Terms of Service: Plain Rules for a Free Tool

1. Who we are, and what using the site means

In short: the tool is run by Roviant S.r.l. from Italy, and if you use it, that means you accept these terms.

Cobalynx (cobalynx.com) is operated by Roviant S.r.l., an Italian limited liability company (società a responsabilità limitata) ("we", "us"), which also builds and maintains it. You can reach us at contact@cobalynx.com. By using the site you agree to these terms; if you do not agree, please do not use it.

2. The service is free, with no account

In short: what you get is a free statistical checker for AI text and file provenance, and a free content certification on top of it. You do not have to sign up for anything and you do not have to pay anything.

Cobalynx is a free checker. You can paste in some text and get back a measured AI-likelihood score, which is scoped to our published evaluation population, or you can upload a file and we will read its provenance metadata for you, and if you get a “likely human” result you can turn that into a free content certification. Using it needs no account, and everything the site offers today is free, so no payment is taken. How verdicts are computed, what a score does and does not mean, and the system's intended purpose and limitations are all documented on the methodology page, and the measured error rates are on the evidence page.

3. Verdicts are statistical evidence, never proof

In short: what we give you is a calibrated probability. It works, and we have measured how well it works, but it is not perfect, and there is no verdict that could ever prove who or what wrote a text.

Every verdict is a probabilistic estimate with a published error rate, not a determination of fact. A verdict is never proof of authorship, in either direction, and we publish where detection fails as openly as where it works. As our own results surface puts it: “A “likely AI” verdict is probabilistic evidence, not proof. False positives happen; never treat this result alone as grounds to accuse a writer.”

4. Prohibited reliance

In short: if you were thinking of punishing someone on the strength of a Cobalynx verdict and nothing else, do not, because that use is against these terms and it is the thing we care most about.

You agree not to use a Cobalynx verdict as the sole basis for any academic, employment, disciplinary, legal, or contractual decision or sanction against any person. A verdict may inform a fair process that weighs other evidence; it may never close one. If you use verdicts in any process affecting an identifiable person, you must ensure genuine human review of all the evidence; a verdict may inform that review, never replace it. This clause is a condition of use, not advice. It is there because we know what happens when probabilistic evidence gets used as the only proof, which is that people get accused of things they did not do, and it reflects the system's stated intended purpose.

5. Provided “as is”, without warranty

In short: we do our best to keep the tool accurate and to keep it up, but we are not promising you either one, and you should read the clause below before you rely on it.

The service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including accuracy of any verdict, availability, or fitness for a particular purpose, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. Rate limits, queues, and outages can occur at any time.

6. Limitation of liability

In short: for a free tool, our liability is limited as far as the law allows, and no further than that.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, we are not liable for indirect or consequential damages arising from use of the service or reliance on a verdict, and our total liability for direct damages is capped at one hundred euros (€100). Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law, including liability for willful misconduct or gross negligence (Italian Civil Code, Article 1229) and the mandatory rights of consumers.

7. Acceptable use and abuse

In short: use the tool lawfully and by hand, and if you want to scrape it or run it in bulk, write to us and ask first. If we see traffic that looks like abuse we may rate-limit it or block it.

You agree not to: use the service for unlawful purposes or harassment campaigns built on verdicts; scrape the site or query it in automated bulk without our prior written permission; evade rate limits; probe the classifier to build or improve evasion tools; or attempt to disrupt the service. We may throttle, rate-limit, or block traffic that we reasonably consider abusive, at our discretion and without notice.

8. Your content stays yours

In short: you keep all rights to what you submit, and we do not keep what you submit at all.

You must have the right to submit the text and files you check. You retain all rights to them; you grant us only the transient, technical license needed to compute your verdict in memory and return it. We store nothing to license further: submitted content is deleted the moment your verdict is delivered, as described in the privacy policy.

9. Our content and brand

In short: the site, the brand and the published evaluations belong to us. If you want a certification that carries our name, the only one there is comes from us and is tied to the hash of your text, and nobody else gets to make one out of our brand or our verdicts.

The site, the Cobalynx name and mark, the detection system, and our published evaluations are our intellectual property. You may share and cite your verdicts and our published pages with attribution. Our own content certification is the single authorized certification use of a Cobalynx verdict: a certificate or badge We issue is bound by SHA-256 to the exact text scanned, is offered only for a “likely human” verdict, and states on its face that it is a statistical assessment, not proof of authorship. See the content certification page and the privacy policy. Apart from that first-party product, you may not use verdicts or our brand to imply endorsement or certification of any text, person, or product, and no third party may present a Cobalynx result as a certification of authorship or otherwise manufacture a certification from our brand or verdicts.

10. Changes to the service; termination

In short: the service is free, and it may change or it may end; if we make a material change to these terms we update this page and the date at the top of it.

We may change, suspend, or discontinue any part of the free service at any time. We may also update these terms. When we make a material change we update this page and the last-updated date at the top of it, so that date is how you tell whether what you read before is still what applies, and using the service after a change means you accept the terms as they stand on this page. If any clause is found unenforceable, the rest remain in effect; these terms are the entire agreement between us about the service.

11. Privacy

In short: your text is processed in memory and deleted when we deliver your verdict, and if you want the full story, with the test that proves it, that is what the privacy page is for.

How we handle submitted content, server logs, and analytics is governed by the privacy policy. We would ask you to read that page as part of how the service works rather than as marketing, because the promise at the top of it is checked by an automated no-persistence test every time we release, and if it ever stopped being true the release would fail and we would have to fix it before anything shipped.

12. Governing law, and consumers keep their local rights

In short: Italian law and Italian courts by default, but if you are an EU/EEA or UK consumer, you keep your home country's mandatory protections and courts.

These terms are governed by Italian law, and disputes go to the competent Italian courts, except that if you use the service as a consumer in the EU/EEA or the United Kingdom, you keep the protection of the mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence and the right to bring or defend proceedings in your local courts. We will consider alternative dispute resolution in good faith; contact us first at contact@cobalynx.com.