Terms of Service

1. Service Description

ScholarAI is an AI-powered academic manuscript improvement tool that provides similarity estimation, AI detection analysis, citation recommendations, paraphrase assistance, research gap identification, and citation validation. ScholarAI is an independent tool and is not affiliated with any academic publisher.

2. Acceptable Use

You may use ScholarAI only for lawful purposes. You agree NOT to:

• Submit content that infringes intellectual property rights
• Use the service to generate academic misconduct (submitting AI-generated work as entirely your own in violation of your institution's policies)
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or abuse the API
• Resell or redistribute ScholarAI outputs as a standalone service
• Submit malicious content, personal data of others, or confidential information of third parties

3. Academic Integrity

4. Subscriptions and Payments

• Paid plans (Pro and Ultimate) are billed in advance on a monthly or annual basis
• Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled before the renewal date
• You may cancel anytime from your account settings; access continues to the end of the billing period
• All payments are processed by Stripe. We do not store payment card information
• Prices are shown in USD and may be subject to local taxes

5. Refund Policy

All subscription payments are final and non-refundable, except where required by applicable law. If you believe you were charged in error, contact us at hello@getscholarai.study within 14 days of the charge and we will review your request.

6. Disclaimer of Warranties

ScholarAI is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. We do not warrant that: (a) similarity or AI detection estimates will match results from Turnitin, iThenticate, or any third-party tool; (b) suggested citations are accurate, complete, or verifiable; (c) the service will be uninterrupted or error-free; (d) use of ScholarAI will result in journal acceptance.

7. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, ScholarAI and its operators shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages arising from your use of the service, including but not limited to manuscript rejection, loss of research data, or academic consequences.

8. Intellectual Property

You retain full ownership of your manuscript content. ScholarAI retains ownership of its software, design, and AI prompting systems. Journal publisher names (Elsevier, Emerald, IEEE, etc.) are referenced for informational purposes only under nominative fair use.

9. Termination

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, with or without notice. You may terminate your account at any time by emailing hello@getscholarai.study.

10. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by applicable international commercial law. Disputes shall first be attempted to be resolved via good-faith communication at hello@getscholarai.study.

11. Contact

hello@getscholarai.study

GDPR Compliance

1. Legal Basis for Processing

We process personal data only when we have a valid legal basis:

2. Your GDPR Rights

As an EEA, UK, or Swiss resident, you have the following rights:

• Right of Access (Art. 15): Request a copy of personal data we hold about you
• Right to Rectification (Art. 16): Request correction of inaccurate data
• Right to Erasure (Art. 17): Request deletion of your personal data ("right to be forgotten")
• Right to Restriction (Art. 18): Request restriction of processing in certain circumstances
• Right to Data Portability (Art. 20): Receive your data in a machine-readable format
• Right to Object (Art. 21): Object to processing based on legitimate interests
• Rights related to automated decision-making (Art. 22): ScholarAI does not make automated decisions with legal effects

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@getscholarai.study. We will respond within 30 days.

3. Data Transfers Outside the EEA

ScholarAI uses third-party processors based outside the EEA. We ensure adequate safeguards are in place:

• Anthropic (USA): Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and Anthropic's Data Processing Agreement
• Stripe (USA): EU-US Data Privacy Framework and Standard Contractual Clauses
• Vercel (USA): Standard Contractual Clauses
• PostHog: Available in EU-hosted cloud region to minimize data transfers

4. Cookie Consent

When you first visit ScholarAI from an EEA, UK, or Swiss IP address, you will be presented with a cookie consent banner. You may:

• Accept all cookies (including analytics)
• Accept essential cookies only
• Manage preferences at any time via the cookie settings link in the footer

Essential cookies (required for the application to function) do not require consent. Analytics cookies are only set after you provide explicit consent.

5. Data Processor Agreements

We have Data Processing Agreements (DPAs) in place or rely on standard contractual mechanisms with all sub-processors handling personal data of EEA users. Upon written request, we can provide details of our sub-processor list at hello@getscholarai.study.

6. Data Protection Officer

Given our current scale, ScholarAI is not required to appoint a formal Data Protection Officer. However, all data protection inquiries are handled directly by our team at hello@getscholarai.study with the same diligence.

7. Supervisory Authority

If you are located in the EEA and believe your GDPR rights have been violated, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. A list of EEA supervisory authorities is available at edpb.europa.eu. UK residents may contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

8. Contact for GDPR Requests

Email: hello@getscholarai.study
Subject line: "GDPR Request — [Your Right]"
Response time: Within 30 days as required by GDPR Article 12.