Terms of Service

These Terms govern your use of Ustaad, operated by [COMPANY LEGAL NAME], [REGISTERED ADDRESS], registration no. [REGISTRATION NO.] (“we”, “us”). Version 2026-11-10. Contact legal@ustaad.io.

If you live in the European Union or the United Kingdom, nothing in these Terms removes consumer rights that the law does not allow us to waive.

1. The service

Ustaad is a host. People publish a link, receive questions, answer them, post photos, create events, and message. We provide the software. We are an intermediary, not the publisher of user content. We do not adopt a question, answer, photo, comment, or message as our own by storing or displaying it. The Disclaimer says the same in full: user content is not endorsed, hints are estimates, and Ustaad is not professional advice.

You must be at least 16. People aged 13 to 15 may not use Ustaad. If you are 16 or 17, private messages stay off until you confirm you are 18, and you should not share contact details with strangers.

2. Your account

You sign up with an email and a handle. You are responsible for activity under your account and for keeping access to your email. One person, one account. Do not impersonate anyone.

By signing up you confirm that you are 16 or older and that you agree to these Terms and the Privacy Policy. We store the time you accepted them and the terms version.

3. Your content

You are solely responsible for content you submit: questions, answers, captions, comments, photos, event details, and messages. You promise you have the right to submit it and that it does not break these Terms or the law.

You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive licence to host, store, reproduce, translate for moderation, display, and distribute that content solely to operate Ustaad, including public profile pages and share cards you choose to post. The licence ends when the content is deleted from our systems, except for copies we must keep for a legal duty, a dispute, or a safety investigation.

Anonymity is a product setting, not a legal shield. We do not promise that no one can ever connect a question to a person. We cooperate with lawful requests from law enforcement and courts. See Law enforcement.

4. Prohibited conduct

You may not use Ustaad to do any of the following:

  • Harass, bully, threaten, or intimidate.
  • Post hate against a person or group based on race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or similar grounds.
  • Doxx: publish someone else’s private contact, address, workplace, school, or identity without a lawful reason and their consent.
  • Post or request sexual content involving anyone under 18. This is forbidden absolutely. We report it where the law requires.
  • Promote self-harm or suicide. Crisis content is not delivered; we show helplines.
  • Impersonate a person, a company, or us.
  • Send spam, scams, phishing, or malware.
  • Post illegal content, including content that infringes copyright or breaks Pakistan’s Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 (PECA).
  • Try to uncover who sent an anonymous question beyond the honest hints described in the Privacy Policy.
  • Probe, scrape, or overload the service.

5. Moderation

We may remove content, refuse to deliver it, limit features, suspend, or ban an account for any lawful reason, at our sole discretion. That includes a breach of these Terms, a risk to someone, a legal request, or a repeat pattern of abuse. We do not owe you a particular moderation outcome.

For people in the EU, we follow the Digital Services Act notice-and-action process described on Report illegal content. We aim to review a complete notice within 24 hours. You can appeal a removal. We record moderation and takedown actions, with timestamps, in an audit log.

Repeat infringers lose the service. A person who keeps sending illegal or prohibited content after a warning or a removal can be banned.

6. Premium

Asking, answering, and the inbox are free. Premium is an optional monthly subscription for honest who-asked hints and the ability to start an anonymous chat. Checkout, when it is switched on, is handled by Paddle as merchant of record. Paddle’s buyer terms apply to the payment. The subscription renews until you cancel. You can cancel anytime, effective at the end of the period already paid. Refunds follow applicable consumer law and Paddle’s refund policy. We do not use Stripe.

Hints are not an identity. They show only signals that were actually stored: country or city if the network sent one, device type, time, and whether that sender signal asked before. A blank hint means the signal was absent. We do not invent a name.

7. No warranties

Ustaad is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, quiet enjoyment, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, that moderation will catch every violation, or that anonymity will hold against a court order.

8. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, data, or goodwill. Our total liability arising out of the service in any 12 month period is capped at the fees you paid us in those 12 months, or USD 50, whichever is greater.

This cap does not apply where the law forbids it, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, or any liability that cannot be limited under the law of your country. If you are a consumer in the EU, your statutory rights remain.

9. Indemnity

You will indemnify [COMPANY LEGAL NAME] and its directors and staff against claims, damages, and reasonable legal costs arising from your content, your misuse of Ustaad, or your breach of these Terms, except to the extent the claim is caused by our own legal fault.

10. Law, disputes, and PECA

These Terms are governed by the laws of Pakistan, including PECA 2016 where it applies to electronic content. Courts in Pakistan have jurisdiction, except that a consumer in the EU or the UK may bring a claim in the courts of their place of residence where the law gives them that right, and mandatory consumer protections of that place still apply.

Before filing a claim, email legal@ustaad.io and give us 30 days to try to resolve it. That pause does not apply to urgent injunctive relief or to a complaint to a regulator.

11. Changes, termination, severability

We may change these Terms. If the change is material we will post the new version and update the version date. If you keep using Ustaad after the new version takes effect, you accept it. If you do not agree, stop using Ustaad and delete your account.

You may stop at any time by deleting your account in Settings. We may suspend or end the service, or your account, as described above. Sections that should survive, including content responsibility, liability, indemnity, and governing law, survive termination.

If a court holds part of these Terms unenforceable, the rest stays in force.