Terms of Service
Version 1.1 — Effective July 25, 2026 Last reviewed: July 25, 2026
These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the ChatYAML platform ("ChatYAML", "we", "us", "our") available at chatyaml.com. By creating an account or using the platform in any way, you agree to these Terms.
Quick Summary
| What | Detail |
|---|---|
| You own your content | Posts, comments, and profile content remain yours |
| We host your content | You grant us a licence to store and display your content on the platform |
| Membership is paid | Full access requires an active subscription; guests can read a preview |
| Acceptable use applies | No spam, harassment, illegal content, or abuse of the platform |
| We can suspend accounts | For violations of these Terms or applicable law |
| Liability is limited | We provide the platform as-is with no guarantees |
| Contact | Use the contact form at /contact |
1. Definitions
- "Platform" means the ChatYAML website, application, and all associated services.
- "Content" means any post, comment, profile information, publication, or other material you submit to the platform.
- "Member" means a user with an active paid subscription.
- "Guest" means a visitor who has not created an account or whose subscription is not active.
- "Writer" means a Member who creates and publishes posts.
- "Publication" means a named collection of posts created and managed by a Member.
2. Eligibility
2.1 Age requirements
You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. In the European Union, you must be at least 16 years old (or have verifiable parental consent if younger). In India, you must be at least 18 years old (or have verifiable parental consent if younger). In Australia, you must be at least 18 years old to subscribe.
If you are under the applicable minimum age, you may not create an account or use the platform.
2.2 Capacity
By agreeing to these Terms, you represent that:
- You are of legal age to form a binding contract in your jurisdiction.
- You have the authority to bind any organisation on whose behalf you are using the platform.
- You are not prohibited from using the platform under the laws of your jurisdiction.
3. Accounts
3.1 Registration
To access most platform features, you must register an account with a valid email address and a unique username (3–20 characters, lowercase letters, numbers, and underscores only). You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials.
3.2 Accuracy
You agree to provide accurate and up-to-date registration information. Impersonating another person or entity, or creating a username that is misleading as to your identity, is prohibited.
3.3 Security
You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us immediately via /contact if you become aware of any unauthorised access to your account. We are not liable for any loss arising from your failure to protect your credentials.
3.4 One account per person
You may not create multiple accounts to circumvent a suspension or ban, or to abuse the platform in any way.
4. Membership and Payments
4.1 Paid membership
Full access to ChatYAML requires an active paid membership. We offer monthly and annual billing plans. Exact pricing is displayed on the membership page at /membership and is subject to change with reasonable notice.
Membership gives you the right to:
- Read all published posts in full.
- Create and publish posts.
- Comment and react to posts.
- Follow authors and publications.
- Create and manage publications.
4.2 Billing
You authorise us to charge the payment method you provide through Stripe on a recurring basis (monthly or annually) until you cancel. Payments are processed by Stripe, Inc. We do not store your card details.
4.3 Cancellation
You may cancel your subscription at any time from Settings → Account → Manage subscription. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. You will retain full access until the period ends. We do not provide refunds for partial periods unless required by applicable law.
4.4 Failed payments
If a payment fails, your subscription status will change to past-due (past_due). We will display a prominent notice on the platform. You retain full access during a grace period while Stripe retries the payment. If payment is not resolved within the grace period, your subscription will be cancelled and your access will be downgraded to guest level.
4.5 Refunds
We offer refunds at our discretion. If you believe you are entitled to a refund, contact us via /contact within 14 days of the charge. We will always honour refund rights required by consumer protection law in your jurisdiction (for example, the 14-day cooling-off right under EU/UK consumer law for digital services).
4.6 Taxes
Prices displayed may exclude applicable taxes (VAT, GST, sales tax). Applicable taxes will be displayed at checkout and added to your invoice.
5. Your Content
5.1 You own your content
All posts, comments, profile information, and other content you create on ChatYAML remain your intellectual property. We do not claim ownership of your content.
5.2 Licence you grant us
By submitting content to the platform, you grant ChatYAML a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable licence to:
- Store, reproduce, and distribute your content on the platform.
- Display your content to other users of the platform.
- Generate preview images and metadata (such as Open Graph images) from your content.
- Cache your content to improve platform performance.
This licence is limited to operating and improving the platform. We will not use your content for advertising, sell it to third parties, or use it to train machine learning models without your explicit consent.
5.3 Content you publish is public
When you publish a post, its content, title, participant names, and categories become publicly accessible — including to search engines. Unpublishing a post removes it from the platform but does not guarantee removal from search engine caches.
5.4 Representations and warranties
By submitting content, you represent and warrant that:
- You own or have the necessary rights to the content.
- The content does not infringe any third party's intellectual property rights, privacy rights, or other legal rights.
- The content complies with these Terms and all applicable laws.
5.5 Content removal
We reserve the right to remove content that violates these Terms or applicable law, with or without notice. We will not be liable to you for any content removal.
6. Acceptable Use
6.1 Permitted use
The platform is intended for writing and reading chat-style articles. You may use it for personal, educational, journalistic, creative, and commercial publishing purposes within these Terms.
6.2 Prohibited conduct
You must not:
Content violations:
- Post content that is defamatory, fraudulent, deceptive, or misleading.
- Post content that constitutes hate speech, harassment, or threats against any person or group.
- Post content that sexualises minors in any way.
- Post content that glorifies or promotes violence, terrorism, or self-harm.
- Post content that infringes intellectual property rights.
- Post content that contains private information about another person without their consent (doxxing).
- Post spam, unsolicited advertising, or content designed to manipulate engagement metrics.
Platform abuse:
- Attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the platform or any other user's account.
- Use the platform to transmit malware, viruses, or any malicious code.
- Scrape or harvest platform content or user data using automated tools without our written permission.
- Circumvent technical measures we use to enforce these Terms.
- Use multiple accounts to evade a suspension or to artificially inflate engagement metrics.
- Interfere with the platform's availability or performance.
- Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble any part of the platform.
Legal violations:
- Use the platform in a way that violates any applicable law or regulation.
- Process personal data of other users collected via the platform in violation of applicable privacy law.
6.3 Reporting violations
If you encounter content that violates these Terms, contact us via /contact. We will investigate and take appropriate action.
7. Publications
7.1 Creating publications
Active members may create publications — named collections of posts — without limit. You are responsible for the content published in any publication you own.
7.2 Managing writers
As a publication owner, you may invite other members to contribute posts. You are responsible for ensuring that writers you invite comply with these Terms. We may remove a publication that violates these Terms.
7.3 Intellectual property in publications
Posts contributed to a publication remain the intellectual property of the individual post author. Contributing a post to a publication does not transfer ownership to the publication owner.
8. Intellectual Property
8.1 Platform ownership
ChatYAML, its logo, design, software, and all platform-level content (not user-submitted) are owned by us or our licensors and are protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws.
8.2 Feedback
If you submit feedback, suggestions, or ideas about the platform, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free licence to use that feedback for any purpose without obligation to you.
8.3 Copyright notices
If you believe content on the platform infringes your copyright, contact us via /contact with the following information:
- Identification of the copyrighted work.
- Identification of the allegedly infringing content and its location on the platform.
- Your contact information.
- A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorised.
- A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and you are the rights holder or authorised to act on their behalf.
We will respond to valid notices in accordance with applicable law.
9. Suspension and Termination
9.1 Termination by you
You may delete your account at any time from Settings → Danger Zone → Delete my account. Deletion is immediate and permanent. All your content, posts, comments, and data will be removed. This action cannot be undone.
9.2 Suspension or termination by us
We may suspend or terminate your account if you:
- Violate these Terms or our policies.
- Engage in conduct that we reasonably believe is harmful to other users, third parties, or the platform.
- Fail to pay your subscription fees.
- Are required to be removed by applicable law or court order.
Where possible, we will give you notice and an opportunity to remedy a violation before taking action. However, we may act immediately without notice for serious violations.
9.3 Effect of termination
Upon termination:
- Your access to the platform will cease immediately.
- Published posts will be unpublished and removed.
- Your subscription (if any) will be cancelled without a refund for the remaining period, unless required by law.
- Provisions of these Terms that by their nature survive termination (including ownership, disclaimers, liability limitations, and dispute resolution) will continue to apply.
9.4 Appeals
If you believe your account was suspended or terminated in error, contact us via /contact. We will review your case in good faith.
10. Disclaimers
10.1 Platform provided as-is
THE PLATFORM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.
10.2 No guarantee of availability
We do not guarantee that the platform will be available at all times, uninterrupted, or free from errors. We may suspend or modify the platform at any time for maintenance, updates, or other operational reasons.
10.3 Third-party content
We are not responsible for content submitted by users. We do not endorse, verify, or assume any responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or legality of user-submitted content.
10.4 Third-party services
The platform integrates with third-party services (Stripe, Supabase, Upstash, Vercel, Google Fonts). We are not responsible for the availability, security, or practices of those services.
11. Limitation of Liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW:
- WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE PLATFORM, INCLUDING LOSS OF DATA, LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF GOODWILL, OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION.
- OUR TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR YOUR USE OF THE PLATFORM SHALL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO US IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM, OR (B) £100 GBP (OR EQUIVALENT).
Some jurisdictions do not allow exclusion or limitation of certain damages. In those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the greatest extent permitted by law.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, or any other liability that applicable consumer protection law prohibits us from limiting.
12. Indemnification
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless ChatYAML and its officers, employees, and licensors from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from:
- Your use of the platform.
- Your content.
- Your violation of these Terms.
- Your violation of any law or third-party rights.
13. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution
13.1 Governing law
These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales, without regard to conflict of law principles.
13.2 Dispute resolution
We encourage you to contact us first to resolve any dispute informally via /contact. We will try to address your concern within 30 days.
If a dispute cannot be resolved informally, it may be referred to the courts of England and Wales, which shall have exclusive jurisdiction. Nothing in this clause prevents you from bringing a claim in the courts of the country where you ordinarily reside, where required by applicable consumer protection law.
EU/UK consumers: You may also use the European Commission's Online Dispute Resolution platform at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr or the UK's Competent Authority for Alternative Dispute Resolution, where applicable.
14. Consumer Rights (EU and UK)
If you are a consumer in the EU or UK:
- You have a 14-day right to withdraw from a paid subscription from the date of first payment. To exercise this right, contact us via /contact before the 14 days expire. Where you have already used the service during this period, we may charge a proportionate amount.
- Nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights under EU or UK consumer protection law.
- EU consumers may access their applicable national consumer protection rights through their local consumer authority or the European Consumer Centre network.
15. Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by:
- Posting a notice on the platform.
- Sending an in-app notification to account holders.
- Updating the "Effective date" at the top of this page.
Your continued use of the platform after the effective date of updated Terms constitutes your acceptance of the changes. If you do not agree to the updated Terms, you must stop using the platform and may delete your account.
Version History
| Version | Date | Summary of Changes |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | 2026-07-25 | Corrected the failed-payment status (the past-due state is past_due, not "paused"); added this version history. |
| 1.0 | 2026-06-26 | Initial comprehensive Terms of Service. |
16. General
16.1 Entire agreement
These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and ChatYAML regarding the platform and supersede all prior agreements.
16.2 Severability
If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, that provision will be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, and the remaining provisions will continue in full force.
16.3 No waiver
Our failure to enforce any provision of these Terms is not a waiver of our right to do so in the future.
16.4 Assignment
You may not assign your rights or obligations under these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign our rights and obligations in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
16.5 Force majeure
We are not liable for any delay or failure to perform our obligations under these Terms due to events beyond our reasonable control, including natural disasters, acts of government, internet outages, or third-party service failures.
17. Contact
For questions about these Terms, to report a violation, or to exercise any rights described here:
- Contact form: /contact
These Terms of Service were prepared to reflect the actual functionality of the ChatYAML platform, including its subscription model, content ownership structure, chat-format post system, and integrations with Stripe, Supabase, and other third-party services.