Terms of Service

1. Who we are

Blackout Communication is a web and phone messenger operated by Blackout Communications (“we”, “us”, “our”) from Nova Scotia, Canada, at https://www.blackoutcommunications.com. Contact: contact@blackoutcommunications.com.

These terms govern access to the website, the phone app, accounts, usernames, friend requests, chats, billing, operator tools, and any related features we provide (the “Service”).

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority in your province or country if that is higher, and able to form a binding contract. You may not use the Service if we have previously terminated your account, or if doing so would violate the laws ofCanada or your jurisdiction.

You represent that the information you give us is accurate, that you will keep it current, and that you will not impersonate anyone else.

3. The contract

Creating an account, ticking the box that you agree, paying, or continuing to use the Service after we post a change is your electronic signature. That signature has the same effect as a handwritten signature under applicable electronic commerce law.

If you open an account for an organization, you warrant that you have authority to bind it. Both you and the organization are bound.

We may change these terms. We will update the date at the top. Material changes take effect when posted, or later if we say so. If you keep using the Service after that, you accept the new terms. If you do not, stop using it and cancel your plan.

4. Accounts, usernames, and security

You need an email, a password, and a username. You are responsible for your password, your device, and everything done through your account. Tell us at contact@blackoutcommunications.com if you think someone else is using it.

Usernames are a licence, not your property. We may reclaim, rename, or refuse a username that is misleading, impersonating, offensive, or reserved.

Chat starts only after a friend request is accepted. You must not scrape accounts, harvest usernames, automate mass requests, or contact someone after they have declined or blocked you.

5. What the Service is — and is not

Blackout Communication lets people look each other up by username, add friends, and send text messages. It is not a phone company, not emergency services, not a bank, not legal advice, and not a guarantee that a message will be delivered, read, or kept forever.

Do not use it to contact police, fire, ambulance, or any emergency number. If you are in danger, use local emergency services.

We do not promise uninterrupted uptime, that the Service is free of bugs, or that it will work on every device or network.

6. Encryption and keys

On Blackout Communication Premium, texts are encrypted on your device before we store them. We cannot read those texts. On Blackout Communication Basic, messages are stored so the other person can read them later. In a mixed chat, the Premium side stays sealed.

Encryption keys for Premium live on the device you use. If you clear the browser, lose the device, switch machines, or otherwise lose those keys, sealed history on that device cannot be opened. We cannot recover it. That is not a defect; it is how the product is designed.

Disappearing messages delete from our servers after the other person reads them, or when the unread timer you set ends. That is not a guarantee against copies: the other person can screenshot, photograph, or remember a chat. We are not responsible for those copies.

7. Plans, trials, and billing

Blackout Communication Basic is free. Blackout Communication Premium is $5.69 CAD per month, or 14 days free then $45.49 CAD per year. Prices are in Canadian dollars and exclude any tax we are required to collect.

If you start a Premium trial, you get access for 14 days. The trial is for Blackout Communication Premium (Yearly). When you add a card, the paid yearly plan renews automatically at the then-current yearly price unless you cancel before the trial ends. One trial per account. Monthly Premium has no trial.

After a card is on file, the plan renews each month or year, matching the plan you bought, until you cancel. You may upgrade, downgrade, or switch plans from Account or Plans. Unused time is credited when you change. Cancel in the app. Access continues until the end of the paid period. Canceling stops the next charge; it does not unwind time already paid.

Payments are processed by Stripe on the website, and by Apple on the phone app. Stripe’s terms apply to card charges. Apple’s terms apply to App Store purchases. We never see your full card number or your Apple ID password. Failed payments may suspend access until they succeed.

Phone subscriptions are auto-renewing. Payment is charged to your Apple ID account at confirmation of purchase. The subscription renews unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of that period. Manage or cancel in your phone’s Settings → Subscriptions, or from Account in the app. Deleting your Blackout Communication account does not cancel an Apple subscription.

Fees are non-refundable except where Nova Scotia or federal consumer law requires a refund. Chargebacks made in bad faith are a breach of these terms. We may recover the disputed amount, fees, and our costs, and we may terminate the account.

We may change prices with notice in the app or by email. The new price applies on the next renewal after notice. Taxes, including HST where applicable, are extra if we must collect them.

8. Invites and points

Invite links are a promotion, not a wage. The person who sends a link earns 1,000 points when an eligible referred account subscribes to Blackout Communication Premium, up to 10,000 points. A referred person who pays for Premium earns 1,000 points once. Trials, unpaid accounts, Basic plans, self-referrals, and fake accounts do not receive points. We may reverse points if we suspect abuse.

Points stay on the account. They are not cash. Save them for future upcoming promotions. We may end or change the points program with notice.

9. Your content

You keep whatever rights you have in the messages, usernames, display names, reports, and other material you submit (“Content”). You grant Blackout Communications a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, transmit, copy, and display Content only as needed to operate, secure, and improve the Service, to process reports, and to meet the law.

That licence ends when Content is deleted from our systems, except for copies in backups, logs, or records we must keep. Premium texts we cannot read are still stored as ciphertext under this licence.

You represent that you have the right to submit the Content and that it does not infringe anyone else’s rights or break the law.

10. Banned use

You will not, and will not help anyone else to:

• Use the Service for any crime or to plan, aid, or hide one.
• Upload, send, or solicit child sexual abuse material, or any sexual content involving a person under 18. We will terminate those accounts and may report them to law enforcement.
• Harass, threaten, stalk, extort, dox, or incite violence against anyone.
• Traffic in malware, stolen data, fraud, impersonation, or unauthorized access to systems.
• Infringe copyright, trademarks, or other IP, or send spam.
• Probe, scrape, overload, reverse engineer, or bypass security or paywalls.
• Use the Service if you are a person or entity sanctioned byCanada or a jurisdiction whose laws apply to you.

We are not a publisher of your chats. You are solely responsible for what you send and for who you add. Other users’ messages are theirs, not ours.

11. Moderation, reports, and law enforcement

We have no duty to monitor chats. We may review reports, metadata, and account records. We may refuse, suspend, or terminate an account, reclaim a username, or delete Content at any time, with or without notice, if we believe these terms, the law, or other people’s safety require it.

We may keep report records, including comments and identifiers, even after an account is closed, as needed to investigate, defend a claim, or meet a legal duty.

We may disclose account information when we believe in good faith that the law requires it, or that disclosure is necessary to protect Blackout Communications, our users, or the public. We cannot decrypt Premium message bodies we do not have keys for.

You release us from claims arising out of our decision to take or not take moderation action, except where that release is forbidden by law.

12. Intellectual property

The Service, including software, design, trademarks, and the namesBlackout Communication and Blackout Communications, is owned by us or our licensors. These terms do not give you any licence except the limited, revocable right to use the Service as allowed here. You will not copy, frame, or brand the Service as your own.

13. Third parties

Stripe processes payments on the website. Apple processes subscriptions in the phone app. Hosting, email, and other vendors may process data as described in the Privacy Policy. Those parties are not under our control for their own outages or terms. We are not liable for their acts except to the extent the law makes us so.

14. Disclaimer of warranties

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, quiet enjoyment, and non-infringement.

We do not warrant that messages will be delivered, that encryption will be free of implementation error, that keys will survive a browser reset, or that the Service will meet your needs. You use it at your own risk.

15. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Blackout Communications, its owners, operators, directors, employees, and suppliers are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, lost keys, lost messages, business interruption, or replacement costs, even if we were told they were possible.

We are not liable for what users say or do; for friend requests accepted or declined; for content another person sends you; for law-enforcement requests; for Stripe or network failures; or for your loss of encryption keys.

Our total liability for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the fees you paid us for the Service in the twelve months before the claim, or fifty Canadian dollars (CAD $50) if you paid nothing.

These limits are an essential basis of the bargain. The Service would not be offered at these prices without them. They apply to contract, tort (including negligence), strict liability, and any other theory.

If you are a consumer in Canada, nothing in these terms limits rights you cannot waive under the consumer-protection statute of your province, including Nova Scotia, or liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by our proven negligence where that cannot be excluded. Where a limit is not allowed, it applies to the fullest extent that is allowed.

16. Indemnity

You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Blackout Communications and its owners, operators, directors, and employees from any claim, demand, loss, damage, cost, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of: your Content; your use of the Service; your breach of these terms; your violation of law or of someone else’s rights; a dispute between you and another user; or a chargeback you initiate without a good-faith basis.

We may take control of the defence. You will cooperate. You will not settle a claim against us without our prior written consent.

17. Release for user disputes

If you have a dispute with another user, you release Blackout Communications from every claim, known or unknown, arising out of that dispute. You are dealing with other people, not with us, when you message them.

18. Termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account in the app. We may suspend or terminate access immediately if you breach these terms, if we are required to by law, if we stop offering the Service, or if we reasonably believe your account is a risk.

On termination, your licence ends. We may delete data we hold, subject to the Privacy Policy and records we must keep. Fees already paid are not refunded except where the law requires it. Sections that should survive do survive, including 6, 8–16, and 18–21.

19. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Nova Scotia and the federal laws of Canada that apply there, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

The courts of Nova Scotia, Canada, sitting in Sydney or Halifax, have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, claim, or proceeding arising out of the Service or these terms. You attorn to those courts. We may still seek injunctive or other urgent relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to protect our IP, security, or confidential information.

You must bring any claim within one year after it arose, unless a longer period is required by a law that cannot be waived. After that, the claim is permanently barred.

Proceedings are individual. To the extent permitted by law, you will not bring or join a class, collective, or representative action against us.

20. General

These terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and us about the Service. They replace prior discussions. If a court finds a part unenforceable, the rest still applies, and the part is modified to the minimum extent needed to be enforceable.

If we do not enforce a right, we do not waive it. You may not assign these terms without our written consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, sale, or reorganization.

Headings are for reading only. “Including” means “including without limitation.” Notices to you may be posted in the Service or sent to your account email. Notices to us go to contact@blackoutcommunications.com.

Force majeure: we are not liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond reasonable control, including outages, strikes, war, epidemic, government action, or failure of Stripe or our hosts.

21. Contact

Questions about these terms: contact@blackoutcommunications.com. Blackout Communications, Nova Scotia, Canada.