Terms of Service

Effective date: 2026-05-14 · Last updated: 2026-08-02

1. Acceptance and eligibility

By installing, accessing, or using the Product Origin Checker browser extension, mobile app, website, or related services (collectively, the "Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Age requirement. The Service is intended for users age 13 and older. If you are under 13, you may not use the Service. By using the Service, you represent that you are at least 13 years old. If we learn we have collected personal information from a user under 13, we will delete it. If you are between 13 and the age of majority in your jurisdiction, you represent that a parent or legal guardian has reviewed and agreed to these Terms on your behalf.

2. The Service

Product Origin Checker is a tool that estimates transparency indicators for products listed on large online retailers — currently Amazon, Target, Walmart, and 30 other major retailers, with more added over time. The indicators cover where the product was manufactured, where the unit ships from, who the retailer of record is, and where the money ultimately goes. The Service is operated by Real Product Origin.

3. Scores are estimates, not facts

This is the most important thing to understand. Our country-of-origin scores are probabilistic estimates derived from publicly available product information and AI inference. They are accompanied by an explicit confidence band that communicates how certain we are.

• A 95% / 90% confidence score is our best, well-supported estimate. It is not a factual assertion that the product is from that country.
• A 50% / 20% confidence score communicates that we genuinely cannot determine the origin with the evidence available.
• Manually-verified scores (marked "✓ Verified") have been reviewed by a human but remain subject to error.

You agree to interpret scores in that spirit. You agree not to represent any score as a definitive factual statement about a product, a seller, or a company.

4. No advice

The Service does not provide investment advice, purchasing advice, legal advice, or any other professional advice. Information returned by the Service is for informational purposes only.

5. Acceptable use

You agree NOT to:

• Use the Service to harass, defame, or disparage specific persons or companies based on their identified country of origin or any other protected characteristic.
• Submit false or knowingly inaccurate complaints via the "Contest this finding" feature.
• Misrepresent your identity or credentials in a complaint submission.
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or otherwise abuse the Service or its backend APIs.
• Use automated systems (bots, scripts) to submit complaints or generate excessive scoring requests.
• Use the Service in violation of applicable export-control, sanctions, or other laws.

6. Contest submissions ("user content")

When you submit a complaint or contest a score, the information you provide ("User Content") may include your name, email, affiliation, and free-text reasoning. By submitting User Content you:

• Represent that the User Content is truthful to the best of your knowledge.
• Grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use the User Content for the purposes of operating the Service — including reviewing your complaint, applying corrections, and improving our methodology.
• Acknowledge that we may include anonymized or aggregated insights from User Content in published methodology updates.
• Acknowledge that we are not obligated to act on any specific complaint.

7. No warranty

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR ACCURACY. We make no warranty that:

• The Service will meet your requirements.
• The Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free.
• The information returned by the Service will be accurate, complete, or current.
• Any errors in the Service will be corrected.

8. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL REAL PRODUCT ORIGIN, ITS OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, OR CONTRACTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES — INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, OR REPUTATIONAL HARM — ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Our aggregate liability for any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will not exceed the greater of (a) USD $100 or (b) the amount you have paid us in the twelve months preceding the claim.

9. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Real Product Origin from any claim, loss, or expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of your use of the Service in violation of these Terms, your violation of any law, or your infringement of any third party's rights — including any defamation, harassment, or unfair-competition claim arising from how you represent or distribute our scores.

10. Intellectual property

The Service, including its software, brand name, logo, and original content, is owned by Real Product Origin and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual-property laws. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Service for personal, non-commercial purposes consistent with these Terms.

You retain all rights to the User Content you submit; you grant us only the license described in Section 6.

10a. Subscriptions and payment

10a.1 Free tier

The Service is available at no cost for the number of product checks stated on our pricing page. The free allowance is a one-time trial, not a recurring monthly quota — it does not reset. Once you have used it, continued scoring of new products requires a paid subscription. Products you scored during the free trial continue to display their results at no charge, permanently. We reserve the right to change the free-tier allowance at any time; changes will not apply retroactively to checks you have already made.

10a.2 What counts as a check

There are two separate allowances — product checks and brand checks. They are not a shared pool, and using one never consumes the other. The number of each included in a tier is stated on our pricing page.

Product checks

A product check is the first time you score a distinct product within your current allowance. Re-opening a product you have already scored never consumes another check, however many times you view it, and products you have already scored keep displaying their results even after your allowance is used up.

A product is distinct per retailer: the same item listed at two different retailers is two products, because we score each listing on its own evidence. Scoring the same product again after a deliberate refresh does not consume an additional check either.

Brand checks

A brand check is the first time you request our assessment of a distinct brand or company within your current allowance. Looking up a brand you have already checked never consumes another, however many times you return to it.

A brand is distinct by name: a company name, its website, and a link to one of its product pages all resolve to the same brand and cost a single check between them.

The public record is free and unlimited on every tier, including the free trial. Publicly filed information we can show you about a brand — including trademark filings and the country a website is registered in — never consumes a brand check. A brand check is consumed only when you request our own assessment of who ultimately owns the company, which is our analysis rather than a public record.

Allowance windows

Where an allowance is monthly, the window is the calendar month in UTC — it is not tied to your subscription's anniversary date. Where an allowance is one-time (the free trial), there is no window and no reset. This applies to both kinds of check independently.

10a.3 Paid subscriptions

Paid subscriptions are billed Monthly or Annually. What each tier includes is stated on our pricing page, which is the authoritative and current description of the plans:

• Basic — a fixed number of product checks and a fixed number of brand checks each calendar month, as stated on the pricing page.
• Unlimited — scoring and brand lookups with no cap on either, for the term you paid for, subject to the acceptable-use limits in section 5.
• Supporter — identical in function to Unlimited, at a higher price, for customers who wish to fund the work. Supporter is a subscription, not a charitable donation. It is not tax-deductible, and it confers no additional features, priority, influence over scores or coverage, or standing of any kind beyond Unlimited.

Evidence is not a paid feature. Source citations for every claim, and the ability to contest any score, are available on every tier including the free trial. We do not restrict the basis of a score behind payment.

Payment is processed by Stripe, Inc. and is subject to Stripe's terms. We do not receive or store your full payment-card information — Stripe handles all card data. We only receive a customer identifier, subscription status, and billing metadata.

10a.4 Automatic renewal — IMPORTANT

Your subscription will automatically renew at the end of each billing period until you cancel it. By subscribing, you authorize Real Product Origin (via Stripe) to charge your payment method the then-current subscription price at the start of each new billing period:

• Monthly plan: renews every month on the same date you first subscribed.
• Annual plan: renews every twelve months on the same date you first subscribed.

You will receive a receipt email after each successful charge. To stop future charges, cancel your subscription before the next renewal date (see 10a.6).

Annual renewal reminder. For annual plans, we send an email reminder approximately 30 days before each auto-renewal. The reminder states the renewal date, the amount that will be charged, and a one-click link to cancel or switch plans via the Stripe customer portal — cancellation before the renewal date stops the charge and leaves your access active through the end of the current period. The reminder is required for California subscribers under Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 17602; we send it to every annual subscriber regardless of location.

10a.5 Price changes

We may change subscription prices at any time. Existing subscribers keep the price they signed up at — a price change applies only to new sign-ups (or, if you cancel and later re-subscribe, to your re-subscription). If we ever need to change the price of an existing subscription, we will give you at least 30 days' advance notice by email, and you may cancel before the change takes effect.

10a.6 Cancellation

You may cancel your subscription at any time through the Manage subscription link inside the browser extension or mobile app (which opens the Stripe-hosted customer portal). Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period — you keep unlimited access until then. You will not be charged again after cancellation.

10a.7 Refunds — 14-day money-back guarantee

If you subscribe and decide within 14 days of your first successful charge that the Service is not right for you, contact us at hello@realproductorigin.com and we will refund your first payment in full, no questions asked. After 14 days, or for renewal charges on an existing subscription, we do not offer refunds for partial billing periods — cancellation stops future charges but does not refund a period you have already paid for and used.

Full refund terms are on the refund policy page.

10a.8 Failed payments

If a renewal charge fails (expired card, insufficient funds, etc.), Stripe will retry the payment automatically over several days. During the retry window your subscription enters a "past due" state — you keep access, but you should update your card in the customer portal. If all retries fail, the subscription is canceled and your account reverts to the free tier.

10a.9 Chargebacks

Please contact us before initiating a chargeback with your card issuer — we can almost always resolve billing issues faster and less painfully than the chargeback process. Filing an unwarranted chargeback (e.g. requesting a refund via chargeback rather than through us) may result in permanent suspension of your account.

10a.10 Taxes

Prices displayed on our website do not include sales tax, VAT, or other taxes that may be added by Stripe based on your billing address. Applicable taxes will appear at checkout and on your receipt.

11. Third-party services

The Service relies on third-party services (the supported retailers — currently Amazon, Target, Walmart, and 30 other major retailers — for product data; Anthropic for AI inference; Stripe for subscription billing and card processing; Render for hosting; Resend for email; Cloudflare for CAPTCHA and DNS). We are not responsible for the availability or terms of these third-party services. Use of the Service is also subject to the relevant third parties' terms where applicable.

12. Termination

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service at any time, for any reason, including violation of these Terms. You may stop using the Service at any time. Sections 6 (license), 7 (no warranty), 8 (liability), 9 (indemnification), 10 (IP), 13 (brand corrections), 14 (service dependencies and force majeure), 15 (DMCA), and 17 (governing law and disputes) survive termination.

13. Brand corrections and score reviews

If you represent a brand, manufacturer, seller, or retailer and believe a score we display is inaccurate, we operate a dedicated correction process separate from the general "Contest this finding" flow. See our Corrections page for how to submit a review request, what documentation we ask for, and our published service-level commitments (acknowledgment within one business day; first-party brand review resolved within five business days). We will investigate every good-faith request, and where we agree the score should change, we will update it and log the correction. Where we disagree, we will explain why in writing.

14. Service dependencies and force majeure

The Service depends on third-party providers, including Anthropic (for AI inference), Stripe (for billing), Render (for hosting), Resend (for email), Cloudflare (for CDN and abuse mitigation), and the supported retailers (as the source of product data). We may modify, suspend, or discontinue the Service or any part of it if a provider changes its terms, restricts access, or becomes unavailable — or in the event of any circumstance beyond our reasonable control (including natural disasters, government action, network outages, or platform-policy changes). We will use reasonable efforts to notify subscribers of material changes and to prorate any unused portion of a paid term where required by law.

15. DMCA notice and takedown

Real Product Origin complies with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512). If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, you may submit a notice to our designated agent.

Designated Agent: Jonathan Browde
Organization: Real Product Origin
Email: dmca@realproductorigin.com
U.S. Copyright Office Registration No.: DMCA-1077230 (verify current agent details in the Copyright Office's public DMCA Directory).

A valid notice must include the elements required by 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3): (1) a physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or their authorized agent; (2) identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed; (3) identification of the material on the Service alleged to infringe, with information reasonably sufficient to let us locate it (URLs are ideal); (4) your contact information (address, phone, email); (5) a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and (6) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner. Notices missing these elements may not be actionable.

Counter-notification. If material you posted was removed or disabled following a DMCA notice and you believe the removal was mistaken or misidentified, you may submit a counter-notification to the same address with the elements required by 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(3).

Repeat-infringer policy. We terminate accounts of subscribers or account holders who are repeat infringers, in appropriate circumstances and at our discretion, consistent with 17 U.S.C. § 512(i).

15a. Territory

The Service is offered from the United States and is intended for users in the United States. We do not market or offer the Service in the European Economic Area or the United Kingdom, and we do not currently maintain an Article 27 representative or a Standard Contractual Clauses transfer mechanism. If you access the Service from the EEA or UK anyway, you may still exercise the data rights described in our Privacy Policy by writing to privacy@realproductorigin.com, and we will honour them.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may revise these Terms at any time. Material revisions will be reflected in the "Last updated" date and may be communicated to users via the Service. Continued use of the Service after a revision constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

17. Governing law & disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Wyoming, U.S.A., without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Any disputes will be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Laramie County, Wyoming, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms: legal@realproductorigin.com. Score correction requests: see the Corrections page. DMCA copyright notices: see § 15 above.