Terms of service

Who you're agreeing with

Clans is run by iMacRu, a sole trader in the United Kingdom ("we", "us"). By creating an account or using Clans you accept these terms and our privacy policy. If you don't accept them, don't use Clans.

Who can play

You need to be at least 13. If you're under 18, please make sure a parent or guardian is happy with you using Clans and knows that it records where you've been running, walking or cycling.

Your account

Keep your password to yourself and your email address current — it's how we'd reach you. You're responsible for what happens under your account. One account per person: creating several to claim the same ground twice over is cheating, and dealt with below. Tell us at imacru@gmail.com if you think someone else has got into your account.

How the game works, and what you can't expect

• Claiming is worked out on our server, and that result stands.We take your activity's GPS track and compute which crofts it passed through. Nothing your device or browser claims about which crofts you won is trusted, by design — it's what stops the map being invented.
• Territory is meant to be lost.Crofts decay: go long enough without visiting one and your claim fades and eventually goes back to the wild. That's the game, not a fault, and we won't restore decayed territory.
• The rules can change.Visit caps, decay intervals, how Gatherings and Fiery Crosses behave — these are balanced over time, and a change may alter who holds what. We won't compensate anyone for a rebalance.
• GPS is imperfect.Drift, tunnels, tree cover and a cold fix all affect what your track says. We claim from the track we're given; we can't adjudicate what you "really" ran.
• Crofts aren't property. Holding a croft is a position in a game. It gives you no rights over the real-world place, and no rights against us.

Fair play

Clans only works if the tracks are real. Don't submit an activity that isn't a genuine record of you moving under your own power — no edited or synthetic files, no routes traced on a map, no GPS spoofing, no activities recorded in a vehicle, no uploading somebody else's activity as your own, and no re-uploading the same activity to claim twice.

We check for this, and we may refuse or remove an activity, undo the territory it claimed, or restrict or close an account that's abusing the game. Where it's a close call we'd rather ask you than act, but we don't have to. If you think we've got it wrong, email imacru@gmail.comand we'll look again.

Safety — please read this one

Clans rewards going to new places. It is a game, and no croft is worth your safety. Obey the rules of the road, respect private property and access rights, don't trespass, and don't go anywhere you wouldn't have gone anyway. Watch where you're going rather than your phone. Decide for yourself whether you're fit for the activity you're about to do, and take advice from a doctor rather than from us.

Nothing in Clans is medical, training or navigational advice, and the map is a game board, not a guide to where it's safe or lawful to go. You're responsible for your own choices out there.

Your activities, and what we do with them

Your activities stay yours. By adding one — uploading a file or syncing a connected device — you confirm it's genuinely yours to share, and you give us permission to store it, work out which crofts it claimed, and show the results inside Clans. That last part matters: Clans is a shared map, so the territory your activities earn is visible to other players, along with your display name and leaderboard standing.

That permission is limited to running the game. We don't sell your data, we don't license it to anyone, and we never send it to an AI or machine-learning service. Your original files and full GPS tracks are never shown to other players, and your home croft is never shown to or inferable by anyone. The privacy policy sets out the detail, including how to get your data deleted.

Clans, feuds and Gatherings

• You can belong to one clan at a time, by invitation from its chief. Leave whenever you like — but what you've already contributed to a clan's territory stays with the clan. Your own record is unaffected.
• A clan chief can invite, and can revoke invitations. If a chief leaves they must hand the role on or disband the clan.
• Feuds are private competitions with their own map and their own settings, decided by whoever created them. Joining one means accepting those settings.
• Gatherings are real community events in public places. They can only be claimed by actually turning up within the event's own window, they can never be pinned as a home croft, and nothing about holding one gives you any standing at the real event or any association with its organisers.
• Clan names, mottos and display names must not be offensive, impersonate anyone, or infringe anyone's rights. We may change or remove ones that are.

Connected services

You can optionally connect a third-party service such as Garmin Connect or intervals.icu so activities sync automatically. Connecting is your choice and reversible from Settings at any time.

Those services are run by other companies under their own terms and privacy policies, which apply to you separately from these terms. We don't control them. They may change, limit or withdraw their access at any time, and if that happens syncing will stop working through no fault of ours — you'd still be able to add activities by file upload.

Where Clans shows data that came from Garmin, Garmin provides that data as-is and gives no warranty of any kind about it, including its accuracy, and is not liable to you for any loss or damage arising from it or from your use of Clans. Garmin is not a party to these terms but may rely on this paragraph and on the two sections below, which are written for its benefit as well as ours. Your use of Garmin's own service remains governed by your agreement with Garmin.

What you must not do

Don't break the law with Clans, or use it to harass anyone. Don't try to get at other players' private data, work out where someone lives, or get round the permissions that stop you. Don't scrape Clans, hammer it with automated requests, or try to reverse engineer, resell or rebadge it. Don't upload anything malicious.

Availability

Clans is free, and run by one person as a side project. We'll try to keep it up and keep your data safe, but there's no uptime promise, no support commitment, and no guarantee that any feature will keep working or that Clans will exist indefinitely. We may change it, pause it, or shut it down. If we ever shut it down for good we'll give you reasonable notice and a way to get your data out first.

No warranties

Clans is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy or non-infringement. We don't warrant that Clans will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free, that claiming will always be accurate, or that any data will never be lost. The same disclaimer applies to Garmin in respect of any Garmin-sourced data shown in Clans.

Limits on liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, neither we nor Garmin are liable to you for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, nor for lost or corrupted data, lost territory, lost profits, or any loss arising from your use of or inability to use Clans — even if we'd been warned it might happen. Our total liability to you for any claim connected with Clans is limited to the greater of the amount you've paid us in the past twelve months (which, Clans being free, is normally nothing) or £50.

None of this limits anything that can't lawfully be limited — including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud. If you're a consumer, you keep all the rights the law gives you, and nothing here takes those away.

You agree to indemnify us against claims arising from your breach of these terms or from activities you've submitted that weren't yours to submit.

Suspension, and leaving

You can stop using Clans whenever you like, and ask us to delete your account by emailing imacru@gmail.com. We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms, cheats, or puts other players or the service at risk — immediately where the problem is serious, and we'll tell you why where we sensibly can. Territory you held returns to play.

Reporting a problem

If someone is cheating, impersonating another person, or misusing Clans, email imacru@gmail.comand we'll look into it. You can also flag a mislocated or missing Gathering straight from the map. We read everything, and we'd much rather hear from you than not.

Changes to these terms

We'll update this page and the date at the top when these terms change, and tell you in the app before a change that materially affects you takes effect. Carrying on using Clans after that means you accept the new version; if you'd rather not, stop using it and ask us to delete your account.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of Scotland, and its courts have jurisdiction. If you're a consumer living elsewhere, this doesn't deprive you of the protection of your own local law or of your right to bring a claim where you live.