Terms of Service

Effective and last updated: July 16, 2026

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of the otter.news website, mobile app, widgets, backend services, and related features (collectively, the “Service”). Please read them carefully.

Acceptance

By accessing or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you are under the age of legal majority where you live, you may use the Service only with permission from a parent or legal guardian.

License and permitted use

Subject to these Terms, otter.news grants you a limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to install and use the app and access the Service for lawful, non-commercial purposes. The app is licensed, not sold.

You agree not to:

• Use the Service in violation of law or another person’s rights.
• Interfere with, disrupt, overload, probe, or bypass the Service or its security controls.
• Access non-public systems or data without authorization.
• Use automated means to scrape or extract the Service at a volume that harms the Service or its providers.
• Reverse engineer or circumvent technical restrictions except where applicable law expressly permits it.
• Use the Service to distribute malware, unlawful material, or abusive requests.

News and third-party content

otter.news is an RSS reader and news-discovery service. Headlines, article text, images, trademarks, and other publisher materials belong to their respective owners. otter.news does not endorse every source, statement, advertisement, or opinion displayed through the Service.

Publisher content may be incomplete, delayed, unavailable, inaccurate, disturbing, or unsuitable for some readers. You are responsible for evaluating sources and following the publisher link when accuracy or context matters. The Service is for general information and is not professional, legal, medical, financial, investment, safety, or emergency advice.

Reader mode, offline copies, and custom feeds

Reader mode and offline bookmarks reformat or store publisher content for your personal reading convenience. You may use those features only in ways permitted by law and the rights of the applicable publisher. Do not use the Service to republish, redistribute, or commercially exploit third-party content without authorization.

You are responsible for the custom feed addresses you add and for ensuring that your access and use of those feeds is lawful. We may block or remove a source, feed, image, or feature when needed for reliability, security, legal compliance, or the rights of others.

Translations and AI-assisted output

The Service may use automated systems, including Google Gemini, to translate, summarize, group, or present public news content. Automated output can contain mistakes, omissions, or misleading phrasing. It is not a substitute for the original publisher content, and you should not rely on it for high-stakes decisions.

Notifications and availability

Breaking-news, keyword, background-refresh, and widget features are best-effort. Delivery can be delayed, duplicated, or unavailable due to device settings, operating-system scheduling, network conditions, or third-party services. Do not rely on otter.news for emergency alerts.

Third-party services

The Service relies on or links to third parties such as Apple, Google, Sentry, Cloudflare, Hostinger, GitHub, wsrv.nl, Zippopotam.us, Sleeper, and news publishers. Their services and content are governed by their own terms and privacy policies. otter.news does not control and is not responsible for third-party sites, services, content, availability, or data practices.

If you obtain the app through Apple, your use is also subject to the applicable App Store terms and Apple’s Standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement to the extent it applies and does not conflict with these Terms.

Feedback

If you submit suggestions, bug reports, ideas, screenshots, or other feedback, you grant otter.news a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free right to use, reproduce, adapt, and incorporate that feedback for the Service and related products without compensation or attribution. Do not send confidential information through a feedback channel unless we specifically request it.

Ownership

The Service’s software, branding, designs, and original materials are owned by otter.news or its licensors and are protected by applicable intellectual-property laws. Except for the limited license above, these Terms do not grant you rights in the Service or third-party content.

Copyright and rights concerns

We respect intellectual-property rights. If you believe content or a feed displayed through the Service infringes your rights, email privacy@otter.news with identification of the work, the material or feed at issue, its URL, your contact information, and a good-faith explanation of the concern. We may request additional information needed to evaluate the report.

Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains how the Service handles information and describes your choices.

Changes to the Service

We may add, change, suspend, limit, or discontinue any part of the Service. We may restrict access when reasonably necessary to protect users, third parties, the Service, or our legal rights. We are not obligated to preserve any particular feature, feed, source, cache, or item of local or cloud-stored data.

Disclaimers

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY. OTTER.NEWS DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, AVAILABILITY, SECURITY, AND ERROR-FREE OPERATION.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty exclusions, so some of these exclusions may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits non-waivable consumer rights.

Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OTTER.NEWS AND ITS OPERATORS, AFFILIATES, LICENSORS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, LOSS OF GOODWILL, SERVICE INTERRUPTION, OR DEVICE OR SOFTWARE DAMAGE ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE.

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE TOTAL LIABILITY OF OTTER.NEWS FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID OTTER.NEWS FOR THE SERVICE DURING THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM OR FIFTY U.S. DOLLARS (US $50).

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain liability limitations, so these limitations may not apply to you.

Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless otter.news and its operators from claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses arising from your unlawful misuse of the Service, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of another person’s rights. This section does not apply where prohibited by law.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the Service changes. We will post the revised Terms here and update the effective date. If a change is material, we may also provide notice in the app or by another appropriate method. Your continued use after the updated Terms become effective means you accept them.

General

If a provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a reorganization, transfer, or operation of the Service. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between you and otter.news concerning the Service, except for any additional terms that expressly apply to a feature or distribution channel.

Contact

Questions about these Terms may be sent to privacy@otter.news.