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Legal — 02

Terms of service

Last updated · 2026-05-18

The short version

Shelf is a Chrome extension built by an independent maker. By installing or using it, you accept these terms. If you cannot accept them, do not install or use the extension.

The extension

Shelf is closed-source proprietary software, built and maintained by the maker. You receive a personal right to use the extension under these Terms; you do not receive a right to copy, redistribute, decompile, or sublicense the code. The Pro license check is signed-token based — a determined developer can technically bypass it. Pro is for readers who want the maker to continue developing, not because they have to pay.

Pro and Founder Lifetime

Shelf Pro is a subscription. Shelf Founder Lifetime is a one-time purchase available to the first 200 supporters; once the cap is reached, the option closes permanently.

Both are sold by the maker of Shelf, an Italian sole proprietor (P.IVA — see the footer disclosure on every page). Payments are processed by Stripe Payments Europe Ltd. as a payment processor. Italian VAT applies for EU consumers and is included in the price displayed at checkout.

What Pro unlocks

The features listed as “Pro” on the pricing page. The list at purchase time is binding. Features described as “Coming soon” on the pricing page are intent, not a commitment.

Future Pro features that do not carry an ongoing per-user running cost — new export targets, reading and organisation tools, interface work, local-first features — are included for active subscribers and for Founder Lifetime holders, at no extra charge, for as long as the license is valid. This is what “Pro forever” means.

Cost-bearing infrastructure features. Some features the maker may build later carry a real, recurring per-user cost to operate — for example hosted cross-device sync, server-side semantic search or embeddings, or server-side audio/video transcription. A one-time Founder Lifetime payment cannot fund an unbounded recurring server cost, so these specific features are not part of Pro or Founder Lifetime. If they are ever built, they will be offered as a separate add-on tier (“Plus”). Founder Lifetime holders will always receive the most generous standing offer on that tier — at minimum, a permanent discount against the public Plus price. Ordinary Pro — saving, exporting, organising, reading, the things Shelf is for — is never moved behind Plus. This clause is published before the 50th Founder seat is sold, so no one buys under a different promise; it will not be applied retroactively to anyone who bought before it existed.

EU digital-goods withdrawal waiver — important

Under the EU Consumer Rights Directive (2011/83/EU) and the Italian Codice del Consumo (D.Lgs. 206/2005), EU consumers normally have 14 days to withdraw from a distance purchase without giving any reason.

For Shelf Pro and Shelf Founder Lifetime, the digital content (your license key) is delivered immediately upon successful payment, by email. Under EU Directive 2011/83/EU Art. 16(m) and the corresponding Italian implementation, the right of withdrawal does not apply to contracts for the supply of digital content not delivered on a tangible medium when performance has begun with the consumer’s prior express consent and acknowledgment that the right is thereby lost.

By proceeding with checkout and accepting these Terms, you expressly consent to the immediate performance of the digital content service (the issuance and delivery of your Shelf license key) and you acknowledge that you lose your statutory 14-day right of withdrawal once the license key has been delivered to your email.

This waiver is a hard legal requirement for selling digital goods cross-border in the EU without offering an automatic 14-day refund window. If you do not accept it, do not complete the purchase.

That said, the maker honors a best-effort goodwill refund policy in two specific cases:

  1. Subscription (Pro Monthly / Pro Yearly): if within 14 days of purchase you have not actively used any Pro feature, email the maker — a goodwill refund will be issued.
  2. Founder Lifetime: if within 14 days the license key has not been activated on any device, a goodwill refund will be issued.

After active use or activation, refunds are case-by-case at the maker’s discretion. Email and we will discuss.

If a refund is issued (goodwill, chargeback, or otherwise) the corresponding license stops working. The validate endpoint checks for refunded Founder Lifetime charges and revokes access on the next refresh (within seven days). This is symmetric: money back, access back.

License use and devices

Your Shelf license is personal: it covers you, the human who bought it, across the devices you personally use to read. It is not a team license, a household-shared key, or a resellable asset.

Device limits.

  • Shelf Pro (Monthly or Yearly): the license is active on up to 5 devices at any one time.
  • Shelf Founder Lifetime: up to 10 devices at any one time.

A “device” here means one Chrome extension install. Each install generates a random local identifier the first time it activates your license; that identifier is what counts toward the limit. Reinstalling the extension, switching browser profile, or switching machine creates a new device entry.

Automatic release of inactive devices.

If a device does not check in with our license endpoint for 60 days, its slot is released automatically. You do not need to do anything — the next install you activate will simply take the freed seat. This is designed so that an old laptop, a wiped profile, or a browser you stopped using never permanently consumes a seat.

Managing your devices.

You can see and revoke active devices at any time at www.shelf-extension.com/manage. The page is unlocked by a magic-link email sent to your Stripe customer email — there is no account or password on our side. Revoking a device frees the slot immediately; the revoked install will fall back to the free tier on its next license check.

What happens if you hit the limit.

If you try to activate the license on a new device while you are already at the cap, the new device stays on the free tier and the existing devices keep working. Nothing is bricked. To bring the new device online, revoke an existing one from the manage page, then re-activate.

Sharing, reselling, abuse.

Sharing your license key with people who have not paid is a violation of these Terms. Reselling, sublicensing, or distributing the key is also a violation. Where we detect egregious abuse — for example, the same key burning through 50+ distinct device identifiers within 30 days, or being posted publicly — the maker reserves the right to invalidate the key without refund. If you suspect your key has leaked through no fault of your own, request a re-issue via /recover; the new key will be re-signed and the old one retired.

The license check is signed-token based and a determined developer can technically bypass it. As stated above, Pro is for readers who want the maker to continue developing — these device limits exist to keep usage honest, not to police the bypass-curious.

Account termination and suspension

The maker may suspend or terminate your access to Pro features without refund in any of the following cases:

  • Material breach of these Terms (e.g. key sharing, scraping prohibited under “Acceptable use” below).
  • Chargeback initiated through your bank or card issuer that bypasses our refund process.
  • Use of the extension to commit unlawful activity.

In each case the maker will notify you by email at the address tied to your Stripe customer record before terminating, except where notification would impede an investigation or compromise security.

Termination does not affect your local library — your saved items remain on your device as Markdown files / Notion pages, untouched.

Continuity

If Shelf the extension is discontinued, your saved items are markdown files on your machine — they don’t depend on Shelf existing. Billing continuity (refunds for unused subscription period) follows Stripe’s rules; outstanding active subscriptions would be cancelled and pro-rated where required by EU consumer law.

Change of control

If the maker transfers ownership of Shelf — through sale, merger, asset acquisition, change of control, or in the event of the maker’s death or permanent incapacity — all licenses purchased before the transfer remain valid under the terms in force at purchase. The successor entity inherits this obligation. Founder Lifetime terms cannot be diminished post-transfer; they can only be expanded. Any communication about a transfer will appear on /changelog before it appears anywhere else.

If for any reason the successor entity ceases to honor existing Founder Lifetime licenses, the affected customers are entitled to a full refund of their purchase price, payable by the successor entity within 30 days of the breach.

Acceptable use

You may use Shelf for personal or professional reading workflows, including for-profit work. You may not:

  • Resell the extension itself as your own product
  • Use it to systematically scrape sites in violation of their terms
  • Use it to clip and republish copyrighted content without permission
  • Attempt to extract, redistribute, or sell other users’ license keys
  • Attempt to disrupt the Shelf license validation infrastructure (the API endpoints described in the privacy policy)

No warranty

Shelf is provided “as is”, without warranty of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the maker disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

The maker is not liable for data loss, missed exports, AI-generated summaries that misrepresent content, third-party service outages (Notion, Stripe, Resend, Vercel, Cloudflare, Groq, YouTube), or any indirect or consequential damages.

You are responsible for backing up the data that matters to you — the library backup feature makes this one click for Pro users.

Mandatory consumer protections apply. Nothing in this section limits any right that you have under mandatory EU consumer law that cannot legally be waived.

AI features (Pro)

The AI auto-tag and auto-summary features use Chrome’s on-device Gemini Nano model when available, with optional cloud fallback via Groq using your own API key.

Accuracy disclaimer. AI-generated tags and summaries are best-effort outputs from third-party language models (Google Gemini Nano on-device, optional Groq cloud fallback). The maker does not warrant that AI outputs are accurate, complete, current, or free from bias. Outputs may misrepresent the source content. Do not rely on AI-generated summaries for decisions where accuracy matters — read the original source. This applies in particular to medical, legal, financial, or safety-critical contexts.

The maker is not liable for any consequence of acting on AI-generated content within Shelf.

Dispute resolution

If a dispute arises, we ask that you first contact the maker directly at support@shelf-extension.com. The vast majority of issues are resolved within a few days at this stage.

If a satisfactory resolution is not reached:

  • EU consumers may contact an approved alternative-dispute-resolution body in their country. The European Commission maintains the official list at consumer-redress.ec.europa.eu/dispute-resolution-bodies. (The previous EU Online Dispute Resolution platform at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr was discontinued on 20 July 2025 under Regulation (EU) 2024/3228; the list of national ADR bodies is now the canonical entry point.)
  • Italian consumers may additionally contact the local Camera di Commercio mediation service. A list is available at www.unioncamere.gov.it.
  • Where mediation does not resolve the dispute, the competent court will be determined by EU consumer law — for EU consumers, generally the courts of your country of residence.

Nothing in this section limits any mandatory consumer-protection right that you have where you live.

Changes to these terms

If material terms change, the date at the top of the page updates and active Pro subscribers receive an email through Stripe. Continuing to use the extension after the update means you accept the revised terms. If you do not accept a change, contact the maker for assistance with deactivation and (where applicable) a pro-rated refund.

Governing law

These Terms are governed by Italian law, with the maker’s place of business as the venue for any non-consumer dispute. For consumers based in the EU, mandatory consumer protections in your country of residence still apply.

Contact

Full legal disclosure (legal name, P.IVA, registered address, SDI code) is in the footer of every page on this site, per D.Lgs. 70/2003 art. 7.