Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using the Service — including browsing the site, creating an account, casting a reading, or purchasing any paid item — you confirm that you have read, understood and agree to be bound by these Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, Disclaimer and Refund Policy, each of which is incorporated by reference.

If you do not agree with any part of these Terms, do not use the Service.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Service. By using the Service you represent and warrant that you are at least 18 and are able to enter into a legally binding agreement.

If we learn that a user is under the required age, we may terminate the account and delete the associated data.

3. Description of the Service

AskYao is an AI-powered Liu Yao (I Ching) divination app. After you enter a question and cast a hexagram, the system derives the hexagram according to traditional Liu Yao methodology and an AI model generates a written interpretation. We also offer a Daily Oracle, year-fortune readings, follow-up chat, and a reflection journal.

All interpretations are automatically generated by AI and are provided for reflection and entertainment only. They do not constitute medical, legal, financial, psychological or any other professional advice. Please read the Disclaimer for details.

We may add, change, suspend or remove any feature of the Service at any time without notice.

4. Accounts

Some features require an account. Authentication is provided by a third-party identity service. You are responsible for keeping your credentials secure and for all activity that occurs under your account.

Registration information you provide must be truthful and accurate. Do not impersonate others or create multiple accounts to abuse free credits or referral rewards.

If you become aware of any unauthorized use of your account, contact us immediately using the details below.

5. Acceptable Use

When using the Service you agree not to:

• Submit questions or content that are unlawful, infringing, harassing, hateful, sexually explicit, or intended to harm others;
• Attempt to extract, copy or reverse-engineer our system prompts, model configuration or other internal logic, or use "jailbreak" techniques to make the AI act outside its intended limits;
• Use crawlers, bots or other automated means to access, scrape or bulk-download content from the Service;
• Interfere with, disrupt or attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service, its servers or connected networks;
• Circumvent payment, credit limits, rate limits or the rules of the referral program;
• Use the Service for any purpose that violates applicable laws or regulations.

6. Credits, Subscriptions and Billing

The Service offers free trial credits, one-off reading credits, one-off follow-up credits, and a monthly auto-renewing subscription. Prices are those displayed at checkout and may change at any time; changes do not affect purchases already completed.

All payments are processed by Stripe, a third-party payment provider. We never store your full card number.

Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period until cancelled. You can cancel at any time from Manage Subscription; after cancelling you keep access until the end of the current billing period.

Reading and follow-up credits are digital goods and are considered delivered once used (that is, once the AI interpretation begins generating). See the Refund Policy for refund terms.

Promotional benefits such as free credits and referral rewards have no cash value and are non-transferable and non-redeemable for cash.

7. Intellectual Property and Content

You retain all rights to the content you submit, such as your questions and journal notes. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, process and display that content for the purpose of providing and improving the Service.

You are free to save, screenshot and share your own readings.

The Service itself — including the software, interface design, branding, copy, hexagram computation pipeline and its arrangement — is owned by us or our licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark and other intellectual-property laws. You may not copy, modify, distribute or create derivative works without our written permission.

AI-generated interpretations are provided "as is". Because of how AI output works, similar inputs may produce similar or identical output, and we do not guarantee that any reading is unique.

8. Referral Program

We may offer a referral program that rewards you with credits for inviting friends. The program rules — including reward amounts, caps and eligibility — are those shown in the app at the time, and we may modify, suspend or end the program at any time.

Rewards obtained through self-referral, fake accounts or other fraudulent means will be revoked and the accounts involved may be terminated.

9. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time. To delete your account, email us using the details below.

If you breach these Terms, or we reasonably believe your conduct may harm us, other users or third parties, we may suspend or terminate your account and access without prior notice.

On termination, unused free or reward credits expire; paid items are handled as described in the Refund Policy. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination (including intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability and indemnification) will survive.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, non-infringement or uninterrupted availability.

We do not warrant that any reading is accurate, complete or reliable, or that the Service will be error-free, virus-free or continuously available. Your use of the Service, and any decision you make based on it, is at your own risk.

11. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, neither we nor our affiliates, directors, employees, agents or suppliers will be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive or consequential damages (including lost profits, lost data, loss of goodwill or the cost of substitute services), whether or not foreseeable and whether based on contract, tort or any other legal theory.

In no event will our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Service or these Terms exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) US$50.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages; in those jurisdictions our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

12. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless us and our affiliates, directors, employees and agents from any claims, losses, liabilities and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of (a) your use of the Service; (b) your breach of these Terms; (c) your violation of any third-party right; or (d) any content you submit.

13. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. For material changes we will update the "Last updated" date on this page and, where reasonable, notify you in the app or by email. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms.

14. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-law principles. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will first be addressed through good-faith negotiation; if unresolved, it will be brought exclusively in the courts of competent jurisdiction located in the State of California, United States.

Nothing in these Terms limits any additional rights you may have under mandatory consumer-protection laws in your place of residence.

15. General

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, Disclaimer and Refund Policy, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service. If any provision is found invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force. Our failure to exercise or enforce any right under these Terms is not a waiver of that right.

16. Contact

If you have any questions about these Terms, email us at [email protected].