BWU Uplink

Effective Date: July 7, 2026 | Last Updated: August 26, 2026

The Plain-English Summary (TL;DR)

I run this myself, on my own server, with no ads and nobody selling your data. In return I ask that you use it legally, don't crack the desktop client, and don't hold me liable if something goes offline. Every text message on the hosted service is screened by an AI for moderation before delivery — Section 3 explains exactly what that means. If something goes wrong, email me and I will sort it out rather than hide behind this document.

This summary is informal and is not the agreement. The numbered sections below are.

1. The Services & Tiers

BWU Uplink has three tiers. What you get depends on which one your account is on:

Free Tier ($0): Full core communication access — text channels, direct messages, friends, and voice calls — hosted on the operator's infrastructure. File attachments up to 50 MB each. User and message data is maintained on the operator's server.
Premium Subscription ($5.99/Month): A non-exclusive, non-transferable recurring upgrade to your account that unlocks the full feature set for the duration of the active subscription, including file attachments up to 200 MB each, GIFs, camera in group calls, screen sharing, studio audio processing, the soundboard, and profile banners. (Video in 1-on-1 calls is part of the Free tier.) Cancellation stops future charges; access continues until the end of the paid billing period, after which the account reverts to the Free Tier. Alternatively, a one-time Supporter purchase ($30) grants the same Premium feature set for 12 months with no auto-renewal; when it ends, the account reverts to the Free Tier unless renewed by another purchase.
Self-Host License ($49/Year): A non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable annual license granting a single activation key that permits you to operate one independent BWU Uplink server instance on your own hardware or hosting. The key binds permanently to the first installation that activates it and validates against the operator's license authority on a recurring basis. The license auto-renews annually; a lapsed, canceled, or revoked license disables the licensed server. As the administrator of an independent instance, you assume full responsibility for that server and the data of any users you host on it.

Founding Members (first 50 accounts). The first 50 accounts registered on the operator's instance are designated Founding Members and receive the full Premium feature set at no charge, for the lifetime of that account on this instance, with no card required and no recurring charge. This is honoured for as long as the operator runs the service; it is not transferable to another account, does not survive account deletion, and does not include the Self-Host License, which is a separate product with its own annual cost. If a Founding Member later purchases a Self-Host License, that license is governed by the terms above like any other. Founding Member status is granted automatically by registration order and does not need to be claimed.

2. Intellectual Property & Code Restrictions

All source code, compiled native binaries, UI frameworks, design assets, custom styles, and branding elements associated with the BWU Uplink ecosystem are the exclusive property of the developer.

Users are strictly prohibited from decompiling, reverse-engineering, disassembling, attempting to derive source components from, or modifying the native compiled desktop client executable.
Any detection of binary modification, license signature forgery, or unauthorized asset extraction will prompt the immediate and permanent revocation of system access without notice or financial recourse.
Nothing above limits any right to reverse-engineer for interoperability that the law does not allow me to take away from you.
Self-Host License grant. A valid Self-Host License grants you the right to install and run one server instance for the licensed term. It does not transfer ownership of the software or any right to redistribute it.
Your content stays yours. You keep ownership of the messages, files, avatars and banners you upload. You grant me a limited licence to store, transmit, back up, moderate and display that content solely in order to operate the service for you. That licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies inside routine backups and anything subject to a legal hold described in Section 9 or the Privacy Policy.

3. Automated Moderation and Anthropic

I want to be direct about this one, because it is the part people care about most: every text message sent on the hosted service is checked by an AI before it is delivered.

What is sent. Every text message you send on the hosted service — including direct messages — is sent to Anthropic's Claude API for automated moderation before it is delivered. Welcome-gate answers, content you or someone else reports, and your messages to the in-app AI assistant are sent as well.
What is not sent. Voice, video and screen share are never sent to Anthropic. Neither is anything on a server you host yourself under a Self-Host License — I have no access to those.
What Anthropic does with it. Under my commercial agreement with Anthropic, data sent through the API is not used to train AI models.
Anthropic is a separate company. BWU Uplink is not liable for outages, slowdowns, or failures of their service. The Privacy Policy describes this in more detail.

4. Payments, Cancellation and Refunds

Premium subscriptions, the one-time Supporter purchase, and Self-Host License fees bought on the website are billed by me through Stripe. Purchases made inside the Android app are billed by Google Play, and Google's terms and refund policies govern those — not this section. Cancel a Play purchase in your Google Play subscriptions settings; cancel a website purchase from your account settings.

Cancelling. You can cancel at any time. Cancelling stops future charges, and access continues until the end of the period you already paid for.
Refunds. Except where the law requires otherwise, payments are non-refundable once the paid period has started. Where the law does require otherwise it wins — including the 14-day right of withdrawal for consumers in the UK and EEA, and any refund Google Play issues on an Android purchase.
If I get it wrong. If you were charged in error, charged twice, or the service was unavailable for a prolonged stretch of a period you paid for, email contact@bushwookiesunited.com and I will sort it out. I would rather refund you than argue with you.
Disputes. If you dispute a charge, I may pause paid features on that account while it is looked at. Data I am legally required to keep under Section 9 is not deleted. Raising a dispute in good faith is not on its own a reason to ban you; deliberate payment fraud is.

5. Disclaimer of Warranties ("As-Is" Status)

THE SOFTWARE AND SERVICES ARE PROVIDED STRICTLY ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY VARIETY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.

BWU Uplink disclaims all standard legal warranties, including implied warranties of merchantability, uptime, or compatibility. We do not promise the service will be uninterrupted or bug-free. You download, install, and use the software at your own risk, and you are responsible for your own data security, hardware, and any system issues that result from using it.

6. Solo Developer Acknowledgment & Bug Resolution Policy

BWU Uplink is built and maintained by one person. By using it, you understand you're using an independent project, not a product from a large company.

Bugs: Bugs, quirks, and edge cases happen. They're a normal part of software that ships often.
Priorities: Security problems and major outages get fixed first, immediately. Small visual bugs and obscure edge cases may take longer.
Downtime: You agree you have no claim to compensation or refunds during maintenance, delayed features, or times when the developer is simply unavailable.

7. Limitation of Liability

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL THE DEVELOPER OR OWNER OF BWU UPLINK BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.

This covers losses such as lost profits, data leaks, downtime, hardware failures, or network disruptions, even if we were told such risks were possible. Where consumer law caps liability exclusions, total liability for all claims is limited to the fees you paid BWU Uplink in the three (3) months before the dispute was filed.

8. Eligibility & Minimum Age

These Terms previously set no age requirement at all. They do now, and it is a condition of access rather than a preference.

You must be at least 13 years old to create or use an account on BWU Uplink. If the law where you live sets a higher minimum age for consenting to online services without a parent or guardian — 16 across much of the EEA and the UK — then that higher age applies to you instead.
No accounts for children under 13. BWU Uplink is not directed at children under 13 and we do not knowingly collect their information. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under the minimum age, we will terminate it and delete the associated data.
Accurate age. Misstating your age to obtain an account is a breach of these Terms. Misstating your age in order to gain access to, or the trust of, a minor is treated under Section 9 and carries the consequences described there.
Parents and guardians. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, email contact@bushwookiesunited.com and we will remove it. If you are the parent or guardian of a user aged 13 or over, you are responsible for supervising their use of the service.

9. Child Safety — Zero Tolerance

This is the one section of these Terms with no discretion in it. There is no warning, no strike system, no appeal, and no context in which any of the following is treated as a joke, roleplay, fiction, or edgy humour.

Prohibited absolutely. Child sexual abuse material in any form; sexualised depictions of minors whether photographic, drawn, animated, computer-generated, AI-generated, or written; sexual or romantic solicitation of a minor; grooming, including the patient, non-explicit building of trust with a minor for later sexual purposes; sextortion; and advertising, requesting, trading, or linking to any of the above.
Adults pursuing minors. An adult seeking sexual or romantic contact with a person under 18 is prohibited on this service regardless of what any local age of consent permits offline, and regardless of whether the conversation ever becomes sexually explicit.
Immediate and permanent. Accounts are frozen on detection, not after review. Termination is permanent and is not subject to the appeal or reinstatement process that applies to other suspensions.
Mandatory reporting. As a US-based provider, we are required by 18 U.S.C. § 2258A to report apparent child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline. We do so, and we preserve the associated account data, message content, IP addresses and access logs for law enforcement. This is a legal duty, not a policy choice we can waive for anyone.
No privacy claim. Nothing in our Privacy Policy, and no setting in the application, restricts our ability to preserve and disclose this material to NCMEC or to law enforcement.
Reporting to us. Use the in-app report action, or email contact@bushwookiesunited.com. Reports concerning a minor are treated ahead of everything else in the queue.

If you are a minor and an adult on this service is making you uncomfortable, you do not need to be certain and you will not be in trouble for reporting it. In the United States you can also contact NCMEC directly at CyberTipline.org or 1-800-843-5678.

10. Prohibited Activities & Absolute Legal Compliance

The operational license to access BWU Uplink is conditional upon complete adherence to international, federal, and local statutes.

Illegal Use: You agree not to use BWU Uplink to commit, organize, or assist in crimes. That includes hacking, distributing malware, financial fraud, running illegal marketplaces, systematic harassment, copyright infringement, or storing/distributing illegal material.
User Responsibility: You are responsible for the content you post, upload, and share. If you use the service to break the law, all civil and criminal liability for your conduct is yours alone.
Self-Hosted Servers: If you run your own server under a Self-Host License, you are the sole administrator of that machine. BWU Uplink does not log, watch, or read data on private self-hosted servers. If you use your own server to break the law, all civil and criminal liability is yours alone.

11. Automated Moderation & Mandatory Law Enforcement Reporting

BWU Uplink enforces a strict zero-tolerance approach regarding criminal operations hosted on the service.

Moderation: The service has in-app reporting, and we review what gets reported. We reserve the right to remove accounts, delete violating messages, or suspend anyone who threatens the safety or integrity of the service.
Law Enforcement: If I have good-faith reason to believe the hosted service is being used for a serious crime, I may freeze the account and disclose the information I actually hold to law enforcement, or to NCMEC where Section 9 requires it. Note what that means in practice: IP addresses are not retained for every user, so in most cases there is no IP history to hand over. The Privacy Policy sets out exactly what is and is not kept.
No Privacy for Abuse: Using the service to commit crimes is not something the privacy commitments in this document protect. Outside the mandatory reporting duty in Section 9, disclosure still follows valid legal process.
Self-Hosted Servers: We have no technical ability to inspect, moderate, or pull logs from private, self-hosted servers. Legal action involving a self-hosted server needs to be directed at whoever runs it or hosts it, not at BWU Uplink or its developer.

12. Binding Arbitration & Class Action Waiver

THIS SECTION LIMITS YOUR LEGAL REMEDIES. PLEASE READ IT CAREFULLY — IT REMOVES YOUR OPTION TO SUE IN COURT.

12.1 Individual Arbitration: You agree that any dispute, claim, or legal disagreement connected to this software will be resolved solely through binding individual arbitration before a neutral arbitrator, rather than before a judge or jury.
12.2 Class Action Waiver: ALL DISPUTES MUST BE BROUGHT IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY ONLY. YOU EXPLICITLY WAIVE THE RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY CONSOLIDATED, REPRESENTATIVE, OR CLASS ACTION PROCEEDING.
12.3 Mandatory Condition of Registration: Acceptance of this arbitration agreement and the class action waiver above is a mandatory, non-negotiable condition of creating and holding a BWU Uplink account. There is no opt-out. If you do not agree to resolve disputes through binding individual arbitration as described in this Section, you may not register for or use the Services. By completing registration and continuing to access the Services, you affirm your full and unconditional agreement to this arbitration framework.

13. Governing Law

These Terms, and any claims arising from your use of BWU Uplink, are governed by the laws of the State of Missouri, USA, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

If you are a consumer in the UK or the EEA, this does not take away the mandatory protections of the law of the country you live in, and it does not take away your right to bring a claim there.

14. The Rest

Severability. If a court finds any part of these Terms unenforceable, that part is removed and the rest still applies.
Changes to these Terms. I will update this page and change the "Last Updated" date at the top. If a change materially affects your rights, I will give notice in the app before it takes effect. Continuing to use the service after that means you accept the new version.
House Rules. The House Rules are part of this agreement, and breaking them is a breach of these Terms.
Closing your account. You can delete your account yourself in Settings, under Privacy. Deleting it does not refund the remainder of a paid period, and does not remove data held under Section 9.
Self-hosted instances. If you use a server someone else hosts under a Self-Host License, your agreement about that server is with whoever runs it, not with me.