Terms of Service

1. The Core Agreement & Financial Transparency

Trystle is built on mutual respect and a shared mission. You own your content, and you grant us a license to display it (see Section 4 below for details). In return, Trystle intends to channel its financial success into charitable causes, on the terms and subject to the qualifications set out below.

As an early-stage company, all of our current advertising revenue is reinvested into platform buildout, servers, and operations. We are not making charitable donations today, and no part of your use of Trystle currently results in a donation to any charity. Once Trystle achieves self-sustaining income and covers baseline operating costs (a process we estimate will take roughly 3 years, and which may take longer or may not occur at all), we intend to begin distributing surplus profits to verified health, education, and environmental initiatives.

"Surplus profit" means net income determined in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, after taxes, debt service, and a reasonable operating reserve set in good faith by our managers to fund continued operation, growth, and contingencies. Once distributions begin, we intend to let you tell us in your settings how you would weight our three focus areas: education, environment, and health. We aggregate all users' preferences into a community-wide split and direct surplus profit accordingly through a donor-advised fund. Your preference is advisory, it does not allocate any particular amount, and we select the charities we recommend in each category. The sponsoring organization of the fund makes the final grant.

This Section 1 and our transparency page describe our current intention and business plan. They do not create a charitable trust, a fiduciary duty, a contractual obligation enforceable by you or by any charity, or any third party beneficiary right. We may change, suspend, or discontinue this program, and we will post any change on our transparency page. Nothing in this Section limits your rights under applicable consumer protection law.

For full detail on our financial roadmap and how we report progress, see our transparency page.

2. Eligibility & Account Security

• You must be at least 13 years old to create an account.
• You are responsible for keeping your password safe and your account secure.
• You agree not to impersonate others or provide intentionally misleading information.
• If you are between 13 and 17 years old, please review our privacy policy for information on how we handle data for minors.
• If you are under 18, we may require that a parent or legal guardian review and agree to these Terms before your account is created, and we do require this wherever the law of your state or country calls for it. Where a parent or guardian agrees, that parent or guardian accepts these Terms on their own behalf and on behalf of the minor, consents to our collection and use of the minor's information as described in our Privacy Policy, agrees to supervise the minor's use of Trystle, and agrees to indemnify Trystle, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, against any claim arising from the minor's use of the platform or breach of these Terms. A parent or guardian may close the minor's account at any time by contacting hello@trystle.com.
• We use a neutral, self-reported age screen at sign-up. Where the law of your state or country requires age verification or verifiable parental consent as a condition of your use of a service like ours, we may require it, and we may restrict, suspend, or decline an account if we cannot obtain it.

3. Community Guidelines

To protect our community and our mission, you agree not to post content involving: hate speech, harassment, illegal activity, scams, malicious bots, explicit violence, or non-consensual sexual content.

Content that sexually exploits or endangers a minor is prohibited without exception, results in immediate permanent removal, and is reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and to law enforcement as required by law.

For the full rules, enforcement details, and how to report content, see our community guidelines.

4. Content Ownership & License

You retain full ownership of the media and content you post ("Your Content").

By posting Your Content, you grant Trystle a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license, sublicensable only to our service providers and to other users as the platform's features allow, to host, store, cache, reproduce, modify and adapt (for example, to resize, crop, transcode, translate, or generate previews and thumbnails), publish, publicly perform, publicly display, and distribute Your Content, together with your username and profile image, solely for the purpose of operating, improving, and promoting the platform. We will not feature Your Content in a paid third party advertisement without your separate consent. This license ends within a commercially reasonable period after you delete Your Content or your account, except:

• Content that has already been shared, reposted, or saved by other users may persist in their view;
• Copies retained in backups or caches will be purged in accordance with our standard data retention schedule (see privacy policy);
• Content preserved for legal, safety, or moderation purposes (e.g., active reports or investigations) may be retained as required.

You represent that you own or have all rights necessary to Your Content and to grant this license, and that Your Content does not infringe or violate anyone else's rights. To the extent permitted by law, you waive any moral rights or rights of attribution in Your Content in connection with the uses licensed above. If you send us feedback or suggestions, you grant us an unrestricted, perpetual, royalty-free right to use them without obligation to you.

We reserve the right to remove content or suspend accounts that violate these Terms or our community guidelines.

5. Limitation of Liability

Trystle is provided "as is" and "as available." To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement, and we do not warrant that the platform will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free.

Your Content and content posted by other users is the responsibility of the person who posted it. We do not pre-screen content, and we are not responsible for the content, conduct, or communications of other users, on or off the platform.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Trystle will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or loss of goodwill, and our total liability for all claims relating to the platform will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose or one hundred dollars ($100).

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties or the limitation of certain damages. In those jurisdictions these limitations apply only to the extent permitted, and nothing in these Terms limits liability for fraud, willful misconduct, death or personal injury caused by negligence, or any other liability that cannot be limited by law.

6. Changes to These Terms

If we materially update these Terms, we will notify you by email and in-app notice at least 14 days before the changes take effect, and we will post the updated Terms with a new effective date. Your continued use of Trystle after that date means you accept the updated Terms. If you do not agree, you may delete your account before the effective date. Changes to Section 10 do not apply to any dispute of which we had written notice before the effective date.

7. Copyright & DMCA

We respect intellectual property rights and expect you to do the same. If you believe content on Trystle infringes your copyright, you can submit a takedown request to our designated agent:

We will review valid requests and remove or disable access to infringing content in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Counter-notification: If your content was removed and you believe the removal was the result of mistake or misidentification, you may send a counter-notification to the agent above containing the information required by 17 U.S.C. 512(g)(3). We may restore the content 10 to 14 business days later unless the complaining party notifies us that it has filed a court action.

Repeat infringers: We maintain and enforce a policy of terminating, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe copyright.

8. Account Termination

You may delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms or our community guidelines, or if we reasonably believe your account poses a risk to Trystle or its community. Where practical, we'll notify you of the reason.

If you believe your account was suspended or terminated in error, you may request a review by contacting hello@trystle.com. If your account is terminated, you may request a copy of your data before it's deleted, subject to our privacy policy.

9. Indemnification

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to indemnify and hold Trystle and its officers, managers, members, employees, and agents harmless from any third party claim, damages, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from Your Content, your use of the platform, or your violation of these Terms or applicable law. We will notify you of any claim for which we seek indemnity, and we may control its defense and settlement at your expense. This Section does not apply to the extent a claim arises from our own negligence or misconduct, and does not apply where prohibited by applicable law.

10. Dispute Resolution & Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without regard to conflict of law principles. If you are a consumer residing outside Massachusetts, this choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of any mandatory consumer protection provisions of the law of the place where you reside.

Any dispute arising from these Terms or your use of Trystle will first be addressed through good faith informal negotiation. Before starting an arbitration or a court proceeding, the complaining party must send the other a written notice of dispute describing the dispute and the relief sought, addressed to Trystle LLC, 82 Wendell Ave., Ste 100, Pittsfield, MA 01201 or, if to you, to the email address on your account, and the parties will have 60 days to resolve it.

Who this Section applies to: This arbitration agreement applies to users who reside in the United States. If you reside outside the United States, it does not apply to you, and any dispute may be brought in the courts of the country where you reside, under the law of that country to the extent its mandatory consumer protection rules so require.

If a parent or guardian agreed to these Terms on behalf of a user under 18, both that user and the parent or guardian are bound by this Section to the extent permitted by law.

Arbitration: If the dispute is not resolved within 60 days, it will be settled by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, available at adr.org, on an individual basis rather than in court. Either party may instead bring an individual claim in small claims court if the claim qualifies, and either party may seek injunctive relief in court to protect intellectual property or account security without waiving this Section.

Fees and hearing location: We will pay the filing, administration, and arbitrator fees allocated to us by the AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules. Any in-person hearing will take place in the county where you reside, and you may elect instead to have the arbitration conducted by telephone, video, or written submissions.

Class action waiver: You and Trystle agree that any arbitration will be conducted only on an individual basis and not as a class, consolidated, collective, or representative action, and that the arbitrator may not consolidate claims or preside over any class or representative proceeding. If this waiver is held unenforceable as to a particular claim or request for relief, that claim or request will be severed and heard in court, and the rest of this Section will continue to apply to all other claims.

Coordinated filings: If 25 or more similar demands for arbitration are filed against us by or with the assistance of the same law firm or coordinated group, the parties will ask the AAA to administer the arbitrations under its Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules, with all applicable limitation periods tolled for claims not yet reached until that process resolves them.

Who decides: The arbitrator decides all issues concerning the interpretation, applicability, enforceability, and formation of this arbitration agreement, except that a court decides whether the class action waiver above is enforceable.

Right to opt out: You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by sending written notice to hello@trystle.com within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, stating your name, the email address on your account, and that you are opting out of arbitration. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms, and we will not close your account or treat you differently because you opted out.

Carve-out for non-waivable rights: Nothing in this Section limits your right to lodge a complaint with a data protection authority or other regulatory body, to bring proceedings before the courts of your country of residence where the law gives you that right (including Article 79 of the GDPR), or to exercise any other right that cannot be waived under applicable law (see privacy policy).

Venue: Any court proceeding permitted under this Section, other than a small claims action or a proceeding you are entitled to bring where you reside, will take place exclusively in Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and both parties consent to personal jurisdiction there.

11. Third-Party Links & Services

Trystle may contain links to third-party websites or services we don't control. We're not responsible for their content, policies, or practices. Use of any third-party service is at your own risk and subject to that service's own terms.

12. Advertising

Trystle is supported by advertising. Ads may be shown alongside your content and are labeled as advertising. By default, ads are shown based on contextual signals, not your personal activity. You may optionally opt in to personalized ad targeting, which can help generate more revenue for our charitable mission. We do not sell your personal information for money, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising as those terms are defined by California law. For full details on how we handle data related to advertising, see our privacy policy.

13. Entire Agreement & Severability

These Terms, along with our Privacy Policy, Community Guidelines, and Founding Villager Terms, constitute the entire agreement between you and Trystle regarding your use of the platform. If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable or invalid, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that these Terms will otherwise remain in full force and effect. Trystle's failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not be deemed a waiver of such right or provision.

Assignment: You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

No third party beneficiaries: These Terms do not create any right or remedy in any person who is not a party to them, including any charity referred to in Section 1.

Survival: Sections 4, 5, 9, 10, 13, and 14 survive termination of your account.

14. Trystle Intellectual Property

Except for Your Content, the platform and all materials on it, including software, images, text, graphics, logos, patents, trademarks, and copyrights, are the exclusive property of Trystle or its licensors. Software or content provided on the platform may not be copied, modified, or distributed without our express written permission. Our name, our logo, and the Spoils symbol are our trademarks, and you may not use them without our prior written permission except to refer to Trystle accurately.