Terms of use.

This is the agreement between WeSearch and you, the reader. We've kept it short because long terms documents nobody reads aren't actually agreements; they're cover. If anything here is unclear, send an email to /support and we'll explain.

What WeSearch is

WeSearch is a community news aggregator at wesearch.press. We pull headlines from public RSS and Atom feeds, host a stable summary page per story, and run an anonymous threaded comment layer. We don't republish full articles — we link to the publisher.

Your account (or lack of one)

You don't need an account. The first time you react or comment, your browser generates a random API key and a stable display handle locally. More on the anonymity model. If you optionally enable email recovery, the email is hashed before storage. We never see your real name, address, or phone number.

Your content

• Comments are public. Anything you post is readable by anyone. Don't post anything you wouldn't want public.
• You retain ownership of what you write. By posting, you grant WeSearch a non-exclusive license to display, distribute, and host your comment indefinitely. We need this license to render your comment under the story.
• You can delete your own comments at any time. Deletion removes the comment from the rendered thread. Deletion is permanent.
• You can request deletion of all data tied to your hashed key via /support. We complete deletion within 7 days.

What you agree not to do

• Post threats, doxxing, illegal content, or content that constitutes incitement under applicable law.
• Post the personal information of any non-public figure without consent.
• Repeatedly post commercial spam or affiliate-link drops.
• Use automated tools to scrape comment data or attempt to deanonymize handles.
• Attempt to compromise the platform's security or use it to attack others.

Comments that cross these lines get hidden. Repeat violations result in time-bound or permanent key bans. Full moderation policy.

What WeSearch agrees not to do

• Sell your reading data. We don't have any to sell. More.
• Track you with third-party analytics or fingerprinting.
• Run sponsored content in the feed.
• Use your comments for marketing or for feeding ad-tech profiles.
• Compromise comment moderation in exchange for advertiser, donor, or government pressure. Standards.

Service availability

WeSearch is provided "as is." We can't guarantee uptime, that the feed is current, or that every comment thread loads. Hosting is one droplet; outages happen. If we go down, we'll work to restore service.

Termination

Either side can end this relationship anytime:

• You can stop using WeSearch. Reset your local key (Settings → Identity → Reset key) and your future activity is unlinked from the past.
• You can request full deletion via /support and we delete every record tied to your hashed key within 7 days.
• WeSearch can suspend or ban a key for violations of the rules above.
• WeSearch can shut down service entirely. We'd announce 30 days in advance on the homepage.

Liability

We're a small project. We try to be careful. If something goes wrong (bug, breach, content dispute), our liability is capped at what you've donated, which is often $0. WeSearch isn't responsible for the content of articles we link to — that's the publisher's responsibility. We aren't responsible for comments other readers post — those are theirs. We are responsible for our own moderation decisions and the platform's behavior.

Disputes

If you have a complaint, email /support first. We try to resolve issues directly. If that doesn't work, the governing law is the jurisdiction where WeSearch's operator resides, currently the United States.

Changes

If we change these terms, we post a dated changelog at the bottom of this page. Continued use after a change means you accept the new terms. If a change is meaningful (anything beyond typo fixes or clarifying language), we surface a banner on the homepage for at least 30 days.

Contact

Email /support. One human reads it. Replies usually within a working day.

Why this is one page instead of forty

Most major platforms publish 40-100 page terms documents covering every conceivable scenario. Those documents serve a different purpose than this one — they're written by lawyers for lawyers, designed to give the platform maximum flexibility in litigation, and the operative assumption is that no user will read them. The result is that "I have read and agree to the terms" becomes a legal fiction that protects only the platform.

This page is the opposite. It's short enough to read in five minutes. The commitments are concrete and few. If you actually disagree with anything here, you can decide not to use WeSearch — there's no per-feature unlock that makes more terms apply. The trade-off: this page can't anticipate every weird edge case, and we'll have to handle some by writing back when something specific comes up. We accept that trade.

What's not here that you might expect

• An "arbitration clause" forcing all disputes into private arbitration. We don't have one. If a real dispute arose, ordinary courts apply.
• A "class-action waiver." We don't have one.
• A "we can change these terms anytime, your continued use means agreement" clause. We do reserve the right to update terms, but material changes get a 30-day banner on the homepage. Trivial changes (typos, link fixes) don't.
• A "we can use any content you post for any purpose forever" assignment. What we have is a non-exclusive license to display the comment under the story. We don't claim ownership.
• A do-not-resell or no-research clause. Researchers, journalists, and academics are welcome to study public WeSearch comments and reactions. We don't claim ownership over public discourse.

Bottom line

• You don't need an account; you can leave anytime.
• Your public comments stay public; your private data is minimal and deletable on request within 7 days.
• WeSearch's commitments are short, concrete, and not lawyered to be evasive.
• If anything is unclear, email support; one human will explain.

Frequently asked