Terms of use

These are the terms for using the Buzzbelt app, provided by Aralel GmbH ("Aralel", "we", "us") under German law. Clause 9 is the one to read even if you read nothing else.

1. Scope and acceptance

These terms govern your installation and use of the Buzzbelt app. By installing or opening it, you agree to them; where you are accepting on behalf of an organisation, see clause 10. If you do not agree, do not install or use the app. Aralel's registered details are in the Impressum.

2. What Buzzbelt is

Buzzbelt is a group messaging app that works over short-range Bluetooth between nearby phones, with no internet connection, no account and no server operated by Aralel. What it does, how it works, and — just as importantly — what it cannot do are described on the main page, in particular under honest limits. That page is not marketing copy layered over these terms; treat what it says about the product as part of what you're agreeing to use.

3. Licence

Aralel grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use Buzzbelt on devices you control, for personal or organisational use. This licence does not sell or transfer the app, or any ownership in it, to you — Aralel and its licensors keep all rights in the software that this licence does not expressly grant. You may not sell it, rent it out, sublicense it, or attempt to derive its source code, except as far as mandatory law permits (in particular § 69e UrhG, on decompilation for interoperability).

4. Who can agree to these terms

Buzzbelt is intended for use by participants of an organised trip or group, typically aged 13 and older — see the age guidance in the Privacy policy. Accepting these terms is entering into a contract, which requires legal capacity to contract (Geschäftsfähigkeit). Under German law (§§ 104–113 BGB): a person under 7 has no capacity to do so at all; a person aged 7 to 17 has limited capacity and generally needs a parent or legal guardian's consent to be bound by an agreement like this one, because accepting these terms is not "of mere legal advantage" to them (§ 107 BGB) — it comes with obligations, including the rules in clause 6. Without that consent, a minor's acceptance of these terms is pending effectiveness (schwebend unwirksam) until a parent or guardian ratifies it, and lapses if they decline or do not respond within a reasonable time (§ 108 BGB).

In practice, this is the same conversation, with the same parents, as the data-protection consent described in the Privacy policy — clause 10 explains how Aralel expects an organising body to handle both together.

5. Groups and the group leader

5.1 Every group has a leader: the person who created it. Buzzbelt is designed so that a group's leader controls who takes part — by sharing, or not sharing, the group's join code — and can remove a member from the group.

5.2 Aralel operates no server, has no ability to access, monitor, filter or remove anything sent within a group, and — with no account system — cannot identify who is in any group at all. Given that, the group's leader is the person responsible, as between Aralel and its users, for deciding who is admitted to a group and for addressing conduct within it: the leader is the group's moderator of record, because Aralel structurally cannot be. Where a leader is acting on behalf of a school, youth organisation or similar body, that body shares this responsibility together with the leader — see clause 10.

5.3 This clause describes Buzzbelt as designed. It holds only for a version of the app in which a leader can actually control admission to, and removal from, a group. If the version you are using does not yet do that — check its release notes, or ask whoever provided it — clause 5.1 does not describe it, and nobody should treat clause 5.2 as a control that is actually being exercised in that version.

6. Using Buzzbelt properly

You must not use Buzzbelt to:

• harass, threaten, bully, stalk or abuse another person;
• impersonate another person — in particular, a group's leader — or attempt to forge a signed announcement;
• send a buzz for anything other than its purpose, which is getting urgent attention from people nearby, including using it to spam, harass or disrupt;
• do anything unlawful under the law that applies to you.

Because Buzzbelt has no server, Aralel cannot see, filter, remove or intercept anything sent through it — and because there is no account system, Aralel cannot identify who sent something in order to act against them individually. Enforcement against a breach of this clause happens at the level that can actually reach it:

• within a group, by its leader, who can remove a member (clause 5);
• for unlawful conduct, by reporting it to the police or another competent authority, exactly as you would for equivalent conduct that had nothing to do with an app;
• by Aralel, only with respect to the software itself — for example, withdrawing a version of the app from distribution — since that is the only lever a serverless app leaves Aralel holding.

7. Your content is yours to answer for

You are solely responsible for everything you send through Buzzbelt — messages, images, a buzz, or, if you are a leader, an announcement. Aralel does not receive a copy, cannot read it in transit, and has no means to remove it once it has reached another phone — nobody can unsay something after it has been heard. If what you send is unlawful, defamatory, or breaches someone else's rights, that is a matter between you and whoever is affected, or the competent authorities; it is not something Aralel can mediate, because Aralel is never a party to the message and never sees it.

8. No warranty of delivery, range or availability

Aralel gives no warranty that a message, buzz or announcement will be delivered, delivered within any particular time, or delivered at all. Its reach depends on Bluetooth, which is short-range — tens of metres in the open, less through walls, crowds or a pocket — and on whether another phone happens to be positioned to carry a message onward; neither is something Aralel controls or can guarantee. The app is built to tell you, honestly, what it does and does not know about a message's progress at the time (see honest limits); nothing in these terms overrides what it tells you.

Buzzbelt is provided free of charge, and Aralel gives no assurance that it will remain available, unchanged, or free of interruption, and may change or discontinue it. Because the app runs entirely on devices once installed, a copy already installed keeps working within its group regardless of anything Aralel does afterwards — but that, too, is not a promise.

9. Not for emergencies

10. If an organisation is running this

Where a school, youth group, club or other organisation provides or requires Buzzbelt for a trip, that organisation — not Aralel — is responsible for:

• obtaining, from parents or legal guardians, whatever consent is needed for participants to use the app: both to be bound by these terms (clause 4) and for the data-protection consent the Privacy policy describes for participants under 16;
• its own duty of care towards participants — supervision ratios, headcount procedures, meeting points and emergency plans — none of which Buzzbelt reduces, replaces or discharges; Buzzbelt is used in addition to them, never instead of them;
• deciding who is admitted to a group it runs, and who leads it (clause 5).

This clause does not itself create a contract between Aralel and the organisation beyond these terms. Where Aralel and the organisation have a separate written agreement, that agreement governs to the extent it conflicts with this clause.

11. Liability

Aralel is liable without limitation for damage arising from injury to life, body or health, for damage caused intentionally or through gross negligence, and under the Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz). German law does not permit any of this to be excluded or limited in standard terms, and nothing here attempts to.

For slight negligence, Aralel is liable only where the obligation breached is one whose fulfilment is essential to the proper performance of this agreement and on whose observance you may reasonably rely (Kardinalpflichten), and even then only for foreseeable damage typical of an agreement of this kind. Liability beyond that is excluded.

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited by law, and nothing in them makes Aralel responsible for a decision taken in reliance on information the app expressly says it cannot provide — see clause 9.

12. Term and termination

These terms apply for as long as you use Buzzbelt. You may stop at any time by uninstalling the app. Aralel may suspend or withdraw the licence in clause 3 in response to a serious breach of clause 6 — though, because Buzzbelt has no account system, Aralel has no practical way to enforce that against a specific person beyond withdrawing the app itself from distribution, and would treat that as a last resort.

13. Changes to these terms

Aralel may amend these terms. The current version is always the one on this page, with the date shown below. Continuing to use the app after a change means you accept the amended terms; if you do not, stop using the app.

14. Governing law, venue and dispute resolution

German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. Where you are a consumer, this choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of mandatory provisions of the law of your country of habitual residence.

Where you are a merchant (Kaufmann), a legal entity under public law, or a special fund under public law, the exclusive place of jurisdiction for any dispute arising from these terms is Aachen, Germany. Against a consumer, Aralel will bring proceedings only in the court that has jurisdiction under the statutory rules — in particular, the court local to the consumer's domicile.

Aralel is neither obliged nor willing to take part in dispute-resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board (Verbraucherschlichtungsstelle) within the meaning of the Verbraucherstreitbeilegungsgesetz (VSBG).

Last updated: 2 September 2026 · Draft