Acceptable Use Policy

our.app is for independent, locally-owned businesses and the people who care about them. "Independent and locally-owned" means the people who run the business own the business, and the business operates from one neighborhood (or a small set of neighborhoods in one city). National chains, regional franchises, and businesses owned by holding companies that operate across multiple cities aren't the audience.

There's no checklist that covers everyone. Our verification process looks at who owns the business, where they live, where the business operates, and whether the brand is theirs or licensed from somewhere else. The founder reviews every claim by hand during Phase 1.

If you're not sure whether your business fits, write to us — it's usually a conversation, not a form.

The umbrella rule. It covers more than a list ever could. If you wouldn't say it across the counter, don't say it in a thread. If you wouldn't promote it on the chalkboard outside, don't promote it on the feed. If you'd be embarrassed to have a regular see it, don't post it.

When something violates the rules below, anyone — a customer, a business, or our own team — can report it via the Report button on any post, message, or profile. The Report sheet promises anonymity to the reported party; the schema enforces that, not just the copy.

When a report resolves, the reporter gets a notification with the outcome. The reported party hears what was reported, never by whom.

A customer's report of a business and a business's report of a customer go to the same queue with the same SLA. There's no "businesses are more important" asymmetry here.

During Phase 1, the founder reads every report personally. This is slow on purpose. Slow keeps the trash out.

our.app has three verification tiers: pending, self-attested, and verified. A verified business that posts off-brand content (chain promotion, political endorsement, irrelevant spam) gets demoted to self-attested while we review. Repeat off-brand posts inside a 30-day window move the business to rejected.

We don't run a separate "warned" status. The verification ladder is the disciplinary surface — one place an owner can look to see where they stand, one place we surface what changed.

If your business is acquired by a larger company, brought into a franchise system, or takes on majority outside investment, you must self-report to us within 30 days. We'll re-evaluate verification. Depending on what's changed, you may need to leave the coalition.

We will lose money enforcing this. That's the point.

A business's editorial choice about which followers see their thread content — that's their relationship, and we don't gate it.

A customer's choice to leave a thread — no one is forced to keep a business.

The contents of a private one-to-one DM between a customer and a business — it's a private conversation. We moderate the public surfaces (feed, Discover, events, profile) and we moderate thread harassment that the recipient reports. We don't pre-screen private messages.

our.app is a platform, not a publisher. We moderate reported content in good faith; we don't pre-screen all content (which would create publisher liability under U.S. law). Our verification ladder is the closest thing we have to editorial vouching, and even that is gated on automated checks and community-attestation, not editorial judgment about what businesses say.

In the app: long-press on any message or post, or tap the Report link visible below any business profile. Pick a category, add a note (optional), submit.

Outside the app: email reports@our.app. We respond within the same SLAs above.

reports@our.app

Opens a draft email to reports@our.app

We change this document when we learn something. Every update is announced in the in-app About screen and stays in the changelog at /aup/changelog. We don't quietly remove rules; we don't quietly add restrictions you can't see.

If a change materially limits something you do today, you'll see it as a transactional push notification before it takes effect.