Legal information about the publisher of the 10 Seconds service.
Sterling and Pierce Holding L.L.C-FZ (the "Publisher", "we", "us", or "our") operates the 10 Seconds service and publishes the website accessible at https://10seconds.io. The Publisher is subject to the applicable laws of the United Arab Emirates and, where relevant, to foreign laws expressly applicable to its activities (notably European Union, United Kingdom, and United States consumer-protection, data-protection, and other mandatory rules).
The scope of the Publisher's licensed activities is software publishing and distribution. The Publisher is not a bank, payment institution, electronic-money issuer, Money Services Business, Virtual Asset Service Provider, custodial wallet operator, investment firm, insurer, or fiduciary (see the KYC & Identity Policy §2 for the full non-financial-institution shield).
Publication director: the authorised management of Sterling and Pierce Holding L.L.C-FZ, in its capacity as publisher of the website and of the service. Written correspondence addressed to the publication director is received at contact@10seconds.io, which is the single point of contact for all legal, editorial, commercial, data-protection, security, and compliance matters.
Formal notices requiring written acknowledgment may additionally be sent, by registered mail, to the Publisher's registered office identified in Section 1.
The Publisher operates the 10 Seconds service, an end-to-end encrypted ephemeral text-messaging application for pre-arranged two-party conversations. Available offers:
Details of features, technical limits, pricing, VAT treatment, and renewal are set out in the Terms of Sale. Rules of use are set out in the Terms of Service and the Acceptable Use Policy. Technical and cryptographic details are described in the Security Overview.
The 10 Seconds service and all administrative data are hosted on infrastructure located in the European Union and in the Meydan Free Zone, Dubai (UAE), with encrypted backup replication between the two regions.
Hosting is provided by a confidential private hosting provider for operational-security reasons. The provider's identity, address, and contact details are disclosed to competent authorities upon valid legal request addressed to contact@10seconds.io, and to Enterprise Customers upon signature of the Data Processing Agreement under NDA.
The Publisher uses two — and only two — payment sub-processors, acting under their own regulatory obligations:
The Publisher has no commercial partner other than those two payment sub-processors and does not sell any personal data. Full disclosure in Privacy Policy §10 and DPA Annex 3.
The 10 Seconds software, the website, the user interface, the "10 Seconds", "Clear Trail", "Ghost Protocol", and "Sterling and Pierce" names and logos, as well as all original content published by the Publisher, are the property of Sterling and Pierce Holding L.L.C-FZ or its respective licensors, protected under the applicable intellectual-property laws (notably UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2021 on Copyright and Neighbouring Rights, applicable European Union directives, the United Kingdom Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and the United States Copyright Act Title 17).
Open-source libraries used by the service remain the property of their respective authors and are governed by their applicable licences (full list and procedures in Third-Party Software, Licenses & Copyright). Trademark acknowledgments are set out in that same document (Section 9).
No reproduction, representation, modification, publication, adaptation, or exploitation of any element of the website or service, by whatever means, is permitted without the prior written authorisation of the Publisher, except within the scope of rights granted by applicable mandatory law (notably Articles 5 and 6 of EU Directive 2009/24/EC on the legal protection of computer programs and equivalent national rules) or by an applicable third-party licence.
Formal procedures for reporting alleged copyright infringement (US DMCA 17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3), EU Regulation 2022/2065 (DSA) Article 16 notice-and-action, UK CDPA 1988, UAE Federal Decree-Law 38/2021) are set out in Third-Party Software, Licenses & Copyright, Sections 11–13.
Reports of other categories of illegal or harmful content, abuse, or terms-of-service violations are handled under the Acceptable Use Policy and the Law Enforcement Guidelines. Child sexual exploitation material must not be sent to the Publisher's ordinary support address — use the appropriate official channel listed in the AUP (NCMEC CyberTipline, INHOPE member hotlines, UAE Public Prosecution, or local police).
Legal requests from law-enforcement, judicial, or other competent authorities are addressed at contact@10seconds.io and assessed according to the Law Enforcement Guidelines. The Publisher cooperates with competent authorities within the limits of what it actually holds (see the Guidelines on the Publisher's ephemeral-messaging architecture and absence of persistent chat content), of applicable law, and of any required international-transfer mechanism (notably GDPR Article 48 for third-country requests concerning EU personal data).
Processing of personal data by the Publisher is described in detail in the Privacy Policy. The Publisher is the data controller for personal data processed in connection with its own purposes, and acts as data processor on behalf of Enterprise Customers under a Data Processing Agreement.
Privacy requests (access, rectification, erasure, portability, restriction, objection, withdrawal of consent, lodging a complaint) may be sent to contact@10seconds.io. Applicable rights under the GDPR, UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 on Personal Data Protection, the UK Data Protection Act 2018, and applicable US state privacy laws (CCPA/CPRA, VCDPA, CPA, CTDPA, UCPA, TDPSA, OCPA) are honoured as described in the Privacy Policy §14–§15.
The website uses only strictly necessary first-party cookies (authentication, form-security) and one sessionStorage entry for the chat display name. No advertising cookie, no third-party analytics, no session replay, no cross-site tracker, no device fingerprinting is deployed on pages under the Publisher's control. Full details in the Cookies & Browser Storage Policy.
This Legal Notice and the publication of the website are governed by the laws of the United Arab Emirates. This choice does not deprive consumers of mandatory protections applicable under the laws of their country of habitual residence or US state of residence, where the conditions for their application are met.
Any dispute concerning the publication of the website or the content of this Legal Notice shall be submitted to the competent courts of Dubai, without prejudice to mandatory jurisdiction rules applicable to a consumer or the specific jurisdiction provisions set out in each individual contractual document (Terms of Service, Terms of Sale, Data Processing Agreement, Affiliate Program Terms, Introducer Agreement).
This Legal Notice is updated when the Publisher's identification, hosting arrangements, sub-processors, licensed activities, or applicable legal requirements change. The version and effective date at the top of this page identify the latest update. Changes do not retroactively affect rights or obligations that arose under a prior version.
Version 2026.14 · Effective 2026-10-22.
Published by Sterling and Pierce Holding L.L.C-FZ, Meydan Free Zone, Dubai (UAE).
Contact: contact@10seconds.io — single point of contact for all matters.