What you’re agreeing to when you use Spike. Written in plain English.
Last updated 5 September 2026 · version 2
Spike is an early-access app for choosing, planning, shopping for and cooking meals. It is a personal project, built and run by one person — Ivan, in Australia — and shared with a small group of friends. In these terms “Spike”, “we” and “us” mean Ivan. Spike is free; there is nothing to pay for.
These terms are between you and us. You agree to them, and acknowledge the privacy policy, by ticking the box when you create your account; we record when you did. If you don’t agree, please don’t create an account.
You must be 18 or older to create an account or use Spike. It is a tool for people who make their own food decisions, and its AI features run on a Google service whose terms require it. One account per person. Keep your password to yourself. If you sign in with Google, Google’s terms also apply to that sign-in.
Spike gives general information about food, cooking and how the body may respond to food, and it personalises parts of the app using the preferences you give it. It does not diagnose, treat or account for your medical circumstances, and none of the health content has been reviewed by a doctor, dietitian or any health professional.
If advice from a qualified professional for your circumstances differs from something in Spike, follow their advice and ask them before relying on Spike. If you are pregnant, take medication, have a health condition, or are changing how you eat for a medical reason, talk to a professional first.
Spike can miss an allergen or suggest an unsuitable ingredient — in its own recipes, in recipes you write or edit, and in AI suggestions. Today, the allergies in your profile only mark ingredients in the Ingredients library; recipe pages do not warn you. Always check the recipe and the current label on every packaged ingredient, and think about cross-contamination, storage, cooking temperature and your own appliance. If you have a serious allergy or a medical dietary requirement, do not rely on Spike as your only check.
Spike’s recipes and their photos, the ingredient library, the Discover content and the app itself are ours. You may use them in the app and cook from them as much as you like, for yourself and the people you cook for. Please don’t republish or sell them as your own.
Recipes, photos and anything else you create from scratch are yours. If you edit one of Spike’s recipes, Spike makes you a private copy: your additions and changes are yours, but the Spike recipe and photo underneath stay ours, and the copy is for use in the app.
So that Spike can work, you give us permission to store, resize, scale and display your content, and to send it to a service provider, only for the features you choose: your household, a shopping list you share by link, and the AI features (which send the recipe you are working on to Google). This permission ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies other people have already made and the short-lived copies the privacy policy describes. It never makes your content ours.
Only upload what you made or have permission to use. Nothing illegal, infringing, deceptive or abusive, and nothing that violates another person’s privacy. If a photo clearly shows someone else, make sure they are happy for it to be in Spike.
If you join a household, you are choosing to share with the people in it. Everyone in a household can see, edit and delete each other’s shopping lists, and there is one plan for the whole household that any member can change or replace. Your profile, eating information, favourites and collections stay yours alone; other members see only your name and photo.
An invite code lets anyone who has it join for seven days, and a shopping list you share gets a link that anyone can read without an account. Codes and links can be forwarded — share them only with people you trust. Leaving a household stops future access to what it shared; it is not deleting your account. Turning off a list’s link stops it opening, but cannot remove screenshots or copies someone has already made.
Spike’s own recipes, once we publish them, are public: anyone can open them without an account, and search engines can find them. Recipes you write stay private to you — Spike has no way for you to publish them.
Two features — a flavour twist and swapping ingredients — run on Google’s Gemini, and only when you press the button. They send the recipe you are working on (and, for a twist, the cuisine and spiciness you chose), never your details; the privacy policy has the exact list. Results can be inaccurate, incomplete or unsuitable, similar results may be generated for other people, and they are not medical or food-safety advice.
Review every result before you use it — ingredients, allergens, quantities, cooking steps. Think of it as advice from a confident stranger: useful sometimes, always worth checking. A suggestion you keep becomes part of your own recipe copy.
Don’t misuse Spike, interfere with its security or operation, use another person’s account without permission, upload unlawful or infringing content, or use automated tools that put an unreasonable load on it. If you think something in Spike infringes your rights or is unsafe, write to us and we will look into it.
Spike is an early-stage service. It may change, be interrupted or contain errors, and our database plan currently keeps no backups — so keep a separate copy of anything you cannot replace. Recipes and content may be corrected as we learn more or as the evidence changes.
Nothing in these terms excludes or limits a right, guarantee or remedy that cannot lawfully be excluded, including under the Australian Consumer Law. Subject to those rights, we do not promise that Spike will always be available or free of errors.
You can delete your account from your profile. It removes your account and everything attached to it from Spike’s systems immediately, as the privacy policy describes; copies can linger briefly in our providers’ caches and logs, and deleting cannot take back copies other people have already made.
We may restrict or close an account when reasonably necessary to protect people, Spike or the law. We will explain why where practical, but may act first in an urgent safety or security situation.
We may update these terms when Spike or the law changes. The date and version at the top will move, and we will give reasonable notice in the app before a change that matters takes effect. Changes do not apply to the past. If you don’t agree with a change, you can stop using Spike and delete your account.
These terms are governed by the laws of Victoria, Australia. Either of us may take a dispute to the courts of Victoria, without limiting your right to use another court the law allows, or any right you cannot waive.
Write to navicap89@gmail.com and you will reach the person who built Spike.