission where applicable law requires it. Do not misrepresent your age or identity to evade a restriction.

Provide a usable email address and accurate account information. Keep passwords, recovery codes and approved secret-chat devices secure; enable two-factor authentication where possible. Do not share, sell or transfer an account, impersonate someone, or use another person’s account without permission. Tell support promptly if your account is compromised. You remain responsible for your own conduct, but reporting a compromise lets us review the circumstances.

3. Your content and other people

You retain your rights in the content you submit. You give Orbis a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, copy, transmit, display and technically process that content only as needed to provide and secure the service, respect the audience/settings you choose, handle reports and meet legal obligations. Technical processing can include media conversion, thumbnails and delivery caching. This is not a transfer of ownership or a licence to use private messages in advertising.

Have the rights and lawful basis needed to share content and other people’s information. Respect copyright, privacy and confidentiality. People who receive content can copy or share it outside Orbis; encryption, disappearing interface elements or deleting your account cannot guarantee their copies disappear. Do not record calls or share another person’s voice, image or screen without the permission or legal basis required in your circumstances.

The service licence ends when the content is removed from the service, except for shared history retained under the disclosed deletion policy, restricted backups and information lawfully preserved for safety, disputes or legal obligations. Your statutory erasure rights remain available as explained in the Privacy policy.

4. Prohibited conduct

• Do not create, request, possess through the service, upload, distribute or facilitate CSAM, child sexual exploitation, grooming, sexual coercion or other illegal sexual material. This includes synthetic material where unlawful and any attempt to solicit abuse.
• Do not threaten violence, harass or exploit others, share non-consensual intimate content, publish private identifying information to harm someone, or promote unlawful hateful or violent conduct.
• Do not distribute malware, phishing or fraud; send spam; evade bans or security measures; abuse automation; steal credentials; or access, probe or disrupt accounts, private content or infrastructure without authorization.
• Do not infringe intellectual-property rights or use bots, music, uploads or external links in breach of applicable law or the relevant provider’s conditions. A small or private group is not an exemption from those requirements.
• Do not submit knowingly false reports, manipulate evidence, retaliate against a reporter or misuse moderation tools. Good-faith reports and appeals are welcome even if a concern cannot be substantiated.

Community and group administrators can set additional rules and permissions for their spaces. Those rules cannot authorize conduct prohibited by these Terms or applicable law.

5. Reports, restrictions and appeals

Report a message, account or room through the relevant in-app menu, or contact george@c-o.pw with a precise reference and explanation. Do not email illegal images or videos or forward suspected CSAM to other users. For an immediate danger, contact the appropriate emergency or law-enforcement service.

Orbis may apply proportionate measures such as removing or restricting content, limiting features, suspending or closing accounts, or restricting a room to protect users, enforce these Terms or comply with law. Security and anti-spam rules can act automatically. Authorized staff can review relevant ordinary content using scoped, audited access for a report or a documented serious concern. Secret-chat encryption is not bypassed by these tools; reporting a secret message requires an explicit disclosure from the reporting device as described in the Privacy policy.

Where required and permitted, we explain a restriction and provide an appeal or review route. Use the in-app appeal when available, or ask support for human review with the relevant notice/reference. We consider the context and potential mistakes. We may withhold details if disclosure is prohibited, creates a safety risk or would expose another person’s private information.

We may preserve relevant evidence or cooperate with competent authorities where a lawful basis applies. We cannot guarantee every item is reviewed before delivery or that detection tools identify all illegal material. Provider screening is not currently active merely because Orbis has applied for or obtained an API account.

6. Rooms, groups, bots and integrations

Owners and moderators are responsible for using their permissions lawfully and fairly. They can manage membership, roles and content within the controls available to them. Owning a room does not confer ownership of its members’ accounts or private information, or permission to bypass their privacy settings. Ownership transfers must use the supported account controls.

Optional GIF, music, calling, push and other external services have their own availability and terms. Enabling them can send the information described in the Privacy policy to a provider. Orbis does not grant music/media rights on a provider’s behalf, guarantee a particular catalogue, or promise an integration will remain available.

Software, artwork and service branding supplied by Orbis remain protected by their applicable intellectual-property rights and open-source licences. Use the official clients for their intended purpose; these Terms do not remove permissions granted by an applicable open-source licence.

7. Leaving Orbis and retained history

You can stop using Orbis, leave spaces where supported, export accessible account information and request account closure in Settings. Resolve any required room/group ownership transfer first. Contact support if you cannot access those controls.

Closure revokes account access. A limited 30-day recovery window may allow authorized staff to help with a mistaken or compromised-account deletion; it does not guarantee restoration. Shared messages and attachments remain under “Deleted account” rather than automatically disappearing. Delete content beforehand where the controls allow, or make a specific erasure request. Backup, report-evidence and legal-preservation limits are explained in the Privacy policy.

Terms that are needed to deal with retained content, lawful preservation or a dispute continue only for that purpose. Closure does not remove your statutory rights.

8. Availability and responsibility

Orbis includes evolving and preview features. Availability, delivery times and device compatibility can be affected by maintenance, networks, operating-system permissions and external providers. It is not an emergency communications service. Keep your own copies of information you need independently of the service.

We may change or retire features for operational, security or legal reasons and will provide reasonable notice of material adverse changes where required and feasible. A future paid feature would require clear pricing and separate purchase conditions; publishing updated Terms alone does not authorize a charge.

Nothing here excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including liability for intent, gross negligence, injury to life, body or health, or mandatory statutory liability. For ordinary negligence in breach of an essential contractual obligation, liability is limited only to foreseeable damage typical of the service to the extent permitted by law. No provision limits your mandatory consumer rights or lawful remedies.

9. Law, updates and contact

German law applies to the extent permitted, without depriving a consumer of mandatory protections applicable in their country of habitual residence. Statutory jurisdiction and complaint rights remain unchanged; these Terms do not impose a mandatory foreign court or private arbitration.

We publish a date and version for changes and give notice or request acceptance where legally required. Changes do not retroactively create consent to unrelated processing of personal data. If a provision is unenforceable, the applicable law governs that issue and the remaining provisions continue where lawful.

Questions, legal notices and review requests can be sent to george@c-o.pw or the postal address above. See the Legal notice for the current operator’s contact details.