Sugarcoat — Terms of Service

Effective date: September 22, 2026

Welcome to Sugarcoat. These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and the operator of Sugarcoat ("Sugarcoat," "we," "us") governing your use of the Sugarcoat application, the sugarcoated.app websites, and related services (together, the "Service").

By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. What Sugarcoat is — and what it does to your messages

Sugarcoat is a messaging service that uses automated technology, including artificial-intelligence systems operated by us and by our service providers, to transform the messages people send. When you send a message, the Service may rewrite, rephrase, translate, soften, restyle, block, or otherwise modify it before it is shown to the recipient; the recipient's copy may likewise be restyled according to their settings. By using the Service you understand and agree that:

• the message a recipient sees may differ from the message you typed, and the message you see may differ from what the sender typed;
• your original text is processed by automated systems in order to produce the transformed version, and may be stored alongside it;
• transformation is automated and imperfect. It may change meaning, tone, or nuance, may produce errors, and may occasionally fail or decline to deliver a message;
• some messages, images, or videos may be blocked entirely by our safety systems and never delivered.

Sugarcoat is a consumer communication tool. It is not a professional translation, advice, or record-keeping service, and you should not rely on transformed messages for any purpose where accuracy of wording is critical (legal, medical, financial, or emergency communications).

1a. Sugar — the AI companion

The Service includes an optional AI companion called "Sugar": a conversational assistant, available in its own tab, that you can chat with directly. By using Sugar you understand and agree that:

• Sugar's replies are generated by automated artificial-intelligence systems and may be inaccurate, incomplete, or inappropriate for your situation. Sugar is a casual companion, not a source of professional advice (legal, medical, financial, mental-health, or emergency), and you should not rely on it as one.
• To help you, the Service may show Sugar limited portions of your own conversations on this Service (including summaries of them) — for example when you ask what someone meant, or when you use the "ask Sugar" feature on a message. Sugar is only ever shown content you yourself can see. See the Privacy Policy for details.
• Sugar cannot take actions: it cannot send messages, change settings, or affect your account or other users in any way. Its only output is text shown to you.
• Requesting prohibited content from Sugar (including sexual content or help with harmful, illegal, or cruel acts) is a violation of these Terms. Such requests are not answered; they receive a warning, they are recorded, and repeated violations result in losing access to Sugar. We may also take broader action under Section 11 for serious or persistent abuse.

2. Eligibility and age requirements

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you are under the age of majority where you live, you may use the Service only with the consent of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to these Terms on your behalf.

You must provide your true date of birth when creating an account. The Service applies additional protective measures to conversations that include users under 21, including stricter automated filtering and blocking of abusive or sexual content. Misrepresenting your age is a violation of these Terms and may result in termination of your account.

3. Your account

You sign in with an email address, which is verified by a one-time code. You are responsible for maintaining access to your email account and for all activity that occurs under your Sugarcoat account. Keep your login email current; you can change it in Profile settings, and after a change is confirmed your previous email can no longer be used to sign in.

You agree to provide accurate information, not to impersonate any person, and not to create accounts by automated means. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms.

You may be signed in to the mobile app on one phone at a time. Signing in on another phone ends the session on the earlier phone and signs that device out; signing in on the web does not end a phone session.

4. Your content and your license to us

You retain ownership of the content you create and share on the Service, including your messages, photos, videos, and profile information ("Your Content").

So that we can operate the Service, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, process, transform, adapt, translate, transmit, and display Your Content, solely as necessary to (a) provide the Service — including generating transformed versions of your messages through our own systems and through third-party service providers acting on our behalf, (b) maintain safety, including automated moderation of text and images, (c) comply with law, and (d) enforce these Terms. This license ends when Your Content is deleted from the Service, except where retention is required for the purposes above, and except that messages you sent to others may remain visible to them (see Section 9).

We do not sell Your Content, we do not use it for third-party advertising, and we do not permit our artificial-intelligence service providers to use it to train their own models.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• harass, threaten, abuse, defame, or intimidate others, or encourage others to do so;
• send or share content that is unlawful, sexually explicit involving minors (zero tolerance — reported to authorities), exploitative, hateful, or that incites violence;
• send sexual content or advances to, or solicit them from, users you know or should reasonably know are minors;
• attempt to bypass, probe, or defeat the Service's safety systems, transformation pipeline, or age protections, including by manipulating prompts or encodings;
• attempt to obtain prohibited content from, or otherwise misuse, the Service's AI features, including Sugar;
• misrepresent your age or identity;
• send spam, malware, or unsolicited commercial messages;
• access the Service by automated means, scrape it, or interfere with its operation;
• reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the Service's underlying technology, prompts, or configurations, except where such restriction is prohibited by law;
• use the Service to violate any applicable law or regulation.

6. Safety and moderation

We use automated systems to help keep the Service safe, including automated review of message text during transformation and automated scanning of uploaded images and video stills. Content that our systems flag may be blocked, and accounts involved may be restricted or terminated. Conversations that include a user under 21 are subject to stricter automated protections, and abusive or sexual messages directed at such users are blocked rather than transformed.

Fair use of AI features. Message transformation and Sugar run on automated systems that carry a real cost for every request. If an account's usage pattern indicates automated access, or exceeds reasonable daily limits, we may temporarily pause its AI features — sending messages and talking to Sugar — for a period shown in the app. Reading and receiving messages continue to work during a pause. Pauses lengthen for repeated patterns, and persistent abuse may lead to action under Section 11.

Your safety tools. You can block another user (they can no longer message you or add you as a connection, and you can unblock them in Settings), report a specific message or user to us (reports are reviewed by authorized personnel), and mute any conversation's notifications. Blocking and reporting are available from a user's profile and from any message. Unblocking someone who was a connection when you blocked them restores that connection.

We do not undertake any obligation to monitor all content, and automated systems make mistakes; we are not liable for content that our systems fail to block. Blocked or rejected messages, including their original text, may be retained and reviewed by authorized personnel for safety, quality, and abuse-prevention purposes.

7. Privacy

Our collection and use of personal information is described in the Sugarcoat Privacy Policy, which is part of these Terms. Please read it.

8. Intellectual property

The Service — including its software, design, name, logo, and all technology used to provide it — is owned by us or our licensors and is protected by intellectual-property laws. We grant you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Service for personal, non-commercial purposes in accordance with these Terms. We reserve all rights not expressly granted.

9. Deleting content and your account

You can delete individual messages you sent; deleted messages are removed and replaced with a deletion notice visible to participants. You can permanently delete your account at any time in Settings → delete account. Deleting your account removes your profile, avatar, friend connections, and login, and frees your email address; messages you already sent may remain visible to the people you sent them to, consistent with how messaging services generally work. Operational and safety records may be retained as described in the Privacy Policy.

10. Changes to the Service and these Terms

The Service is under active development; features may change, be added, or be removed at any time. We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will provide notice through the Service or by email before the changes take effect. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date of updated Terms constitutes acceptance. If you do not agree to updated Terms, stop using the Service and delete your account.

10a. Mobile applications and app stores

Where the Service is distributed as a mobile application through the Apple App Store or Google Play, the following also applies: the store's own terms apply to your download and use of the app; Apple and Google are not parties to these Terms, are not responsible for the Service or its content, and have no obligation to provide support or maintenance for it. Push notifications are optional and controlled by you through the app and your device settings. To the extent required by a store's rules, that store and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

11. Termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access, with or without notice, if you violate these Terms, if required by law, or if we discontinue the Service. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 4 licence tail, 12, 13, 14, and 15) survive.

12. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT MESSAGE TRANSFORMATIONS WILL BE ACCURATE, APPROPRIATE, OR FAITHFUL TO YOUR INTENT; THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE; OR THAT ANY CONTENT WILL BE BLOCKED, PRESERVED, OR DELIVERED.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so parts of this section may not apply to you. If you are a consumer in the European Union or the United Kingdom, these Terms do not affect the statutory guarantees and remedies you have under mandatory local law.

13. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW: (A) WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, OR RELATIONSHIPS — INCLUDING DAMAGE ARISING FROM THE CONTENT OF A TRANSFORMED MESSAGE OR FROM RELIANCE ON IT; AND (B) OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF ONE HUNDRED US DOLLARS (US$100) OR THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID US FOR THE SERVICE IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE.

NOTHING IN THESE TERMS EXCLUDES OR LIMITS LIABILITY THAT CANNOT BE EXCLUDED OR LIMITED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, INCLUDING LIABILITY FOR DEATH OR PERSONAL INJURY CAUSED BY NEGLIGENCE, FOR FRAUD, OR — FOR EU/UK CONSUMERS — LIABILITY UNDER MANDATORY CONSUMER-PROTECTION LAW.

14. Indemnification

To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from claims, liabilities, damages, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from Your Content, your use of the Service, or your violation of these Terms or of any law or third-party right. This section does not apply to consumers in jurisdictions where such indemnities are unenforceable.

15. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Korea, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Subject to the paragraphs below, disputes will be resolved in the courts of Seoul, Republic of Korea.

If you are a consumer in the European Union or the United Kingdom: you benefit from the mandatory consumer-protection provisions of the law of your country of residence, nothing in this section deprives you of that protection, and you may bring proceedings in the courts of your country of residence. The European Commission provides an online dispute-resolution platform at https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr.

If you reside in the United States: you and we agree that any dispute arising out of these Terms or the Service that cannot be resolved informally will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, rather than in court, except that either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, YOU AND WE EACH WAIVE THE RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL AND TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS ACTION. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing us within 30 days of first accepting these Terms with the subject "Arbitration opt-out." This paragraph does not apply where prohibited by law.

Before starting any formal proceeding, please contact us first — most concerns can be resolved quickly and informally.

16. General

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. These Terms are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, with notice to you. No agency, partnership, or employment relationship is created by these Terms.

17. Translations

These Terms are published in multiple languages for convenience. If there is any inconsistency between the English version and a translation, the English version controls to the extent permitted by applicable law.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms: contact@sugarcoated.app

Operator: Sugarcoat (Republic of Korea)