Terms of Service

By downloading or using Offing you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the app. Please read section 4 in particular — it is the part that gets people removed.

1. Who may use Offing

You must be at least 13 years old to use Offing. If you are under the age of majority where you live, you may only use the app with the involvement of a parent or guardian who agrees to these terms on your behalf.

You may not use Offing if you have previously been removed for violating these terms, or if the law where you are prohibits you from doing so.

2. What Offing is

Offing is a peer-to-peer app. Your phone talks directly to other phones over Bluetooth and relays their messages onward. There is no Offing server, no account, and no central service that sits between users.

This has consequences you should understand before you use it:

• Content moves directly between users' devices. We never see it, host it, or store it.
• Content you post is relayed by other people's phones and can travel beyond the people you can physically see.
• We cannot delete content from someone else's device, and neither can you.
• The app depends on other Offing users being physically near you. With nobody around, there is no network.

3. Your content

You own what you create. We claim no ownership over your posts, photos, or messages, and because we operate no servers we hold no copy of them.

You are solely responsible for everything you publish through Offing, and you confirm that you have the right to publish it and that it does not infringe anyone else's rights.

By posting to the public feed you accept that your post is broadcast unencrypted to everyone running the app in range, is relayed onward by their devices, and cannot be recalled once sent.

4. Rules of conduct

You agree not to use Offing to create, send, relay, or solicit any of the following. This list is what we mean by objectionable content.

• Sexual content involving minors, in any form. This is reported to the relevant authorities without exception.
• Pornographic or sexually explicit material, and sexual solicitation or prostitution.
• Harassment, bullying, stalking, or intimidation of any person.
• Threats of violence, incitement to violence, or content that promotes or glorifies terrorism or violent extremism.
• Hate speech — content attacking people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, religion, disability, disease, age, sex, gender identity, or sexual orientation.
• Doxxing — publishing another person's private information, including their home address, workplace, phone number, or precise location, without their consent.
• Non-consensual intimate imagery, or any image of a person taken or shared without their consent.
• Impersonation of another person, or claiming a handle in order to deceive.
• Illegal goods and services, including the sale of drugs, weapons, or stolen property.
• Spam, scams, phishing, fraud, or bulk unsolicited messaging.
• Malware, or content designed to damage or disrupt other users' devices or the mesh itself.
• Interference with the network — flooding, deliberate battery drain attacks, forging other users' identities, or attempting to defeat the app's encryption or rate limits.

You also agree not to reverse-engineer the app in order to attack other users, to use it for any unlawful purpose, or to use it in a way that violates the law where you are.

5. Reporting and blocking

Offing gives you two controls, and we ask you to use them.

Block takes effect instantly and entirely on your device. A blocked user's content disappears from your feeds, they vanish from your radar and people lists, everything their device sends you is refused, and your phone stops relaying their content onward to anyone else. It needs no network and no permission from us.

Report sends the details to us at support@offing.xyz. We commit to reviewing every report and acting on it within 24 hours. Full details of what happens to a report are on the support page.

6. Enforcement, and its limits

We want to be straight with you about what enforcement can mean on a network with no servers, because a vaguer promise would be a false one.

What happens immediately, on your device: reporting a user also blocks them, purges their content from your phone, and stops your device relaying anything of theirs. That protection is instant and does not depend on us.

What we do when we receive a report: we review it within 24 hours. Where a report identifies a violation of section 4, we will take every step available to us, which includes revoking that user's right to use Offing under these terms, shipping app updates that refuse content from the reported identity key, referring the matter to law enforcement where the content is criminal, and reporting the account to Apple or Google where their policies apply.

What we cannot do: we cannot reach into other people's phones to delete content, because we have no connection to them. Content on the mesh expires on its own within hours, which limits how long anything survives, but during that window we cannot recall it. Anyone who has already received a message keeps their copy until it expires. We are telling you this plainly so you can make an informed decision about what you share.

7. Meeting people in person

Offing shows you people who are physically near you, and it is designed to help you meet them. We do not perform background checks, identity verification, or any screening of users, and we could not — there are no accounts.

Handles are self-chosen and unverified. Anyone can claim any name. The in-app QR verification exists so that you can confirm someone's identity face to face; until you have done that, treat a handle as a claim rather than a fact.

You are responsible for your own safety. Meet in public, tell someone where you are going, and trust your judgement. We are not responsible for the conduct of any user, online or off.

8. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy forms part of these terms. In short: we collect nothing, because there is no server to collect it. What the app does broadcast to people near you is set out in section 4 of that policy, and you should read it before posting.

9. Availability and changes

Offing is provided as-is and we make no promise that it will be available, uninterrupted, or error-free. Bluetooth range, device limits, battery optimisation, and the number of people around you all affect whether the app works at any given moment.

We may change, suspend, or discontinue any part of the app at any time. We may update these terms; if we make a material change we will update the date at the top and, where the change is significant, surface it in the app. Continuing to use Offing after a change means you accept the revised terms.

10. Intellectual property

The Offing name, logo, design, and software are ours. These terms grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the app on devices you own or control, for your own non-commercial use. You may not copy, sell, sublicense, or redistribute the app, or remove any proprietary notices from it.

11. Disclaimer of warranties

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Offing is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, or non-infringement.

We specifically do not warrant that messages will be delivered, that they will be delivered in a timely way, or that the app is suitable for emergency communication. Do not rely on Offing in an emergency. Use the emergency services number for your country.

12. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, profits, or goodwill, arising from your use of Offing or from the conduct of any other user.

Our total liability to you for any claim relating to Offing is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us for the app in the twelve months before the claim, or ten US dollars.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or liabilities. Where that is the case, the exclusions above apply to you only to the extent permitted, and nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.

13. Termination

You may stop using Offing at any time by deleting the app, which also deletes your local data and identity key.

We may terminate your licence to use Offing immediately and without notice if you violate these terms, in particular section 4. Because there are no accounts, termination means your right to use the app ends and any continued use is unlicensed; it is enforced through the measures described in section 6.

14. App Store terms

If you downloaded Offing from the Apple App Store, you acknowledge that these terms are between you and us, not Apple; that Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support; that Apple is not responsible for any product warranty or for addressing any claim relating to the app; and that Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you. Equivalent terms apply to Google in respect of Google Play.

15. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of that place, except that you may bring a claim in your local courts where consumer law where you live gives you that right.

Nothing in these terms takes away consumer rights that cannot be waived under the law where you live.

16. Contact

Offing is operated by Nikhil Kishore, an individual developer based in Pennsylvania, United States. Offing is a free, non-commercial project.

Questions about these terms, or reports of abuse: support@offing.xyz.