Terms of Use

Accepting these Terms

By creating an account, accessing Liao, or using its services, you agree to these Terms of Use and acknowledge our Privacy Policy, which describes how we handle your information. If you do not agree, do not use Liao.

Who may use Liao

You must be at least 13 years old to use Liao. If you are under the age of legal majority where you live, you represent that a parent or guardian has given any permission required. You must be legally permitted to use the service and must provide accurate registration information. This contractual age requirement is separate from Apple's App Store age rating.

What Liao is

Liao provides real-time AI Chinese conversation practice: daily speaking sessions, transcription and feedback, personalized vocabulary and phrasing suggestions in natural, professional, and casual registers, mini-lessons, and streak and progress tracking. Some features are free; others require a paid subscription. We may update, add, or modify features over time.

AI limitations — please read

You are talking with an AI, not a human. The AI may mishear you; transcripts may be inaccurate; pronunciation and grammar evaluations may contain errors; translations may not preserve every nuance; and slang or cultural guidance may be inappropriate in some settings. Verify anything important independently.

Liao does not guarantee fluency, test scores, or any educational outcome. Liao is not legal, medical, financial, immigration, or emergency advice, and you must not rely on it in an emergency — contact local emergency services instead.

Your account

One account per person unless we allow otherwise. You are responsible for keeping your account secure and must notify us at aidenguo15@gmail.com of any unauthorized access. Accounts may not be sold, shared, or transferred. We may verify or suspend accounts that show suspicious activity. Deleting your account removes your data as described in the Privacy Policy.

Subscriptions and billing

Liao offers auto-renewing subscriptions (weekly, monthly, and annual) billed through your Apple ID. Paid membership unlocks daily AI conversations and personalized lessons; free accounts have limited access. Where a free trial is offered, it converts to a paid subscription at the end of the trial unless cancelled at least 24 hours before it ends.

Subscriptions renew automatically until you cancel in your Apple ID subscription settings; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and you keep access until then. If a price changes, Apple will notify you and, where required, ask you to consent before you are charged. Use Restore Purchases to recover an existing subscription on a new device. Refunds for App Store purchases are handled by Apple under Apple's policies; taxes may apply. If payment fails or a subscription expires, paid features lock until billing resumes, but your data is not deleted.

Deleting your account vs. cancelling your subscription

These are two separate actions. Deleting your Liao account does NOT automatically cancel an active subscription billed by Apple — you must also cancel the subscription in your Apple ID settings (Settings → your name → Subscriptions), or Apple will continue to charge you. The in-app deletion screen includes a Manage Subscription shortcut.

Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use Liao for illegal activity, harassment, threats, or hateful conduct
• Create or solicit sexually exploitative content, or any content involving child exploitation
• Attempt to obtain dangerous instructions or circumvent safety systems
• Upload another person's voice without their permission, or impersonate anyone
• Violate intellectual-property or privacy rights
• Reverse engineer, scrape, use automated access, or attempt to extract Liao's API keys, prompts, or internal systems
• Share, resell, or transfer accounts
• Overload or attack the service, or use Liao to build a competing dataset or model without permission
• Use generated speech to deceive others

We may restrict sessions or suspend accounts for misuse.

Your content and your voice

You own the content you provide, including your voice. You grant Liao a limited license to host, transmit, process, reproduce, and analyze that content only as necessary to operate, secure, and improve the service. This license ends when the content is deleted, except for legally required retention and temporary backups. You represent that you have the right to provide the content you submit. Liao does not claim ownership of your voice or your private conversations.

AI-generated output

You may use the feedback and lessons generated for you for personal purposes. Similar or identical output may be generated for other users, and we do not guarantee that output is unique or free of every third-party claim. You remain responsible for how you use generated output.

Liao's intellectual property

The Liao name, branding, interface, graphics, lesson structures, software, prompts and internal systems, original educational content, databases, and trademarks belong to Liao or its licensors. We grant you a limited, personal, nonexclusive, revocable right to use the app. All other rights are reserved.

Feedback

If you send us ideas or suggestions, we may use nonconfidential feedback to improve Liao without owing you compensation. Your private conversation content is never treated as feedback.

Availability and changes

We may change AI models and providers, add or remove features, perform maintenance, introduce reasonable usage limits, change free-plan allowances, and discontinue features. We work to keep Liao available but do not promise uninterrupted or error-free access, and we may act quickly during outages or security incidents.

Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, create risk for other users, or are required to be suspended by law — immediately where the violation is serious. You may contact aidenguo15@gmail.com to appeal. On termination, your data is handled as described in the Privacy Policy, and any paid access ends per the Subscriptions section. Suspending or deleting a Liao account does not automatically cancel Apple billing.

Third-party services

Liao relies on third parties — Apple (distribution, sign-in, billing), Google (sign-in), our AI and speech providers, cloud hosting, and crash reporting — and may link to external sites. Third-party services have their own terms and privacy policies, which govern your use of them.

Disclaimers and limitation of liability

Liao is provided "as available." To the maximum extent permitted by law, we disclaim warranties of uninterrupted access and error-free operation, and we are not liable for AI inaccuracies, loss of streaks or progress, lost or corrupted data, or indirect or consequential damages. Our total liability for claims arising from the service is capped at the greater of the amount you paid Liao in the twelve months before the claim or fifty US dollars. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify Liao against claims arising from your misuse of the service, illegal content you submit, your infringement of another person's rights, or your violation of these Terms, to the extent permitted by the law that applies to you.

Disputes and governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Connecticut, USA, excluding its conflict-of-law rules. Before filing a claim, contact aidenguo15@gmail.com — most issues can be resolved informally within 30 days. Disputes that cannot be resolved informally will be heard in the state or federal courts of Connecticut, except that you may bring qualifying claims in small-claims court, and nothing in these Terms waives consumer rights that your local law does not allow to be waived.

Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. We will communicate changes in the app, and material changes will require you to accept the new Terms before continuing to use Liao. The effective date above always reflects the current revision. Continued use after non-material changes constitutes acceptance.

Apple-specific provisions

Apple is not responsible for providing Liao's service or support and has no obligation regarding the app other than as required by the App Store rules that apply to it. App Store purchases are governed by Apple's applicable terms, and Apple's Standard EULA applies to your license of the app to the extent no custom license is supplied. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of the mobile-license provisions of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

Contact

Liao is run by Aiden Guo, an independent developer. Contact me directly at aidenguo15@gmail.com, including for support and formal legal notices. Effective date: July 16, 2026