Terms of use

Last updated 5 September 2026

This is the agreement between you and Ocala Go. It says what you may do here, what we may do, and — the part most agreements bury — what we are not promising. It is written to be read, so it is plainer and shorter than it could be. Where a clause exists only because a lawyer would insist, it says so.

The short version

• Use Ocala Go for what it is for: a place for people in Marion County to talk to their neighbors.
• What you post stays yours. You give us permission to show it in the app, and nothing more.
• We can remove content and suspend accounts under the Community Guidelines.
• We do not vet your neighbors. Anyone can sign up. Use the judgement you would use anywhere else.
• Nothing in the app is bought or sold inside the app. Business listings are arranged with us directly.
• Points and streaks are recognition. They are not money, cannot be exchanged for anything, and can be changed or ended.

Who we are, and what this covers

Ocala Go is an independent community app for Ocala and Marion County, Florida, operated from Ocala. These terms cover the app, this website, and anything else we run under the Ocala Go name.

By using Ocala Go you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, the remedy is simple and immediate: stop using it, and delete your account if you made one.

Who may use it

You must be 13 or older. If you are under 18, you should have a parent or guardian's permission.

You may not use Ocala Go if we have previously suspended your account, unless we have told you otherwise.

Your account

You can use most of the app without an account. If you make one:

• Keep your sign-in to yourself. What happens under your account is treated as done by you.
• Be honest about who you are. You do not have to use your real name in public — your display name can be anything reasonable — but do not impersonate somebody else, and do not present yourself as a business you are not.
• One account per person. Extra accounts made to get around a suspension, or to make one person look like several, will be removed.

Tell us at support@ocalago.com if you think somebody else is using your account.

What you post

It stays yours

You keep every right you have in what you write and photograph. We do not claim ownership, we will not sell it, and we will not license it to anybody else.

What you give us is narrow and practical: permission to store your content, and to show it to other people using Ocala Go, so that the app can do the one thing it exists to do. That permission lasts as long as the content is up. Delete a post and it ends, other than for backup copies that expire on their own and for anything the Privacy Policy says survives deletion, which is a short and specific list.

It has to be yours to post

Post your own words and your own photographs, or things you have the right to share. Do not post other people's work as your own.

Rules for content are in the Guidelines

What is and is not allowed lives in the Community Guidelines, which are part of these terms. They are separate because they are the document people actually need to read, and because they change more often than this one does.

In short: nothing illegal, nothing that harasses or threatens a real person, nothing hateful, no scams, no spam, and no adult content. Ocala Go is a small town's front porch, not an anonymous board.

What we may do about content

We can remove content and suspend or close accounts when the Guidelines are broken. We aim to look at reports within 24 hours.

Two things we will be straight about:

• We do not read everything before it goes up. Posts and comments appear immediately and are reviewed when somebody reports them. That is a deliberate choice — a queue between you and your neighbors would make the app useless for the things it is best at — and the trade-off is that you will sometimes see something before we do. Report it.
• Business listings are the exception and are approved before they appear, because a listing is something we are paid to publish and it puts a phone number in front of your neighbours.
• Events go up straight away, like anything else you post. The person who posted an event can correct it or take it down, and so can we. Holding an event in a queue does not make it truer — it just means a Tuesday post about a Wednesday event turns up on Thursday.

We keep a record of moderation decisions so we can be consistent about repeat problems. If we remove something of yours or suspend you and you think we got it wrong, write to support@ocalago.com and a person will look again.

Things in the app that are information, not promises

Several parts of Ocala Go describe the real world. We take care with all of them and we guarantee none of them.

• Events are submitted by neighbors and by us, and they appear straight away — nobody checks an event before you see it. We do not verify that an event will happen, or happen as described, and we never did. Times change, things get cancelled, and the person who posted it can change it after you have read it. Check with whoever is running it before you drive out.
• Places — springs, parks, trails, campgrounds, boat ramps and the rest — are a curated list with coordinates we checked. Hours, fees, access, closures and conditions change without telling us. Check with whoever runs the place before you drive out.
• Directions hand off to Apple Maps or Google Maps. What happens there is between you and them.
• The forecast comes from the National Weather Service, for Ocala, not for wherever you are. It is theirs, not ours.
• Distances are straight-line distances calculated on your phone. They are not drive times and do not know about roads.
• The business directory lists name, category, area and a phone number. It carries no ratings and no review counts, on purpose. A listing is not a recommendation and does not mean we have vetted anybody.

Meeting your neighbors

Business listings

Businesses can pay for a listing in the directory. Three things about that arrangement belong here rather than in a sales conversation:

• Nothing is sold inside the app. There is no purchase screen and no in-app payment. Listings are arranged with us directly, and the terms of any particular listing are whatever we agree in writing with that business.
• We report taps, and we call them taps. When we tell a business how its listing performed, we are reporting how many people tapped the Call button and when. A phone cannot tell us that a call connected, so we never describe a tap as a call, and we always give the timestamps alongside the count so the business can check them against its own phone records.
• Paying does not buy position or protection. There is no ranking to buy, and a paid listing is held to the Guidelines like everything else.

Questions to a business

You can ask a listed business a question from its page. Those threads are private, they are not reviews, and — until businesses can sign in for themselves — a person at Ocala Go reads your question and types the answer back. The app says so where you ask, and the Privacy Policy explains it in full. Do not send anything through it you would not want a person at Ocala Go to read.

Porch Light: streaks, points and patches

Taking part earns a streak, a score, a level and patches.

They are recognition and nothing else. They are not money, not credit, and not property. They have no cash value, cannot be bought, sold, transferred or exchanged for anything, and buy no feature, discount or priority in the app. There is nothing to spend them on because there is nothing they can be spent on.

We may change how points are earned, adjust the levels, correct a score that was earned by gaming the system, or end the whole thing. If we ever make points buy something, we will change these terms and the Privacy Policy before we do it, not after.

Things you may not do

• Break the law, or use Ocala Go to help somebody else break it.
• Scrape, bulk-download or systematically copy other people's content or the directory.
• Try to get at data that is not yours, or at accounts that are not yours.
• Interfere with the service, or with anybody else's use of it.
• Automate accounts, votes, likes, RSVPs or points.
• Use Ocala Go to advertise without arranging it with us.

Our own material

The Ocala Go name, the horseshoe mark, the design of the app and this site, and the code behind them are ours. Using the app does not give you a right to them. Everything else you see belongs to the person who posted it.

The app itself

Ocala Go is early software from a very small operation, and we would rather say so here than let you find out. We may change features, take them away, or stop the service. If we shut it down for good, we will give whatever notice we reasonably can.

The app is provided as it is, without any warranty — express or implied — including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not promise it will be available, accurate, uninterrupted, or free of errors.

Limits on what we owe you

To the fullest extent the law allows, Ocala Go is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or the acts of other people using the app. Where liability cannot be excluded, it is limited to the greater of the amount you have paid us in the last twelve months, or one hundred US dollars.

Some states do not allow some of these exclusions, and where that is so they do not apply to you. Nothing here limits liability for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

If something you do on Ocala Go causes a claim against us — content you post, a law you break, a term here you ignore — you agree to cover our reasonable costs in dealing with it.

Ending it

You can stop at any time, and delete your account in the app under Profile → Your data → Delete account. What that removes, and the short list of what survives it, is set out in the Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms or the Guidelines. Where it is reasonable to do so, we will say why.

If we disagree

These terms are governed by the law of the State of Florida, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Disputes belong to the state or federal courts sitting in Marion County, Florida, and we each agree to those courts.

There is no arbitration clause and no class-action waiver in this agreement. That is deliberate. If we ever add one, we will tell you before it takes effect rather than changing this page quietly.

Before any of that: write to support@ocalago.com. Nearly everything is a misunderstanding that a person can fix.

Apple

Because Ocala Go is distributed through the App Store, a few things have to be said explicitly:

• This agreement is between you and Ocala Go. Apple is not a party to it.
• Apple has no obligation to support or maintain the app.
• If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may tell Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price if there was one. Beyond that, Apple has no warranty obligation for the app.
• Apple is not responsible for any claim about the app — product liability, a failure to meet a legal requirement, or a claim under consumer protection or privacy law.
• If somebody claims the app infringes their intellectual property, Ocala Go, not Apple, is responsible for dealing with it.
• You confirm you are not in a country subject to a US embargo or designated as supporting terrorism, and that you are not on any US list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of this agreement and may enforce it against you.

The rest

• These terms, the Community Guidelines and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement between us.
• If a court finds one part unenforceable, the rest stands.
• Not enforcing something once does not mean giving it up.
• You cannot transfer this agreement. We can, if the app changes hands, and we will say so on this page if it does.

Changes to these terms

If we change these terms we will change the date at the top, and for anything that materially affects you we will say so in the app rather than relying on you to re-read this page. Carrying on using Ocala Go after a change means you accept it. If you do not, delete your account.

Contact

support@ocalago.com
Ocala Go · Ocala, Florida