How your data is handled

Here we sum up what this site saves, what it does not, and how it is used. The finer legal wording is in the Privacy Policy and the Terms of Service, but when you want to see the whole picture, read this page.

What we do not save

The following are not saved. The processing is momentary and nothing is kept afterward.

• The content of your dialogue with Matsumotory-kun. It is sent to the generation mechanism on the spot to produce an answer, but it does not remain on this site
• The question text you enter in search
• Who read which article. For view counts, we count only the total per article and do not hold who read it

What stays only on your device

The following remain only in this device's browser, not in your account. They work even when you are not logged in.

• The favorites of logged-out and free accounts
• The on/off state of Matsumotory-kun's hints
• Your conversation history with Matsumotory-kun. To look back at past conversations and continue where you left off, it is saved only on this device. It does not remain on this site's server. You can delete it from the chat screen, either conversation by conversation or all at once
• Which articles you have read, and where you left off. Used to tell unread articles apart in the list and for the "continue reading" link

What we save to your account

When you are logged in, what we save tied to your account is the following.

• The email address used for sign-in, and the records of its authentication
• Your current plan, and the state of your subscription and single purchases
• Articles you bought individually
• Articles you liked
• Articles you added to favorites. This is for subscribers only, and the same shelf is visible across your phone and computer
• The daily usage counts we keep to manage the cost of Matsumotory-kun and search

How what we save is used

Likes and favorites are used only to build your shelf, to serve as hints for Matsumotory-kun's answers, and to tally totals per article. We do not use one reader's reactions in output to another reader; there is no cross-reader use. The totals per article are read by a person, with the denominator, to decide what to write next.

A comment's display name is visible only to subscribers who are in the comment space. The email address is shown nowhere on the screen.

Matsumotory-kun's hints, and turning them off

By default, Matsumotory-kun uses the titles of the articles you liked and added to favorites as hints, and answers along your interests. What it uses as hints is only the titles, and it does not keep the content of the dialogue. When you do not want to use the hints, you can turn them off with the toggle next to Matsumotory-kun's input box. When turned off, likes and favorites are not sent to the hints and are not used to generate answers. The on/off state of the toggle is remembered on this device.

Handling of external published literature

Matsumotory-kun's knowledge base takes in, alongside matsumotory's own public content, the information from external published literature he surveyed in the course of his research and development. The intake is for a mechanical analysis that builds an index to search by meaning, not to deliver copyrighted works to readers.

The original text of external literature appears neither in the answers nor in the citation list. When it is used as the basis of an answer, what is shown is only the title, the source, and a link to the public page. The design is for you to read the content on the source page, and the original text is quoted only for writing to which matsumotory himself holds the copyright.

The consideration for a paid plan is for matsumotory's articles and the experience of dialogue with Matsumotory-kun. It does not sell access to external literature; when external literature grounds an answer, we guide readers to that source. If you notice a problem with how a source is handled, please let us know through the contact form. After checking, we can stop referencing that piece of literature.

The money side

Notification emails

These are the only emails we send.

• The sign-in link we send when you sign in. Confirming or changing your email address uses the same kind of link
• When you buy an article individually, a notice of the purchase
• When you reserve a cancellation, a confirmation that it was received
• When we cannot accept a purchase because your card was issued in a country outside the regions where we sell, a notice that the full amount was refunded. We send this while that automatic refund is enabled
• Payment receipts, notice before renewal, and notice when a payment fails. These are sent from Stripe, the payment processor

Cancellation and refunds

You can cancel a subscription at any time. Even after you cancel, you can read the paid articles as before until the end of the period you have paid for. Access ends when that period ends. This cancellation effective at the end of the period is how a subscription is cancelled.

There is no refund program. Because of the nature of digital content, single-article purchases are not refunded after purchase. For subscriptions as well, cancellation takes effect at the end of the period, so there is no refund of the unused portion. If there is a billing error such as a double charge, we will look into it and respond.

The difference between single purchases and subscriptions

A single purchase is buying just that one article. You can read a purchased article again at any time when you sign in with the email address used at purchase. A subscription is a form that lets you read every paid article, with four new paid articles added each month. Subscriber-only articles that cannot be bought individually are also readable within a subscription, and subscriber-only columns are readable on Premium only. On Premium, dialogue with Matsumotory-kun is also available. The contents of the plans are explained on the Plans page.

We update this explanation at the time the handling of data changes.