Terms of Use · Orbitus

Introduction

By creating an account or using Orbitus, you agree to these Terms and the documents they include.

Orbitus is a non-commercial project developed and run jointly by Tian Du, Ji Wang, Huanyu Dong and Hanqi Yang, private individuals based in Sweden (together "Orbitus", "we", "us"). These Terms apply to the Orbitus apps, including test versions, and to the website orbitus.se (together, the "Service").

These Terms include our Community Guidelines and Safety Tips. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data. If you don't agree to these Terms, please don't create an account or use the Service.

Who can use Orbitus

Orbitus is only for adults who can lawfully use it.

By using Orbitus, you confirm that all of the following are true:

you are at least 18 years old and an adult where you live, and you are an individual (not a company or organisation);
you can enter into a binding agreement with us;
you are not barred from using the Service by law, you are not located in a country under a comprehensive U.S. or EU embargo, and you are not on a government list of prohibited or restricted parties;
you have never been convicted of a sexual offence or a violent crime, and you are not required to register as a sex offender anywhere;
you have not been removed from Orbitus before, unless we have given you written permission to come back;
you don't already have another active Orbitus account.

If any of this stops being true, you must stop using Orbitus and delete your account. We may close accounts that don't meet these conditions.

Your account

You are responsible for your account and for keeping it secure.

Give us accurate information, especially your date of birth, and keep it up to date.
Keep your sign-in details to yourself. If you think someone else has used your account, tell us at support@orbitus.se and use Settings → Account & security → Sign out of all devices.
Your account is personal: don't share it, sell it or let anyone else use it, and don't use anyone else's account.
Use an up-to-date version of the app. Older versions may stop working.

Community rules

Orbitus has zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive users. Breaking these rules can lead to removal of content or a permanent ban.

Orbitus is a place to find people to study, research, compete and build things with. You agree that you will not:

misrepresent your identity, age, school, qualifications or affiliations, or impersonate any person or organisation;
harass, bully, stalk, threaten, intimidate, defame or abuse anyone, on or off Orbitus;
send sexual messages or images to anyone who hasn't clearly asked for them, or use Orbitus to seek dates, sexual contact or paid companionship;
ask anyone for money, gifts, loans, investments, passwords or financial details, or use Orbitus for scams, pyramid schemes or any fraud;
offer, request or arrange academic misconduct, such as taking exams for others, ghost-writing assignments or theses, or selling coursework;
advertise, sell, recruit for paid schemes, or move people to other platforms for commercial purposes;
post political content (content that takes a side on, or campaigns about, political parties, elections, governments or political issues) in your profile, team posts or group chats, or use Orbitus anywhere — including private chats — for political campaigning, mobilisation or organising, for example: promoting or attacking a political party, candidate or movement; canvassing, collecting signatures, fundraising or recruiting for an election, referendum or political cause; or calling for or organising rallies, marches, protests or similar events, or creating posts or groups for that purpose. Academic discussion is fine — for example, discussing political science, public policy, international relations, law or history as part of a course, research, a paper or a competition — as long as it stays on topic, respects different views and isn't campaigning or mobilising in academic disguise;
share other people's private information, photos or messages without their permission;
infringe anyone's copyright, trademark, privacy or other rights;
use Orbitus for anything illegal, or encourage others to break these Terms;
scrape, harvest or bulk-collect data; use bots, scripts or third-party apps (including AI tools) to access the Service or other users' content; or copy users' content for commercial use;
probe, scan, test or bypass our security, or copy, modify, reverse-engineer or create derivative works of the app, except as allowed by law — if you find a security issue, please report it to support@orbitus.se;
interfere with or overload the Service, or spread malware;
submit false, misleading or abusive reports or appeals;
create a new account after we have suspended or removed you, or otherwise get around a restriction;
harass, threaten or abuse any of us, try to find, publish or misuse our personal information, or contact any of us through personal channels about Orbitus — reach us only in the app or at support@orbitus.se.

Content that isn't allowed. Don't post or send content that:

is sexual or pornographic, or shows nudity;
shows, sexualises or endangers minors — we report child sexual abuse material to the authorities;
is hateful or discriminatory, or attacks people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, health or similar traits;
is violent, graphic or threatening, or promotes self-harm, terrorism or dangerous activities;
is false or misleading, including fake opportunities, fake teams or fake credentials;
is spam, advertising or unsolicited commercial content, or links to harmful websites;
shares someone's intimate images without consent;
contains other people's personal data without permission;
infringes intellectual property or breaks confidentiality obligations;
is illegal or encourages illegal activity, such as drugs, weapons or counterfeit goods;
is political content, campaigning or mobilisation (academic discussion excepted — see rule 7 above);
has nothing to do with what Orbitus is for.

Our Community Guidelines and Safety Tips explain these rules in more detail.

Your content

What you post stays yours, and you are responsible for it. You give us the permission we need to run Orbitus.

Your responsibility. You are responsible for everything you post, send or upload ("your content"), including whether it is accurate and whether you have the right to share it. Don't share anything you wouldn't want others to see or keep: other users can screenshot or forward what you send them.

Your permission to us. You keep all rights in your content. To run Orbitus, you give us a worldwide, free, non-exclusive permission to host, store, copy, display, send and technically adapt your content (for example, resizing a photo) for the people you share it with, for as long as needed to operate and improve the Service. This permission doesn't let us sell your content, use it in advertising, or train AI models on your messages, photos or files. It ends when your content is deleted, except for copies that stay in other people's conversations, as explained in the Privacy Policy.

Other users' content belongs to them. You may use it only as Orbitus intends — to communicate and collaborate — and not for any other purpose. We don't check other users' content for accuracy and are not responsible for it.

Users' views are their own. Content that users post on Orbitus represents only the person who posted it, not the views or positions of Orbitus or any of its operators. Orbitus is politically neutral and does not support or encourage political discussion (see rule 7 under Community rules). We don't review user content by hand before it's posted, and to the extent permitted by law we are not responsible for it. You must make sure your content complies with the laws that apply to you, including those of the country or region where you are.

Our content. The app, the website, the Orbitus name and logo, and all other material we provide belong to us or our licensors. As long as you follow these Terms, we give you a personal, free, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable licence to use the Service for its intended purpose.

Feedback. If you send us ideas or suggestions, we may use them freely, without owing you anything.

Moderation. We may review, restrict or remove content that we reasonably believe breaks these Terms or the law. We are not obliged to monitor content.

Your interactions with other users

We don't run background checks or verify identities, and we are not responsible for what other users do — on Orbitus or offline. You are responsible for your own interactions.

No checks. Orbitus does not run criminal background checks or verify users' identities, ages, schools or qualifications, and makes no promises about any user's identity, intentions, conduct or reliability. Information in profiles and posts comes from users themselves.
Your own judgement. You alone are responsible for your interactions with other users, including what you share, any meetings you attend, any agreement you make, and any money, property or work you exchange. Before you meet someone or share personal details, read our Safety Tips.
Meeting in person. Any meeting between users — whether a study session, a team meeting or a competition — happens at your own risk and is not organised, supervised or endorsed by us.
Not our conduct. We are not responsible for the conduct of any user, on or off the Service, or for any loss, injury or damage that results from your interactions with other users, except to the extent it is caused by our own breach of these Terms or our own negligence, or where the law says otherwise.
Disputes between users are for the users concerned to resolve. We may help where we choose to, for example by acting on a report, but we have no obligation to get involved.
Off-platform behaviour counts. If we learn that someone has seriously harmed, threatened or defrauded another Orbitus user — including during an offline meeting — we may suspend or remove their account.

If anyone is in danger, contact the local emergency services first (112 in the EU), then report it to us.

Collaboration and opportunities

Teams, projects and opportunities are between you, your teammates and the organisers. Check what matters with the source.

Your projects. We are not a party to any team, project or agreement between users. Agree with your teammates on roles, credit, authorship, ownership of the work and confidentiality — ideally in writing. We are not responsible for the outcome of a project or for disputes between teammates.
Academic rules. You are responsible for following the rules of your university, course, employer and any competition you enter, including rules on academic integrity, collaboration and use of others' work.
Opportunities. Competitions, conferences, positions and other opportunities on Orbitus are based on information published by their organisers. We don't organise or endorse them and can't guarantee that deadlines, eligibility, fees or other details are accurate or current. Always check with the organiser before relying on them.
Links and third-party services. Links to other websites and services are for convenience; we don't control them and are not responsible for their content, terms or practices.

Reports, moderation and appeals

Tell us when something is wrong. We review reports fairly, explain our decisions and let you appeal.

You can report a profile, post, group, opportunity or message in the app, and block anyone. Our team reviews reports and lets the reporter know what we decided. We don't tell the reported person who reported them.
Text in profiles, team posts and group details, chat messages, friend requests and badge claims is automatically checked against word lists before it goes out; text that matches isn't sent. Accounts may be restricted automatically when many different people block or report them, or after repeated failed checks. Our Privacy Policy explains how.
Depending on how serious and repeated a breach is, we may warn you, remove content, close a group, limit a feature, or suspend or permanently ban an account. In an emergency we may act first and review afterwards.
When we restrict your account or remove your content, we tell you what we did, why, which rule it was based on, how long it lasts and whether automation was involved — unless the law prevents it or sharing it would endanger someone's safety or privacy.
Appeals. You can appeal a restriction in the app, or email support@orbitus.se within six months. A person — where possible someone other than the one who decided — reviews every appeal, free of charge. If we got it wrong, we put it right. You can still go to court or to an authority.
Reporting in good faith is never a violation, even if the report isn't upheld. Deliberately false or abusive reports are.

Reporting illegal content

Anyone can tell us about illegal content, with or without an account.

Email support@orbitus.se and include:

where the content is (a screenshot, the person's Orbit ID, or the name of the post or group);
why you believe it is illegal;
your name and email address — not needed if the report concerns child sexual abuse;
a statement that you believe in good faith that the information is accurate and complete.

Please don't send us the illegal images themselves. We confirm we received your notice, review it carefully and without bias, and tell you what we decided.

Intellectual property. If you believe content on Orbitus infringes your copyright or trademark, send the same kind of notice, identifying the work and the content concerned and stating that you are the rights holder or authorised to act for them. We remove infringing content and close the accounts of repeat infringers.

Intimate images. If someone has shared an intimate image of you without consent, report it in the app or email us. We remove it within 48 hours of a valid request and take reasonable steps to remove known copies.

Contact point. For users and authorities, our single point of contact under the EU Digital Services Act is support@orbitus.se, in English or Chinese.

A free service in beta

Orbitus is free and still being tested. Features may change, and the Service may sometimes be unavailable.

Orbitus is free and non-commercial. There are no paid features, subscriptions or in-app purchases. If that ever changes, we'll explain the price and terms first and ask for your clear agreement — these Terms don't authorise any charge.

Orbitus is in testing. We may add, change or remove features, and the Service may occasionally have errors or be unavailable, for example during maintenance. Keep your own copies of important work and confirm key deadlines at the source. If we decide to close Orbitus, we'll give you reasonable notice and a chance to request a copy of your data.

Ending your use

You can leave at any time. We may suspend or close accounts that break these Terms.

You can stop using Orbitus at any time and delete your account in the app — see the Privacy Policy for what happens next.

We may suspend or close your account, or restrict features, if you seriously or repeatedly break these Terms or our Community Guidelines (including through conduct off the Service towards other users), if you no longer meet the eligibility conditions, if your account poses a risk to other users or to the Service, or where the law requires it. Where appropriate, we'll warn you first and give you a chance to respond.

Even after a ban, you can still ask for your data, ask us to delete it, or appeal. The sections of these Terms that by their nature should continue — such as your content licence for content that remains, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnity and dispute terms — continue after your account ends.

Disclaimers

Orbitus is provided "as is". We do our best, but we can't promise it will always work or that everything on it is accurate.

To the extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied — including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. In particular, we don't promise that:

the Service will be uninterrupted, secure or free of errors, or that defects will be corrected;
any content or information on the Service — including profiles, posts, messages and opportunities — is accurate, complete or up to date;
you will find teammates, receive replies, or achieve any result through Orbitus.

We are not responsible for damage to your device or data caused by viruses, attacks, network failures or other events beyond our reasonable control. If you are a consumer, you keep any rights the law gives you that cannot be excluded, including rights relating to digital services that do not conform to what was agreed.

Limitation of liability

Orbitus is a free, non-commercial service. To the extent the law allows, our liability to you is limited.

To the extent permitted by law, none of us — neither the operators of Orbitus, together or individually, nor anyone who helps us, such as volunteers — is liable for:

any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages;
loss of profits, data, opportunities, goodwill or other intangible losses;
loss or damage arising from the conduct or content of any user or third party, whether on or off the Service;
loss or damage arising from unauthorised access to or use of your account or content, unless caused by our failure to take reasonable security measures.

What we don't limit. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, intent or gross negligence, or any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law — including your mandatory rights as a consumer and under data protection law.

Indemnity

If your actions lead to a claim against us, you are responsible for it.

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless each of the operators of Orbitus and anyone who helps us run it from any claims, demands, losses, damages, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) brought by third parties that arise from:

your content;
your use of the Service in breach of these Terms or the law;
your conduct towards other users, on or off the Service.

This doesn't apply to the extent a loss was caused by our own breach of these Terms or our own fault.

Apple and Google

If you downloaded Orbitus from an app store, this agreement is with us — not Apple or Google.

If you got Orbitus from the App Store or Google Play, these Terms are between you and us, not Apple or Google, and we — not they — are responsible for the app and its content. Apple and Google have no duty to provide maintenance or support for it. We, not Apple, are responsible for handling claims about the app, including product, legal-compliance and intellectual-property claims. You confirm you are not in a country under a U.S. government embargo and not on a U.S. list of prohibited or restricted parties. The store's own terms also apply. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

Law and disputes

Swedish law applies, but you keep the consumer protections of the country where you live.

Swedish law applies to these Terms, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. If you are a consumer living in another country, you keep the protections that the law of that country gives you and that can't be waived.

Please contact us first at support@orbitus.se — most problems are quickest to solve that way, and we'll try in good faith to resolve yours. If we can't, you may bring a dispute before the courts of Sweden or of the country where you live.

Other terms

A few standard rules about how this agreement works.

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the documents they include, are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service and replace any earlier agreements.
Who is bound. This agreement is between you and the four of us jointly, acting together as Orbitus. Each of us takes part as a private individual, on a non-commercial basis. To the extent permitted by law, notices and claims under these Terms must be sent to Orbitus at support@orbitus.se and brought against the operators jointly, not against one of us individually. Anyone else who helps us, such as volunteers, is not a party to this agreement and can't be held responsible under it.
Transfer. Your account and your rights under these Terms are personal and can't be transferred. We may transfer this agreement to someone who takes over Orbitus — for example the non-profit association we intend to set up to run it — provided your rights are not reduced; we'll tell you beforehand.
No waiver. If we don't enforce a provision straight away, we don't give up the right to do so later.
Severability. If any part of these Terms turns out to be invalid or unenforceable, the rest still applies.
No special relationship. Using Orbitus doesn't create any partnership, employment, agency or similar relationship between you and us.

Changes and language

We'll tell you before significant changes take effect.

We may update these Terms when Orbitus, the law or safety needs change. We update the version and date at the top, and for significant changes we'll tell you in the app at least 15 days before they take effect, unless a change is urgently needed for legal or safety reasons. If you don't agree with a change, you can delete your account before it takes effect; if you keep using Orbitus after that, the new Terms apply.

These Terms are available in Chinese and English, and both versions are equally valid. If they differ, the meaning that is more favourable to you applies.

Contact

support@orbitus.se · Sweden