Terms of Service

TERMS OF USE

Welcome to Hiki, operated by Hiki, Inc. (“us,” “we,” the “Company” or “Hiki”).

1. Acceptance of Terms of Use Agreement.

By creating a Hiki account or by using any Hiki service, whether through a mobile device, mobile application or computer (collectively, the “Service”) you agree to be bound by (i) these Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy each of which is incorporated by reference into this Agreement, and (ii) any terms disclosed to you if you purchase or have purchased additional features, products or services we offer in connection with the Service (collectively, this “Agreement”). If you do not accept and agree to be bound by all of the terms of this Agreement, you should not use the Service.

We may make changes to this Agreement and to the Service from time to time. We may do this for a variety of reasons including to reflect changes in or requirements of the law, new features, or changes in business practices. The most recent version of this Agreement will be posted on www.hikiapp.com, and you should regularly check for the most recent version. The most recent version is the version that applies. If the changes include material changes that affect your rights or obligations, we will notify you in advance of the changes by reasonable means, which could include notification through the Service or via email. If you continue to use the Service after the changes become effective, then you agree to the revised Agreement. You agree that this Agreement shall supersede any prior agreements (except as specifically stated herein), and shall govern your entire relationship with Hiki, including but not limited to events, agreements, and conduct preceding your acceptance of this Agreement.

2. Eligibility.

You must be at least 18 years of age to create an account on Hiki and use the Service. By creating an account and using the Service, you represent and warrant that:

• you can form a binding contract with Hiki,
• you are not a person who is barred from using the Service under the laws of the United States or any other applicable jurisdiction,
• you will comply with this Agreement and all applicable local, state, national and international laws, rules and regulations,
• you have never been convicted of or pled no contest to a felony, a sex crime, or any crime involving violence, and that you are not required to register as a sex offender with any state, federal or local sex offender registry.

3. Your Account.

In order to use Hiki, you must sign in using your login credentials. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials you use to sign up for Hiki, and you are solely responsible for all activities that occur under those credentials. If you know or think someone has gained access to your account, please immediately contact help@hikiapp.com.

4. Modifying the Service and Termination.

Hiki is always striving to improve the Service and bring you additional functionality that you will find engaging and useful. This means we may add new product features or enhancements from time to time as well as remove some features. We may even suspend the Service entirely, in which event we will notify you in advance unless extenuating circumstances prevent us from doing so.

You may terminate your account at any time, for any reason; however if you use a third party payment account, you will need to manage in app purchases through such account (e.g., iTunes, App Store, Google Play) to avoid additional billing.

Hiki may terminate your account at any time without notice if it believes that you have violated this Agreement. Upon such termination, you will not be entitled to any refund for purchases. After your account is terminated, this Agreement will terminate, except that the following provisions will still apply to you and Hiki: Section 4, Section 5, and Sections 12 through 19.

5. Safety; Your Interactions with Other Users.

Though Hiki strives to encourage a respectful user experience through features like the double opt-in that only allows users to communicate if they have both indicated interest in one another, it is not responsible for the conduct of any user on or off of the Service. You agree to use caution in all interactions with other users, particularly if you decide to communicate off the Service or meet in person. You agree that you will not provide your financial information (for example, your credit card or bank account information), or wire or otherwise send money, to other users.

YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR INTERACTIONS WITH OTHER USERS. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT HIKI DOES NOT CONDUCT CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECKS ON ITS USERS OR OTHERWISE INQUIRE INTO THE BACKGROUND OF ITS USERS. HIKI MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE CONDUCT OF USERS. HIKI RESERVES THE RIGHT TO CONDUCT – AND YOU AGREE THAT HIKI MAY CONDUCT - ANY CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK OR OTHER SCREENINGS AT ANY TIME USING AVAILABLE PUBLIC RECORDS.

6. Rights Hiki Grants You.

Hiki grants you a personal, worldwide, royalty-free, non-assignable, nonexclusive, revocable, and non-sublicensable license to access and use the Service. This license is for the sole purpose of letting you use and enjoy the Service’s benefits as intended by Hiki and permitted by this Agreement. Therefore, you agree not to:

• use the Service or any content contained in the Service for any commercial purposes without our written consent.
• copy, modify, transmit, create any derivative works from, make use of, or reproduce in any way any copyrighted material, images, trademarks, trade names, service marks, or other intellectual property, content or proprietary information accessible through the Service without Hiki’s prior written consent.
• express or imply that any statements you make are endorsed by Hiki.
• use any robot, bot, spider, crawler, scraper, site search/retrieval application, proxy or other manual or automatic device, method or process to access, retrieve, index, “data mine,” or in any way reproduce or circumvent the navigational structure or presentation of the Service or its contents.
• use the Service in any way that could interfere with, disrupt or negatively affect the Service or the servers or networks connected to the Service.
• upload viruses or other malicious code or otherwise compromise the security of the Service.
• forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any information transmitted to or through the Service.
• “frame” or “mirror” any part of the Service without Hiki’s prior written authorization.
• use meta tags or code or other devices containing any reference to Hiki or the Service to direct any person to any other website for any purpose.
• modify, adapt, sublicense, translate, sell, reverse engineer, decipher, decompile or otherwise disassemble any portion of the Service, or cause others to do so.
• use or develop any third-party applications that interact with the Service or other users’ Content or information without our written consent.
• use, access, or publish the Hiki application programming interface without our written consent.
• probe, scan or test the vulnerability of our Service or any system or network.
• encourage or promote any activity that violates this Agreement.

The Company may investigate and take any available legal action in response to illegal and/or unauthorized uses of the Service, including termination of your account.

7. Rights you Grant Hiki.

By creating an account, you grant to Hiki a worldwide, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, right and license to host, store, use, copy, display, reproduce, adapt, edit, publish, modify and distribute information you authorize us to access, as well as any information you post, upload, display or otherwise make available on the Service or transmit to other users (collectively, “Content”). Hiki’s license to your Content shall be non-exclusive, except that Hiki’s license shall be exclusive with respect to derivative works created through use of the Service. This expressly includes the authority, but not the obligation, to send notices pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) (i.e., DMCA Takedown Notices) on your behalf if your Content is taken and used by third parties outside of the Service. Our license to your Content is subject to your rights under applicable law and is for the limited purpose of operating, developing, providing, and improving the Service and researching and developing new ones. You agree that any Content you place or that you authorize us to place on the Service may be viewed by other users and may be viewed by any person visiting or participating in the Service.

8. Community Rules.

By using the Service, you agree that you will not:

• use the Service for any purpose that is illegal or prohibited by this Agreement.
• use the Service for any harmful or nefarious purpose.
• use the Service in order to damage Hiki.
• spam, solicit money from or defraud any users, including fundraising, soliciting for paid or unpaid research studies, surveys, or events, or self-promotion of your business.
• impersonate any person or entity, or act as a proxy for another person.
• post any images of another person without their consent or permission, including those of children under 18.
• bully, “stalk,” intimidate, assault, harass, mistreat, or defame any person on or off the Hiki platform.
• post any Content that violates or infringes anyone’s rights, including rights of publicity, privacy, copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property or contract rights.

9. Other Users’ Content.

Although Hiki reserves the right to review and remove Content that violates this Agreement, such Content is the sole responsibility of the user who posts it, and Hiki cannot guarantee that all Content will comply with this Agreement.

10. Purchases.

Generally.

From time to time, Hiki may offer products and services for purchase (“in app purchases”) through iTunes, App Store, Google Play, carrier billing, Hiki direct billing or other payment platforms authorized by Hiki. If you choose to make an in app purchase, you will be prompted to confirm your purchase with the applicable payment provider.

Auto-Renewal.

If you purchase an auto-recurring periodic subscription, your Payment Method will continue to be billed for the subscription until you cancel. After your initial subscription commitment period, and again after any subsequent subscription period, your subscription will automatically continue for an additional equivalent period, at the price you agreed to when subscribing subject to any price increase then in effect. If you do not wish your subscription to renew automatically, or if you want to change or terminate your subscription, you will need to log in to your third party account and follow instructions to cancel your subscription.

Additional Terms for Direct Payments.

If you pay Hiki directly, Hiki may correct any billing errors or mistakes that it makes even if it has already requested or received payment.

Refunds.

Generally, all charges for purchases are nonrefundable, and there are no refunds or credits for partially used periods.

11. Notice and Procedure for Making Claims of Copyright Infringement.

If you believe that your work has been copied and posted on the Service in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide our Copyright Agent with the required information. Notice of claims of copyright infringement should be provided to the Company’s Copyright Agent via email to help@hikiapp.com.

12. Disclaimers.

Hiki and its licensors make no representations or warranties concerning the Service, including without limitation regarding any content contained in or accessed through the Service or any actions taken as a result of any use of the Service. HIKI PROVIDES THE SERVICE ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS AND MAKES NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. HIKI DOES NOT REPRESENT OR WARRANT THAT (A) THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE OR ERROR FREE OR (B) ANY CONTENT OR INFORMATION YOU OBTAIN ON OR THROUGH THE SERVICE WILL BE ACCURATE.

13. Third Party Services.

The Service may contain advertisements and promotions offered by third parties and links to other web sites or resources. Hiki is not responsible for the availability of such external websites or resources.

14. Limitation of Liability.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL ANY OF THE HIKI PARTIES BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. NOTWITHSTANDING THE FOREGOING, IN NO EVENT SHALL HIKI’S AGGREGATE LIABILITY TO YOU EXCEED THE AMOUNT PAID, IF ANY, BY YOU TO HIKI DURING THE TWENTY-FOUR (24) MONTH PERIOD IMMEDIATELY PRECEDING THE DATE THAT YOU FIRST FILE A LAWSUIT.

15. Retroactive and Prospective Arbitration, Class-Action Waiver, and Jury Waiver.

Except where prohibited by applicable law, the exclusive means of resolving any dispute or claim arising out of or relating to this Agreement shall be BINDING ARBITRATION administered by the American Arbitration Association under the Consumer Arbitration Rules.

16. Governing Law.

Except where our arbitration agreement is prohibited by law, the laws of New York, U.S.A., without regard to its conflict of laws rules, shall apply to any disputes arising out of or relating to this Agreement.

17. Venue.

Except for claims that may be properly brought in a small claims court of competent jurisdiction in New York, New York, all claims arising out of or relating to this Agreement will be litigated exclusively in the federal or state courts of New York.

18. Indemnity by You.

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless the Hiki Parties from and against any complaints, demands, claims, damages (actual and consequential), losses, costs, liabilities and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, due to, arising out of, or relating in any way to your access to or use of the Service.

19. Entire Agreement; Other.

This Agreement, along with the Privacy Policy and any terms disclosed to you if you purchase additional features, contains the entire agreement between you and Hiki regarding your relationship with Hiki and the use of the Service.

20. Prohibition of Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE)

Policy Statement

Hiki maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward any form of Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (CSAE). This includes, without limitation, the creation, distribution, possession, solicitation, or promotion of any material or conduct involving minors in a sexual context. Users must be at least eighteen (18) years of age to access or use the Platform. Any attempt to misrepresent age or identity for the purpose of engaging in or facilitating CSAE-related conduct constitutes a material breach of these Terms.

Definitions

• “Child” refers to any individual under the age of eighteen (18).
• “CSAE Material” means any content that depicts, promotes, or suggests sexual activity, nudity, or exploitation involving a Child.
• “Grooming” refers to any pattern of behavior intended to lower inhibitions for sexual exploitation or abuse.
• “Non-Consensual Intimate Content” (NCIC) means any sexually explicit, intimate, or nude imagery or video shared without the consent of the depicted individual.

Reporting and Enforcement

• Users are required to report any suspected CSAE or related activity through in-app tools or by contacting help@hikiapp.com. Hiki will promptly suspend or terminate any account associated with CSAE or NCIC content, without prior notice, and will report such content and user data to appropriate law enforcement authorities.

User Responsibility

• By using the Platform, you acknowledge and agree that:
• You are responsible for all content and communications originating from your account; and
• You will not attempt to evade CSAE detection, moderation, or reporting mechanisms.