Terms of use

These terms are between you and RelayAsk (“we”, “us”). They apply whenever you visit the site, create or respond to an Ask, open a RelayAsk link, or use any other part of the service. If you do not accept them, do not use the service. You must be 18 or over and legally able to accept these terms.

RelayAsk helps a short statement of what somebody wants to happen reach people who may be able to answer, help, introduce someone, pass it closer, or want the same thing. An Ask may lead to an answer, a one-to-one introduction, a Relay Chat, or a Gathering.

We provide the relay and consent tools. We do not promise that an Ask will reach a particular person, receive a response, or produce any outcome, and we are not a party to what people decide to do together afterwards.

Writing an Ask may require sign-in. Actions requested in an invitation message can be completed from its link without an account. Sign-in uses a short-lived email code rather than a password.

You must use your own email address and a first name people would recognise you by. You are responsible for activity through your signed-in browser and for keeping RelayAsk access links private. Anyone holding a valid link may be able to view and act on the invitation it carries. Tell us promptly if you think a code or link has been misused.

RelayAsk privately ranks a small set of likely relevant recipients using signals such as words, structured meaning, topic, intent, rough place, recency, prior activity, optional private profile details, delivery frequency, and outcome feedback. A model may review the strongest candidate summaries, while RelayAsk enforces blocks, place rules, and confidence thresholds. There is no public Ask list or people directory. If two active Asks point to the same outcome, RelayAsk may open a first-name-only Relay Chat automatically. Asks involving several people may be added to one continuing Gathering as more relevant Asks appear. A private connection is not an endorsement or personal recommendation, and any member can leave.

You may also share a private relay link. A person who receives an Ask may pass it to another person within the relay limits. You can close an Ask, but you cannot recall information somebody has already seen or copied.

You can put another person's name and email address into RelayAsk to send them one relevant message. By doing so you confirm that you actually know them, that you have their address legitimately, and that you have a reasonable basis for thinking they would not object to one message from a person they know.

Do not enter someone who has asked you to leave them alone, do not enter addresses in bulk, and do not enter an address that is not a real person you know. You may not use RelayAsk to build or upload a contact list.

In a one-to-one introduction, neither person receives the other's email address until both have separately agreed. A person who is suggested is asked privately before their name is offered to the Ask's author.

Publishing a relevant Ask involving several people may add you to a private Gathering automatically. The Gathering shows first names and Ask context, but does not reveal members' email addresses. You can leave at any time. Any later exchange of contact details is a separate choice by the people involved.

RelayAsk does not organise the time, place, venue, transport, payment, or conduct of a meeting. The people who connect are responsible for those arrangements.

You keep ownership of your content. You give us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, process, reproduce, and show it only as needed to run, secure, and improve the service and to carry out private delivery and relays you make. This licence ends when the content is deleted, except for copies we must retain for legal, safety, or technical reasons.

You are responsible for your content being accurate, lawful, and yours to share. Do not put a home address, financial information, government identifier, password, another person's contact details, or sensitive personal information into an Ask.

• Do not use RelayAsk to advertise, sell, solicit, spam, fundraise, or send bulk messages.
• Do not use it to date, proposition anyone, or seek sexual contact or content.
• Do not harass, threaten, stalk, discriminate against, impersonate, or deceive anyone.
• Do not enter anyone under 18 or write an Ask directed at anyone under 18.
• Do not seek contact details outside the consent flow or pressure someone to agree.
• Do not automate submissions or try to enumerate people, Asks, or links.
• Do not probe, disrupt, reverse engineer, or bypass access controls, link limits, security measures, or rate limits.
• Do not use the service for anything illegal, dangerous, fraudulent, or harmful.

RelayAsk sends service messages needed for Asks, relays, consent decisions, gatherings, safety, and sign-in codes you request. Invitation messages include a way to stop future invitation messages. We retain a protected suppression record so that someone else cannot add the address again.

An opt-out does not prevent a sign-in code you later ask us to send. Carrier, internet, or email-provider charges may apply to your use of the service.

This is the part worth reading twice.

• We do not verify anyone’s identity. A first name in this product is whatever someone typed.
• We do not run background checks or criminal record checks, on anyone, ever.
• We do not vouch for anyone’s character, honesty, safety, qualifications, or intentions.
• We do not judge whether two people are compatible. Our delivery score only estimates whether an Ask may be relevant; it does not endorse anyone or recommend that two people meet.
• We do not supervise conversations, introductions, gatherings, or anything that happens away from RelayAsk.

Use your own judgement. For a first meeting, choose a public place, arrange your own transport, tell somebody where you are going, and leave if anything feels wrong. In an emergency, contact local emergency services.

When someone passes an Ask on, that is not an endorsement of the person who asked. It means only that the recipient may know a relevant person or community. When someone suggests a person, any explanation comes from that user. That statement is theirs, not ours, and we have not checked it.

Users are responsible for what they say about other people. We may remove content or limit a relay, but we are not required to monitor every message before it is sent.

Request pages include reporting, blocking, or stopping controls where relevant. We may investigate reports and remove content, close an Ask, suppress an address, revoke a link, restrict features, or suspend access. We may act without notice when we reasonably believe safety, security, legal compliance, or service integrity requires it. We do not tell a reported person who reported them.

Our privacy notice explains what data we collect, where it comes from, why we use it, when contact details are disclosed, how long records remain, and the choices available to you.

We and our licensors own the service, software, design, brand, and content we provide. These terms give you only a personal, limited, revocable, non-transferable right to use the service as intended. They do not transfer our intellectual property to you.

We use service providers for functions such as hosting, databases, and email delivery. RelayAsk may also contain links that lead away from our service. We do not control third-party sites or the choices people make using separate email, messaging, venue, payment, or calendar services, and their own terms and privacy practices apply.

RelayAsk is early software provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. To the extent the law allows, we make no warranty that it will always be available, secure, accurate, uninterrupted, free of faults, or that a message will be delivered. We may add, change, limit, suspend, or withdraw features.

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for user content, missed or failed messages, or anything people say, arrange, or do after using RelayAsk. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or lost-profit damages.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by our negligence. Your mandatory consumer rights remain unchanged.

You may stop using RelayAsk at any time, close your Asks, sign out, opt out of messages, or use the available deletion control. You can also write to [email protected]. We may suspend or end access if you breach these terms or create a safety, security, legal, or operational risk.

Terms that by their nature should continue after use ends, including ownership, disclaimers, liability limits, and responsibility for earlier conduct, continue to apply.

We may update these terms as the service or law changes. The date at the top identifies the current version. If a change materially affects existing users, we will give reasonable notice where practical. Continued use after the new terms take effect means you accept them, subject to any mandatory rights that apply where you live.

Questions, notices, and complaints about these terms can be sent to [email protected].