Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using UCultured at ucultured.volynska.dev ("the Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms") and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to these Terms, please do not use the Service.

We may update these Terms from time to time. When material changes are made, we will revise the effective date above and, where appropriate, notify registered users by email. Continued use of the Service following any update constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms.

2. Description of Service

UCultured is a community-driven cultural platform — an interactive world map where locals and diaspora nominate and discover the books, music, and art that define each country's culture. The Service includes user accounts, cultural nominations, community voting, comments, public profiles, and related features.

UCultured exercises editorial discretion over the countries represented on the platform. Certain countries may be restricted or excluded based on the platform's values and policies. This is an editorial decision and does not constitute discrimination against users from those countries.

3. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. By registering, you represent that:

• You are at least 13 years of age
• The information you provide during registration and onboarding is accurate and complete
• You will maintain the accuracy of your account information over time
• You are capable of entering into a binding agreement under the laws of your jurisdiction

4. User Accounts

You may register using an email address and password or via Google sign-in. During onboarding you will be asked to provide profile information including your public nickname, pronouns, birth country, current country of residence, and cultural affinity. Your public profile, including your nickname, pronouns, cultural background summary, and nominations, will be visible to all users of the platform.

You are solely responsible for all activity that occurs under your account. You must not share your credentials with any third party. If you believe your account has been accessed without authorization, notify us immediately at tanya@volynska.dev.

5. User-Generated Content

5.1 Ownership and License

"User Content" means any nominations, context notes, comments, feedback, or other material you submit to the Service. You retain ownership of your User Content. By submitting User Content, you grant Volynska LLC a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable license to use, display, reproduce, adapt, and distribute your User Content solely in connection with the operation and promotion of the Service. This license terminates when your content is deleted, subject to Section 12.

5.2 Content Standards

You represent and warrant that your User Content does not and will not:

• Violate any applicable law, regulation, or third-party right, including intellectual property rights, privacy rights, or rights of publicity
• Contain hate speech, harassment, threats, or content that discriminates on the basis of race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or any other protected characteristic
• Include spam, unsolicited advertising, or deliberately misleading information
• Impersonate any person or entity, or misrepresent your affiliation or cultural connection
• Contain malicious code, links to harmful content, or material designed to damage or disrupt the Service or its users

5.3 Nomination Eligibility

To preserve the authenticity and integrity of cultural recommendations, nominations may only be submitted for countries with which you have a genuine connection — specifically your birth country or current country of residence as provided during onboarding. This restriction is enforced at the platform level. Administrators and moderators may override this restriction at their discretion.

6. Community Standards

By using the Service you agree to engage with the UCultured community in good faith. This means:

• Treating all cultures, perspectives, and contributors with respect
• Submitting nominations that you genuinely believe represent the culture in question
• Engaging constructively and honestly in comments and discussions
• Reporting content that you believe violates these Terms using the platform's feedback mechanism

7. Moderation and Enforcement

Volynska LLC moderators and administrators reserve the right, at their sole discretion, to:

• Review, hide, edit, or remove any User Content that violates these Terms or Community Standards
• Suspend or permanently terminate accounts that violate these Terms, with or without prior notice
• Restrict or revoke nomination, commenting, or voting privileges

Moderation decisions are logged internally. We do not guarantee review of all reported content, but we take reports seriously and act on them where warranted.

8. Intellectual Property

The UCultured name, logo, visual design, and underlying software are the property of Volynska LLC and are protected by applicable intellectual property law. Nothing in these Terms grants you a right to use our trademarks, trade names, or branding without prior written consent.

You may not copy, modify, distribute, reverse-engineer, or create derivative works from any part of the Service without express written permission from Volynska LLC, except as expressly permitted by applicable law.

9. Third-Party Services

The Service integrates with third-party providers to deliver its functionality, including Supabase (authentication and database), Google (OAuth sign-in), PostHog (product analytics), Vercel (hosting and performance monitoring), and Resend (transactional email). Your use of those third-party services is subject to their own terms and privacy policies, which we encourage you to review.

We are not responsible for the practices, availability, or content of any third-party service.

10. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, error-free, or free of viruses or other harmful components. We do not warrant the accuracy, completeness, or cultural representativeness of any user-generated nomination or content on the platform. All nominations reflect the views of individual contributors and do not represent the position of Volynska LLC.

11. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Volynska LLC, its officers, employees, and affiliates shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of or related to your use of or inability to use the Service, including but not limited to loss of data, loss of revenue, or loss of goodwill, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our total liability to you for any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service shall not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid to use the Service in the 12 months preceding the claim, or (b) USD $100.

Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law, including liability for fraud, gross negligence, or death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

12. Termination

By you — You may request deletion of your account at any time by contacting us at tanya@volynska.dev. We will process your deletion request within 30 days. Upon deletion, your personal profile data will be removed. Some anonymized contributions may be retained where their removal would materially degrade the platform experience for other users.

By us — We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service at any time, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms or that continued access poses a risk to other users or the integrity of the platform.

Termination does not affect any rights or obligations that arose prior to the date of termination.

13. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, United States, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service that cannot be resolved informally shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in San Francisco County, California.

For users in the European Economic Area — Nothing in this section limits your rights to bring a complaint before your national data protection authority or consumer protection body under applicable EU law.

14. Miscellaneous

Entire agreement — These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Volynska LLC with respect to the Service and supersede all prior agreements.

Severability — If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, that provision will be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable, and the remaining provisions will continue in full force.

No waiver — Our failure to enforce any provision of these Terms does not constitute a waiver of our right to enforce it in the future.

Assignment — You may not assign or transfer your rights under these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign our rights freely.

15. Contact

For questions or concerns about these Terms, please contact: