Downread — Terms of Use (Beta)

Last updated: 2026-10-13 · Effective: 2026-10-13

The short version

• Downread is a beta RSS/Atom reader, on the web and as an app for Android and iOS. It's provided free and "as is" — things may change, break, or be discontinued, and beta data may be lost.
• You can read anonymously without an account. Creating an account is invitation-only during the beta.
• Don't add or share illegal content — no piracy, no CSAM, nothing unlawful. Feeds you submit to the public catalog are shown to others.
• We can remove content and suspend accounts that break these rules, and we run a repeat-infringer policy.
• German law applies; your mandatory consumer rights are unaffected.

The full terms follow.

1. Who these terms are between, and your acceptance

These Terms of Use ("Terms") are an agreement between you and Tim Jansen, operator of Downread (the "Service": the web app at feeds.downread.com and the Downread apps for Android and iOS) — see the Legal Notice for provider details. By using the Service you agree to these Terms. If you create an account, you also confirm your agreement at sign-up. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Beta service — no warranty, may change or end

The Service is in closed beta and is provided free of charge and "as is" and "as available". In particular:

• Features may change, be added or removed, and the Service may be temporarily unavailable or discontinued at any time.
• Beta data (including reading data, subscriptions and private feeds) may be lost, reset or deleted ; do not rely on the Service as your only copy of anything important.
• We make no warranty that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or fit for a particular purpose, to the extent permitted by law (see §13 for the German-law limits).

3. Eligibility and accounts

• Age. You must be at least 16 years old to use the Service.
• Anonymous use is open to everyone and requires no account. Your data then lives on your device — in your browser or the app (see §8 and the Privacy Policy).
• Accounts are invitation-only during the beta. Sign-up requires a valid invitation link; we limit the number of beta accounts. Invitations are personal, non-transferable, limited in number, and may be withdrawn. We may decline or revoke beta access at our discretion.
• One account per person. Keep your login credentials confidential; you are responsible for activity under your account. Tell us promptly at if you suspect unauthorised use.
• Signing in with Google or Apple. If you sign in with a Google or Apple account, that provider's own terms apply to its sign-in, and we are not responsible for its availability. If you lose access to that provider account (or remove Downread from it), you may lose access to your Downread account unless you have also set a password in your account settings.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• use the Service for anything unlawful, or to submit, point to, or otherwise make available illegal content (see §5);
• overload, disrupt, or circumvent the security or access controls of the Service (e.g. automated mass requests beyond normal personal use, scraping our infrastructure, probing for vulnerabilities without authorisation);
• resell, sublicense, or commercially redistribute the Service or its data, or reverse-engineer it except where such restriction is prohibited by law;
• impersonate others or misuse the reporting or invitation mechanisms.

5. Feeds and content you submit

Downread is an RSS/Atom aggregator. When you add a feed you submit its URL — a pointer to content published by a third party; Downread then fetches, caches and displays that third-party content, acting as an intermediary and caching service, not the author or original host. One exception: newsletter inboxes — we give you an email address and receive and store the emails sent to it (including any attachments/files) as a private feed for you. You do not upload your own files to share publicly. Feeds you submit to the public catalog are, after review, shown to other users; private feeds and newsletter inboxes are not — they are only for you.

Your responsibility and warranties. By submitting a feed's URL you represent that the feed and the content it points to are lawful and that you are entitled to submit it. You are responsible for the feeds you add.

Prohibited content. You must not use the Service to submit, point to, store, or otherwise make available any content that:

• infringes copyright or other rights (including piracy feeds whose purpose is unlawfully distributing content);
• is child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or otherwise sexually exploits minors — this is reported to the authorities (see §6 and the Privacy Policy);
• is pornographic content that requires age verification we do not provide, or is otherwise unlawful in your or our jurisdiction;
• promotes terrorism or violence, or contains malware, phishing, or other harmful code;
• is otherwise illegal.

Our rights. Where necessary to comply with the law or these Terms — for example illegal content, a security risk, or a serious or repeated breach (a wichtiger Grund / good cause) — we may remove, refuse, disable, or block any feed or content and suspend or terminate any account immediately, with or without prior notice. For ordinary reasons unrelated to your conduct (for example ending or changing the beta) we will give reasonable prior notice (see §11). We may pre-screen submissions but are not obliged to monitor content.

Repeat-infringer policy. In line with applicable law (incl. DMCA § 512(i)), accounts that repeatedly submit infringing or illegal feeds will be terminated, and a pseudonymous record may be kept to prevent re-registration (see the Privacy Policy §13).

Licence to operate the Service. For content you submit, you grant us the non-exclusive, worldwide licence needed to store, process, and display it in order to run the Service (including showing public feeds you submit to other users). You retain any rights you have in the content; we claim no ownership of third-party feed content.

6. Reporting illegal content, takedown, and appeals

• How to report. Anyone — including logged-out visitors — can flag a specific feed or post via the Report function in the app, or by emailing (DSA Art. 16). Give enough detail to identify the content and why it is illegal.
• What we do. We act on valid notices expeditiously and log our actions.
• Copyright complaints. Our DMCA Designated Agent is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office (registration no. DMCA-1075757). Send copyright notices to the agent at with the information required for a valid notice (identification of the work and the infringing material, your contact details, and a good-faith statement). We honour a counter-notice process for material removed in error.
• Statement of reasons and appeal (DSA Art. 17). If we remove your feed or restrict your account, we will tell you the reason and how to contest the decision, unless the law prevents us (e.g. certain CSAM cases).

7. Third-party content and external services

Feeds, articles, images, videos and embeds are third-party content chosen by you. When you open an article or load an embed, content may load from the original publisher or a third-party service under their terms and privacy policies, which we do not control. For EU/UK users, third-party embeds load only after you allow each service (see the Privacy Policy §6). We are an intermediary and are not the author of, and not responsible for, third-party feed or embed content.

8. Service limits and your data

• Anonymous data is not permanent. It lives in your browser or the app and can be lost if you clear storage, use private mode, switch device, or uninstall the app; it is not backed up.
• Offline reading in the apps keeps a copy of posts on your device for reading without a connection. It is a convenience, not a backup: the copy may be incomplete or out of date, and it is deleted when you sign out, clear the cache or uninstall the app.
• Inactive free accounts are deleted after 2 years without sign-in. We don't retain a usable copy of your email, so we can't send a reminder first — sign in within 2 years to keep your account.
• Private storage of inactive accounts is cleared earlier. On free plans (including the Early Adopter plan), the contents of your private feeds and newsletter inboxes are deleted after 90 days without any activity on your account. Your account, your subscriptions and your reading data stay; only the stored private content is removed, and it cannot be restored. Signing in or using the Service counts as activity. Paid plans, if we ever offer them, may have a longer period or none; see your plan.
• Plan limits apply to the number of feeds and to private-feed/inbox size and storage; see the app and your plan.
• How we handle your personal data is described in the Privacy Policy, which forms part of your relationship with us.

9. Intellectual property

The Downread software (including the apps), design, name and logo are owned by us or our licensors and are protected by law. These Terms grant you a limited, personal, non-transferable, revocable right to use the Service during the beta. They grant you no rights in third-party feed content, which belongs to its respective owners.

10. The mobile apps and app stores

• Licence. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use the Downread apps on devices you own or control, for your personal use, in line with these Terms and the usage rules of the store you got the app from (Apple's Usage Rules in the App Store Terms, or Google Play's Terms of Service).
• Updates. We may release app updates, and some features (or the app as a whole) may require the current version. The store's terms govern downloading and updating.
• The store is not a party. These Terms are between you and us only, not with Apple or Google. We, not Apple or Google, are responsible for the apps and their content, for maintenance and support (), and for handling any claims relating to the apps — including product-liability claims, claims that an app fails to meet legal or regulatory requirements, consumer-protection claims, and claims that an app infringes a third party's intellectual property. Apple and Google have no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the apps. The apps are free; to the extent any warranty applies by law, Apple and Google have no warranty obligation regarding them.
• Export and sanctions. You confirm 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.
• Third-party terms. When you use an app you must also comply with the terms of your mobile carrier and other third-party services you use with it.
• Apple as third-party beneficiary. If you use the iOS app, Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and, once you accept them, have the right to enforce them against you as far as they concern the iOS app.

11. Suspension and termination

• By you: you may stop using the Service or delete your account at any time. Uninstalling an app does not delete your account.
• By us — for good cause: we may suspend or terminate your access immediately for a serious or repeated breach of these Terms, illegal content, abuse, a security risk, or where required by law — giving you the reason where practical and lawful (§6).
• By us — ordinary reasons: for reasons not based on your conduct (for example ending or changing the beta), we will give reasonable prior notice before ending your access.
• Effect: on termination your right to use the Service ends; data is handled per the Privacy Policy (including any legally required retention).

12. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For material changes we will give reasonable notice (e.g. by an in-app notice) before they take effect. Continued use after the changes take effect means you accept them; if you do not, stop using the Service.

13. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

Because the Service is provided free of charge and in beta, and subject to the mandatory provisions of German law:

• We are liable without limitation for damage caused by intent or gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, and where liability is mandatory (e.g. under the Product Liability Act) or where we have given a guarantee.
• For a free service, we are otherwise liable only for intent and gross negligence (§§ 521, 599 BGB principles); to the extent permitted, other liability — including for simple negligence, data loss, and unavailability — is excluded.
• Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law, and your mandatory statutory consumer rights are unaffected.

14. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the law of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding its conflict- of-laws rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer, this choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory provisions of the law of your country of habitual residence, and you may bring proceedings in the courts available to you under those mandatory rules.

15. Contact

• General / support:
• Illegal content / abuse: or the in-app Report function
• Provider details: see the Legal Notice