Dearly Post Terms & Privacy

Terms of Use

These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your access to and use of Dearly Post, a service for writing, sending, receiving, scheduling, and publishing digital letters and postcards. By accessing or using Dearly Post, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

These Terms should be read together with the Dearly Post Privacy Policy, which explains how personal information is handled. If the two documents appear to conflict, they should be reviewed and clarified before publication rather than assuming one overrides the other.

1. Who may use Dearly Post

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or use Dearly Post. By using the service, you confirm that you are at least 18 and legally able to agree to these Terms.

Do not create an account or use the service if you are under 18. If Dearly Post learns that an account is being used by someone under 18, it may restrict or terminate that account, subject to applicable law and any necessary handling of the information involved.

The minimum-age rule must be reflected in the product experience and enforced in a manner appropriate to the service. This Terms provision does not replace any additional obligations that may apply under law.

2. The service

Dearly Post currently focuses on digital letters and postcards. Depending on the features available, users may be able to:

• Write and save letters or postcards;
• Send and receive private letters or postcards;
• Schedule letters or postcards for future delivery;
• Choose to publish letters or postcards publicly; and
• Choose an available public identity option when publishing.

Features may change, be added, or be removed over time. We will handle material changes in accordance with applicable law and any notice obligations that apply.

At launch, Dearly Post is intended to be free to use. We may introduce paid features or subscriptions in the future. If we do, we will provide applicable pricing and additional terms before charging users for those features.

3. Your account and account security

You must provide accurate information where requested and keep your account information reasonably up to date. You are responsible for protecting your login credentials and for activity carried out through your account, except to the extent applicable law provides otherwise.

You must not share, sell, rent, or transfer your account to another person without our permission. You must notify Dearly Post promptly if you believe your account has been compromised.

Do not send your password or private encryption keys to Dearly Post by email or through support channels. Dearly Post's account recovery and key-recovery behavior must be accurately described in the product and supporting documentation before publication; do not assume Dearly Post can recover encrypted letter content.

4. Your letters, postcards, and content rights

4.1 You retain your rights

As between you and Dearly Post, you retain the rights you hold in the letters, postcards, text, and attachments you create or provide, subject to rights held by other people and applicable law.

You are responsible for ensuring that you have the rights and permissions needed to create, send, or publish content and attachments.

4.2 Limited licence to operate the service

You grant Dearly Post a limited, non-exclusive permission to handle your content only as reasonably necessary to provide the features you request and operate the service—for example, storing encrypted content, transmitting it to the intended recipient, retaining a scheduled item until it is sent or cancelled, and displaying content you explicitly choose to publish.

This permission does not give Dearly Post a general right to use private letter or postcard content for advertising, unrelated purposes, or routine staff review. Dearly Post does not sell personal information, share personal information with advertisers, or use user content for advertising.

The technical implementation must ensure that this limited licence is consistent with the end-to-end encryption model. Do not interpret this licence as permission for Dearly Post staff or providers to read private content where the encryption design does not make that content accessible.

4.3 Public content

If you deliberately publish a letter or postcard, you authorize Dearly Post to display that content publicly as part of the publication feature and to make it available to visitors in accordance with your settings.

Public content may be indexed by search engines, copied, cached, archived, or shared by other people. Removing content from Dearly Post may not remove third-party copies. Before publication, review the content and identity details that will be visible.

The available identity options for public letters must be explained clearly in the product. Do not publish another person's personal information or content unless you have the right and lawful basis to do so.

4.4 Content removal

You may use available product controls to edit, cancel, unpublish, or delete content where those controls are offered. The exact effect of each action—including effects on sent messages, recipients' copies, backups, public caches, and records retained for legal or security reasons—must be explained in the product and Privacy Policy.

Dearly Post has not yet finalized all retention and deletion rules. Do not assume that removing content from the service automatically erases every copy held by recipients, backups, or third parties.

5. Private letters and end-to-end encryption

Dearly Post's stated design is to use end-to-end encryption for storing and sending private letters and postcards. Under that design, Dearly Post staff and ordinary service infrastructure cannot ordinarily read private letter content.

Encryption may not hide all metadata required to operate the service, such as account identifiers, routing information, timestamps, scheduling status, or delivery status. The actual encryption protocol, key management, backup model, metadata handling, and implementation must be verified before publication.

Private content is not intended for routine staff review. The intended content-access exceptions are:

1. You explicitly submit a letter for public publication. The content you choose to publish becomes public as described in these Terms and the Privacy Policy.
2. The recipient of a received letter reports that item. The reported item may be made available for a limited review, as described below.

These exceptions must be implemented deliberately. The report workflow must not create general staff access to unrelated private letters or drafts.

5.1 Reports of received letters

Only the recipient of a received letter or postcard may submit a report under the current product decision. When a report is submitted, review access is intended to be limited to the reported item, attachments relevant to it, and sender/recipient details and other information needed to assess the report.

If a violation is confirmed, Dearly Post may remove content, restrict an account, or take another appropriate action under these Terms and applicable law. Staff should not inspect unrelated private letters or drafts as part of a report review.

Before launch, Dearly Post must implement and test how a recipient's report makes the selected item reviewable while preserving the intended end-to-end encryption model. These Terms do not claim that the reporting implementation is complete.

6. Scheduled letters and postcards

If the service offers scheduling, you may instruct Dearly Post to send a letter or postcard at a future time. The current intended rule is that a scheduled item is stored until it is sent or cancelled.

You are responsible for selecting the intended recipient and scheduled delivery time. Review the details before confirming a scheduled send. The service may not be able to stop a letter after it has been sent or delivered, and a recipient may retain a copy.

Dearly Post must explain in the product whether and when a scheduled item can be edited or cancelled, what happens if delivery fails, and how scheduling works with end-to-end encryption. Do not assume a scheduled item can be recovered if you lose access to the relevant encryption keys.

7. Acceptable use and prohibited conduct

You agree to use Dearly Post lawfully and respectfully. You must not use the service to:

• Threaten, harass, stalk, intimidate, or target another person;
• Send credible threats, encourage violence, or promote harm against a person;
• Impersonate another person, misrepresent your identity, or falsely claim to represent an individual or organization;
• Send spam, bulk unsolicited messages, scams, phishing attempts, fraudulent solicitations, or deceptive messages;
• Commit, facilitate, or encourage unlawful conduct;
• Violate another person's privacy, confidentiality, publicity, or intellectual-property rights;
• Publish another person's private information without proper authorization or a lawful basis;
• Distribute malware, malicious links, or content intended to compromise devices, accounts, or systems;
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to accounts, systems, encryption keys, or infrastructure;
• Probe, bypass, interfere with, or undermine security controls, encryption, rate limits, or other protective measures;
• Interfere with the service's operation, overload it, or use automated means in a way that harms the service or other users;
• Circumvent account restrictions or create replacement accounts to evade enforcement;
• Use Dearly Post to exploit, groom, or endanger children or to distribute child sexual abuse material;
• Distribute unlawful, exploitative, or non-consensual intimate content;
• Infringe copyright, trademark, or other rights, or knowingly submit content you have no right to use; or
• Encourage, assist, or facilitate another person in doing any of the above.

This list is not exhaustive. You must also comply with applicable laws and any reasonable service rules presented in the product.

8. Public content and user responsibility

You are responsible for the content you write, send, receive, or publish through your account, subject to applicable law. Dearly Post does not endorse user content merely because it is transmitted or displayed by the service.

Before publishing a letter publicly, consider whether it contains private, confidential, sensitive, or legally protected information. Public content may be indexed by search engines and copied by third parties. You should publish only content you are willing and entitled to make public.

Do not use the service to evade another person's lawful privacy rights or to send content that violates these Terms.

9. Moderation and enforcement

Dearly Post's intended moderation approach is to review public content and private letters that are explicitly reported by their recipient, rather than routinely reviewing private correspondence.

Where a report is submitted, Dearly Post may review only the reported item, relevant attachments, and information reasonably needed to assess the report. If a violation is confirmed, Dearly Post may remove or restrict the content, warn the user, limit features, suspend an account, or terminate an account.

Dearly Post may also take action when reasonably necessary to protect the security or operation of the service or to comply with applicable law. Any such action must remain consistent with the service's encryption commitments and applicable legal obligations. This clause does not create general staff access to private content.

Where appropriate and lawful, Dearly Post may provide notice of enforcement action and an opportunity to contact us about it. Notice may not be possible where it would compromise an investigation, create a security risk, or violate law.

The reporting and moderation process must be implemented and documented before publication. These Terms do not represent that a specific reporting, appeal, or moderation tool exists unless it is available in the product.

10. Suspension and termination

You may stop using Dearly Post at any time. Any account closure or deletion process is subject to the controls actually provided by the service and the applicable retention rules.

Dearly Post may suspend, restrict, or terminate your access if it reasonably determines that you have violated these Terms, created a security risk, misused the service, or if action is necessary to comply with applicable law. Where appropriate and lawful, we will provide notice and explain the general reason for the action.

We may also suspend or discontinue some or all of the service. Where required by applicable law, we will provide notice or take other required steps.

Termination does not automatically erase copies already received by other users, copies of public content held by third parties, or information that must lawfully be retained. The final deletion and retention process must be described in the Privacy Policy.

11. Service availability and changes

We aim to make Dearly Post useful and reliable, but we do not guarantee that the service will always be available, uninterrupted, error-free, or compatible with every device. Maintenance, technical issues, security events, provider outages, or other circumstances may affect availability or delivery.

We may change, suspend, or discontinue features as the service evolves, subject to applicable law. We will handle material changes in accordance with legal requirements and any notice commitments we make.

12. Third-party services and links

Dearly Post may rely on third-party infrastructure or link to third-party websites or services. Those services may be governed by their own terms and privacy policies. Dearly Post is not responsible for third-party services to the extent permitted by applicable law, but this does not limit any responsibility that cannot legally be excluded.

Before launch, Dearly Post must identify its actual hosting, analytics, email-delivery, and other service providers and ensure that its provider arrangements match the encryption and privacy promises made in the Privacy Policy and these Terms.

13. Paid features and subscriptions in the future

Dearly Post is intended to be free at launch. We may introduce paid features or subscriptions later.

Before any paid feature is offered, we will present the applicable price, billing frequency, payment terms, renewal and cancellation rules, refund policy, and any additional terms required by law. Users will not be charged for a paid feature without the required notice and agreement.

Any future physical-mail feature that requires postal addresses may require additional terms and a revised Privacy Policy explaining the additional information processed.

14. Intellectual-property rights in Dearly Post

Dearly Post and its software, design, branding, logos, and other service materials may be protected by intellectual-property laws. Except for rights expressly granted to you or required by law, these Terms do not give you ownership of Dearly Post's software or branding.

You may not copy, modify, reverse engineer, redistribute, or exploit the service or its materials except as permitted by law or with our permission. Nothing in this section prevents activities that cannot legally be restricted.

Your rights in user-created letters and postcards are addressed in Section 4.

15. Disclaimers

To the extent permitted by applicable law, Dearly Post is provided on an "as available" basis. We do not guarantee that letters will always be delivered at a particular time, that a recipient will read or respond to a letter, or that content will remain available indefinitely.

End-to-end encryption is intended to protect private correspondence, but no technical system is risk-free. The actual protection depends on the implemented design, users' devices, account security, and key handling. Do not share private encryption keys or sensitive account credentials.

Nothing in these Terms excludes a warranty, consumer right, or legal protection that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

16. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Dearly Post will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive losses, or loss of profits, revenue, goodwill, data, or business opportunities arising from use of or inability to use the service.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Dearly Post's total liability for claims arising out of or relating to the service will be limited to the extent reasonably permitted by law. No specific monetary cap is set in this draft. Any cap, exclusions, or allocation of risk must be reviewed for enforceability under Indian law and any mandatory consumer-protection rules that apply.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability or rights that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded, including any mandatory consumer rights or remedies.

17. Indemnity

To the extent permitted by applicable law, you may be responsible for losses or claims caused by your unlawful use of Dearly Post or your material violation of these Terms, including infringement of another person's rights. This clause should not be interpreted to impose liability where prohibited by law or to remove mandatory consumer protections.

18. Informal resolution and governing law

If you have a concern or dispute about Dearly Post, please contact us first at privacy@dearlypost.org for privacy matters or through the official contact channel published on Dearly Post for other matters. Explain the issue and the outcome you are seeking. We will make reasonable efforts to resolve it informally.

These Terms are intended to be governed by the laws of India, subject to mandatory legal protections that apply to you. Nothing in this section removes a right to bring a complaint before a competent regulator or to use a legal remedy that cannot be excluded by agreement.

19. Privacy

The Dearly Post Privacy Policy describes how personal information is handled, including account and technical information, non-content analytics, retention, user requests, and the intended end-to-end encryption model.

These Terms do not grant Dearly Post a general right to read private letter or postcard content. The intended exceptions are explicit public publication and recipient-initiated reporting of the specific item, as described in Section 5. The Terms, Privacy Policy, and actual product implementation must remain consistent.

20. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the service evolves or legal requirements change. We will post the updated version with a revised "Last updated" date. Where required by law, we will give notice or obtain consent for material changes. If you continue to use Dearly Post after an update takes effect, your use will be governed by the revised Terms to the extent permitted by applicable law.

21. General provisions

If a provision of these Terms is found invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue to apply to the extent permitted by law. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of the right to enforce it later.

You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms in a way that violates them or applicable law. Dearly Post may transfer or reorganize its operation only as permitted by applicable law and subject to any required notices or safeguards.

Privacy Policy

Dearly Post is a service for writing, sending, receiving, scheduling, and publishing digital letters and postcards. This Policy explains how information is handled and how private correspondence is protected.

1. Scope

This Policy applies to visitors and users who create accounts or write, store, send, receive, schedule, or publish letters and postcards through Dearly Post. The service is intended for worldwide use, and legal requirements may differ by jurisdiction.

At launch, Dearly Post focuses on digital letters and postcards. Paid features, subscriptions, and physical mail services that require postal addresses may be introduced later. Reassess this Policy before launching such features.

2. Information handled

Account and profile information

Dearly Post may handle email address, username, password-related authentication data, additional profile fields users provide, account preferences, and settings. Passwords should be stored using an appropriate password-hashing method, not as readable text. The exact additional profile fields must be listed before publication.

Letters, postcards, drafts, attachments, and delivery information

Depending on the features used, Dearly Post may handle encrypted letter or postcard content, attachments, sender and recipient identifiers, scheduling information, delivery status, and public-display settings.

Technical and security information

The service may process limited technical information needed for operation and security, such as log-in events, timestamps, delivery status, device or browser information, IP addresses, error logs, and security events. Confirm the exact fields and retention periods before publication.

Non-content analytics

Dearly Post intends to use non-content usage analytics to measure visits and feature usage. Analytics must not collect or inspect letter or postcard content. The analytics provider, events, identifiers, cookie use, and retention periods remain to be confirmed.

Reports and privacy requests

If a recipient reports a letter, Dearly Post may process the report, the reported item and relevant attachments, and sender/recipient details needed to investigate and take action. If you contact Dearly Post, we will process information you provide to respond.

3. Purposes of use

Dearly Post may use relevant information to operate accounts; authenticate users; enable writing, storage, sending, receiving, scheduling, and publication; deliver scheduled items; apply user-selected privacy settings; respond to requests and complaints; investigate recipient reports; protect the service using appropriate security measures; measure visits and feature usage using non-content analytics; and comply with applicable legal obligations.

Dearly Post does not sell personal information, share personal information with advertisers, or use user content for advertising.

4. Private correspondence and end-to-end encryption

Dearly Post's intended design is to use end-to-end encryption for storing and sending private letters and postcards. Under that design, Dearly Post staff and ordinary service infrastructure cannot read private content.

Encryption may not conceal all metadata. Depending on the implementation, Dearly Post may still process account identifiers, routing information, timestamps, scheduling status, or delivery status needed to operate the service. The exact metadata visible to Dearly Post and its providers must be documented before publication.

The policy must not be read as a guarantee that every field, attachment, preview, notification, backup, or device copy is end-to-end encrypted unless the implementation has been verified. No online service can guarantee absolute security.

4.1 Public letters

If you deliberately submit a letter for public publication, you choose to make that letter's content public. Public letters may be displayed to visitors and indexed by search engines or other third parties. Copies may persist in caches, archives, screenshots, or third-party services after removal from Dearly Post.

Before publication, the product should clearly explain that the letter will be public and show what content and identity details will be visible. The public identity is based on the user's choice among the identity options Dearly Post provides. The exact options and their consequences must be confirmed in the product.

Private correspondence must not become public without an explicit user action.

4.2 Recipient reports

Only the recipient of a received letter may submit a report under the current product decision. Reporting is an explicit action that makes the reported item available for review.

Review access is intended to be limited to the specific reported letter or postcard, attachments relevant to that item, and sender/recipient details and other information needed to investigate the report. Staff should not inspect unrelated private letters, drafts, or correspondence as part of that review.

If a violation is confirmed, Dearly Post may remove content, restrict an account, or take another appropriate action consistent with its terms and applicable law.

The reporting flow must be engineered to make only the selected item available for review, without creating general staff access to private correspondence. The implementation must specify how a recipient's report makes the item and relevant attachments reviewable while preserving the intended encryption model. Do not publish a technical claim that the implementation cannot support.

4.3 No other routine staff access

The current policy decision is that staff do not access private letter or postcard content for other purposes. The intended exceptions are the user's explicit public-publication action and the recipient-initiated report process described above. This must be reconciled with the final design for backups, support tools, crash reports, moderation tools, and encryption-key handling.

5. Scheduled letters and postcards

Dearly Post intends to store scheduled items until they are sent or cancelled. The service may process scheduling and delivery metadata to carry out the sender's instruction. Scheduled content should remain protected by the same end-to-end encryption design as other private correspondence.

Before publication, confirm how scheduled delivery works without giving the service general access to content, and what happens if the sender loses a key, changes devices, cancels an item, or delivery fails. A complete retention schedule for sent, received, cancelled, failed, and deleted items has not yet been decided.

6. Legal obligations

Dearly Post's current policy decision is to disclose information where required to comply with applicable legal obligations. Any legal request should be reviewed for validity and scope, and only information legally required should be disclosed. End-to-end encryption may mean Dearly Post cannot provide readable private letter content if it does not possess the means to decrypt it.

This section does not promise that Dearly Post can resist every legal demand or produce readable content it cannot access.

7. Cookies and similar technologies

Dearly Post intends to use essential cookies or similar technologies for functions such as login, session management, and security, and analytics technologies to measure visits and feature usage without collecting letter or postcard content.

Before publication, identify the technologies and providers, what data they receive, retention periods, and whether consent or preference controls are required in the jurisdictions served. Do not claim that analytics cookies are optional or consent-based unless the implementation supports that.

8. Service providers and sharing

Dearly Post does not sell personal information, share personal information with advertisers, or use user content for advertising.

The hosting/VPS provider, analytics provider, email-delivery provider, and other service providers have not yet been finalized. Before publication, list providers that actually receive or process information and describe their roles. Review contracts and technical configuration to ensure providers cannot access end-to-end encrypted private content through keys or other means.

Providers should receive only information necessary to deliver their services and be subject to appropriate security and contractual controls. Any future sharing for a new purpose should be assessed and this Policy updated where required.

9. International processing

Dearly Post is intended for worldwide use. Providers or infrastructure may process information in countries other than the user's country of residence. The VPS host and server location have not yet been selected.

Before publication, identify providers, storage and processing countries, and applicable safeguards or legal mechanisms for international transfers. Do not state that a particular country or transfer mechanism applies until confirmed.

10. Retention and deletion

A complete retention schedule has not yet been decided. This must be settled before publication. Scheduled items are intended to be retained until sent or cancelled. Retention periods for account information, drafts, sent and received items, attachments, reports, security logs, analytics, backups, and support emails remain to be documented.

Dearly Post should retain information only as long as reasonably needed for its purpose, subject to applicable legal obligations and necessary security or dispute-resolution needs. This principle does not replace the need to set actual retention periods.

Encryption does not by itself mean all copies are deleted. The deletion process must consider active storage, backups, recipients' copies, public copies, and encryption keys where relevant. Public letters may remain in third-party caches or archives after removal from Dearly Post.

11. Security

Dearly Post intends to use end-to-end encryption for storing and sending private letters and postcards, alongside appropriate safeguards for accounts, authentication, infrastructure, access controls, software updates, and security monitoring.

Before publication, verify the encryption protocol and implementation, key management, account recovery, backups, attachments, scheduled delivery, public publishing, reporting, and administrative tooling. Avoid absolute statements such as "nobody can ever access anything" if metadata or explicitly submitted content is accessible in defined circumstances.

12. Your choices, rights, and requests

You may email privacy@dearlypost.org to raise a privacy concern, make a complaint, or request help concerning your personal information.

Dearly Post currently has no in-product tools to download account data, delete an account, or submit a personal-information deletion request. The intended process is to handle requests manually by email. Dearly Post should verify requests appropriately and respond within applicable legal time limits.

Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, object to, or obtain a copy of certain personal information, withdraw consent where processing is based on consent, or complain to a relevant regulator. The rights available depend on the law that applies. This Policy does not remove rights granted by applicable law.

Because of end-to-end encryption, Dearly Post may be unable to read or recover private letter content. This does not necessarily prevent it from responding to requests about account or other information it can access. Email privacy@dearlypost.org and describe your request. Do not email your password or private encryption keys. Dearly Post may request reasonable information to verify a request.

13. Children's privacy and age policy

Dearly Post has not finalized a minimum-age policy. Laws on children's personal information, parental consent, and online services differ across jurisdictions.

If you believe a child has provided personal information in a way that violates the final age policy or applicable law, contact privacy@dearlypost.org.

14. Public content and third-party services

Public letters may be viewable by anyone and indexed by search engines. Third parties operate independently of Dearly Post and may retain copies. Removing a public letter from Dearly Post may not remove copies already stored elsewhere.

The website may link to third-party services or websites. Their privacy practices are governed by their own policies.

15. AI and automated processing

Dearly Post's current decision is that AI will not be used to process letter or postcard content. Dearly Post will not use AI or automated content analysis on letter or postcard content.

This is not a blanket statement about every possible use of automation elsewhere in the service. Any non-content security, operational, or analytics processing must be accurately described where relevant and must not be represented as content analysis. If this decision changes, reassess the privacy implications and update this Policy before the change where required.

16. Advertising

Dearly Post does not sell personal information, share personal information with advertisers, or use user content for advertising. If a materially different practice is introduced, assess legal and consent requirements and update this Policy before it begins where required.

17. Changes to this Policy

Dearly Post may update this Policy as the service or applicable law changes. The revised version will be posted with an updated "Last updated" date. Where required by law, Dearly Post will provide notice or seek consent for material changes.