[Legal]/ Terms

Legal / Terms

Terms of Service

The rules for accessing and using Coldge, including account eligibility, content, safety, and enforcement.

Last updated: October 20, 2026

The short version

These Terms are the agreement between you and Coldge for using the Coldge apps on iOS and Android and the web app at app.coldge.com. What matters most:

You must be at least 16. You join through your university's Microsoft sign-in, and you sign in with a personal email address.
By accepting these Terms you also agree to follow the Community Guidelines.
Direct chats, private groups and class chats are end-to-end encrypted. So are staff messages to you, but every Operator and Administrator at your university can read them. Discoverable groups (the default for new groups), channels, posts, comments, events and calls are not.
If someone reports a message, a readable copy of it and the messages around it goes to Coldge and to the university involved.
Moderation is done by people, mostly after reports. Your university's staff and Coldge can remove content, mute accounts and suspend groups. Only Coldge can suspend accounts.
Your university decides whether you are a member. If your access ends, your Coldge account stays yours through your personal email.
Coldge is free and provided as it is. Before important changes to these Terms apply, we will ask you to agree to them in the app.
UAE law applies, and the courts of Abu Dhabi decide disputes.

Who these Terms are with

These Terms are between you and Coldge, operated by Mohamed Siam, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. A limited liability company is being set up and will take over this role. When it does, these Terms continue with that company, and we will tell you.

"Coldge", "we" and "us" mean the operator at the time, and also the service: the apps, app.coldge.com and coldge.com.

You accept these Terms electronically, by ticking the box at sign-up or tapping Agree when we update them. That has the same effect as signing.

The Community Guidelines are part of these Terms

The Community Guidelines explain what you may and may not do on Coldge. They are part of these Terms. When you accept these Terms, you agree to follow the Community Guidelines, and breaking the Guidelines means breaking these Terms.

The Privacy Policy explains how we handle your information. It is not part of this agreement, but it gives the details behind several sections below.

Who can use Coldge

You can use Coldge only if all of these are true:

You are at least 16 years old.
You sign up with a personal email address that you control. University email addresses are refused at sign-up, so that your account stays yours if you leave your university.
You have only one Coldge account, and only you use it.

To join a university on Coldge, your university must give you access through its Microsoft sign-in. By creating an account, you confirm that you are 16 or older. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 16, we will close it.

Your account

Give accurate information about yourself, including your real name. We don't verify phone numbers, but the number you give must be yours.
Keep your password secret and your devices secure. Your main phone approves sign-ins by QR code and new devices, so protect it with a passcode.
You are responsible for what happens under your account.
If you think someone else has access to your account, change your password straight away and tell us at security@coldge.com.
Keep your personal email address working. We send sign-in codes, security alerts and account notices there.
Your profile (name, username, photo, bio, university and badges) can be seen by signed-in members at every university on Coldge. So can your phone number, unless you change who can see it in your settings.

Your university

A.What your university controls

Your university decides who can join Coldge through its Microsoft sign-in. Through its staff, your university can:

run its official university channel, and send you messages in your private university chat;
choose what happens when your eligibility changes (see below);
end your access, straight away or on a set date, and block you from rejoining;
review reports about content and spaces that belong to it, and take the moderation actions described below;
turn on class chats from its student information system;
see some information about you, such as your university email address, your Microsoft sign-in status, your membership history, your moderation record at the university, your profile change history and a summary of your activity on Coldge. The Privacy Policy explains this in full.

Your university's staff act under the university's own rules, not for Coldge. Coldge is not responsible for your university's decisions about you, for example about eligibility or discipline.

B.How membership is checked

About once a day, Coldge checks with your university's Microsoft sign-in that you still have access. If you need to sign in to Microsoft again, you have 14 days, and we remind you on day 0, day 7 and day 13 at your personal and university email addresses.

If Microsoft says you no longer have access, the 14 days run out, or your membership can't be confirmed for 30 days, your university's setting decides what happens:

1.Your access ends, and you can rejoin later by signing in with your university's Microsoft account.
2.Your access ends, and you can't rejoin until a university Administrator removes the block.
3.You keep your access, and your university reviews your membership.

C.When your access ends

When your university access ends, you lose the university channel, your group chats, your organization memberships at that university and your badges. Your Coldge account stays open and stays yours. You can still sign in with your personal email, and you keep your username, your posts and events and your direct chats.

Without an active university membership, you can read your old chats, but you can't send messages, react, upload files or make calls anywhere on Coldge until you join a university again. We tell you in the app and by email.

D.When your university is paused or leaves Coldge

Coldge can pause a university. While it is paused, its members can't use Coldge, but nothing is deleted.

If a university leaves Coldge, it is paused first. Then every member's access ends, with the usual notice and email, and 30 days later, unless Coldge cancels the deletion, the university's data on Coldge, such as its channels, groups and files, is deleted. Your Coldge account itself is not deleted. The Privacy Policy explains what is kept.

E.Class chats

If your university connects its student information system (Ellucian Banner), Coldge may add you to chats for your sections (with your instructors) and courses (students only), and email you when they open. Both kinds are end-to-end encrypted.

Messages, calls and who can read what

A.Which chats are end-to-end encrypted

Direct messages, private group chats, and class chats are end-to-end encrypted: only the devices of their participants can read them. Private groups are groups that are not discoverable; class chats are section and course chats. The messages your university's staff type to you in your private university chat are also end-to-end encrypted, but all of your university's Operators and Administrators can read them (see below).

Messages in official channels and discoverable groups are public and can be read by Coldge and the university. Anyone who joins a discoverable group can read its history, while your university's dashboard shows its messages only when one is reported. Posts, comments, and calls are not end-to-end encrypted.

Everything that is not end-to-end encrypted is stored on Coldge's servers in readable form. This includes:

discoverable groups. New groups are discoverable by default. Making a group private protects only messages sent after the change;
the university channel, organization channels and the Coldge channel;
posts, comments, events and University Drive files;
messages Coldge sends you privately, messages your university sends to groups of students, and messages our systems post automatically, such as event follow-ups.

Even in encrypted chats, our servers see who is in a chat, who sent each message, when, and who was mentioned.

B.Your private university chat

Every Operator and Administrator at your university is a member of your private university chat. They can read all of it, including messages sent before they joined. You can't reply in this chat. Their devices are approved by Coldge based on their university role, not by you.

C.Reported messages

When a message is reported, a readable copy is shared with the university and Coldge for review. The reporter's app sends the message plus up to 10 messages before it and 10 after it in that chat, including other people's messages and their photos, videos and files. This happens in encrypted chats too. Reporting a person or a group can also share the last 10 messages of that chat. Coldge's moderators and the moderators of the university involved can read the copies, which are kept with no time limit. You are not told when a message of yours is included in a report.

D.Read receipts and activity

When you read a message, the sender can see that you read it and when. You can't turn read receipts off. In channels and in your private university chat, university staff can see who received and read each message. Organization admins can see this for their own messages in their organization's channel. While Online Status is on, any signed-in member at any university who you haven't blocked can see whether you are online and when you were last seen. You can turn it off in your settings.

E.Calls

Calls are not end-to-end encrypted. The Coldge app has no call recording feature; calls run through a third-party video service (Zoom). Calls may not be available everywhere or at all times.

F.Who can contact you

Any verified member at any university on Coldge can send you a direct message or call you. There are no message requests. In a group that anyone can add people to, any member can add you without asking. You can block people and leave groups.

G.Encryption doesn't put anyone above the rules

Encryption does not put you outside these Terms or the law. Coldge may remove or disable any message, chat, group, channel or account, including in encrypted chats, when these Terms or the law require it, for example after a report or a lawful order from UAE authorities.

Your content

You own your content.
You give us the licence we need to run Coldge. You give Coldge a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, display, transmit, back up and moderate your content, as needed to run Coldge, show it to the people you share it with, keep Coldge safe and enforce these Terms. It ends when your content is deleted, except for the copies these Terms and the Privacy Policy describe.
We don't use your content to train AI models.
You are responsible for your content. Only share what you have the right to share.
Organization content stays with the organization. Posts, events and channel messages you publish for an organization stay with it, even after you delete your account.
What you send stays with the people you sent it to, even after you delete your account.

If you think something on Coldge infringes your copyright or other rights, report it in the app (choose "Copyright or stolen work") or email support@coldge.com.

Using Coldge responsibly

Follow the Community Guidelines, which give the full rules, and UAE law. In short, don't use Coldge to:

harass, bully, threaten or blackmail anyone;
spread hate, insult any religion, nationality or group, or attack national unity;
share sexual or explicit content;
share anyone's photos, recordings or personal information without their permission;
spread false news or rumours, or pretend to be another person, a university or an organization;
promote or sell drugs, weapons, gambling or anything else illegal;
share terrorist or extremist content, or encourage violence or self-harm;
run fundraising or donation drives, research surveys or paid promotions without the licences or permits UAE law requires;
send spam or scams, advertise commercially without our permission, or infringe other people's rights.

A.Child safety

Coldge has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation. Never create, share, request or keep sexual images or videos of anyone under 18. Never groom, exploit, sexually extort or sexualise a minor. If you come across such content, don't screenshot, forward or download it, even to report it. Report it in the app instead. If a child is in immediate danger, call 999.

When we become aware of such content, we remove it, permanently suspend the accounts involved and report it to the UAE authorities. The "Coldge child safety standards" section of the Community Guidelines explains this in full.

B.Keeping Coldge safe and working

Don't:

scrape or collect data from Coldge, or use bots, scripts or other automated ways to access it;
reverse engineer, decompile or modify the Coldge apps, except where the law allows it;
get around our security, rate limits, blocks, mutes or suspensions, or access accounts or systems that aren't yours;
upload malware or anything else meant to harm devices or systems;
create fake accounts, extra accounts, or a new account after a suspension;
sell or transfer your account, or interfere with Coldge or overload it.

If you find a security problem, report it to security@coldge.com and don't exploit it.

Reporting and blocking

You can report posts, comments, events, messages, files, people, groups and organizations from the app, with a reason in your own words. Every report goes to Coldge. If the content or space belongs to a university, that university's staff see the report too.

We review reports as quickly as we can, and reports that someone may be in danger go first. Coldge is not an emergency service: in an emergency, call 999.

When your report is closed, you are told it was resolved or reviewed, but not what action was taken or against whom. We never tell the person you reported who reported them, but in a direct chat they may be able to work it out.

Blocking someone stops direct messages and calls between you, stops them adding you to most groups, and hides your personal posts, comments, events and online status from each other. It does not hide organization content, and it doesn't remove either of you from groups or channels you share.

Moderation and enforcement

Moderation on Coldge is done by people, mainly after reports. We don't automatically scan or filter messages, posts or images for harmful content. Coldge can also review posts, comments and events without a report. There is no separate warning step.

A.Who can do what

Group admins can delete messages in their group, remove members, and mute a member in that group for a period. The group sees that the member was muted.
Organization admins can delete any message in their organization's channel.
Your university's staff can remove posts, comments, events and University Drive files that belong to the university, and delete a reported message in any chat, including direct chats. They can mute your account for 24 hours, 3 days, 1 week or until they lift the mute, suspend groups and organizations at the university, and delete organizations. University Administrators can also end your access, with or without a block on rejoining.
Coldge can remove content, delete reported messages, mute accounts, and suspend groups and organizations at any university. Only Coldge can suspend your account (for 7 days, 30 days or permanently), suspend groups open to all universities, and pause or remove a university. Coldge can also sign your account out of your devices.

While your account is muted, you can't send messages or create content. While it is suspended, you can't sign in, and your posts, comments and events are hidden. A suspended group can't be found, and no one can send messages in it. When an organization is suspended, its groups are hidden and its events are cancelled. Timed mutes and suspensions end automatically.

Coldge and your university keep a record of reports about you and actions on your account. Moderators use it for later decisions; it never triggers an action by itself.

B.How you are told

When your content is removed, your account is muted or suspended, or a group or organization you run is suspended, you get a notice in the app. It says who acted (your university, an organization or Coldge, never the staff member), the reason, any message from them, and an email address for questions. If Coldge suspends your account, we also email your personal and university addresses, and you see a message when you try to sign in.

You are not told when a group admin removes you from a group, or when Coldge signs you out of your devices.

C.Questioning a decision

There is no appeal button in the app. To question a decision, email support@coldge.com and tell us what happened. For a decision your university made, you can also write to the contact address shown in the notice. Coldge can lift any mute or suspension. Your university can lift only the actions it took.

D.The law and the authorities

Coldge is run from the UAE and follows UAE law. We comply with lawful orders from UAE authorities. That can mean removing or blocking content or accounts, keeping information, or giving authorities information we hold.

Closing your account

A.Deleting your account

You can delete your account in the app or at app.coldge.com under Profile, then Delete Account. You confirm with your password, and with the code we email you if you have turned on multi-factor authentication. Deletion happens straight away and can't be undone.

The screen isn't available while Coldge is in maintenance or browse-only mode, while your university is paused, or while your account is suspended (because you can't sign in). If you can't use it, email support@coldge.com and we will delete your account for you once we have confirmed it's yours.

Some things stay after deletion:

messages you sent stay in other people's chats, shown as from "Deleted account";
posts and events you published for organizations stay, shown as from "Deleted account";
reports you made or that are about you, with their copies;
records of actions taken, security records and malware records;
your profile photo and files you sent in chats, which aren't removed today;
backups, for about 40 days and sometimes longer.

The Privacy Policy explains what is kept and for how long.

B.When we suspend or close your account

We may suspend your account, or close it with a permanent suspension, if you break these Terms or the Community Guidelines, if the law requires it, or if your account puts other people, Coldge or our compliance with the law at real risk. We will close accounts that belong to anyone under 16.

The service

A.Free, and provided as it is

Coldge is free. We provide it "as is" and "as available". We work to keep it running and secure, but we don't promise that it will always be available or free of errors, and there is no uptime guarantee. We may take Coldge offline, for example for maintenance, sometimes without notice.

B.Changes to the service

We may add, change or remove features. If we decide to stop running Coldge, or an important feature, we will tell you in advance where we reasonably can and, where reasonably possible, give you a way to get a copy of your information first.

C.Services we don't control

Parts of Coldge depend on others: the App Store and Google Play, your university's Microsoft sign-in and student systems, and the companies behind calls (Zoom) and GIF search (GIPHY). Coldge doesn't control them and isn't responsible for how they work or whether they are available.

Coldge's apps and the app stores

Coldge's apps, name, logo and design belong to Coldge's operator. We give you a personal, free, non-exclusive and non-transferable licence to use the Coldge apps on devices you own or control, for as long as you follow these Terms. The apps are licensed to you, not sold.

If you got the app from the App Store or Google Play:

these Terms are between you and Coldge only, not Apple or Google;
Apple and Google are not responsible for the app, its content, maintenance or support, or for any claims about it;
you must also follow the store's own terms of use.

Liability

To the extent UAE law allows, we are not responsible for:

content that other members post or send, or what they do on or off Coldge;
decisions your university makes, or services we don't control;
indirect losses, such as lost opportunities or profits, or losses we could not reasonably have foreseen;
delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control.

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability that UAE law doesn't allow us to limit or exclude. That includes liability for fraud, for harm we cause on purpose or through gross negligence, and for death or personal injury caused by our negligence. Nothing in these Terms takes away your rights under UAE consumer protection law.

If you break these Terms or the law and someone makes a claim against Coldge because of it, you are responsible for the loss you caused, to the extent UAE law allows.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms, including the Community Guidelines.

Important changes. We show you a notice in the app with a short summary of what changed and the date the changes take effect. You need to tap Agree before you can keep using Coldge. We also email you about important changes.
Timing. Where we can, we tell you before the changes take effect. Changes needed for legal or security reasons may take effect sooner.
Small changes. For corrections, such as fixing typos or making wording clearer without changing its meaning, we publish the new version with a new date. If you keep using Coldge after a small change, the updated version applies.
If you don't agree. You can stop using Coldge and delete your account, or email support@coldge.com and we will delete it for you.

We keep every version of these Terms, and we record which version you accepted and when.

Law, courts and language

These Terms are governed by the federal laws of the United Arab Emirates, as applied in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi.

If you have a complaint, please email support@coldge.com first, so we can try to sort it out. If we can't, the onshore courts of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi will decide the dispute. This doesn't remove any right you have under UAE law to go to another UAE court.

If a court decides that part of these Terms is invalid, the rest still applies.

These Terms are written in English. We may publish an Arabic version later.

Contact

Questions about these Terms, questions about a moderation decision, and legal requests: support@coldge.com
Security problems: security@coldge.com