Terms of Use

Version 3.0 — effective 2026-09-09 · the Arabic text governs in case of conflict

شروط الاستخدام — PublishLens / Terms of Use

English version (Arabic text governs in case of conflict)

0. Definitions

1. Acceptance and its evidence

1.1 Creating an account requires clicking an acknowledgement of agreement to these Terms and the Privacy Policy. No account is created without it, and any registration request lacking it is rejected server-side. 1.2 We keep an evidence record of every acceptance: document version and digital fingerprint, time of acceptance, masked network address, browser family and the acceptance channel (sign-up, re-acceptance or settings). This record is append-only and is retained after account deletion with a hash of the email rather than the email itself, as contractual evidence. 1.3 When a materially new version is issued, a re-acceptance gate is shown at your first sign-in after it takes effect; continued use requires acceptance, and you may refuse and close your account without penalty. 1.4 If you accept on behalf of an Institution you confirm your authority to bind it; the Terms apply to every member for whom the Institution creates an account, and each member acknowledges them at first sign-in. 1.5 Using the Platform or any part of its Content by any means — including automated access — constitutes acceptance of these Terms to the extent permitted by law, even without an account.

2. Nature and limits of the service

2.1 The Platform is an information service showing (a) facts reproduced as recorded at their named source as of the capture date, and (b) automated estimates derived from those facts under a published methodology with its version and computation date. Every item carries its attribution and date. 2.2 The Content is information, not advice: it is not academic, legal or financial advice; not an endorsement or a rejection of any journal; not an assessment of the quality of its research or the integrity of the people behind it; and not an official certification. Academic or commercial decisions are yours alone. 2.3 Absence is not proof: the absence of a statement, signal or listing about a journal does not mean the journal meets any criterion, nor that it fails it; it only means the sources read had not recorded it as of the stated date. 2.4 The Platform does not describe any journal with disparaging labels and publishes no exclusion lists; all its texts follow a published language standard restricting statements to sourced facts and labelled estimates. 2.5 Sources may change after the capture date and may contain errors originating at the source. We re-read sources automatically on a schedule and correct what is shown to be wrong under the Journal Data Policy; we do not guarantee that the Content is complete, accurate or current at every moment. 2.6 AI-generated outputs (such as match explanations) are explicitly labelled and may contain errors; do not rely on them as facts without checking the source. 2.7 We may change the service, its features, methodology or sources, or discontinue any part, with reasonable notice of material changes affecting paid subscriptions.

3. Eligibility, account and security

3.1 You must be of legal age in your country of residence (18 or older) and provide a valid email address that you control. 3.2 An account is personal to one individual and may not be shared or transferred. Institutional accounts are created for named members and managed by the Institution's administrator. 3.3 You are responsible for the confidentiality of your credentials and of the confirmation codes sent to your email, and for all activity on your account until you notify us of unauthorised use. We send an email notice on sign-in from a new device. 3.4 We may request identity or affiliation verification for institutional plans, and refuse or cancel any account with inaccurate information.

4. Acceptable and prohibited use

4.1 Your licence is personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable, to use the Platform and its Content for your internal research, academic or professional purposes within your plan. 4.2 The following is expressly prohibited:

  1. Any automated access to the Platform or its APIs other than through means we expressly provide, including crawling, scraping, bulk extraction, browser automation and systematic copying.
  2. Exceeding, disabling or circumventing any rate limit, access control or protection mechanism, or using multiple accounts or network addresses for that purpose.
  3. Republishing, distributing, selling, licensing the Content or any substantial part of it, or incorporating it into a product, service, dataset or machine-learning model, without our written licence.
  4. Reverse-engineering the methodology or estimates or attempting to reconstruct them from outputs, or removing any attribution, date or label from data when quoting.
  5. Using the Content to make claims about a journal, publisher or person that the published text — with its attribution and date — does not support, or attributing any value judgement to the Platform.
  6. Uploading third parties' personal data without a lawful basis, or uploading content that violates the law or others' rights.
  7. Submitting false reports, appeals or community confirmations, or impersonating a journal, publisher or institution.
  8. Any use contrary to applicable law, including the Anti-Cyber Crime Law. 4.3 Permitted quotation: limited quotation of specific items in your work is allowed with attribution to "PublishLens" and the item's source and date as shown on the Platform, without altering the meaning. 4.4 We monitor use automatically to protect the service and may apply technical limits or suspend access immediately upon reasonable suspicion of a breach of this section, notifying you where possible. We reserve the right to claim damages for unauthorised scraping or extraction and the costs of countering it.

5. Intellectual property and data

5.1 The Platform, its brand, software, designs, methodology, derived estimates and compiled databases belong to the Platform or its licensors and are protected by copyright, trademark and database-protection laws. 5.2 Source facts are subject to their sources' licences (for example CC0 for some sources and CC BY for others) as stated in the source register and the footer attribution; the Platform claims no ownership of them, and this licence grants you no right in our compilation or its structure. 5.3 Your content: you keep your rights in what you upload (manuscripts, appeal evidence, confirmations). We do not store the full manuscript text after processing. You grant us a limited licence to process what you upload to provide the service, and you warrant that you have the right to upload it and that it is accurate and not misleading. 5.4 We may use feedback and suggestions you provide without obligation.

6. Plans and payment

6.1 Plans (free, monthly, annual and institutional), their prices and what they include are shown on the pricing page at the time of subscription and form part of these Terms. 6.2 Automatic renewal: monthly and annual subscriptions renew automatically for the same period unless you cancel before the end of the cycle; cancellation stops renewal and keeps access until the end of the paid period. 6.3 Payments are processed by a third-party payment provider as merchant of record; invoicing, taxes (including VAT), currency and payment methods are subject to its terms, and we do not store your card details. 6.4 Institutional plans are activated by purchase order or invoice, with member accounts up to the agreed number of seats; the Institution is responsible for its members and for compliance with these Terms. 6.5 Withdrawal and refunds: under the Saudi E-Commerce Law a consumer may withdraw within seven (7) days of subscribing unless the paid service has begun to be used with their consent within that period; otherwise amounts for periods that have started are not refunded, except as mandatory law requires or as we decide at our discretion. The detailed refund policy is shown on the billing page. 6.6 We notify you of any price change at least thirty (30) days before the next renewal cycle; continuing the subscription thereafter is acceptance of the new price.

7. Journals and publishers

7.1 Journals and publishers are not parties to these Terms merely by being mentioned on the Platform; our relationship with them is governed by the Journal & Publisher Data Policy and the Appeals Policy, and any of them who create an account are also bound by these Terms. 7.2 What we publish about any journal is: facts reproduced with their attribution and date, and automated estimates labelled with their methodology. We receive no consideration from any journal to improve its presentation, and we do not sell listings. 7.3 Correction before any other step: every journal or publisher has a free correction and appeals channel with a published service level; we re-verify against the source, correct or withdraw what is shown to be wrong, document the trail, and allow a documented reply displayed next to the item. A user who sees an error in an item can report it from within the card.

8. Reputation and conduct obligations

8.1 You undertake not to publish or transmit, by any means, false, misleading or abusive claims about the Platform, the people behind it or its methodology, and not to attribute to it statements or judgements it did not make in their text and attribution. 8.2 Objective, fact-based criticism is permitted and welcome through the contact and appeals channels. Publishing a false claim, abuse or defamation through electronic means may constitute an offence under the Anti-Cyber Crime Law and a civil wrong, and the Platform reserves all its rights to take legal action, including claims for damages and injunctive relief, in addition to suspending the account. 8.3 Before any claim by either party, both undertake to attempt amicable settlement under section 14.2, except where urgent protective measures are required.

9. Disclaimer of warranties

9.1 The service and Content are provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all express and implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, completeness and continuity. 9.2 We do not warrant that use of the Content will lead to acceptance or publication of your research or any academic or financial outcome, nor that external sources are free of errors. 9.3 This disclaimer does not affect rights that mandatory law does not allow to be excluded, including consumer rights under the E-Commerce Law and the consumer-protection law of your country of residence.

10. Limitation of liability

10.1 To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Platform is not liable for indirect, consequential, incidental, special or punitive damages, nor for loss of profits, opportunities, reputation, data or research funding, nor for any decision you take in reliance on the Content, even if advised of the possibility. 10.2 Our aggregate liability for any claim arising from these Terms or the service is limited to the greater of (a) the amounts you paid us in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim, or (b) five hundred (500) Saudi riyals or the equivalent. 10.3 Non-excludable liability: nothing here limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, misrepresentation, wilful misconduct or gross negligence, for compensation due under mandatory data-protection laws, or for any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

11. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Platform and the people behind it from any claim, loss or reasonable cost (including legal fees) arising from your breach of these Terms, your use of the Content contrary to section 4, content you uploaded, or false claims you published contrary to section 8, to the extent permitted by law.

12. Suspension and termination

12.1 We may suspend or terminate an account with reasonable notice for breach of these Terms, or immediately for breach of section 4 or 8, for a security or legal risk, or for non-payment. 12.2 You may close your account at any time from the settings; you can export your data beforehand under the Privacy Policy. 12.3 Sections 4.2, 4.4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14 and 15, and the acceptance and audit records, survive termination.

13. Changes to the Terms

We notify you of any material change at least thirty (30) days before it takes effect, by email to your registered address and a notice on the Platform, and the new version is presented for acceptance at your first sign-in after that. If you refuse, you may end your subscription before it takes effect without penalty, with a refund of the unused part of a paid annual subscription. Non-material changes (language corrections, updated references) take effect on publication.

14. Governing law and dispute resolution

14.1 Governing law: these Terms and everything arising from them are governed by the laws of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 14.2 Amicable settlement first (condition precedent): before filing any claim, the aggrieved party must notify the other in writing through the support channel or the notice address (section 15.6), describing the dispute and the remedy sought, and both parties cooperate in good faith to settle it within thirty (30) days of the notice. Urgent protective measures and claims that would otherwise be time-barred are excepted. 14.3 Jurisdiction: the Commercial Courts of Riyadh have jurisdiction over any dispute not settled amicably, subject to section 14.5. 14.4 Arbitration for institutional customers: an institutional contract may provide for binding commercial arbitration as the exclusive means of dispute resolution, seated in Riyadh and in Arabic unless agreed otherwise. 14.5 Consumer protections elsewhere: the choice of law and forum above does not waive any mandatory right a consumer has under the law of their habitual residence (including GDPR and UK GDPR rights, EU and UK consumer legislation, CCPA/CPRA for California residents, and LGPD and the Brazilian Consumer Code); such consumers keep the right to sue in the courts of their residence where mandatory law so provides. Arbitration with consumers is optional by written agreement at the time of the dispute, never a precondition. 14.6 Individual claims: to the fullest extent permitted by law, claims are brought individually and not as a class or representative action; if this clause is unenforceable in a jurisdiction, the rest of this section remains in force.

15. General

15.1 Entire agreement: these Terms with the annexed documents are the entire agreement between us regarding the service and supersede any prior agreement. 15.2 Severability: if a clause is void or unenforceable in a jurisdiction, it is modified to the minimum extent needed to be enforceable, and the rest remains in force. 15.3 No waiver: not enforcing a right in a particular case is not a waiver of it. 15.4 Assignment: you may not assign your rights or obligations without our written consent; we may assign to a legal successor with notice to you. 15.5 Language: the Arabic text is authoritative; the English translation is for convenience, and the Arabic text prevails in case of conflict. 15.6 Notices and contact: through the in-platform support channel, the email shown on the "Contact us" page, or the published notice address of the operating entity. Electronic notices to your registered email are valid service. 15.7 Force majeure: we are not liable for delay or failure caused by circumstances beyond our reasonable control, including outages of external sources or infrastructure providers.