Mahaleh Terms of Service

Effective date: July 10, 2026

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of Mahaleh (محله) — the apps and website at mahaleh.ca operated by the owner of the Mahaleh platform ("Mahaleh", "we", "us"). the legal entity name, e.g. "operated by [Legal Name / 12345678 Canada Inc.]". -->

By creating an account or using Mahaleh, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use Mahaleh.

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1. What Mahaleh is (and is not)

Mahaleh is a directory and community platform that helps people discover Iranian-owned and Iranian-focused businesses, community posts, marketplace items, and events across Canada, and communicate and transact with them.

Mahaleh is a facilitator only. We provide the venue; we are not:

the merchant, seller, or supplier of any product, service, listing, or event on the platform;
an agent, broker, insurer, or representative of any business, seller, buyer, or organizer;
a party to any transaction between you and a business, seller, or event organizer.

Business listings, reviews, posts, marketplace items, and events are created by users and business owners. We do not own, manufacture, inspect, endorse, or guarantee anything listed on the platform.

2. Eligibility and accounts

You must be at least 13 years old to use Mahaleh, and at least the **age of majority in your province** (18 or 19) to buy, sell, order, or organize events. If you are between 13 and the age of majority you may use Mahaleh only with a parent/guardian's consent.
You may browse as a guest; some features (reviews, chat, posting, ordering) require an account.
You are responsible for your account credentials and for everything done under your account. Provide accurate information and keep it up to date. One account per person.
We may suspend or terminate accounts as described in §17.

3. Community languages and regions

Mahaleh operates in English, French, and Farsi and organizes content by metro region. Content authored by businesses and users appears in whatever language(s) they wrote it; we are not responsible for the accuracy of user-provided translations.

4. Business listings, claims, and verification

Anyone may submit a business listing; business owners may claim a listing. Submitting or claiming a listing is a representation that the information is accurate and that you have the right to submit it.
Some listings are seeded from publicly available sources; they remain unverified until reviewed.
A "Verified" badge means we confirmed certain identity facts at a point in time; it is not an endorsement, guarantee of quality, licence check, or ongoing warranty of anything.
"Sponsored" placements are paid promotions and are always labeled as such.
We may edit, decline, suspend, or remove any listing at our discretion, including for accuracy, legal, or community-standards reasons.

5. Professional services disclaimer

Listings may include professionals (legal, medical, financial, immigration, real estate, etc.). Mahaleh does not provide, and nothing on the platform constitutes, legal, medical, financial, tax, immigration, or other professional advice. Verify credentials and licensing yourself before engaging any professional.

6. Your content (UGC)

"Content" means anything you submit: reviews, ratings, posts, comments, photos, messages, listings, business profiles, and event pages.

You own your content. By submitting it you grant Mahaleh a **non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable, sublicensable licence** to host, store, reproduce, adapt (e.g. resize, format, translate), publish, publicly display, and distribute that content **for the purposes of operating, promoting, and improving the platform**, on all platforms and media. The licence lasts as long as the content is on the platform, plus a reasonable period for backups, caches, and content shared by other users; it ends when the content is deleted, except where retention is legally required or the content was incorporated into other users' threads (e.g. your message in someone's inbox).
You are responsible for your content. You represent that you have all rights to post it and that it is accurate and lawful.
Moderation. We may (but are not obligated to) review, filter, refuse, remove, or restrict any content at any time, with or without notice, if we believe it violates these Terms, the law, or the interests of the community. We may also preserve and disclose content as described in the Privacy Policy.
Reporting and blocking. Every piece of public content and every conversation can be reported in the app; you can block any user, which hides their content and conversations from you. Reports go to a moderation queue reviewed by administrators.

7. Prohibited content and conduct

You may not post or do any of the following:

Illegal content or activity of any kind; content that infringes copyright, trademark, privacy, or other rights.
Hate speech, harassment, threats, or discrimination — including on the basis of ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or political opinion.
Sexually explicit content; content that sexualizes or endangers minors (reported to authorities).
Fraud, scams, phishing, pyramid schemes, deceptive listings, counterfeit goods.
Prohibited items: weapons, illegal drugs, stolen goods, recalled products, live animals where prohibited, or anything whose sale is restricted by Canadian law.
Spam, bulk messaging, scraping, fake accounts, manipulation of ratings or metrics.
Malware, attempts to probe or breach security, reverse engineering of the apps, or interference with the platform or other users.
Impersonating any person, business, or Mahaleh staff.
Using the platform to collect other users' personal information.

8. Reviews integrity

Reviews are the backbone of trust on Mahaleh:

Write reviews only about genuine, first-hand experiences. One review per user per business.
No fake, paid, incentivized, or coerced reviews; no reviewing your own business or your competitors; no review swaps.
Businesses may reply to reviews but may not retaliate against, harass, or attempt to bribe reviewers, and may not condition service on removing or changing a review.
We may remove reviews that violate these rules and may suspend accounts (user or business) that manipulate ratings.

9. Chat

Chat exists so you can talk to businesses and sellers. Be respectful; no spam or harassment. Messages are private between participants but are not end-to-end encrypted and may be reviewed by us when reported or where legally required (see Privacy Policy). Never send payment outside agreed channels to someone you don't trust — see §10.

10. Marketplace (peer-to-peer items)

Marketplace transactions are solely between the buyer and the seller. Mahaleh is not a party to the transaction, does not take possession of items, does not verify items or sellers, and provides no escrow, warranty, or buyer/seller protection.
Sellers are responsible for the accuracy and legality of their listings, and for their own tax obligations. Buyers are responsible for inspecting items before paying.
Safety: meet in public places, inspect before paying, and be cautious with advance payments, e-transfers to strangers, and deals that look too good to be true.
Any dispute about a marketplace transaction is between the buyer and the seller.

11. Orders from businesses

When you order products or services from a business through Mahaleh, your contract is with that business, not with us. The business is responsible for fulfilment, quality, safety, refunds, returns, and applicable taxes. We display order status as reported by the parties but do not guarantee performance by either side.

12. Events and tickets

Events are created by organizers. The organizer — not Mahaleh — is responsible for the event, its accuracy, admission, cancellation, rescheduling, refunds, and safety.
Where ticket purchase links lead off-platform, the transaction is governed by the third-party site's terms. Where Mahaleh issues digital tickets (e.g. free-event QR tickets), the ticket is evidence of registration only; honouring it is the organizer's responsibility.
If an event is cancelled or changed, seek remedies from the organizer.

13. Payments and fees (current and future)

Mahaleh does not currently process payments. When in-app payments launch:

Payments will be processed by Stripe; the business or seller is the merchant of record for their sales — the transaction remains between buyer and seller, with Mahaleh acting as a facilitator that collects a platform fee.
Sellers will complete Stripe's onboarding and are responsible for the accuracy of their payout information and for their own GST/HST and income-tax obligations.
Platform fees, if any, will be disclosed before you incur them. Refunds remain a matter between buyer and seller; Mahaleh may, at its discretion, facilitate or force a refund through the payment processor but has no obligation to do so.
These Terms will be updated with a payments schedule before payments go live.

14. Disclaimer of warranties

THE PLATFORM AND ALL CONTENT ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, OR UNINTERRUPTED AVAILABILITY, TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. WE DO NOT WARRANT THE CONDUCT OF ANY USER, BUSINESS, SELLER, OR ORGANIZER, OR THE ACCURACY OF ANY LISTING, REVIEW, OR OTHER CONTENT. Some jurisdictions (including Quebec, under consumer-protection legislation) do not allow certain warranty exclusions; in those jurisdictions the exclusions apply only to the extent permitted.

15. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW:

Mahaleh will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, goodwill, or data, arising from your use of the platform, any transaction or interaction with another user, business, seller, or organizer, or reliance on any content — even if advised of the possibility.
Mahaleh's total aggregate liability for all claims arising out of or relating to the platform is limited to the **greater of (a) the fees you paid to Mahaleh in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) CAD $50**.
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law, including mandatory consumer-protection rights (e.g. under Quebec's *Consumer Protection Act*) or liability for our own intentional or gross fault where such exclusion is prohibited.

16. Indemnification

You will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Mahaleh and its owner, employees, and agents from any claim, demand, loss, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising from: (a) content you submit; (b) your use of the platform; (c) your transactions or disputes with other users, businesses, sellers, or organizers; (d) your violation of these Terms or of any law or third-party right. This section does not apply to consumers in jurisdictions where such indemnities are unenforceable, to the extent of that unenforceability.

17. Suspension and termination

By you: stop using the platform and/or delete your account at any time.
By us: we may suspend or terminate your access, remove content, or decline service, with or without notice, if you violate these Terms, create risk or legal exposure for Mahaleh or other users, or if we discontinue the platform. Where reasonable, we'll give notice and a chance to export your content.
Sections that by their nature survive (licences already exercised, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnities, disputes) survive termination.

18. Governing law and disputes

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These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein. Subject to the paragraph below, disputes will be resolved in the courts of Ontario, and you attorn to their jurisdiction.

Consumer carve-out: if you are a consumer, nothing in this section deprives you of the protection of mandatory consumer-protection rules of your province of residence or of the right to bring proceedings in your local courts where the law gives you that right. In particular, for Quebec consumers, Quebec's Consumer Protection Act prohibits clauses imposing mandatory arbitration or a foreign forum — these Terms do not impose either.

Before starting any formal proceeding, please contact ircanbusinesshub.support@gmail.com — most issues can be resolved informally.

19. Intellectual property

The Mahaleh name, wordmarks (Mahaleh / محله), logo, design, and software are our property or that of our licensors. You may not use them without written permission. Feedback and suggestions you send us may be used without obligation to you.

20. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the platform evolves. We will post the updated Terms at mahaleh.ca/terms with a new effective date, and for material changes we will give reasonable advance notice in the app or by email. Continued use after the effective date means you accept the updated Terms; if you don't, stop using the platform and delete your account.

21. General

Entire agreement: these Terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between you and Mahaleh about the platform.
Severability: if any provision is unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.
No waiver: our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver.
Assignment: you may not assign these Terms; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale.
App stores: your use of the iOS or Android app is also subject to the applicable app store's terms; Apple and Google are not parties to these Terms and have no obligations regarding the platform.
Language: these Terms are drafted in English and will be available in French; the parties confirm their wish that the English version governs where the law permits. *Les parties confirment leur volonté que la version anglaise prévale dans la mesure permise par la loi.*

22. Contact

Mahaleh — ircanbusinesshub.support@gmail.com — mahaleh.ca