Terms of Service

These Terms govern use of Catsitter, a free leisure / hobby project for coordinating informal pet care among friends and neighbours. By creating an account you agree to these Terms and the Privacy Policy.

Nature of the service

Catsitter is provided free of charge as a private leisure project. It is not marketed as professional care mediation and is not an emergency, medical, or veterinary service. Being free of charge does not mean the operator is exempt from applicable law. There is no contractual entitlement to availability, uptime, support, feature continuity, or preservation of data. The operator may modify, suspend, or discontinue the service—and delete accounts or content—at any time, with or without notice.

Content in care plans (including instructions and chat) is coordination aid only and is not a substitute for professional veterinary or medical advice.

Who can see plan content

Access to a care plan is controlled by its share link (slug). Anyone who receives that link can open it. Anyone can create their own free account with a passkey and then open the link while logged in. There is no technical guarantee that only invited people see a plan: if the link is forwarded, posted, or leaked, other account holders may view instructions, slots, assignments, chat, and related content. Do not put secrets in a plan unless you accept that risk.

Calendar subscription links are separate signed URLs. They expose schedule-related data and may include care instructions (not chat). The print view of a plan likewise exposes plan content to anyone who can open that page or receive a printout.

Your responsibilities

• You must be at least 16 years old, or have the consent of a parent or guardian where required by law.
• You are responsible for what you post (instructions, chat, names) and for who you share plan links with.
• You must not use the service for illegal content or activity, including content that is unlawful under EU or applicable national law (for example illegal hate speech, child sexual abuse material, terrorist content, fraud, or clear privacy violations).
• You must not attempt to disrupt the service, scrape it abusively, or circumvent access controls.
• Passkeys are your only login method. Protect your devices and register a second passkey when you can.

Illegal content and Digital Services Act notices

If you believe content on this service is illegal, you may send a notice to the contact address in the Imprint. Please include: a precise URL or plan identifier, a description of the content, the legal reason you consider it illegal, and your contact details. Good-faith notices are reviewed manually by the operator when reasonably possible for a free hobby deployment; there is no automated moderation stack. Clearly illegal content may be removed and accounts may be restricted or deleted. This notice channel is provided to meet applicable Digital Services Act expectations for hosting user-generated content, scaled to this deployment.

Content licence

You retain rights in your content. By posting in a care plan you grant plan viewers and the operator a limited licence to store and display that content for running the plan, as described in the Privacy Policy (including pseudonymized retention of chat on others’ plans after account deletion).

No warranty / liability

The service is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the extent permitted by law, the operator is not liable for downtime, data loss, misuse of shared links, or decisions made based on plan content. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited under mandatory law.

Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, without prejudice to mandatory consumer protections of your country of residence. Where permitted, courts at the operator’s place of residence have jurisdiction; consumers may also bring claims before the courts of their habitual residence.

Changes

These Terms may be updated for the ongoing hobby project. The version date at the top of this page identifies the current text. New accounts must accept the then-current Terms (the accepted version is stored with the account). When the published version changes, existing users must accept the new version or delete their account before continuing to use the service.