Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of ChatRamen, including the iPhone application and chatramen.com. By downloading, installing, or using ChatRamen, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, you may not use the app.

1. Acceptance of Terms

By using ChatRamen you agree to these Terms, our Privacy Policy, our Community Guidelines, and our Child Safety Standards. Together these constitute the entire agreement between you and ChatRamen.

2. Eligibility

• You must be at least 18 years old to use ChatRamen.
• You must have the legal capacity to enter into a binding agreement and must not be prohibited from using the service under applicable laws.
• You must provide accurate and truthful information during registration.
• You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials.
• One person may maintain only one account at a time.

3. Account Registration & Security

• You may create an account using email and password, Sign in with Apple, or other supported sign-in methods.
• You are responsible for all activities that occur under your account.
• Notify us immediately at info@peppty.com if you suspect unauthorized access.
• We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate our policies.

4. How ChatRamen Works (Friends-First)

• ChatRamen is a friend-based app. You browse and search profiles and send a friend request to people you want to connect with.
• Private messaging, voice calls, and video calls are unlocked only after a friend request is mutually accepted. ChatRamen is not a random-stranger or anonymous-pairing service.
• You can withdraw a friend request, remove a friend, or block a user at any time to stop further contact.

4.1 How we recommend people (EU Digital Services Act Art. 27)

The profile list uses a server-side recommender to decide which eligible profiles to show and in what order. The following is a plain-language description of the main parameters used today.

Main parameters and their relative importance

1. Eligibility and safety come first. On both current app paths, the discovery request accepts gender, country, language, city or nearby location, and minimum and maximum age as filters. A selected filter narrows eligibility; gender, country, city or nearby location, and age are not independent ranking boosts. The discovery path excludes your own account, removed or hidden accounts, accounts that fail account or display-name safety checks, and people whom you have blocked or reported.
2. Presence and recency affect eligibility. The primary server queries apply a live presence window and recent-activity checks. If those queries are short, a bounded recency top-up can use a wider last-seen pool before the ordinary safety, filter, and ranking checks.
3. Conversation availability and reply behavior affect ordering. With live reply ranking enabled, profiles with stronger recent reply evidence are placed ahead of weaker or missing evidence at comparable ladder positions. In-call, inbound-load, and saturation states can demote a profile, while newcomer and reply-starved states can receive bounded lifts. These behavioral rules do not override eligibility or safety checks.
4. Rotation and variety break close ties. Jitter and the seen-set controls can vary the order within otherwise equivalent rank buckets, including after a refresh. These controls do not select a different ranking model.

We do not use appearance, attractiveness, or ethnicity as ranking signals. Gender may narrow eligibility when selected, but it is not an independent ranking, cap, or boost signal. Subscription status is not a standalone organic ranking field. The live configuration enables paid visibility boosts: an active, verified boost can receive bounded priority only within its resulting ladder position, and ordinary eligibility, safety, presence, and load checks still apply. Language can narrow eligibility when selected and can also be a limited same-language tie-break for candidates without reply evidence when both client and server values are available; it does not lift, demote, or exclude a candidate. Current Android and iOS clients send normalized interest mirrors, but the live organic interest-affinity switch is false, so shared interests do not currently reorder the ordinary discovery deck. Declared interests may still be used in fit evaluation for an active paid boost. The Chats list is separate from People. Current Android and iOS clients place sufficiently aged, unread, non-AI conversations whose counterpart spoke last first. With the live inbox-rank setting enabled, the within-group ranker orders by reply evidence; its same-language and flagged-sender keys are currently neutral in both shipped mobile clients.

How you can influence recommendations

• Change the profile filters at any time. They change eligibility; language can also affect only the limited tie-break described above.
• Change your profile interests at any time. Editing them does not currently reorder the ordinary discovery deck through shared-interest affinity, but declared interests may affect fit evaluation for an active paid boost.
• Appear Offline hides visible presence and stops refreshing your last-seen activity, so your profile can age out of discovery. Hide from online list excludes your profile from discovery while existing chat partners can still see presence. Hide Activity writes an activity-visibility setting that controls displayed activity details; it is not a discovery-ranking signal.
• Refreshing requests a new page and may change rotation within equivalent ranking groups; it does not select a different ranking model. The People surface does not offer multiple ranking modes to choose from.

5. Prohibited Conduct

You agree NOT to use ChatRamen to:

• Harass, bully, threaten, or intimidate other users.
• Promote hate speech or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or national origin.
• Share illegal content, including content that promotes violence, terrorism, or child exploitation.
• Spam — send unsolicited advertisements, promotional messages, or bulk friend requests / messaging.
• Impersonate another person or entity.
• Violate privacy — share private information of others without consent.
• Share sexual content without consent, or engage in sexual exploitation.
• Spread misinformation intended to deceive or harm.
• Abuse the system — attempt to hack, disrupt, or exploit vulnerabilities in ChatRamen.
• Use automated bots, scrapers, or scripts to access the app.
• Create multiple accounts to evade bans or restrictions.

6. Content Ownership & License

6.1 Your content

• You retain ownership of content you create (messages, photos, profile information).
• By posting content, you grant ChatRamen a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, store, display, and distribute your content solely for the purpose of operating the app.
• You represent that you have the right to share any content you post.

6.2 Our content

• All software, designs, graphics, and trademarks are owned by ChatRamen or its licensors.
• You may not copy, modify, or reverse-engineer any part of the app.
• You may not use our trademarks without prior written permission.
• You may not create derivative works based on ChatRamen.

6.3 Copyright & DMCA

ChatRamen respects intellectual property rights. If you believe content on ChatRamen infringes your copyright:

• Submit a DMCA notice by emailing info@peppty.com with: (1) description of copyrighted work, (2) location of infringing content, (3) your contact information, (4) statement of good-faith belief, (5) statement of accuracy under penalty of perjury, (6) your signature. Use the subject line "DMCA Notice".
• Counter-notification: if you believe content was wrongly removed, you may submit a counter-notice with your contact information and consent to jurisdiction.
• Repeat infringers: accounts with repeated copyright violations will be permanently terminated.

7. Content Moderation

• We use AI-powered tools (Hive Image Moderation, profanity filters) to detect harmful content.
• We reserve the right to remove content that violates our policies.
• You can report inappropriate content or users using the in-app reporting feature (multiple violation categories, including a dedicated child-safety category).
• Repeated violations may result in account suspension or permanent ban.
• You may appeal a moderation decision by contacting info@peppty.com; see our Privacy Policy section on automated safety decisions for details.

8. Voice & Video Calls

• ChatRamen uses Agora.io for real-time voice and video communication.
• Calls are available only between mutually accepted friends.
• Calls are transmitted directly between users (peer-to-peer) and are not recorded or stored by ChatRamen.
• You are responsible for your conduct during calls.
• Do not engage in sexually explicit, harassing, or illegal activities during calls.

9. Subscriptions & Payments

9.1 Subscription tiers

ChatRamen offers three subscription tiers — Lite, Plus, Pro — each available in weekly, monthly, or yearly billing periods.

9.2 Billing surfaces

• iPhone: Subscriptions are billed through your Apple ID and managed in Settings → [your name] → Subscriptions, or in the App Store account settings.

9.3 Auto-renewal

• Subscriptions automatically renew at the end of each billing period unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the next period.
• You may turn off auto-renewal at any time without losing access to features you have already paid for.

9.4 Refunds

Fees already paid are non-refundable for unused time, except where required by law. App Store purchases are subject to Apple's refund process — request a refund through your Apple ID purchase history or reportaproblem.apple.com.

9.5 Price changes

• We may change subscription prices at any time.
• Existing subscribers will be notified before price changes take effect, as required by the App Store.
• Price changes apply to new billing periods only.

10. Termination

10.1 By you

• You may delete your account at any time through the app settings or via the data deletion page.
• Deleting your account permanently removes your profile and data within 30 days.

10.2 By us

We may suspend or terminate your account immediately if you:

• Violate these Terms or our Community Guidelines.
• Engage in illegal activities.
• Receive multiple reports from other users.
• Attempt to manipulate or abuse the app.

10.3 Effect of termination

• Upon termination, your right to use ChatRamen immediately ceases.
• We may retain certain data as required by law or for legitimate business purposes.
• Subscription fees are non-refundable upon termination except as required by law.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

ChatRamen is provided "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. We do not:

• Guarantee uninterrupted or error-free service.
• Warrant that the app will meet your specific requirements.
• Verify the identity or accuracy of user profiles.

Use of ChatRamen is at your own risk.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

• ChatRamen shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages.
• We are not responsible for user-generated content or the actions of other users.
• We are not liable for loss of data, privacy breaches caused by third parties, or unauthorized access.
• Our total liability shall not exceed the amount you paid to ChatRamen in the 12 months preceding the claim.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold ChatRamen harmless from any claims, damages, losses, or expenses (including legal fees) arising from:

• Your use of ChatRamen.
• Your violation of these Terms.
• Your violation of any third-party rights.
• Content you post on ChatRamen.

14. Dispute Resolution

• Informal resolution: contact us first at info@peppty.com to resolve disputes informally.
• Arbitration: if informal resolution fails, disputes will be resolved through binding arbitration in accordance with the laws of India.
• Class action waiver: you agree to resolve disputes individually, not as part of a class action.

15. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of India, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. You consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in India.

16. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue in full force.

17. Changes to Terms

We may modify these Terms at any time. Material changes will be effective immediately upon posting and surfaced in-app as a re-acceptance prompt where applicable. Continued use of ChatRamen after changes constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

18. Apple App Store Terms

• These Terms are between you and ChatRamen (Peppty Technologies), not Apple. Apple is not responsible for the app or its content.
• Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app.
• Apple is a third-party beneficiary of these Terms and may enforce them against you.
• You confirm you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo and are not on any U.S. Government prohibited-parties list.

19. Contact

See also our Privacy Policy, Community Guidelines, Child Safety Standards, and Data Deletion pages.