Acceptable Use Policy

1.Scope

This Policy applies to every User of the Application and is incorporated into the Barium Terms of Service. Capitalized terms used in this Policy but not otherwise defined herein shall have the meanings given to them in the Terms of Service or the Privacy Policy, as applicable.

The Third-Party Homeserver, Third-Party Telecommunications Services and other Independent Services you use, and the rooms you participate in, have their own rules set by their own operators and administrators. Those rules bind you separately, may be stricter than this Policy and are enforced by people who, unlike Barium, can actually enforce them.

2.Enforcement

Barium is client software which uses the Matrix Protocol. Because your communications are end-to-end encrypted and never pass through any system that Barium operates, Barium cannot read reported content, cannot moderate conversations, cannot remove content from anyone’s device and cannot suspend or ban any account. This is a consequence of the encryption provided by the Matrix Protocol, not a policy choice. Nothing in this Policy is a commitment by Barium to monitor, moderate or intervene, and no statement in it should be read as such a commitment.

Enforcement belongs to the parties who are able to do so, including:

• (a)you, through the tools in the Application, including the ability: (i) to block somebody (which stops their messages from reaching any of your devices); (ii) to leave rooms (which removes that room from your account and stops any messages in that room from reaching any of your devices) and (iii) to report messages and rooms to the administrators of your own Homeserver;
• (b)room administrators, who can moderate rooms, remove objectionable content and remove people from rooms for violating the rules;
• (c)Homeserver operators, who can suspend or deactivate Matrix accounts on their servers and who are generally the correct recipient of reports about users and their content; and
• (d)law enforcement, where conduct is criminal.

3.Prohibited Uses

You may not use the Application:

• (a)in any way that violates applicable law or regulation;
• (b)in any way that violates the Terms of Service;
• (c)to harm or attempt to harm any person, including harassing, bullying, threatening, stalking, intimidating or defrauding them;
• (d)to impersonate any person or entity, or to misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity;
• (e)to share any person’s private information without their consent, or to track or surveil any person without lawful authority;
• (f)to send unsolicited bulk messages, chain letters or other spam, whether commercial or not;
• (g)to transmit malware or any other harmful code, or to distribute material designed to disrupt any software, hardware or network;
• (h)to interfere with, disrupt, probe or attack any Homeserver, Third-Party Telecommunications Service, Independent Service, network or device, or to attempt unauthorized access to any of them, including by circumventing authentication or rate limits;
• (i)to record or transcribe communications without any consent required by applicable law; the Application’s recording and transcription features do not relieve you of consent obligations, which vary by jurisdiction and by participant location;
• (j)to violate the acceptable-use or other policies of the Third-Party Homeserver, Third-Party Telecommunications Service or other Independent Services that you use; or
• (k)to transmit audio, video or other material in a call, including through the Application’s audio-sharing or soundboard features, that you do not have the right to transmit.

4.Content Standards

You may not use the Application to create, send, request or share content that:

• (a)is illegal to possess or distribute in the applicable jurisdiction;
• (b)sexualizes, exploits or endangers a minor in any way;

THERE IS ZERO TOLERANCE FOR CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE MATERIAL. NO CONTEXT, INCLUDING CLAIMS OF SATIRE OR FICTION, CHANGES THIS POSTURE. WHERE BARIUM BECOMES AWARE OF SUCH MATERIAL, IT WILL REFER THE MATTER TO THE APPROPRIATE AUTHORITIES;

• (c)promotes, incites or provides material support for terrorism or violent extremism;
• (d)constitutes or promotes non-consensual intimate imagery;
• (e)is defamatory, or deceptively presented as fact with the intent to mislead;
• (f)infringes on any copyright, trademark, trade secret, privacy right, publicity right or other right of any person; or
• (g)promotes or instructs in illegal activity, including the sale of illegal goods.

The foregoing standards apply to every part of a contribution, including text, media, files, links, room names, display names, avatars and profile information, and to your conduct in calls as well as messages.

5.Security Research; Vulnerabilities

Do not test, probe or attack infrastructure you do not own or have permission to test. If you find a vulnerability in the Application itself, please report it to [email protected]. Good-faith reports about the Application are welcome by Barium. Vulnerabilities in a Homeserver or other Independent Service should be reported to the applicable operators, not to Barium.

6.Reporting

Reports about users, rooms or content can be made from within the Application, which sends them to the administrators of your own Homeserver, or directly to the operator of the applicable Third-Party Homeserver or other Independent Service, who can investigate these matters and act on them. Barium does not receive reports made in the Application. The Application’s tools, including blocking users and leaving rooms, take effect immediately on your own devices and require nobody’s cooperation.

If you believe material distributed by Barium itself, including the Application, its App Store listing or its documentation, violates the law or your rights, or if you need to reach us about a report that a Homeserver or other Independent Service operator cannot address, contact [email protected]. Remember that Barium cannot see message content and cannot act on any account. Barium’s ability to respond to reports is limited to the Application itself, referral to the appropriate operator and referral to law enforcement where appropriate.

7.Consequences of Breach

Breach of this Policy is a material breach under the Terms of Service and may result in termination of your license to use the Application. Matrix account-level consequences, content removal, room removal, suspension and deactivation, may only be imposed by room operators and the operators and administrators of Homeservers and other Independent Services and are governed by their own policies.

Barium may also disclose information actually within its possession to law enforcement where required by applicable law, as described in more detail in the Privacy Policy, and may pursue any remedy available at law for harm to Barium itself.

8.Changes to this Policy

We may amend this Policy from time to time. The current version will be available in the Application, with its effective date. Continued use of the Application after changes take effect shall constitute acceptance.

9.Contact

Barium Labs, LLC 5900 Balcones Drive Suite 30414 Austin, TX 78731 [email protected]