Terms of Service

These Terms form an agreement between you and Cheng Chung, an individual based in Taiwan who operates GradShore ("GradShore," "we," or "us"). By accessing the service, creating an account, or purchasing a plan, you agree to these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

You must be at least 13 years old. If you are under the age of legal majority where you live, you may use GradShore only with permission from a parent or legal guardian. You must have authority to accept these Terms for any organization you represent.

GradShore provides tools for researching professors, laboratories, departments, and graduate programs. Current tools may include search, public profiles, funding and research indicators, rankings, network maps, an application workspace, program comparisons, saved watchlists, and link-accessible shares. GradShore combines public data, user-verified information, analytics, and data-driven indicators. Features, coverage, data sources, and access limits may change over time.

GradShore is an informational research tool, not an admissions adviser, university, employer, funding agency, or representative of any professor or institution. Rankings, funding-health summaries, recruiting indicators, and research-fit signals may be incomplete, delayed, or wrong. A grant does not prove that funding is available to you, and a recruiting signal does not guarantee an opening or admission.

You are responsible for verifying important information directly with the relevant professor, institution, program, or funding agency before making an application, financial, educational, immigration, or career decision.

• GradShore currently supports account access through Google sign-in.
• Provide accurate information and keep your authentication account secure.
• Do not share access tokens or allow another person to misuse your account.
• Notify us promptly if you suspect unauthorized access.
• You are responsible for activity performed through your account.

Search relevance, rankings, funding-health summaries, research-fit signals, and similar indicators are computed from covered public data and heuristics. They can contain mistakes and are not professional advice. Do not rely on them as the sole basis for a consequential decision.

You retain ownership of content you submit. Workspace entries and private notes are account-only features and are not included in public profiles or shares unless you separately include the same information in a share title or another public submission. You grant GradShore a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive license to host, transmit, process, reproduce, and display your content only as needed to provide and secure the service. This license ends when the content is deleted, except for limited backups, legal retention, or content you made public and others have independently retained.

Using Save comparison creates an unlisted page that anyone with its URL can access. The same applies to legacy advisor-list shares. These pages are not access-controlled; do not treat the URL as a secret-storage mechanism. You represent that you have the right to submit the title and criteria and that they do not expose confidential information or violate another person's rights.

Professor profiles combine public professional information with verified submissions. GradShore does not claim ownership of underlying scholarly or government records. Where the ORCID verification flow is available, a professor may use it to claim, correct, or opt out of a profile. If that flow is unavailable, correction and opt-out requests may be sent to privacy@gradshore.com. We may preserve limited records necessary to document an opt-out and prevent republication.

• Where purchasing is enabled, paid transactions are processed by Lemon Squeezy as merchant of record. Its checkout terms and privacy policy also apply to the transaction.
• Prices, currency, billing interval, trial terms, taxes, and renewal terms are shown before purchase and control if they differ from a general description on GradShore.
• New accounts receive one 14-day Pro trial beginning on first authenticated product use. The trial is available once per account and expires automatically unless a separate paid entitlement begins.
• Recurring plans renew until cancelled. You can manage cancellation through the billing portal linked in Account Settings. Cancellation normally takes effect at the end of the paid period unless checkout terms or applicable law require otherwise.
• The Season Pass is a one-time payment for five months of access beginning on its purchase date. It expires automatically and is not a recurring subscription.
• Lemon Squeezy handles payment processing, refunds, chargebacks, and applicable sales tax as merchant of record. Refund and billing requests are governed by the checkout terms and applicable consumer law. Statutory cancellation and refund rights are not limited by these Terms.
• We may change future prices with advance notice where required. A price change does not retroactively alter an already-paid period.

You may not:

• Use the service unlawfully, fraudulently, or to harass or harm another person.
• Upload malware, confidential third-party data, or content you lack rights to use.
• Scrape, crawl, bulk-download, or systematically extract data without written permission.
• Bypass paywalls, rate limits, authentication, access controls, or security measures.
• Reverse engineer the service except where applicable law expressly permits it.
• Use GradShore to create spam, unsolicited outreach, or automated profiling of people.
• Misrepresent GradShore data as an official statement by a professor or institution.

GradShore's software, design, branding, compilations, and original content are owned by GradShore or its licensors and protected by applicable law. Public-source records, trademarks, and linked materials remain subject to their respective owners' rights and source terms. No affiliation or endorsement is implied by inclusion in the service.

We may add, modify, suspend, limit, or discontinue features. We do not guarantee continuous availability, complete geographic coverage, permanent storage, or that any specific professor, program, ranking, or data source will remain available. We may use reasonable limits to protect the service and other users.

You may stop using GradShore and request account deletion at any time. We may suspend or terminate access for material breach, abuse, security risk, nonpayment, or legal necessity. Provisions that by nature should survive termination—including intellectual-property, disclaimer, liability, and dispute provisions—will survive.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, GradShore is provided "as is" and "as available." We disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, non-infringement, and uninterrupted or error-free operation. Nothing in these Terms excludes a warranty that cannot lawfully be excluded.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, GradShore and its operator will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost applications, opportunities, admissions, funding, revenue, data, or goodwill. Our aggregate liability arising from the service will not exceed the greater of US$100 or the amount you paid GradShore for the service during the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim. These limits do not apply where prohibited by law.

These Terms are governed by the laws of Taiwan, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Unless mandatory law gives you another forum, the Taipei District Court will have jurisdiction as the court of first instance. If you are a consumer, mandatory protections and forums available under the law of your residence remain unaffected. Before filing a claim, please contact us and allow 30 days to attempt an informal resolution.

If a provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain effective. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without consent; we may assign them as part of a reorganization, financing, or transfer of the service. These Terms, checkout terms, and the Privacy Policy constitute the agreement concerning GradShore.

We may update these Terms. Material changes will receive reasonable notice where required. Continued use after the effective date means you accept the revised Terms. Questions may be sent to privacy@gradshore.com.