Terms of Use

What Kwento is

Kwento is a private storybook on the web that keeps one family’s stories. It is not a product you can sign up for. There is no public sign-up, no app to install, and no account. A family member runs it by hand for that family.

Reading it requires a password that is shared privately within the family. There are no individual logins, no username to remember, and no profile to fill in. Please treat the password the way you would treat a house key, and do not pass it on outside the family.

Some readers also get a personal link instead of the family password. A personal link is a URL sent directly to that person. Tapping it sets a small cookie in their browser and brings them to a shelf showing only the books meant for them. The link is a credential, and it works on the book pages themselves, not just on what the shelf chooses to show. It opens that shelf and those books, and nothing else in Kwento. Anyone who receives a forwarded copy of the link can open the same books, so treat it the way you would treat the family password.

How stories get in

Stories arrive the way families already talk. Someone tells a story in a group text, sends a message or a photo, or says it out loud and it gets written down. Nothing is collected automatically. A family member reads what was shared, chooses what belongs in a book, and publishes it.

Because a person does this by hand, sharing something with the family does not mean it will be published, and publishing can be undone. If you would rather something stay out of a book, say so and it stays out.

Your words stay yours

The stories and photos you share remain yours. By sharing them you allow us to keep them and show them inside your family’s private book. That is the only thing we do with them.

We hold ourselves to one rule above all others: the body of a story is what the person actually said or wrote. We do not invent detail, we do not merge two people’s words under one name, and we keep the original spelling, punctuation, and language, because that is the voice. A typo in someone’s message is part of how they talk, so it stays. Titles, headings, and photo captions are the editor’s rather than yours, and they stick to plain fact. A tool may help draft one, but the family member assembling the book decides what it says.

Who can see it

Anyone the family gives the password to, or who holds a personal link, plus us and our hosting provider, who have to be able to reach the files to keep the site running. That is the whole list. The pages ask search engines not to index them, and photos are served only to someone who has already entered the password or tapped a valid personal link, so a photo link on its own opens nothing. Nothing is posted publicly.

Both the family password and a personal link leave a small cookie in your browser. For the family password, the cookie is just a token that says the browser is allowed in, with no personal information in it. For a personal link, the cookie also holds the short id from your link, so the site knows which shelf to show you. No name, no email, nothing you typed. Reading the books sets no other cookie.

For someone on a personal link, we hold a short record: a unique id in the link, a label the editor uses to tell one link from another, and the list of books on that person’s shelf. That is a record tied to a person. Our host’s ordinary request logs can show that a particular link was opened. We do not use that to watch anybody, we run no analytics tied to a person, and the cookieless analytics on the public site stay cookieless. But we cannot say we could not tell, and we would rather say so plainly.

A personal link can be taken away on its own. Ask, and we remove it, and nobody else is affected. Changing the family password also works and is the heavier tool, because it signs the whole family out at once. Here is the part we cannot promise: until a link is removed it keeps working, for whoever is holding it.

We never sell or share your information, and we never send marketing. See our Privacy Policy for how we handle information.

Children, and anyone who cannot speak for themselves

Children appear in family stories. When they do, it is with a parent’s permission, and a parent can withdraw that permission at any time. We do not create accounts for anyone, and we do not collect information directly from anyone under 18.

The same care applies to a family member who cannot answer for themselves. Their story goes in only when a parent, spouse, guardian, or the relative responsible for them agrees, and it comes out the moment that person asks.

One thing we should say plainly, because it is true of every family archive and it is easy to leave unsaid. Stories mention people who never sent us anything and who may not know this book exists. If you are one of them, or you are responsible for someone who is, you have the same say as everyone else. Ask and we take the page down.

Taking something out, or fixing it

Ask, and it comes out. You do not owe anyone a reason. This covers your own words and photos, and it covers a story someone else told that you would rather not have up.

Here is the part we cannot promise, so we would rather say it than let you assume it. We can take something out of the book and out of everything that comes after. We cannot reach into a copy someone already saw, saved, or screenshotted, and a removed page can linger for a while in our private backups and version history before it ages out.

If something is wrong, tell us and we will correct it. Family memory is the authority here, not the page. You can also ask for a copy of what you have shared.

Kwento does not text or email you

Kwento sends no automated text messages and no automated email. There is no number to text and no notifications to turn off. If you get a message about a family story, it came from a family member typing it themselves, on their own phone, in a conversation you were already part of.

If that ever changes, this page will say so first, in plain terms, and you will be able to opt out before it starts.

Disclaimers & changes

Kwento is provided “as is” and is early and small on purpose. We may update these terms. Material changes will be posted here with a new “last updated” date.

Contact & support

Questions, corrections, or a request to remove something: email arvin@koobo.co or reach us through our contact page. Koobo LLC, Irvine, California.