Terms of Use

The rest of this page is the legal version of those plain commitments. We've tried to keep it readable.

By accessing or using Political DNA (politicaldna.org), you agree to these Terms of Use. If you don't agree, please don't use the service.

These terms will evolve as the site does. When they do, the "Last Updated" date at the top changes, and material updates are announced with a prominent notice on the site for at least thirty days before they take effect. Continued use after the effective date counts as acceptance of the updated terms.

Political DNA is a self-knowledge tool for political identity. It includes:

• A four-axis assessment (the DNA Scan), and a small number of related assessments (Origins, Dynamics, Civics)
• Scoring of your responses against thirty-two archetypes
• An editorial library of intellectual lineage — thinkers and traditions associated with each archetype
• A share-code mechanism for showing your result to friends, and a friend-comparison flow
• Long-form editorial content about the four-axis methodology and adjacent topics

It is not a credentialed psychological assessment. It is not a clinical, diagnostic, or therapeutic instrument. It is not endorsed by Pew Research, the European Social Survey, or any of the academic authors whose work is cited in the methodology. The instrument is informed by their research; it is not their work.

The assessments and your results are free — you never pay to see a result you've already earned. We also sell optional paid products that go deeper (currently the Deep Reading, a long-form personalized report). Purchases are processed by Stripe; we never see or store your card details. Prices are shown at the point of purchase and may change. Paid products are delivered by email and on the site, and are covered by our Refund Policy — including an automatic refund if we fail to deliver what you paid for.

The site, its design, and its underlying logic may change without notice as the project evolves — including occasional downtime for maintenance or revisions.

You may

• Take the assessment for personal insight
• Share your own results, your own share code, or your own archetype description
• Discuss your results publicly — including in journalism, criticism, or commentary
• Link to the site from your own publications, social media, or research
• Quote brief portions of editorial content with attribution

Who owns what

Political DNA is created and operated by Michael Sertic (the "creator"), doing business under the name "Political DNA Project." The Political DNA name, the wordmark, the assessment questions, the archetype descriptions, the four-axis methodology, the editorial copy across the site, and the site's design and code are owned by the creator or used under license. You may not copy, adapt, or redistribute these materials without permission, except for the limited fair-use cases noted in § 3 above.

Political DNA is not a registered legal entity. The "Project" framing is editorial. Where these terms refer to "we" or "us," the legal counterparty is Michael Sertic personally.

Your results belong to you

Your own assessment results — your scores, your archetype, your share code, your validation feedback — belong to you. You can share, discuss, publish, or destroy them however you choose.

Research license

By completing an assessment, you grant the creator a perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide license to use your de-identified response data for research purposes, including:

• Internal analysis to improve the instrument's validity and reliability
• Academic collaboration with universities and other research institutions, where there's a clear research purpose and a data-use agreement in place
• Publication in articles, talks, and (where appropriate) peer-reviewed journals or conference proceedings
• Aggregate statistics and research reports

"De-identified" is defined in the Privacy Policy: your name, email, IP, and device fingerprint are stripped before responses enter the research pipeline. You can opt out of future research use at any time by emailing support@politicaldna.org; that opt-out doesn't affect the analyses already published, but excludes your responses from new datasets going forward.

Academic collaboration

If you're a researcher interested in collaboration — access to a de-identified dataset, joint analysis, replication studies — please write to research@politicaldna.org. Collaborators are bound by a data-use agreement and (if applicable) their own institutional review board's requirements.

Not professional advice

Political DNA is a self-reflection tool. Your archetype is not psychological, political, legal, medical, financial, or any other kind of professional advice. Please don't make consequential life decisions on the basis of an assessment result.

Limits on what the instrument can tell you

The assessment locates you on four axes against a curated set of thirty-two archetypes. It does not measure every dimension of your political identity, and the four-axis structure — while empirically grounded — is one model among several. The methodology page describes both what the instrument is calibrated to do and what it explicitly cannot. We make no guarantees about the accuracy, completeness, or stability of your result over time; political identity is dynamic and the instrument is calibrated against current data, not a permanent ground truth.

"As is" service

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

Availability

The site may be unavailable from time to time for maintenance, updates, or operational reasons. We do not guarantee uninterrupted access or error-free behavior.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, MICHAEL SERTIC (DOING BUSINESS AS POLITICAL DNA PROJECT) SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION LOSS OF PROFITS, LOSS OF DATA, LOSS OF GOODWILL, OR LOSS OF USE, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, WHETHER BASED IN CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY, OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

The creator's total cumulative liability for any claim arising from your use of the service is capped at one hundred U.S. dollars ($100), or the amount you paid to use the service in the twelve months preceding the claim — whichever is greater. (If you have made no purchases, the cap is $100.)

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Michael Sertic (doing business as Political DNA Project), and any future entity or successor that operates Political DNA, from any claims, damages, losses, or expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from your use of the service or your violation of these terms.

Your use of Political DNA is also governed by the Privacy Policy, which describes what data is collected, how it's used, who it's shared with, and how to exercise your rights. By using the service, you accept the practices described there.

You can stop using the service at any time. If you have an account, you can delete it from /settings or by emailing support@politicaldna.org; we will remove your account record and (on request) your prior assessment data.

The creator may suspend or restrict access for any user who materially violates these terms — for example, scraping the assessment, attempting to identify other respondents, or using the site to harass others. Where suspension is necessary, it typically takes the form of blocking the offending account, IP, or device. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — intellectual property, the research license over already-collected de-identified data, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and governing law — survive.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Disputes arising from these terms or your use of the service are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in California.

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable or invalid, that provision is limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions remain in full effect.

These Terms of Use, together with the Privacy Policy and the Refund Policy, are the entire agreement between you and the creator regarding your use of Political DNA, and supersede any prior or contemporaneous statements.