Terms of service

Status of this document

Sutron is currently in staging (pre-release). This document is published so that testers, early creators, and reviewers can read the terms we intend to operate under. It has not yet been reviewed by external counsel and is not yet in force. No commercial launch has occurred and no live money has moved through the platform.

When Sutron opens to the public, a dated and versioned final edition will replace this draft, and we will notify registered users before it takes effect. Until then, your use of the staging environment is governed by these terms on a best-efforts basis, and you should assume that staging data may be reset, migrated, or deleted without notice.

1. Who we are, and what you are agreeing to

"Sutron" is a mobile and web platform operated by Golden Peacock Fintech Private Limited, a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013 in India ("Golden Peacock", "we", "us", "our").

• Corporate Identity Number (CIN): [TO BE COMPLETED BEFORE LAUNCH]
• Registered office: [TO BE COMPLETED BEFORE LAUNCH]
• Website: https://sutron.io
• Contact: support@sutron.io

These Terms of Service ("Terms") form a legally binding agreement between you and Golden Peacock governing your access to and use of the Sutron mobile applications, the Sutron website, and every associated service, feature, API, and storefront (together, the "Platform").

By creating an account, signing in, or otherwise using the Platform, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy and Refund & Cancellation Policy, each of which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.

If you do not agree, do not use the Platform.

This document is an electronic record under the Information Technology Act, 2000 and the rules made under it, and does not require a physical or digital signature.

2. Definitions

3. Eligibility and your account

3.1 Who may use Sutron

You may use the Platform only if you are at least 18 years old and legally capable of entering into a binding contract under the Indian Contract Act, 1872.

Users between 13 and 18 years of age may use the Platform only with the verifiable consent and under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian, who accepts these Terms on their behalf and is responsible for their activity. Consistent with the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, we do not knowingly process the personal data of a child except as permitted by law, and we do not direct behavioural advertising or tracking at children.

Users under 13 may not create an account.

3.2 Registration

Accounts are created against a verified mobile number and a unique public @handle. You agree that:

• the information you give us is true, current, and complete;
• you will keep it up to date;
• you will not impersonate any person or entity, or misrepresent your affiliation with one;
• you will not register a handle in bad faith, including to squat on, resell, or trade on the reputation of a name that is not yours.

3.3 Account security is shared, but device security is yours

You are responsible for everything that happens under your account, and for keeping your device, sign-in credentials, and encryption recovery material secure.

This matters more on Sutron than on most platforms. Your conversations are end-to-end encrypted, which means the encryption keys live on your device and not on our servers. We cannot read your messages, and we therefore cannot recover them for you if you lose your device and your backup material. Please read §11 (Encryption) carefully.

Tell us immediately at support@sutron.io if you suspect unauthorised access.

3.4 Multiple identities

One User may hold more than one Creator identity, and one Creator may own more than one Business. This is a legitimate feature of the Platform. It is not a licence to operate undisclosed duplicate accounts in order to evade a suspension, manipulate ratings or reviews, inflate follower counts, or abuse promotions.

4. What the Platform is

Sutron unifies several services in one application:

• Private messaging — end-to-end encrypted one-to-one and group chat.
• Communities — Discord-class spaces with channels, roles, voice, and stage.
• Education — courses, live classes, webinars, quizzes, and certificates.
• Commerce — storefronts through which Creators sell digital products, courses, bundles, memberships, subscriptions, bookings, consultations, event tickets, licences, and rentals, and through which they may receive tips.
• Files — the Sutron Resource Network: personal Library, community Shelf, and public Commons.
• Platform Products — subscriptions and services sold by Golden Peacock.

Features are released in phases. We do not promise that any specific feature will be available, will remain available, or will behave identically across Android, iOS, and web. Some features described in our public materials are planned rather than shipped, and we will label them as such where we can.

5. Our role: intermediary for Creator sales, seller for Platform Products

This distinction determines who is legally responsible for what, and you should understand it before you buy or sell anything.

5.1 Creator Content and Creator goods — we are an intermediary

For everything listed and sold by a Creator, Golden Peacock acts as an intermediary within the meaning of Section 2(1)(w) of the Information Technology Act, 2000, and as a marketplace e-commerce entity under the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020.

That means:

• The contract of sale is between the Buyer and the Creator, not between the Buyer and Golden Peacock.
• The Creator is solely responsible for the accuracy of the listing, the quality, legality, and fitness of what is sold, for delivering it, for supporting it, and for honouring the applicable refund terms.
• Golden Peacock does not author, endorse, verify, or guarantee Creator Content.
• We provide the checkout, the ledger, the entitlement engine, and the delivery infrastructure. We do not become the seller by doing so.

We publish the seller's identity on every listing, and we require Creators to supply accurate business details as a condition of selling.

5.2 Platform Products — we are the seller

Where Golden Peacock sells directly — Sutron Prime, Sutron Pro/Business, verification, AI credits, certificates, custom domains, webinar capacity, advertising, and any other first-party product — we are the seller and are directly responsible to you for that product under these Terms and applicable consumer law.

5.3 Safe harbour

Our intermediary status under §5.1 depends on our observing due diligence under the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021. We publish this agreement and our privacy policy, we operate a grievance mechanism (§15), and we act on valid legal orders and takedown notices. We do not initiate transmissions, select their receivers, or modify the information contained in them, except as necessary for technical delivery.

6. Acceptable use

6.1 Your general obligations

You agree to use the Platform lawfully, and not to:

1. host, display, upload, publish, transmit, store, update, or share any Content that is unlawful, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of another's privacy (including bodily privacy), insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, racially or ethnically objectionable, or otherwise inconsistent with the laws of India;
2. harm a child in any manner, or produce, transmit, or solicit child sexual abuse material;
3. infringe any patent, trademark, copyright, or other proprietary right;
4. deceive or mislead any person about the origin of a message, or knowingly communicate information that is patently false or misleading;
5. impersonate another person;
6. threaten the unity, integrity, defence, security, or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign states, or public order, or incite the commission of any cognisable offence, or prevent the investigation of one, or insult any foreign nation;
7. transmit any software virus, worm, or other malicious code;
8. violate any law for the time being in force;
9. spam, bulk-message, scrape, harvest, or otherwise use the Platform to build a competing dataset or service;
10. probe, scan, stress, or circumvent the security of the Platform, or attempt to access any account, system, or data you are not authorised to access;
11. use the Platform to run a financial scheme, unlicensed financial service, gambling operation, multi-level marketing scheme, or any activity requiring a licence or registration you do not hold;
12. reverse-engineer, decompile, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code of the Platform, except to the extent that this restriction is unenforceable under applicable law.

6.2 Circumventing DRM is a material breach

Protected Content is delivered under technical protection measures. You must not attempt to strip, bypass, capture, re-record, mirror, decrypt, or otherwise defeat those measures, nor distribute any tool or instructions for doing so. Doing so is a material breach of these Terms, terminates every Entitlement you hold, and may constitute an offence under Section 65A/65B of the Copyright Act, 1957.

6.3 Platform integrity and anti-abuse

You must not manipulate the Platform's trust, ranking, or discovery systems. Specifically, you must not: buy, sell, or exchange reviews or ratings; post a review for a purchase you did not make; create fake accounts, followers, or engagement; coordinate mass-reporting of a competitor; place fraudulent orders; abuse refunds; or exploit promotions beyond their stated terms.

We compute Creator trust and discoverability from stored behavioural signals. Anomalies in those signals may trigger moderation review, listing suppression, withholding of settlement, or account action.

7. Your Content, and the licence you grant us

7.1 You keep ownership

You retain all rights you hold in the Content you create, upload, or sell. We claim no ownership of it.

7.2 The licence you give us

To operate the Platform, we need permission to handle your Content. You therefore grant Golden Peacock a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable licence to host, store, cache, reproduce, encode, transcode, encrypt, package, adapt for display, transmit, and distribute your Content — strictly for the purpose of operating, securing, and improving the Platform and delivering the Content to the audience you have chosen.

This licence:

• is limited to the purposes above — we do not sell your Content, and we do not license it to third parties for their own purposes;
• extends, for Creator Content offered for sale, to displaying previews, thumbnails, excerpts, titles, and pricing in listings, search results, recommendation surfaces, the SEO web twin, and marketing of your listing;
• ends when you delete the Content or close your account, except for (a) copies retained in routine backups until they expire, (b) copies we are required by law to retain, (c) Content a Buyer has already lawfully acquired, whose Entitlement survives, and (d) anonymised or aggregated data that no longer identifies you or your Content.

It does not extend to your end-to-end encrypted messages. We cannot read those, and no licence over them is granted or needed.

7.3 You warrant that you have the rights

You represent and warrant that you own or are validly licensed to use and to distribute everything you upload or sell, including any music, footage, images, fonts, datasets, or third-party material embedded in it, and that its distribution on the Platform does not infringe any third party's rights or violate any law.

7.4 Our intellectual property

The Platform itself — its software, source code, design system, name, logo, trademarks, and documentation — belongs to Golden Peacock or its licensors. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of it to you. You are granted a limited, revocable, non-transferable, non-exclusive licence to use the Platform for its intended purpose.

7.5 Copyright complaints

If you believe Content on the Platform infringes your copyright, write to grievance@sutron.io with: your contact details; identification of the work; the exact location of the infringing material on the Platform; a statement that you hold the right or are authorised to act for the holder; and a statement that the information is accurate. We will act on valid complaints under §15, and we may terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

8. Selling on Sutron (Creator terms)

This section applies in addition to the rest of these Terms if you list or sell anything on the Platform.

8.1 Verification and compliance

Before you can publish paid listings or receive payouts, you must complete the verification and compliance checks we specify for your jurisdiction — which for India include identity verification (KYC), business verification (KYB) where applicable, tax registration details, and settlement account details. We may allow you to build and configure your Business before verification is complete, but publishing and payout remain gated on it.

You must keep this information current. If it lapses or is found to be false, we may suspend publishing, withhold settlement, or terminate your Business.

8.2 Listings and pricing

• You set your own prices. Prices are denominated in the currency you sell in, and that currency travels with the listing, the order, and the ledger entry.
• Your listing must accurately describe what the Buyer receives, including format, duration, delivery method, any recurring charge, and any restriction on download or redistribution.
• You must honour the price and terms shown at the moment of purchase. Every Order freezes the commercial context that applied to it.
• You must not list anything you are not lawfully permitted to sell, or anything prohibited by §6.1.

8.3 Platform fee

Golden Peacock charges a platform fee on sales made through the Platform. The fee is set by a published, versioned fee schedule that depends on your subscription tier, the sale channel, and the product type. The schedule in force at the moment of an Order is frozen onto that Order; a later change to the schedule does not apply retroactively.

Payment processing charges levied by our payment partners, and any applicable taxes on the platform fee, are additional and are disclosed in your settlement statement.

8.4 Settlement, wallet, and payout

Money moves in a defined sequence: authorised → captured → settled → split → recorded in the ledger → credited to your wallet → paid out.

• Funds become eligible for settlement only after the payment is captured.
• Settlement is computed from an immutable snapshot taken at the time of sale.
• Settled amounts, net of the platform fee, processing charges, taxes, and any applicable withholding, are credited to your Business wallet.
• Payouts are made to your verified settlement account on the schedule we publish, subject to a minimum payout threshold and to any hold we place under §8.6.

Staging note. Refund and payout execution are not yet live in the staging environment. Do not treat staging balances as money.

8.5 Taxes

You are responsible for your own tax position. Depending on your status you may be required to register for GST, to issue tax invoices, and to file returns. We may be required to collect TCS under Section 52 of the CGST Act, 2017 and to deduct TDS under Section 194-O of the Income-tax Act, 1961 on the gross amount of your sales, and to report them. Amounts so collected or deducted are reflected in your settlement statement and remitted to the authorities; they are not retained by us.

We charge and remit GST on our own platform fee and on Platform Products.

8.6 Holds, reversals, and chargebacks

We may withhold or reverse settlement where: a payment is charged back or disputed; an Order is refunded; fraud, abuse, or a policy breach is suspected or established; a legal or regulatory authority so requires; or a Buyer complaint is under investigation. Where we withhold, we will tell you why and for how long, unless we are legally prohibited from doing so.

8.7 Your obligations to your Buyers

You must provide the support you advertise, honour the refund terms that apply to your listing (see the Refund & Cancellation Policy), respond to Buyer complaints promptly, and comply with the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 and the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, including the disclosure obligations they place on sellers.

9. Buying on Sutron

9.1 Placing an order

An Order is complete when payment is captured and the Platform grants your Entitlement. Prices shown include applicable taxes unless the checkout states otherwise. Before you pay, the checkout will show you the seller's identity, what you are buying, the total payable, and whether the charge recurs.

9.2 What you get

Purchasing grants you a personal, non-transferable, non-exclusive Entitlement to access and use the Content for your own learning or use, for the duration stated in the listing. It does not transfer ownership or any right to redistribute, resell, sub-licence, publicly perform, or commercially exploit the Content, unless the Creator expressly grants such rights.

Some Content is Protected Content and can only be consumed inside the app. Where a Creator has permitted download, that is stated on the listing.

9.3 Duration and availability

An Entitlement lasts for the period stated at purchase. Where no period is stated, it lasts for as long as the Creator offers the Content on the Platform and your account remains in good standing. If a Creator withdraws Content, we will use reasonable efforts to preserve access for existing Buyers, but we cannot guarantee perpetual availability of third-party Content.

9.4 Subscriptions and recurring charges

Where you buy a subscription or membership, it renews automatically at the stated interval until you cancel. You can cancel at any time from your account; the cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and you keep access until then. We will tell you before a renewal price changes, and existing subscribers are given the option to accept or cancel.

9.5 Refunds

Refund rights are set out in the Refund & Cancellation Policy.

10. Payments

Payments are processed by regulated third-party payment service providers. We do not store your full card number, CVV, or UPI PIN; those are handled by the payment provider under the applicable RBI and PCI-DSS requirements.

By making a payment you authorise us and our payment partners to charge the instrument you select for the amount shown, including any recurring amount you have consented to.

Where a payment fails, is reversed, or is charged back, we may suspend the associated Entitlement until the position is resolved.

Golden Peacock does not currently hold a payment aggregator licence and does not act as one; funds move through licensed partners.

11. Encryption, security, and what we cannot do for you

11.1 End-to-end encryption

One-to-one and group conversations on Sutron are end-to-end encrypted. Message content is encrypted on your device and decrypted only on the devices of the intended recipients. We do not hold the keys and cannot read the content — not for advertising, not for analytics, not for AI processing, and not on request.

The practical consequences are real and you should accept them knowingly:

• If you lose access to all your devices and your encryption backup, your message history is not recoverable by anyone, including us.
• We cannot restore a conversation, prove its content, or produce it in response to a legal request. We can only produce the limited metadata described in the Privacy Policy.
• If you use a feature that deliberately steps outside encryption — for example a public community, a published storefront, or a support ticket in which you paste a message — that content is no longer protected by end-to-end encryption.

11.2 Your responsibilities

Keep your device updated and locked. Do not share your account. Verify your contacts' device identities for sensitive conversations. Export and safeguard your encrypted backup if message history matters to you.

11.3 Our responsibilities and limits

We maintain reasonable technical and organisational security measures proportionate to the sensitivity of the data we hold, described in the Privacy Policy. No system is perfectly secure, and we do not warrant that the Platform will be free of vulnerabilities.

11.4 Responsible disclosure

If you find a security vulnerability, report it to security@sutron.io. Please do not exploit it, access other users' data, or disclose it publicly before we have had a reasonable opportunity to fix it. We will not pursue action against researchers who act in good faith within these bounds.

12. Advertising

Where advertising appears on the Platform:

• it appears only on commercial surfaces, and is always identifiable as advertising;
• targeting uses region, category, and interests you have declared — never the content or metadata of your encrypted conversations;
• ads are dismissible, and are removed entirely for subscribers to our ad-free tiers.

13. Moderation, suspension, and termination

13.1 Our moderation rights

We may review, restrict, suppress, age-gate, label, or remove Content that is publicly accessible or reported to us, and we may suspend or terminate accounts, Businesses, or listings that breach these Terms or the law. We act on our own detection, on user reports, and on valid orders from a court or a competent government agency.

Because we cannot read end-to-end encrypted messages, moderation of private conversations is necessarily limited to what a participant reports to us, and to behavioural signals that do not require reading content.

13.2 Notice and appeal

Except where the law, an ongoing investigation, or an imminent risk of harm prevents it, we will tell you what action we have taken and why, and give you a route to appeal to grievance@sutron.io. Appeals are decided by a person who did not make the original decision, wherever practicable.

13.3 Your right to leave

You may stop using the Platform and close your account at any time. Closing your account does not automatically refund an active subscription (see the Refund Policy), does not cancel obligations you owe to Buyers, and does not extinguish settlement owed to you.

13.4 Effect of termination

On termination: your Entitlements end; your listings are withdrawn; your public Content is removed from public surfaces; and we retain and delete your personal data as described in the Privacy Policy. Amounts properly owed to either party before termination remain payable. Sections 6.2, 7.2 (to the limited extent described), 7.4, 8.6, 14, 16, and 17 survive termination.

14. Disclaimers, liability, and indemnity

14.1 Service provided "as is"

To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Platform is provided "as is" and "as available". We do not warrant that it will be uninterrupted, timely, error-free, or that any defect will be corrected. This is particularly true of the staging environment, which is explicitly experimental.

We make no warranty about, and accept no responsibility for, the quality, accuracy, legality, or outcome of any Creator Content, course, product, or advice sold or shared by a User. Educational content is not professional advice, and no course, certificate, or credential issued on the Platform constitutes a qualification recognised by any statutory body unless expressly stated.

14.2 Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither Golden Peacock nor its directors, employees, or agents will be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, goodwill, data, or business opportunity, however caused.

Our total aggregate liability to you arising out of or in connection with the Platform, in any twelve-month period, is limited to the greater of (a) the total amount you paid to Golden Peacock in that period, or (b) ₹5,000.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under Indian law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.

14.3 Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Golden Peacock, its directors, employees, and agents from any claim, demand, loss, liability, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your Content, your use of the Platform, your breach of these Terms, your breach of any law, or your infringement of any third party's rights.

14.4 Force majeure

Neither party is liable for failure to perform caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including natural disasters, war, civil unrest, pandemic, strikes, failure of telecommunications or power infrastructure, government action, or the failure of a third-party service on which the Platform depends.

15. Grievance redressal

In accordance with the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021, and the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020, we have appointed a Grievance Officer.

Grievance Officer

• Name: [TO BE COMPLETED BEFORE LAUNCH]
• Designation: Grievance Officer, Golden Peacock Fintech Pvt. Ltd.
• Email: grievance@sutron.io
• Address: [REGISTERED OFFICE — TO BE COMPLETED BEFORE LAUNCH]

How we handle a grievance

1. We acknowledge your complaint within 24 hours of receipt.
2. We resolve it within 15 days of receipt.
3. For a complaint about content that exposes a private area of a person, shows nudity or a sexual act, or is impersonation including morphed images, we act to remove or disable access within 24 hours.
4. We will tell you the outcome and the reasons for it.

Please include: your name and contact details, your @handle, a clear description of the issue, the location of any Content complained of, and any supporting material.

You may also raise consumer complaints through the National Consumer Helpline (1915) or the e-Daakhil portal, and data-protection complaints as described in the Privacy Policy.

16. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of India.

Before commencing formal proceedings, both parties agree to attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute through the grievance process in §15, and then through good-faith negotiation for 30 days.

If the dispute remains unresolved, it will be referred to arbitration by a sole arbitrator under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The seat and venue of arbitration is [CITY — TO BE COMPLETED BEFORE LAUNCH], India, and the language is English. The arbitrator's award is final and binding.

Subject to the arbitration clause, the courts at [CITY — TO BE COMPLETED BEFORE LAUNCH], India, have exclusive jurisdiction.

Nothing in this section limits a consumer's statutory right to approach a consumer forum under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, or to seek relief from any authority empowered by law to hear the matter.

17. General

Changes. We may amend these Terms. For material changes we will give you at least 30 days' notice in the app or by email before they take effect, and continued use after that date is acceptance. Where a change materially reduces your rights, you may close your account before it takes effect and, if you have prepaid for a service you can no longer use, request a pro-rata refund.

Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, the rest remains in force and the unenforceable provision is read down to the minimum extent needed.

No waiver. Our failure to enforce a right is not a waiver of it.

Assignment. You may not assign these Terms. We may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, on notice to you.

Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and the Refund & Cancellation Policy, are the entire agreement between you and Golden Peacock about the Platform, and replace any prior understanding.

Language. These Terms are written in English. Any translation is for convenience; the English version prevails.

18. Contact us

Golden Peacock Fintech Private Limited [REGISTERED OFFICE ADDRESS — TO BE COMPLETED BEFORE LAUNCH] CIN: [TO BE COMPLETED BEFORE LAUNCH]

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