Terms of Service

1 Acceptance of terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of the Desti mobile application and related services and website (the "Service"), operated by Desti LLC, a New York limited liability company ("Desti," "we," "us," or "our"). By creating an account, accessing, or using the Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated here by reference. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2 Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you are under the age of majority in your jurisdiction (typically 18), you may use the Service only with the involvement and consent of a parent or legal guardian. By using the Service, you represent and warrant that you meet these requirements, that you have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms, and that you are not barred from using the Service under applicable law.

3 Your account

You create an account by signing in with Sign in with Apple or Google. You agree to:

• provide accurate and current information and keep your profile up to date;
• maintain the security of the sign-in method and device associated with your account;
• be responsible for all activity that occurs under your account; and
• notify us promptly at info@thedesti.app of any unauthorized use or security breach.

You may not impersonate another person, create an account for anyone other than yourself without permission, or use automated means to create accounts. Each account is for a single individual.

4 License to use Desti

Subject to your compliance with these Terms, Desti grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to download and use the Service on a device you own or control, for your personal, non-commercial use. These Terms do not grant you any rights in the Service except as expressly stated.

5 Your content & the license you grant

"User Content" means anything you submit to the Service — including your city rankings, reviews, notes, highlights, photos, wishlists, links you share, and profile details.

You own your User Content. We don't claim ownership of it. To operate the Service, however, you grant Desti a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, and sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for example, resize images), publish, and display your User Content solely for the purposes of operating, providing, improving, and promoting the Service, consistent with your privacy settings and our Privacy Policy. This license ends when you delete your User Content or your account, except for content others have shared or saved, and for residual copies in routine backups for a limited period.

You represent and warrant that you own or have the necessary rights to your User Content, that it does not infringe the rights of others (including with respect to any photos or third-party posts you share), and that it complies with these Terms and applicable law.

6 Acceptable use

You agree not to use the Service to do any of the following, and not to enable or encourage others to:

• post content that is unlawful, infringing, defamatory, harassing, hateful, threatening, or invasive of another's privacy;
• post sexually explicit, pornographic, or graphically violent material;
• impersonate any person or entity, or misrepresent your affiliation;
• upload viruses or malicious code, or otherwise interfere with or disrupt the Service;
• attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service, other accounts, or our systems;
• scrape, harvest, or collect data from the Service using automated means without our prior written permission, or use bots to manipulate rankings or social features;
• use the Service for spam, advertising, or any commercial purpose not authorized by us; or
• violate any applicable law or regulation, or the rights of any third party.

7 Moderation, reporting & blocking

We have zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive users. Content or accounts that are reported to us are reviewed within 24 hours, objectionable content is removed, and users who post it may be restricted or permanently banned.

We want Desti to be a safe and trustworthy community. Uploaded photos are screened by an automated image-moderation service, and usernames, names and bios are checked against a profanity filter. The app also gives you tools to protect your own experience: you can report photos and users from within the app, and you can block any user, which removes them from your experience and prevents them from finding your profile, following you, or seeing your content. We review reports and aim to act on them within 24 hours. We may, at our discretion and without obligation, remove or restrict any content, and suspend or terminate any account, that we believe violates these Terms or applicable law, or that harms the Service or its users. Where practical and lawful, we aim to act proportionately. You can also reach us anytime at info@thedesti.app.

8 Third-party content & services

The Service may display content and data from third parties — for example, maps and place information provided by Google, city photographs sourced from Pexels, Unsplash, and Wikimedia Commons (Wikimedia Commons photos remain under their own Creative Commons or public-domain terms and are credited in the app where their license requires it), place data from OpenStreetMap, and previews of Instagram or TikTok posts that you or others choose to save, or that we feature on city pages with the permission of the creators who made them. This content belongs to its respective owners and is provided for your convenience. Desti does not endorse and is not responsible for third-party content, services, or websites, and your use of them may be subject to their own terms. You are responsible for ensuring you have the right to share any third-party links or media you add to the Service.

Google Maps. The Service includes Google Maps features and content, including its maps and its place search. Your use of Google Maps features and content is subject to the then-current versions of the Google Maps End User Additional Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy.

The Service may include advertising or sponsored content, and links to third-party sites. Where required, we will identify sponsored content as such. Their appearance is not an endorsement by Desti, and any dealings you have with a third party through the Service are solely between you and them.

9 Intellectual property

The Service itself — including the Desti application, the "desti" name, logo, and brand, and all software, design, text, graphics, and other materials we provide (excluding User Content and third-party photographs, which remain subject to their own licenses) — is owned by Desti LLC and is protected by intellectual-property laws. Except for the limited license in section 4, we reserve all rights. You may not copy, modify, distribute, reverse-engineer, create derivative works from, or otherwise exploit any part of the Service without our prior written consent. You may not use our name, logo, or branding without our permission.

10 Copyright complaints (DMCA)

We respect the intellectual-property rights of others and expect our users to do the same. Desti responds to notices of claimed copyright infringement that comply with the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"), 17 U.S.C. § 512.

Our designated agent. If you believe that content on the Service infringes a copyright you own or control, send a written notice to our designated Copyright Agent:

Copyright Agent
Desti LLC
418 Broadway, Ste N
Albany, NY 12207
Phone: 929-263-4408
Email: legal@thedesti.app

This contact is only for copyright notices. For anything else, please write to info@thedesti.app.

What your notice must include. To be effective under the DMCA, your notice must be in writing and include substantially the following:

• a physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or of a person authorized to act on the owner's behalf;
• identification of the copyrighted work you claim has been infringed (or, if one notice covers several works, a representative list of them);
• identification of the material you claim is infringing, with information reasonably sufficient for us to find it in the Service (for example, the username of the account that posted it and the place or post where it appears, or a screenshot);
• information reasonably sufficient for us to contact you, such as your name, mailing address, telephone number, and, if available, email address;
• a statement that you have a good-faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
• a statement that the information in your notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or are authorized to act on the owner's behalf.

If your notice is missing something, we may contact you to complete it.

Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), anyone who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that it was removed by mistake, may be liable for damages. If you are not sure whether material infringes your copyright, you may wish to consult a lawyer first.

What we do. When we receive a notice that substantially meets these requirements, we will expeditiously remove or disable access to the material and take reasonable steps to notify the user who posted it, which may include sending them a copy of the notice.

Counter-notices. If material you posted was removed or disabled in response to a copyright notice and you believe it was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification, you may send a written counter-notice to our Copyright Agent. It must include:

• your physical or electronic signature;
• identification of the material that was removed or disabled and where it appeared before it was removed or disabled;
• a statement, under penalty of perjury, that you have a good-faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material;
• your name, address, and telephone number; and
• a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the judicial district in which your address is located (or, if your address is outside the United States, any judicial district in which Desti may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice or that person's agent.

When we receive a valid counter-notice, we will send a copy of it, including your name and contact details, to the person who sent the original notice, and let them know that we will restore the material in 10 business days. We will restore it no sooner than 10 and no later than 14 business days after we receive the counter-notice, unless our Copyright Agent first receives notice that the person who sent the original notice has filed an action seeking a court order to restrain you from engaging in infringing activity relating to the material on the Service, or unless the material or your account has been removed or restricted for another reason under these Terms.

Repeat infringers. It is our policy to disable or terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of users who are repeat infringers. We may also remove content, or restrict or terminate accounts, that we believe infringe the rights of others, whether or not we have received a notice.

11 Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, or that any information in it (including city data, recommendations, ratings, or third-party content) is accurate, complete, or reliable.

Desti is a social and entertainment product. Recommendations, rankings, and destination information are for general informational purposes only and are not professional travel, safety, financial, legal, or medical advice. You are solely responsible for your travel decisions and for checking authoritative sources (such as government travel advisories) before you travel. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty exclusions, so some of the above may not apply to you.

Places from your photos. From app version 1.0.5 onward, Desti offers an optional feature that reads the locations saved in photos on your device to suggest places you may have visited. Photo-library access is optional, and the Service works without it. Detected places are suggestions only — you choose whether to confirm, rank, or dismiss them — and they are provided as a convenience, not as a record or verification of your travel. Suggestions may be incomplete or wrong (for example, where a photo's saved location is missing or inaccurate), and Desti makes no warranty about their accuracy. See our Privacy Policy (section 2.5) for how this feature handles data.

Places on a city's map. When you search for a place to save within a city, the suggestions, addresses and map locations come from Google, and the community's "Top spots" are placed on the map by matching their names with Google's place data. They are provided as a convenience. A suggestion, a location, an address, or the kind of place shown may be incomplete, out of date, or wrong (for example, where two places share a name), and Desti makes no warranty about their accuracy. Check a place before you rely on it.

Places from a saved post. When you save an Instagram or TikTok post with "Find the places this post mentions" switched on, Desti reads the post's public caption and preview image to suggest the places it names, which you review before any are saved as your places within that city, or, when you ask it to, the destinations it lists, which you review before any are added to your Want to go list. They are suggestions made by automated reading and matching, provided as a convenience: a place may be missed, misread, or matched to the wrong location, and Desti makes no warranty about their accuracy. You can remove any of them, and you can turn the switch off before you save.

12 Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, DESTI LLC AND ITS MEMBERS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF (OR INABILITY TO USE) THE SERVICE, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US TO USE THE SERVICE IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM, OR (B) US $100. Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability for certain damages, so some of the above may not apply to you.

13 Indemnification

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Desti LLC and its members, officers, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to your User Content, your use of the Service, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any law or the rights of a third party.

14 Termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time (see section 8 of our Privacy Policy). We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service at any time, with or without notice, if you violate these Terms, if we are required to do so by law, or if we discontinue the Service. Upon termination, the licenses you granted and were granted end, except that sections that by their nature should survive (including sections 5, 9, 11–13, 15, and 16) will continue to apply.

15 Governing law & disputes

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or relating to them or the Service are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You agree that the state and federal courts located in New York will have exclusive jurisdiction over any such dispute, and you consent to personal jurisdiction and venue there, except where prohibited by applicable law. Nothing in this section limits any mandatory consumer-protection rights you may have under the laws of your country of residence.

16 Additional terms for Apple-enabled apps

If you download the Desti app from the Apple App Store, the following additional terms apply. You acknowledge that these Terms are between you and Desti LLC only, not with Apple Inc. ("Apple"), and that Apple is not responsible for the app or its content. Your license to use the app is limited to use on Apple-branded products that you own or control, as permitted by the App Store Terms of Service. Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no warranty obligation with respect to the app; in the event of any failure of the app to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple may refund the purchase price (if any). Apple is not responsible for addressing any claims relating to the app, including product-liability, legal/regulatory, or consumer-protection claims, or third-party claims that the app infringes intellectual-property rights, which (as between Apple and Desti) are Desti's responsibility. You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo or designated as "terrorist supporting," and that you are not on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

17 Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will revise the "Last updated" date above and, where appropriate, provide additional notice. Your continued use of the Service after the changes take effect constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms. If you do not agree to the changes, you must stop using the Service.

18 Contact us

Questions about these Terms? Contact us at:

Desti LLC
New York, USA
Email: info@thedesti.app

To report copyright infringement, please contact our Copyright Agent as described in section 10.