our terms, plainly

What whimsee is

Whimsee is a nature-wandering app. People hide glimmers (small notes or photos) and mark permanent spots at real outdoor places, and others wander to them with hotter and colder guidance, revealing them on their phone once they are close enough, out in the place itself. Exactly how close depends on your phone and the tree cover, so it varies from place to place. Nothing is dug and nothing is disturbed. Content is collect-to-reveal: a glimmer stays hidden until you have physically been there.

Glimmers fade, and that is the point. Every glimmer has a lifespan you choose, from a day to a season, and then it is gone. Glimmers may also be removed by moderation, or lost to a fault. We do not promise that any glimmer, spot, message, or kept item will last, be available, or be recoverable, so if something matters to you, keep your own copy. The one gentle exception is a glimmer you Keep Forever, saved to your collection so it survives its own expiry, though even that is subject to these terms and the ordinary risks of any software.

Who can wander

The open wander app is for grown-ups. Children come to whimsee only in gentle, supervised ways:

• You must be 18 or over to use the open app, and you confirm this when you sign up. This is our own choice, not a bare legal minimum.
• Children wander only as a parent-managed child profile under a grown-up’s account, or in a school cohort run by a teacher. Children never sign up on their own and never hold their own email. Parents and schools accept these terms on the child’s behalf and look after their use. See our safeguarding policy.
• Please don’t use whimsee if the law where you are forbids it, or if we have previously suspended or removed your account.

Your account

Whimsee is anonymous-first. You start with a nature name and an emoji, no real name and no email required. That anonymous account lives on your device, so you are responsible for the device you use it on. If you lose access to the device without linking an email, you may lose access to the account.

You can optionally link an email to sign in across devices, and we verify it with a 6-digit code. Keep your email and codes to yourself, and tell us promptly if you think someone else has got into your account. An anonymous account that is never used and never linked to an email may be tidied away automatically (our current window is 7 days), along with anything on it. Link an email if you would like it to stick around.

Joining, invites and referral codes

Whimsee is free and open to wander on Android, and you do not need an invite code to join. On iPhone it is coming soon, and you can join the waitlist to be told when it is ready. These terms apply however you come in.

Invite and referral codes are gifts, not property. They have no cash value, cannot be sold or traded, and we may limit, expire or revoke them, and manage the waitlist, at our discretion. Please only share codes with people you would be glad to wander alongside.

Your content

You keep ownership of the glimmers, spot messages, photos and notes you create (your content). You are responsible for it, and you confirm you have the right to share what you share.

So that whimsee can actually work, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sub-licensable licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for formatting and display), publish and display your content, and to feature it to promote the service, only as needed to run, improve and promote whimsee. This licence is what lets us show your glimmer to the wanderer who reveals it, back it up, and run the app. We will not sell your content or hand it to advertisers, and we respect your moral rights: we attribute you by your nature name where it makes sense, and won’t treat your content in a way meant to demean you.

When you delete your content or your account, or when a glimmer expires, the licence ends for new uses and we remove the content from the live service, though copies may linger briefly in backups before they age out, and a glimmer already kept by another wanderer stays in their collection. We may also keep what the law requires us to keep.

Wandering kindly

Whimsee runs on kindness over growth, so the first rules are the gentle ones: leave glimmers you would be happy to find, flag gently rather than pile on, and treat the wild places and the people you meet with care. Then the firm ones. You must not use whimsee to:

• post anything unlawful, or content that is hateful, harassing, bullying, threatening, sexual involving minors, or otherwise abusive;
• share other people’s personal data or private information without their consent, or try to identify or track another wanderer;
• hide a glimmer or spot somewhere dangerous, unlawful or unkind to reach, no cliff edges, live traffic, or land a finder would have to trespass on or be put at risk to reach;
• damage or disturb protected or sensitive nature sites (SSSIs, nature reserves, private or fragile habitats), or breach any access rules that apply to a place;
• impersonate anyone, spam, advertise, scrape, reverse-engineer, or attack or overload the service;
• get around moderation, family-safe controls, or these terms.

Break these and we may remove content or end your access.

Wandering happens in the real world

Please read this one properly. Whimsee sends you outdoors, and the outdoors is not under our control. You wander at your own judgement and your own risk. Watch your step, mind the weather, the tide, the terrain and the traffic, respect private land and access rights, and don’t go anywhere or do anything that isn’t safe for you.

Our compass and location checks verify where you are, not whether it is safe to be there. We cannot and do not vet the safety of any place a wanderer has chosen. If somewhere feels wrong, turn back, no glimmer is worth it. If you are wandering with a child, you are responsible for supervising them throughout. Nothing here limits the rights the law gives you where we have been negligent.

Moderation, flagging and ending an account

Anyone can flag content that seems off. Our keepers review flags in the keeper’s clearing and may remove content or leave it be. Glimmers made by children are held for a parent or teacher to approve before anyone can discover them.

We may remove content, suspend or close an account, or withdraw invite and referral codes if we reasonably believe these terms have been broken, the law requires it, or it is needed to protect people (especially children) or the service. Where it is fair to, we will tell you why. If you think we got it wrong, write to hello@whimsee.co.uk and we will take another look. You can stop using whimsee and delete your account at any time.

Availability and changes to the service

Whimsee is early software offered as available. We don’t promise it will be uninterrupted, error-free, or available at any particular time, and we may carry out maintenance or take it down without notice. Features sit behind feature flags and may appear, change or disappear as we learn what works. We will try not to remove anything important without good reason.

Our responsibility to you

Nothing in these terms limits or excludes our liability where the law will not let us. In particular, we do not exclude or limit our liability for:

• death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
• fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or
• anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited under the law of England and Wales.

Your statutory rights stand. If you are a consumer, the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and other UK consumer law give you rights (including that a service be provided with reasonable care and skill) that these terms do not affect and cannot take away.

Subject to the above, and because whimsee is free, early software: we provide the service without warranties beyond those the law implies; we are not liable for loss or damage that was not reasonably foreseeable, for content other wanderers post, for what happens out in the world during a wander, or for glimmers that fade, are removed or are lost. To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you for anything connected with the service is limited to £100. If you use whimsee for business rather than as a consumer, we exclude liability for loss of profit, business or data to the fullest extent the law allows.

Governing law

These terms, and any dispute about them or the service, are governed by the law of England and Wales, and you and we submit to its courts. If you are a consumer living elsewhere in the UK or in another country, you keep the benefit of any mandatory consumer protections of the place you live, and can bring proceedings in your local courts where the law gives you that right.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms, for example as whimsee grows or the law changes. We will post the new version here and, for anything material, tell you in the app before it takes effect. These are our terms while we finish our formal registration. If you carry on using whimsee after a change takes effect, that counts as accepting it. If you don’t agree, you can stop using whimsee and delete your account.

Contact

Questions, appeals, or anything else, we are at hello@whimsee.co.uk. For privacy questions specifically, see the privacy notice.