rows.im

Legal Notice, Terms of Service & Privacy Policy

Last updated: 15 June 2026

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Legal Notice

rows.im is a free, privacy-first public XMPP / Jabber chat service operated on a not-for-profit basis to promote secure, federated communication. The service is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, and without any guarantee of availability or continuity. Use of the service constitutes acceptance of the terms set out below.

For any legal or abuse enquiry relating to this service, contact admin@rows.im.

Terms of Service

By registering an account on rows.im you agree to the following terms.

  1. You may not use rows.im to conduct activity that is illegal under applicable law. Common examples include spam, fraud, and the distribution of malware.
  2. You may not mass-register accounts or use automated scripts to bypass anti-abuse measures such as captcha.
  3. The service is provided with no guarantee. You agree not to hold the operators responsible for service outages or degradation of service.
  4. We reserve the right to terminate any account that is in breach of these terms or of our acceptable-use expectations.
  5. We reserve the right to update these policies without prior notice. The date of the most recent update is always shown at the top of this page.

Privacy Policy

1. General

We do not want to gather or store information about you, log your conversations, or engage in any behaviour that would compromise your privacy. We collect only the minimum information technically required to operate the XMPP service.

2. Account Data

To operate the service the only user data we need to store is a username and a password. We do not require a phone number, a real name, or any other identifying information. Your screen name does not have to be your real name and we will never ask for it.

An email address is not required to register. If you choose to supply one it is used only to let you reset your password; without it, password reset is not possible.

3. Stored Data

Our servers store the following to provide the service:

4. Messages and Files

Messages addressed to an offline user are held in a short-lived offline buffer and are delivered once the recipient connects. Files shared through the HTTP upload service are stored only so the recipient can retrieve them and are removed automatically after a short retention period.

5. Data We Do Not Store

  1. IP addresses. The service does not log user connection details or IP addresses. As the only exception, IP addresses associated with failed login attempts may be processed transiently to protect against brute-force attacks. We also reserve the right to block individual IP addresses or ranges that threaten the security or continuity of the service.
  2. Connection or session duration times.
  3. Conversation logs.

6. Changes

We may update this policy at any time. The effective date is shown at the top of this page.