How privacy works

• Your papers stay on your device for matching, the format and journal-rules checks, figures and writing: these run in your browser. If you choose an AI feature, the text you approve passes through our server to Anthropic, and our server doesn't store it. We store nothing from a paper, for anyone, signed in or not.
• Two optional features send something to Anthropic's Claude, and only after you confirm a notice that says exactly what: the AI review (your paper's text) and Ask Claude in the figure studio (a description of your data, never its values).
• You need an account only for those two. It holds your email address, your M coin history and your purchases. Not your name, not your papers.
• No ads, no analytics, no advertising or analytics cookies, and we never sell or rent anything about you.
• You're in control: download everything we hold, or delete your account, on your account page, at any time.

MargaLink is run by a sole proprietor in India, who decides what personal data is collected and why. That makes them the “controller” under the GDPR and UK GDPR, and the “Data Fiduciary” under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023. For any question about your data, a request or a complaint:

• Run by: the owner of MargaLink, a sole proprietor in India, trading as MargaLink.
• Postal address: to be listed here before accounts open
• Email: the contact address listed here once accounts open
• Phone: to be listed here before accounts open
• Grievance Officer: the owner of MargaLink, at the email and phone above. We acknowledge a complaint within 48 hours and aim to resolve it within one month.

The same details, with help for payments, are on the contact page.

Three rules shape every feature:

1. Your paper is never uploaded for matching or the format and journal checks. The file stays on your device.
2. We store nothing from a paper on our servers, not even for signed-in users.
3. Anything that sends text off your device is opt-in, behind a plain-language notice. Only the two features below do, and what they send passes through our server to Anthropic without being stored.

Checkable, not just claimed. Open your browser's developer tools and watch the network tab while you match a paper: every request is a plain download of a public file, and none carries a body. The code that reads, embeds and ranks your paper is the code your browser runs.

What an embedding is. Matching turns your title and abstract into a list of a few hundred numbers that capture the topic, not the words, and compares it with the same kind of list for each journal. We believe it can't practically be turned back into your text, but it comes from your paper, so it never leaves the tab either; nor do the research topics and cited journals worked out from the same text.

Browsing journals, matching, the checks, the figure studio (drawing, statistics, exports) and the writing workspace need no account and don't send your papers or your data anywhere. To run in your browser, the page downloads public files, the same for everyone:

Like any request on the web, each of these reaches its host with your IP address and ordinary browser details (such as its version), which the host uses to deliver the file and protect its service under its own privacy policy. None of them carries anything from your papers, spreadsheets or drafts. So besides our host, Cloudflare, Hugging Face and jsDelivr also receive your IP address when their files load. We don't run analytics or keep access logs of our own; Cloudflare keeps request logs under its own terms to serve and protect the site.

Your drafts live in your browser. Writing projects are kept in your browser's own storage on your device, never on a server. Clearing this site's data in your browser deletes them, so use “Download backup” to keep a copy or move to another computer.

Each needs a large language model that can't run in a browser, so each sends something to Anthropic's Claude API (in the United States) through our server, which holds the API key and keeps nothing it passes on. Neither starts until you confirm its notice.

Please don't send other people's data. Leave out identifiable data about study participants, patients or anyone else, and don't send a manuscript you received as a reviewer or editor, or work you have no permission to share. Removing author names is automatic and can miss some. The review's notice says this each time.

What Anthropic does with it. Anthropic provides the AI model under its commercial terms. It acts as our service provider and doesn't use this data to train its models. It deletes inputs and outputs within 30 days. It may keep them longer where the law requires, or to enforce its Usage Policy: content flagged as breaking that policy may be kept for up to 2 years, and the related safety scores for up to 7 years. Anthropic's retention policy

What we keep. Nothing of what's sent, before or after. To charge a review once and refund what didn't run, we keep which sections it covers, their lengths and which came back (never their text), for about two hours. Ask Claude costs 1 M coin a request; we keep only that coin's charge or refund.

You need an account only for the two features above. Sign in with Google (which tells us your verified email address and its id for your account, nothing else) or with a one-time link sent to your email. Here is everything an account involves:

We don't collect your name, photo, affiliation, phone number or location, and we don't build a profile of you. Your papers, spreadsheets and figures are never part of an account.

Our order process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com. Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for all our orders. Paddle provides all customer service inquiries and handles returns. Paddle takes the payment, charges any sales tax, sends the receipt and handles refund requests, under its buyer terms, and is the controller of that payment data under its own privacy notice. Your card or bank details go to Paddle only; MargaLink never sees or stores them. Paddle's checkout script loads only when you choose to buy.

From Paddle we keep, for each purchase: what it bought, the amount and currency, and Paddle's references for the payment and for you as its customer; for Pro, the plan, its status and billing periods; and any refund or chargeback. We also keep Paddle's ids for the payment events it sends us (nothing personal in them) for 90 days, to recognise a repeat. Paddle keeps its own records as the law requires of a seller.

Giving your email address is needed to have an account; without one you can still use every tool except the two AI features. We make no decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similar effects: match suggestions and the AI review are aids you read and judge yourself.

We never sell, rent or trade personal data, and we share it only with the services that run MargaLink:

Our providers are in the United States, the United Kingdom and elsewhere, so your data may be processed outside your country. For users in the EU and UK, we rely on the EU US Data Privacy Framework and its UK extension where a provider is certified, and otherwise on the standard contractual clauses in the provider's data processing terms. Indian law allows these transfers, as the United States is not a restricted country. We may also disclose data if the law requires it, for example to answer a valid court order.

We don't use advertising or analytics cookies, so we don't show a cookie banner. We use three cookies, only when you sign in or are signed in, and each is needed to provide what you asked for:

The site also keeps a few things in your browser's own storage, on your device, which it never sends anywhere: your writing projects and their settings (layout, open files, whether to compile automatically), cached copies of the downloads listed above so they aren't fetched again, whether you've seen the introduction, and, for this browser session, that you've read the Ask Claude notice. When you buy coins, Paddle's checkout runs its own script, and where it's switched on so does Cloudflare's Turnstile check; each follows its own cookie and privacy terms. You can clear everything this site keeps in your browser with “Reset site data” on the Guide page.

Each item above shows how long it's kept. When something expires, or you delete your account, we remove it from our live database straight away or within minutes. Our database provider keeps recovery copies for up to 30 days. We use these only to recover from a fault, never restore them for any other use, and they expire on their own.

Safeguards. Everything travels over HTTPS. Sign-in tokens and links are stored only as one-way fingerprints, and the session cookie can't be read by scripts. Abuse counters and the welcome fingerprint are keyed with a secret, so they can't be matched to an address or IP by anyone without it. The API keys stay on the server. Only the person who runs MargaLink can reach the database. If a breach ever affected your data, we'd tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

Depending on where you live, and in any case as our practice, you can:

• See and take everything we hold: your account page shows your coin history and has “Download my data”, a complete copy in a machine-readable file.
• Know who received it: the download lists the providers that received your account's data, and you can ask us.
• Delete it: “Delete my account” on the same page removes it at once (it also cancels Pro).
• Correct it: write to the contact address listed here once accounts open to change your email address or fix anything else.
• Withdraw consent: stop using the AI features at any time; each needs your confirmation every time. Deleting your account withdraws consent to everything else, as easily as you gave it.
• Object, or ask us to restrict what we do with your data, including anything we do on the basis of legitimate interest.
• Nominate someone to exercise these rights for you if you die or can't (India's law provides for this): write to us.

For anything the account page doesn't do, write to the contact address listed here once accounts open. We'll answer within 30 days. Under Indian law you may also raise a grievance with our Grievance Officer (see Who runs MargaLink): we acknowledge it within 48 hours and resolve it within the time the law allows. If you're not satisfied, you can complain to your data protection authority: in India, the Data Protection Board of India; in the EU, the authority where you live; in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office.

Accounts are only for people aged 18 or older, and you confirm your age when you sign up. If we learn that an account belongs to someone under 18, we will close it, delete its data and arrange a refund of any payment through Paddle. Write to the contact address listed here once accounts open if you believe this has happened. The tools that need no account don't collect personal data through them.

When what MargaLink collects or sends changes, this notice changes first, with a new version and date at the top, and we'll tell account holders by email before a change that matters takes effect. New uses of your data would need your consent first where the law requires it.