Terms and conditions for using the MERGEN platform.

These Terms and Conditions apply to all users of MERGEN, including client-side users who create and pay for surveys and community members who complete surveys or use community-facing platform features.

If a user does not agree to these Terms, they should not create an account or use the service.

• Users must be at least 18 years old to create an account or use MERGEN.
• Users must provide accurate, current, and complete registration information and keep it updated.
• Each user is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of account credentials and for all activity under their account.
• MERGEN may suspend or restrict access where account information appears false, misleading, fraudulent, or unsafe.

• Clients are responsible for the legality, accuracy, and appropriateness of survey content, audience instructions, and research goals submitted through the platform.
• Clients must have the necessary rights, permissions, and legal basis to upload or request the processing of any content or personal data they submit.
• Clients must not use MERGEN to run unlawful, deceptive, discriminatory, harmful, or rights-infringing research activities.
• If a client uses survey results, AI output, or platform analytics for important decisions, the client remains responsible for reviewing the output and validating it independently.

• Community members must provide truthful, good-faith responses and must not use bots, scripts, multiple accounts, or misleading behavior to influence rewards or research outcomes.
• Eligibility for participation in a survey may depend on profile details, quality checks, audience matching rules, and trust or fraud review systems.
• MERGEN may reduce, delay, reject, or reverse incentives or participation access where abuse, manipulation, fake accounts, or low-quality participation is reasonably suspected.
• Community members remain responsible for complying with survey instructions and for avoiding the submission of unlawful or infringing content.

Certain client-facing features may require payment. Pricing and transaction details displayed in the platform or at checkout apply to the relevant purchase.

• Payments are processed through Polar or another designated payment provider, not directly by MERGEN.
• Users are responsible for reviewing the applicable pricing, billing details, taxes, and any checkout-specific rules before completing a purchase.
• Third-party payment providers may apply their own terms, privacy notices, and compliance requirements.

MERGEN offers AI-powered features such as research assistance, insights, predictive analytics, and search. These tools are intended to support user workflows, not replace independent judgment.

• AI output may be incomplete, inaccurate, biased, or inappropriate in some situations.
• Users are responsible for reviewing AI-generated content before relying on it for research, communication, publication, or business decisions.
• Users must not use the AI features in a way that violates law, third-party rights, or applicable provider policies.

• No unlawful, fraudulent, abusive, defamatory, harassing, or deceptive use of the platform.
• No attempts to disrupt, reverse engineer, scrape, overload, or bypass the security or access controls of the service.
• No use of the platform to upload malicious code, impersonate others, or interfere with surveys, rewards, matching systems, or analytics.
• No submission of content that the user has no right to share or that infringes intellectual property, privacy, or confidentiality rights.

MERGEN retains all rights in the platform, software, interface design, branding, and service content, except for user content that remains owned by the user or its rightful owner.

By submitting content to MERGEN, a user grants MERGEN the limited rights needed to host, process, analyze, store, display, and transmit that content in order to operate and improve the service and provide the requested features.

Use of the service is also governed by the Privacy Policy. MERGEN may act as a controller for account and operational data and, in some contexts, as a processor or service provider for customer-managed research data.

Where a client submits research-related data through MERGEN, that client is responsible for ensuring it has the legal rights and notices required for that processing.

• MERGEN may suspend, restrict, or terminate access where it reasonably believes a user has violated these Terms, created risk for the platform, or engaged in fraud or abuse.
• A user may stop using the platform at any time and may request account deletion subject to legal, operational, or security retention needs.
• Termination does not automatically remove obligations that should continue by nature, including payment obligations, intellectual property protections, liability limitations, and dispute provisions.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, MERGEN provides the service on an "as is" and "as available" basis. MERGEN does not guarantee uninterrupted operation, error-free performance, or that outputs, matching results, analytics, or AI-generated content will always be complete or suitable for every purpose.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, MERGEN will not be liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, punitive, or exemplary damages arising out of or related to use of the service.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot legally be excluded or limited under applicable law.

These Terms are governed by the laws of Estonia, except to the extent that mandatory consumer protection laws in the user's country of residence apply and cannot be excluded by contract.

Before escalating a dispute, MERGEN asks users to contact the team first so the issue can be reviewed in good faith.