Mood Mates Terms of Service

Effective date: June 13, 2026

Last updated: June 13, 2026

Plain-language summary

The short version, for busy parents:

You must be an adult (18+) parent or guardian to create a Mood Mates account. Your child uses the app only through access you grant.
You're responsible for your account and for supervising your child's use.
Mood Mates is not medical care, not therapy, and not an emergency or crisis service. If someone is in danger or crisis, call 911, call or text 988, or text HOME to 741741.
The journal entries your family creates belong to your family. You give us only the limited permission we need to store and show them to you (and to any other adult you authorize, such as a co-parent, guardian, or therapist).
This is early-stage / prototype software; features may change and we can't promise it will always be available or error-free.
Most disputes are resolved by individual arbitration, not court, and you give up the right to a jury trial and to class actions (see Section 15). We try to sort things out informally first.
The full terms below include the legal details, including disclaimers, liability limits, and how disputes are handled.

Acceptance of these terms
Eligibility
Accounts and parental responsibility
Acceptable use
Not medical advice; not a crisis or emergency service
Inviting another adult, including a therapist
Your content
Consent and COPPA
Privacy
Service availability, changes, and prototype-stage disclaimer
Disclaimers of warranties
Limitation of liability
Indemnification
Governing law
Dispute resolution; binding arbitration
Termination
Changes to these terms
Contact

1. Acceptance of these terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a legal agreement between you and fakewaffle, llc ("Mood Mates," "we," "us," or "our"), governing your use of the Mood Mates application and website at https://moodmates.org (together, the "Service").

By creating an account, granting access to a child, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old and the parent or legal guardian of the child you add, to create an account and use the Service.
Children do not create their own accounts. A child accesses Mood Mates only through access that you, the parent/guardian, grant, by sharing a join link (https://moodmates.org/join?c=<code>) that connects the child to a session you control. We do not collect login credentials from the child.
You are responsible for ensuring that your use of the Service, and your child's use, is permitted in your location.

3. Accounts and parental responsibility

You are responsible for the information you provide, for keeping your account credentials secure, and for all activity under your account.
As the account owner, you are responsible for supervising your child's use of the Service, for the access you grant (including any invitation of another adult, such as a co-parent, guardian, or therapist), and for the consent choices you make.
You agree to provide accurate information and to keep it current. Notify us promptly through the in-app contact form if you believe your account has been accessed without your authorization.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to, and not to allow anyone else to:

Use the Service for any unlawful purpose or in violation of these Terms.
Attempt to access another family's account, child, or entries, or any data you are not authorized to access.
Probe, scan, disrupt, overload, or attempt to breach the security or integrity of the Service.
Reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract source code, except to the extent the law expressly permits.
Upload malicious code or use the Service to harass, abuse, or harm any person.
Use the Service to collect or store information about a child for whom you are not the parent or legal guardian.

We may suspend or terminate access for conduct that violates these Terms or that we reasonably believe is harmful to others or to the Service.

5. Not medical advice; not a crisis or emergency service

Please read this section carefully.

Mood Mates is a journaling tool to help children capture feelings for later reflection and conversation. It is not:

Not medical, psychological, or clinical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
Not therapy or a substitute for care from a qualified professional.
Not a crisis line, emergency service, or monitoring service.

Mood Mates does not watch, scan, analyze, or monitor journal entries for signs of crisis, and it will not detect an emergency or alert anyone on your behalf. The Service performs no automated content scanning, keyword flagging, AI analysis, crisis detection, or escalation. Do not rely on Mood Mates to notice that someone needs help.

Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions about a medical or mental-health condition. Never disregard professional advice or delay seeking it because of something in the app.

If you or someone else may be in danger or crisis, get help now:

Call 911 (or your local emergency number) for an immediate emergency.
Call or text 988, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (U.S.), available 24/7.
Text HOME to 741741, the Crisis Text Line, available 24/7.

6. Inviting another adult, including a therapist

You may choose to invite one or more other trusted adults (for example a co-parent or guardian and/or a therapist) to view all of one child's entries (granted one child at a time, not across your whole family). If you do:

The invited adult receives read-only access to all of that one child's entries (past and future, while access is active). They cannot edit entries.
This access requires your separate, explicit consent (the coParentSharing scope for a co-parent or guardian, or the therapistSharing scope for a therapist) and is off unless you turn it on. The two consents are independent.
You may revoke that access at any time.
When the invited adult is a therapist (someone outside your family), this is a third-party disclosure. A therapist you invite is an independent third party who may have their own legal and professional obligations (such as confidentiality rules, recordkeeping duties, or mandatory-reporting duties) and their own handling of information. Mood Mates is not responsible for what a therapist does with information they view. Those obligations are between you and the therapist. We do not control, and are not responsible for, a therapist's independent conduct.

7. Your content

"Your Content" means the journal entries and related information your family creates in the Service: the emotions selected, the timestamps, and the child's typed or on-device-transcribed text answers.

Ownership stays with your family. We do not claim ownership of Your Content.
License to operate the Service. You grant us a limited, non-exclusive license to host, store, process, and display Your Content solely to provide the Service to you, for example to save an entry and show it back to you and to any other adult you have authorized (a co-parent, guardian, or therapist). This license exists only so we can run the Service; it does not permit us to use Your Content for advertising, profiling, or any unrelated purpose, and it ends when the content is deleted (subject to limited legal/backup retention described in the Privacy Policy).
Voice audio is never uploaded or stored; only the on-device-transcribed text becomes part of Your Content.
You are responsible for Your Content and for your child's use of the journaling feature.

Because Mood Mates is directed to children under 13, the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) applies. By using the Service you confirm that you are the child's parent or legal guardian and that you have authority to consent on the child's behalf.

We require verifiable parental consent before collecting a child's personal information. We use a payment-based method: completing the paid subscription is the transaction that verifies parental consent under COPPA, and your payment receipt is your record of it (see the Privacy Policy for details).
Your consent is divided into three separate, unbundled scopes you grant independently: journaling, coParentSharing (family viewer access), and therapistSharing (therapist viewer access). You are never required to accept one scope to obtain another. (There is no "analytics" consent; any usage analytics we run is anonymous and aggregate, not tied to your child. See the Privacy Policy.)
You may review, delete, and refuse further collection of your child's information by revoking consent at any time. See the Privacy Policy for how these rights work and how to exercise them.

9. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect, how we use it, how we share it (and the ways we don't: no ads, no sale, no third-party advertising trackers), and your rights. By using the Service, you acknowledge the Privacy Policy. It is incorporated into these Terms by reference.

10. Service availability, changes, and prototype-stage disclaimer

Mood Mates is early-stage / prototype software.

The Service is under active development. Features may change, be added, or be removed; data structures may evolve; and the Service may be unavailable, interrupted, or contain errors. We may modify, suspend, or discontinue all or part of the Service at any time. We will make reasonable efforts to give notice of significant changes, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation, and you should not rely on the Service as the sole record of important information.

11. Disclaimers of warranties

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, error-free, or that it will meet your requirements, and we make no representation that the Service detects, prevents, or responds to any emergency, crisis, or health condition. See Section 5.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of these exclusions may not apply to you.

12. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law:

Mood Mates and its officers, employees, and suppliers will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, profits, or goodwill, arising out of or relating to the Service, even if advised of the possibility of such damages.
Our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid us, if any, for the Service in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars (US$100).

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited under applicable law. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of the above may not apply to you.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless fakewaffle, llc and its officers, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to: (a) your use of the Service; (b) your violation of these Terms; (c) your violation of any law or the rights of any third party; or (d) content you or your child submit through the Service. This does not apply to the extent a claim arises from our own willful misconduct or gross negligence.

14. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Utah, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles, except where mandatory consumer-protection laws of your home jurisdiction apply.

15. Dispute resolution; binding arbitration

Please read this section carefully. It affects how disputes are resolved and limits your rights to go to court.

Informal resolution first

Before starting an arbitration or any formal proceeding, you agree to first contact us through the in-app contact form and attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute informally for at least thirty (30) days.

Binding arbitration

If we cannot resolve a dispute informally, you and we agree that any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by final and binding individual arbitration, rather than in court, except as stated below. You and Mood Mates each waive the right to sue in court and the right to a trial by jury. The arbitration will be administered by a neutral, established arbitration provider selected by Mood Mates, under that provider's consumer arbitration rules, and judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Costs of arbitration are shared by both parties, in the manner set out in the chosen provider's consumer arbitration rules, except where those rules or applicable law require Mood Mates to bear a larger share. Each party otherwise bears its own attorneys' fees and expenses, unless the arbitrator or applicable law provides otherwise.

Small-claims exception. Either you or Mood Mates may bring an individual claim in small-claims court instead of arbitration, as long as the claim qualifies for and stays in that court and is brought only on an individual basis. Choosing small-claims court for a qualifying claim does not waive arbitration for any other dispute.

Your right to opt out of arbitration

You may opt out of this arbitration agreement (including the class-action waiver) within 30 days of first accepting these Terms. To opt out, send us a clear statement that you wish to opt out of arbitration, including the name on your account, through the in-app contact form (or any other contact method we provide for this purpose) within that 30-day window. If you opt out, neither you nor Mood Mates will be required to arbitrate, and disputes will instead be resolved in the courts identified below. Opting out of arbitration does not affect any other part of these Terms, and it has no effect on any arbitration agreement you may have with us from a separate or earlier transaction. If you do not opt out within 30 days, you agree to be bound by this arbitration agreement.

No class or representative actions

You and Mood Mates agree that each may bring claims against the other only on an individual basis, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, collective, consolidated, or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate more than one person's claims and may not preside over any form of class or representative proceeding.

What this does not cover

This section does not prevent either party from seeking to enforce an arbitration award, or from pursuing relief that may only be available from a court (such as injunctive relief to protect intellectual property or account security), in the state or federal courts located in the State of Utah, to whose personal jurisdiction you and we consent. Nothing in this section limits any right you have under applicable law that cannot be waived by agreement.

16. Termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time (see the Privacy Policy for deletion).
We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms, if required by law, or if we discontinue the Service.
On termination, your right to use the Service ends. Sections that by their nature should survive (including Your Content ownership, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, governing law, and dispute resolution) survive termination.

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will take reasonable steps to notify you and will update the "Last updated" date above. Where a change materially affects the collection or use of a child's personal information, we will obtain renewed parental consent where the law requires it. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Use the in-app contact form. Mood Mates is operated by fakewaffle, llc.