Terms and data protection

1. Scope and operator

These terms apply when you visit mataeology.com, subscribe to daily email or Telegram delivery, use Chat Studio, or download and use Photo Sorter. “Mataeology”, “we”, and “us” mean the independent, non-commercial project operated from Bulgaria. The project does not sell products, accept payments, display advertising, or operate for commercial gain. Privacy contact: [email protected].

Using a service means that you agree to these terms to the extent that a valid agreement can be formed under the law that applies to you.

2. Eligibility

The services are intended for adults aged 18 or older. Do not subscribe or use the services if you are under 18. If you use a service for an organisation, you confirm that you have authority to accept these terms for that organisation.

3. The services

Daily fact

Mataeology publishes one short fact for entertainment and general information in English, Russian, and Spanish. The versions are intended to communicate the same claim. A fact, its verification note, and translations may be created using the Google Gemini API and may contain mistakes, omissions, mistranslations, or outdated information. They are not professional, scientific, medical, legal, financial, or safety advice. Do not make an important decision based on them.

Email edition

If you expressly consent and confirm the address through the email we send, we will use your subscription details to deliver one daily fact in the site language and local time zone selected when you subscribe, and to administer that subscription. Every edition contains an unsubscribe link. Unsubscribing stops future delivery and removes the subscription record from the application data.

Telegram edition

If you connect the bot from the website and press Start in Telegram, you request and consent to one daily bot message. We use the selected site language, your browser’s local time zone, and the resulting Telegram chat identifier to deliver and administer it. The bot provides /fact to request the current fact, /language en|ru|es to change the delivery language, and /stop to stop delivery. Using /stop removes the active Telegram subscription and delivery record from the application data.

The bot is a third-party service operated by Mataeology through Telegram. Telegram remains a separate service governed by its own terms and privacy policy. The bot does not need free-form messages, phone numbers, contacts, media, or locations, so do not send them.

Local tools

Chat Studio is a browser-based mockup and export tool. Photo Sorter is downloadable macOS software that helps move selected files between folders. The specific safety and use rules for each tool appear below.

4. Acceptable use

You may not use the services to break the law or violate another person’s rights. In particular, you may not:

impersonate, deceive, defraud, harass, threaten, defame, or fabricate evidence against another person;
create or distribute unlawful, abusive, non-consensual, privacy-invasive, or sexually exploitative material;
use content without the permissions, licences, or consents required for names, photographs, messages, trademarks, or other protected material;
introduce malware, bypass technical limits, probe security, automate abusive traffic, or disrupt the services;
remove ownership notices, misrepresent the origin of an export, or imply endorsement by Mataeology or a third-party platform.

We may suspend access or decline support where reasonably necessary to protect the services, users, or third parties, or to comply with law.

5. Chat Studio

Chat Studio creates visual simulations of conversations and stories. It is not a messaging service, and its exports are not records of real communications. If an export could reasonably be mistaken for an authentic message, statement, or event, you must clearly label it as a mockup or simulation.

You are responsible for the text and images you place in a mockup and for how you use the result. You must have the necessary rights and consents, including where an identifiable person appears. Do not use an export as fabricated evidence, for impersonation, fraud, harassment, defamation, or to mislead a person about a matter that could affect their rights or decisions.

Chat Studio processes editor text and uploaded images in browser memory on your device. The application does not send that content to the Mataeology server. Closing or reloading the page can remove unsaved work, so export anything you want to keep.

6. Photo Sorter

The Photo Sorter information and download page is available in English, Russian, and Spanish. This website translation describes the product but does not mean that every language is available inside the downloaded macOS application unless the application itself says so.

Photo Sorter acts on real files and folders that you select. A move, rename, external change, permission failure, disk problem, software defect, or user mistake can result in an unexpected location or loss of access to a file. Keep a separate, current backup before using the application, verify source and destination folders, and inspect important results.

Undo is a convenience, not a backup or a guarantee of recovery. We do not promise compatibility with every macOS release, storage provider, file format, external drive, permission setup, or third-party application. Preview builds may not be notarized by Apple and may require a manual confirmation in macOS Privacy & Security.

Subject to these terms, you receive a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use Photo Sorter for personal or internal business purposes. You may not sell, redistribute, rent, sublicense, or maliciously modify it. This does not restrict reverse engineering, interoperability, backup, or other rights that cannot lawfully be excluded.

7. Intellectual property and third-party names

The Mataeology name, visual identity, site design, and original software are owned by or licensed to the operator. You retain the rights you already hold in content used locally in Chat Studio. Because that content is not uploaded to us, you do not grant us a licence to it.

Underlying facts are not claimed as exclusive property, and a generated fact may resemble information produced elsewhere. Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, Apple, and macOS are names or trademarks belonging to their respective owners. Mataeology is independent and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by those companies or platforms.

8. Availability, updates, and termination

The services are provided free of charge as part of a non-commercial project. We may repair, update, restrict, or discontinue a feature for security, legal, operational, or product reasons. Where practical, we will give reasonable notice of a material change that adversely affects active subscribers.

We may update these terms prospectively. The current version and effective date will remain on this page. Continued use after an effective change may constitute acceptance where permitted by law. Changes do not remove rights or remedies that already arose and cannot legally be waived.

9. Disclaimer and limitation of liability

The services are provided on an “as available” basis. We do not guarantee that a fact or translation is accurate, that an email or Telegram message arrives at a particular minute, that an export matches a third-party interface, that Photo Sorter will recover every move, or that the services will always be uninterrupted, secure, compatible, or error-free. Delivery may also be delayed or prevented by Resend, Telegram, a network provider, or your own account and device settings.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of opportunity, loss of data, or damage resulting from reliance on a daily fact, misuse of a Chat Studio export, or failure to maintain backups before using Photo Sorter.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot legally be excluded or limited. This includes mandatory consumer remedies and, where applicable, liability for fraud, intentional misconduct, gross negligence, or death or personal injury caused by negligence. Any limitation is reduced to the minimum extent necessary to remain lawful.

10. Applicable law and disputes

The project is operated from Bulgaria. These terms are interpreted under applicable Bulgarian law and directly applicable European Union law, without depriving a person of protections that cannot legally be waived. Courts have jurisdiction only as determined by mandatory law. Please contact [email protected] first so that we can try to resolve a concern directly.

11. Controller and privacy contact

Mataeology is the independent, non-commercial project responsible for the processing described in this notice. It is operated from Bulgaria. Privacy requests can be sent to [email protected].

This notice is based on the General Data Protection Regulation, Bulgaria’s Personal Data Protection Act, and guidance from the Bulgarian Commission for Personal Data Protection. A private residential address is not published. Provider disclosure requirements will be reassessed if the project’s non-commercial status, funding, or operation changes.

12. Data we process and why

Site language and daily fact request: The Mataeology home page and Photo Sorter information page are available at separate English, Russian, and Spanish URLs. The page URL determines the language; the site does not choose or redirect a language from your IP address or browser language. When you manually use either page’s language selector, the site stores that choice in a first-party cookie and opens the corresponding language URL. The selected language and browser-reported IANA time zone are also sent with requests for the local daily fact. The application does not use them to create a persistent visitor profile. Purpose: keep the interface in the language you requested, display the corresponding fact version, and determine the local publication date. Legal basis: providing the language and fact service you request.
Email subscription: A random internal subscription ID, email address, selected time zone and language, subscription status, consent time, and confirmation time after double opt-in. No subscriber name is requested or stored. Purpose: confirm, schedule, deliver, and stop the requested newsletter. Legal basis: your consent to daily delivery and the steps you request to receive the service.
Telegram subscription: When you interact with the bot, Telegram sends an update that may contain a Telegram user and chat identifier, displayed account details, language code, command text, and an update identifier. Mataeology uses the update to respond but persistently stores only a random internal subscription ID, chat identifier, selected time zone and language, and subscription time. It does not store your Telegram display name, username, language code, or command text. The website also stores a random, one-use connection token with the selected language, time zone, and creation time. The token is valid for 15 minutes and is deleted when used. Recent update identifiers are stored in a rolling list to prevent duplicate processing. Purpose: connect the requested chat, schedule and deliver facts, process commands, prevent duplicate webhook handling, and stop delivery. Legal basis: your consent to daily delivery, the steps you request to receive the service, and our legitimate interest in reliable and secure operation.
Daily ratings: For each publication date, the server stores only the total score and vote count. It does not create a rating profile. A signed browser cookie and a short-lived pseudonymous connection key prevent duplicate or automated votes. Legal basis: providing the requested rating feature and our legitimate interest in reliable aggregate results and abuse prevention.
Security and delivery: IP address, request headers, timestamps, connection information, and security events may be processed by the hosting and network providers that deliver and protect the site. The application derives an HMAC-based rate-limit key from an IP address to protect email subscription, Telegram connection, and rating endpoints. It keeps the key in process memory rather than in subscriber, Telegram, or rating files. The Telegram webhook also checks a server-side secret supplied in the webhook header. Legal basis: our legitimate interests in security, service integrity, and availability.
Chat Studio: Editor text and uploaded images stay in browser memory and are not submitted to the Mataeology server. Browser-native export creates the requested file on your device. Avoid using sensitive content on a device or browser you do not trust.
Photo Sorter: The downloadable application accesses only files and folders you select through macOS permissions. Sorting is performed locally. Mataeology does not receive your photos or folder contents through the website.
Fact generation: For a new fact, the Gemini request contains generation instructions and the list of facts previously published so that repetition can be avoided. When an older fact lacks a language version, the fact and its verification note may be sent to Gemini for translation into Russian and Spanish. These requests do not contain subscriber email addresses, Telegram chat identifiers, selected time zones or languages, ratings, Chat Studio content, or Photo Sorter files.

We do not sell personal data, build advertising profiles, or use subscription details for a purpose unrelated to delivering and managing the requested fact service.

13. Service providers and international transfers

Resend processes the recipient email address, selected-language and time-zone-specific email content, confirmation and unsubscribe links, and technical delivery records to send the newsletter. Resend data-processing terms.
Telegram processes Telegram account and chat information, bot messages and commands, delivered fact content, webhook updates, and technical records required to operate the bot. Mataeology receives bot updates from Telegram and sends requested messages back through the Telegram Bot API. Your use of Telegram is also subject to the Telegram Terms of Service for Bots and Telegram Privacy Policy.
Cloudflare may process IP addresses, request and device metadata, and security or connection logs when traffic passes through its network for content delivery, TLS, and abuse protection. Cloudflare data-processing addendum.
Google Gemini API processes the fact-generation prompt and response. The application requests no stored interaction, but Google may retain limited technical or abuse-monitoring logs under the applicable service terms unless the account qualifies for zero data retention. Subscriber and local-tool content is not included. Gemini API terms.

These providers may process data in the United States or other countries outside the European Economic Area. Where required, transfers rely on an adequacy decision, the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, or another lawful safeguard made available through the provider’s data-processing terms.

14. Retention and deletion

Unconfirmed subscription requests are removed after seven days.
Confirmed subscription details remain while the subscription is active. Using the unsubscribe link removes the subscription and associated application delivery record.
Telegram subscription details remain while delivery is active. Using /stop removes the subscription and associated application delivery record. A used connection token is deleted immediately; an unused token becomes invalid after 15 minutes and is removed during later connection cleanup. The duplicate-protection file keeps only the 200 most recent update identifiers, so an identifier remains until newer updates replace it.
Rating totals remain as date-level aggregates. The application does not store the individual star selection with a name, email address, or raw IP address.
Rate-limit keys are held only in volatile server process memory and are not written to the application data files. Their counters stop restricting requests after one hour for email subscription and Telegram connection attempts and after 26 hours for a daily rating. A memory entry is replaced when that connection is checked again and its window has ended, removed during opportunistic cleanup at high volume, or discarded when the server process restarts.
Provider security, delivery, and transaction logs follow the providers’ own retention schedules and legal obligations.

We may keep a limited record longer where required to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims or comply with a binding legal obligation.

15. Cookies and device storage

The site uses four first-party cookies and one session-only language preference in Chat Studio. There are no advertising or analytics cookies in the current version. Necessary storage is used only for a feature you request or to remember your privacy choice. The optional theme cookie is set only after you accept optional cookies.

The English version uses / and /photo-sorter, the Spanish version uses /es/ and /es/photo-sorter, and the Russian version uses /ru/ and /ru/photo-sorter. Older ?lang= addresses redirect permanently to the corresponding language URL. A language URL may be visible in browser history and may be shared if you copy the address. The language cookie is set after a manual selection, is included in requests to the Mataeology domain like other first-party cookies, and does not create a server-side language profile. The selected page language is also sent in the request body when you request email or Telegram delivery.

You can change or withdraw your choice at any time with Cookie settings on the Mataeology home page. Rejecting optional cookies deletes the theme cookie. The service then follows your device colour preference and remains fully usable.

16. Your data-protection rights

Depending on the circumstances, the GDPR gives you rights of access, correction, deletion, restriction, data portability, and objection to processing based on legitimate interests. You may withdraw consent at any time without affecting processing that was lawful before withdrawal. The unsubscribe link is the fastest way to withdraw email consent, and /stop is the fastest way to withdraw Telegram delivery consent and remove the active subscription.

Send a request to [email protected]. We may need enough information to verify that the request relates to you. You also have the right to complain to Bulgaria’s Commission for Personal Data Protection or another competent supervisory authority in the EU or EEA country where you live, work, or believe an infringement occurred.

Three small services. One clear notice.