Last updated: 24 August 2026
Welcome to Ceylon Chat. By creating an account or using ceylonchat.com and its related apps (the "Service"), you agree to these Terms and Conditions. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.
You must be at least 13 years old (or the minimum age required in your country) to use the Service. By using the Service, you confirm that you meet this requirement.
You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and password, and for all activity that occurs under your account. Notify us immediately of any unauthorized use of your account.
You keep ownership of everything you post on Ceylon Chat. We do not claim it, we do not sell it, and we do not licence it to anyone else. By posting, you grant Ceylon Chat a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, copy, display, adapt for formatting and thumbnails, and distribute that content for the sole purpose of operating and promoting the Service. That licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except that copies may remain in backups for a limited period, and copies another user has already downloaded or re-shared are outside our control.
When you post anything on Ceylon Chat, you promise us that:
Please read this part carefully, because it is where most people get into trouble without meaning to. A photograph belongs to the person who took it, not to the person in it and not to the person who found it. Images taken from Google, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp groups, news websites, stock libraries, film or television, music artwork, or another business's website are owned by someone, and posting them here without permission is copyright infringement even if you found them freely available, even if you credit the source, even if you are not making money from it, and even if you delete them afterwards. The same applies to song recordings, video clips, articles, designs and logos. If you did not make it and you do not have permission, do not upload it.
Businesses: photographs taken for you by a photographer usually still belong to the photographer unless your contract says otherwise. Product images supplied by a manufacturer or distributor usually come with limits on how they may be used. Check before you upload them to your business page.
Content posted by other people on Ceylon Chat belongs to them. You may not copy, download, re-publish, scrape or reuse it outside the Service without their permission. The Ceylon Chat name, logo, page designs, software and database are owned by Ceylon Chat and may not be copied or used without our written permission.
Ceylon Chat is a platform. The posts, comments, photographs, videos, listings, business pages, reviews and messages on it are created and published by the people who post them, not by Ceylon Chat. We do not write them, we do not commission them, we do not review them before they appear, and we do not adopt them as our own. Responsibility for a piece of content, and any legal liability attaching to it, rests with the person who posted it.
We do not monitor everything that is posted, and we are not obliged to. What we do instead is act: we operate reporting tools throughout the Service, a dedicated copyright notice process, and a complaints route for reviews, and we deal with what is reported to us. When we are told that specific content is unlawful or infringing, we look at it and, where the report is justified, we remove or restrict it promptly.
We want to be straightforward about why this matters rather than simply disclaiming responsibility. The protections that hosting providers have in the United Kingdom, the European Union and the United States are conditional: they apply to a host that does not have actual knowledge of unlawful content and that acts expeditiously to remove it once it does. A platform that ignores notices loses that protection. This is why our notice and takedown process is a real, staffed process and not a formality, and why we ask you to report anything you believe is infringing rather than assume we have seen it.
Removing content is not an admission that it was unlawful, and leaving content up is not a statement that we endorse it or that we have verified it.
You agree not to use the Service to post unlawful, harassing, hateful, or sexually explicit content involving minors, to impersonate others, to spam or scam other users, to upload malware, or to attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service or other users' accounts. We may remove content or suspend accounts that violate these Terms or our Community Guidelines, which set out the detailed rules for posts, comments, Marketplace, and advertiser content.
Marketplace lets users list items for other users to buy and sell directly with each other. Ceylon Chat is not a party to any transaction between a buyer and seller, does not process payments for Marketplace transactions on-platform, and does not guarantee the condition, safety, legality, or delivery of any listed item. Buyers and sellers are each responsible for exercising their own judgment, agreeing on payment and delivery outside the Service, and complying with applicable law.
The following items may never be listed on Marketplace:
Listings that violate these rules may be removed, and repeat violations may result in loss of Marketplace access or account suspension. See our Community Guidelines for the full enforcement process.
Ceylon Chat offers business profiles and a self-serve advertising system where advertisers fund and run their own campaigns on the Service. Advertisers are responsible for ensuring their content complies with these Terms, our Community Guidelines, and applicable law. Ads may not target users based on race, ethnicity, religion, disability, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or other protected characteristics in a discriminatory way, and may not advertise illegal goods, weapons, controlled substances, deceptive or misleading claims, or adult content. We reserve the right to reject or remove any advertisement, and to suspend an advertiser account, at our discretion.
Anyone with a Ceylon Chat account may review a published business page, one review per account per business. A review must describe your own genuine experience of that business. You may edit or withdraw your own review at any time.
The following are not permitted, and a review may be removed for any of them: reviewing a business you have no genuine experience of; reviewing your own business, or one you own, work for, or are connected to; reviewing a competitor; accepting or offering payment, goods, discounts or any other incentive in exchange for leaving, changing or withdrawing a review; abuse, threats, hate speech or harassment; publishing another person's private information; content that is not about the goods or service; advertising, links or spam; and demanding anything from a business in return for changing or removing a review.
Business owners: you may reply publicly to any review of your page, and that reply is shown beneath it. You cannot edit, hide or delete a review of your business, and Ceylon Chat will not remove one on request. You may appeal a review on one of the specific grounds listed in our Reviews Help article — for example that the reviewer was never a customer, that it states something provably untrue, that it is abusive, or that someone demanded something to remove it. An appeal is decided by a person against those grounds, and you will be told the outcome and the reason for it either way.
What will not be removed: a review that describes a real experience and is simply negative, blunt, one-sided, or damaging to your business. That is not a gap in the policy. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, which came into force on 6 April 2025, suppressing or concealing genuine consumer reviews is a banned unfair commercial practice in the United Kingdom, and the Competition and Markets Authority can fine a business up to 10% of its global turnover for it. Ceylon Chat will not do it, and businesses that pressure customers to remove honest reviews may have their page taken down.
The star rating shown to search engines is calculated only from reviews visible on the page, and is only published once a business has at least three of them. We do not sell rating improvements, we do not offer removal as a paid service, and paying for advertising on Ceylon Chat has no effect on your reviews, your rating, or the outcome of an appeal.
Ceylon Chat offers a points and referral program as a promotional feature: you earn points for actions such as joining the Service or referring new users. Points have no cash value and cannot be exchanged for money, goods, or services — as of the date above, there is no redemption mechanism, and points exist solely to track your activity and standing within the program. We may introduce redemption options, change how points are earned, or modify or discontinue the program entirely at any time and at our discretion.
The Service allows you to sign in using third-party providers such as Google and Facebook, to receive verification codes via WhatsApp or SMS through Twilio, and to send or receive payments related to creator payouts and advertiser billing through Stripe and Stripe Connect. Your use of those third-party services is subject to their own terms and privacy policies.
If you own copyright in something and it has been posted on Ceylon Chat without your permission, you can tell us and we will deal with it. You do not need a Ceylon Chat account to file a notice. The form is on our Copyright Policy page and asks for the things a valid notice has to contain: who you are and how to contact you, what the work is, a link to exactly where it appears on Ceylon Chat, a statement made in good faith that the use is not authorised, a statement that the information is accurate and that you are the rights holder or authorised to act for them, and your signature.
When a notice is upheld, we remove only what the notice identifies. Specifically:
Repeat infringers. A member whose content is removed on an upheld copyright notice receives a strike. At three strikes the account is suspended. This is a real policy that we apply, not a statement of intent — under section 512(i) of the US Copyright Act, a service that does not adopt and reasonably implement a repeat infringer policy loses its protection entirely.
Counter-notices. If your content was removed and you believe that was wrong — you own it, you had a licence, or the use was permitted by law, for example fair dealing for criticism, review, quotation, news reporting, parody or pastiche — you can file a counter-notice on the same page. We pass it to the person who complained. If they do not tell us within fourteen days that they have begun legal proceedings, we may restore the content.
Misuse of the process. The statements in a notice are made under penalty of perjury. Knowingly claiming rights you do not hold, or misrepresenting that material is infringing, can make you liable to the uploader and to Ceylon Chat for the resulting damages and legal costs. We keep a record of every notice, every counter-notice and every decision, including the reason.
File a copyright notice or counter-notice
We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms, engage in fraudulent or harmful activity, accumulate three upheld copyright strikes, or where we are required to by law. You may delete your account at any time from Settings.
The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied. We do not guarantee that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, that content posted by other users is accurate, lawful or safe, or that any business, seller, advertiser or member you deal with through the Service is who they say they are. Any dealing you have with another user — a Marketplace sale, a booking, a payment, a job, a meeting — is between you and them.
You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Ceylon Chat, its owners, operators, employees, contractors and agents from and against any claim, demand, investigation, loss, liability, damage, fine, settlement, or reasonable legal cost and expense that arises out of or in connection with:
We will tell you promptly about any claim covered by this section, and you agree not to settle a claim in a way that imposes any obligation or admission on Ceylon Chat without our written agreement. This obligation continues after your account is closed.
So that this is clear rather than merely comforting: an indemnity is a promise between you and us. It does not stop a rights holder or anyone else from bringing a claim against Ceylon Chat, and it is worth only what the person who gave it is able to pay. It means that where a claim against us is caused by what you posted, we can look to you for the cost of it. It is not a substitute for you having the right to post what you post.
Ceylon Chat is not liable for content created by its users, or for loss or damage arising from your dealings with other users, from content you relied on, or from your inability to access the Service. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, business, goodwill, data or anticipated savings, however caused. Where liability cannot be excluded, our total liability to you in connection with the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose, or one hundred pounds sterling.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited. If you use the Service as a consumer, you keep all the rights the law gives you, and nothing here affects them.
We may update these Terms from time to time. Continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.
If you have questions about these Terms, contact us at ceylonchat.com@gmail.com.