Help center

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General FAQs

  • General FAQs
  • Guruu FAQs
  • Learner FAQs
  • Young users
  • Community standards
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Payments
  • Terms of use

General FAQs

What makes Guruu great?

We’re on a mission to change the way people share information.

 

When we set up Guruu, we imagined a world where people could have the ultimate freedom when it came to earning money. Our Guruus are people with knowledge that they share for a fee. On our platform, Guruus share what they know, wherever they are, whenever they want, for whatever price they think it’s worth. They can also pick and choose who to work with. Sounds like a dream job, right?!

 

Accounts are free to setup, so if you have knowledge to share and you like the sound of freedom, why wait?! The world is full of people who want to learn something new. 

 

If you’re on a journey of discovery, we wanted the process of finding the right person to be even easier, which is why we encourage people with knowledge to join Guruu.

 

Sessions are delivered over Guruu’s video conferencing feature, so there is no need to travel anywhere to meet someone face-to-face. There are no strangers entering your house. No catching of viruses or other associated risks.

Who can use Guruu?

Anyone can use Guruu to learn something new. We have no minimum age limits for learners, however, there are minimum age requirements for someone who wants to be a Guruu.


For more information about how we manage users aged under 18 years, please visit our younger users information page.

As long as you have a laptop, an Internet connection, and meet our age requirements, you can be a guruu and sell what you know. Users aged under 18 years require their accounts to be set up by a parent or legal guardian.

 

We want to keep Guruu as an open community. Even if a Martian landed on Earth and wanted to share their knowledge, they'd be welcome. We don’t discriminate. Learn about our strict anti-discrimination rules by reading our community standards

How do you set up a profile?

Profiles are free for everyone to create. To get started, click the green signup button on the top right side of your computer screen.

 

Depending on whether you choose to be a learner or instructor, profile requirements are different.

 

An instructor is required to complete information about who they are, where they are located, their credentials, topics they instruct, and how much they charge. They also need to schedule their availability. The minimum age for instructors is 15 years old.

 

Learners do not need to complete lots of information. We do need to know where learners are based (for time zone purposes), and their basic details, including contact information. Payments are processed via Stripe, so your credit card information is never stored on Guruu. There is no minimum age requirement for learners.

Why can’t younger users set up a profile?

The minimum age for setting up a profile is 18 years old, because this is the minimum age of consent to enter a contract (which is what happens when you book an instructor).

To set up accounts for users aged under 18 years, parents and guardians should follow these instructions for users aged under 18.

What special provisions are in place for children?

While keeping children safe online is ultimately the responsibility of parents and legal guardians, Guruu has introduced some features that we think will help.

 

1.     Reviews and ratings: Reviews work like word-of-mouth and we encourage you to read what other users say about working with Guruus you’re considering booking.

2.     Working with children clearance: Depending on your jurisdiction, a Guruu may have a government-issued “working with children” clearance (such as this Australian example).  If a Guruu has marked on their profile that they hold this type of clearance, as a parent or legal guardian, you can ask to see it. (Teachers employed by schools typically already have clearance as part of their qualifications to teach.)

3.     Guruu video conferences: Sessions occur over video conference inside Guruu. Users do not need to meet anyone face-to-face – there is no travel required and no strangers entering your front door, reducing both health and security risks.

4.     Video recordings: By far the best way to monitor what your child is seeing or hearing is to view video recordings of their sessions. These are stored in your child’s account dashboard and are available shortly after the completion of each session.

 

For more information about our policy towards younger users (minors), please refer to our Community Standards

Is my personal information safe?

We care about people’s privacy. Technically, we’ve taken steps to protect people’s information. In addition, you can read our privacy policy.

Can I update my details?

Yes, you can update almost all details (other than a minor’s birth date under a parent’s or guardian’s account) via your account settings. Login using the green login button, top-right of your screen and click on settings.

 

You can also change your password via settings.

How does video recording work?

Sessions are recorded automatically, and these recordings are available for download by all participants from their dashboards shortly after completion of the session. We recommend downloading videos to your local computer since Guruu may, at its discretion and with no advanced notice, delete videos to better manage our video storage capacity.

 

Please note: For privacy reasons, video recordings may not be publicly published, or in any way publicly shared, except with a parent or legal guardian in the case of a minor, without the prior written consent of all recorded parties. A failure to comply with this policy can lead to account suspension or being vulnerable to legal action launched by the other parties.

Unless a video recording is submitted as evidence in a dispute, the Guruu team does not watch video recordings.


Does Guruu contact its users?

Yes, we do. Email is our preferred method of contact and the email will always come from one of our own email addresses.

 

To check whether the email is legitimate, click on the sender to view their email address. If it’s from us, it will always end in @guruu.co. Our most commonly used email is noreply@guruu.co

You may also receive text messages (subject to your preference choices) or notifications from us in your Guruu inbox.

What are Guruu's safety protocols?

Never give out your password. Now and again we may ask for a few things from you, but:

·       We will never ask you by email, messages, or comments to provide us with your password or sign-in credentials.

·       We will never ask you to email us your password.

·       We will never prompt you to log into a site outside of the guruu.io domain, nor to download and install an application.

·       Please never download or run such applications or email attachments, as they are definitely not coming from us.

I’ve received a suspicious email.

Never, ever give out your password. Plus,

·       We will never ask you by email, messages, or comments to provide us with your password or sign-in credentials.

·       We will never ask you to email us your password.

·       We will never prompt you to log into a site outside of the guruu.co domain, nor to download and install an application.

·       Please never download or run such applications or email attachments, as they are definitely not coming from us.

How does cancellation work?

Anyone can cancel a booking, however, there are some things to note:

 

If a Guruu cancels a booking, a full refund applies.

 

If a learner cancels a booking, it depends on the guruu's cancellation policy, which is included in their profile.

 

There may be penalties applied for late cancellations since guruus may be unable to book someone else for your session at short notice.

Can we work outside of Guruu?

We do not recommend that users work outside of Guruu.

Users that interact outside of Guruu lose their buyer and seller protections - plus all the benefits that Guruu delivers. 

Guruu is a trusted middleman between strangers that meet online.

We make sure that Guruus are paid and have the opportunity to build their global reputations. Guruus with good reputations are able to charge more and tend to be hired more often than sellers of similar knowledge with inferior ratings or no reviews. At our discretion, we may offer busier Guruus (including those with repeat customers) a higher search ranking in results.

At the same time, we make sure that learners are treated appropriately and receive what they pay for. Transactions are smoother, there is no longer any need to have the money conversation.

For the above reasons (and more), we do not recommend interactions outside of Guruu.


How do disputes work?

Once a session has been delivered, the learner will be prompted to pay their Guruu and review their experience. 

If something has happened that is a breach of our 
community standards, or if a Guruu fails to deliver on upfront, agreed requirements, a learner can dispute the payment. 

Creating a dispute initiates a mediation process, which is resolved at Guruu’s discretion. We reserve the right to watch any session recordings if this helps our team to resolve the dispute. Once we have decided the outcome of any dispute, it is considered final and we will not continue to enter into further dialogue about it.


Please note:

At the end of a session, you can dispute payment under very limited conditions. These are:


  • The Guruu behaved in a manner that breaches our community standards.
  • The Guruu did not deliver on pre-agreed requirements.

Our community standards are detailed and strictly enforced. Your Guruu is required to accurately and honestly state their skills, experience and knowledge, turn up on-time and be prepared, and behave in a way that is consistent with our community standards.

From a learner's point of view, specific expectations or requirements of their Guruu need to be clearly explained and agreed upfront.

Being unhappy with, or not liking, your Guruu is not sufficient reason to withhold payment. 
Instead, you can reflect a disappointing session in your review, subject to our guidelines about writing reviews that are outlined in our community standards.

Who’s behind-the-scenes?

Lots of great people have helped bring Guruu to life.

We are a genuine multi-cultural team – with a British-born founder, Australian and European advisors, and amazing Asian developers.


If you want to join our team, send your details to career@guruu.co

How is Guruu funded?

Guruu is a user-funded platform. We take a modest service from buyers (our learners) and apply a commission to our service providers (Guruus). This revenue funds the platform and its team.

Learner FAQs

Before you begin at Guruu

Guruu is a place where people can learn almost anything. We love that our Guruu community is full of people from all walks of life and backgrounds. You might also consider becoming a Guruu yourself one day and sharing knowledge you have with others who might value it.

 

Before you start, there are restrictions about what you can ask our Guruus to do for you. To find out what they are, and to learn more about our policies, please read our community standards.  Please also be familiar with the terms of use, which you can access anytime here.


Learner FAQs should be read in conjunction with our general FAQs, which you can access here


While we do not have minimum age requirements for learners, we manage users aged under 18 years differently. To learn more, 
please visit our younger users information page.

Finding a Guruu

When you use our platform, you’ll see a search option which enables you to find different Guruus. Just type in a subject you’re interested in and our search engine will try to find good matches for you. Read their bios, check out their reviews and feel free to ask them questions about their sessions.

Please note: there are restrictions regarding messaging of Guruus, which are detailed in our community standards.


Communicating with your Guruu

Communication with Guruus is an important part of our platform. Of course, you’ll have questions before you book, so you know that your Guruu is right for you. We do, however, have rules about messaging, which are outlined in our community standards.


You mustn’t spam any other users, including Guruus. Don’t send offers, mass messages, commercially-motivated solicitations, abuse, or anything designed to drive attention to anything external to Guruu (such as other websites, products, services, etc).

 

If a question or comment is not directly related to a Guruu’s profile or the knowledge they share, please respect their time and privacy, and don’t message them.

 

Users that spam other users are breaching our community standards and we reserve the right to suspend these offending accounts.

Choosing your Guruu

We encourage you to check out all the suitable options before making a booking decision. Guruu profiles contain information about their skills, experience and qualifications. You can also read reviews left by other people. Be sure to read the Guruu’s cancellation policy. Feel free to message your Guruu to ask questions you might have – or to clarify your exact expectations for your session.

 

Once you’ve made a decision, choose an available time slot on your Guruu’s calendar and book their time. Next, you’ll deposit the fee for your session. These funds are held by Guruu until the session is marked as completed, then your Guruu is paid. 

Please note: If you have specific expectations or requirements of your Guruu, make sure to message your Guruu and clearly explain them upfront. Make sure it is agreed. You cannot dispute payment if requirements are not agreed upfront.

There is more detailed information about payments under "Paying My Guruu" below.



A booking is a contract

By booking a guruu, you’re entering a contract with someone to share their knowledge with you. Like any contract, both parties have a set of expectations, which are agreed upfront.  

You can expect that what your Guruu says about their skills, experience and knowledge is true. You can expect them to turn up on time and behave in accordance with our community standards.

 

If you are aged under 18, you have not yet reached the age where you can consent to enter a contract. This is why parents or legal guardians need to set up accounts for users aged under 18 years. For help with setting up these accounts, visit our younger users page.

Booking Guruus for children

While we do not have minimum age requirements for learners, we manage users aged under 18 years differently. To learn more, please visit our younger users information page.


Some services on Guruu involve children to participate in the service, for example, a tutor is hired to help a schoolchild. 
We strongly encourage parents and legal guardians to choose tutors that specify they work with children and are willing to provide relevant government-issued ID to confirm their identity.

 

Guruu does not provide real-time monitoring of sessions, parents or legal guardians need to supervise their sessions for young children. We do, however, provide recordings of sessions, accessible via your child’s dashboard. Parent and legal guardians may view a video session after it is delivered without breaching Guruu’s privacy policy.

 

We have strict rules regarding content that can feature, be broadcast to, or target children. Make sure you read our community standards to learn more about our policy. Parents, legal guardians or younger users should report any suspicious activity immediately to our team by emailing complaints@guruu.co

What you can’t ask for

There are many subjects you can seek help with. For a number of reasons, we don’t allow certain types of services. Some services can pose unwanted risks for our users like legal or financial risks; others are simply not in line with our values and policies.A full list of prohibited services is detailed in our community standards, which you can access anytime here.  

 

This list includes, but isn’t limited to:

 

·      Illegal or misleading services

·      Services that pose a financial risk for our users

·      Services that have a risk of piracy or hacking

·      Academic services, such as the completion of assignments

·      Medical-related services

·      Adult, nudity, and sexual activity

·      Violent, self-harm or any criminal behaviour

How much does it cost?

When you book a Guruu, you will pay for your Guruu at the rate specified on their profile. In addition, a small service charge will be added and we will charge indirect tax (for example, sales tax or GST), which we are required to collect by law.

 

We do not accommodate exemptions from taxes on purchases, instead, users should seek reimbursement from their local authorities (if applicable).

 

Please note, all prices on guruu.co are shown in US dollars (USD).


How do payments work?

We use Stripe to manage our payments. We accept payment methods that are accepted by Stripe. Please note, we do not see or store any credit card information on guruu.co

In the event of a refund, we will return funds (via Stripe) to the credit card that was originally used to make payment.

How do I change or cancel a booking?

Both guruus and learners can cancel a booking, however, there are some things to note:

 

  • If your Guruu cancels a booking, you'll receive a full refund.
  • If the learner cancels a booking, the refund you'll receive depends on your Guruu's cancellation policy, which you can view on their profile page.

Some guruus don't mind late changes to bookings, while others may not accept them, so it's important to read the guruu's cancellation policy before you make the booking. 

Changing a booking


To change a booking, click on sessions, which you can access from the top right hand corner of your laptop screen. You'll see the option to change session times to the right of your booking.

Paying my Guruu (or disputing payment)

Once your session has been delivered, you will be prompted to pay your Guruu and review your experience.  


You’ll be presented with three options:

 

1.     Pay now: If you’re happy with your Guruu and the session, please pay immediately so that your Guruu is not left waiting to be paid.

2.     Dispute: If something has happened that is a breach of our community standards, you can dispute the payment. Please note: Being unhappy with the session may not be a valid reason to dispute payment. If you have specific expectations or requirements of your Guruu, make sure you message your Guruu beforehand and clearly explain them. Make sure your Guruu agrees. Even if your session does not meet your expectations, you may still need to pay for it. You can reflect your experience in the review that you leave for your Guruu.

Creating a dispute initiates a mediation process, which is resolved at Guruu’s discretion. We reserve the right to watch any session recordings if this helps our team to resolve the dispute. Once we have decided the outcome or any dispute, it is considered final and we will not continue to enter into dialogue about it.

3.     Skip: You can choose to skip your payment. We do not recommend this option, but appreciate that sometimes people need more time. Please note, after 48 hours has elapsed, funds will automatically be released to the Guruu if a learner does not either initiate payment for the session or lodge a dispute with us.


Please note:

At the end of a session, you can dispute the payment under very limited conditions.

These are:

  • The Guruu behaved in a manner that breaches our community standards.
  • The Guruu did not deliver on pre-agreed requirements.

Our community standards are detailed and strictly enforced. Your Guruu is required to accurately state their skills and knowledge, and behave in a way that is consistent with our standards. Being unhappy or not liking someone is not sufficient reason to withhold payment. Being unhappy with your session may not be a valid reason to dispute payment. Instead, you can reflect a disappointing session in your review.



Reviewing your Guruu

Guruu encourages both learners and Guruus to leave reviews about their experiences. This helps us maintain the integrity and quality of our website, and helps other users make better decisions about who to work with.

 

Once a session is completed, and payment is made, we encourage you to leave a review. Reviews should be honest and independent, in other words, free of pressure or coercion. If you feel you are being put under pressure, please get in touch with our team at complaints@guruu.co

 

If you are unhappy with the quality of your session, if possible, we recommend that you raise this directly with your Guruu during your session. This gives your Guruu the opportunity to amend the session to better suit your needs if possible. If you decide to leave a negative review, please ensure it is constructive and focuses on areas of improvement.

 

A negative review can be challenged and/or removed if it constitutes a personal attack, is dishonest, or is a breach of our community standards.

Young users FAQs

Guruu settings and features work differently for users aged under 18. This is because people aged under 18 have not reached the legal age of consent to enter contracts, which is what happens when you book a Guruu’s time.

For young children (those aged under 13 years old), it’s already standard practice for parents or guardians to set-up digital accounts. In our case, because of the contract consent requirement, this requirements includes all users under 18 years of age.

There are no minimum age requirements for learners and many school-age children use Guruu to learn from tutors. However, if you're a young person wanting to earn money as a Guruu, you must be at least 15 years of age, due to the requirement in some jurisdictions for special permits that enable people aged 14 and younger to work.


How to create an account for young users

It’s very easy to set up an account for a user aged under 18 years of age.

To set up an account for a user under 18, their parent or legal guardian must first set up their own account and then they can add a younger user to their parent account.

Please follow these instructions:

  1. Go to your settings (top right-hand screen)
  2. Tap "Family Sharing" then tap "Add Member"
  3. Tap "Create an Account for a Child"
  4. Then tap "Continue"

Follow the on-screen instructions to finish setting up the account. You will need to add your child's email address. Be sure to enter your child's correct birth date - you can't change it later. 

While the user remains under 18 years of age, their parent or legal guardian will receive copies of all correspondence and have access to their child's account.


What you can ask for (and what you can't)


Stuck on ideas? Don't fully understand concepts? Not getting enough one-on-one teacher time?

Finding a Guruu to help a young user to master difficult concepts is a great idea and makes it much easier for them to keep pace with classmates.

While we try to stay as open to as much knowledge being shared as possible, there are some limitations to what you can request from your Guruu.

You are not allowed, for example, to ask your Guruu to sit tests or complete assignments for you.

We encourage everyone to read our community standards, which details our policies and values regarding what you can ask for and what isn't allowed.

A full list of prohibited services is outlined in our community standards.


Safety and security for users aged under 18 years old


Some services on Guruu involve young users to participate, such as when a parent hires a tutor for their schoolchild.

We encourage parents and legal guardians to choose from tutors that specify in their bios that they work with children. In addition, some Guruus have police or official government checks that confirm they are of suitable character to work with children. (If your Guruu is a qualified school teacher, for example, they normally have this clearance automatically). If a Guruu states in their profile that they have official working with children clearance, parents can ask to see it.

We do not provide real-time monitoring of sessions, including those involving children. We do, however, provide recordings of video sessions, accessible via your child's dashboard. They are normally available within 15 minutes of the session completion. Parents and legal guardians may view their child's video recordings without breaching our privacy policy.

We have strict rules regarding content that can feature, be broadcast to, or target younger users. Make sure you read our community standards to learn more about this policy and our attitudes towards protecting younger users.

Parents, legal guardians or younger users should report any suspicious activity immediately to our team by emailing complaints@guruu.co





Guruu FAQs

Before you start

Guruu is a place where people can learn almost anything. We love that our Guruu community is full of people from all walks of life and backgrounds. You might also consider finding a Guruu yourself one day and learning something new!


Guruu is a knowledge-sharing billable platform that enables you to earn an income by sharing what you know and getting paid for it.

 

We love Guruu because it offers people the ultimate income freedom – you can choose where you work, when you work and how much you get paid. If you have a computer with an Internet connection, plus knowledge someone else wants, you can earn on Guruu.


Minimum age requirements apply to Guruus. You must be aged at least 15 years old. To learn more, please visit our younger users information page

 

Before you start, there are restrictions about what you can do, for example, you are not allowed to complete assignments for learners. To find out what you can't do, and to learn more about our policies, please read our community standards.  Please also be familiar with the terms of use, which you can access anytime here


Guruu FAQs should be read in conjunction with our general FAQs, which you can access here


We have minimum age requirements for Guruus and we manage users aged under 18 years differently. To learn more, 
please visit our younger users information page.

How does Guruu work?

Only registered users can buy or sell using Guruu.

 

You set up your free profile, which includes all your relevant details, your availability and pricing. Under the terms of our community standards, it is extremely important that your bio honestly reflects your skills, experience and qualifications to make it harder for a learner to dispute payment.


We’ll publish your profile on our platform, along with your price and availability, so that learners can find you and book time with you.

 

At the end of each session, learners are invited to rate and review their Guruus. The more positive ratings you achieve, the more likely you are to be hired by more people in future.

 

Under our terms, Guruus cannot deliver their sessions to learners outside of the Guruu platform. Nor are instructors allowed to offer or accept payments using any method other than through Guruu. When you sign up, you agree to be bound by our terms, which also include our community standards, which can be updated from time to time.

How much does it cost to join Guruu?

Setting up an account is free.

When you successfully deliver a booking, and your learner releases payment, you'll be paid your fee less our commission.

How do I write a strong profile?

Once someone opens your profile, you want them to choose you. Think of your bio as a sales pitch that explains to someone that you’re the best fit for their needs and gives them plenty of reasons to choose you.

 

A strong bio will include:

 

·      The topics or knowledge you will share

·      Your industry experience

·      Your relevant formal qualifications

·      Any awards or recognition you’ve received

·      If you work with children, your experience with young people

·      A bit about yourself – your family, background and interests

 

Don’t forget to let your personality shine through!

 

Keep your bio tight and easy to read. Avoid jargon where possible. You want everyone who opens your profile to understand clearly and easily what you are communicating.

 

Finally, no profile is complete unless it includes a great photo of your face. Look straight at the camera and smile.  You can use a good smartphone and take a selfie. Photos should be clear and good resolution, so people know what you look like when they meet you over video.

 

Please note: As part of our terms, you agree to provide us with accurate, complete and updated information. You must not create an account for fraudulent or misleading purposes. Also, you are solely responsible for any activity on your account and for maintaining the confidentiality and security of your password. We are not liable for any acts or omissions by you in connection with your account. It’s also extremely important to be accurate about your time zone, since learners will book your availability based upon it.

How does payment work?

When a learner books time with you, they are required to pay in advance. These funds are held by us until the session is completed and the learner releases payment or, in the event of a dispute, a settlement is reached.

 

After this, we send a payment to your nominated account, less the platform commission, which is 15%.

How does tax work?

It is the sole responsibility of service providers to verify their personal tax obligation, report, and pay taxes according to the laws of the state and/or country of residence, as applicable and required by local law and regulations.

 

Please also read our terms and FAQ covering your employment status.

How does video recording work?

Sessions are recorded automatically, and these recordings are available for download by both parties from their dashboards shortly after completion of the session.


We recommend downloading videos to your local computer since Guruu may, at its discretion and with no advanced notice, delete videos to better manage our video storage capacity.

 

Please note: For privacy reasons, video recordings may not be published, or in any way publicly shared, except with a parent or legal guardian in the case of a minor, without the prior written consent of all recorded parties. A failure to comply with this policy can lead to you being sued by the other parties. 

Unless a video recording is submitted as evidence in a dispute or complaint, the Guruu team does not watch video recordings.

How do cancellations and refunds work?

When you set up your profile, you will choose a cancellation policy, and we apply this cancellation policy to your profile.


If a learner cancels a booked session, we apply the terms of your cancellation policy to any refunds.

 

If you cancel a booking, it triggers a 100% refund to the learner.

 

Guruus must not cancel bookings on a regular basis or without cause. Cancelling orders can affect a Guruu's reputation and status.


There may be penalties applied for late cancellations since guruus may be unable to book someone else for your session at short notice.

How much should I charge?

How much you charge is entirely up to you. There is no maximum amount you can charge, although a minimum charge of US$15 per hour applies.

 

How much you can charge depends on different factors, such as the knowledge you have, how many competitors you have, the level of your education, experience and skill, your location, language and, most importantly, your ratings and reviews.

 

It’s common practice to charge less at first to get experience and then increase prices as reputation and popularity grows, although this is at your discretion.

 

All pricing on Guruu is in USD. It’s important to fully understand the terms of use and payment arrangements.

Do I need liability insurance?

When you earn an income on Guruu, like other marketplaces, you are an independent contractor or business. As such, you are responsible for paying your own tax and arranging your own insurances. 

We recommend shopping around for quotes, since you will have many choices.


While the following are not recommendations, to help you get started, we found some options online: 

Bizinsure (USA)

Bizcover (Australia)

Compare the Market (Australia) 

What is my employment classification?

When you use guruu.co to earn an income, you are classified as an independent contractor, not an employee. You are responsible for paying your own tax on any income generated via our platform, and you are not entitled to employee benefits, such as superannuation and leave entitlements.

How is Guruu funded?

Guruu is a user-funded platform. We take a modest service from buyers (our learners) and apply a commission to our service providers (Guruus). This revenue funds the platform and its team.

How do I handle negative reviews?

Online reviews are increasingly important for building your reputation. With a high number of positive reviews, you may be hired more often and be able to charge more for your time. Against this backdrop, we understand that getting negative feedback may make you feel upset, angry or defensive.

It's important to stay calm and do not retaliate. Ask yourself whether the feedback is valid. Does your buyer have a point? Can you learn and grow from the feedback? If you think the feedback is unfair, consider messaging your buyer and, in a calm and polite manner, apologise for any negative experience. They may be willing to give you another chance.

We have rules regarding reviews that are outlined in our community standards. If you believe the review breaches our community standards, please get in touch with our team at help@guruu.co


Terms of use

Guruu's Terms of Use

Last Update: March 2022

Welcome to guruu.co.


The following Terms of Use (these "Terms"), govern your access to and use of the guruu.co website and mobile application, including any content, functionality and services offered on or through guruu.co or the guruu mobile application (the "Site") by Chive Pty Ltd. (c/- Lawpath, Level 2, 23 Foster Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010, Australia) and its subsidiaries as applicable. Guruu, Chive Pty Ltd and its subsidiaries are collectively referred hereto as "Guruu.co" "we" or “Our” or “Its” or "us" and “you” or “user” or "Learner" or "Guruu" means you as a user of the Site.

Please read these Terms carefully before you start to use the Site. 

By using the Site, opening an account or by clicking to accept or agree to our “Collective Terms of Use” when this option is made available to you, you accept and agree, on behalf of yourself or on behalf of your employer or any other entity (if applicable), to be bound and abide by our “Collective Terms of Use”. Our “Collective Terms of Use” includes the Terms published on this page, plus our Community Standards, found here,  our Payment Terms found here,  and our Privacy Policy, found here, plus various FAQ pages in our Help Center.

If you do not want to agree to our “Collective Terms of Use”, you must not access or use the Site. For more detailed policies surrounding the activity and usage on the Site, please refer to our Community Standards and various FAQ and information pages in our Help Center.

 This Site is offered and available to users of all ages who wish to learn (a “Learner”) from a “Guruu” (a subject matter expert). The minimum age requirement for a Guruu is 15 years of age.

Guruu accounts are free to create. Users aged under 18 years of age (“Younger Users”) are not permitted to set up their own accounts.  Accounts for “Younger Users” must be established by parents or legal guardians. For more information, please see our information page about “Younger Users”.

 By using this Site, you represent and warrant that you (or your parent or guardian for users aged under 18 years of age) are of legal age to form a binding contract and meet all of the foregoing eligibility requirements. If you do not meet all of these requirements, you must not access or use the Site.

Our Customer Support team is available if you have any questions regarding the Site or Collective Terms of Use. Contacting our Customer Support team can be performed by emailing help@guruu.co

The original language of our Collective Terms of Use, as well as all other texts throughout the Site, is English. If you use an online language translator, in case of conflicts between the original English version and any translation, the English version shall prevail.

Key Terms

 Buyers (or "Learners") are users who purchase services on guruu.co.

Sellers (or Service Providers or "Guruus") are users who offer to share knowledge and sell their time through guruu.co.

Users are both Guruus and Learners as a combined group.

Bookings is the act of reserving an available time slot.

Sessions is the act of a meeting between both participants: a Guruu and a Learner.

Time Slot is a length of time allotted as available for booking.

Offers is to present or proffer (something) for (someone) to accept or reject as desired.

Orders is the act of booking and paying for a session.

Services is the delivery of a session over the guruu.co platform.

 

Overview (Main terms, in a nutshell)

We let you use our site and services and, by using our Site, you agree that we can also stop you using our site and services if you breach our Collective Terms.

  • Only registered users may buy and sell on guruu.co.
  • Setting up an account is free-of-charge.
  • In registering for an account, you agree to provide us with accurate, complete and updated information and must not create an account for fraudulent or misleading purposes.
  • You are solely responsible for any activity on your account and for maintaining the confidentiality and security of your password.
  • We are not liable for any acts or omissions by you in connection with your account.
  • You are only permitted to have one account. Through your account, you may set up multiple accounts for your children (minors).
  • Time slots on guruu.co may be offered at a base starting price of $15 per hour (USD).
  • All pricing on guruu.co is shown in United States Dollars (USD).
  • Sessions are designed as one-to-one activities, limited to two participants (one Guruu and one Learner). Guruu.co does not support 3 or more participants in a single session.
  • Learners pay guruu.co in advance to secure a booking (see payment terms)
  • Bookings are purchased through the Book Now button found on a Guruu's page.
  • For fees and payment information, please read our payment terms.
  • Guruus must fulfil their orders, and may not cancel bookings and/or sessions on a regular basis or without cause. Repeated cancellations will affect the Guruu's reputation and status.
  • At our sole discretion, Guruus may gain account statuses (levels) based on their performance and reputation. Advanced levels may provide their owners with benefits, including preferential ranking in site search results.
  • Users may not offer or accept payments using any method other than placing an order through guruu.co.
  • Users found to be bypassing guruu.co may be subject to penalties, including account termination.
  • We do not offer any Guruu or Learner protections for users that transact outside of guruu.co
  • We retain the right to use Guruu and Learner experiences for guruu.co marketing and promotion purposes.
  • We care about your privacy. You can read our Privacy Policy here. The Privacy Policy is part of our Collective Terms of Use and may be updated, without notice, from time to time.
  • Users must comply with guruu.co community standards, which are a set of behavior rules and guidelines, applicable to the guruu.co community and marketplace. These are part of our Collective Terms of Use and may be updated, from time to time, without notice.
  • We reserve the right to update any part of our Collective Terms of Use without notice.

 

GURUUS (SELLERS)

Basics

  • Guruus (sellers) can set up an account for free.
  • Before they can offer time slots on guruu.co, they are required to complete their biography. Biographical information contained in profiles, including level of experiences, skills and knowledge, must be truthful and accurate.
  • The minimum age limit for a Guruu is 15 years old. For Guruus aged under 18 years of age, accounts must be set up by a parent or legal guardian.
  • Guruus (sellers) offer sessions on guruu.co and allow Learners (buyers) to purchase their services.
  • Guruu.co is a one-to-one platform, designed for two participants (one Guruu and one Learner). It does not support 3 or more participants.
  • Each session you sell and successfully complete, accredits your account with a revenue equal to 85% of the fee you charge for your time.
  • Guruu accredits Guruus (sellers) once an order is completed. See our “Orders” section below for a definition of a completed order.
  • For more information about receiving payments, fees and taxes see the Payments Terms. 
  • At the completion of a session, the Learner is prompted to leave their Guruu a rating and review.
  • The Guruu’s rating is calculated as an aggregate based on the reviews posted by their Learners.
  • In certain cases, exceedingly low ratings may lead to the suspension of the Guruu’s account.
  • For security concerns, Guruu may temporarily disable a Guruu’s ability to withdraw revenue to prevent fraudulent or illicit activity. This may come as a result of security issues, improper behavior reported by other users, or associating associating multiple Guruu accounts to a single withdrawal provider.
  • Guruus are not employees of guruu.co or Chive Pty Ltd. Guruus are independent contractors that are responsible for their own tax, insurance and other related obligations. They are not entitled to employee benefits, such as superannuation and leave entitlements.
  • Guruus are responsible for obtaining a general liability indemnity insurance policy with coverage amounts that are sufficient to cover all risks associated with the performance of their services.
  • Guruus have the option of verifying themselves by undertaking a third-party Digital ID verification process. If this option is chosen, and the Digital Verification is successful, Guruu.co will apply a verification badge to the Guruu’s profile.
  • Parents or Guardians may request evidence that a Guruu is fit to work with minors (children). They may ask to view government-issued assessments and clearances. If a Guruu promotes that they hold such official clearances, it must be produced on demand.

 

Bookings and Sessions

  • Guruus are allowed to make unlimited time slots available for booking.
  • Sessions delivered on guruu.co are User Generated Content.
  • Time Slots, Bookings, Sessions and/or users may be removed by Guruu from the Site for violations of our Collective Terms of Use, including our Community Standards, which may include (but are not limited to) the following violations and/or materials:
  • Illegal or Fraudulent services
  • Plagiarism, Copyright Infringement, Trademark Infringement, and/or violation of a third party's Terms of Use reported through our Intellectual Property Claims Policy found here.
  • Adult oriented services, Pornographic, Inappropriate/Obscene
  • Spam, nonsense, or violent or deceptive offers
  • Offers misleading to Learners or others
  • Offering to prepare academic works on behalf of Learners
  • Repeated and exceedingly low-quality services
  • Promoting the Guruu and/or Guruu offers through activities that are prohibited by any laws, regulations, and/or third parties' Terms of Use, as well as through any marketing activity that negatively affects our relationships with our users or partners.
  • Time slots, bookings and sessions that are removed for violations mentioned above, may result in the suspension of the Guruu’s account.
  • Services that are removed for violations are not eligible to be restored or edited.
  • Services and/or Guruus may be removed from our Search feature due to poor performance and/or user misconduct.
  • Users must not encourage interactions outside of the guruu.co platform. Guruu.co does not provide protection for users who interact outside of guruu.co. All information and file exchanges must be performed exclusively on Guruu.co’s platform. Users that promote platform disintermediation may be penalised at Guruu.co’s discretion. Penalties may include search ranking penalties and/or account suspension, amongst others.
  • Statements on the Guruu’s profile (or materials, such as videos) that undermine or circumvent our Collective Terms of Use is prohibited.
  • When making a time slot available, a Guruu is required to allocate their price for this time slot.
  • A Guruu can choose their own cancellation policies from options provided by guruu.co. Cancellation policies are displayed on the Guruu’s profile and will be used to calculate refunds in the event of a cancellation.
  • A Guruu may refuse a booking if the Learner has negative reviews (including being disrespectful towards other Guruus) or is in breach of our Community Standards.

Reviews and Ratings

Guruu is all about helping people leverage their skills. We seek to empower and reward top performing Guruus to help them to grow their business. Guruus who invest in self-promotion may achieve greater customer satisfaction. And, if they deliver on time and maintain high quality and ratings, guruu.co may reward them at its discretion. This may include, but is not limited to:

  • Awarding Top Rated Guruu status to profiles.
  • Preferential ranking in the guruu.co search engine.

 Guruus that cannot or do not maintain their high-quality service, experience a severe drop in ratings, or stop delivering on time risk losing their Guruu status and the benefits that come with it. For example, late deliveries, warnings to the Guruu’s account and cancellations can cause Guruus to lose their Top Rated status or preferential search engine ranking.

Top Rated Guruus

Top Rated Guruus are chosen manually by guruu.co administrators through an ongoing review process based on seniority, volume of sales, extremely high ratings, exceptional customer care, high order completion rate and community leadership. Top Rated Guruus gain access to more extensive features than previous levels, including exclusive access to beta features and VIP support.
 

Top Rated eligibility is constantly evaluated by Guruu to ensure that the quality standards and expectations of the Top Rated selection is kept. Guruu.co retains the right to change a Top Rated Guruu status in light of such evaluation. In addition, Top Rated Guruus who cannot maintain their high-quality service through a severe drop in ratings, stop delivering on time, increased cancellation rate or violate any part of our Collective Terms of Use, also risk losing their Top Rated status and the benefits that come with it.

Verified Guruus

 Verified Instructors are professionals who undergo a third-party Digital ID verification process. This is an optional process. Applying to be a Verified Guruu is open to all Guruus.

 

LEARNERS (BUYERS)

Basics

  • A Learner can set up an account at guruu.co, for free.
  • If the Learner is aged under 18 years old, the account must be set up by a parent or legal guardian on their behalf.
  • All prices on guruu.co are in United States Dollars (USD).
  • Once you have an account, you can find Guruus using our site search engine or place a job that invites Guruus to submit applications to work with you.
  • When making a booking, the Learner consents to the Guruu’s cancellation policy, which is published on the Guruu’s profile page.
  • Guruu.co is a one-to-one platform, designed for two participants (one Guruu and one Learner). It does not support 3 or more participants.
  • When you make a booking, it is displayed in the local time zone that you nominated as part of your profile creation.
  • Missing your scheduled booking without notice may result in full payment being accredited to your Guruu as though the session took place.
  • At the completion of a session, you can (a) Pay your Guruu or (b) Raise a Dispute or (c) Skip Payment. Please see Payment Terms to learn more about these processes.
  • Once a session is completed, you will be prompted to leave your instructor a review. Feedback must be accurate and fair. Reviews that we deem personal attacks, contain profanity, or are in breach of our community standards may be removed by Guruu.co at our discretion.
  • Guruus are given the opportunity to leave a review of Learners. If you are unhappy with a review, contact your Guruu first. If this does not resolve the issue, you can contact customer care at help@guruu.co
  • Learners are charged a $3 service fee to assist with meeting the costs of guruu.co.
  • Learners will not receive a refund of the guruu.co service fee if they’ve received 3 service fee refunds in the last 12 months or if the cancelled booking overlaps with an existing booking.
  • You may not offer direct payments to Guruus using payment systems outside of the guruu.co platform.
  • Learners may be banned from guruu.co at our discretion due to Learner misconduct.
  • Learners should use the messaging function on a Guruu’s profile page solely for the purposes of determining whether the Guruu is the right fit for them in a learning session. Using this function for other purposes is deemed Learner misconduct.
  • Guruu.co reserves the right to use publicly published information, such as reviews, for guruu.co marketing and promotional purposes.
  • In the event of a dispute, taking into account both parties account of the dispute, guruu.co’s discretion applies. Its decision is final and non-negotiable.

 

Purchasing

 

  • Please refer to the Payment Terms for making Payments through the guruu.co platform and to learn about fees and taxes.
  • Learners can search for, save and/or choose a Guruu from the available Guruus on guruu.co.
  • In addition, Learners (Buyers) can publish a job to find a Guruu to meet their needs.
  • You may not offer Guruus to pay, or make payment using any method other than through the guruu.co site. In case you have been asked to use an alternative payment method, please report it immediately to Customer Support at help@guruu.co.
  • Guruu.co does not offer any Guruu or Learner protections for users that transact outside of guruu.co.
  • Guruu.co (and its affiliations) is not liable for any losses that result from an Guruu/Learner interaction.

 

ORDERS

Basics

  • Once payment is confirmed, your booking will be created and given a unique guruu.co transaction number (#TN).
  • Guruus must deliver completed sessions according to the service that was purchased and advertised on their profile page.
  • A booking is marked as Complete after the session is marked as Completed by a Learner. An Order will be automatically marked as Complete if the session has been delivered and payment has not been released, and no dispute has been raised within 48 hours after the session was marked as Completed by the Guruu.
  • We encourage our Learners and Guruus to try to settle conflicts amongst themselves. If for any reason this fails after using the Resolution Center or if you encounter non-permitted usage on the Site, users can contact guruu.co’s Customer Support team for assistance at help@guruu.co. For more information about disputes, Order cancellations and refunds please refer to the Payment Terms. 
  • For any transactions or interactions taking place outside of guruu.co, users should note that guruu.co does not guarantee the behavior, conduct, safety, suitability or ability of either Guruus or Learners. Users agree that the entire risk arising out of their moving off-platform remains solely with them, and guruu.co has no responsibility or liability related to any services provided by the Guruus.
  • Guruus are encouraged to maintain proper insurance policies to cover their professional liability.

 

Handling Orders

  • When a Learner books a session, the Guruu is notified by email as well as notifications on the site while logged into the account.
  • Guruus are required to meet their booking obligations, including arriving on time and being prepared for sessions. Failing to do so may allow the Learner to cancel their booking and may harm the Guruu’s status.
  • Sessions are automatically recorded and a copy of the recording is made available for download in both Guruu and Learner dashboards. In the event of a dispute, a video recording may be important to determining a resolution.
  • If you wish to publicly share your recording (for example, publishing it to YouTube), you must first obtain the written consent of all other participants.
  • Users are responsible for scanning all transferred files for viruses and malware. Guruu.co will not be held responsible for any damages which might occur due to site usage, use of content or files transferred.

 

Reviews

 

  • Feedback reviews provided by Learners while completing an Order are an essential part of guruu.co’s rating and search system. Reviews demonstrate the Learners overall experience with the Guruus and their service. Learners are encouraged to communicate with Guruus any concerns experienced during their session in regard to the service provided by the Guruu.
  • Leaving a Learner’s feedback is a basic prerogative of a Learner. Feedback reviews will not be removed unless there are clear violations of any part of our Collective Terms of Use, including our Community Standards.
  • To prevent any misuse of our Feedback system, all feedback reviews must come from legitimate sales executed exclusively through the guruu.co platform from users within our Community. Purchases arranged, determined to artificially enhance Guruu ratings, or to abuse the guruu.co platform with purchases from additional accounts, will result in a permanent suspension of all related accounts.
  • Feedback comments given by Learners are publicly displayed on a Guruu’s profile page.
  • Withholding the delivery of services, files, or information required to complete the service with the intent to gain favorable reviews or additional services is prohibited.
  • Users are allowed to leave reviews up to 10 days after a session is marked as complete. No new reviews may be added after 10 days.
  • Guruus may not solicit the removal of feedback reviews from their Learners through mutual cancellations.
  • Once the Learner submits his/her review, the Guruu will receive a notification and will also have the opportunity to leave a review about working with the Learner.
  • Once both Guruu and Learner have completed their reviews, or the 10 days have passed, all posted reviews are made public.
  • Responding to a review: Once both reviews from the Learner and Instructor have been published, the Guruu can reply to the Learner’s review.


Disputes and Cancellations

We encourage our Learners and Guruus to try to settle conflicts amongst themselves.

If for any reason this fails after using the Resolution Center or if you encounter non-permitted usage on the Site, users can contact guruu.co’s Customer Support team for assistance at help@guruu.co

 For more information about disputes, cancellations and refunds please refer to the Payment Terms. 

User Conduct and Protection

Guruu.co enables people around the world to sell and purchase knowledge they need easily at a time that suits them. Services offered on guruu.co reflect the diversity of an expanding gig economy. Members of the guruu.co community communicate and engage through the website and via guruu.co’s community forums, such as social media.

 Guruu.co maintains a friendly, community spirited, and professional environment. Users should keep to that spirit while participating in any activity or extensions of guruu.co. This section relates to the expected conduct users should adhere to while interacting with each other on guruu.co.

This section should be read in conjunction with our Community Standards. 

To report a violation of any part of our Collective Terms of Use, including our Community Standards, User Misconduct, or inquiries regarding your account, please contact our Customer Support team at help@guruu.co

 

Basics

  • Requesting or providing Email addresses, Skype/IM usernames, telephone numbers or any other personal contact details to communicate outside of guruu.co in order to circumvent or abuse the guruu.co messaging system or guruu.co platform is not permitted.
  • Any necessary exchange of personal information required to continue a service may be exchanged within the guruu.co platform.
  • Guruu.co does not provide any guarantee of the level of service offered to Learners. We encourage Learners to ask questions and check publicly published reviews before making bookings.
  • If a Learner is unhappy at the completion of an order, they may raise a dispute if the Guruu has not delivered on (a) pre-agreed requirements or (b) is in breach of community standards.
  • Guruu.co does not provide protection for users who interact outside of the guruu.co platform.
  • All information and file exchanges must be performed exclusively on guruu.co’s platform.
  • All services transacted via guruu.co must be legally permitted. Please refer to our Collective Terms of Use, the terms on this page and Community Standards for non-permitted usage.
  • Adult services, such as pornography, are not permitted on guruu.co.
  • Rude, abusive, improper language, profanity or violent messages will not be tolerated and may result in an account warning or the suspension/removal of your account.
  • Guruu.co is open to everyone. You undertake not to discriminate against any other user based on gender, race, age, religious or political affiliation, sexual orientation or otherwise, and you acknowledge that such discrimination may result in the suspension/removal of your account.
  • Users may not submit proposals or solicit parties introduced through guruu.co to contract, engage with, or pay outside of guruu.co.

Orders

  • Users with the intention to defame competing Guruus by ordering from competing services will have their reviews removed or further account status related actions determined by review by our Trust & Safety team.
  • Users are to refrain from spamming or soliciting previous Learners or Guruus to pursue removing/modifying reviews or cancelling orders.

 

Copyright

  • Guruus warrant that any information shared in their sessions shall be original work by the Guruus and shall not infringe any third-party rights, including, without limitation, copyrights, trademarks or service marks.
  • Guruu.co will respond to clear and complete notices of alleged copyright or trademark infringement. Our Intellectual Property claims procedures can be reviewed here. 


Reporting Violations

  • If you come across any content that may violate our Collective Terms of Use, including our Community Standards, you should report it to us at help@guruu.co.
  • All cases are reviewed by our Trust and Safety team.
  • To protect individual privacy, the results of the investigation are not shared. You can review our Privacy Policy for more information.

Violations

Users may receive a warning to their account for violations of any part of our Collective Terms of Use, including our Community Standards or any user misconduct reported to our Trust and Safety team. A warning will be sent to the user's email address and will be displayed for such user on the Site. Warnings do not limit account activity, but can lead to your account losing Guruu statuses or becoming permanently disabled based on the severity of the violation.

Non-Permitted Usage

Please also familiarise yourself with our Community Standards where this is explained in detail.

 Adult Services & Pornography - Guruu.co does not allow any exchange of adult oriented or pornographic materials and services.
 

Inappropriate Behavior & Language - Communication on guruu.co should be friendly, constructive, and professional. Guruu.co condemns bullying, harassment, and hate speech towards others. We allow users a medium for which messages are exchanged between individuals, a system to rate each other, and to engage on larger platforms such as our Social Media pages.
 

Phishing and Spam - Users security is a top priority. Any attempts to publish or send malicious content with the intent to compromise another user’s account or computer environment is strictly prohibited. Please respect our user’s privacy by not contacting them with offers, questions, suggestions or anything which is not directly related to their skills or offers.
 

Privacy & Identity - You may not publish or post other people's private and confidential information. Any exchange of personal information required for the completion of a service must be provided via the guruu.co messaging service.

 Guruus further confirm that whatever information they receive from the Learner, which is not public domain, shall not be used for any purpose whatsoever other than for the delivery of the session to the Learner. Any users who engage and communicate outside of guruu.co will not be protected by our Collective Terms of Use.
 

Authentic Guruu.co Profile - You may not create a false identity on guruu.co, misrepresent your identity, create a guruu.co profile for anyone other than yourself (a real person)(excepting the creation of a younger user account by a parent or legal guardian), or use or attempt to use another user’s account or information; Your profile information, including your description, skills, location, etc., while may be kept anonymous in the case of Learners, must be accurate and complete and may not be misleading, illegal, offensive or otherwise harmful. Guruu.co reserves the right to require users to go through a verification process in order to use the Site (whether by using ID, phone, camera, etc.).

Intellectual Property Claims – Guruu.co will respond to clear and complete notices of alleged copyright or trademark infringement, and/or violation of third party’s Terms of Use. Our Intellectual Property claims procedures can be reviewed here. 

 Fraud / Unlawful Use - You may not use guruu.co for any unlawful purposes or to conduct illegal activities.
 

Abuse and Spam

Multiple Accounts - To prevent fraud and abuse, users are limited to one active guruu.co account. Any additional account determined to be created to circumvent guidelines, promote competitive advantages, or mislead the guruu.co community will be disabled.

 Mass account creation may result in disabling of all related accounts. Note: any violations of guruu.co’s Collective Terms of Use, including our our Community Standards is a cause for permanent suspension of all accounts at our discretion.
 

Targeted Abuse - We do not tolerate users who engage in targeted abuse or harassment towards other users on guruu.co. This includes creating new multiple accounts to harass users through our message or booking system.
 

Selling Accounts - You may not buy or sell guruu.co accounts.

Proprietary Restrictions

The guruu.co Site, including its general layout, look and feel, design, information, content and other materials available thereon, is exclusively owned by Chive Pty Ltd and protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws.
 

Users have no right, and specifically agree not to do the following with respect to the Site or any part, component or extension of the Site (including its mobile applications):

(i) copy, transfer, adapt, modify, distribute, transmit, display, create derivative works, publish or reproduce it, in any manner; (ii) reverse assemble, decompile, reverse engineer or otherwise attempt to derive its source code, underlying ideas, algorithms, structure or organization; (iii) remove any copyright notice, identification or any other proprietary notices; (iv) use automation software (bots), hacks, modifications (mods) or any other unauthorized third-party software designed to modify the Site; (v) attempt to gain unauthorized access to, interfere with, damage or disrupt the Site or the computer systems or networks connected to the Site; (vi) circumvent, remove, alter, deactivate, degrade or thwart any technological measure or content protections of the Site; (vii) use any robot, spider, crawlers or other automatic device, process, software or queries that intercepts, “mines,” scrapes or otherwise accesses the Site to monitor, extract, copy or collect information or data from or through the Site, or engage in any manual process to do the same, (viii) introduce any viruses, trojan horses, worms, logic bombs or other materials that are malicious or technologically harmful into our systems, (ix) use the Site in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden or impair the Site, or interfere with any other users’ enjoyment of the Site or (x) access or use the Site in any way not expressly permitted by these Terms of Use. Users also agree not to permit or authorize anyone else to do any of the foregoing.

 

Except for the limited right to use the Site according to its Collective Terms of Use, guruu.co and Chive Pty Ltd owns all right, title and interest in and to the Site (including any and all intellectual property rights therein) and you agree not to take any action(s) inconsistent with such ownership interests. We reserve all rights in connection with the Site and its content (other than user-generated content (UGC)) including, without limitation, the exclusive right to create derivative works.

 Feedback Rights

To the extent that you provide guruu.co with any comments, suggestions or other feedback regarding the Guruu platform or the Site as a whole, as well as other guruu.co products or services (collective, the “Feedback”), you will be deemed to have granted guruu.co an exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid up, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide ownership rights in the Feedback. Guruu.co is under no obligation to implement any Feedback it may receive from users.

Confidentiality

Guruus should recognize that there might be a need for Learners to disclose certain confidential information to be used by Guruus for the purpose of delivering the session, and to protect such confidential information from unauthorized use and disclosure. Therefore, Guruus agree to treat any information received from Learners as highly sensitive, top secret and classified material.

Without derogating from the generality of the above, Guruus specifically agree to (i) maintain all such information in strict confidence; (ii) not disclose the information to any third parties; (iii) not use the information for any purpose except for delivering the order; and (vi) not to copy or reproduce any of the information without the Learner’s permission.

General Terms

  • Guruu.co reserves the right to put any account on hold or permanently disable accounts due to breach of its Collective Terms of Use, including our our Community Standards or due to any illegal or inappropriate use of the Site or services.
  • Violation of guruu.co’s Collective Terms of Use, including our our Community Standards may get your account disabled permanently.
  • Users with disabled accounts will not be able to sell or buy on guruu.co.
  • Users who have violated our Collective Terms of Use, including our our Community Standards, and had their account disabled may contact our Customer Support team for more information surrounding the violation and status of the account.
  • Users have the option to enable account Security features to protect their account from any unauthorized usage.
  • Users must be able to verify their account ownership through Customer Support by providing materials that prove ownership of that account.
  • Disputes should be handled using guruu.co's dispute resolution tools ("Resolution Center") or by contacting guruu.co's Customer Support.
  • Guruu.co may, without notice, make changes to its Collective Terms of Use from time to time. When these changes are made, guruu.co will update the relevant pages on its website.
  • You understand and agree that if you use guruu.co after the date on which any part of the Collective Terms of Use have changed, guruu.co will treat your use as acceptance of the updated Collective Terms of Use.

 

User Generated Content

User Generated Content ("UGC") refers to the content added by users as opposed to content created by the Site. All content uploaded to guruu.co by our users (Guruus and Learners) is User Generated Content.

Guruu.co does not check user uploaded/created content for appropriateness, violations of copyright, trademarks, other rights or violations and the user uploading/creating such content shall be solely responsible for it and the consequences of using, disclosing, storing, or transmitting it.

By uploading to, or creating content on, the guruu.co platform, you represent and warrant that you own or have obtained all rights, licenses, consents, permissions, power and/or authority, necessary to use and/or upload such content and that such content or the use thereof in the Site does not and shall not (a) infringe or violate any intellectual property, proprietary or privacy, data protection or publicity rights of any third party; (b) violate any applicable local, state, federal and international laws, regulations and conventions; and/or (c) violate any of your or third party’s policies and/or Terms of Use.

We invite everyone to report violations together with proof of ownership as appropriate. Reported violating content may be removed or disabled.

Furthermore, guruu.co is not responsible for the content, quality or the level of service provided by the Guruus (even if they are Top Rated Guruus, featured users, or otherwise). We provide no warranty with respect to the sessions, their delivery, any communications between Learners and Guruus. We encourage users to take advantage of our rating system, our community and common sense when choosing who to work with.

By offering a service, the Guruu undertakes that he/she has sufficient permissions, skills, knowledge, experience, rights and/or licenses to provide, sell the service that is offered on guruu.co.

For specific terms related to Intellectual Property rights and for reporting claims of copyright infringement (DMCA notices) or trademark infringement - please see our Intellectual Property Claims Policy, which forms an integral part of our Collective Terms of Use. Note that it is our policy in appropriate circumstances to disable and/or terminate the accounts of users who are repeat infringers.

Disclaimer of Warranties

YOUR USE OF THE SITE, ITS CONTENT AND ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE SITE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE SITE, ITS CONTENT AND ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE SITE ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. NEITHER GURUU.CO NOR ANY PERSON ASSOCIATED WITH GURUU.CO MAKES ANY WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION WITH RESPECT TO THE COMPLETENESS, SECURITY, RELIABILITY, QUALITY, ACCURACY OR AVAILABILITY OF THE SITE.

THE FOREGOING DOES NOT AFFECT ANY WARRANTIES WHICH CANNOT BE EXCLUDED OR LIMITED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.

Machine Translation

No warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, is made as to the accuracy, reliability, or correctness of using any language translation software from English into any other language. Some user-generated content (such as images, videos, Flash, etc.) may not be accurately translated or translated at all due to the limitations of translation software.

The official text is the English version of the Site. Any discrepancies or differences created in the translation into another language are not binding and have no legal effect for compliance or enforcement purposes. If any questions arise related to the accuracy of the information contained in the translated content, please refer to the English version of the content which is the official version.

Limitation on Liability

IN NO EVENT WILL GURUU.CO, CHIVE PTY LTD, ITS AFFILIATES OR THEIR LICENSORS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, OFFICERS OR DIRECTORS BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, UNDER ANY LEGAL THEORY, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR USE, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE SITE, ANY WEBSITES LINKED TO IT, ANY CONTENT ON THE SITE OR SUCH OTHER WEBSITES OR ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE SITE OR SUCH OTHER WEBSITES, INCLUDING ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PERSONAL INJURY, PAIN AND SUFFERING, EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, LOSS OF REVENUE, LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF BUSINESS OR ANTICIPATED SAVINGS, LOSS OF USE, LOSS OF GOODWILL, LOSS OF DATA, AND WHETHER CAUSED BY TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), BREACH OF CONTRACT OR OTHERWISE, EVEN IF FORESEEABLE.

THE FOREGOING DOES NOT AFFECT ANY LIABILITY WHICH CANNOT BE EXCLUDED OR LIMITED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.
 

The term “Affiliate” referred to herein, is an entity that, directly or indirectly, controls, or is under the control of, or is under common control with guruu.co, where control means having more than fifty percent (50%) voting stock or other ownership interest or the majority of voting rights of such entity.

Governing Law

This agreement shall be governed by and construed in all respects in accordance with the laws of the State of Victoria, Australia. All claims, disputes and other matters in question arising out of or relating to guruu.co, or the breach thereof, shall be decided by proceedings instituted and litigated in a court of competent jurisdiction in the state in which the Property is situated, and all parties hereto expessly consent to the venue and jurisdiction of such court.

 

 

 

Community standards

Overview

We’re cultivating a space for a community that wants to play a part in changing how the world works together. We’re building a global network of Guruus - tutors, instructors, consultants, mentors, coaches and service professionals - who use Guruu to share their knowledge. We’re inspired and excited by all of our community members. We value their perspectives, beliefs, and views—they are what makes Guruu so dynamic.

In order to maintain a respectful, inclusive, and safe environment for everyone, we’ve created a set of community standards to serve as a moral compass for behaviour on our platform. These standards help define what is acceptable in the Guruu community and marketplace, both in face-to-face interactions and online communications. They aren’t tied to any law, but are used to govern our platform policies. They reflect our attitudes, expectations, and social norms. Our community standards are rooted in our core values — respect, safety, acceptance, support and open-mindedness.

Just like our community, these standards will continue to grow, evolve, and change. We have included examples in our community standards for unacceptable activities on Guruu. Please note that these are intended to be examples only and not a complete list.  

 We encourage our community to use our reporting tools when encountering anything that is unacceptable. We want to create the best experience for all community members, and ask that you respect and follow these guidelines.

Integrity and Authenticity 

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Policies 
At these sensitive times, we are cautious regarding Coronavirus (COVID-19) related services that we allow on Guruu.

For example, we do not allow users to offer or ask for services that are related to healing Coronavirus or doing anything that may be used for spreading Coronavirus misleading information. 

Should you see something that violates our policies, please don’t hesitate to report it.

Please do not offer or ask for:

  •  Services that are intended to heal, prevent or treat Coronavirus (COVID-19), including emotional therapy. 
  • The creation of medical, scientific or informative content exclusively on Coronavirus (COVID-19). Guruu is committed to fighting the spread of fake news regarding Coronavirus. Therefore, if a service is reported or flagged as being used to create or promote the spread of fake news; we will investigate and take action accordingly.
  • Donations or investments. 


Misrepresentation

Misrepresentation is defined as fraudulent, negligent, or innocent misstatements, or an incomplete statement of a material fact.
 

Misleading profile information

Do not:

  • Post a fake name, location, gender, or photo in your user profile. 
  • Present a fake document(s) if asked to verify your identity. 
  • Write misleading content in your profile description, skills, or education. 
  • Provide Licensed services without holding the right license.·

Do not:

  • Copy profile descriptions, and other elements from other users.  
  • Raise the price of your sessions in personal messages before or after purchase. Bait-and-switch marketing is not acceptable.
  • Have someone else present you in your session, without prior written consent from your learner. 
  • Post non-original images or images you do not have the right to use in your profile.
  • Do not post non-original videos or videos that you do not have the right to use in your profile. 

Spam

We define spam on Guruu as a messaging activity that is unwanted, repeatedly occurring, and disruptive to the experience of recipients. Spam can take many forms ranging from unwanted offers to commercially-motivated solicitations that aim to drive traffic or attention to websites, products, and services outside of Guruu.

Please respect our users’ privacy by not contacting them with offers, questions, suggestions, or anything which is not directly related to their profiles, knowledge or booking sessions.
Do not:

  • Contact our users with offers, questions, suggestions, or anything unrelated to their profiles or sessions.
  • Send multiple unsolicited or deceptive messages. 
  • Abuse our communication tools to distribute mass messages. 

Prohibited Services 

Guruu is an open marketplace where users can offer or request a great variety of services. However, for a number of reasons, we prohibit certain types of services on Guruu. Some services can pose unwanted risks for our users like legal or financial risks; others are simply not in line with our values and policies. 

Here are example of the type of services prohibited on Guruu

Services that can pose legal risks for our users

Do not offer or ask for:

  • Illegal services.
  • Services that are meant to support any illegal activity.
  • Fake documents — the creation, changing, or editing of official documents such as IDs, passports, drivers license, bank statements, or death and birth certificates.

Services that can pose financial risks for our users        

 Do not offer or ask for:

  • Services that require getting access to the other party’s sensitive financial information
  • Opening, managing, or implementing changes in a financial account. 
  • Providing loans, donations or investment.
  • Trading signals or indicators.

Services that have a high risk of piracy or hacking

 Do not offer or ask for:

  • Verification services.
  • Hacking or cracking services. 
  • Services involving hacked or cracked software products (themes, templates, etc).  
  • Setup pirate accounts.

Services that infringe third parties’ terms of service

We do not allow the infringement of third parties’ terms of service on Guruu. As a valued member of the Guruu community, we ask you to respect the broader Internet community and refrain from such violations in your offers. Materials that are flagged for violations of third parties terms of service will be removed from Guruu. 
Do not post, offer, or ask for services that infringe third parties’ terms of service.

Misleading Services

Do not post, offer, or ask for:

  • Paid reviews

  • Positive or negative feedback on any product, service, or performance.
  • Testimonials
  • A written or spoken statement of a person extolling the virtues of a person or a service.  
  • Fake engagement and traffic

  • Followers, traffic, visitors, fans, views on social media platforms, or any other fake engagement on any platform.
  • Deepfakes
  • Deepfakes are created using artificial intelligence technology that superimposes the movements and words of one person onto another.
     

Services that promise outcomes that are not in your control 

In certain instances, sellers may be tempted to promise outcomes of their service which is not in their control. For example, guaranteeing an outcome after a learner books the session. Please refrain from promising outcomes that are not in your direct control because it misleads learners. 
 

Homework and academic services

Guruu’s marketplace is open for sellers to offer any service they wish to offer. With that being said we ask to refrain from offering or asking for any academic work. Taking part in doing someone else’s academic work (which will likely be submitted as the student’s own work) or requesting academic work to be done for you, is unethical since it violates most schools’ Honour Codes and may constitute copyright infringement. Guruu does not allow these types of fraudulent activities and it will not be permitted on our platform.

Do not post, offer, or ask for:

  • Writing of: Homework, academic papers, bibliography, letters of recommendation, college applications, etc.

Services that involve sharing personal information of third parties 

We do not allow services that breach 3rd-party rights and lead to spamming individuals. In order to ensure this policy, we ask that the data provided in these services will be unique to each order and will only contain business data. 
 

Do not post, offer, or ask for:  

  • Lists with data (such as email addresses or phone numbers) of individuals, only business data.
  •  Pre-made lists containing personal data.
  • Scraping social media platforms to obtain information about others.  

 

Medical-related services

We do not allow services that are meant to provide any medical treatment, advice, or supply.  

This is because special rules may apply to the storage of medical records.
 

Do not post, offer, or ask for:

  • Medical treatment, advice on any medical condition, or pharmaceutical advice. 
  • Any kind of medical drugs or pharmaceuticals.  
  • Medical equipment or pharmaceutical supply.

Objectionable Content 
Hate Speech

Guruu defines hate speech as words or ideas that are designed to incite violence or hatred against a person, or group of people, because of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, marital status, religion, age, disability, political affiliations, or other similar grounds.

We are committed to moving swiftly and aggressively to investigate conduct that has been flagged as hate speech, and will respond in a manner that is consistent with existing laws and the values of the company. We take hate speech violations very seriously, and anyone using hate speech towards another user or towards our customer support representatives will be removed from Guruu. We will also take action against any user asking or delivering hate speech-related content on Guruu.

 

Do not:

  • Use profanity, violent or dehumanizing speech against a person or group of people because of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, marital status, religion, age, disability, political affiliations, or other similar grounds. 

  • We do allow people to offer or ask for content regarding the research of hate speech or content that is related to the prevention of hate speech.

Discrimination

Under Guruu’s community standards, discrimination means unfair or unequal treatment of an individual or group because of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, marital status, religion, age, disability, political affiliations, or other similar grounds.

Guruu will investigate claims of discrimination on a case-by-case basis, and defend protected groups whenever possible.
Do not:

  • Express your unwillingness to work with a person or a group of people because of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, marital status, religion, age, disability, political affiliations, or other similar grounds.

  • Publish, offer, or ask for any content that expresses or supports discriminatory ideas. 

Adult, Nudity, and Sexual Activity

Explicit content meant to be sexually gratifying is not allowed on Guruu. If detected or reported, sexually explicit content will be blocked and participants could be banned from our platform. Content portraying violent, graphic, or humiliating fetishes are also not allowed. 

Sexually explicit content featuring minors and content that seeks to sexually exploit minors is prohibited on Guruu. We immediately report content that violates this policy to the relevant law enforcement agencies.

Do not share, offer or ask for:

  • Nude or adult related images, or videos.

  • Sex or sexual partners.

  • Sex chats or conversations.

  • The execution of fetish scenarios.

  • Sexually gratifying modelling.

  • Content that depicts explicit sexual activity.

Guruu will act quickly to block transactions that feature child nudity and will flag the offending account for review. We may, at our discretion, report incidences to the relevant law enforcement agencies.

 Political and Election policies

Guruu will not tolerate attempts to use the Guruu platform to undermine elections. Election Interference is defined as any attempt to interfere with the integrity of the voting process or to destabilize and undermine public faith in free and fair elections. 

Intellectual Property

Guruu content is based on User Generated Content (UGC). If you believe any of the uploaded content violates your copyright or a related exclusive right, you should follow the process described here

Upon receipt of a report from a rights holder or an authorized representative, we will remove or restrict content that engages in:

  • Copyright infringement
  • Trademark infringement

Violence and Criminal Behaviour 

Threats 

While we know that people sometimes express frustration or disagreement by threatening or calling for violence in non-serious ways, we can’t risk the safety of our community or the general public by ignoring threats of physical harm. We will attempt to consider language and context when distinguishing casual comments from credible threats to public or personal safety, but Guruu will also act quickly to block accounts and may notify law enforcement when threats appear to be credible.
Do not:

  • Threaten violence against another community member

  • Offer or ask for services that threaten violence against individuals, groups, or the general public.

Glorification of violence

Using Guruu to glorify, promote or express support for acts of violence, is not acceptable on Guruu.  Please do not offer or ask for services that promote, support or glorify violence.

Incitement

Incitement means encouraging or asking other people to engage in unlawful conduct.  Be aware that inciting others to commit a crime may be a crime in itself, regardless of the outcome of the request. 

Do not:

  •  Ask for or instruct people to break the law.
  • Engage in activities of questionable legality.


Self-Harm
At Guruu, we care deeply about the safety of our community. If someone you're communicating with expresses suicidal thoughts or is engaging in self-harm, please contact local authorities immediately and flag the content to our support team.  

If you’re going through an emotionally challenging time yourself or struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm, we urge you to seek immediate assistance. To find support in your location, try a Google search or see: https://www.opencounseling.com/suicide-hotlines

Users Aged Under 18 Years of Age 
Guruu’s Terms of Service require that all users be at least 18 years of age and of legal age to form a binding contract. 

Users under 18 can have accounts that have been created via a parent or legal guardian’s account. For information about how to set up a minor’s account, please visit our younger users information page.

Minimum age requirements do not apply to learners.

The minimum age to become a Guruu is 15 years of age, due to the requirements of some jurisdictions for special permits that allow users under 15 years to be able to work.

Services involving minors
Some services on Guruu involve minors’ participation in the service, for example, a tutor is hired to help a young child.

We encourage parents and legal guardians to choose tutors that specify they work with children and are willing to provide relevant government-issued ID to confirm their identity.

Guruu does not provide real-time monitoring of sessions, parents or legal guardians should supervise their sessions for young children.
We do however provide recordings of sessions, accessible via dashboards. Parent and legal guardians may view a video session after it is delivered without breaching
Guruu’s privacy policy.

No adult or harmful content featuring minors

We do not allow erotic, sexual or harmful content featuring minors.

Guruu may use broad discretion with respect to content or users that depict minors in a manner that violates this principle.

Any violations of this policy can lead to actions taken on the user account and a report made to relevant law enforcement agencies.   

Video Sessions and Recordings

As part of service delivery, participants meet over Guruu’s video conference (“sessions”) technology.

Video sessions are recorded so that all participants can refer to them later. You can access any of your video recordings via your dashboard shortly after a session has ended. 

We recommend that you download your video once it's available since we may, without notice, delete recordings in order to free up our storage capacity.

Guruu staff do not access or watch your recorded videos, except in the event of a dispute or complaint, as outlined in our Privacy Policy.

Users of Guruu.co that wish to make a video recording publicly accessible must first get the written consent of other participants in the recording.

A failure to comply may leave you vulnerable to legal action by the other participant(s).

Video recordings that are broadcast outside of Guruu are not bound by our privacy policy.

Making and Disputing Payments

Once a session is completed, we recommend releasing payment to your Guruu so that they don't have to wait long for their payment.

At the end of a session, if you wish to dispute the payment, there are under very limited conditions that apply.

These are:

  • The Guruu behaved in a manner that breaches our community standards or terms.
  • The Guruu did not deliver on pre-agreed requirements.

Our community standards are detailed and strictly enforced. Your Guruu is required to accurately state their skills and knowledge, and behave in a way that is consistent with our standards. Being unhappy or not liking someone is not sufficient reason to withhold payment. Instead, we recommend incorporating your feedback in your review (please read below to ensure your review meets our community standards).

Reviews and Ratings

Guruu encourages all participants to leave reviews about their experiences. This helps us maintain the integrity and quality of our website, and helps other users make better decisions about who to work with.

Before a session is booked, both participants should know clearly what is expected. Once a session is completed, reviews should be honest and independent, in other words, free of pressure or coercion. If you feel you are being put under pressure, please get in touch with our team at complaints@guruu.co

If you are unhappy with the quality of your session, and you clearly set out your expectations beforehand, we recommend that you raise this directly with the other party during your session. If you do leave a negative review, please ensure it is constructive and focuses on areas of improvement.

A negative review can be challenged and/or removed if it constitutes a personal attack, is dishonest, or is a breach of our community standards. We define personal attacks as occurring when someone refutes another's ideas by attacking the person rather than the ideas. Examples include comments that question a person's intelligence, values, integrity, motivations or decisions, using profanity, calling them names or generally being abusive.

You may not publish or post other user's private and confidential information in reviews.  

Don't forget that reviews are published publicly for everyone to see. Make sure what ever you publish reflects positively on you.

 

Payment Policy

The following terms (these “Payment Terms”) govern payments you make or receive through guruu.co (the “Site”), operated by Chive Pty Ltd. (L2 23 Foster Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010, Australia).

Chive Pty Ltd is collectively referred hereto as “Guruu” "Guruu.co" “we” or “us” or “our”.

Please read these Payment Terms carefully before making or receiving payments through the Site. By making or receiving payments through the Site, you accept and agree, on behalf of yourself or on behalf of your employer or guardian or any other entity (if applicable), to be bound and abide by these Payment Terms. These Terms are supplemental to Guruu’s General Terms of Service, community standards and other terms, as applicable (collectively, the “Terms of Service”).
 

Key Terms

Capitalized terms used but not defined herein shall have the respective meanings given to them in the Terms of Service. 

Payment Services Provider(s) are service providers that provide payment services to Buyers and Sellers in connection with the Guruu platform, including with respect to collection of funds from Buyers in connection with purchases, remittance and withdrawal of funds to Sellers, currency exchange services in connection with payments and withdrawals in local currencies, and the holding of funds in connection with Guruu Balances.

Revenue is the money that service providers earn from successfully completed bookings. 

Sellers (“Guruus”) are service providers who offer services via the Guruu.co platform for the purpose of earning an income.

Buyers (“learners”) are people that purchase a service.
 

Receiving Payments

General 

  • Each session you sell and successfully complete, accredits your account with revenue equal to 85% of the purchase amount.

  • We release payment to Sellers once an order is completed. See the “Orders” section in these Terms of Service for a definition of a completed order.

  • If a buyer cancels an order (for any reason), the funds paid will be returned to the buyer (“learner”) subject to the Seller’s cancellation policy. 

  • If the Seller cancels an order, the buyer will receive an immediate 100% refund.

  • If an order is completed, but disputed by the buyer, the buyer and seller are encouraged to reach agreement between themselves. If this isn’t possible, our customer service team can moderate on behalf of both parties. In this case, our team will ask for relevant information, including access to video recordings, and the team’s decision will be final with no further negotiations or correspondence entered into.

  • With respect to disputes, payment will be released because either (a) the buyer and seller reach agreement or (b) the customer service team moderates a final outcome.

  • If a buyer disputes payment, we will withhold payment for a maximum of 10 business days from the time the dispute is initiated. If, after this time, neither parties have reached agreement, our team will determine an outcome, which will be final with no further negotiation, and payment will be released subject to the team’s outcome.

  • A buyer may only dispute a payment because either (a) the seller was in breach of community standards or (b) the seller failed to deliver on pre-agreed deliverables.

  • Service providers are responsible for paying any direct or indirect taxes, including any GST, VAT or income tax, which may apply to them depending on residency, location or otherwise, under provisions of their jurisdiction. Sellers represent and warrant that they comply, and will comply at all times, with their obligations under income tax provisions in their jurisdiction. The price shown on the Seller’s profile page is inclusive of all such taxes and charges that may apply to the Seller.

  • Appointment as Limited Payment Collection Agent: Seller hereby appoints us as Seller’s limited authorized payment collection agent solely for the purpose of accepting payments (via its Payment Services Provider, if applicable) from Buyer, and remitting those payments to Seller.  Seller agrees that payment from Buyer to us shall be considered the same as if made directly to Seller. Buyer’s payment obligation to Seller will be satisfied upon receipt of payment by us (or its Payment Services Provider, as applicable), and we (via its Payment Services Provider, as applicable) are responsible for remitting the funds to the Seller in the manner described in these Payment Terms. In the event that we (via Payment Services Provider) do not remit any such amounts to Seller, the Seller will have recourse only against us and not the Buyer directly. Seller agrees that we may describe or otherwise reflect the terms contained herein in any terms of service, receipts, disclosures, or notices including, but not limited to, receipts provided to Buyers that we may deem necessary or prudent.

  • We partner with Payment Services Providers for purposes of collecting payments from Buyers, transferring such payments from Buyers to Sellers, and holding funds in connection with bookings. All payments services in connection with bookings are performed by our Payment Services Providers.

 

Getting Paid

  • When a Buyer makes a booking, payment is collected by us via our Payment Services Providers. This payment is held by us until the booking is successfully completed or any dispute is resolved. If there is no dispute, within three (3) business days, we release payment to the Seller, less the commission that we collect for use of our platform.

  • For security concerns, we may temporarily disable a Seller’s payment to prevent fraudulent or illicit activity. This may come as a result of security issues, improper behaviour reported by other users, or associating multiple accounts to a single withdrawal provider. The maximum amount of time an account may be temporarily disabled is 90 days.

  • Payment releases are final and cannot be undone. We will not be able to reverse this process once it has begun.

  • We transact in US dollars (USD). Sellers are responsible for any exchange rate fluctuations and conversion fees that may be incurred in their transactions with us.

  • The seller is responsible for providing accurate bank account details to receive payments.

  • The seller is responsible for any additional fees that may apply based on their bank, location and/or currency.

Purchasing

General

  • Buyers make a payment through Guruu.co to secure a booking (“a session”) from a Seller’s profile page. We partner with Payment Services Providers for purposes of collecting all payments from Buyers, transferring such payments from Buyers to Sellers, and holding funds in connection with bookings. All payments services in connection with the collection of funds on the Guruu platform are performed by our Payment Services Providers.

  • We serve as the Seller’s limited authorized payment collection agent solely for the purpose of accepting payments (via its Payment Services Provider, if applicable) from Buyer, and remitting those payments to Seller. Buyer’s payment obligation to Seller will be satisfied upon receipt of payment by Guruu.co (or its Payment Services Provider, as applicable), and we are responsible for remitting the funds to the Seller in the manner described in these Payment Terms. In the event that we (via Payment Services Provider) do not remit any such amounts to Seller, the Seller will have recourse only against us and not the Buyer directly.

  • In most locations, purchases on Guruu.co can be made by Credit Card. Additional payment methods may apply in certain locations.

  • Service fees are added at the time of purchase where you can review and accept the total amount requested to pay. These fees cover administrative fees. As of August 2022, the service fee on a booking is USD$3 and is applied at checkout.

  • The Buyer is responsible for paying applicable GST, VAT or sales tax. Tax is charged in addition to the Seller’s and Service fees.

  • You may not offer Sellers to pay, or make payment using any method other than through the Guruu.co site. In case you have been asked to use an alternative payment method, please report it immediately to help@guruu.co

  • You agree to receive invoices and/or payment receipts from us in electronic form as PDF documents, by email or through the Site.

  • To protect against fraud, unauthorized transactions (such as money laundering), claims, or other liabilities, payment information in connection with withdrawals is collected by our Payment Services Providers. Payment Services Providers may also collect such other information as necessary for the purpose of processing withdrawal payments.  We are not exposed to the payment information provided to Payment Services Providers, and this information is subject to the privacy policy applicable to the Payment Service Provider. Please see our Privacy Policy for more information.

  • By using any payment method and/or providing payment details for making purchases on guruu.co, you represent and warrant that: (a) you are legally authorized to provide such information; (b) you are legally authorized or have permission to make payments using the payment method(s); (c) if you are an employee or agent of a company or person that owns the payment method, you are authorized by that company or person to use the payment method to make payments on Guruu.co; and (d) such actions do not violate any applicable law.

Taxes

  • We may be required by applicable laws to charge users with indirect taxes (such as Sales Tax, VAT or GST) or to withhold taxes. Any amount we will be required to collect will be in addition to the purchase amount and any other fees payable by the Buyer, and any amount we will be required to withhold will be deducted from the Seller’s revenue, as required by applicable laws.

  • Indirect taxes are in addition to the price shown on the site, and in any event, any such taxes will always be displayed to the Buyer before payment. 

  • Users are responsible for paying any direct or indirect taxes, including any GST, VAT, or income tax, which may apply to them depending on residency, location or otherwise, under provisions of their jurisdiction.

Disputes and Cancellations

We encourage our Buyers and Sellers to try and settle conflicts amongst themselves. If for any reason this fails after using the Resolution Center or if you encounter non-permitted usage on the Site, users can contact our Customer Support team for assistance at help@guruu.co
 

Basics

  • Orders can be cancelled on Guruu.co. The Seller's refund policy will determine the refund that is issued. The Buyer is responsible for reading the Seller’s cancellation policy before purchasing. The Seller's cancellation policy is displayed on the Seller’s profile page.

  • Filing a transaction dispute or reversing a payment through your payment provider or your bank is a violation of these Payment Terms. Doing so may get your account temporarily or permanently disabled. Note: Once you have filed a dispute with your payment provider, the funds will be ineligible for a refund due to our obligations towards the payment provider.

  • In the event that you encounter an issue related to the service provided in an order, you are encouraged to use the Site's dispute resolution tools to attempt to resolve the matter.

  • We, through our Payment Services Provider, reserve the right to cancel orders or place funds on hold for any suspected fraudulent transactions made on the Site.

  • All transfer and assignment of intellectual property to the Buyer shall be subject to full payment and the delivery may not be used if payment is cancelled for any reason.

  • If an order is cancelled by the Service Provider (for any reason), 100% of funds paid will be returned to the Buyer.

  • If the Buyer cancels a booking, the refund issued will reflect the Seller’s cancellation policy.

  • Requesting to gain more services from Sellers beyond the agreed requirements is not allowed.

Order Cancellations
 

  • Bookings (“orders”) can be changed (even at late notice provided the Seller agrees). To change a booking, a Buyer should access their dashboard, click on “change booking” and choose a different available time slot.

  • If there is a dispute, we encourage Buyers and Sellers to resolve conflict mutually using the Resolution Center. If our team needs to moderate disputes, we will assess disputes based on a number of factors, including violations of our Terms of Service and/or our Community Standards, or general misconduct.

  • A booking cannot be cancelled once it is complete (the Seller has delivered the service).

  • Bookings are not eligible to be disputed based on the quality of service, information or whether you "liked" the Seller if the service delivered was as described in the Seller’s Page. You may rate your experience with the Seller through the Site’s online reviews, including the overall level of service quality received.

  • You must use our Resolution Center to address your concerns and desired resolution related to the service provided by their Seller prior to contacting our team. We will not take any action against a Seller where the Buyer has failed to inform their Seller of issues related to the Seller’s service and will not allow Sellers to provide a resolution first. This does not include non-permitted usage of Guruu.co.

  • Any non-permitted usage of guruu.co encountered during a booking, after being reviewed by our Customer Support team, may result in the dispute being found in the other party’s favour. This includes, but not limited to; harassment, unlawful behaviour, or other violations of our Terms of Service or Community Standards.

  • We will accept Buyer disputes based on, but not limited to, the following reasons:

A breach of our Community Standards

1.   The Seller is late or does not turn up for their booking.

2.   Behaviour is in breach of our Community Standards.


We may use broad discretion with respect to content or users that violate our community standards. With respect to minors, any violations of our community standards may lead to actions taken on the user’s account and a report made to relevant law enforcement authorities.
 

The Seller did not deliver on pre-agreed requirements

The Seller did not deliver on written, pre-agreed requirements for their booking.  

 

Chargebacks 

 

We review cases of payment provider chargebacks and disputes on behalf of Sellers. Although results vary per case due to each chargeback reason, we work hard on resolving disputes in the Seller’s favor. If the chargeback case allows, Guruu.co (or one of our Payment Services Providers) will return parts or full revenue back to Sellers, otherwise the chargeback amount will be borne by the Seller. 

 

Refunds

 

  • We refund payments when (a) the buyer cancels within the allowable notice period (as displayed on the Seller's profile page), where a Seller cancels a booking, and where a dispute is resolved in the Buyer's favour.

  • Where we refund 100% of the payment made, this includes any sales tax (or GST, or VAT, or equivalent) and the Service Fee.

  • Where we refund in part, this includes a pro-rata refund of any sales tax paid. The Service Fee is not refunded.

  • To prevent fraud and abuse, we limit the total amount of times users can request a payment provider refund, which is subject to review by our Customer Support team. Such refunds may be subject to an additional fee.

 

General Terms

Modifications

  • We may make changes to these Payment Terms from time to time. When these changes are made, we will make a new copy of the terms available on this page.

  • You understand and agree that if you use guruu.co after the date on which the Payment Terms have changed, we will treat your use as acceptance of the updated Payment Terms.

Disclaimer of Warranties

YOUR USE OF THE SITE, ITS CONTENT AND ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE SITE, ITS CONTENT AND ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. NEITHER GURUU.CO NOR ANY PERSON OR ENTITY ASSOCIATED WITH GURUU.CO MAKES ANY WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION WITH RESPECT TO THE COMPLETENESS, SECURITY, RELIABILITY, QUALITY, ACCURACY OR AVAILABILITY OF THE SITE.

THE FOREGOING DOES NOT AFFECT ANY WARRANTIES WHICH CANNOT BE EXCLUDED OR LIMITED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.
 

Limitation on Liability

IN NO EVENT WILL CHIVE PTY LTD, GURUU.CO, ITS AFFILIATES OR THEIR LICENSORS, SERVICE PROVIDERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, OFFICERS OR DIRECTORS BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, UNDER ANY LEGAL THEORY, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR USE, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE SITE, ANY WEBSITES LINKED TO IT, ANY CONTENT ON THE WEBSITE OR SUCH OTHER WEBSITES OR ANY SERVICES OR ITEMS OBTAINED THROUGH THE SITE OR SUCH OTHER WEBSITES, INCLUDING ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PERSONAL INJURY, PAIN AND SUFFERING, EMOTIONAL DISTRESS, LOSS OF REVENUE, LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF BUSINESS OR ANTICIPATED SAVINGS, LOSS OF USE, LOSS OF GOODWILL, LOSS OF DATA, AND WHETHER CAUSED BY TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), BREACH OF CONTRACT OR OTHERWISE, EVEN IF FORESEEABLE.
 

IN ACCEPTING LIABILITY AS THE LIMITED AUTHORIZED PAYMENT COLLECTION AGENT OF SELLER, CHIVE PTY LTD, GURUU.CO AND ITS AFFILIATES ASSUME NO LIABILITY FOR ANY ACTS OR OMISSIONS OF SELLER.
 

THE FOREGOING DOES NOT AFFECT ANY LIABILITY WHICH CANNOT BE EXCLUDED OR LIMITED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.
 

The term “Affiliate” referred to herein, is an entity that, directly or indirectly, controls, or is under the control of, or is under common control with us, where control means having more than fifty percent (50%) voting stock or other ownership interest or the majority of voting rights of such entity.

 

 

Privacy

Guruu.co's Privacy Policy

Last update: February 2022

Please read this privacy policy (the “Policy”) carefully to understand how we use personal information. If you do not agree with this Policy, your choice is not to use Guruu.co site and mobile applications and its related sites, applications, services and goods or any other website operated by Chive Pty Ltd that links to this Policy (the “Site”). By accessing or using this Site, you agree to this Policy. This Policy may change from time to time; any changes we make to this Policy will be posted on this Site, we will also take any other steps, to the extent required by applicable law, including notifying you and/or seeking your explicit consent to material changes. Changes to this Policy are effective as of the stated "Last Updated" date. Other than where we have sought such explicit consent from you, your continued use of the Site after we make changes will constitute acceptance of, and agreement to be bound by, those changes, so please check the Policy periodically for any updates or changes.
 

THE SHORT VERSION

Information We Collect – When you register to the Site, use it, complete forms, or register to our affiliate or influencer or similar program, we collect the personal information provided by you. We also collect information about your communications within Guruu.co as well as communication with other users of Guruu.co. In addition, we collect information while you access, browse, view or otherwise use the Site. Finally, video sessions that occur over Guruu.co may be recorded and stored by guruu.co. Video recordings are accessible for replay via all participants dashboards.
 

How Do We Collect Information? - You directly provide us with most of the information we collect. We also collect technical information indirectly and automatically through our systems. We also collect information from third party vendors and/or other commercially available sources. 
 

How Do We Use the Information Collected? – We use personal information to provide you with quality service and security, to operate the Site and to perform our obligations to you; to ensure marketplace integrity and security; to prevent fraud; to contact you and send you direct marketing communications; to promote and advertise the Site and the Guruu.co marketplace; to comply with lawful requests by public authorities and to comply with applicable laws and regulations. 

Privacy Relating To Video Recordings
As part of service delivery, participants meet via guruu.co's video conferencing. These video conferences (“sessions”) are recorded so that all participants can refer back to them later. They are accessed via the participants dashboard shortly after a session has ended.
Guruu.co staff do not access or watch video recordings that are stored on our servers. In the event of a dispute between users, however, or a complaint lodged concerning a user, we may, at our discretion, watch relevant video recording(s) as part of dispute resolution or managing complaints.

Users of Guruu.co that wish to publicly publish a video recording must first get the written consent of other participants in the recording. Video recordings that are broadcast outside of guruu.co are not bound by this privacy policy.
 

 

Privacy Relating to Complaints or Violations

Users are able to report other users for breaches or violations of our Collective Terms of Use, including our Community Standards. These reports are assessed by our Trust and Safety Team. To protect individual privacy, the results of any investigation are not shared. 
 

How Long Do We Keep Personal Information – We will keep personal information only for as long as is required to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected. However, in some cases we will retain personal information for longer periods of time. 

 

Users Under the Age of 18 – Users aged under 18 years old require their accounts to be created by a parent or legal guardian. The parent or legal guardian is copied into all correspondence until the child reaches 18 years of age, and the parent or legal guardian has the right to view video recordings of their child’s sessions without being in breach of this privacy policy. (Please see guruu.co/younger-users for information about setting up accounts for users aged under 18 years.)
 

Sharing Personal Information with Third Parties – We share personal information with third parties in order to operate the Site, provide our services to you, fulfil obligations imposed on us by applicable laws and regulations, and prevent fraud, infringements and illegal activities. 
 

Where We Store Personal Information - Some of the personal information you provide to us will be stored or processed on our behalf by third party suppliers and data processors and may be located in other jurisdictions, such as Australia and the United States.
 

Cookies - We use cookies and similar technologies (such as web beacons, pixels, tags, and scripts) to improve and personalize your experience, provide our services, analyse website performance and for marketing purposes.
 

Do Not Track (DNT) – Our Site does not respond to Do Not Track (DNT) signals. 
 

External Links - the Site contains links to third party sites and if you link to a third party site from the Site, any data you provide to that site and any use of that data by the third party are not under the control of Guruu.co and are not subject to this Policy. 
 

Security – We take great care in maintaining the security of the Site and your information and in preventing unauthorized access, loss, misuse, alteration, destruction or damage to it through industry standard technologies and internal procedures.
 

Rights of EU Users – Where we process personal data related to EU user, further terms apply to our processing in relation to your rights as a data subject under EU data protection laws, as detailed below. 
 

Specific Provisions for California Residents- If you are a California resident, you are entitled to specific privacy rights as detailed below.
 

Updating Personal Information – We take steps to ensure that the personal information we collect is accurate and up to date, and we provide you with the opportunity to update your information through your account profile settings. In the event that you believe your information is in any way incorrect or inaccurate, please let us know immediately. 
 

Contact Us - You can exercise your rights over your personal information, by contacting us at privacy@guruu.co. More details about the rights applicable to you are in the long version of the Policy.

The above are just the highlights. We encourage you to read more about the information we collect, how we use it, understand the meaning of cookies (no, you can’t eat it) and more in the long version of our Policy below.
 

THE LONGER VERSION

Guruu.co (including Chive Pty Ltd. and its affiliates) respects your privacy and is committed to protect the personal information of its users - buyers, sellers, collaborators and other visitors browsing the Site (“Users”) as well as affiliates, influencers and other collaborators interacting with Guruu.co. We believe that you have a right to know our practices regarding the information we collect when you visit and/or use the Site. This Policy explains our privacy practices for the Site and services provided by Guruu.co as well as privacy practices that apply to affiliates, influencers and other collaborators who are individuals. By accessing and/or using the Site and its related sites, applications, services, goods and/or registering for a Guruu account and/or using it as a collaborator to share comments on a specific project and/or registering to our affiliate or influencer or similar program, you agree to the terms and conditions of this Policy, including to our collection, use, disclosure, processing and retention of personal information. You can also learn how to limit sharing of information in this Policy.
 

Information We Collect

When you register to the Site, use it, complete forms, or use it as collaborator, and/or register to our affiliate or influencer or similar program, we ask you to provide certain personal information, including a valid email address, Facebook or Google account login details and username. We will also ask you to provide or otherwise collect additional information that you provide us, such as, your profile details, physical address or billing information, telephone number or other contact details, financial information (such as payment method and credit card number), your purchases, education, profession and expertise, and additional authentication information (such as your government issued ID, passport, or driving license, as permitted by applicable laws and as detailed in our Help Centre at Verifying Your IdentityWe also collect information about your communications with Guruu.co as well as communication with other users of Guruu.co.
 

We also collect information while you access, browse, view or otherwise use the Site. In other words, when you access the Site we are aware of your usage of the Site, and gather, collect and record the information relating to such usage, including geo-location information, IP address, device and connection information, browser information and web-log information, and all communications recorded by Users through the Site. We use that information to enhance user experience, personalise your browsing experience as well as monitor the Site for preventing fraud and inappropriate content or behaviour. We also collect supplemental information obtained from third parties such as demographic and navigation data, if applicable. We combine your personal information with information we collect automatically or obtain from other companies and use it to improve and personalise our services, content and advertising and/or to prevent fraud.
 

Additionally, in order to improve your online experience at Guruu.co, we have implemented impression reporting. While you view our ads, we gather user Global Unique Identifier, HTTP request data like, user agent, IP, host, URL, country/continent from which request made, browser info, device/operating system/operating system version.
 

Once you register, your username, country, and additional information regarding your activity is made public and is visible to all Users of the Site. This information includes photos you upload, your published biography, services information, ratings, and additional information you may choose to add to your profile. We may also offer you the opportunity to participate and post content publicly in forums, blogs and on other similar features. Please be aware that certain information, such as your username and profile, together with the content uploaded by you, will be publicly displayed when you use such features.
 

 

How Do We Collect Information?

Information provided by you - You directly provide us with most of the information we collect. You do this by filling out the registration details on the Site, competing information about yourself voluntarily.  This can include information about instructors and their services, education and profession, sharing of skills, ratings and feedbacks by buyers and anything you choose to add to your user profile.
 

Information we collect when you use the Site - We collect technical information indirectly and automatically through our systems. This information includes logging your Internet Protocol (IP) address, software configuration, operating system and use of cookies (cookies are small files sent from us to your computer and sometimes back). Cookies ultimately help us improve your navigation and ease of use of our Site. You can find further information about Cookies in our Cookie Policy
 

Information we collect from other sources - We receive information from third party vendors and/or other commercially available sources, such as:

  • Third party vendors who provide us data to supplement the information we collect about you, in accordance with applicable laws. For example, we receive fraud warnings from service providers for our fraud prevention and risk assessment efforts. We also receive information from enrichment service providers to enhance and personalize your experience as well as from advertising and marketing partners in order to manage and measure our campaigns.

  • If you link, connect, or login to your Guruu.co Account with a third-party service (e.g. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn), we receive certain information, such as your registration and profile information from that service. This information varies and is controlled by that service or as authorised by you via your privacy settings at that service.

  • Advertising and marketing partners in order to monitor, manage and measure our campaigns.

  • We also receive certain information about you, if you are invited to Guruu.co by another user (for example, as part of our collaboration tools and referral program), in such case we will receive limited information, such as your email address or other contact information, and we will use it for the same purpose it was provided and in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy.
     

How Do We Use The Information Collected?

Where relevant under applicable laws, all processing of your personal information will be justified by a "lawful ground" for processing. In the majority of cases, processing will be justified on the basis that:

  • you have provided your consent for us to use your personal information for a specific purpose;

  • our use of your personal information is necessary to perform a contract or take steps to enter into a contract with you (e.g. to provide you with services which you have purchased);

  • the processing is necessary to comply with a relevant legal obligation or regulatory obligation that we have (e.g. fraud prevention); or

  • the processing is necessary to support our legitimate interests as a business (e.g. to improve our services to you), subject to your interests and fundamental rights and provided it is conducted at all times in a way that is proportionate.
     

We will use your personal information for the following purposes:

  • to provide you with quality service and security, to operate the Site, to perform our obligations to you and to develop and improve our service. For example, we use the information collected from you to verify your identity. We also use this information to establish and set up your account, verify or re-issue a password, log your activity, enable your communications with other members, provide customer support and contact you from time to time. The information helps us to develop and improve our services to you, to understand and analyse your preferences and performance and to customise and personalise your experience (including by making service suggestions, ranking search results, etc.).

  • to ensure marketplace integrity, prevent fraud and maintain a safe and secure marketplace. For example, we use your information to track and prevent fraudulent activities and other inappropriate activities, monitor content integrity, conduct security investigations and risk assessments, verify or authenticate information provided by you, enforce our Terms of Service and comply with applicable laws. We conduct certain behavioural analytics to achieve the above objectives and in limited cases, if we detect activity that we think poses a risk to the Guruu marketplace, other users, our community, or third parties, automated processes may restrict or limit your ability to use Guruu.co. If you would like to challenge any such decision, please contact us at privacy@guruu.co.

  • to contact you, as requested by you or as otherwise approved by you or permitted according to this Policy.

  • to promote and advertise the Site and the Guruu.co marketplace. For example, we use the information collected from you for the purpose of sending direct marketing messages (as detailed below), to show you information that may be of interest to you, to organize and facilitate referral programs, contests or other promotional activities or events.

  • to maintain appropriate business records, to comply with lawful requests by public authorities and to comply with applicable laws and regulations or as otherwise required by law.
     

We will ask for your consent before using information for a purpose other than those set out in this Policy.
 

Direct marketing:

  • We use your personal information to send you direct marketing communications about our products, services or promotions from guruu.co that may be of interest to you or our related services. This may be via email, post, SMS, telephone or targeted online advertisements.

  • Our processing of your personal information for marketing purposes is based on our legitimate interest, or on your consent, or as otherwise permitted according to applicable laws. You have a right to prevent direct marketing of any form at any time - this can be exercised by following the opt-out link attached to each communication or by sending an email to optout@guruu.co

  • We take steps to limit direct marketing to a reasonable and proportionate level, and to send you communications which we believe may be of interest or relevance to you, based on the information we have about you.


How Long Do We Keep Personal Information?

We apply a general rule of keeping personal information only for as long as is required to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected. However, in some circumstances, we will retain your personal information for longer periods of time.
We will retain personal information for the following purposes:

  • as long as it is necessary and relevant for our operations, e.g. so that we have an accurate record of your dealings with us in the event of any complaints or challenge; and

  • in relation to personal information from closed accounts to comply with applicable laws, prevent fraud, collect any fees owed, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, assist with any investigation, enforce our Site terms and take other actions as permitted by law.
     

Users Under the Age of 18

Our Site is used by people under 18 years of age. Parents and legal guardians should at all times supervise their minor's activities.
Users aged under 18 years old require their accounts to be created by their parent or legal guardian. Their parent or legal guardian is copied into all correspondence until the user reaches 18 years of age. While aged under 18 years, the parent or legal guardian has the right to view video recordings of their child’s sessions without being in breach of this privacy policy.

If you are concerned about information that we have about a user aged under 18 years of age, please contact us at privacy@guruu.co.

(Please see guruu.co/younger-users for information about setting up accounts for users aged under 18 years.)
 

Sharing Personal Information with Third Parties

We do not sell or rent your personal information to third parties for their marketing purposes without your explicit consent.

We share your personal information with third parties as detailed below:

  • We share personal information with service providers that provide us with services for the purpose of operating the Site, opening and operating your account as well as providing ancillary services and solutions. These include, among others, hosting services, billing and payment vendors, CRM systems, forum hosting, community management services, data and cybersecurity services, web analytics and performance tools, translation tools, IT SaaS services, session recording, communication systems, mailing systems, data optimisation and marketing services, data enrichment services, legal and financial advisors or technical consultants. Consistent with applicable legal requirements, we take commercially reasonable steps to require third parties to adequately safeguard your personal information and only process it in accordance with our instructions;

  • We share personal information to law enforcement agencies, public authorities or other parties in order to respond to a subpoena or court order, judicial process or to regulatory authorities, if we believe we are required to do so by law, or that doing so is reasonably necessary to comply with legal processes; when we believe it necessary or appropriate to disclose personal information to law enforcement authorities, such as to investigate actual or suspected fraud or violations of law, breaches of security, or breaches of this Policy; to respond to claims against us; and to protect the rights, property, or personal safety of Guruu, our customers, or the public;

  • We share personal information with payment processors, fraud detection agencies and similar third parties for the purpose of facilitating payments done via the Site and securing the Site and protecting it against fraud, unauthorised transactions (such as money laundering), claims or other liabilities;

  • Our Site includes certain social media features, including single sign on features. We also share limited personal information with such social media platforms and marketing partners, such as Facebook and Google, to promote our services or the Guruu.co marketplace. Such features and third party services collect certain information about you and may set a cookie to enable their functionality. Such third parties’ features are governed by their policies.

  • We share personal information to help facilitate interactions between Users. For example, if you are a Learner we may share certain limited information about you with a Guruu to ensure the services you receive from the Guruu will fit your needs; such sharing of information is limited in scope, will not include personal identifying information (PII) which is not already available to the Guruu via the marketplace, and is only intended to improve the services provided by the Guruu and your user experience;

  • We may share personal information with Guruu.co’s corporate affiliates that are related by common control for the purpose of operating the Site, providing our services to you and for other purposes listed herein; and

  • Personal information will also be disclosed if we go through a business transition such as a merger, sale, transfer of all or a portion of Guruu's assets, acquisition, bankruptcy or similar event. In the event that we sell any business or assets, we will disclose your data to the prospective buyer. If we or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, information held by us about our users will be one of the transferred assets.


Please note, your profile information and additional information regarding your activity (including services, reviews, posts on our forum, etc.) is made public and is visible to all Users of the Site. When you publish your information and/or share your data with other Guruu Users, you do so at your own risk. (For guidance about creating profiles, please refer to our Community Standards.)  

 

If you choose to share personal information with other users, including Guruus providing you a service via guruu.co, such personal information is shared with other users as separate controllers. While guruu.co strives to protect your privacy and our Terms of Service require our Users to keep the information shared with them confidential, guruu.co cannot ensure that all Users will do so and it is your responsibility to ensure that other users will comply with your standards.
 

This Site is also protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply with respect to data collected by reCAPTCHA. The use of Google reCAPTCHA is required in order to prevent fraud and misuse of the Site by use of automated machines. To learn more, please see Google's privacy policy.
 

Where We Store Your Personal Information

Some of the personal information you provide to us will be stored or processed on our behalf by third party suppliers and data processors and may be located in other jurisdictions, such as the United States and Australia, whose laws may differ from the jurisdiction in which you live. Whether to third parties or internally, any transfers of personal information from the European Economic Area (“EEA”) to countries not deemed to provide an adequate level of data protection are governed by European Union (EU) standard contractual clauses and/or equivalent data transfer regulations to protect the security and confidentiality of personal information. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your personal information is treated securely and in accordance with this Policy.
 

Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies (such as web beacons, pixels, tags, and scripts) to improve and personalise your experience, provide our services, analyse website performance and for marketing purposes. To learn more about how we and our third party service providers use cookies and your control over these Cookies, please see our cookie policy
 

Do Not Track

Do Not Track (DNT) is a privacy preference that users can set in some web browsers, allowing users to opt out of tracking by websites and online services. We do not honour browser requests not to be tracked online (known as “Do Not Track”), but our cookie policy describes how you can opt out of receiving cookies.
 

External Links

Please note that the Site contains links to third party sites and if you link to a third party site from the Site, any data you provide to that site and any use of that data by the third party are not under the control of guruu.co and are not subject to this Policy. You should consult the privacy policies of each site you visit. This Policy applies solely to personal information collected by our Site. If you upload content, including personal information, to a social network and then tag the Site, your submission will be subject to that social network's terms of use and privacy policy, even where you post on an official guruu.co page on the social network. We do not have control over these terms of use and privacy policies and have not reviewed their adequacy. You should therefore review these before submitting any personal information.
 

Security

We take great care in maintaining the security of the Site and your information and in preventing unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, destruction or damage to it through industry standard technologies and internal procedures.
We contractually ensure that any third party processing your personal information equally provides for confidentiality and integrity of your data in a secure way. However, the transmission of data via the internet is not completely secure, and although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to the Site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your data, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Users who have registered to the Site agree to keep their password in strict confidence and not disclose such password to any third party.

Further information about our data security practices can be provided on request.
 

Rights of EU Users

Under applicable EU regulation, you have the following rights in respect of your personal information:

  • to obtain a copy of your personal information together with information about how and on what basis that personal information is processed;

  • to rectify inaccurate personal information;

  • to erase your personal information in limited circumstances where (a) you believe that it is no longer necessary for us to hold your personal information; (b) we are processing your personal information on the basis of legitimate interests and you object to such processing, and we cannot demonstrate an overriding legitimate ground for the processing; (c) where you have provided your personal information to us with your consent and you wish to withdraw your consent and there is no other ground under which we can process your personal information; and (d) where you believe the personal information we hold about you is being unlawfully processed by us;

  • to restrict processing of your personal information where: (a) the accuracy of the personal information is contested; (b) the processing is unlawful but you object to the erasure of the personal information; (c) we no longer require the personal information for the purposes for which it was collected, but it is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal claim or (d) you have objected to us processing your personal information based on our legitimate interests and we are considering your objection;

  • to object to decisions which are based solely on automated processing or profiling;

  • where you have provided your personal information to us with your consent, to ask us for a copy of this data in a structured, machine-readable format and to ask us to share (port) this data to another data controller; or

  • to obtain a copy of or access to safeguards under which your personal information is transferred outside of the EEA.


In addition to the above, you have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority for data protection.

We will ask you for additional data to confirm your identity and for security purposes, before disclosing data requested by you. We reserve the right to charge a fee where permitted by law. We will decline to process requests that jeopardise the privacy of others, are extremely impractical, or would cause us to take any action that is not permissible under applicable laws. Additionally, as permitted by applicable laws, we will retain where necessary certain personal information for a limited period of time for record-keeping, accounting and fraud prevention purposes.
 

Specific Provisions for California Residents

This section of the Policy applies to you, if you are a California resident.

During the last twelve (12) months we have collected the following categories of personal information from Users:

  • Information that you chose to upload or otherwise provided by you to Guruu, which may include: (i) Identifiers and personal information, such as name, postal addresses, online identifiers, email addresses, passport number or driving license number, social security number; (ii) characteristics of protected classifications, such as gender; facial image; audio, electronic or similar information; professional or employment-related information; and education information.

  • Information we collect when you use Guruu, including (i) Identifiers and personal information, such as online identifiers, internet protocol (IP) addresses, access device and connection information such as browser type, version, and time zone setting and browser plug-in types and versions; (ii) commercial information, including products or services purchased, obtained, or considered, or other purchasing or consuming histories or tendencies; (iii) Internet or other electronic network activity information, including, but not limited to log-in and log-out time, the duration of sessions, the content uploaded and downloaded, viewed web-pages or specific content on web-pages, activity measures; (iv) Location information, based on your IP address. 

  • Inferences drawn from any of the information identified above to create a profile about you.

  • We obtain personal information listed above from third party sources, as detailed in the section titled “How Do We Collect Information” above. 


We use the personal information that we collect or receive for the business purposes as described above under the Section titled “How Do We Use the Information Collected?”.

We disclose personal information to third parties for business purposes as described above under the Section titled “Sharing Personal Information with Third Parties” in the Privacy Policy. In the preceding twelve (12) months, we have disclosed all the categories of personal information detailed above for business purposes. 

As previously mentioned in this Policy, we do not sell (as such term is defined in the CCPA) personal information and will not sell it without providing Users with a right to opt out. 

You are entitled to the following specific rights under the CCPA in relation to personal information related to you:

  • you have a right to request that we will disclose certain information to you about our collection and use of personal information related to you over the past 12 months. After verifying your request, we will disclose to you: (i) The categories of personal information that we collect about you; (ii)The categories of sources from which the personal information is collected; (iii) The purposes for collecting, using, or selling that personal information. (iv) The categories of personal information that we disclosed for a business purpose or sold, and the categories of third parties to whom we disclosed or sold that particular category of personal information. (v) The specific pieces of personal information that we have collected about you. (vi) If we disclosed your personal information for a business purpose, the categories of personal information we have disclosed. (vii) If we sold your personal information, the categories of personal information we have sold.

  • You have a right to request that we delete personal information related to you that we collected from you under certain circumstances and exceptions. 

  • You also have a right not to be discriminated against for exercising your rights under the CCPA.

To make such requests, we kindly ask that you contact us at privacy@guruu.co.

We will verify your request using the information associated with your account, including email address. Government identification may also be required. 

A request for access can be made by you only twice within a 12-months period. Any disclosures that we provide will only cover the 12-months period preceding receipt of your request. We do not charge a fee to process or respond to your verifiable User request unless it is excessive, repetitive, or manifestly unfounded. If we determine that the request warrants a fee, we will inform you of the reasons for such decision and provide you with a cost estimate before processing further your request.
 

Updating Personal Information

We take steps to ensure that the personal information we collect is accurate and up to date, and we provide you with the opportunity to update your information through your account profile settings. In the event that you believe your information is in any way incorrect or inaccurate, please let us know immediately. We will make sure we investigate the matter and correct any inaccuracies as quickly as possible where necessary or give you ways to update it quickly or to delete it - unless we have to keep that information for legitimate business or legal purposes. When updating your personal information, we will ask you to verify your identity before we can act on your request. If for any reason you have a problem with deleting your personal information, please contact Guruu's Help Team (help@Guruu.co) and we will make reasonable efforts to delete any such information pursuant to any applicable privacy laws.

You can review and change your personal information by logging into the Site and visiting your account profile page.

If you delete your User Generated Content (“UGC”), as defined in the Guruu Terms of Service, from the Site, copies of your UGC may remain viewable in cached and archived pages, or might have been copied or stored by other Site users. Proper access and use of information provided on the Site, including UGC, is governed by our Terms of Service.
 

Contact Us

To exercise any of your rights in connection with your personal information, we kindly ask that you contact us at privacy@guruu.co. Please include all the relevant details, so your request can be handled correctly. We will process any requests in line with any local laws and our policies and procedures. If you do not have an active Guruu account, please contact us at privacy@guruu.co.

If you have any questions (or comments) concerning this Policy, please email our team at privacy@guruu.co, and we will make an effort to reply within a reasonable timeframe.

Cookies Policy

Why we use cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies (such as web beacons, pixels, tags, and scripts) to improve and personalise your experience, provide our services, analyse website performance, and for marketing purposes, as further detailed below.

A cookie is a piece of information (text file) stored on your device. When you visit our site, we set our own cookies (called first-party cookies) to store information on your device, such as your language preferences or login information. We also use 3rd-party cookies, which are cookies set by our partners (such as Facebook, Linkedin, Google, etc.).

The duration of a cookie depends on its function. “Session cookies” are only active during your online session, while “persistent cookies” will stay active on your device after closing your browser.

Blocking or deleting cookies from your browser

Find more information about deleting or controlling cookies at www.aboutcookies.org. (Note that this website is a third-party website. Therefore, we cannot ensure its accuracy, completeness or availability).

It is also possible to set your browser to block all cookies, including cookies associated with our services, or to indicate when a cookie is being set by us. You can do this through the browser settings page of the browser you use.

The following links may assist you in managing your cookies settings, or you can use the 'help' option in your internet browser for more details:

o Internet Explorer 

o Google Chrome 

o Firefox 

o Safari (OS X) 

o Safari (iOS) 

o Android 

You can prevent Google Analytics from collecting and using data about you by downloading and installing the browser plug-in available here
This creates an opt-out cookie that prevents the processing of your data.
For more information about Google Analytics cookies, please see Google's help pages and privacy policy

We may update this Cookie Notice in the future. We encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information about cookies set by guruu.


LINKS WE'VE INCLUDED:

Managing Cookie Settings:

o Internet Explorer

o Google Chrome

o Firefox

o Safari (OS X)

o Safari (iOS)

o Android

Google Analytics:

o      Opt Out

o      Google help pages

o       Privacy policy



Need more help?

Have you checked the help center? Please only reach out to our team if the answer isn’t covered. You can reach our team via this online form. Since we’re a small team, it may take up to 72 hours for us to respond.