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Terms of Use

Last updated: May 23, 2026

1. Welcome

Astereads is a reading community where you rate how books feel across eleven dimensions, build a reading fingerprint, and discover readers whose patterns echo yours. By creating an account or using the service, you agree to these Terms.

2. Who can use Astereads

You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. Astereads includes reader-to-reader visibility and connection features where adults and younger users may share spaces; we've set this age line to align with GDPR's threshold for independent consent in the EU and to keep the platform safer for everyone.

By signing in, you confirm you meet this age requirement and that you have the legal capacity to enter this agreement in your jurisdiction.

3. Your account and content

When you sign in, you provide an email address. You may set a username that's visible to other readers. We don't sell your email. You can delete your account at any time by contacting privacy@astereads.com.

When you rate a book, write a footnote, or place a book on a shelf, that content is yours. By posting it on Astereads, you grant us a non-exclusive license to display it within the service, aggregate it into anonymous statistics (community averages, fingerprints, matching), and use such anonymized aggregates for analysis, research, and publication of community-level insights, all as described in our Privacy Policy. We don't sell user content to third parties.

You can clear your rating on any book at any time. Clearing removes your ratings and footnote; aggregations stop counting them. Removing a book from your shelf is destructive and cannot be undone – your ratings for that book are deleted.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

Use Astereads to harass, threaten, or harm other users
Post hateful, sexually explicit, or violent content in footnotes
Impersonate another person or misrepresent your identity
Scrape the catalog or matching data programmatically without our written permission
Submit books with intent to manipulate the catalog (spam, false metadata, repeated duplicates)
Attempt to access other users' private data

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules without notice. We err on the side of warning first when intent is unclear.

5. Book metadata and covers

Astereads sources book metadata (titles, authors, descriptions, subjects) from OpenLibrary, Google Books, and Wikipedia. Cover images are displayed under fair-use for editorial purposes (book discussion and review).

If you are a copyright holder and believe content was added improperly, email dmca@astereads.com with: your contact information, identification of the work, the URL on Astereads where it appears, and a statement of good-faith belief that use is unauthorized. We respond within five business days and remove on confirmed claims.

6. User-added books

When you add a book that isn't in our catalog, we look up metadata from public sources (Google Books, OpenLibrary, Wikipedia) and store it. You are responsible for not requesting books that violate copyright or publish unverifiable content. The platform reserves the right to remove user-added entries flagged for review.

7. Reader-to-reader visibility

Astereads is a community. Other readers can see:

Your username (if set) on your public profile and in the Sky
Your reading fingerprint, shelves (read / did not finish), and overall ratings
Your tier badge (Spark → Lodestar) based on books read
Who you constellate and who constellates you
External profile links you've added, subject to your visibility setting

Other readers cannot directly message you on Astereads. The platform deliberately does not have direct messaging (DMs) – any contact happens through:

Beacons – tap on a kindred reader to send a silent signal. No text, just the notice "X noticed your shelf" in their Inbox. Limited to 5 beacons per sender per 24 hours.
External links – if you choose to share your Twitter, email, Bluesky, etc., readers can reach you on those platforms instead. You control who sees these via Settings → Find me elsewhere → Visibility.

We may add reader-to-reader features later (such as public shelf comments). If we do, we will update these Terms and notify users in advance.

8. No warranty

Astereads is provided "as is." We make no guarantees that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that book matches reflect any objective compatibility. Use at your own discretion.

9. Liability

To the extent permitted by law, Astereads is not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from use of the service.

10. Changes

We may update these Terms. Material changes will be announced via email or in-app notice at least 30 days before they take effect. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

11. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email hello@astereads.com.