Terms of service

Effective from 15 October 2026

What these terms cover

They are the rules of using the Mandarin IM service — the Android app, the web app at web.mandarin.im, the Bot API and classic ICQ clients connecting to it. By signing in or otherwise using the service you accept these terms and the privacy policy, which says what data we receive and what we do with it. If you do not agree, please do not use the service.

The service is made and run by TomClaw Software, Russia — “we” in these terms.

Who can use it

• You must be at least 13. If you are younger than the age at which the law of your country lets you use such a service on your own, a parent or guardian has to accept these terms for you.
• An account belongs to the person whose phone number it is signed in with. Do not sign in with a number that is not yours.
• If we have closed your account for breaking these terms, do not make another one without our consent.

Your account

• Keep your devices and your classic client password safe: what is done from your account counts as done by you.
• If you think somebody else got into your account, end their sessions in the settings and write to us.
• An account is tied to its phone number. If you give up a number, change it in the settings first: whoever the carrier gives the number to next will be able to sign in with it.

What is not allowed

• Spam: mass messages, unwanted advertising, adding people en masse to groups they did not ask to join.
• Deceiving people: fraud, phishing, pretending to be somebody else, including us.
• Threats, harassment and calls for violence or hatred against people.
• Any material that sexually exploits children. We remove it, close the account and report it to the authorities.
• Publishing other people's private data or intimate images without their consent.
• Malware, and content that infringes somebody's copyright, trademark or other rights.
• Anything else that is illegal.
• Breaking into the service, other people's accounts or our servers; overloading the service or getting around its limits and blocks; collecting data about users in bulk.
• Scripts that act as a person from an account; for automation there are bots, made through the Bot API.

What you send

• What you send stays yours. You let us store, copy, transmit and show it only as far as it takes to run the service: to deliver it to whom you sent it — people, groups, channels or bots — on all of their devices and yours, through push notifications too, and to keep it in backups.
• You are responsible for what you send, and you need the right to send it.
• Whatever is posted in a group or a channel that anyone may join by a link can be read by anyone who has the link.
• We do not read conversations in advance and do not check them before delivery. Messages are not end-to-end encrypted; the privacy policy says how they are stored.

Bots

• A bot is made through the system bot, @bots. Its owner answers for the bot as for their own account: for what it sends and for what it does with what it is sent.
• A bot uses what people send it only for what the bot is for, and does not pass it on to anybody else unless they asked for that.
• Keep the bot's token secret and stay within the Bot API's limits. We may revoke a token or remove a bot that breaks these terms.

Reports and moderation

• You can block anybody who bothers you. To report a message, a person, a group, a channel or a bot, write to igor@citron.dev: say who or what it is and, if you can, attach a screenshot.
• If something breaks these terms or the law, we may remove it, limit what an account may do, or block a person, a group, a channel or a bot — with a warning or without one, depending on how serious it is.
• If you think we got it wrong, write to us and we will look again.

The service

• Mandarin IM is free. We may change it, add and remove features, set limits and, in the end, close it. If we close it, we will try to say so in advance.
• Classic ICQ clients are supported as they are: they connect without encryption, and not everything the app can do works in them.
• Mandarin IM is an independent project, not affiliated with ICQ, VK or their owners.

No guarantees and no liability

You use the service at your own risk. It is provided free of charge, “as is” and “as available”, without any guarantees, express or implied: we do not promise that it works without interruptions or errors, that it is secure, that every message is delivered, that data is never lost, or that it suits any purpose of yours. Keep copies of anything important.

As far as the law allows, we are not liable for any losses, direct or indirect, that come from using the service or from being unable to use it: lost or leaked data, lost profit, interruptions, errors and attacks, what other people and bots send you or do through the service, and what the providers we rely on — SMS, push notifications, hosting — do or fail to do. If we are held liable all the same, our liability is limited to what you paid us for the service, and the service is free.

If somebody makes a claim against us because of what you sent or did through the service, or because of your bot, you cover the losses this causes us.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that the law does not allow to be limited, or takes away the rights the law gives you as a consumer.

Leaving

You may stop using the service at any time and ask us to delete your account, as the privacy policy says. We may close an account that seriously or repeatedly breaks these terms.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of the Russian Federation. Before going to court, please write to us: most questions can be settled that way.

Changes

We may update these terms. The version in force is always published on this page with the date it takes effect; about important changes we will try to tell you in advance, in the app or on this site. If you go on using the service after a change takes effect, you accept the new terms.

Contact

Questions about these terms and reports: igor@citron.dev.