Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a legal agreement between you and Markero (“Markero”, “we”, “us”, “our”) for the use of chat.markero.eu, the Markero Android app, and related services (together, the “Service”). By creating an account, accessing, or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Eligibility

• You must be at least 16 years old, or the age of digital consent in your country if that is higher, and in any event not under 13. If you are under 18, you must have permission from a parent or legal guardian.
• You must have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms. If you use the Service for an organization, you confirm that you are authorised to bind it.
• You must not be barred from using the Service by applicable law, including EU or US sanctions and export-control rules.
• You may not create accounts to evade limits, bans, safety measures, or these Terms.

2. Your account and security

• You are responsible for keeping your password, authenticator, recovery codes, and devices secure. Anyone with your credentials or an unlocked device may be able to access your account.
• You are responsible for activity under your account. Contact us promptly if you believe your account has been compromised.
• Usernames are public identifiers. Do not impersonate another person, organization, or Markero staff member. You do not acquire ownership of a username.
• Account deletion is available in the app. Deletion is irreversible; encrypted messages and files cannot be recovered by us because we cannot decrypt them.

3. Privacy and data protection

Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect, why, how long we keep it, and your rights under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”), the UK GDPR where applicable, and US state privacy laws including the California Consumer Privacy Act as amended by the CPRA (“CCPA/CPRA”). It is incorporated into these Terms.

• Data controller: Markero, contactable at [email protected].
• Encrypted content: messages and files are encrypted on your device. We store ciphertext and cannot read it, decrypt it, or recover your private key from stored data.
• Metadata: we process account, delivery, device/session, group, call, and payment metadata to operate and secure the Service, comply with law, and prevent abuse.
• No sale: we do not sell your personal information and do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising.

4. Acceptable use — no abuse, no illegal activity

You must use the Service only for lawful purposes and in compliance with all applicable laws, including EU law, US federal and state law, sanctions and export controls, and the laws of your own country. You must not use the Service to commit, facilitate, conceal, or profit from illegal activity.

In particular, you must not use the Service to:

• commit or facilitate a crime, fraud, money laundering, terrorist financing, or tax evasion;
• create, request, share, or distribute child sexual abuse material (“CSAM”) or any content that sexually exploits or endangers a child;
• promote terrorism, violent extremism, organized crime, or serious violence;
• threaten, stalk, harass, bully, or incite hatred or violence against a person or group;
• share non-consensual intimate images or private sexual content, or intimate images of anyone who has not consented;
• doxx, expose, or misuse another person’s private information, or conduct unauthorized surveillance or stalking;
• impersonate any person or organization, or engage in phishing, scams, romance fraud, or deceptive schemes;
• send spam, unsolicited bulk messages, chain letters, or automated messages that violate applicable law;
• distribute malware, ransomware, spyware, viruses, or links designed to steal credentials or compromise devices;
• access, probe, scan, or attack the Service, its servers, or another user’s account without authorization;
• infringe copyright, trademarks, trade secrets, or other intellectual-property rights, or distribute pirated material;
• trade or facilitate illegal drugs, weapons, stolen goods, human trafficking, or other illegal goods or services;
• evade security, moderation, rate limits, storage limits, bans, or age restrictions;
• scrape, crawl, benchmark, load-test, or otherwise place unreasonable automated load on the Service without our written permission;
• mine cryptocurrency, resell the Service, or use it as a general-purpose file host or CDN;
• violate EU or US sanctions, export controls, or use the Service for prohibited military, nuclear, chemical, biological, or missile-related activities; or
• violate any other person’s rights or any applicable law.

Nothing in this section is intended to restrict lawful whistleblowing, journalism, activism, political speech, or other protected expression. We apply these rules consistently and only to the extent permitted by law.

5. Encrypted content and moderation

Markero uses end-to-end encryption. We cannot read the content of your messages or files, and we do not proactively scan private messages. This is a core feature of the Service, but it is not a licence to abuse it.

• We may act on reports, abuse signals, metadata, account behaviour, and valid legal orders. We may preserve metadata and account records, suspend or terminate accounts, and report apparent criminal activity to competent authorities where the law requires or permits it.
• CSAM and child safety: we have zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation. We may report apparent CSAM to the relevant authorities, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in the United States and equivalent authorities in the EU.
• EU Digital Services Act: if you believe content or an account is illegal, report it to [email protected] with the username, a description, and any available evidence. We will review notices, take appropriate action, and provide reasons for restrictions where required. You may appeal a moderation decision by replying to our notice.
• We cannot decrypt stored messages for you, for other users, or for law enforcement. A legal request for message content must be directed to the account holder or their device.
• Private channels: channel posts and files are end-to-end encrypted with a channel key. Channel names, descriptions, avatars, membership, admin roles, invite metadata, timestamps and delivery data are visible to us. Private channels are not searchable or publicly listed; access is controlled by invite links, which are bearer secrets. Anyone with a working invite link can join until it expires, is revoked, or reaches its join limit. Channel owners and admins are responsible for who they invite and for the content they publish. If an owner or admin account is deleted, the channel is preserved but locked: no new members, posts or settings changes are accepted, and remaining members may leave.

6. Your content and licence

• You retain ownership of the content you create and send. You grant us a limited, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, transmit, store, back up, and display your content solely to operate and secure the Service. We do not use your content for advertising, profiling, or training machine-learning models.
• You represent that you have the rights and consents needed to send your content, including any intimate images and any recording of another person. Do not record calls or conversations without the consent required by law.
• We do not endorse user content and, to the extent permitted by law, are not responsible for it. We are not obliged to monitor private content, but we may act on reports and legal requests.

7. Payments and Premium

• Markero may offer an optional paid supporter tier (“Premium”). Prices are shown in US dollars. Premium plans are one-time purchases for the stated period and do not auto-renew.
• Crypto payments are processed by NOWPayments. We do not receive or store your card details or wallet private keys. Blockchain transactions are irreversible, and network fees are your responsibility.
• Prices may exclude taxes. Where required, applicable taxes may be added or collected. You are responsible for any taxes arising from your purchase.
• Refunds: except where mandatory consumer law requires otherwise, purchases are non-refundable. If you are an EU/EEA consumer, you normally have a 14-day right of withdrawal; by purchasing Premium you expressly request immediate access to the digital service and acknowledge that you lose that right once access has begun, to the extent permitted by law. This does not affect your rights if the Service is defective or not as described.
• We may suspend or terminate Premium for fraud, chargebacks, sanctions, or breach of these Terms, without refund where permitted by law. If we discontinue a paid feature, we will provide a pro-rata refund or alternative remedy where required by law.
• The free trial is limited to one per account and may be changed or withdrawn at any time.
• Channel limits: a free account may own one private channel with up to 50 subscribers and 250 MB of channel storage. Premium allows up to 5 channels, unlimited subscribers and 1 GB of channel storage per channel. Premium trial channels are limited to 1,000 subscribers and 1 GB of channel storage while the trial is active. If Premium expires, existing members and files remain but new joins and uploads are blocked while the channel is above the free limits. Limits are measured on subscribers, not owners or admins.

8. Copyright and DMCA

We respect intellectual-property rights. If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, send a notice to [email protected] with: your contact details; identification of the copyrighted work; the username or location of the allegedly infringing material; a statement of good-faith belief that the use is unauthorized; a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized to act; and your physical or electronic signature.

We may remove or restrict access to material, notify the account holder, and terminate repeat infringers. If you believe your content was removed by mistake, you may send a counter-notice with the same contact and identification details and a statement consenting to jurisdiction where required. We handle copyright complaints in accordance with the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act and applicable EU law. Our copyright contact is [email protected]; if a formal DMCA agent designation is required, we will provide the current registered agent details on request.

9. Law enforcement and legal requests

We comply with valid legal process, including subpoenas, court orders, and warrants where applicable. We may disclose account metadata, session and security logs, group membership, call metadata, and payment records. We cannot disclose plaintext message content or private keys because we do not hold them. We may notify affected users unless prohibited by law or where notice would create a risk of harm. Emergency safety requests should be sent to [email protected] with “Urgent safety” in the subject.

10. Sanctions and export controls

The Service is not available to persons or entities subject to EU, US, UK, or UN sanctions, or located in comprehensively sanctioned jurisdictions. You represent that you are not on any restricted-party list and will not use the Service for prohibited export-controlled activities, including nuclear, chemical, biological, or missile-related applications. We may block or terminate accounts and report transactions where required.

11. Service availability and changes

• Markero is an early-stage service provided on an “as available” basis. We may change, suspend, or discontinue features, and we do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation.
• We rely on third-party infrastructure and services, including Cloudflare, hosting, push providers, GIPHY, and NOWPayments. We are not responsible for their acts or omissions.
• Not for emergencies: Markero is not an emergency service. Do not rely on it for life-critical, medical, or emergency communications; use local emergency numbers.

12. Disclaimers

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, security, or uninterrupted availability. End-to-end encryption depends on your device, browser, and operating system; we cannot protect you if your device is compromised or your credentials are shared. Nothing in these Terms excludes warranties or rights that cannot be excluded under applicable consumer law.

13. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Markero will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, loss of goodwill, or business interruption, arising from or related to the Service or these Terms. Our total aggregate liability for all claims will not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or (b) EUR 100.

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, gross negligence, wilful misconduct, or any liability that cannot be limited under applicable law. If you are an EU/EEA or UK consumer, you keep the mandatory protections of your country of residence. If you are a US consumer, nothing here waives rights that cannot be waived under applicable state or federal law.

14. Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold Markero harmless from third-party claims, damages, losses, and reasonable legal costs arising from your breach of these Terms, your content, or your misuse of the Service. We will notify you of a covered claim and may participate in its defence. This section does not apply to the extent a claim is caused by our own negligence or wilful misconduct, and it does not limit mandatory consumer rights.

15. Suspension and termination

• You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time.
• We may suspend or terminate your access if we reasonably believe you have breached these Terms, created a legal or security risk, used the Service for illegal activity, or if required by law. Where appropriate and lawful, we will give notice and an opportunity to appeal.
• We may act immediately in urgent cases, including CSAM, credible threats, fraud, or attacks on the Service.
• On termination, your right to use the Service ends. Data is handled as described in the Privacy Policy. Sections that by their nature should survive, including content licences needed for backups, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnity, and governing law, will survive.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the Service and applicable law evolve. Material changes will be posted on this page and, where required, notified in the app at least 7 days before they take effect. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance. If you do not agree, stop using the Service and delete your account.

17. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Lithuania, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Subject to the paragraph below, the courts of Vilnius, Lithuania, have exclusive jurisdiction.

If you are a consumer in the EU/EEA or UK, you may also bring proceedings in the courts of your country of residence and you retain the mandatory consumer protections of that country. If you are a US consumer, you may have additional rights under your state’s law. Before filing a claim, please contact us at [email protected] and allow 30 days for informal resolution. Nothing prevents you from contacting a consumer-protection or data-protection authority.

18. General

• These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and Markero regarding the Service.
• If any provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect.
• Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver.
• You may not assign these Terms without our consent. We may assign them to a successor or affiliate, subject to applicable law.
• We are not liable for delays caused by events beyond our reasonable control.
• This English version controls. Translations, if provided, are for convenience only.

19. Contact

Questions about these Terms, abuse reports, copyright notices, and legal requests: [email protected].

For privacy requests, see the Privacy Policy. For security reports, see our Security page.