The short version
This section is a summary. The sections below it are the agreement, and if the two ever disagree, the sections below are what counts.
- You must be 18 or older. If you put out a beat for a drink, British Columbia's drinking age of 19 applies, and the app enforces it.
- We do not vet or background-check members. Nobody here has been screened for a criminal record.
- CommonBeat links you with strangers in a group chat and stops there. If a group decides to meet, that is its own arrangement, and you accept the risk of it. Please read the section that says so.
- Treating CommonBeat as a way to meet someone romantically or sexually will end your account the first time. There is no warning and no second chance.
- We keep records about safety, including after an account is deleted, and we cooperate with law enforcement when we are lawfully required to.
- These terms are governed by the law of British Columbia. Disputes go to the courts of British Columbia. There is no arbitration clause here and no class-action waiver.
Who we are
CommonBeat is run by Ali Moallemi personally, as a sole proprietor, from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. There is no company behind it at this stage. It is operated by one person. If a company takes it over, its registered name and address will appear here and the version of this page will change.
You can reach a person at info@commonbeat.ca, and that one address takes everything: questions, safety, privacy and requests about your data.
What CommonBeat is
You say what you are up for, when you are free and roughly where you are. If enough people nearby say something compatible, CommonBeat links you into a small group with a text chat. That is where CommonBeat stops. Whether the group meets, and where and when, is the group's own decision, made without us.
That is the whole product. There is nothing to browse, nobody to swipe on, and no photo. Other members see your first name.
What CommonBeat is not
CommonBeat is not a dating service and is not to be used as one. It is not an introduction agency. It is not a background-check service. It is not an events, escort, security or chaperone service. It does not arrange, host or attend any meeting, and nobody from CommonBeat is ever there.
We do not make friends for you and we do not promise that a group will form, that anyone will reply, or that you will enjoy it.
You must be 18 or older
You need to be at least 18 years old to have an account. We ask for your date of birth during sign-up and we refuse the account if it puts you under 18.
British Columbia's legal drinking age is 19. If you are 18, the app will not let you put out a beat for a drink, and that is enforced in the database. CommonBeat does not choose where anyone goes, so the law on drinking age is yours to follow wherever a group meets.
If we find that an account belongs to someone under 18, we close it. If we find that an account belongs to a child, we act on the child-safety section below.
We do not vet or background-check members
We do not vet or background-check members.
We check that a phone number works and that it belongs to someone who can receive a code on it. We check first names and the one line people write about themselves against a fixed set of rules. There is no profile photo and no selfie check at this stage.
That is a check that a phone number works. It is not a check on who that person is, what they have done, or whether they are safe to be around. We have no access to criminal records and we do not buy identity data. Nobody in a group with you has been cleared by anyone.
Please read that paragraph again before you decide to meet anyone from a group. It is the single most important thing on this page.
Strangers, and any meeting: the risk you accept
CommonBeat introduces you, in a group chat, to people you do not know. That carries real risk, and using the service means you accept it.
Our part ends at the group chat. If you decide to meet any of the people in it, that is your choice and the group's own arrangement, not ours. We do not arrange it, supervise it or attend it, and you accept the risk of it too.
We reduce the risk of the chat in specific, limited ways, and the safety page sets out exactly which ones. None of them make a stranger safe. In particular:
- A group is at least three people. CommonBeat never links two people alone.
- You can block any member of your group silently, and report them, from the chat.
- CommonBeat does not arrange, supervise or attend meetings, and does not choose or check places.
You are responsible for your own decisions about whether to meet, where to meet, whether to stay, what to drink, how to get home, and what you tell people about yourself. If you feel unsafe, leave. You never owe anyone an explanation, and leaving is never held against you.
To the extent the law allows, you release us from claims arising out of what another member does or fails to do, and out of anything that happens when members meet, which we do not arrange.
The rules
These apply in the group chat, and to anything you do to a member you met through CommonBeat, online or in person. They also apply to what you do to another member after a room has closed.
No romantic or sexual approaches. The first time ends the account
CommonBeat is not for meeting a partner. Using it as though it were is the one rule where there is no warning, no strike system and no appeal to a moderator's judgement. Your account is suspended immediately and, in nearly every case, permanently closed.
We write it that plainly because a vague rule is not a rule. Here is what it covers, with examples, so that nobody can say they did not know:
- Asking a member on a date, in the room or after it closes.
- Telling a member they are attractive, or commenting on their body or their face.
- Asking for a member's phone number, social media handle or private contact details in order to pursue them.
- Sending a message of a sexual nature, or an image of that kind.
- Continuing to contact a member after they have left a room, stopped replying, or asked you to stop.
- Saying, in a group or when a group meets, that you are there to find a partner.
- Signing up on behalf of someone else in order to introduce them to people.
Two things this rule is not. It does not mean you have to be cold to people; being warm and friendly with a group is the point. And it is not a rule against two adults who met here deciding, later and mutually, to see each other. It is a rule against treating a room of strangers as a pool of candidates, and against approaching someone who did not invite it.
If you are unsure whether something crosses the line, the test is simple: would you say it to a colleague you had just met at work? If not, do not say it here.
No commercial solicitation
Do not sell, recruit, promote, canvass, fundraise, or invite people to an event you profit from. Do not use a room as a lead list. This includes multi-level marketing, coaching, religious or political recruitment, and asking for money.
No harassment
Do not insult, demean, threaten, intimidate or follow another member. Do not comment on someone's race, religion, disability, gender, sexuality or accent. Do not keep pushing a topic after someone has said they do not want to discuss it. Do not photograph or record another member without them saying yes first.
No impersonation
Use your own first name. Do not claim to be somebody you are not.
Misrepresenting your gender in order to enter a women-only room is a first-strike ban as well. No women-only rooms are running in this version; the rule is here because it binds from the day one does run.
Nothing involving a child
Any sexual content involving a minor, any attempt to contact a minor, and any material of that kind sent anywhere in the service ends the account immediately and permanently. The evidence is preserved, not deleted. We report it to the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and to the police. Canadian law requires that report, and we make it.
At this stage no image can be uploaded or sent anywhere in CommonBeat. Chat is text only.
One account, one person
One account each, on your own phone number. Do not share an account, sell one, or open a new one after we have closed yours. We keep a one-way hash of the phone number of a closed account so that this rule can be enforced, and the privacy policy explains exactly what that means.
Do not break the service
No scraping, no automated access, no attempt to find other members' locations, no probing for security holes, no reselling anything you find here.
Meeting is your own arrangement
CommonBeat does not arrange, host or attend meetings, and it does not choose, check or recommend places. If a group decides to meet, its members arrange it themselves, and CommonBeat takes no part in the arrangement.
If you do meet, choose somewhere public, with staff and other people around, and never a home or a car. That is advice, not a service. If something needs the police or an ambulance, call them first and tell us second.
Reports and what we do
Anyone in a room can report anyone else, and can block them silently. A block is invisible to the person blocked: they are not told, and they never will be.
We publish how quickly we respond on the safety page, and we hold ourselves to it. Depending on what we find, we may do nothing, send a warning, limit an account, suspend it, or close it permanently. Serious reports suspend an account while we look, because the alternative is leaving someone in rooms during the hours it takes to decide.
We do not tell a reporter what we did to the person they reported. We do tell them that we finished looking.
Records we keep
We keep records about safety, and we keep some of them after an account is deleted. That includes a one-way hash of the phone number and any ban attached to it. It includes blocks other people made, carried on that hash. It includes the moderation actions taken and the reason for each, and reports filed about the account with the evidence snapshot taken at the time.
They are kept for up to two years, pseudonymously, and the hash cannot be turned back into a phone number. The privacy policy sets out the periods, and why the alternative — somebody banned on Friday being back on Saturday with every block against them gone — is not acceptable.
Law enforcement
We cooperate with Canadian law enforcement acting under lawful authority. We respond to production orders, preservation demands and warrants, and we tell the person affected unless we are legally prohibited from doing so or unless telling them would put someone at risk.
We may also disclose information without a demand where we believe in good faith that it is necessary to prevent serious harm to a person. That has a narrow meaning and we treat it narrowly.
Your account, and ending it
You can delete your account at any time, from the app or from commonbeat.ca/delete-account with the app uninstalled. It is immediate. There is no grace period and nothing that tries to talk you out of it. The deletion screen lists what goes and what stays before you press the button.
We can suspend or close an account for breaking these terms. Where we close one for a first-strike rule, we say which rule. Where we close one for something else, we usually say what happened, unless saying so would identify a person who reported you.
Changes to these terms
When these terms change in a way that matters, the version at the top of this page changes and the app asks you to read and accept them before you carry on. The version and a hash of the exact text are published at /legal/versions.json, so that the record of what you agreed to points at the words you actually saw.
Small corrections that do not change what you are agreeing to — a typo, a broken link — happen without a new version, and the hash records them.
Governing law, and what we deliberately have not put here
These terms are governed by the laws of British Columbia and the federal laws of Canada that apply in it. Any dispute goes to the courts of British Columbia, and you and we agree to those courts.
There is no arbitration clause in this agreement, and no class-action waiver.
That is a deliberate choice and we would rather explain it than leave it as an absence. Many services put both in. In British Columbia, a clause that pushes a consumer into private arbitration and strips the right to join a class proceeding is, on the current state of the law, very likely unenforceable against a consumer. Writing one here would not survive a challenge, and in the meantime it would tell you that you had given up rights you had not actually given up. We would rather not mislead you about what you can do if we harm you.
So: if you have a dispute with us, you can bring it, in British Columbia, in the ordinary way, including as part of a class proceeding if one exists. The Civil Resolution Tribunal handles small claims in British Columbia and is usually the cheapest route for a small one.
Limits on what we owe you
We provide CommonBeat as it is. We do not promise that it will be available, that groups will form, that anyone will reply, or that anything that follows will be good.
To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss. Our total liability to you for anything arising out of this service is limited to the greater of one hundred Canadian dollars, or the amount you have paid us in the twelve months before the claim. CommonBeat is free at the time of writing, so in practice that is one hundred dollars.
Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, and British Columbia's consumer protection legislation gives you rights that this agreement cannot take away. Where this section and that legislation conflict, the legislation wins.
If a part of this is unenforceable
If a court finds part of these terms unenforceable, the rest still stands and the unenforceable part is read as narrowly as it can be while still meaning something.
Reaching us
Write to info@commonbeat.ca. A person reads it. For anything about safety, say so in the subject line, and read the safety page for how fast we answer.