BOOKSTAKEN Terms and Conditions

Effective Date: June 10, 2026

Previous Version: March 01, 2026

Welcome to Bookstaken. These Terms and Conditions ("Terms") govern your use of the Bookstaken website (www.bookstaken.com), platform, and 1:1 reading mentorship services operated by Bookstaken Pvt. Ltd. ("Bookstaken," "we," "us," or "our").

By accessing or using our services, you agree to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use our services.

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing and using Bookstaken services, you accept and agree to be bound by these Terms. If you are a parent or guardian enrolling a minor, you represent that you have the authority to accept these Terms on their behalf and will ensure the child complies with them.

2. Description of Services

Bookstaken provides 1:1 reading mentorship services for students aged 6–14 (Grades 1–8). Our platform facilitates mentorship sessions, reading assessments, and progress tracking through our website, platform, and communication tools including WhatsApp Business and Google Meet.

Our services include:

• Personalised reading mentorship sessions with trained college-student mentors (Book Buddies)
• AI-assisted reading fluency assessments and progress reports (where applicable)
• Curated reading materials and discussion activities
• Regular progress updates ("Dinner Table Cheat Sheets") delivered to parents via WhatsApp or email
• A free discovery call and one free trial session before any payment is required

2.1 WhatsApp Communication & Anti-Spam Policy

As part of our services, we use WhatsApp Business to deliver regular progress updates ("Dinner Table Cheat Sheets"), session reminders, and customer support to parents. We maintain a strict, zero-tolerance policy for spamming and unauthorized communications:

• Consent-Based Messaging: We will only communicate with you via WhatsApp if you have explicitly opted in and provided your phone number for service updates during registration or onboarding.
• No Spamming: We do not engage in mass automated marketing, unsolicited broadcasting, or data scraping. All messages sent are directly related to your child's active reading mentorship or customer support needs.
• Immediate Opt-Out: You maintain complete control over your communication preferences. You can reply with "STOP" or "UNSUBSCRIBE" at any time to immediately cease all WhatsApp communications from Bookstaken.
• Prohibited Activities: We explicitly guarantee that your contact details will never be sold, leased, or shared with third parties for marketing purposes, nor will we use WhatsApp for any deceptive or fraudulent activities.

Bookstaken reserves the right to suspend or terminate accounts where information is found to be false, inaccurate, or misleading.

3. User Accounts

To access our platform, you must create an account. You agree to:

• Provide accurate, complete, and current registration information
• Keep your login credentials confidential and not share them with any third party
• Notify us immediately at support@bookstaken.com if you suspect unauthorised access to your account
• Take full responsibility for all activity that occurs under your account

Bookstaken reserves the right to suspend or terminate accounts where information is found to be false, inaccurate, or misleading.

4. User Conduct

You agree not to use the service to:

• Violate any applicable Indian laws, regulations, or third-party rights
• Transmit any harmful, offensive, abusive, or inappropriate content
• Impersonate any person, entity, or Bookstaken team member
• Interfere with or disrupt the service, its servers, or associated networks
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to any part of the platform or another user's account
• Record, screenshot, or distribute session content without prior written consent from Bookstaken and all session participants
• Contact Book Buddy mentors outside of official Bookstaken channels (see Section 5)

5. Mentor Profiles and Contact Policy

Bookstaken provides mentor profiles solely to facilitate reading mentorship within our platform. By accessing this Site or platform, you agree that you will not:

• Contact Book Buddy mentors directly outside of official Bookstaken channels — including via LinkedIn, Instagram, personal WhatsApp, email, or any other means
• Solicit mentors for tutoring, private employment, freelance work, or any engagement outside Bookstaken
• Reproduce, copy, or distribute mentor information (name, bio, photo, institutional affiliation) without Bookstaken's prior written permission

All mentor communication must occur through approved Bookstaken systems or staff. Violation of this clause may result in immediate account termination and may expose you to legal liability.

6. Student and Child Safety

Bookstaken takes children's safety seriously. All mentors are vetted students from Tier 1 institutions (e.g., VNIT Nagpur, St. Xavier's Mumbai) and trained in child-appropriate communication. All sessions occur on recorded Zoom or Google Meet calls.

Parents and guardians are encouraged to:

• Be present or nearby during sessions if their child is under 10 years of age
• Report any concerns about session conduct to support@bookstaken.com immediately
• Review session progress reports shared via the platform or WhatsApp

Bookstaken reserves the right to terminate any mentorship relationship if conduct standards are not upheld by any party.

7. Prohibited Automated Access and Scraping

This section is a material term of these Terms. Violation constitutes a serious breach and may result in civil and criminal liability under Indian law.

You are strictly prohibited from:

• Using any bot, crawler, spider, scraper, automated script, browser extension, headless browser, or any other automated means to access, index, copy, monitor, or extract any content, data, or information from this Site or platform
• Harvesting, mining, collecting, or aggregating any data from this Site — including but not limited to mentor profiles, parent contact information, student data, pricing information, curriculum materials, session content, or blog content
• Using data mining, data extraction, data harvesting, or any similar data-gathering methodology on any part of this Site
• Circumventing, disabling, or otherwise interfering with security-related features of the Site — including rate limiting, IP blocking, bot detection (via Vercel), or CAPTCHA systems
• Accessing the Site through any automated means in a manner that sends more requests than a human user could reasonably generate in the same time period
• Framing, mirroring, or reproducing any portion of this Site on any other website or platform without prior written authorisation

We actively monitor for automated access. Bookstaken uses Vercel's edge infrastructure, server-side request analysis, and rate-limiting mechanisms to detect and block automated traffic. Detected scrapers may be permanently IP-blocked without notice.

Legal Remedies: Unauthorised scraping of this Site constitutes unauthorised access to a computer resource under Section 43 and Section 66 of the Information Technology Act, 2000 (India), and may also constitute misappropriation of trade secrets or confidential information. Bookstaken reserves the right to seek injunctive relief, damages, and recovery of legal costs from any party found to be scraping this Site.

8. Prohibition on Competitive Intelligence and Data Theft

You may not access this Site or platform for the purpose of:

• Building a competing product or service using information gathered from this Site
• Monitoring Bookstaken's pricing, mentor profiles, curriculum, or operational practices on behalf of a competitor
• Reverse engineering, decompiling, or disassembling any part of the Bookstaken platform, codebase, or infrastructure
• Extracting, downloading, or reproducing Bookstaken's curriculum framework, reading lists, session structure, or assessment methodology for commercial use

Any information accessed through this Site is for personal, non-commercial use only. Commercial use of any data obtained from this Site, by any means, is prohibited without prior written authorisation from Bookstaken.

9. Prohibition on AI Training Data Collection

You may not use any content, data, text, images, mentor profiles, session materials, blog articles, or any other material from this Site or platform:

• As training data for any artificial intelligence, machine learning, or large language model system
• For the purpose of developing, fine-tuning, or evaluating any AI model
• In any automated pipeline that processes, classifies, or stores Bookstaken content for AI-related purposes

This prohibition applies regardless of whether the activity is commercial or non-commercial, and regardless of whether the resulting model is deployed publicly or privately.

10. Intellectual Property

The Bookstaken platform and all original content — including blog articles, reading materials, session frameworks, curriculum design, assessments, fluency reports, mentor profile formats, and all platform features — are the exclusive property of Bookstaken Pvt. Ltd. and its licensors. These are protected by the Copyright Act, 1957 and other applicable Indian intellectual property laws.

You may not, without Bookstaken's prior written permission:

• Reproduce, republish, or distribute any Bookstaken content
• Create derivative works based on Bookstaken's content, curriculum, or platform design
• Use Bookstaken's name, logo, branding, or trademarks in any context not expressly authorised
• Cache, archive, or mirror any part of this Site

Blog Content: Our blog articles are original educational content. You may share a link to a blog post. You may not reproduce the full text of any article, excerpt more than 50 words, or publish it elsewhere without written permission and attribution.

11. Privacy and Data

Your privacy is governed by our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms. By using our services, you also consent to the data practices described therein.

12. Payment Terms

Bookstaken's services operate on a monthly subscription basis following a free trial session.

• Fees are due at the beginning of each billing cycle
• Payments are processed through authorised channels (currently Wise for international users; domestic options communicated during onboarding)
• Bookstaken reserves the right to revise pricing with at least 30 days' prior written notice via email or WhatsApp

For full refund and cancellation terms, see our Happiness Guarantee & Refund Policy.

13. Session Cancellations and Rescheduling

• Session cancellations must be communicated at least 24 hours in advance via WhatsApp or email
• Sessions cancelled with less than 24 hours' notice may not be eligible for rescheduling
• If Bookstaken cancels a session due to mentor unavailability or technical issues on our side, we will reschedule at a mutually convenient time or credit the session to the following month

14. Disclaimer

Bookstaken's services are designed to support a child's reading development and love for books. Results vary based on individual engagement, consistency, and learning needs. We do not guarantee specific academic outcomes, reading level improvements, or examination results.

Our platform and all content are provided on an "as is" basis. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Bookstaken excludes all representations, warranties, and conditions relating to accuracy, completeness, or fitness for any particular purpose.

15. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable Indian law, Bookstaken, its founders, directors, team members, mentors, contractors, and affiliates shall not be liable for:

• Any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages
• Loss of data, revenue, goodwill, or business opportunity
• Any harm arising from reliance on information provided through the platform

Our total aggregate liability to any user for any claim arising from use of the service shall not exceed the total fees paid by that user in the three (3) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

Nothing in this clause limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for fraud, or for any liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law.

16. Termination

We may suspend or terminate your account immediately, without prior notice, at our sole discretion — including if you breach any provision of these Terms. Upon termination, your right to access the service ceases immediately.

You may terminate your account at any time by contacting support@bookstaken.com.

17. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Bookstaken, its founders, directors, team members, and mentors from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from:

• Your breach of these Terms
• Your misuse of the Site or platform
• Your violation of any third party's rights
• Any false or misleading information you provided during registration or use

18. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of India, including the Information Technology Act, 2000 (as amended), the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.

Step 1 — Informal Resolution: In the event of any dispute, both parties agree to first attempt resolution informally by contacting support@bookstaken.com. Bookstaken will respond within 14 business days.

Step 2 — Arbitration: If the dispute is not resolved within 30 days, it shall be submitted to binding arbitration under the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 (India). Arbitration shall be conducted in English, seated in Nagpur, Maharashtra, India.

Step 3 — Consumer Forum: For disputes involving amounts under ₹1,00,000, either party may alternatively approach the appropriate Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum under the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.

The courts of Nagpur, Maharashtra, India shall have exclusive jurisdiction for all matters not resolved through arbitration, and for all emergency or injunctive relief applications.

19. Changes to These Terms

We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. For material changes, we will provide at least 30 days' notice via email or WhatsApp before they take effect. Continued use of the service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

20. Contact Us

Email: work@bookstaken.com

Legal / Privacy: work@bookstake.com

Website: www.bookstaken.com

Address: Bookstaken Pvt. Ltd., India

© 2026 Bookstaken Pvt. Ltd. All Rights Reserved.