Terms of Service

Welcome to LingoChip. These Terms of Service ("Terms") constitute a legally binding agreement governing your access to and use of the LingoChip mobile application, website, and related services (collectively, the "Service"). The Service is currently owned and operated by Mohab Fata (hereafter referred to as "LingoChip", "we", "us", or "our").

By creating an account, accessing, or using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree to all the terms and conditions, you may not use the Service.

1. Eligibility & Age Restrictions

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you are under the age of majority in your jurisdiction (typically 18 years old), you may only use the Service with the explicit consent and supervision of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound by these Terms. We reserve the right to terminate accounts that we reasonably believe are created by unauthorized minors.

2. Virtual Currency & Subscriptions

2.1 LingoCoins: The Service includes a virtual currency ("LingoCoins"). LingoCoins are licensed to you, not sold. They have no real-world monetary value, cannot be exchanged for fiat currency, and can only be used to unlock digital items within the LingoChip ecosystem.

2.2 No Refunds: All sales of LingoCoins, virtual items, and premium subscriptions are final and non-refundable by LingoChip. We do not provide refunds or credits for any partially used subscription periods, accidental purchases, or unused virtual currency. If you cancel a subscription, you will retain access to the premium features until the end of your current billing cycle.

2.3 Billing & Platform Refunds: Payments are processed via third-party platforms (e.g., Stripe, Google Play, Apple App Store). Because we do not process the transactions directly, any requests for exceptions or refunds must be directed to the respective platform (Apple or Google) and are governed strictly by their individual refund policies. Subscription auto-renewals must be managed and canceled directly through the platform originally used for the purchase.

3. User Conduct & Fair Play

LingoChip includes multiplayer features such as the Arena, Parties, and Direct Messaging. You agree to use these features respectfully and fairly.

• You will not harass, threaten, demean, or abuse other users. Hate speech, sexually explicit content, and illegal material are strictly prohibited.
• You will not use bots, scripts, or unauthorized third-party software to manipulate Arena leaderboards, farm LingoCoins, or artificially maintain your learning streak.
• We reserve the right to monitor, review, and delete any user-generated content, and permanently ban accounts violating these rules without refund or warning.

4. Artificial Intelligence (Aura AI) Disclaimer

LingoChip utilizes third-party artificial intelligence models to power our AI Tutor, "Aura". While designed for educational purposes, generative AI can hallucinate, produce inaccurate information, or generate unpredictable responses.

LingoChip makes no warranties regarding the accuracy, reliability, or appropriateness of the AI-generated content. You agree not to input sensitive personal information into the AI chat interface.

5. Intellectual Property Rights

All rights, title, and interest in the Service, including all source code, databases, software, website designs, audio, video, text, and graphics, are owned by us. You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Service solely for personal, non-commercial educational purposes.

6. Disclaimer of Warranties & Limitation of Liability

The Service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. LingoChip expressly disclaims all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied. We do not guarantee that you will achieve language fluency or that the app will be error-free.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, in no event shall LingoChip, its developer, or affiliates be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages. In no event shall our aggregate liability exceed the greater of fifty US dollars ($50) or the amount you paid us in the past six (6) months.

7. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless LingoChip from any claims, liabilities, damages, judgments, awards, losses, costs, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or relating to your violation of these Terms or your use of the Service.

8. Governing Law and Arbitration

8.1 Governing Law: These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to its conflict of law principles.

8.2 Binding Arbitration: Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service shall be settled by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA). You and LingoChip agree to waive the right to a trial by jury and to participate in a class-action lawsuit.

9. Assignment and Corporate Transfers

You may not assign these Terms to any other party. However, LingoChip reserves the right to assign or transfer these Terms, our rights, and your data without restriction, including in the event of incorporation (e.g., forming a C-Corporation in Delaware or elsewhere), merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. The new entity will seamlessly assume all rights and obligations hereunder.

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how LingoChip ("we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, shares, and protects your information when you use our mobile application, website, and services.

1. Information We Collect

Information you provide directly: When you register, we collect your email address, username, and profile metadata (avatars, covers). If you use a third-party login (e.g., Google), we receive your email and basic profile info from them.

Automated Usage Data: We log your IP address, device type, timezone, and operating system to provide localized content (such as timezone-aware streak tracking) and to prevent fraud.

Audio and Speech Data: When you use pronunciation features, we capture your microphone input. This audio data is processed ephemerally to grade your speech. We do not permanently store your voice recordings on our servers.

Chat and AI Logs: We temporarily store chat histories (Direct Messages and AI conversations) to provide the service. Routine database purges permanently delete chat data older than 30 days.

2. How We Share Your Information

We do not sell your personal data to data brokers. We share data only with strictly vetted third-party service providers who assist us in operating the app:

• Google Cloud & Gemini: For hosting databases and powering the "Aura" AI Tutor.
• Deepgram: For real-time Speech-to-Text transcription.
• Stripe & RevenueCat: For processing secure payments. We do not process or store your raw credit card numbers.
• Google AdMob: For providing advertisements to free users. AdMob may use device identifiers to serve personalized or non-personalized ads in compliance with global privacy laws.

3. Children's Privacy

LingoChip is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If we become aware that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will take immediate steps to delete such information.

4. Your Data Rights & Account Deletion

You have the right to request the complete deletion of your account and associated personal data at any time. Please note that requesting deletion triggers a permanent and irreversible process.

How to delete your account (In-App)

How to delete your account (Web Request)

If you no longer have access to the app, you can request account deletion by emailing us directly. Please send an email from the address associated with your LingoChip account to support@lingochip.com with the subject line "Account Deletion Request".

Note for Google Sign-In Users: Deleting your LingoChip account removes your data from our servers. However, to completely sever the OAuth connection, you should also navigate to your Google Account Security Settings and remove LingoChip's access under "Third-party apps with account access."

5. Security

We implement industry-standard security measures (including JWT tokens, bcrypt password hashing, and SSL/TLS encryption) to protect your data. However, no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

6. International Data Transfers

Your information may be transferred to, and maintained on, computers located outside of your state, province, or country where the data protection laws may differ from those of your jurisdiction. By using LingoChip, you consent to the transfer of your data to (but not limited to) the United States and Europe for processing.

7. Business Transfers

If LingoChip undergoes a corporate restructuring, such as an incorporation, merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your personal information may be transferred as part of that transaction. This Privacy Policy will continue to apply to your data under the new entity.

Open Source & Attributions

LingoChip is built upon the foundation of exceptional open-source software and third-party libraries. We proudly attribute and credit the following projects:

Lichess Audio Assets

Certain interface sound effects used within the LingoChip application are adapted from assets created by the Lichess.org open-source project. These assets are utilized under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license or the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) license where applicable. A special thanks goes to the Lichess development team and its contributors for their world-class work and outstanding commitment to the global open-source ecosystem.

Third-Party Software & Libraries

• FontAwesome: Used for iconography under the Font Awesome Free License.
• Google Fonts: Typography licensed under the SIL Open Font License (OFL).
• SortableJS: Used for drag-and-drop mechanics. Licensed under the MIT License.
• Chart.js: Used for rendering statistics. Licensed under the MIT License.
• chess.js & js-chess-engine: Used for powering Arena minigames. Licensed under the MIT License.

About Us & Contact

LingoChip was built with a simple goal in mind: to make language learning genuinely fun, competitive, and accessible to everyone. Born out of a passion for languages and gaming, and despair that such a service never existed in a landscape where mobile language apps were only focusing on the habit aspect, not the language aspect as much, LingoChip combines proven spaced-repetition science with well-known and loved habit-making strategies to ensure we have the most frictionless fluency road ahead. We hope our social and gamified app helps you learn a new language, for that is our only goal and motivation for creating LingoChip.

-with 💖 from LingoChip dev team.

Currently developed independently, our vision is to grow LingoChip into the ultimate social learning platform. We believe that learning shouldn't be a solitary chore, but a shared adventure.

Need Help?

If you encounter a bug, have a feature request, need billing assistance, or have questions regarding your data privacy, please reach out to our support team:

Email: support@lingochip.com