Last Updated: February 14, 2025

When you use the services of Sugaku, Inc. (“Sugaku,” “we”, “us”, or “our”), you’re trusting us to handle your personal data, and we take that trust seriously. This Privacy Policy describes how we handle personal information that we collect through and in connection with our website at https://www.sugaku.net, our applications, and any other website or service that we own or control and that links to this Privacy Policy (collectively, the “Service” or “Services”). This Policy applies to our website visitors, users of our applications, and other individuals who interact with us.

Personal Information We Collect

We collect the following categories of personal information about you:

Information you provide to us:

Contact information, such as your first and last name, email and mailing addresses, and phone number. You may also provide contact information of your colleagues, collaborators, friends, or other contacts when you invite them to join Sugaku.
Professional information, such as your role, institution you are affiliated with, publications, and other information about your professional history.
Account information, such as the username and password you use to access our Services.
Payment information needed to complete your transactions with us if you use our paid services, including name, payment card information, and billing information. This information is processed by our payment service provider, Stripe, which may handle your payment information in accordance with its own privacy policy (https://stripe.com/privacy). We do not have access to your full payment card information.
Communications that we exchange with you, including when you contact us with questions, feedback, or otherwise.
Visual and audio information, such as documents, photos, videos, or user-generated content that you upload or otherwise provide through the Services.
Marketing information such as your preferences for receiving our marketing communications and details about your engagement with them.
Other information not specifically listed here, which we will use as described in this Privacy Policy or as otherwise disclosed at the time of collection.

Where you provide us with the personal information of third parties, such as your colleagues, collaborators, friends, or other contacts, it is your responsibility to inform them about the processing of their personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy, and to confirm that they have given their permission.

Device data, including your computer’s or mobile device’s operating system type and version, manufacturer and model, browser type, screen resolution, device type (e.g., phone, tablet), IP address, unique identifiers, language settings, and general location information such as city, state, or geographic area.
Usage data, including pages, screens and/or features you viewed, accessed and/or used, how long you spent on a page, screen and/or feature, the website you visited before browsing to the Services, navigation paths between pages or screens, information about your activity on a page, screen and/or feature, access times, duration of access, and whether you have opened or otherwise engaged with our communications, such as our marketing emails, or clicked links or files within them.

We use the following tools for automatic data collection:

Cookies, which are text files that websites store on a visitor‘s device to uniquely identify the visitor’s browser or to store information or settings in the browser for the purpose of helping you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences, enabling functionality, and helping us understand user activity and patterns.
Local storage technologies, like HTML5, that provide cookie-equivalent functionality but can store larger amounts of data, including on your device outside of your browser in connection with specific applications.
Web beacons, also known as pixel tags or clear GIFs, which are used to demonstrate that a webpage or email was accessed or opened, or that certain content was viewed or clicked.

Information we obtain from other sources:

Third-party research repositories. Our Services depend on third party research repositories. When you create an account, we may allow you to link your account to a pre-existing profile maintained by one of the third-party research repositories that we leverage.
Other Sugaku Users. We may receive your personal information from other Sugaku users. For example, if another Sugaku user contributes information about their research collaborations with you you, we may process that information to power that user’s experience with Sugaku. That said, we do not link your account with data obtained from other users, and we would not be able to retrieve data concerning you from another user’s account.
Third-party login information. When you link, connect, or log in to our Services with a third-party service (e.g., Google), you may direct the service to send us information controlled by that service or as authorized by you via your privacy settings on that service.
Social media. We may maintain pages on social media platforms, such as LinkedIn, Instagram, and other third-party platforms. When you visit or interact with our pages on those platforms, you or the platforms may provide us with information through the platform, and we will treat such information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
Other sources. We may obtain personal information from other third parties, such as marketing partners, publicly-available sources, and data providers.

How We Use Personal Information

We use personal information for the following purposes or as otherwise described at the time of collection:

To provide our Services. This includes:

Administering, hosting, and operating our Services. Sugaku provides a personalized agent experience that is powered by understanding your research needs and helps you do research more efficiently. To do that, we will process the text and metadata of your inputs to create a working memory and inferences about your research needs;
Communicating with you and responding to any inquiries you may have; and
Analyzing your use of our Services to allow us to evaluate and improve the Services.

For research, development, benchmarking, and improving our Services. Sugaku is an AI-first company that balances maintaining powerful models for the entire user base with privacy preservation. We may use personal information to analyze and improve the Services, identify trends, and operate and expand our business activities. We may also create aggregated, anonymized, or other de-identified statistics, which we may use for lawful business purposes, including for analytics, forecasting, and strategic planning.

For marketing and advertising. We and our advertising partners may collect and use your personal information for marketing and advertising purposes, including:

Email. We or our advertising partners may from time-to-time send you direct marketing emails as permitted by law, including, but not limited to, notifying you of special promotions, offers and events via email. You may opt out of our marketing emails as described in the “Opt out of marketing communications” section below.
Interest-based advertising. We engage our advertising partners, including third party advertising companies and social media companies, to display ads around the web. These companies may use cookies and similar technologies to collect information about your interaction over time across our Services, our communications, and other online services, and use that information to serve online ads that they think will interest you. We may also share information about our users with these companies to facilitate interest-based advertising to those or similar users on other online platforms. You can learn more about your choices for limiting interest-based advertising in the “Online tracking opt-out” section below.

For compliance and protection. We may use personal information to comply with legal obligations, including to enforce any applicable terms and conditions, defend against legal claims or disputes, protect the security and integrity of our Services, and identify and investigate fraudulent, harmful, unauthorized, unethical or illegal activity.

How We Disclose Personal Information

We may disclose personal information to the following individuals or entities and as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy or at the time of collection:

Service providers. Companies and individuals that provide services on our behalf or help us operate the Services or our business (such as hosting, information technology, customer support, email delivery, and analytics services).

Professional advisors. Professional advisors, such as lawyers, auditors, bankers, and insurers, where necessary in the course of the professional services that they render to us.

Authorities and others. Law enforcement, government authorities, and private parties, as we believe in good faith to be necessary or appropriate for the compliance and protection purposes described above.

Business transferees. Acquirers and other relevant participants in business transactions (or negotiations for such transactions) involving a corporate divestiture, merger, consolidation, acquisition, reorganization, sale or other disposition of all or any portion of the business or assets of, or equity interests in, our business (including, in connection with a bankruptcy or similar proceedings).

Your Choices

Access or update your information. If you have registered for an account with us, you may review and update certain personal information in your account profile by logging into the account.

AI Technology. We use AI (artificial intelligence) and LLM (large language model) technologies to develop, improve, and provide our Service for all our users. Such AI and LLM technologies are trained on real-world data, including personal information that we collect from you in the course of providing our Service. We may use your personal information to develop, improve, train, and provide our proprietary AI and LLM technologies. We may also disclose your personal information to third-party providers of AI and LLM technologies, who will use your personal information strictly to support our Service. We do not permit such third-party providers of AI and LLM technologies to use your personal information to develop, improve, train, or provide their AI and LLM technologies for the benefit of their other customers.

You can opt out of having your personal information retained and used for the purposes of developing, improving, training and providing our AI and LLM technologies by contacting us at [email protected], in which case we will not use any personal information you provide after you opt-out for such purpose

Opt out of marketing communications. You may opt out of marketing-related communications – both emails and texts – by following the opt-out or unsubscribe instructions in the communications you receive from us or by contacting us as provided in the “How to Contact Us” section below. You may continue to receive Services-related and other non-marketing communications.

Opt out of online tracking. There are a number of ways to opt out of having your online activity and device data collected through our Services, which we have summarized below:

Blocking cookies in your browser. Most browsers let you remove or reject cookies, including cookies used for interest-based advertising. To do this, follow the instructions in your browser settings. Many browsers accept cookies by default until you change your settings. For more information about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set on your device and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.
Blocking advertising ID use in your mobile settings. Your mobile device settings may provide functionality to limit use of the advertising ID associated with your mobile device for interest-based advertising purposes.
Using privacy plug-ins or browsers. You can block our Services from setting cookies by using a browser with privacy features, like Brave, or installing browser plugins like Privacy Badger, DuckDuckGo, Ghostery or uBlock Origin, and configuring them to block cookies/trackers.
Google Analytics. We use Google Analytics to help us better understand how people engage with our Services by collecting information and creating reports about how users use our Services. For more information on Google Analytics, click here. For more information about Google’s privacy practices, click here. You can opt out of Google Analytics by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available at: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
Platform opt-outs. The following advertising partners offer opt-out features that let you opt out of use of your information for interest-based advertising:

Advertising industry opt-out tools. You can also use these opt-out options to limit use of your information for interest-based advertising by participating companies:

Note that because these opt-out mechanisms are specific to the device or browser on which they are exercised, you will need to opt out on every browser and device that you use.

Do Not Track. Some Internet browsers may be configured to send “Do Not Track” signals to the online services that you visit. We currently do not respond to "Do Not Track" or similar signals. To find out more about “Do Not Track,” please visit http://www.allaboutdnt.com.

Other Sites and Services

Our Services may contain links to websites and other online services operated by third parties. In addition, our content may be integrated into web pages or other online services that are not associated with us. These links and integrations are not an endorsement of, or representation that we are affiliated with, any third party. We do not control websites or online services operated by third parties, and we are not responsible for their actions. This Privacy Policy does not apply to such third-party sites or services.

Security

We use reasonable organizational, technical, and administrative measures designed to protect against unauthorized access, misuse, loss, disclosure, alteration, and destruction of personal information we maintain. Unfortunately, data transmission over the Internet cannot be guaranteed as completely secure. Therefore, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of personal information.

Retention of Personal Information

Where required under applicable laws, we retain personal information only for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected and processed, in accordance with our retention policies, and in accordance with applicable laws and regulatory obligations.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure of personal information, the purposes for which we use personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal and regulatory requirements.

Children’s Privacy

Our Services are not intended for use by children under 13 years of age. If we learn that we have collected personal information through our Services from a child under 13 without the consent of the child’s parent or guardian as required by law, we will delete it.

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. Where we do so, we will update the date of this Privacy Policy and post it on the Services. If we make material changes to this Privacy Policy, we will let you know.

How to Contact Us

Contact us. If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy, our privacy practices, or if you would like to exercise your rights with respect to your personal information, please email us at [email protected].