terms of service

01 Eligibility

You must be at least 15 years old to create an account. If you are 13 or 14, you may use the Service only with the consent of a parent or guardian. By registering, you confirm that you meet this requirement and that the information you give is accurate.

02 Your account

• You are responsible for the activity under your account and for keeping your password secure.
• One person may not maintain multiple accounts to manipulate ratings, evade restrictions, or abuse features.
• Notify us promptly at contact@zochess.com if you suspect unauthorized use of your account.

03 Acceptable use

When using the Service, you agree not to:

• Receive assistance from chess engines, databases, or other people during games where outside help is not permitted (see our Fair Play Policy).
• Harass, threaten, impersonate, or abuse other users, including in chat and messages.
• Post unlawful, infringing, or harmful content.
• Attempt to disrupt, overload, reverse-engineer, scrape, or gain unauthorized access to the Service or its data.
• Use automated means to access the Service except as expressly permitted.

04 Fair play

Competitive integrity is central to zochess. Your use of the Service is also subject to our Fair Play Policy, which describes prohibited conduct and how we enforce it.

05 zochess analysis

zochess analysis reads a chessboard from your camera or from a photo you pick. In addition to the rest of these Terms:

• Scan only boards you have the right to photograph, and keep people and other personal information out of the frame.
• Results are approximate. The app can misread a piece, a square or whose move it is, so check the position before you rely on it. The app is in beta and may change.
• Scans are uploaded to your account. By default, we also use the photo, the detected pieces and your corrections to train and improve our recognition models, as explained in the zochess analysis privacy policy. You can turn this off at any time in Settings → Privacy.

06 User content

You retain ownership of the content you submit (such as your username, bio, avatar, messages and scan photos). You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, and display that content as needed to operate the Service, and, for zochess analysis scans, to use it as described in the zochess analysis section. You are responsible for the content you submit, and we may remove content or restrict accounts that violate these Terms.

07 Premium subscription and payments

The core of the Service is free, and zochess analysis has no paid features. zochess play also offers an optional paid "Premium" membership, which is an auto-renewing subscription. The following applies if you buy it:

• Premium is billed as an auto-renewing subscription for the plan you choose (for example monthly or yearly). It renews automatically at the then-current price at the end of each period unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the period ends.
• Payment is charged through the store or platform you bought from — the Apple App Store, Google Play, or Telegram (paid in Telegram Stars). That store or platform, not us, processes the payment and manages any subscription. Your use of it is also governed by its own terms.
• You can cancel at any time in the subscription settings of the store or platform you subscribed through: your App Store or Google Play account, or Telegram for a Stars subscription. Cancelling stops future renewals; you keep Premium until the end of the period you have already paid for.
• Payments are non-refundable except where the law or the refund policy of the store or platform you bought through provides otherwise. Mandatory consumer rights are not affected, including, where it applies, the 14-day right of withdrawal for digital content, which can be lost once you ask for immediate access and acknowledge that. Refund requests are handled by that store or platform — the App Store, Google Play, or Telegram — not by us.
• If a payment is refunded, reversed, or charged back, we may remove the Premium period it paid for.
• We may change subscription prices or the features included in Premium. Price changes do not affect the period you have already paid for, and where required we will give notice and ask you to accept a higher renewal price before it takes effect.

08 Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate your access, remove content, or reset ratings if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms or the Fair Play Policy, or to protect the Service or its users. Except in urgent or serious cases, we will tell you why and let you respond at contact@zochess.com first. You may delete your account at any time from your account settings.

09 Service "as is" and changes

To the extent the law allows, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", and we may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of it at any time. This does not affect the legal guarantees that protect consumers, including the guarantee of conformity of digital content and services. In zochess play, live game state is held in memory and may be lost during maintenance or restarts.

10 Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Maksym Dolhov will not be liable for indirect or consequential damages, or for loss of data, ratings, or goodwill, arising from your use of the Service. Nothing in these Terms limits liability for death or personal injury, for gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or any liability or consumer right that cannot be excluded by law.

11 Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. For a material change, we will tell you in the app or by email at least 30 days before it takes effect, unless the law requires it sooner, and we will update the "last updated" date. If you do not accept the change, you can stop using the Service and delete your account before then. Continuing to use the Service after the change takes effect means you accept it.

12 Governing law

These Terms are governed by French law. If you are a consumer, you also keep the protection of the mandatory rules of the country where you live, and you may bring a dispute before the courts of France or of the EU country where you live. Otherwise, disputes will be subject to the courts located in France.

13 Publisher and hosting

zochess is published by Maksym Dolhov, a private individual, who is also the director of publication. Contact: contact@zochess.com. Hosting: Contabo GmbH, Aschauer Straße 32a, 81549 München, Germany.

14 Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email contact@zochess.com.