Terms of Use

Version: v1

Published: 9 September 2026

Effective date: 9 September 2026

1. Who provides AU Now and what these terms cover

These Terms of Use are an agreement between you and Varsha Raghav, an individual publisher. In these terms, “AU Now”, “we”, “us” and “our” refer to Varsha Raghav.

These terms apply to your use of the AU Now mobile app, our related services and any community feature we make available. The Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal information. The current versioned Commenting Rules forms part of these terms whenever you use comments or another enabled community feature.

By using AU Now, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

2. Reading as a guest and community eligibility

You may read available news as a guest without creating an account.

You need an account you control to use comments and other enabled community features. You must be at least 16 years old to use those features. The current process asks you to confirm that you are 16 or older and accept the current Commenting Rules; it does not verify your age from a birth date or identity document.

AU Now is not directed to children as a community or social service. A parent or guardian should supervise a young person’s use of general news content where appropriate.

3. Accounts and security

The current account option uses Google Sign-In. Google authenticates you, and AU Now creates its own account and device-bound session. You must use an account you are authorised to use and must not impersonate another person, organisation, publisher, emergency service or government authority.

Keep your device and Google account secure. Tell us promptly at support@californiawebgroup.com if you believe someone has accessed your AU Now account without permission. You are responsible for activity carried out through your account to the extent allowed by law, except where the activity results from our failure to use reasonable care or another matter for which the law makes us responsible.

We may require fresh sign-in for sensitive actions such as account deletion.

4. What AU Now provides

AU Now finds, organises, summarises and links to news and public-interest information from multiple publishers and data providers. It may personalise the order of stories using your selected area, preferences and app activity.

Features can vary by location, source availability, device, app version and release stage. Posts, direct messages, images, alerts, advertising or another community function may be unavailable or disabled even if supporting infrastructure exists.

Unless we clearly say otherwise, AU Now is for personal, non-commercial use.

5. Acceptable use

Use AU Now lawfully and in a way that does not harm other people or the service. You must not:

• break the current Commenting Rules or help another person do so;
• post, request, promote or distribute unlawful, exploitative, abusive, threatening, hateful, deceptive or privacy-invasive material;
• share personal information about another person without authority, especially a home address, live location, identifying document or information about a child;
• infringe copyright, trade marks, confidential information, privacy or other rights;
• impersonate another person or falsely suggest endorsement, authority or affiliation;
• send spam, scams, phishing, deceptive fundraising or malicious code;
• evade a block, ban, safety check, rate limit or moderation decision;
• manipulate recommendations, reports, reactions or engagement;
• scrape, copy, reverse engineer, interfere with or overload the service except where the law permits it; or
• use AU Now or its content to train, populate or operate another commercial product without permission from the relevant rights holder.

The Commenting Rules give more direct examples and explain reporting, blocking and enforcement. If these general terms and a specific safety rule differ, the more protective rule applies to community participation to the extent allowed by law.

6. Your content

You keep ownership of content you create and submit, subject to any rights held by other people. You confirm that you have the rights and permissions needed to submit it.

When you submit content, you give AU Now a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, format, transmit, display and make the content available only as reasonably needed to:

• operate the feature in which you submitted it;
• show it to the audience you selected or reasonably expected;
• create technical copies, thumbnails or accessible formats;
• moderate, investigate, report on and enforce safety rules;
• maintain backups, integrity and evidence; and
• defend legal claims or comply with law.

This licence can be sublicensed only to service providers that help perform those functions. It ends when the content is deleted from active systems, except for copies or records reasonably retained for safety, legal, dispute, backup or audit purposes.

Public comments and posts may be read, quoted, reported or shared by other users. If direct messages are enabled, they are intended for the participants but are not end-to-end encrypted and may be processed for delivery, safety, abuse reports and legal compliance. Do not use AU Now for secrets or information requiring a confidential professional channel.

7. Moderation, reports, blocks and appeals

AU Now may use automated safety checks and human review. The current text-safety process assesses the original submission before ordinary profanity may be obscured. Depending on the result, we may allow, obscure, reject, hold, hide, remove or restore content. We may warn, restrict, suspend or close an account, and may escalate a serious safety concern where appropriate.

Automated checks and word filters can make mistakes and do not understand every language, context or creative evasion. A moderation-provider outage may temporarily prevent a new or edited submission from being published because the current system fails closed rather than publish unchecked content.

You can report supported content or accounts and block another user using available controls. Do not make knowingly false or retaliatory reports. We may retain a report and relevant evidence even if the reported content is later deleted.

For a moderation question or appeal, use https://support.californiawebgroup.com/support?category=commenting or contact support@californiawebgroup.com. Include enough detail to identify the decision, but do not resend harmful material unless requested through a safe channel. We do not promise that every report will produce the outcome a reporter requests.

AU Now is not an emergency service. If someone is in immediate danger, call 000.

8. News sources, ownership and external links

Articles, headlines, images, videos, brands and other publisher material remain owned by their respective publishers or licensors. AU Now’s presentation of a source does not transfer those rights to us or to you and does not imply that a publisher endorses AU Now unless we expressly say so.

You may use publisher material only as allowed by law and the publisher’s terms. Do not remove attribution, bypass a paywall or copy substantial publisher content through AU Now.

AU Now may open a publisher’s website, video, image or another external service. We do not control its availability, security, advertising, cookies, data collection, accuracy or terms. Review the external service’s policies before using it.

9. AI summaries, translations and recommendations

Some headlines remain publisher-supplied, while summaries, translations, categories, location tags or story groupings may be produced or assisted by software and artificial intelligence. These outputs can be incomplete, delayed or wrong. They do not replace the original article.

Open the publisher source before relying on a material claim. Do not treat an AU Now summary, translation, recommendation or category as an official statement from the publisher, a complete record of the story, or professional advice.

10. Local information and urgent situations

Weather, air quality, school-zone, road, transport, traffic, beach, emergency and other local-condition information comes from third-party or public-data providers and may be delayed, incomplete, unavailable, rounded to an area or affected by provider errors.

Do not use AU Now as the sole basis for safety, travel, school-zone, legal or emergency decisions. Check official signs, authorities, emergency services and current local conditions. If there is immediate danger, call 000. AU Now does not replace official warnings or professional advice.

Nothing in AU Now is legal, financial, medical, investment or other professional advice.

11. Notifications

Push notifications are optional and require device permission and an AU Now alert preference. You can turn them off in AU Now or in your phone settings and can set available quiet hours.

Notifications may be late, duplicated, suppressed, misdirected by device settings or not delivered because of network, platform, provider or system conditions. Do not rely on AU Now notifications for emergencies, deadlines, investments, safety-critical information or legal obligations.

12. Advertising and sponsored material

Advertising is disabled in the current pre-launch mobile build. If AU Now later displays an advertisement or sponsored placement, it will be identified in a way intended to distinguish it from editorial content. An advertisement is the advertiser’s responsibility and does not amount to our endorsement.

Advertising or tracking technology will not be enabled under these terms as a substitute for the privacy notices, consents and app-store disclosures required for the actual implementation.

13. AU Now software and branding

AU Now’s software, original design, logo, compilation, interfaces and branding are owned by Varsha Raghav or used under licence. Subject to these terms, we give you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive and non-transferable permission to install and use the app for personal, non-commercial purposes.

“AU Now” and associated branding do not suggest government, emergency-service or publisher endorsement. You may not use our branding in a way that confuses people about who operates a service or published content.

14. Service changes and availability

News feeds and online services change continuously. We may add, remove, suspend or alter a feature, source, category or provider. We may also limit access to protect users, comply with law, address security or moderation risks, maintain the service or test a staged release.

We do not promise uninterrupted or error-free availability, that every source or article will appear, that a story will stay in the same position, or that content will be available indefinitely. We will not remove rights or guarantees that cannot lawfully be excluded.

15. Suspension, termination and deletion

We may restrict or suspend community access, remove content or terminate an account where we reasonably believe it is necessary to enforce these terms or the Commenting Rules, protect safety or security, comply with law, respond to repeated or serious abuse, or protect another person’s rights. Where appropriate and lawful, we will provide a reason and access to the available appeal process.

You may stop using AU Now at any time. Guests can delete the current guest device’s data through Settings. Signed-in users can initiate account deletion in the app after fresh Google reauthentication and confirmation. Account deletion immediately disables account access and public visibility, followed by delayed identity detachment. Some tombstone, moderation, audit, security, backup or legally required records may remain as described in the Privacy Policy.

An external account-deletion assistance path is available at https://support.californiawebgroup.com/account-deletion.

16. Consumer rights, disclaimers and liability

Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies a right, guarantee, remedy or liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including any applicable rights under the Australian Consumer Law.

To the extent the law permits, AU Now and third-party material are provided on an “as available” basis. We do not make additional promises about uninterrupted availability, completeness, accuracy, timeliness, fitness for a particular purpose or the continued availability of a publisher or provider.

To the extent the law permits, we are not responsible for loss caused solely by:

• your unlawful or prohibited use of AU Now;
• your reliance on information after a clear warning to check an official or original source;
• an external publisher, platform or provider outside our reasonable control; or
• events we could not reasonably prevent.

This section does not protect us from liability caused by our own fraud, wilful misconduct, failure to exercise due care where required, or any liability that the law says cannot be limited. We have not included a broad user indemnity in this draft.

17. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what information AU Now collects and how it is used, disclosed, retained and deleted. It is available at https://support.californiawebgroup.com/legal/privacy. By using an optional feature, you also acknowledge the specific notice shown when that feature asks for information or permission.

18. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms when the service or law changes. We will publish the new version and effective date. We will provide additional notice where a change is material or the law requires it.

Continued use after the new terms take effect indicates acceptance to the extent permitted by law. If a new Commenting Rules version requires acceptance, you must review and accept it before making further community submissions. If you do not agree to updated terms, stop using AU Now and use the available deletion options.

19. General terms and governing law

If a court finds one part of these terms unenforceable, the remaining parts continue to apply. A delay in enforcing a right is not a waiver of that right.

These terms are governed by the laws of India. Subject to any mandatory right to bring a claim elsewhere, courts with jurisdiction in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India may hear disputes. This does not remove any consumer, privacy or other mandatory right that applies where you live or use AU Now.

20. Contact

Operator: Varsha Raghav

Operator location: Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India

Support: https://support.californiawebgroup.com

Support email: support@californiawebgroup.com

Moderation appeals: https://support.californiawebgroup.com/support?category=commenting