Terms of Service

Version 1.1 · In effect since 10 October 2026 (open servers and Discover: sections 2, 8 and 9), revised 24 October 2026 (section 5: the minimum age is 16) · Version 1.0 in effect since 8 September 2026, revised 14 September 2026 (rewritten in plain words; sections 12 to 16 added), 19 September 2026 (the service moved to koti.one) and 9 October 2026 (crash reports go to our own server, not a provider)

1. Who we are and what these Terms cover

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern your use of Koti: the desktop apps, the phone apps, the browser app and the service at koti.one (together, "Koti"). Koti is provided by Maksim Nikolaev (also "we" or "us"); our postal address and contact details are set out in the Legal Notice. By creating an account you enter into a user agreement with us on these Terms.

2. What Koti does

Koti is a place to talk with people you know: voice calls, screen sharing and text chat, in servers you create yourself and in direct messages with friends. Anyone can create an account, create servers and invite people. A server is joined by invitation. Its owner may open it, which gives it one lasting link that anyone who has the link can use to join without asking, and may ask us to list it in Discover, the directory of open servers inside the apps. We decide whether a server is listed, and we may take a listing down at any time. What is said and shared on Koti comes from its users; we do not read or screen it in advance. We act on reports, as described in section 9.

3. Price, and changes to the service

Koti is free to use. It carries no advertising and we do not sell data. Should we ever offer paid extras, they will be offered under separate terms and bind you only after you have expressly accepted them; nothing that works today will be moved behind a payment. We may add, change, limit or discontinue features of the service at any time.

4. Availability

We aim for stable, continuous operation, but we do not guarantee any particular level of availability. Maintenance, faults, capacity limits or changes to the service may cause interruptions or temporary unavailability.

5. Your account and your age

You must be at least 16 years old to use Koti. Creating an account includes confirming that you are. If you are under 18, you need the agreement of a parent or guardian to use Koti. If an account is reported as belonging to someone under 16, we review the report and close the account where the report holds.

You are responsible for keeping your password confidential and for all activity under your account. Tell us promptly at support@koti.one if you believe your account has been compromised; you can also end all of your sessions yourself from the app.

6. Your content

Content you add to Koti – messages, files, your profile and similar – remains yours. You grant us the non-exclusive right, limited to what operating the service requires, to store and process this content and to make it available to its intended recipients. You warrant that you hold the rights needed for this content and that it does not infringe the rights of others.

7. Our intellectual property

Koti itself, including its software, design, name and logo, belongs to us or our licensors and is protected by law. For as long as these Terms apply, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use Koti for its intended purpose. You may not copy, modify, resell, reverse engineer or otherwise exploit Koti or any part of it, except where the law permits it or we have agreed otherwise in writing.

8. Acceptable use

When using Koti you must not:

• post unlawful content or use the service for unlawful acts;
• share any depiction of child sexual abuse or other unlawful sexual content – we apply zero tolerance and report where the law requires;
• harass, threaten, or spread hate or discrimination;
• infringe the rights of others, including copyright, trade mark and personality rights;
• send spam or unsolicited advertising;
• use bots, scraping or bulk retrieval, or run bots that flood people;
• attack the service, other users or the relay, or reverse engineer, bypass or weaken security measures;
• otherwise misuse the service or disrupt other users.

Server owners and moderators may remove content and members from their own servers. The owner of an open or listed server is responsible for its name, picture, description and topics: they must follow this section and describe what the server is actually about. We may take a server out of Discover, and remove servers that exist to spread what this section forbids.

9. Reporting and moderation

Koti includes a reporting function: any message, person or server can be reported from the app, a server also from Discover. We do not monitor content in general and we do not read private messages without cause. When content is reported, we may view the reported content, and only that, to the extent necessary, review it, and – where the law requires – pass it to the competent authorities. We may remove reported content.

Objectionable content and abusive behaviour are not tolerated on Koti. We act on reports within 24 hours by removing the content and, where necessary, closing the account responsible. You can block anyone at any time; a blocked person cannot reach you.

10. Copyright complaints

If you believe content on Koti infringes your copyright or other rights, contact us at support@koti.one with enough detail to identify the content and your claim. We review valid reports and remove or block infringing content where appropriate. We may close accounts that repeatedly infringe the rights of others.

11. Third-party services

To run Koti we use a small number of named third-party providers: for hosting, for sending email and for delivering notifications to phones. Crash reports, sent only if you agree to it, go to an error tracker we run ourselves on our own server and are not passed to any third party. The providers' role and the related data processing are described in our Privacy Policy.

12. Ending the agreement

You may delete your account at any time from the app or from the account-deletion page; deletion is immediate and removes your messages, files, sessions and devices. If you breach these Terms or the law, we may remove content and suspend or permanently end your access, in particular in the case of serious or repeated breaches. What happens to your data afterwards is set out in the Privacy Policy.

13. No warranty

We provide Koti "as is" and "as available". We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure or fit for a particular purpose. You use Koti on your own responsibility. This section does not limit our liability under section 14 or any rights you have under mandatory law.

14. Liability

We are liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, and under the German Product Liability Act. In cases of ordinary negligence we are liable only for the breach of an essential contractual duty – one whose fulfilment makes proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on whose observance you may regularly rely – and then only for the foreseeable damage typical of this kind of contract. Any further liability is excluded. As Koti is provided free of charge, the statutory reductions of liability for gratuitous services also apply.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may amend these Terms where legal or operational reasons require it. We will inform you of significant changes in a suitable way, and such changes may require your renewed acceptance: the app asks you to accept the new version before you continue. The version published here at the relevant time applies (see the version and dates above).

16. Governing law and final provisions

German law applies. If you are a consumer, the mandatory protections of the law of your country of residence remain unaffected. If any provision of these Terms is or becomes invalid, the remaining provisions remain in force. Contact: support@koti.one.