Safety Standards & Dating Safety Notice

1. Treat New Contacts as Strangers

Use caution with anyone you have not independently come to know and trust. A profile, photograph, verification indicator, message history, or claim about employment, religion, family, wealth, education, immigration status, or intentions is not a guarantee that the claim is true.

2. Protect Identifying Information

Avoid placing highly identifying information in your public profile or earliest communications. Consider withholding your home address, personal email, private phone number, exact workplace, financial account information, government identification numbers, passwords, security codes, and other sensitive information until you have a legitimate reason to disclose it.

3. Never Send Money Because of a Dating Story

Be extremely cautious if someone asks for money, cryptocurrency, gift cards, bank transfers, investments, loans, emergency expenses, travel money, visa fees, medical expenses, customs charges, or financial credentials. Romance scammers frequently manufacture urgency and emotional pressure. Report suspicious requests.

4. First Meetings

• Consider meeting in a populated public place.
• Tell a trusted person where you are going and whom you are meeting.
• Consider arranging your own transportation and maintaining control of your return trip.
• Keep access to a charged phone.
• Do not allow pressure, politeness, money already spent, or travel distance to prevent you from leaving if you feel unsafe.
• If there is an immediate threat or emergency, contact the appropriate local emergency service rather than relying on ZOOJ.

5. Sexual Safety and Consent

Consent must be voluntary and may be withdrawn. ZOOJ prohibits coercion, sexual violence, exploitation, non-consensual intimate content, and sexual conduct involving minors. Do not use ZOOJ to pressure another person into sexual activity.

6. Harassment, Stalking, Threats, and Abuse

Do not threaten, intimidate, repeatedly contact someone who has clearly asked you to stop, follow or monitor another person, publish private information, blackmail, extort, or retaliate against a reporter. Serious conduct may result in immediate permanent termination and, where appropriate and lawful, preservation of evidence or referral to authorities.

7. Fraud and False Identity

Do not impersonate another person, use stolen photographs, create deceptive identities, falsify material profile information for fraudulent purposes, or operate romance, investment, immigration, employment, or financial scams. ZOOJ may permanently ban accounts associated with fraud and may take measures required by applicable law to warn affected members.

8. Moving Communication Off ZOOJ

A request to move quickly to another messaging service can reduce ZOOJ’s ability to investigate communications occurring elsewhere. Use independent judgment before moving a conversation off-platform, and preserve evidence yourself if you receive threats or fraudulent requests outside ZOOJ.

9. Blocking and Reporting

Use available Block and Report features when appropriate. Blocking is not a substitute for contacting emergency services or law enforcement when you face an immediate danger. Do not submit knowingly false reports.

10. Technical and Account Safety

Use a unique password, protect authentication information, and do not give another member access to your account. ZOOJ prohibits phishing, malicious links, malware, attempts to steal credentials, SQL injection, XSS, automated attacks, scraping, and attempts to bypass security controls.

11. Background and Identity Checks

Do not assume ZOOJ has conducted a background check unless the service expressly states that a specific check was completed. Even a check or verification cannot guarantee a person’s future behavior or reveal every relevant fact.

12. New York Safety Awareness Notice

For members to whom New York internet-dating safety requirements apply, these standards are intended to provide clear safety-awareness information. The core principle is that caution remains necessary when communicating with a stranger who wants to meet you. Protect identifying information, stop communicating with suspicious members, and report concerns through the service.

13. Enforcement

Violating these standards may lead to content removal, restrictions, suspension, or permanent termination under the User Agreement. Serious safety, fraud, or security violations may result in immediate action without prior warning to the extent permitted by law.