Cheese — Terms of Service
Document version: terms-1.3
Effective date:
Publisher: MYSTERY BOX FOR DEVELOPMENT AND INNOVATION - L.L.C - S.P.C, registered in the United Arab Emirates ("we", "us", "our").
Contact: info@mysterybox.art
These Terms are the agreement between you and us about the Cheese app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. They sit alongside Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement, which also applies. Where the two disagree on something Apple's agreement covers, Apple's wins.
You have to accept these Terms in the app before Cheese will connect. If you don't want to accept them, please don't use the app.
The short version
This summary is here to save you time. The numbered sections underneath are the part that actually binds us both.
- Cheese sends your traffic through a worldwide network of relays run by volunteers, so that the sites you visit see the network instead of you. We don't own that network, and we don't run any part of it.
- We can't promise you'll always get connected, that it will be quick, or that you'll be anonymous. Anonymity depends much more on what you do than on what we do.
- Cheese costs money once. Apple takes the payment, and Apple handles refunds.
- Obeying the law where you are is your job. Some countries restrict tools like this one.
- We don't collect anything about you. The Privacy Policy goes through that in detail.
1. What Cheese is
1.1 Cheese sets up a VPN connection on your device using Apple's Network Extension framework, then routes your device's TCP traffic and name lookups, apart from the exceptions in 3.4 and 3.5, through a global relay network operated by independent volunteers and organisations. We don't own, operate, fund, or control that network, and we have no relationship with the people who run it.
1.2 Cheese is a client, and that's all it is. We run no servers that carry your traffic. There are no accounts. There is no service for us to suspend, and nothing for us to cut off. If our company disappeared tomorrow, the copy of Cheese on your device would keep working for as long as the network and your operating system allowed.
1.3 Cheese is not built for people facing a serious, targeted threat. It hasn't been independently audited or certified, and it isn't designed to protect someone from a well-resourced adversary who is specifically interested in them. If your safety depends on not being identified, please use tools built and audited for that, and talk to people qualified to advise you.
2. What we don't promise
2.1 Getting connected. Cheese tries several different ways of connecting, one after another, so that it can get through on difficult networks. We can't guarantee it will succeed. Some networks, and some national filtering systems, can block every method the app has.
2.2 Speed. Your traffic passes through several volunteer-run relays on its way out. It is noticeably slower and laggier than a direct connection, and it is not suitable for high-definition video, large downloads, or anything that needs low latency.
2.3 Anonymity. We don't guarantee anonymity, and nobody honestly could. What you do decides most of it: signing into accounts, granting permissions, allowing location access, leaving identifying browser features on, or using unencrypted connections can give you away no matter what Cheese is doing.
2.4 Being let in. Websites and services may block, slow down, or throw extra challenges at connections that arrive from this kind of network. That's their choice. We can't change it, and we can't get you around it.
3. Limits you're accepting
By using Cheese you're acknowledging all of the following:
3.1 No UDP. The network carries TCP only. While you're connected, anything that relies on UDP or QUIC will fail or fall back — that means live voice and video calls, most online games, screen casting, and peer-to-peer protocols. We may look for a way around this in a future version, but nothing here is a promise to deliver one.
3.2 The last hop can see unencrypted traffic. Whoever runs the final relay can read anything leaving it that isn't already encrypted. Use HTTPS, and encrypted protocols generally, for anything you'd mind a stranger reading.
3.3 Choosing where you come out. You can ask Cheese to exit in a particular country. Whether that works depends on which volunteers happen to be running relays there at that moment. Choosing a country doesn't give you a fixed IP address: the relay you come out of changes from time to time, between sessions and sometimes during one, so sites may see a different address and ask you to sign in again.
3.4 What the operating system does. VPN setup, permission prompts, reconnection, and always-on behaviour belong to iOS and macOS. Apple can change any of it in an update, and we can't anticipate or prevent that. Apple's operating systems also send a small amount of their own system traffic outside every VPN, Cheese included.
3.5 Carrier services and devices nearby. On iPhone and iPad, your mobile carrier's own services (Wi-Fi Calling, MMS picture messages, visual voicemail and carrier settings) go directly to your carrier rather than through Cheese, so they keep working. Everything else, including push notifications and traffic to devices connected directly to yours, stays inside the private route. That means printers, AirPlay receivers, network drives and other devices on your local network can't be reached while Cheese is connected, and CarPlay, a computer connected by cable, and other accessories connected directly to your device may not work either. Disconnect when you need them.
4. Your side of it
4.1 Staying lawful. Complying with the law that applies to you is entirely your responsibility — including any law where you live, or where you happen to be travelling, that restricts, licenses, or bans VPNs, proxies, or anonymity tools. Please satisfy yourself that using Cheese is lawful where you are.
4.2 Availability. Cheese is available through the App Store in selected countries and regions. Only use it where doing so is lawful.
4.3 What you must not do. Don't use Cheese to commit, attempt, help, or hide any unlawful act; to harm, harass, defraud, or endanger anyone; to spread malware; to infringe someone's intellectual property; or to get past security controls you have no right to get past.
4.4 Everyone else's terms. Connecting through Cheese doesn't suspend the terms of the sites and services you visit. Those still apply to you.
4.5 Export and sanctions. You confirm that you aren't located in, ordinarily resident in, or acting for a country or party under applicable export-control or sanctions programmes, and that you won't use Cheese in breach of them.
4.6 Age. You need to be old enough to enter a binding contract where you live, and at least the minimum age of the App Store age rating on Cheese's product page.
5. Paying for it
5.1 Cheese is a single purchase. No subscription, no recurring charge, no account, and nothing locked behind a second payment in this version — everything the app does, it does for everyone who bought it.
5.2 Every purchase goes through Apple. Your payment details never reach us; we never see them.
5.3 Apple handles refunds, under Apple's policies. We can't grant, refuse, or influence an App Store refund. You can ask for one at reportaproblem.apple.com.
5.4 We might add optional paid features later. If we do, we'll tell you what they are before you pay for them, and they will never switch off something you've already bought.
6. Open-source components
Cheese is built on open-source software released under a number of licences, including MIT, Apache-2.0, BSD, ISC and MPL-2.0. The licence texts and copyright notices for every open-source component bundled in Cheese are in the app, under About → Open-source licences (on a Mac, in Cheese's Settings window). Nothing in these Terms limits or replaces your rights under those licences for those components.
7. What belongs to us
The Cheese name, the cheese-wheel mark, the app icon, the artwork, and our own source code are ours. These Terms give you the licence to use the app that Apple's agreement gives you, and nothing beyond that. They don't give you any right to our brand.
8. No warranty
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, THE APP IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITH NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, express, implied, or statutory — including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, security, quiet enjoyment, or that the app will be uninterrupted, error-free, anonymous, or able to get through any particular network restriction.
9. Limits on our liability
9.1 TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA, PRIVACY, ANONYMITY, PROFITS, REVENUE, OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE APP — even if we were told such a loss was possible.
9.2 OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR EVERY CLAIM RELATING TO THE APP WILL NOT EXCEED WHAT YOU ACTUALLY PAID FOR IT.
9.3 Nothing here excludes or limits liability that can't lawfully be excluded or limited — including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud.
10. Indemnity
You'll cover us against any claim, demand, loss, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) that arises from your misusing the app, breaking these Terms, or breaking any law or anyone else's rights.
11. Changes to these Terms
11.1 We may update these Terms. Every version has a document version identifier and an effective date at the top of this page.
11.2 When a change is material, the app will show you the updated Terms and ask you to accept them again before it will connect. Smaller changes — typos, clarifications, a new contact address — take effect when we publish them.
11.3 Your acceptance is recorded on your device and nowhere else: the version identifier and the date. It never reaches us. Privacy Policy, §2.
12. Ending this agreement
You can stop using Cheese whenever you like by deleting it. On iPhone and iPad, that also removes everything it stored on your device; on a Mac, the Privacy Policy (§2) explains how to remove the folders macOS leaves behind. These Terms end when you stop. Sections 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, and 14 carry on afterwards.
13. Governing law and disputes
13.1 These Terms are governed by the laws of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the applicable federal laws of the United Arab Emirates, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. The courts of Abu Dhabi have jurisdiction.
13.2 None of this takes away a right you have under the consumer-protection law of the country you live in, including any right that law gives you to bring a case in your local courts.
14. Odds and ends
14.1 Severability. If any part of this is unenforceable, it gets narrowed just enough to be enforceable, and everything else stands.
14.2 No waiver. If we don't enforce something straight away, we haven't given it up.
14.3 The whole agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and Apple's agreement are the complete deal between us about the app.
14.4 Assignment. You can't transfer these Terms to someone else. We can transfer them to whoever takes over our business.
14.5 Language. We write these Terms in English and translate them so you can read them in your own language. If a translation ever says something different from the English, the English version is the one that applies, as far as the law where you live allows.
15. Getting in touch
Questions about these Terms: info@mysterybox.art
MYSTERY BOX FOR DEVELOPMENT AND INNOVATION - L.L.C - S.P.C
United Arab Emirates