Terms of Service

1. Who we are, and what these terms cover

Been is operated by Emmanuel Phiri (ABN 81 224 437 424), a sole trader based in Perth, Western Australia (“Been”, “we”, “us”). Been is a map-based app for sharing places you have genuinely visited with friends and people you choose to follow.

These terms are an agreement between you and us. They cover your use of the Been app and the trybeen.app website. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle your personal information and forms part of these terms.

By creating an account or using Been, you agree to these terms. If you don’t agree, don’t use Been.

2. Who can use Been

You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. By creating an account you confirm that you are.

You must provide a working phone number — it’s how you sign in and how we secure your account. You’re responsible for keeping your device and sign-in access secure, and for everything done through your account.

One account per person. Don’t create an account for someone else, and don’t let someone else use yours.

3. Your content, and the licence you give us

You own what you post. Your photos, your one-liner takes, your saved places — they’re yours. These terms don’t transfer ownership of your content to us.

You give us a licence to operate Been with it. By posting content, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for example, resizing or re-encoding photos), display, and distribute your content for the purposes of operating, promoting, and improving Been. This includes:

• showing your posts to the people allowed to see them under your privacy settings, in the app and on venue pages;
• serving your shared posts on the web at post links (trybeen.app/p/…) — these links exist for shared posts by Public-profile accounts, can be shared by you or by people who can see the post, and anyone with the link can view the post, no Been account needed;
• using shared posts from Public-profile accounts in Been’s own marketing — for example on the trybeen.app website or in materials we show venues — in the form you posted them, credited to your username.

The licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except: (a) shared copies that exist because you or others shared them (for example, a link someone saved); (b) content already included in marketing materials, which we’ll stop using in new materials but may not be able to recall from existing ones; and (c) records retained as described in our Privacy Policy (for example, moderation reports).

Your privacy settings are respected. Content from Private accounts is never used in marketing, never appears on venue pages to non-friends, and can’t be shared as a link. See our Privacy Policy §6 for exactly who can see what.

4. What you can’t do

Don’t use Been to:

• post content that’s illegal, or that harasses, threatens, or defames anyone;
• post sexually explicit material, or content depicting or endangering minors in any form;
• post content you don’t have the right to post — including other people’s photos or creative work without permission;
• misrepresent a visit, impersonate someone, or post spam or misleading commercial content;
• post other people’s personal information without their consent;
• interfere with Been’s operation — no scraping, automated access, reverse engineering, or attempts to bypass security or moderation;
• use Been for any commercial purpose we haven’t agreed to (creator and venue arrangements are separate written agreements).

Photos are automatically screened before publication, and anyone can report a post or block an account. We can remove content or restrict, suspend, or terminate accounts that breach these terms — with notice where reasonable, immediately where the breach is serious.

5. What’s ours

The Been app, website, name, wordmark, and design are ours (or licensed to us). These terms don’t give you any rights in them beyond using Been as intended. Venue information in Been comes from our map providers and from posts; it may be incomplete or out of date, and we don’t guarantee it.

6. Been is provided as-is

Been is provided free of charge, as-is and as available. We work hard to keep it running well, but we don’t promise it will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that content on it (including venue details and other users’ posts) is accurate. A post about a place is one person’s take, not our recommendation.

Nothing in these terms excludes rights you have under the Australian Consumer Law or any other law that can’t be excluded by agreement. Where the law allows us to limit our liability, our total liability to you in connection with Been is limited to A$100, and we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss. Where the law implies a guarantee we can’t exclude but can limit, our liability is limited to re-supplying the service.

You’re responsible for your own content and conduct on Been, and you agree we’re not liable for other users’ content or conduct.

7. Ending things

You can leave any time. Delete your account in the app (Settings → Danger zone → Delete account). What happens to your data is set out in the Privacy Policy — in short, your profile, posts, photos, and connections are deleted, with the narrow exceptions listed there.

We can suspend or terminate accounts that breach these terms, as described in section 4, or if we’re required to by law. If we discontinue Been entirely, we’ll give reasonable notice.

Sections that by their nature survive termination (the licence tail in section 3, section 6, and section 9) survive.

8. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as Been changes — for example, when we add features like subscriptions or venue tools, the relevant terms will be added before those features go live. If we make material changes, we’ll notify you in the app before they take effect, and continuing to use Been after that means you accept the updated terms. The current version is always at trybeen.app/terms.

9. Assignment and business changes

You may not transfer your agreement with us to anyone else. We may assign or novate this agreement — including to a company we incorporate to operate Been, or to a purchaser of the business — and where we do, references to “we” and “us” become references to that entity, and this agreement continues on the same terms. We’ll note any such change at trybeen.app/terms.

10. General

These terms are governed by the laws of Western Australia, and disputes are subject to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Western Australia. If part of these terms is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we don’t enforce a term on one occasion, we can still enforce it later. These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about Been.

11. Contact

Questions about these terms: terms@trybeen.app
Privacy questions: privacy@trybeen.app

Emmanuel Phiri, operator of Been
ABN 81 224 437 424
Perth, Western Australia