OwnTunnel — Terms of Use
1. What this agreement is
These terms are between you and CATALUMIA S.L., a company registered in Spain (Calle Calabria 149, ent 1ª, 08015 Barcelona, Spain, tax ID Y5575476Z), which publishes the OwnTunnel app. Contact: [email protected].
By installing or using OwnTunnel you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, delete the app.
The app is distributed through the Apple App Store and through Google Play, so the terms of the store you downloaded it from apply in addition to these. Where Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement conflicts with these terms, Apple's prevails for the matters it covers, in respect of the iOS and macOS apps.
2. What OwnTunnel is — and what it is not
OwnTunnel is a tool for running your own VPN server. It is not a VPN service.
The difference matters more than any other sentence in this document:
- We do not operate VPN servers, and we run no infrastructure that your traffic could pass through. What we do run is this website and an e-mail address, neither of which is on the path your traffic takes. There is nothing to subscribe to.
- On iOS and macOS, the app connects to a WireGuard server you already run or control. You supply its configuration — pasted as text, or scanned from a QR code on iPhone — and that is the whole of it: the app opens no account, asks for no credentials, creates nothing and makes no request of its own.
- On Android, the app can do that too, and it can additionally create a WireGuard server inside your own account at a third-party cloud provider (currently Hetzner), using an API token you give it.
- Your traffic goes from your device to that server. It never passes through infrastructure we control, because we operate none on that path.
- We therefore cannot guarantee uptime, speed, bandwidth, availability in any country, or that a connection can be made at all. Those depend on your device, your network, your provider and your server — none of which are ours.
3. The server is yours
Whichever platform you are on, the server at the far end of the tunnel is yours and not ours. On iOS and macOS it is a server you already had. On Android, if you used the setup wizard, it is one rented in your name inside your own cloud account.
The points below describe a server the app created for you, so the figures and the clean-up advice are about the Android wizard. The ownership and the responsibility they describe are no different for a server you set up yourself.
- You pay for it. Charges are billed by your cloud provider directly to you. At the time of writing, a Hetzner server of the size the wizard creates costs roughly €5.50 a month in Europe and roughly €17.50 a month in the United States; the location you choose decides which. Included traffic differs just as sharply: the European locations come with 22 TB a month, while the American ones include around 1.1 TB and Singapore as little as 0.5 TB, with every further terabyte charged. Those are the provider's prices, quoted before VAT for orientation only, and they may change without notice; the current ones are on Hetzner's price page.
- A server keeps billing until you delete it. Deleting the OwnTunnel app does not delete your server — on either platform. If you stop using OwnTunnel, delete the server in your provider's console.
- You are the account holder and the responsible party. If anything done through that server draws a complaint, a legal request, an abuse report or a law-enforcement enquiry, your cloud provider will address it to you, because it is your account and your server. We are not a party to your contract with the provider and cannot act, answer or intervene on your behalf.
- Your relationship with the cloud provider is your own. Their terms of service and acceptable use policy apply to you directly, and they can suspend or terminate your account under them.
4. Your responsibilities
You agree that you will:
- comply with the laws that apply to you, including any law of your own country restricting the use of VPNs or encryption;
- comply with your cloud provider's terms of service and acceptable use policy;
- keep your device secure — your private key lives on it, and on Android your API token too, and anyone with access to an unlocked device has access to your tunnel;
- delete servers you no longer use, and pay what your provider bills you.
You agree that you will not use OwnTunnel, or a server created with it, to:
- break the law of any jurisdiction that applies to you;
- attack, scan, flood or gain unauthorised access to systems you do not own;
- send spam or distribute malware;
- infringe intellectual property rights;
- harass, threaten or harm anyone, or distribute material that is illegal to distribute.
We have no technical means to monitor or enforce any of this, and we do not want any: enforcement would require exactly the surveillance the product exists to avoid. Enforcement is the province of your cloud provider and the applicable authorities. Saying that plainly is the honest version.
5. API tokens and your cloud account (Android)
The iOS and macOS apps ask for no API token and store none. They create no servers, so there is nothing for a token to do there. If you used an iOS or macOS version up to 1.1.1, which could, version 1.2.0 erases at its first launch the token that version left on your device, together with its record of the servers that version had started.
The rest of this section is about Android. There, the setup wizard asks for an API token so it can create one server in your account. That token is stored only on your device and sent only to your provider (see the Privacy Policy).
- Give the app a token scoped to what it needs — a Read/Write token in a project used only for OwnTunnel is the sensible arrangement. A token is a key to your cloud account, and the app cannot limit what a token you give it is allowed to do.
- Revoke the token in your provider's console whenever you like. The app also erases it when you choose "Forget this configuration".
- We are not responsible for charges, deletions or changes made in your cloud account with a token you supplied, whether by the app, by you, or by anyone else who obtains it.
6. Age
You must be old enough to enter into a binding contract where you live, and — if you use the Android wizard — to hold an account with your cloud provider; typically 18. If you are younger, use the app only with the consent and under the supervision of a parent or guardian who accepts these terms on your behalf.
7. No warranty
OwnTunnel is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including without limitation any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, uninterrupted operation, or that the software is free of defects.
In particular, and without limiting the above, we do not warrant:
- that the app will connect, stay connected, or reach any given speed;
- that a server will be created successfully by the Android wizard, or that your provider will have capacity in the location you choose;
- that using the app will conceal your identity, defeat traffic analysis, or evade any particular filtering, censorship or detection system. A VPN moves the point where your traffic leaves the network; it is not anonymity, and it is not protection from an adversary who can watch both ends.
Nothing here excludes liability that cannot be excluded by law. Consumers in the European Union and elsewhere have statutory rights that these terms do not affect.
8. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, CATALUMIA S.L. is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profit, revenue or goodwill, arising out of or in connection with your use of OwnTunnel.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with the app is limited to the amount you paid us for it, which is zero. The app is free of charge and we receive no payment from you for it.
This limitation does not apply to liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or to any other liability that cannot lawfully be limited.
9. Cloud provider referral links
The iOS and macOS apps accept no provider credentials and contain no provider account sign-up, referral, billing or purchasing links. Our website or a future Android build may offer a provider referral link, subject to that platform's rules. Whenever we offer one, we disclose it beside the link and offer an equivalent plain link that earns us nothing. Your choice changes nothing about the app, server or these terms.
We are not the provider's agent and make no promises on their behalf. Any provider credit and its conditions are the provider's to give and to define.
10. Donations
OwnTunnel is free and contains no in-app purchases. If a donation page exists on our website, a donation is voluntary, buys nothing, unlocks nothing, and gives you no additional rights, warranty or support entitlement.
11. Open source
The OwnTunnel source code will be published under the MIT licence; that licence text is the LICENSE file in the repository. The repository is not open to the public yet, so there is no address to give here today — when it opens, this section will name it. Where that licence grants you rights in the source code, it governs; these terms govern your use of the compiled app distributed through the App Store and Google Play.
OwnTunnel includes third-party components under their own licences, notably WireGuardKit on iOS and macOS and WireGuard's own Android library on Android, both from the WireGuard project (MIT). "WireGuard" is a registered trademark of Jason A. Donenfeld; OwnTunnel is an independent project and is not endorsed by or affiliated with the WireGuard project, Hetzner, DigitalOcean, Cloudflare or Apple.
12. Changes and termination
We may update the app and these terms. Changed terms take effect when published at https://owntunnel.app/terms with a new effective date; continuing to use the app after that means you accept them.
You may stop using OwnTunnel at any time by deleting the app — and, if the Android wizard created one for you, by deleting your server in your provider's console.
13. Governing law
These terms are governed by Spanish law, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. The courts of Spain have jurisdiction, except that if you are a consumer resident in the European Union you may also bring proceedings in the courts of your country of residence, and the mandatory consumer protection law of that country continues to apply to you.
14. Contact
[email protected] — CATALUMIA S.L., Spain.
These terms were written to describe how the software actually behaves. They are not legal advice, and review by a qualified lawyer is recommended before publication.