Acceptable Use and Safety Policy

This policy is part of the Hoopers Terms of Service. It sets the rules for how you use Hoopers (formally, Hoopers Ranked Play) and how you treat other players, online and in person. Words defined in the Terms, such as Teen Account, Adult Account, guardian and Play Connection, have the same meaning here. If this policy and the Terms conflict, the Terms control.

Hoopers is provided by iCatch Labs LLC ("iCatch Labs," "we," "us," or "our").

1. Be honest about who you are

Do not:

• use Hoopers if you are under 13;
• give a false date of birth, or otherwise misstate your age, to get an account, to be treated as a Teen or as an Adult, or to change which rules apply to you;
• create more than one account, use another person's account, or let anyone else use yours;
• sell, buy, trade or transfer an account;
• impersonate any person or organization, including a parent or guardian, or claim an affiliation you do not have;
• choose a username or display name that impersonates someone, is misleading, or breaks section 4.

2. Keep competition fair

Do not:

• submit, confirm or arrange a false game result, or record a game that did not happen as recorded;
• arrange wins, lose on purpose, trade wins, or coordinate with anyone to raise or lower anyone's Skill Rating, rank, Standing or records;
• use a second account, another person's account, or another person's device to play, submit results or avoid restrictions;
• falsify, spoof or interfere with location readings, or otherwise try to defeat or get around the checks Hoopers uses to decide how a game counts;
• submit false or bad-faith information when a result is disputed or reviewed;
• exploit bugs, errors or unintended behavior in Hoopers to gain a competitive advantage. If you find one, report it to support@hoopersapp.com instead.

The Competitive Rules explain how games and records work, and what Hoopers may do when a game is disputed or evidence is questionable.

3. Treat people with respect

Do not:

• harass, bully, threaten or intimidate anyone, including other players, guardians and Hoopers staff;
• post or send hateful or discriminatory content, or content that attacks people for their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability or age;
• make sexual comments, advances or content directed at another player without their clear welcome;
• use challenges, friend requests, connection requests or other features to repeatedly contact someone who has not responded, has declined, or has blocked you;
• try to get around a block, including by using another account.

4. Content rules

Anything you put into Hoopers, including usernames, display names, court names and notes, and report details, must not:

• be false or misleading;
• be sexually explicit, obscene or violent;
• promote illegal activity, violence or self-harm;
• include someone else's personal information, such as a phone number or home address;
• advertise or solicit, or be spam;
• infringe anyone's intellectual property or privacy rights.

5. Use information from Hoopers responsibly

Do not use player profiles, search, boards, Standings, game history, court listings, or anything else you learn through Hoopers to:

• stalk, follow, track, locate, threaten or harm anyone;
• find out where someone lives, works, goes to school or will be, beyond what they choose to share with you for a game;
• contact someone outside Hoopers after they have made clear they do not want contact;
• build lists or databases of players.

6. Protect Hoopers and its systems

Do not:

• access Hoopers through bots, scripts, scrapers or other automated means, except ordinary search-engine indexing of public pages;
• probe, scan or test the security of Hoopers, or access accounts, data or administrative functions you are not authorized to use;
• interfere with, overload or disrupt Hoopers or the networks it relies on;
• copy, modify, reverse engineer or decompile Hoopers software, except where the law expressly allows it;
• introduce malware or any code designed to collect information or cause harm;
• use Hoopers for commercial purposes, such as selling services to other players, without our written permission;
• use Hoopers in any way that breaks the law.

7. Use reports and safety tools honestly

Blocks, reports, disputes and review answers help keep Hoopers safe and fair. Do not submit reports you know are false, use reports or disputes to harass someone or to gain a competitive advantage, or file repeated reports about the same matter to pressure us.

8. Safety rules for in-person play

Hoopers games happen in person. When you meet another player for a Hoopers game:

• No violence or threats. Do not physically harm, threaten, or intimidate another player or anyone at the venue. Ordinary contact within the normal play of the game is part of basketball; deliberate or reckless harm is not.
• No weapons. Do not bring or show a weapon at a Hoopers game where it is used or displayed to threaten anyone.
• Respect the venue. Follow the rules, hours and access limits of the court or venue. Do not trespass, and do not use a court you are not permitted to use.
• Respect a player's choice. A player may decline, cancel or leave a game at any time for any reason. Do not pressure anyone to play, keep playing, or meet somewhere they do not want to go.
• No inappropriate stakes. Do not use Hoopers to arrange gambling, betting or any illegal activity around a game.
• Keep it on the court. Do not follow a player after a game, go to their home, school or workplace, or use the game to arrange unwanted contact.

9. Protecting Teen Accounts

Hoopers allows players 13 through 17 to use Teen Accounts. Hoopers is a basketball competition platform. It is not a service for adults to seek out or arrange social meetings with minors. These rules apply to everyone, and especially to Adult Accounts:

• Only the Teen starts a connection. Do not try to find, contact or connect with a Teen Account in any way Hoopers does not provide, and do not pressure a Teen to start a Play Connection with you.
• Keep play between Adults and Teens in normal basketball settings. Adults must not use Hoopers to solicit, pressure or arrange private or isolated meetups with Teen Accounts. A Play Connection should relate to basketball activity the Teen started, and games should take place in an ordinary basketball setting where the Teen is permitted to be. Do not offer a Teen a ride, ask a Teen to meet somewhere private, or ask a Teen to keep contact with you secret from their parent or guardian.
• No personal requests. Do not ask a Teen for photos, their home address, their school, or their phone number or social media accounts.
• No sexual content or contact. Any sexual comment, content, advance or contact involving a minor is prohibited. We report apparent child sexual exploitation to the appropriate authorities where the law requires it.
• Do not get around Teen protections. Do not use another account, another person, a false age or any other method to find Teen Accounts, to contact them, or to avoid the limits Hoopers places on connections with them.

10. Age misrepresentation and guardian fraud

A Teen who claims to be an adult. If we find that a Teen has claimed to be 18 or older, our first response is usually corrective. We may apply Teen Account protections to the account, require guardian setup or ask the Teen to confirm their age again, notify the linked guardian, temporarily limit features that depend on age, and record a warning on the account. If a Teen deliberately and repeatedly gets around their age classification, we may suspend the account, for longer periods if it continues, or terminate it.

An adult who pretends to be a Teen. An adult who gives a false date of birth or otherwise pretends to be a Teen, to be treated as a Teen, to find or contact minors, to use features meant for Teen Accounts, or to get around Teen protections, commits one of the most serious violations of Hoopers' rules. If we find that this happened, we may:

• permanently terminate the account and any linked accounts;
• make the person permanently ineligible for rated play and for any official or verified rating track;
• take reasonable steps to stop the person from creating another account or verifying again;
• preserve relevant records for safety, security and legal purposes;
• cooperate with lawful requests from law enforcement; and
• pursue any legal remedies available to us.

Guardian fraud. Pretending to be a Teen's parent or legal guardian, giving a false guardian confirmation, or working with others to get around the guardian process is a serious safety violation. We may cancel the guardian link, suspend the Teen Account's connections with Adult Accounts, require a legitimate guardian to complete setup again, restrict or terminate the accounts involved, review linked accounts, and take permanent action for serious or deliberate fraud.

How we check. To detect and prevent age misrepresentation, guardian fraud, ban evasion and multiple accounts, we may use reasonable account, identity, device, network and verification signals, evidence that accounts are linked, and other technical measures, as described in the Privacy Policy. We may ask for information to confirm a date of birth or a guardian relationship.

11. What Hoopers does and does not do

So that you can make informed choices:

• Hoopers does not screen players, run background checks, or verify the identity of every player.
• Hoopers does not check guardianship against government records.
• Hoopers does not supervise, referee or attend games.
• Hoopers does not own, operate, inspect or guarantee the safety of any court or venue, including courts listed in Hoopers.
• Hoopers does not provide emergency response. In an emergency, call 911 or your local emergency number.
• Hoopers does give you tools to block a player and to report a player, and authorized Hoopers staff review reports.

The Player Safety Guide has practical suggestions for meeting and playing safely.

12. Blocking and reporting

Blocking. You can block a player from their profile. After a block, you and that player can no longer find, challenge or friend each other in Hoopers, and open challenges between you are cancelled. Games already played stay in both players' records. We do not notify a player that you blocked them.

Reporting. You can report a player from their profile, choosing a reason and adding details. Hoopers staff review reports. We do not tell the reported player who reported them. We may not be able to tell you the outcome of a report.

A report is not an emergency service. If you are in danger, contact 911 or local emergency services first. If you have information for us that cannot be sent through a report, including a concern about a Teen's safety, email support@hoopersapp.com.

13. Enforcement

If we reasonably believe someone has broken this policy or the Terms, we may take one or more of these actions, depending on how serious the conduct is, the risk to others, and the account's history:

• remove or change content, such as a display name or court listing;
• hold, review, reclassify or void games, and correct competitive records, under the Competitive Rules;
• record a warning or strike on the account;
• limit access to features, including features that depend on age;
• suspend an account, for a set period or until an issue is resolved;
• terminate an account, and take action on accounts linked to it;
• make a person ineligible for rated play, or for any official or verified rating track;
• refuse a person access to Hoopers in the future;
• preserve information and share it with law enforcement where we believe there is a risk to someone's safety or where the law requires it.

We may act without warning. We do not promise to give a warning, to explain every decision, or to offer an appeal process. If you think we made a mistake, contact support@hoopersapp.com.

Breaking the law can also have legal consequences outside Hoopers.

14. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as described in section 17 of the Terms.

15. Contact

Questions about this policy: support@hoopersapp.com, or iCatch Labs LLC, 418 Broadway, STE 7369, Albany, NY 12207, United States.