Terms of Service
1. Acceptance of Terms
By accessing or using Get Causality ("Service," "Platform," "we," "our," or "us"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use the Service.
2. Description of Service
Get Causality is a SaaS platform for Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) research. We provide an end-to-end research platform including:
- Survey platform — create specialized FCM surveys with causal-mapping questions
- Workshop facilitation — tools for in-person and virtual FCM workshops
- Automated analysis — build FCM models from survey responses and workshop data
- Network visualization — interactive network graphs and visualization tools
- Statistical analysis — centrality, consensus analysis, advanced statistics
- Model simulation — dynamic system simulation and scenario testing
- Multi-Model analysis — compare multiple FCM models across stakeholder groups
- Export & publication — export to academic formats, generate reports
- Team collaboration — share models and collaborate with research teams
- Cloud storage — secure storage for research data and models
3. Account registration
3.1 Eligibility
- You must be at least 18 years old
- You must provide accurate and complete information
- You are responsible for maintaining account security
- You must not share your account credentials
- One person per account; team plans available for multiple users
3.2 Authentication
We support the following sign-in methods. Some are available only on certain plans (Enterprise SSO requires a Team or Enterprise subscription).
- Email and password, with optional two-factor authentication via TOTP authenticator app or one-time email codes
- Google OAuth (OpenID Connect)
- GitHub OAuth
- WebAuthn / FIDO2 passkeys (passwordless authentication, including hardware security keys and platform authenticators)
- Enterprise Single Sign-On (SSO) via OpenID Connect (OIDC) and SAML 2.0 (Team and Enterprise plans)
- Trusted-device cookies (skip 2FA challenges on devices you have explicitly trusted)
- Backup recovery codes (one-time use, generated when 2FA is enabled)
When an organization configures the require_2fa policy on its SSO connection, users without personal 2FA are sent an email verification code during OAuth/SSO login and must verify it before a session is created. OAuth login is blocked entirely for accounts that have personal 2FA enabled, preventing 2FA bypass via social authentication.
4. Acceptable use policy
4.1 Permitted uses
- Academic research and scholarly publications
- Organizational strategy and decision-making analysis
- Policy research and stakeholder consultation
- Environmental and social-science research
- Systems thinking and complexity-science research
- Educational purposes and teaching
4.2 Prohibited uses
You agree NOT to:
- Violate any applicable laws or regulations
- Upload malicious code, viruses, or harmful content
- Attempt to gain unauthorized access to our systems or other users' data
- Use the Service for illegal surveillance or manipulation
- Reverse-engineer or copy our proprietary technology
- Resell or redistribute the Service without written permission
- Abuse our API or exceed rate limits
- Upload data you do not have rights to use
- Use the Service to violate research ethics or IRB protocols
- Impersonate other users or researchers
5. Intellectual property
5.1 Your content
By using the Service, you grant us a limited license to:
- Store and process your data to provide the Service
- Create backups for disaster recovery
- Use anonymized, aggregated data to improve our platform (only with your consent)
- Display your shared models to users you grant access to
5.2 Our platform
All platform code, algorithms, models, designs, branding, and documentation are owned by Get Causality, LLC and protected by copyright, trademark, trade-secret, and patent laws. The generic concept of fuzzy cognitive mapping (Kosko, 1986) is in the public domain, but Get Causality's own scalable FCM systems and methods are proprietary and are the subject of one or more pending U.S. patent applications (Patent Pending). Nothing in these Terms places any Get Causality intellectual property into the public domain.
6. Subscription and payment
6.1 Pricing tiers
- Free — limited features for exploring the platform (up to 250 FCM models, 50 survey invitations, basic analyses)
- Academic — students, faculty, and academic researchers (multi-model analyses; educational use)
- Academic Plus — all multi-model + GNN / ML / discrete-choice analyses
- Academic Pro — full feature set including meta-model and Predictive Cognition
- Researcher — same feature set as Academic; commercial license
- Professional — independent researchers and consultants (A/B testing, white-label, advanced features)
- Team — research teams and small organizations (10 seats; meta-models; advanced ML)
- Enterprise — custom pricing for large organizations and institutions (unlimited usage, SLA, dedicated support, custom DPA / MSA)
Detailed feature comparison and current pricing on the pricing page.
6.2 Billing options (when active)
- Monthly: billed monthly, cancel anytime
- Annual: billed yearly with discount, pro-rated refunds available
6.3 Payment terms (when active)
- Payments are processed securely by Stripe
- Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled
- Cancellations take effect at the end of the current billing period
- Annual subscriptions may be eligible for pro-rated refunds within 30 days
- Prices may change with 30 days advance notice
- Failed payments may result in account suspension after 7 days
6.4 Free trial
New paid plans may include a free trial period. Trial terms will be disclosed at signup. No payment method required for free accounts.
7. Service availability
7.1 Uptime
We strive for 99.9% uptime for paid plans. We reserve the right to:
- Perform scheduled maintenance with advance notice (typically 24–48 hours)
- Make emergency fixes without notice
- Modify, add, or discontinue features
- Temporarily suspend service for security reasons
7.2 Service level
- Free: best-effort support
- Paid: email support within 24–48 hours
- Enterprise: priority support with SLA agreements
8. Data privacy and security
8.1 Data storage
- Database hosting: Neon (serverless PostgreSQL, AWS us-east-1)
- Application hosting: Vercel (global edge network)
- Edge protection: Cloudflare (WAF, DDoS mitigation, bot management via Turnstile)
- Backup retention: 30 days (one full backup-rotation cycle); see our retention schedule for the full per-category schedule
- Data encrypted in transit (TLS 1.2+, HSTS preload) and at rest (application-layer AES-256-GCM for all PII)
- All survey responses and research data stored in secure cloud databases
8.2 Research ethics
8.3 Your responsibilities
- Maintain your own backups of critical research data
- Obtain necessary consent from survey participants
- Comply with applicable research-ethics guidelines
- Protect personally identifiable information
- Do not store highly sensitive data without additional encryption
9. Limitation of liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW:
- The Service is provided "AS IS" without warranties of any kind
- Neither party is liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages
- Our total liability shall not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid in the twelve (12) months preceding the event giving rise to liability, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars ($100)
- The limitations in this Section 9 do not apply to liability arising from (i) willful misconduct or gross negligence, (ii) breach of confidentiality, (iii) indemnification obligations under Section 14, or (iv) a personal data breach to the extent caused by a party's material breach of its data-protection obligations
- We are not responsible for the availability or behavior of third-party sub-processors (Stripe, Vercel, Neon, Cloudflare, Resend, Sentry, PostHog)
- We are not liable for research conclusions or decisions based on FCM analysis
- We are not responsible for data loss, though we make reasonable efforts to prevent it
10. Academic and research use
"FCM analysis was conducted using Get Causality (Prasky, E., 2026), a browser-based platform for fuzzy cognitive mapping research. Available at: https://get-causality.com"
APA: Prasky, E. (2026). Get Causality: Browser-based fuzzy cognitive mapping research platform [Software]. https://get-causality.com
BibTeX:
@software{prasky2026getcausality,
author = {Prasky, Evan},
title = {Get Causality: Browser-based Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping Research Platform},
year = {2026},
url = {https://get-causality.com}
}
10.1 Methodology support
We provide documentation and support for FCM methodology, but you are responsible for proper application of research methods and interpretation of results.
11. Surveys and data collection
11.1 Survey distribution
- Distribute survey links to participants through your own channels
- Obtain informed consent from participants
- Comply with data-protection laws (GDPR, CCPA, etc.)
- Ensure participants understand how their data will be used
11.2 Participant data
- Survey responses are stored securely and only accessible to you
- We do not contact your participants
- You can export and delete participant data at any time
- Anonymization features available for sensitive research
12. Termination
12.1 By you
- You may cancel your subscription at any time through account settings
- Download your data before cancelling
- Account data: 30-day grace period after cancellation request (deletion is cancellable via email link), then cascade-deleted; backups overwritten within 30 days. Full per-category retention is published in our retention schedule.
- You may request immediate deletion by contacting support
12.2 By us
We may suspend or terminate your account for:
- Violation of these Terms
- Non-payment of subscription fees
- Abuse of the Service, API, or other users
- Illegal activity or research-ethics violations
- Security concerns
We will provide notice when possible and allow data export before deletion.
13. Privacy
Your use of the Service is also governed by our Privacy Policy.
14. Indemnification
14.1 By you
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Get Causality, its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any third-party claims, damages, losses, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from:
- Your use of the Service in violation of these Terms or applicable law
- Your violation of any rights of another party
- Your use of data you do not have rights to use
- Research-ethics violations, IRB non-compliance, or lack of proper participant consent
- Your survey content or data-collection practices
14.2 By Get Causality
We will defend, indemnify, and hold you harmless from any third-party claim alleging that the Service (excluding any content you supply) infringes that third party's intellectual property rights, and will pay any damages awarded or settlement reached in connection with such claim, provided you (a) give us prompt written notice, (b) give us sole control of the defense and settlement, and (c) provide reasonable cooperation at our expense.
14.3 Procedure
The indemnifying party will control the defense and settlement of the claim; the indemnified party may participate at its own expense. Neither party will settle a claim that imposes obligations on the other party without that party's prior written consent (not to be unreasonably withheld).
15. Changes to terms
We may update these Terms periodically. We will notify you via email, in-app banner, or website notice. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance. Material changes have a 30-day notice period.
16. Governing law
These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply. For consumers located in the European Union or the United Kingdom, this choice of law does not deprive the consumer of the protection of mandatory rules of the law of their habitual residence (per Regulation (EC) No 593/2008, Article 6).
17. Dispute resolution
17.1 Informal resolution
Before initiating any formal proceeding, you agree to first contact us at [email protected] and we agree to negotiate in good faith for thirty (30) days.
17.2 Binding arbitration
Except for disputes carved out under Section 17.5, any unresolved dispute will be finally resolved by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Arbitration Rules (or, for individual consumers, its Consumer Arbitration Rules) in effect at the time the demand is filed. The seat of arbitration is Wilmington, Delaware, conducted in English by one neutral arbitrator. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.
17.3 Class waiver and severability
Disputes will be arbitrated only on an individual basis. The parties waive any right to bring or participate in a class, collective, consolidated, or representative action. If any part of this class waiver is held invalid in part, the remainder of the class waiver will survive; if the class waiver is held invalid in whole, the parties' agreement to arbitrate under Section 17.2 is also void, and the dispute proceeds in court under Section 16.
17.4 Opt-out
You may opt out of Section 17.2 by sending notice to [email protected] within thirty (30) days of first accepting these Terms. Opt-out does not affect any other term.
17.5 Carve-outs
Notwithstanding Section 17.2, either party may bring an action in court (a) seeking injunctive or equitable relief to protect intellectual property rights or confidential information, or (b) in small-claims court for claims within that court's jurisdictional limit.
17.6 Consumer carve-out (EU / UK / other jurisdictions)
Where you qualify as a "consumer" under applicable law (including Article 17 of Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 for EU consumers and the Consumer Rights Act 2015 for UK consumers), this Section 17 does not deprive you of mandatory protections under the law of your habitual residence, and you may bring claims in the courts of your domicile.
18. Export control
You may not use the Service in violation of U.S. export-control laws. You certify that you are not:
- Located in an embargoed country
- Listed on any U.S. government restricted-parties list
19. Accessibility
We strive to make our platform accessible to users with disabilities. If you encounter accessibility barriers, contact [email protected].
20. Entire agreement
These Terms, along with our Privacy Policy and any service-specific terms, constitute the entire agreement between you and Get Causality regarding the Service.
21. Contact
- General support: [email protected]
- Legal questions: [email protected]
- Website: get-causality.com
22. Severability
If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable or invalid, the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect.