Terms of Service

Last updated

1. Who we are, and what you're agreeing to

1QRL is a link shortener and QR code service. The app runs at 1qrl.app and short links resolve at 1qrl.cc. It is published by Seabird Apps, Inc., a Delaware corporation that does business as Onespot (“Onespot,” “we,” or “us”).

These terms are an agreement between you and Onespot. They apply whenever you use 1QRL: with or without an account, on the website, or through the API. By creating a link, signing in, or calling the API, you accept them and our Privacy Policy. If you don't accept them, don't use 1QRL.

You must be at least 13, or older where local law sets a higher age for using online services without a parent's consent. If you use 1QRL for an organization, you accept these terms on its behalf and confirm you're authorized to.

Onespot publishes other products. They have their own accounts and their own terms. Nothing here covers them, and nothing in theirs covers 1QRL.

2. Using 1QRL without an account

Anyone can shorten a link without signing in. An anonymous link redirects, gets a QR code, and never expires, just like any other. What it doesn't get:

  • An owner. Nobody can edit its destination or delete it later, including you. If one you made points somewhere it shouldn't, email us: we can disable it, but we can't repoint it.
  • A custom slug. 1QRL picks the slug.
  • Analytics. Clicks are counted, but only an account holder can see counts, and only for their own links.

To keep bots out, anonymous shortening runs a Cloudflare Turnstile check first. Everything in these terms applies to anonymous use too.

3. Accounts

An account lets you save links, choose custom slugs, edit QR styles, split links into UTM-tagged children, see analytics, and use the API. A 1QRL account is separate from any account you hold with another Onespot product.

There are no passwords. You sign in with a one-time link sent to your email, or with your Google account, so whoever controls that inbox or that Google account controls your 1QRL account. Keep them secure, and use an address you'll keep.

You're responsible for everything done under your account, including through your API keys. Tell us right away at hi@1qrl.app if you think someone else has access.

4. Links, QR codes, and permanence

Printed codes outlive product decisions, so permanence is the point of 1QRL. Here is exactly what we commit to:

  • Links don't expire. No link stops working because of its age, a lack of clicks, or which plan you're on.
  • A deleted slug is never reissued. Once a link is deleted, its short URL answers “Gone” for good. Nobody can claim that slug again, us included, so an old QR code can never send people somewhere new.
  • Destinations stay editable. You can change where your link goes at any time, and the short URL and QR code stay the same. Deleting a link also deletes its UTM children.

Two limits apply. We can disable a link that breaks section 5 or 7, and a disabled link answers “Gone” the same way. And if we ever shut 1QRL down, we'll give at least 90 days' notice by email and on the site, and you'll be able to export your links first. We can't promise short links will keep redirecting after that.

You can use your QR codes anywhere, including in print and for commercial work, with no attribution. Scan a printed code before a large run: we can't vouch for how a given printer, material, or size turns out. We reserve some slugs, and we can refuse or disable a custom slug that impersonates someone, infringes a trademark, or misleads.

5. Acceptable use

A short link hides its destination until someone follows it, which makes shorteners attractive to people up to no good. Don't use 1QRL to link to, or to help with:

  • Malware, phishing, credential harvesting, or scams.
  • Anything illegal where you or the people you're reaching are, including child sexual abuse material, which we report to the authorities.
  • Pornography or other sexually explicit material, including intimate images of anyone shared without their consent.
  • Spam, or getting past another service's filters or bans by hiding a destination behind 1QRL.
  • Infringing someone else's copyright, trademark, or other rights.
  • Harassment, threats, or publishing someone's private information.
  • Impersonating a person, a brand, or an organization.

Don't abuse the service itself either. That means no creating links in bulk except through the API, no getting around rate limits or the bot check, no scanning slugs to find other people's links, and no interfering with our systems.

6. Reporting abuse, and what we do about it

To report a link, email hi@1qrl.app with the short URL and what's wrong with it. Copyright complaints follow the process in section 7.

We decide, at our sole discretion, whether a link breaks section 5. When we decide one does, we can disable it, suspend the account behind it, or both, without notice. We'll usually tell an account holder why, unless the law or someone's safety says otherwise. Anonymous links have nobody to tell.

If we disable a link by mistake, we'll restore it. Its slug is never given to anyone else in the meantime.

8. The API

Account holders can create API keys and use the public API at /api/v1, documented at /docs/api. Everything in these terms applies to API use.

  • Keep keys secret. We show a key once and store only a hash of it, so we can't recover a lost one. Revoke any key you think has leaked.
  • Stay within the limits. Each account has daily limits on API requests and new links, and a cap on active keys, all published in the API docs. We can change limits, and throttle or revoke a key that's harming the service.
  • Versions stay stable. We won't make breaking changes to a published version without 30 days' notice to affected account holders.

9. Your content

Your content is what you put into 1QRL: destination URLs, titles, custom slugs, UTM tags, QR styles, and any logo you upload. It stays yours.

You give us a worldwide, royalty-free license to store, copy, display, and serve it, only as far as running 1QRL needs. That covers redirecting to your destinations and drawing your QR codes. Because links are permanent, the license lasts as long as each link does, even after you close your account.

You confirm you have the right to use everything you put in, logos especially, and that none of it breaks section 5.

10. Our property, and your feedback

The 1QRL name, the Onespot name and mark, the site's design, and the software are ours. Using 1QRL doesn't give you any right to them, beyond saying truthfully that a link or code was made with 1QRL.

If you send us ideas or feedback, we can use them freely, with no obligation to you.

11. Fees

1QRL is free today. If we introduce paid plans, pricing, billing, refunds, and cancellation will be added to these terms before anyone is charged. Nothing already free will start costing money without at least 30 days' notice, and links you've already made will keep working either way.

12. Availability, and changes to 1QRL

We work to keep 1QRL running, but we don't promise any level of uptime, and it runs on other companies' infrastructure. We can add, change, or remove features. We'll give reasonable notice before removing one you rely on, and the commitments in section 4 hold whatever else changes.

13. Closing your account

You can stop using 1QRL at any time. To close your account, email hi@1qrl.app from its address.

Closing an account deletes your email address, your profile, and your API keys. Your links keep working, because printed codes may still be out there. They become ownerless, like anonymous links, so nobody can edit or delete them afterward. Delete any link you want gone before you close the account.

We can suspend or close an account that breaks these terms. Sections 9 (as to live links), 10, and 14 to 17 continue after an account closes.

14. Disclaimers

1QRL is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied. That includes merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, to the fullest extent the law allows.

We don't control or vouch for the sites links point to. Following a link, or scanning a code, is at your own risk, and a link's presence on 1QRL doesn't mean we've reviewed or endorse its destination.

15. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, Onespot isn't liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages. That includes lost profits, lost data, and the cost of reprinting materials, even if we were told they were possible.

Our total liability for any claim about 1QRL is capped at the greater of what you paid us in the 12 months before the claim or US$100. Some places don't allow these limits, so they may not all apply to you.

16. Indemnity

If someone brings a claim against Onespot over your content, your links, or your breach of these terms, you'll cover our reasonable costs of dealing with it, including legal fees. We'll tell you about the claim and let you help defend it.

17. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute goes to the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and both sides consent to their jurisdiction. Either side may use small-claims court instead where it qualifies.

If you live in the EU, the UK, or anywhere else whose consumer law gives you rights these terms can't take away, you keep them, including the right to bring a claim where you live.

Please email us first: most problems are faster to fix than to litigate.

18. Changes, the fine print, and contact

When we change these terms, we'll post the new version here with a new date. For a change that matters, we'll also email account holders at least 30 days before it takes effect. Using 1QRL after that date means you accept the new terms.

These terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between us about 1QRL. If a court strikes part of them, the rest stands. Not enforcing a term isn't waiving it. We can transfer these terms if 1QRL changes hands, and you can't transfer them without our written consent.

Contact: hi@1qrl.app, or Seabird Apps, Inc., 1111B S Governors Avenue, Unit 20452, Dover, DE 19904.