Community Guidelines

1.Our Values

Penny helps people find places, events, communities and each other in real life. These Community Guidelines explain what we expect from everyone who uses Penny. They are part of our Terms of Service, and breaking them can lead to the actions described in Section 11. Our values:

• ✦Authenticity: real people, honestly presented.
• ✦Respect: kindness toward every background and perspective.
• ✦Safety: physical and emotional wellbeing come first.
• ✦Privacy: you control what you share, and you respect others' choices.
• ✦Community: connection built on shared interests and mutual care.

2.What Penny Is

Penny's map and discovery tools are neutral community discovery tools. They show nearby places, events and communities using proximity, categories, interests you give us, and your settings. They do not endorse anyone or anything, and they are not designed to maximize how long you stay in the app. You decide who to talk to, where to go, and when to stop. Alignment percentages are a playful, entertainment-only snapshot. They are not advice and they are not a safety signal. Marker colors and connection lines on the map reflect those percentages. Seeing someone's marker is not an invitation to follow, approach or contact them. Do not use Proximity Signals or Nickels to pressure, follow or repeatedly contact someone. People choose how they appear on the map, including approximate location or Cloak Mode, and you must respect that choice. You are responsible for what you post and for how you treat others. Content on Penny comes from other people, and we do not monitor everything in advance.

3.Be Authentic

Penny works because people are who they say they are.

Do: @@BULLET: use your real name and recent photos of yourself; @@BULLET: be honest about your age and who you are; @@BULLET: answer optional assessments truthfully, or skip them. Remember that other users may see your answers unless a question says they stay private.

Don't: @@BULLET: impersonate anyone, use someone else's photos, or catfish; @@BULLET: misrepresent your age, identity or affiliation; @@BULLET: keep more than one account; @@BULLET: give joke or gaming answers to try to inflate alignment.

Why it matters: accurate profiles make discovery safer and more useful for everyone.

4.Be Respectful

Do: @@BULLET: treat people with courtesy, disagree thoughtfully, and accept "no" or silence as an answer.

Don't: @@BULLET: threaten, bully, stalk or harass anyone; @@BULLET: demean people because of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, serious illness, age or any other protected characteristic; @@BULLET: use slurs, dehumanizing language or hate symbols; @@BULLET: keep contacting someone who has said stop or has blocked you; @@BULLET: mock someone's interests, answers or values.

Example violations: repeated unwanted messages after a block; posting a screenshot of someone's answers to ridicule them; calling a group of people subhuman.

5.Be Safe

Penny helps you meet people and go places in real life. That carries real risk, and Penny does not screen or supervise users, venues or events.

Do: @@BULLET: meet in public places the first few times; @@BULLET: tell a friend where you are going and who you are meeting; @@BULLET: trust your instincts and leave if something feels off; @@BULLET: report concerning behavior.

Don't: @@BULLET: share your home address, workplace or other private locations; @@BULLET: send money or financial information to people you have not met; @@BULLET: pressure anyone to meet, or to share photos or personal details; @@BULLET: request or share intimate images.

If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.

6.Respect Privacy and Others' Answers

Do: @@BULLET: honor other people's privacy settings, keep private conversations private, and ask before sharing anything about someone else.

Don't: @@BULLET: share another person's private information, such as an address, phone number or workplace (doxxing); @@BULLET: post photos or videos of others without permission, or record people without their awareness; @@BULLET: share or track someone's real-time location without their knowledge, or try to work out where someone is who has chosen approximate location or Cloak Mode; @@BULLET: screenshot and post someone's answers, messages or profile to mock or expose them; @@BULLET: use what you learn on Penny to follow or find someone outside Penny after they have blocked you; @@BULLET: share intimate images of anyone without consent.

Why it matters: people share things on Penny to connect, not to be exposed.

7.Keep Penny Fair

Penny's discovery and safety tools depend on accurate location and real people.

Don't: @@BULLET: use GPS-spoofing tools, VPNs, proxies or emulators to misrepresent where you are; @@BULLET: scrape, crawl or collect data about users, venues, events or communities, or use bots, scripts or other automation; @@BULLET: try to bypass limits, security or access controls; @@BULLET: spam, run scams or send unsolicited promotions, including by misusing Broadcasts or group chats; @@BULLET: abuse the Referral Program: send bulk or automated invitations, create fake or duplicate accounts to farm referrals, use virtual phone numbers, buy, sell or trade referral codes, make earnings claims, or promote Penny for pay without saying so. Referral abuse can cost you your commissions and Founding Member status, as the Referral Program Terms explain; @@BULLET: sell, rent or transfer your account; @@BULLET: create new accounts to get around a suspension or ban.

What happens: where we detect or reasonably suspect these behaviors, we may restrict or suspend the account, with or without prior notice. Repeated or serious violations can lead to a permanent ban, including a device-identifier and phone-number ban. See Section 11 and our Terms of Service.

8.Content We Do Not Allow

These rules apply to all User Content, including profiles, Penny Drops, posts, event and community content, Dimes messages, Broadcasts and any other input.

• ✦Child safety: any sexual or exploitative content involving anyone under 18, and any sexual or grooming contact with a minor. We remove it, ban the account and report to the authorities.
• ✦Violence and threats: threats, incitement, glorifying violence, or content that promotes terrorism or violent extremism.
• ✦Sexual content: pornography, sexually explicit content, sexual solicitation, and non-consensual intimate images.
• ✦Self-harm: content that encourages or gives instructions for suicide, self-harm or eating disorders.
• ✦Hate and harassment: as described in Section 4.
• ✦Illegal activity: selling or promoting illegal drugs, weapons, stolen goods, human trafficking, or other unlawful goods or services.
• ✦Fraud and deception: scams, fake events or venues, phishing, and misleading impersonation.
• ✦Dangerous misinformation: content likely to cause imminent physical harm.
• ✦Intellectual property: content that infringes others' rights.

We may remove content, or limit who sees it, even if it is not on this list, when it creates a risk of harm.

Paid communities, sponsorships and donations — everything in these Guidelines applies to paid and sponsored content too. In addition:

• ✦Paying, or being paid, does not exempt anyone from these rules, and paid communities are moderated like any other.
• ✦Earning features may not be used to reward harassment, hate or any other violation.
• ✦Creators must describe what members get honestly and deliver it.
• ✦Do not mislead people about prices, benefits, events or where donations go.
• ✦Do not pressure members to pay outside Penny, or use Penny to route around its payment tools.
• ✦Sponsored events and placements must be accurate and must not be disguised as organic content. We label sponsored content, and you may not remove or hide the label.
• ✦Fundraising must be real. Fake causes, fake charities and misleading donation requests are fraud, and we remove them.

9.Age Requirement and Child Safety

Penny is for adults. You must be 18 or older to use Penny. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we remove it. Parents and guardians who believe a child has created an account can email support@explorepenny.com. We escalate any safety concern involving a minor immediately and, where the law requires, to the authorities. Adults must never contact a minor for any sexual, exploitative or inappropriate purpose. We ban these accounts permanently and report them.

10.Reporting, Blocking and Review

• ✦Report: Use the Report button on any profile, message thread, post, event or community. Reports can be anonymous toward the person reported. You can also email support@explorepenny.com.
• ✦Block: Blocking stops the other person from contacting you and hides you from each other.
• ✦Mute: Mute hides someone's content from you without telling them.

How quickly we respond. We review reports as quickly as we can. We aim to review standard reports within 72 hours. Reports of immediate danger, or of safety violations involving minors, are escalated right away. Because response times depend on report volume, these are targets rather than guarantees.

What we do with reports. We may remove content, limit visibility, or take any step in Section 11. We do not always tell the reporter what action we took.

11.Enforcement

We use automated tools and human review, and we respond in proportion to severity and history. These rules match Section 6 of our Terms of Service.

We may skip steps for serious violations or where safety requires it.

12.Appeals

If you think we made a mistake, email support@explorepenny.com within 30 days with the subject line "Appeal" and a short explanation. A person who was not involved in the original decision reviews it. Our decision on appeal is final, subject to the dispute-resolution terms in our Terms of Service.

13.Crisis Resources and Contact

If someone is in immediate danger, call 911 or your local emergency number.

• ✦988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988.
• ✦Crisis Text Line: text HOME to 741741.
• ✦National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-7233.
• ✦RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-800-656-4673.
• ✦The Trevor Project (LGBTQ+ youth): 1-866-488-7386.

Penny is not an emergency or crisis service. The Emergency Contact feature is for people who choose it. Do not add someone as an emergency contact without their permission, and do not use it to monitor or track another person.

Questions, reports or appeals: support@explorepenny.com.

Please also read our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

Penny App Inc. · explorepenny.com