Serkle Terms of Use

Version of October 17, 2026 · Effective as of that date · Updated October 30, 2026 (the public profile link)

Welcome to Serkle. These terms of use (the "Terms") govern access to and use of the Serkle service, available at serkle.me and through any application or interface giving access to it (together, the "Service"). They form a contract between you and the publisher of the Service. Please read them carefully: by creating an account or using the Service, you accept them without reservation. If you do not accept them, you must not use the Service.

1. Publisher of the Service

The Service is published and operated by Valguani ("Valguani", "we"), operated by Sacha Ghnassia.

Valguani alone holds all rights in the Service, the Serkle brand, its name, logos, code, interfaces, texts, visuals and databases, as described in section 13.

For any question: support@serkle.me.

2. Definitions

• Account: the personal space a user creates to access the Service.
• Member or you: any natural person holding an Account.
• Serkle or circle: each Member's private representation of the people they place in it, organized by circles of closeness, categories and links.
• Contact: a person a Member places in their serkle. A Contact can be another Member ("linked contact") or a person who is not on Serkle ("manual contact").
• Content: any information, text, photo or data a Member publishes, records or sends through the Service (profile, description, notes, messages, Pulses, reports, interest suggestions, etc.).
• Serkle+: the paid offer of the Service, when it is offered.

3. Acceptance and changes to the Terms

3.1. You accept the Terms by checking or confirming the statement provided for this purpose when signing in, then by creating your Account. The accepted version and its date are recorded.

3.2. We may change the Terms, in particular to reflect changes in the Service, the law or case law. In case of a material change, we will inform you by any appropriate means (a message in the Service or by email) before it takes effect, and we may ask you to accept them again. If you refuse the new Terms, you may delete your Account at any time. Continuing to use the Service after the new Terms take effect constitutes acceptance, to the extent permitted by applicable law.

4. Eligibility

4.1. Minimum age. The Service is reserved for people aged at least 15. Sign-up is refused below that age and no data is kept.

4.2. Minor Members (15 to 17). If you are under 18, you declare that you have obtained the consent of your legal guardian (parent or tutor) to use the Service and accept the Terms. Your legal guardian is responsible for your use of the Service within the limits provided by law. Enhanced protections apply to minor Members (section 9).

4.3. Accurate information. You agree to provide accurate information, in particular your date of birth, which cannot be changed from the Service. A mistake can only be corrected by writing to support@serkle.me, with proof if we request it. Any false statement about your age leads to the deletion of the Account.

4.4. One Account per person. Each Member may hold only one Account, tied to a verified phone number. The Account is personal and may not be transferred, lent or sold.

4.5. Equipment and connection. Access to the Service requires a compatible device, an Internet connection and a Google account, at your own expense. Third-party services (Google, your phone carrier, etc.) are governed by their own terms.

5. Account creation and security

5.1. Creating an Account requires signing in with a Google account, verifying a phone number with a code sent by text message, then entering the requested information (username, sex, date of birth, city, interests and, optionally, countries).

5.2. Username. Your username (@) has 3 to 20 characters: lowercase letters, digits and underscore. Some names are reserved. It can be changed once every three months. We may refuse or withdraw a username that infringes a third party's rights (trademark, name of a well-known person), that is misleading or offensive, or that is held without real use.

5.3. You are responsible for keeping your sign-in means confidential and for any activity carried out from your Account. Notify us without delay at support@serkle.me of any unauthorized use or loss of your phone number.

6. Description of the Service

6.1. Serkle is a personal tool to organize one's relationships. In particular, it lets you:

• place the people close to you in a private circle, by closeness, category and link (family, friend, professional), and add notes only you can see;
• add other Members or manual contacts, invite people close to you to join Serkle with a personal link, and be notified when a Member adds you;
• connect mutually with other Members;
• search for Members by name, username or shared interests, and receive suggestions of people;
• exchange messages with other Members, within the limits set by the Service;
• receive notifications and emails related to the Service;
• when offered, share short ephemeral content with your connections ("Pulses"), create or join events, and subscribe to Serkle+.

6.2. Changes to the Service. The Service is under active development and may be offered as a test ("beta") version. We may at any time add, change, suspend or remove all or part of its features, in particular for technical, security or compliance reasons, without any right to compensation.

6.3. Safeguards. To keep Members at ease, the Service applies limits, in particular: one first message, then waiting for a reply before writing again to someone you are not connected with, a maximum number of new conversations per day, of interest suggestions per week and of contacts in the free offer. These limits may change.

6.4. Free of charge. The basic offer of the Service is free. Paid features, when offered, are governed by section 15.

7. Contacts you add and third parties' data

7.1. When you add a manual contact, you record information about a person who is not necessarily on Serkle (first name, last name, phone number, category, note). You represent and warrant:

• that you know this person personally and record them for a strictly personal purpose, to organize your own relationships;
• that you have the right to hold and record this information, and that you obtained it lawfully;
• that your notes contain no defamatory, insulting or discriminatory information, no sensitive data (health, religion, political opinions, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, etc.) about this person, and no information they would not want recorded.

7.2. A manual contact's phone number is stored encrypted. It is never visible to anyone but you. Serkle never contacts this number: it is only used to link the contact to their account if they join Serkle, with their consent, as described in the Privacy Policy.

7.3. Invitations to join Serkle are always sent by you, from your own applications. You are solely responsible for the messages you send and their compliance with the law, in particular regarding unsolicited messages.

7.4. You indemnify Valguani against any third-party claim related to the information you record about them.

8. Members' Content

8.1. Ownership. You remain the owner of the Content you publish. You warrant that you hold all necessary rights in this Content, in particular in photos, including the image rights of the people shown.

8.2. License. To operate the Service, you grant Valguani, worldwide and for the duration of the rights, a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable license, sublicensable to its technical providers, to host, reproduce, adapt (in particular resize or crop), display and transmit your Content, solely to the extent necessary to provide, secure and improve the Service. This license ends when your Content or your Account is deleted, subject to temporary technical copies, Content already sent to other Members and legal retention obligations.

8.3. Visibility. Your name, username, photo, description, public link, age bracket and city are visible to other Members (city and age bracket are never shown for a minor Member). Your circle, notes, categories and contacts remain strictly private. Your interests are not shown on your profile: only those you have in common with another Member may be shown to them, and never a sensitive interest. Details are in the Privacy Policy.

8.4. Description and link. Your public description and link are not reviewed before they are published. You are solely responsible for them. Any Member can report them and we may remove them. A link leads to a site outside Serkle: we do not control that site and are not responsible for it.

8.5. Interest suggestions. When you suggest a new interest, you agree that Valguani may freely add, modify, translate or refuse it. Interests added to the Service's catalog are Valguani's property. Your suggestion is reviewed automatically (section 10.3).

8.6. No monitoring obligation. Valguani has no general obligation to monitor Content, but may remove any Content that breaches the Terms or the law, in particular following a report.

9. Rules of conduct and protection of minors

9.1. You agree to use the Service fairly, respectfully and lawfully. In particular, it is forbidden to:

• harass, threaten, intimidate, insult or humiliate anyone, or incite hatred, violence or discrimination;
• publish or send unlawful, pornographic, violent, defamatory or misleading Content, or Content that infringes a third party's privacy, image or rights;
• solicit a minor, try to contact a minor for inappropriate purposes, or publish any sexual Content involving a minor;
• suggest an interest that glorifies a crime or an illegal activity;
• impersonate anyone, create a fake profile or lie about your age;
• send unsolicited messages, advertising, commercial solicitation or chain messages;
• collect, extract or scrape data from the Service, in particular by automated means (bots, scripts), or build files of Members;
• circumvent the Service's limits, safeguards, protections or security measures, test its vulnerabilities without written authorization, or disrupt its operation;
• decompile, disassemble or reverse engineer the Service, except where expressly permitted by law;
• use the Service for commercial purposes without Valguani's prior written consent.

9.2. Protection of minors. The Service applies enhanced protections to Members aged 15 to 17: an adult cannot find a minor through search, and vice versa; messages between an adult and a minor are only possible if each has added the other; a minor's city and age bracket are never shown; sensitive interests are reserved for adults. Any behavior aimed at circumventing these protections leads to the immediate closure of the Account and may be reported to the authorities.

9.3. Meeting in real life. Serkle encourages seeing people in real life. Any meeting is at your own risk. Valguani does not check Members' identity, background or behavior, and is not a party to relationships between Members. Be careful, prefer public places for a first meeting and report any worrying behavior.

10. Reports, moderation and sanctions

10.1. Report and block. Any Member can report a profile, a message or Content, and block another Member. A blocked Member can no longer write to you or see you in search, and their adds are no longer shown to you.

10.2. Moderation. Reports are reviewed by Valguani. At our discretion and in proportion to the seriousness of the facts, we may remove Content, issue a warning, restrict features, suspend or delete an Account, without notice in case of serious breach or risk to others' safety.

10.3. Automated decisions. Interests suggested by Members are automatically analyzed by an artificial intelligence tool, which adds them, matches them to an existing interest, refuses them or submits them for human review. Suggesting a clearly illegal interest results in an automatic warning; at the second warning, the Account is permanently banned. You can contest any such decision and ask for it to be reviewed by a person by writing to support@serkle.me.

10.4. Valguani may keep the information necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims and cooperate with the authorities when required by law.

11. Personal data

The processing of your personal data is described in the Privacy Policy, which forms an integral part of the Terms. By accepting it, you confirm you have read it.

12. Communications

You agree to receive the communications necessary for the Service: verification text messages, in-app notifications and emails related to your Account (sign-up confirmation, adds, connections, unread messages, monthly letter). Non-essential emails can be turned off in Settings or with the unsubscribe link in each of them. Valguani sends no advertising and sells no data.

13. Valguani's intellectual property

13.1. The Service and all its elements (the Serkle brand, names, logos, mascot, interfaces, design, texts, interests catalog, source and object code, databases) are the exclusive property of Valguani or licensed to it. They are protected in particular by the Israeli Copyright Law (2007), trademark law and database law, and by international conventions.

13.2. Valguani grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable right to use the Service, in accordance with the Terms and for strictly personal and non-commercial purposes. Any other use, reproduction, representation, adaptation or extraction, in whole or in part, without Valguani's prior written consent is forbidden.

13.3. City data comes from GeoNames (geonames.org), under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. Flags come from the circle-flags collection, under the MIT license. Icons come from Tabler Icons, under the MIT license.

13.4. If you send us ideas, suggestions or feedback about the Service, you agree that Valguani may use them freely, without compensation.

14. Availability of the Service

14.1. Valguani strives to make the Service continuously available, without any obligation of result. The Service may be interrupted, in particular for maintenance, updates, outages, cyberattacks, a provider's failure or force majeure.

14.2. We encourage you to regularly export your data from Settings. Valguani does not guarantee the preservation of Content in the event of an incident.

15. Paid features (Serkle+)

When offered, paid features will be subject to specific terms (price, duration, renewal, cancellation, refund, right of withdrawal), presented and accepted at the time of subscription. Payments will be processed by a third-party payment provider; Valguani never has access to full card numbers. No paid feature gives an advantage over other Members in terms of visibility or ranking.

16. Warranties and liability

16.1. Service provided "as is". To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, in particular of fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy of search results or suggestions, availability or absence of errors.

16.2. Relationships between Members. Valguani is not responsible for Members' behavior, online or offline, for the Content they publish, or for relationships, meetings, exchanges or transactions between Members or with third parties.

16.3. Limitation. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Valguani shall not be liable for indirect, incidental or non-material damages (loss of data, opportunity, reputation or relationships, emotional distress related to interactions with other Members, etc.). Its total liability, for all causes combined, is limited to the greater of: the amounts you paid Valguani in the twelve months preceding the event giving rise to liability, or one hundred (100) new shekels.

16.4. These limitations do not apply in case of gross negligence or willful misconduct by Valguani, bodily injury, or where applicable law prohibits them, in particular under the mandatory consumer protection rules of your country of residence.

17. Your indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Valguani, its officers, representatives and providers from any claim, action, loss, judgment or expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from your use of the Service, your Content, the information you record about third parties or your breach of the Terms or the law.

18. Term, suspension and termination

18.1. The Terms apply as long as you use the Service.

18.2. By you. You can delete your Account at any time from Settings. Deletion is final and erases your data as described in the Privacy Policy. For Members who had added you, your contact becomes a manual contact (the name they saw you under, their category and note), without your photo or a link to your profile.

18.3. By Valguani. We may suspend or delete your Account in case of breach of the Terms or the law, risk to the safety of Members or the Service, prolonged inactivity, or if required by law. Except in an emergency or a serious breach, we will inform you beforehand. We may also stop operating the Service, informing Members with reasonable notice and allowing them to export their data.

18.4. Sections 7.4, 8.5, 13, 16, 17, 19 and 20 survive the end of the contract.

19. Governing law and disputes

19.1. The Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Israel, excluding its conflict of laws rules.

19.2. In case of a dispute, please write to us first at support@serkle.me to seek an amicable solution.

19.3. Failing an amicable agreement, any dispute falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel.

19.4. If you are a consumer residing in another country, in particular in the European Union, you keep the benefit of the mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence and the possibility to bring proceedings before its courts where that law so provides. You may also use a consumer mediator or any competent authority.

20. Miscellaneous

20.1. Entire agreement. The Terms and the Privacy Policy form the entire agreement between you and Valguani regarding the Service.

20.2. Severability. If a provision is held void, unenforceable or unfair, it is deemed unwritten or reduced to the permitted extent, without affecting the other provisions.

20.3. No waiver. Valguani's failure to enforce a breach does not waive its right to enforce it later.

20.4. Assignment. You may not assign your rights or obligations under the Terms. Valguani may assign or transfer the contract, the Service and the related data to a company it creates or controls, or to a successor, in particular in the context of a reorganization, merger, acquisition or transfer of business (including to a company established in another country), after informing you.

20.5. Languages. The Terms are written in French and translated into English. In case of discrepancy, the French version prevails, unless a mandatory provision provides otherwise.

20.6. Force majeure. Valguani is not liable for a failure caused by an event reasonably beyond its control.

21. Contact

Valguani — Serkle
support@serkle.me