Terms of Service

Article 1 (Purpose)

These Terms govern the rights, obligations, and responsibilities between DUBHE Inc. (the “Company”) and its Members in connection with the Alioth™ Research service provided by the Company.

Article 2 (Definitions)

1. Service: The features provided through the websites and applications operated by the Company.
2. Member: A person who agrees to these Terms and completes the registration process.
3. Content: Text, photographs, videos, files, links, and other information in the form of symbols, characters, voice, sound, images, or video that a Member posts while using the Service.
4. Paid Service: The STARTER, PRO, and TEAM plans used in exchange for a monthly fee, together with their related features.
5. Billing Period: The Paid Service usage period from the time payment approval is confirmed until immediately before the next monthly billing date.
6. Billing Account Owner: The Member authorized to register a payment method and manage subscriptions, cancellations, and refunds for a Paid Service.

Article 3 (Publication and Amendment of the Terms)

1. The Company publishes these Terms on the initial Service screen.
2. The Company may amend these Terms to the extent permitted by applicable law and will announce an amendment at least seven days before it takes effect. A change that is unfavorable to Members or materially affects payment terms will be announced at least 30 days in advance, and the Company will obtain express consent where separately required by law.
3. The Company clearly explains the amendment, its effective date, and how to refuse consent. Where applicable law requires express consent, continued use of the Service alone will not be treated as consent.

Article 4 (Formation of the Service Agreement)

1. The Service agreement is formed when an applicant agrees to these Terms, applies for membership, and the Company accepts the application.
2. The Company may reject an application or terminate the agreement in cases such as false information or unlawful use.

Article 5 (Protection and Management of Member Information)

Members must securely manage their own IDs and passwords and are responsible for losses caused by negligent management.

Article 5-2 (Membership Withdrawal and Payment Closure)

1. Membership withdrawal differs from period-end cancellation. After identity verification, all Paddle subscriptions in billing accounts owned by the Member are canceled immediately. Membership withdrawal completes only after checking that open checkouts, ongoing transactions, and unresolved requests cannot lead to additional charges. Subscriptions owned by others are not canceled merely because the Member belongs to their organization.
2. If external cancellation or a payment result cannot be confirmed, withdrawal remains incomplete and login, retry, and support remain available. If some subscriptions are canceled but membership withdrawal later fails, the canceled subscriptions are not automatically restored. New purchases and payment-method changes are restricted during payment closure.
3. Completed membership withdrawal ends login and service access. Remaining paid time is not retained, and the normal cleanup policy for the Member and owned research or organizations applies; export needed data first. A background payment-cleanup process does not automatically complete membership withdrawal without the Member retrying.
4. Membership withdrawal does not automatically create a refund or recalculate remaining usage charges. Once additional-charge risks are resolved, pending refund approval or payment alone does not prevent withdrawal. Withdrawal does not waive refund rights.
5. After withdrawal, refund, dispute, and privacy support is available following identity verification without restoring an account or subscription. General member/research cleanup and purpose-specific separate retention of payment evidence follow the Privacy Policy. Re-registering with the same email does not automatically link old subscriptions or rights.

Article 6 (Copyright and Use of Content)

1. Copyright in Content posted by a Member within the Service belongs to its author.
2. A Member may not use information obtained through the Service for commercial purposes without the Company’s prior approval.

Article 7 (Suspension and Changes to the Service)

The Company may temporarily suspend the Service for reasons including maintenance, replacement or failure of equipment, or interruption of communications.

Article 8 (Seller, Monthly Subscription, Prices, and Taxes)

1. Paddle is the legal seller (Merchant of Record) for payment transactions, while the Company provides and operates Alioth Research. The Paddle contracting entity for your purchase location is identified at checkout, on the receipt, and in the Paddle Buyer Terms. Paddle’s transaction terms and the Company’s service terms apply to their respective roles without restricting mandatory rights.
2. Paid Services are monthly auto-renewing subscriptions. Before paying, the Billing Account Owner must review the plan, currency, tax-inclusive display price, applicable taxes and discounts, actual final amount, allowances, service period, and next billing date, and expressly agree to renewal. A change to the final amount following country or business-detail changes requires renewed confirmation.
3. Card payments are available in supported countries. PayPal and wallets are not offered. Billing country, address, and business details are checked at checkout and are not determined solely by language, IP address, or card-issuing country.
4. The monthly base prices below are in USD and include tax. Your payment currency may vary depending on your billing country. Check the final amount at checkout. Existing contracts, transactions, and refunds retain their original prices and currencies. Tax removal for an eligible business transaction may reduce the total; no replacement fee is added for removed tax. Korean VAT at 10% is not applied uniformly worldwide.
5. Paid access and allowances are granted only for verified completed initial or renewal transactions. The actual monthly service period and next billing date appear in billing history, with a month-end rule where a calendar date is unavailable. Once renewal failure is confirmed, the same cycle is not automatically recharged and no separate grace period is provided; the account becomes FREE when its paid period ends. Live payments remain unavailable until the provider configuration supporting this no-retry policy is confirmed.
6. Paddle provides transaction receipts, invoices, and legally required payment notices. The Company sends service-impact notices such as plan changes and transition to FREE. Email delivery failure does not reverse payment status. A Paddle document is not guaranteed to be equivalent to a Korean tax invoice; customers should confirm the suitability of required evidence before purchase.

Article 9 (Payment Methods and Paid Plan Changes)

1. Paddle and payment institutions process card numbers and CVCs directly in their secure checkout. The Company does not store full card numbers, CVCs, Paddle card tokens, or billing keys used for recurring charges. Only a limited payment-method summary supplied by the payment provider may be displayed when needed.
2. Payment methods are changed through the official payment process for a subscription you own. Check completion and the effective time of a change. Changing or deleting a payment method is not, by itself, confirmation that a subscription has been canceled or refunded; verify renewal cancellation separately.
3. Annual subscriptions, mid-period upgrades or downgrades, and automatic prorated price adjustments are not offered. To choose another paid plan, confirm that the existing period and unresolved payment matters have ended, then start a new monthly subscription from FREE.

Article 10 (Cancellation at the End of the Current Period)

1. The Billing Account Owner may request cancellation at the end of the current period. A scheduled-end status is shown once the payment provider confirms that the next renewal is stopped. Paid access continues until the current Billing Period ends, after which the account becomes FREE.
2. Request receipt, confirmation that renewal has stopped, and the actual end of service are separate states. If confirmation is delayed, check billing history or contact support. Period-end cancellation does not itself create a refund.
3. The Company’s interface does not provide cancellation withdrawal or restoration of the old renewal. This does not restrict statutory withdrawal, repayment, or other refund rights. Membership withdrawal follows the immediate-cancellation process in Article 5-2.

Article 11 (Full and Partial Refunds and Processing Status)

1. The Company's automatic refund flow first checks completed responses and email sends for the paid cycle. If either has been used, a usage-based partial refund applies even within seven days of payment. This automatic calculation does not extinguish separate rights under applicable law or the Paddle Refund Policy at the time of purchase. Contact Company support or Paddle buyer support about those rights.
2. If both usage counts are zero, consumer and business customers in all countries receive a full refund of the unrefunded balance within seven days after each initial or monthly renewal payment. A longer unused full-refund window registered for the billing country, customer type and payment cycle also applies. These automatic benefits do not restrict separate legal or Paddle rights.
3. Other ordinary mid-period refunds use the actual tax-inclusive total for that monthly cycle. Calculate the proportional monetary amounts for days used/total days, completed responses/response allowance, and email sends/email allowance; deduct the largest amount, capped at the paid total. Consistent with the existing day-count basis, elapsed seconds are rounded up to whole days with a minimum of one day, using the actual cycle period.
4. Each proportional amount is rounded down to the currency’s smallest unit: KRW 1, JPY 1, or USD 0.01. The additional refund equals the actual total minus usage charges and previously confirmed refunds for the same subject, with a minimum of zero. No penalty or additional payment-processing fee is deducted, including after seven days. The original transaction is not converted at a new exchange rate on refund.
5. Where tax-only refunds or other adjustments exist, the original transaction, taxes, and refundable balance are reconciled first. An unclear balance or country-specific entitlement is routed for review, not automatically settled as a partial refund or silently reduced from the quoted amount.
6. When an ordinary refund is formally submitted after preview, its receipt time, usage evidence, calculation, and amount are frozen. Later usage is not deducted again. The first valid request made to the Company or Paddle, including its time and channel, can be considered; internal synchronization delays do not shorten the period for exercising rights.
7. A refund request and stopping the next renewal are verified separately. Renewal is stopped, and paid access changes to FREE at the earlier of refund approval or the current paid period’s end. Rejection does not restore renewal. Statutory withdrawal requirements or separate Paddle instructions take precedence.
8. Receipt, pending approval, approval, and rejection are distinguished. A pending approval is not failed solely because an internal three-business-day retry deadline has passed; applicable statutory refund deadlines are respected. Approval does not mean that funds have already arrived, and the card issuer or other payment institution may require additional processing time.
9. If the ordinary refund is zero, or a request concerns an older cycle, duplicate or unauthorized payment, non-delivery, an outage, or a statutory exception, contact Company support or Paddle buyer support. Internal limits on ordinary refund requests or agreement to a partial refund do not bar legally required corrections or additional refunds. Do not submit an overlapping refund for the same transaction while approval is pending.

Article 12 (Research and Data After Transition to FREE)

1. When TEAM entitlement ends at the end of the paid period or following refund approval, teams, members, existing roles, research and responses are preserved but team access is suspended. Scheduling a cancellation does not suspend access before the paid period ends.
2. All members, including the billing owner, lose access to team viewing, editing, deletion, downloads and APIs. Public-link response collection, draft response saving and email distribution also stop. Download any needed data before access ends.
3. Personal workspaces remain available under their personal plan, including FREE. FREE permits three active research projects; preserved projects in locked teams do not count toward this limit. Existing personal projects above the limit retain their status, but new activation is restricted while over the limit. Responses and emails follow current allowances. Historical usage and refund calculations are not reset.
4. Team lists show the team name and suspended-access notice only. Personal billing, resubscription, refunds, payment history, receipts, leaving one's own team, account withdrawal and support remain available, subject to ownership protections and identity checks.
5. When the billing owner restores TEAM or an ENTERPRISE entitlement with team features, existing membership, roles and data become accessible again. Ended distributions and scheduled or retry emails missed during suspension do not restart automatically. Preservation does not mean indefinite retention; the general deletion and retention rules in these Terms and the Privacy Policy continue to apply.

Article 13 (Damages)

1. If a Member violates these Terms and causes damage to the Company, the violating Member must compensate the Company for all resulting damage.
2. If the Company receives a claim, lawsuit, or other objection from a third party due to a Member’s unlawful act or violation of these Terms in using the Service, the Member must indemnify the Company at the Member’s own responsibility and expense.

Article 14 (Disclaimer)

1. The Company is not liable for failure to provide the Service due to natural disasters, war, interruption by a telecommunications carrier, or comparable force majeure.
2. The Company is not liable for disruption of Service use attributable to a Member.
3. The Company is not liable for the reliability, accuracy, or substance of information, materials, or facts posted by a Member in connection with the Service.
4. The Company is not liable for transactions or other dealings conducted between Members or between a Member and a third party through the Service.
5. Unless otherwise specifically provided by applicable law, the Company is not liable in connection with use of services provided free of charge.

Article 15 (Caller ID Policy and Prevention of Unlawful Use)

1. The Company may strengthen identity verification procedures to prevent caller ID spoofing in accordance with the Telecommunications Business Act and other applicable laws.
2. To prevent harm caused by falsely displayed telephone numbers, the Company immediately suspends the Service in any of the following cases:
   1. The Ministry of Science and ICT or the Korea Internet & Security Agency reports caller ID spoofing.
   2. A person registers a caller ID or uses the Service by misappropriating another person’s identity.
3. Information about a violating Member may be provided to investigative authorities and relevant public agencies in accordance with applicable law.

Article 16 (Jurisdiction and Governing Law)

1. If a dispute arises between the Company and a Member in connection with the Service, both parties will consult in good faith to resolve it.
2. If the dispute is not resolved through consultation and litigation is filed, the court having jurisdiction under the Civil Procedure Act of the Republic of Korea will have exclusive jurisdiction.
3. These Terms and the relationship arising from use of the Service are protected and interpreted under the laws of the Republic of Korea, which also govern any lawsuit between the Company and a Member.
4. This English version is provided for convenience. To the extent permitted by applicable law, the Korean version prevails if there is any inconsistency in interpretation.
5. The governing-law, jurisdiction, and translation-priority provisions do not restrict consumer, privacy, or procedural rights that cannot be waived under the laws of the Member’s country of residence. Purchases from Paddle are separately governed by the Paddle Buyer Terms.