Terms & Conditions

1. Who you are contracting with

The Otto website ("Website"), the Otto apps for iPhone, iPad and Mac ("Apps"), the Otto browser extension for Chrome and Safari ("Extension"), the tutor portal, and everything they provide are together the "Service", and are operated by Otto Technologies Limited, registered in England and Wales with company number 17480128 and its registered office at Unit 9, Wilderbrook Way, EX34 8FN ("Otto", "we", "our", "us").

• Company: Otto Technologies Limited
• Company number: 17480128, registered in England and Wales
• Registered office: Unit 9, Wilderbrook Way, EX34 8FN
• Trading name: Otto
• Email: privacy@otto-app.com
• Address: Unit 9 Wilderbrook Way, Ilfracombe, EX34 8FN, United Kingdom

These Terms govern your access to and use of the Service. By using any part of it you confirm you have read, understood and agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms. We will post the new version here with a revised date at the top. A change takes effect on the later of the date we state and 14 days after we post it, except that a change we are required to make by law, or which is purely clarifying, may take effect at once.

If a change materially affects you and you hold a paid subscription, we will tell you by email at least 30 days beforehand and you may cancel before it takes effect without penalty. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept it.

3. What the Service is

Otto helps you learn a language by reading. It provides news and other articles adapted to your level, translations, definitions of individual words, exercises, tests, progress tracking, and tools for a tutor to set and mark work. Artificial intelligence is used to write, adapt, translate and reformat content.

The Extension does the same thing on pages you visit yourself: it swaps words on the page into the language you are learning and lets you tap one for its meaning. It runs in your browser and sends the sentences it is weaving to our server so that the swap can be chosen. That request does not include the address of the page or which site you are on. The Privacy Policy, section 4, sets out exactly what is and is not sent, including the two things you can choose to do that send a page address or a site name.

We may update, change, suspend or withdraw any part of the Service. Where a change materially reduces what a paid subscription gives you, section 12 applies.

4. Your account

Some features need an account. You agree to give accurate information, to keep your sign-in details to yourself, to keep your details up to date, and to accept responsibility for what happens under your account. Tell us at once if you think someone else has access to it.

You must be at least 13 to hold an account, and older where your country sets a higher age for consenting to online services. If a school enrolled you, section 10 applies as well.

We may refuse, suspend or close an account where these Terms have been broken, where we are required to by law, or where an account is being used to harm other people or the Service. Where we can, we will tell you why and give you a chance to put it right. If we close a paid account for a reason that is not your fault, we will refund the unused part of the period.

5. Acceptable use

You agree that you will:

• use the Service lawfully and in line with these Terms;
• not upload or send content that is unlawful, harmful, abusive, defamatory, harassing or obscene;
• not reverse-engineer, decompile, interfere with, overload or attempt to compromise the Service or its security;
• not use automated means to extract content from the Service, or use the Service to build a competing product or to train a machine learning model;
• not access anyone else's account or data without authority;
• not resell, sublicense or share access to a paid plan with people it was not sold to;
• not use the Extension to circumvent a paywall, an access control or another site's own terms.

We may remove content and suspend or end access where this section is broken.

6. Your representations

• You have the legal capacity to agree to these Terms.
• Your use of the Service complies with these Terms and applicable law.
• Content you submit does not infringe anyone's rights.
• You are not located in a country subject to comprehensive UK, EU or US sanctions, and you are not on a restricted party list.

7. Content you submit

You keep ownership of anything you write, record or upload ("Your Content").

You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt, translate, display and transmit Your Content, for the sole purpose of operating, securing and improving the Service and providing it to you and to anyone you have chosen to share it with, such as a tutor. If you submit a public review or a post to a community feature, that licence also covers showing it publicly.

The licence lasts as long as we hold the content. When you delete Your Content or close your account, the licence ends as the content is removed, within the period given in the Privacy Policy. Three things survive: copies in routine backups until they expire, content we must keep by law or to deal with a dispute, and anything a tutor or another user has already lawfully received. We do not use Your Content to train general-purpose AI models and we do not let our suppliers do so.

You must not submit content that is unlawful, defamatory, obscene, harassing, infringing, or that we reasonably judge to be harmful or misleading. We may remove or disable content that breaks this section.

8. AI-generated and adapted content

Otto uses artificial intelligence to generate, translate and adapt what you read. It gets things wrong. You agree that:

• adapted or translated text may not carry the original meaning exactly;
• you should check anything that matters against the original or another source;
• nothing Otto produces is professional advice of any kind.

This section does not limit your legal rights if the Service itself is not of satisfactory quality or not as described.

9. The Extension

We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to install and use the Extension in a browser you control.

• The Extension changes how pages look in your own browser, for you. It does not change anything on anyone else's computer and it does not alter the website itself.
• You remain bound by the terms of the sites you visit. The Extension is not a way around a paywall or a login.
• Some sites will not work well with it. Switch it off for a site at any time from its menu.
• The Chrome version is distributed through the Chrome Web Store and the Safari version inside the Mac app, and each store's own terms apply to how you obtain it.

10. Tutors and schools

• Linking. A learner and a tutor are linked only when one invites and the other accepts. Either can unlink at any time in Settings.
• What a tutor sees. Set out in the Privacy Policy, section 10. A tutor never sees your email address, your phone number or your payment details.
• Tutors. If you use Otto as a tutor you may use a learner's information only to teach that learner. You are responsible for your own conduct, your qualifications and anything you tell a learner. Otto does not employ, vet, endorse or supervise tutors, does not take part in the relationship between a tutor and a learner, and is not responsible for the teaching.
• Schools. Where a school or other organisation arranges Otto for its learners, it does so under a separate written agreement with us, which prevails over these Terms for anything it covers. The school decides who is enrolled and what its staff can see.

11. Free and paid plans

Otto has a free plan and paid plans. The free plan carries daily limits, including how much you can read and how many words you can save. Paid plans raise or remove those limits and add features. What each plan includes is described on otto-app.com and in the app at the moment you buy, and that description forms part of your contract.

We may change what a plan includes. If a change materially reduces what your paid plan gives you, we will tell you at least 30 days beforehand and you may cancel and receive a pro-rata refund of the unused part of the period you have paid for.

11.1 Offers and promotions

From time to time we may make part of the Service cheaper or free for a limited time, for some or all plans (an "Offer"): for example, an evening each week when weaving is free, or a weekend with no limit on saved words. An Offer applies only at the times, to the features and to the plans shown with it in the app or the extension, and its times are your device's local time.

An Offer is not part of your plan. It has no cash value, cannot be exchanged or carried over, and does not change what you pay. We may change, pause or end an Offer at any time, and the limits that protect the Service from overload (such as how many requests can be made in a few seconds) still apply while one is open. Misusing an Offer, for example by misrepresenting your time zone or automating requests, may lose you the Offer and, if serious, your account under section 21.

We may tell you about Offers and new features inside the app and the extension, for example in a banner on a page or a short message when you open the app. Notifications about them reach you only if you have turned on Promotional notifications, which you can turn off at any time in Settings.

12. Buying a subscription

There are three ways to subscribe, and who you are buying from differs.

12.1 Inside the iPhone, iPad or Mac app

Apple is the seller. The purchase is governed by Apple's Media Services Terms and Conditions as well as these Terms. Apple takes the payment, holds your payment details, and handles renewals, cancellations and refunds. Manage or cancel the subscription in your Apple account settings. Deleting the app does not cancel it.

12.2 Through Google Play

The same, with Google as the seller, under Google Play's terms. Manage or cancel in your Google account.

12.3 On otto-app.com

Here we are the seller. Payment is processed by Stripe; we never see or hold your card number.

• Formation. Your order is an offer. The contract is made when we confirm the subscription on screen and by email.
• Price. The price shown at checkout is the price you pay, in the currency shown, and is the total. Otto is not currently registered for VAT, so no VAT is added. Your bank may charge you for a currency conversion; that is between you and your bank.
• Renewal. Subscriptions are monthly and renew automatically at the same price until cancelled. We take payment on the renewal date.
• Cancelling. Cancel at any time from the billing portal, reached from your account, or by emailing privacy@otto-app.com. It takes effect at the end of the period you have paid for, and you keep full access until then. There is nothing to telephone and no retention process to sit through.
• Switching. You can move between Pro and Max in the billing portal at any time. The difference is prorated.
• Failed payment. If a renewal fails we will try again over a few days and email you. If it still fails the subscription ends and you return to the free plan. Nothing you have saved is deleted.

12.4 Price changes

We will not change the price of a subscription you already hold without emailing you at least 30 days before the renewal it would apply to. You may cancel before then and the new price will never be taken without that notice having been given.

13. Your right to change your mind, and refunds

13.1 If you bought on otto-app.com

You have 14 days from the day the contract is made to cancel and get all your money back, whether or not you have used Otto in the meantime. This is our own promise and it is more generous than the law requires. To use it, email privacy@otto-app.com or cancel in the billing portal and tell us you want a refund. We will refund to the card you paid with within 14 days of being told.

Your statutory right sits behind that promise. Under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 in the UK, and the equivalent rules in the EEA, you have 14 days to withdraw from a distance contract for services. By subscribing and getting access at once, you ask us to begin the service within the withdrawal period and you acknowledge that if you then withdraw you would ordinarily owe us a proportionate amount for what you had used. We waive that amount and refund in full.

The 14 days run from the start of the contract. A monthly renewal continues the same contract rather than starting a new one, so the period does not begin again each month. If a renewal takes you by surprise, write to us anyway: if you have not used Otto since it renewed, we will refund it.

13.2 If you bought through the App Store or Google Play

Apple and Google handle their own refunds and we cannot issue one for a purchase we did not take. Ask Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com, or Google through the Play Store. We will help if you get stuck, but the decision is theirs.

13.3 If something is wrong with the Service

Nothing above affects your rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 or the consumer law of your own country. If the Service is not supplied with reasonable care and skill, or is not as described, you are entitled to a repeat performance or to a price reduction, and we will honour that regardless of any time limit in this section.

14. Tokens and in-app items

• Otto may include virtual items such as tokens, earned through use or included with a plan. Tokens have no cash value, are not money, cannot be exchanged for money and cannot be transferred outside the Service.
• Free users can earn tokens up to a limit. Paid subscribers may earn them without a cap. The amount available, what they do, and when they expire may change.
• If we withdraw a token feature altogether we will give reasonable notice so that unspent tokens can be used first.

14.1 Prize draws

From time to time we may run a free-entry prize draw that tokens can be used to enter. Each draw has its own terms, shown in the app before you enter and available in Settings, and entering means accepting them. No purchase is necessary to enter or to win, and draws are void where prohibited.

15. Advertising and affiliate links

Otto shows no advertising and runs no affiliate tracking today. If that changes, personalised advertising will be opt-in only, affiliate tracking will run only with your consent, and you will be able to turn both off in Settings. Third-party merchants and advertisers are responsible for their own products, services and privacy practices.

16. Third-party content

Otto displays and adapts material from other publishers, including news articles, and links to other sites. We do not own or endorse that material, and it is the publisher's, not ours. We adapt it for language learning under the arrangements or exceptions that apply to each source. If you are a rights holder and believe we have got that wrong, section 23 tells you how to reach us and we will act quickly.

16.1 Videos and streaming services

Video stories and Shorts play in YouTube's own embedded player, and by watching them you also agree to YouTube's Terms of Service. Films and series you watch through a streaming service you sign in to in Otto's browser (such as Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+ or Apple TV) are provided by that service under its terms; Otto adds its language features to what you watch and does not copy, download or re-host it.

16.2 Feeds and sources

Headlines, summaries and images on your home come from the public feeds of publishers and Reddit and from Wikipedia (under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence), credited to their source; opening one takes you to the original. Their content is the source's responsibility.

16.3 Your personalised home

What appears on your home is chosen for you from what you do in Otto, as our Privacy Policy explains. You can see and change what it has learnt in the app (Settings, Edit algorithm). Recommendations are suggestions only, and we do not promise that any particular content will be available or suitable for you.

16.4 Informal and adult language

To help you understand real speech, some content (such as slang stories) includes informal, rude or adult words. Words marked as sensitive are hidden until you choose to show them.

17. Our intellectual property

The Service and everything in it other than Your Content and third-party material, including the software, the interface, the adaptations we produce and the Otto name and logo, belongs to us or our licensors. You may not copy, distribute, modify or make derivative works from it without our written permission. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

18. No warranties, within the law

The Service is provided as it is and as available. We do not promise that it will be uninterrupted, that every article will suit you, or that AI output will be accurate. To the fullest extent the law allows, we exclude implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

If you are a consumer, this section does not reduce your statutory rights, including the right to a service carried out with reasonable care and skill, and rights in respect of digital content that is not of satisfactory quality, not fit for purpose or not as described.

19. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, any breach of the terms implied by section 12 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 or the equivalent, or any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited. If you are a consumer, nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights, and any provision here applies only to the extent it is fair and reasonable.

Subject to that:

• we are not liable for loss that was not reasonably foreseeable when the contract was made;
• we are not liable for business losses, including loss of profit, business, contracts, goodwill or anticipated savings, as the Service is supplied for personal use;
• our total liability for all claims connected with the Service in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in that period and GBP 100.

We are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breaking these Terms or failing to use reasonable care and skill.

20. Indemnity

If you use the Service for business purposes, you agree to indemnify us against claims, damages and reasonable legal costs arising from your use of the Service, your breach of these Terms, or your infringement of a third party's rights. This section does not apply to consumers.

21. Ending the agreement

You may stop using the Service and close your account at any time. You can delete your account at any time from Settings in the app or from your account page on otto-app.com. Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone. If you subscribed on otto-app.com, deleting your account cancels that subscription at once. If you subscribed through the App Store, deleting your account does not cancel the subscription: cancel it with Apple, as section 12.1 explains (or with Google, if you subscribed through Google Play).

We may suspend or end your access where you have materially broken these Terms, where we must by law, or where your use is harming the Service or other people. Where it is practical and lawful to do so we will warn you first. Sections on intellectual property, content licences, disclaimers, liability, and governing law survive.

22. Complaints and dispute resolution

If something has gone wrong, write to privacy@otto-app.com. We aim to acknowledge within two working days and to resolve within 14 days. Most things are settled this way.

22.1 If you live in the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area

These Terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. That choice does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory consumer law of the country you live in, which continues to apply.

You may bring proceedings in the courts of England and Wales or in the courts of the country you live in. We will bring proceedings against you only in the courts of the country you live in.

You are not required to use arbitration and you are not giving up any right to take part in a group claim. The arbitration clause in earlier versions of these Terms no longer applies to you.

22.2 If you live in the United States

You and Otto agree that any dispute will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules, in the county where you live or by telephone or written submission at your choice, and that neither of us may bring a class, collective or representative claim. A claim that qualifies may instead be brought in small claims court. This paragraph is governed by the Federal Arbitration Act.

You can opt out. Email privacy@otto-app.com with your name and the words "arbitration opt-out" within 30 days of first agreeing to these Terms, and this section will not apply to you. Opting out costs you nothing and changes nothing else.

22.3 Everywhere else

These Terms are governed by the law of England and Wales and disputes will be heard by the courts of England and Wales, without affecting any mandatory right you have to bring a claim where you live.

23. Copyright and takedown

If you believe material in the Service infringes your copyright, write to privacy@otto-app.com with: your contact details; identification of the work; where in the Service the material appears; a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised; a statement that the information is accurate and that you are the rights holder or authorised to act for them; and your signature.

We will review it promptly and remove or disable material where the complaint is well founded. If your material was removed and you believe that was a mistake, write to the same address and we will consider putting it back. We may end the accounts of repeat infringers.

24. General

• Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy and any terms shown for a specific feature are the whole agreement between us. Nothing here limits liability for a fraudulent statement.
• Additional terms. Some features carry their own terms, shown before you use them. Where they conflict with these Terms, they govern for that feature only.
• Severability. If a provision is found unenforceable, the rest continues in force.
• Waiver. Not enforcing a provision is not a waiver of it.
• Assignment. We may transfer our rights and obligations, and will tell you if we do; your rights are not affected. You may not transfer yours without our consent.
• Third parties. Nobody other than you and us may enforce these Terms, except as Schedule 1 provides for Apple.
• Events outside our control. Neither of us is liable for a failure caused by something genuinely beyond our reasonable control, for as long as it lasts.
• Headings. For convenience only.

25. Language

These Terms were written in English (UK). If a translation conflicts with the English version, the English version governs.

Schedule 1. Terms that apply to the Apple versions

This Schedule applies if you obtained an Otto app from the Apple App Store, and Apple requires it.

• Who you are dealing with. This agreement is between you and Otto only, not Apple. Otto alone is responsible for the app and its content.
• Licence. Your licence is a non-transferable licence to use the app on any Apple-branded product you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in the App Store Terms of Service, including through Family Sharing.
• Support. Otto alone is responsible for support and maintenance. Apple has no obligation to provide either.
• Warranty. Otto alone is responsible for any warranty. If the app fails to conform to a warranty that applies, you may tell Apple and Apple will refund what you paid for the app. To the extent the law allows, Apple has no other warranty obligation, and any other claim arising from a failure to conform is Otto's responsibility.
• Claims. Otto, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claim that the app or your use of it infringes intellectual property rights, gives rise to product liability, fails to meet a legal requirement, or breaches consumer protection or similar law.
• Legal compliance. You confirm you are not in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated as a terrorist-supporting country, and are not on any US Government prohibited or restricted party list.
• Questions. Send questions, complaints and claims about the app to privacy@otto-app.com, or to the address in section 1.
• Third-party beneficiary. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and, once you accept them, Apple has the right to enforce them against you.

Contact

Otto Technologies Limited (company number 17480128, registered in England and Wales), Unit 9 Wilderbrook Way, Ilfracombe, EX34 8FN, United Kingdom. privacy@otto-app.com.