Legal

Terms of Service

⚠️ DRAFT — NOT LEGAL ADVICE — NOT FOR PUBLICATION

This document was prepared by a non-lawyer as preparatory material for a legal consultation. It has not been reviewed by a qualified lawyer. It may contain errors, omissions, or clauses that are unenforceable or unlawful in one or more of the jurisdictions where the product is sold.

Do not publish this document, and do not rely on it, until a qualified lawyer admitted in the relevant jurisdiction has reviewed and approved it.

All PLACEHOLDER markers must be completed with real, verified information before review. Every clause marked ⚠️ LAWYER needs a specific decision.

Draft prepared: 2026-09-02.

Effective date: 2026-09-22 Last updated: 2026-09-22

1. Who we are and who you are contracting with

1.1. These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of Assay Grade (the "Product"), including the web reader, the downloadable PDF, any tools, templates and updates, and the community, all made available at https://assaygrade.com (the "Site").

1.2. The Product is created, owned and operated by Bit State, MB, a small partnership (mažoji bendrija) registered in the Republic of Lithuania under registration number 307056143, with its registered address at Šeduvos g. 29-14, Padubysio k., LT-83250 Pakruojo r. ("we", "us", "our").

1.3. You can reach us at hello@assaygrade.com. We aim to reply to all messages within 5 working days. This email address is the correct address for every question, complaint, refund request and legal notice relating to the Product.

1.4. "You" means the person who buys or uses the Product. These Terms are written on the basis that you are a consumer — a natural person buying outside your trade, business, craft or profession. If you are buying as a business, some consumer protections in these Terms do not apply to you.

⚠️ LAWYER: confirm whether a separate B2B track is needed, or whether business purchases should simply be refused at checkout. Selling to businesses changes VAT treatment and removes the consumer-law framing that most of this document assumes.

2. The Merchant of Record — who sells you what

This section matters. Two different companies are involved in your purchase, and they are responsible for different things.

2.1. The payment transaction. Your purchase is processed by Link, acting as Merchant of Record. This means Link is the seller of record for the transaction. Link is your contractual counterparty for the payment itself: it takes the payment, calculates and remits any VAT, GST or sales tax, issues your invoice or receipt, and processes refunds and chargebacks.

2.2. The content and the service. We create, own, host and support the Product. We are your counterparty for everything about the content and the service: what is in it, whether it works, how long it stays available, your account, the community, and these Terms.

2.3. Practical consequence. Two sets of terms apply to your purchase:

2.4. Nothing in this section reduces your statutory rights. If mandatory consumer law in your country gives you a right against us, against Link, or against both, you keep that right regardless of how responsibility is divided above.

⚠️ LAWYER: the provider is now chosen — Lemon Squeezy, operated by Sold through Link, LLC (f/k/a Lemon Squeezy LLC), 222 South Main Street, Suite 500, Salt Lake City, UT 84101, USA. Verify this split against that entity's actual merchant agreement. The pre-contractual information duties under Art. 6 of Directive 2011/83/EU are partly discharged by the MoR's checkout and partly by us. Confirm who is the "trader" for the purposes of the withdrawal right (see the separate Right of Withdrawal Notice).

Note for the same review: Stripe is converging Lemon Squeezy into Stripe Managed Payments, where Stripe becomes the legal seller. If that migration moves the MoR to an EU entity, both this clause and the Lithuanian VAT position change — see research/03-teise.md section 8.3. Do not accept the migration without re-checking.

3. What the Product is — and what it is not

3.1. The Product is an information product. It is a written methodology about nutrition and inflammation, delivered as:

(a) a web reader, which is the canonical, authoritative version; (b) a downloadable PDF, which is a snapshot of the web reader at the time you download it, personalised with a watermark (see section 7); (c) supporting tools and templates where offered; (d) access to a community (currently on Discord), where offered.

3.2. The web reader is the canonical version. Where the PDF and the web reader differ, the web reader is correct, because the PDF you downloaded may predate an update.

3.3. The Product is not medical advice, and it is not healthcare. It does not diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease or condition. Using it does not create a doctor–patient, dietitian–patient or any other clinical relationship between you and us. Our full Medical Disclaimer forms part of these Terms and you must read it.

3.4. We make no promises about outcomes. The Product grades the strength of the published evidence behind each claim it discusses. An evidence grade describes how strong the research is. It is not a prediction about you and not a promise of any result.

3.5. Technical requirements and compatibility. The web reader requires an internet connection and a current version of a mainstream browser (current versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge). The PDF is a standard PDF file, readable offline in any standard PDF reader, and printable. The Product contains no DRM and no copy protection, but the PDF is watermarked as described in section 7. The Product is delivered in English only unless stated otherwise at the point of sale.

⚠️ LAWYER: Art. 6(1)(r) and 6(1)(s) of Directive 2011/83/EU require disclosure of functionality, interoperability and any technical protection measures before purchase, not only in these Terms. Confirm the sales page carries this too.

4. Your account

4.1. Access to the web reader requires an account tied to the email address you used at checkout. We use passwordless sign-in: you enter your email address and we send you a sign-in link.

4.2. Your account is personal to you. You are responsible for keeping access to your email account secure, because whoever controls that mailbox can sign in as you.

4.3. Tell us at hello@assaygrade.com as soon as you believe someone else has accessed your account. We will help you secure it.

4.4. If you need to change the email address on your account, contact us. We will do this for you where we can reasonably verify the request.

5. Licence — what you may do with the Product

5.1. We (or our licensors) own all intellectual property rights in the Product, including the text, the grading methodology, the tools, the templates, the design and the trademarks. Buying the Product does not transfer any of those rights to you.

5.2. Subject to these Terms and to payment in full, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable licence to access and use the Product for your own personal, non-commercial purposes.

5.3. Under that licence you may:

(a) read the Product in the web reader; (b) download, store and read the watermarked PDF on devices you control; (c) print one copy for your own personal use; (d) use the templates and tools for your own personal purposes; (e) quote short extracts for the purposes of review, criticism, teaching or news reporting, where you credit Assay Grade and link to https://assaygrade.com, to the extent permitted by applicable copyright law.

5.4. The licence is granted to one person. It does not cover use by a team, a clinic, a class, a company or any other group.

⚠️ LAWYER: if a multi-seat, clinic or educational licence is ever offered, it needs its own terms. This clause deliberately does not create one.

6. Prohibited use

6.1. You must not:

(a) share, sell, rent, lend or transfer your account credentials or sign-in links to anyone else; (b) copy, publish, upload, post, torrent, mirror or otherwise redistribute the PDF or any substantial part of the Product, whether free or for payment; (c) resell, sublicense or commercially exploit the Product, or use it to create a competing or derivative product; (d) remove, obscure, alter or attempt to defeat the watermark, or any copyright notice or attribution; (e) scrape, crawl, spider, bulk-download or use automated means to extract the content of the web reader; (f) use the Product, or any part of it, to train, fine-tune or ground a machine learning or generative AI system, or to build a dataset for that purpose; (g) circumvent, or attempt to circumvent, any access control, rate limit or authentication mechanism; (h) use the Product to provide advice, coaching or a service to third parties, whether paid or unpaid; (i) use the Product in any way that is unlawful, or that infringes anyone else's rights.

6.2. If you break this section, we may suspend or terminate your access under section 12.

6.3. Redistributing the Product also infringes our copyright. We reserve all rights and remedies available to us under copyright law, in addition to anything in these Terms.

⚠️ LAWYER: clause 6.1(f) (AI training) is an evolving area. Check whether the wording holds up against the TDM exceptions in Art. 4 of Directive (EU) 2019/790 and the equivalent UK position, and whether a machine-readable opt-out is also needed on the Site itself.

7. The watermark — and what it means for your data

7.1. Every PDF you download is generated individually for you and carries a visible watermark. The watermark contains your name, the email address on your account, and your purchase reference.

7.2. We tell you this plainly because it matters to you in two ways.

(a) It identifies you. If your copy of the PDF appears on a file-sharing site, a forum, a messaging group or anywhere else it should not be, the watermark shows that the copy came from your account.

(b) It is personal data. Embedding your name and email address into the file is processing of your personal data. We do it on the basis of our legitimate interest in protecting our copyright and preventing unauthorised redistribution (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). Our Privacy Policy explains this, together with your rights to object, to access your data, and to have it erased.

7.3. The watermark is not encryption and does not stop you from doing anything with the file. It is an attribution measure, not a lock.

7.4. This is the "technical protection measure" that we are required to disclose to you before you buy. It is also disclosed on the sales page and at checkout.

⚠️ LAWYER: confirm (i) that legitimate interest is the right lawful basis here rather than contractual necessity, (ii) that a legitimate interests assessment is documented, and (iii) how a valid erasure request interacts with watermarked copies already downloaded.

8. "Lifetime access" — what we actually mean

We use the phrase "lifetime access" in our marketing. This section says exactly what it does and does not mean, because the phrase is often used dishonestly.

8.1. What it means. You pay once. There is no subscription, no renewal, no recurring charge, and no expiry date on your access. For as long as we operate the Product, you can sign in and read it, and you can download the current PDF as many times as you need.

8.2. What it does not mean. It is not a promise that the Product will exist forever. It cannot be. It is the lifetime of the service, not the lifetime of any person, and no business can honestly guarantee it will operate indefinitely.

8.3. What we commit to if we ever shut the Product down. If we decide to discontinue the Product, we will:

(a) give you at least 90 days' notice by email to the address on your account; (b) keep the download available for the whole of that notice period; and (c) make available a complete, downloadable copy of the content you bought — at minimum the full PDF — that you can keep and read offline afterwards, with no time limit and with no further payment.

8.4. That downloadable copy is the honest floor of what "lifetime" buys you: a file you keep. Everything above it — the web reader, updates, tools, the community — depends on us continuing to operate.

8.5. We may also change, retire or replace individual features, formats or platforms without shutting the whole Product down. For example, we may move the community to a different platform, retire a tool, or restructure the web reader. Where a change materially reduces what you bought, we will tell you in advance and explain what replaces it.

⚠️ LAWYER: section 8 is the clause most likely to be tested. Confirm it is consistent with (i) the marketing copy actually used on the sales page, (ii) the conformity and update obligations for digital content under Directive (EU) 2019/770, especially Art. 8 (updates) and Art. 19 (modification of digital content, which imposes specific notice and termination-right conditions), and (iii) UK CRA 2015 Part 1 Chapter 3. Art. 19 of 2019/770 may require us to offer a right to terminate with a refund for some modifications — that is not currently in this draft.

9. Updates to the content

9.1. The Product is maintained. When the evidence changes, we change the content: grades move, claims are added, claims are removed, and the chapter on what the evidence does not support gets longer or shorter.

9.2. Updates are included in your purchase at no extra cost. You do not pay again.

9.3. Updates appear in the web reader first. The PDF is regenerated periodically. If you want the latest text, read the web reader and download a fresh PDF.

9.4. We keep a changelog so you can see what changed and when.

9.5. We do not promise a specific update frequency. We update when the evidence warrants it, not on a schedule.

9.6. We may also correct errors, including changing a grade downwards. If we have told you something was better supported than it turns out to be, we will say so plainly rather than quietly edit it.

⚠️ LAWYER: Art. 8(2) of Directive (EU) 2019/770 requires the trader to supply updates, including security updates, necessary to keep digital content in conformity, for the period the consumer may reasonably expect given the type and purpose of the content and the circumstances. For a one-off purchase marketed as "lifetime", that period is arguably long. Clause 9.5 should be checked against this.

10. The community

10.1. Where community access is included, it is currently provided through Discord, a third-party platform. Your use of Discord is also governed by Discord's own terms and policies, which we do not control.

10.2. The community is a place to discuss the methodology. It is not a clinic. No one in the community — including us — is providing you with medical advice, and nothing posted there should be treated as such.

10.3. In the community you must not:

(a) post medical advice, or present yourself as a clinician if you are not one; (b) recommend, sell or promote supplements, products, services or affiliate links; (c) share, request or link to pirated copies of the Product or anyone else's paid content; (d) harass, abuse, threaten or discriminate against anyone; (e) post spam, scams, or unsolicited promotion; (f) share other members' personal or health information outside the community, or screenshot and publish other members' posts without their consent; (g) post content that is unlawful.

10.4. We moderate. We may remove posts and suspend or remove community access for breaches of this section. Losing community access does not affect your access to the web reader and the PDF.

10.5. Content posted by other members is theirs, not ours. We do not endorse it and we do not verify it.

10.6. We may move, restructure or close the community. If we close it entirely without replacement, we will tell you, and section 8.5 applies.

⚠️ LAWYER: two related points. (i) Health-related discussion between members may involve special category data under Art. 9 GDPR — confirm our role and whether we are a controller for that processing. (ii) The research file notes that bundling paid "community access" is a prohibited category under one candidate MoR's acceptable use policy. If the commercial decision is to make the community free and open to all rather than part of the paid package, section 10 must be rewritten and the sales page must stop describing it as included.

11. Price, payment and tax

11.1. Prices are shown on the Site before you buy, inclusive of any applicable VAT, GST or sales tax, as calculated by Link for your billing country.

11.2. We use regional pricing. The price shown may differ depending on the country you are buying from. This reflects differences in purchasing power between markets.

11.3. The price that applies to you is determined by the billing country you select at checkout, which you are free to change. We do not block, restrict or redirect access to any version of the Site based on your nationality, residence or location, and we do not refuse a purchase because your payment card was issued in another country.

11.4. Providing false billing information to obtain a lower price may have tax consequences for you and may breach Link's terms.

11.5. Payment is a single, one-off payment. There is no recurring charge.

⚠️ LAWYER: clause 11.3 is drafted to comply with Regulation (EU) 2018/302 (geo-blocking) — Art. 3 (access), Art. 4 (conditions) and Art. 5 (payment non-discrimination). Confirm the technical implementation matches the promise, in particular that country switching at checkout is genuinely available and that no IP-based automatic redirect happens without explicit consent.

12. Suspension and termination

12.1. By you. You may stop using the Product at any time. You may also ask us to close your account and delete your data — see the Privacy Policy. Closing your account means losing access to the web reader and any future downloads; it does not by itself entitle you to a refund, though our Refund Policy may.

12.2. By us, for breach. We may suspend or terminate your access if you materially breach these Terms — in particular section 6 (prohibited use) or section 10.3 (community conduct).

12.3. Before we terminate, unless the breach is serious enough to make that inappropriate, we will:

(a) tell you what we believe you have done, by email; (b) give you a fair opportunity to explain; and (c) where the breach can be fixed, give you a reasonable chance to fix it.

12.4. Serious breaches where we may act immediately include publishing the PDF publicly, systematically scraping the web reader, and conduct in the community that threatens or harasses another person.

12.5. Refund on termination. If we terminate your access for breach, we do not refund you. If we terminate your access for any other reason that is not your fault, we will refund you a fair amount, taking into account how long you had access.

12.6. Termination does not affect any rights or liabilities that arose before it, and sections 5.1, 6.3, 13, 14, 15 and 17 survive termination.

⚠️ LAWYER: clause 12.5 needs review against the unfair terms rules — Directive 93/13/EEC and, for the UK, Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. A blanket "no refund on termination for breach" clause may be found unfair if it operates as a penalty, and the discretion in "a fair amount" may need an objective standard.

13. Disclaimers

Read this section together with section 14. Both are limited by section 15, which protects your statutory rights.

13.1. The Product is educational and informational. We provide it "as is". We do not warrant that it is complete, that it is free of errors, or that it will meet your particular needs.

13.2. We do not warrant that the web reader will be available without interruption. Hosting, sign-in and third-party platforms occasionally fail. We aim to fix problems promptly.

13.3. The Product summarises and grades published scientific evidence at a point in time. Science moves. A grade that was accurate when written may be wrong later. That is why we update, and why we publish a changelog.

13.4. We do not warrant any health outcome. Nutrition responds to individual biology, medication, existing conditions, and dozens of variables we know nothing about. Nothing in the Product is a prediction about you.

13.5. Third-party links, tools and platforms referenced in the Product are not under our control and we are not responsible for them.

14. Limitation of liability

14.1. This section does not apply to anything listed in section 15. Read section 15 first.

14.2. Subject to section 15, we are not liable to you for:

(a) any loss that was not reasonably foreseeable to both of us when you bought the Product; (b) loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity; (c) any loss arising from your use of the Product for a commercial purpose, which the licence in section 5 does not permit in any case; (d) any loss arising because you relied on the Product instead of consulting a qualified healthcare professional, where a reasonable person in your position would have consulted one.

14.3. Subject to section 15, our total liability to you for all claims connected with the Product is limited to the amount you actually paid for it.

14.4. Nothing in this section is intended to exclude liability that arises because we failed to supply digital content that was in conformity with the contract. Your statutory remedies for non-conformity are described in section 15.

⚠️ LAWYER: this is the highest-risk section in the document. Points to decide: (i) whether the cap at the purchase price survives a fairness assessment under Directive 93/13/EEC and CRA 2015 s.62 — a cap at the price paid is common but is not automatically fair; (ii) whether 14.2(d) is enforceable at all, or whether it reads as an attempt to exclude liability for the core risk of the product; (iii) whether US-facing terms need separate treatment, since several US states treat liability caps and warranty disclaimers differently and some require conspicuous formatting; (iv) whether an indemnity from the buyer for redistribution should be added.

15. Your statutory rights are not affected

15.1. Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes any right you have as a consumer that cannot be limited or excluded by law. If any clause in these Terms conflicts with a mandatory rule of consumer law that applies to you, that rule wins and the clause does not apply to you to that extent.

15.2. In particular, we do not exclude or limit our liability in any way for:

(a) death or personal injury caused by our negligence; (b) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; (c) any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

15.3. If you are in the EU or the EEA, you have rights under Directive (EU) 2019/770 on digital content and digital services, as implemented in your country. If the Product is not as described, is not fit for its purpose, or does not have the qualities you can reasonably expect, you are entitled to have it brought into conformity, or to a price reduction or a refund, in accordance with those rules. Directive 2011/83/EU also gives you rights on distance contracts, including a right of withdrawal — see our separate Right of Withdrawal Notice for how that works with digital content supplied immediately.

15.4. If you are in the UK, you have rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in relation to digital content, including that it must be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose and as described, and rights under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.

15.5. If you are elsewhere, including the US, Canada or Australia, your local consumer law may give you rights we cannot exclude. We do not attempt to exclude them. Australian buyers: nothing in these Terms excludes, restricts or modifies any guarantee under the Australian Consumer Law.

15.6. These statutory rights sit on top of our voluntary 30-day satisfaction guarantee in the Refund Policy. The guarantee is something we offer in addition; it never replaces or reduces what the law gives you.

⚠️ LAWYER: confirm the Australian Consumer Law wording in 15.5, which has a prescribed form in some contexts, and check whether any US state requires specific disclosure formatting.

16. Complaints and dispute resolution

16.1. If something is wrong, email hello@assaygrade.com first. Tell us what happened and what you want us to do. We will acknowledge within 3 working days and aim to resolve within 14 days.

16.2. Out-of-court dispute resolution. If you are a consumer and we cannot resolve your complaint directly, you can refer the dispute to the State Consumer Rights Protection Authority (Valstybinė vartotojų teisių apsaugos tarnyba, "VVTAT"), the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) entity for consumer disputes with traders established in Lithuania. We will take part in VVTAT's procedure. Before applying to VVTAT, first complain to us in writing as described in 16.1. The procedure is free of charge for consumers. Contact details: A. Goštauto g. 12, LT-01108 Vilnius, Lithuania; phone +370 5 262 6760; email tarnyba@vvtat.lt; website https://vvtat.lrv.lt/en/.

16.3. Consumers elsewhere in the EU. If you live in another EU country, the European Consumer Centre in your country can help with a cross-border complaint, and the European Commission maintains a directory of certified ADR bodies at https://consumer-redress.ec.europa.eu/dispute-resolution-bodies.

16.4. UK. If you are in the UK, you may also seek help from the Citizens Advice consumer service.

16.5. If the payment itself is the problem — a duplicate charge, a card dispute, an invoice issue — contact Link's support as well, since they process the payment.

17. Governing law and courts

17.1. These Terms are governed by the law of the Republic of Lithuania.

17.2. If you are a consumer, this choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory consumer-protection rules of the country where you habitually reside. You may bring proceedings in the courts of your own country, and if we bring proceedings against you, we will do so in the courts of your country.

17.3. If you are not a consumer, the courts of the Republic of Lithuania have exclusive jurisdiction.

⚠️ LAWYER: clause 17.2 reflects Art. 6 of Regulation (EC) 593/2008 (Rome I) and Arts. 17–19 of Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 (Brussels I recast). Confirm the drafting, and confirm the position for UK, US, CA and AU buyers, where those instruments do not apply and the analysis is different for each.

18. Changes to these Terms

18.1. We may change these Terms — for example to reflect a change in the law, a change in how the Product works, or a change of payment provider.

18.2. For changes that affect you materially, we will email you at the address on your account at least 30 days before the change takes effect, and we will summarise what changed.

18.3. Because you have already paid in full for lifetime access, a change to these Terms cannot introduce a new charge for what you already bought, cannot remove your access to the content you bought, and cannot reduce the commitments in section 8.

18.4. If you do not accept a material change, you may stop using the Product. Where the change substantially reduces what you bought and you tell us within 30 days, we will discuss a fair remedy with you, which may include a partial refund.

18.5. We keep previous versions of these Terms available at /terms/archive so you can see what changed.

18.6. Minor changes — typos, clarifications, updated contact details — take effect when published.

19. General

19.1. Whole agreement. These Terms, together with the Refund Policy, the Right of Withdrawal Notice, the Medical Disclaimer and the Privacy Policy, are the whole agreement between you and us about the Product.

19.2. Severability. If a court finds any clause unenforceable, the rest of these Terms continue to apply.

19.3. No waiver. If we do not enforce a right straight away, we do not lose it.

19.4. Assignment. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms to anyone else. We may transfer ours — for example if the business is sold — but only where your rights under these Terms are not reduced. We will tell you if that happens.

19.5. Third parties. No one other than you and us has any right to enforce these Terms.

19.6. Language. These Terms are written in English, and English is the governing version. Any translation is provided for convenience only.

⚠️ LAWYER: clause 19.6 needs checking. Some member states require consumer terms in the national language for consumers resident there, and a "English governs" clause can itself be found unfair where the consumer was addressed in another language. If the Site is ever localised, this clause must change.

Related documents

• Refund Policy — our 30-day satisfaction guarantee and how to use it

• Right of Withdrawal Notice — your statutory EU/UK cancellation rights

• Medical Disclaimer — read before using the Product

• Privacy Policy — what data we hold and why

• Evidence and Editorial Policy — how grades are assigned

Open questions for the lawyer

1. Confirm the MoR responsibility split in section 2 against the signed merchant agreement, and who is the "trader" for withdrawal-right purposes.

2. Section 8 (lifetime access) against Arts. 8 and 19 of Directive (EU) 2019/770 — in particular whether Art. 19 requires an express termination-with-refund right for modifications.

3. Section 14 (limitation of liability) — enforceability of the cap and of 14.2(d).

4. Section 16.2 — we now commit to VVTAT as our ADR entity, which triggers the naming duty in Art. 13(1) of Directive 2013/11/EU; confirm the wording, and whether anything replaced the Art. 14 ODR-link duty after Regulation (EU) 2024/3228 repealed Regulation (EU) No 524/2013 (platform closed 20 July 2025).

5. Whether the community stays inside the paid package at all (MoR acceptable use).

6. Whether separate US-, CA- and AU-facing variants of sections 14, 15 and 17 are needed, or whether one document can carry all jurisdictions.

7. Whether an AI-training prohibition (6.1(f)) is enforceable and whether a machine-readable reservation is also required.

8. Whether the watermark's legitimate-interest basis (7.2(b)) is documented adequately.