Privacy Policy

Your anonymity is our priority. ResearchSeed is architected to allow researchers to speak freely about predatory practices without risking their careers. We collect the absolute minimum data necessary to maintain platform integrity.

1. Strictly Necessary Data

• Verification Only: We may request an institutional email solely to verify you are a real researcher and prevent botnets. This email is never public and is securely hashed where possible.
• Pseudonymous Profile: Your public activity is linked to a generated pseudonym (e.g., "Scholar-429"). Your real identity is dissociated from your public actions.

2. How We Protect You

We operate with a "privacy-first" mindset:

• No Tracking: We do not use third-party ad trackers.
• Data Isolation: Your voting record is kept separate from your personal identity data in our internal logic to the extent technically feasible.
• No Sale of Data: We are a non-profit driven initiative. We will never sell your data.

3. Data Sharing

We generally do not share data. In extreme cases of legal obligation, we will fight to protect user anonymity to the fullest extent permitted by law. Aggregated, fully anonymized statistics (e.g. "90% of votes for Journal X were negative") may be published.

4. Your Rights

You retain full control. You may delete your account and all associated personal data at any time through your settings.