John Otto Magee
Poppelsdorfer Allee 90
53115 Bonn, Germany
Mobile +49 171 860 6637
john.magee@john-magee
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Impressum
Angaben gemäß § 5 DDG
Umsatzsteuer-Identifikationsnummer gemäß § 27a UStG: DE234907318
Verantwortlich für den Inhalt nach § 18 Abs. 2 MStV: John Otto Magee, address as above.
Verbraucherstreitbeilegung: Ich bin nicht bereit und nicht verpflichtet, an Streitbeilegungsverfahren vor einer Verbraucherschlichtungsstelle teilzunehmen.
Terms & Conditions
1. Who you are contracting with
These terms govern the use of understand-culture.com and the subscription sold through it.
The provider is John Otto Magee, Poppelsdorfer Allee 90, 53115 Bonn, Germany, operating as a sole trader. Contact details are in the Impressum.
In these terms, “the site” means understand-culture.com, “the advisor” means the culture advisor available on it, and “the content” means the cultural intelligence published on the site.
2. What is being sold
A subscription gives one person access for twelve months to the culture advisor and to the full body of cultural intelligence on the site.
The subscription is personal. It grants access to one individual and may not be shared, transferred or used by more than one person.
The scope of the content is as described on the site at the time of purchase. Countries and topics are added over time and existing subscribers receive additions at no further cost. Nothing in these terms is a commitment to add any particular country or topic.
3. Who may buy
Anyone able to make a card payment may purchase a subscription, whether for themselves or on behalf of somebody else.
Where an organisation purchases for an employee, the subscription still grants access to one named individual.
4. Price and payment
The subscription costs 250 euros for twelve months. This price is net. Value added tax is added at the rate applicable in the customer’s own country and is shown before payment is completed.
Payment is by card, in advance, through the payment provider integrated into the site. An invoice is issued automatically.
Prices may change for new subscriptions at any time. A change does not affect a subscription already purchased.
5. Term and what happens at the end
A subscription runs for twelve months from the date of purchase.
It does not renew automatically. There is nothing to cancel and no notice to give. At the end of twelve months access ends and login no longer works.
A further twelve months may be purchased at any time at the price then applicable.
6. Fair use
The advisor is subject to a fair use limit of 500 questions in any thirty-day period, counted from the subscriber’s own use rather than from a fixed calendar date.
This limit exists to prevent automated or shared use. It is set well above what any individual is expected to need and is not intended to restrict ordinary use, however heavy.
If the limit is reached, the advisor becomes unavailable until enough of the preceding thirty days has elapsed for the count to fall below it. The published content remains accessible throughout. No refund arises from reaching the limit.
7. Right of withdrawal
Consumers have a statutory right to withdraw from this contract within fourteen days. The separate withdrawal instructions explain that right and how to exercise it.
Because the subscription is digital content supplied immediately, the right of withdrawal expires once the customer has expressly consented to immediate provision and acknowledged that this consent extinguishes the right. That consent is given at the point of purchase.
Where a purchase is made in the course of a business rather than as a consumer, no right of withdrawal applies.
8. How the advisor works, and its limits
The advisor is an artificial intelligence system that draws on the cultural intelligence published on this site. It is intended to help people understand cultural dynamics in professional situations.
It is not professional advice. It does not give legal, financial, medical or employment advice, and it should not be relied upon as though it did. Decisions taken in reliance on it remain the user’s own.
Cultural patterns describe tendencies within a culture. They do not describe individuals, and individuals vary widely. Nothing on this site should be applied to a particular person as though it were a statement about them.
9. Availability
Reasonable efforts are made to keep the site and the advisor available, but no particular level of availability is guaranteed.
The advisor depends on services provided by third parties. Interruptions arising from those services, from maintenance, or from circumstances outside reasonable control do not constitute a breach of these terms.
Where the advisor is unavailable for a prolonged period, a proportionate extension of the subscription may be granted on request.
10. Your account
Access is granted through an account tied to an email address. Login codes are sent to that address.
The account holder is responsible for keeping access to that email address secure and for not sharing access with others.
Where a subscription is found to be shared or used by more than one person, access may be suspended without refund.
11. Content and intellectual property
All cultural intelligence published on this site is the intellectual property of John Otto Magee.
Subscribers may read the content, quote from it, and apply what they learn in the course of their own work, including discussing it with colleagues in the ordinary way.
Subscribers may not use the content commercially. This means it may not be incorporated into training, coaching, consulting or advisory services offered to others, whether paid or unpaid, and it may not be repackaged, resold or presented as the subscriber’s own material.
Subscribers may not republish or redistribute the content as a body, whether publicly or within an organisation, and may not use it to train or supply an artificial intelligence system.
Conversations with the advisor belong to the user, who may save, quote and share them as they wish.
12. Data protection
How personal data is handled is set out in the privacy notice, which forms part of these terms.
In summary, conversations with the advisor are processed by third-party artificial intelligence providers in order to produce responses, and payment data is processed by the payment provider. The privacy notice names each provider and explains the basis for any transfer outside the European Union.
13. Liability
Liability is unlimited for damage arising from injury to life, body or health, and in cases of intent or gross negligence.
In cases of slight negligence, liability arises only where an essential contractual obligation has been breached, and is limited to the damage typically foreseeable in such a contract.
Liability under the German Product Liability Act is unaffected.
Any further liability is excluded.
14. Changes to these terms
These terms may be changed for new subscriptions at any time. The terms applying to an existing subscription are those in force at the time it was purchased.
15. Governing law and jurisdiction
These terms are governed by German law.
Where the customer is a consumer, this choice of law does not deprive them of the protection of mandatory provisions of the law of the country in which they are habitually resident.
Where the customer is not a consumer, the place of jurisdiction is Bonn, Germany.
16. Consumer dispute resolution
I am neither willing nor obliged to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.
Privacy Notice
This explains what happens to your data when you use understand-culture.com. It is written to be read rather than skimmed, because you should be able to find out what happens to your conversations without wading through a boilerplate notice.
Who is responsible
John Otto Magee, Poppelsdorfer Allee 90, 53115 Bonn, Germany.
Email: john.magee@understand-culture.com
Understand Culture is a one-person business. There is no data protection officer, because the scale of processing does not require one under Article 37 of the GDPR.
What this site does, in short
Understand Culture publishes research on how business is conducted in different countries, and offers a culture advisor that answers questions using that research. The advisor is an artificial intelligence system. Your questions are sent to an AI provider in order to produce an answer, which is unavoidable, and that is the single most important thing to understand about your data here.
Visiting the site without an account
You can read parts of the site and use the culture advisor without registering.
Visitor statistics. The site uses SlimStat, which runs on this server rather than sending data elsewhere. IP addresses are anonymised and hashed, so they cannot be traced back to you. What is recorded is which pages were viewed, where visitors arrived from, and general browser and country information. Records are deleted automatically after 365 days.
SlimStat sets one cookie to recognise returning visitors. Because a cookie is personal data, it is only set if you accept it in the consent banner. If you decline, the cookie is not set and statistics still work, less precisely. Logged-in subscribers are not tracked at all.
Legal basis. Consent, under Article 6(1)(a) GDPR, given through the cookie banner. You may withdraw it at any time through the same banner.
Guest use of the advisor. Guests may ask up to twenty-five questions a year. To count them, the system records the IP address of the visitor. This is a legitimate interest under Article 6(1)(f) GDPR, namely preventing unlimited free use of a paid service.
Using the culture advisor
This section matters most. Please read it before typing anything into the advisor.
What happens to your question. When you ask the advisor something, your question, the relevant research passages, and the earlier part of your conversation are sent to Anthropic, which operates the AI model that produces the answer. Anthropic is a company in the United States. This transfer is necessary in order to provide the service you asked for.
A second provider is involved in finding the right research. The text of your question is sent to OpenAI, also in the United States, which converts it into a numerical form used to search the research. That numerical form is compared against a database held by Pinecone, again in the United States.
What Understand Culture keeps. Conversations are stored on this site for ninety days. They are read in order to see which countries and topics people are asking about, which is how decisions are made about what to research next. After ninety days they are deleted automatically. They are never sold and never shared with anyone.
What this means for you in practice. Describe the situation, not the confidential particulars. The advisor works from cultural dynamics and does not need names, company details, or anything commercially sensitive in order to be useful. If your employer would not want something sent to an external service, do not type it here.
Legal basis. Performance of a contract for subscribers, under Article 6(1)(b) GDPR. For guests, legitimate interest in offering a demonstration of the service, under Article 6(1)(f).
Registering and paying
Registration collects your name, your email address, and the dates your access begins and ends.
Signing in uses a code sent to your email address rather than a password.
Payment is handled by Stripe, which collects and processes your card details directly. Understand Culture never sees or stores your card number. Stripe operates in the United States and Ireland.
Invoicing and VAT are handled by Quaderno, which receives your name, email address, country and the amount paid, in order to apply the correct tax rate and issue a compliant invoice.
Legal basis. Performance of a contract, under Article 6(1)(b) GDPR, and compliance with tax law, under Article 6(1)(c).
Newsletter
If you choose to receive occasional updates, your email address is used for that purpose.
This is entirely separate from your subscription. You are not added automatically. You have to tick a box, and you can unsubscribe at any time using the link in every message.
Legal basis. Consent, under Article 6(1)(a) GDPR.
Who receives your data
The following organisations process data on behalf of Understand Culture. No one else receives it, and it is never sold.
Anthropic, United States. Produces the advisor’s answers. Receives your questions and the conversation.
OpenAI, United States. Converts your question into a form usable for searching. Receives the text of the question.
Pinecone, United States. Stores the research in searchable form. Receives the numerical representation of your question.
Stripe, United States and Ireland. Processes payments. Receives your card and billing details.
Quaderno, Spain. Issues invoices and calculates VAT. Receives your name, email, country and payment amount.
united-domains, Germany. Hosts this website and sends its email.
Transfers outside the European Union
Anthropic, OpenAI, Pinecone and Stripe are based in the United States, which does not have an adequacy decision equivalent to European data protection law in all respects.
These transfers take place on the basis of the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, and where applicable under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
Being direct about this: if you are uncomfortable with your question being processed in the United States, do not use the advisor. There is no version of this service in which that does not happen, and it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise.
How long data is kept
Advisor conversations, ninety days, then deleted automatically.
Account records, for as long as the subscription is active and for twelve months afterwards.
Visitor statistics, 365 days, then deleted automatically.
Newsletter subscription, until you unsubscribe.
Invoices and payment records, ten years, as required by German commercial and tax law.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you may ask for a copy of the data held about you, ask for it to be corrected, ask for it to be deleted, ask for its use to be restricted, receive it in a portable form, or object to processing based on legitimate interest.
Where processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time. Withdrawal does not affect what was done before.
Write to john.magee@understand-culture.com. Requests are answered within a month, usually much sooner.
You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority. For Understand Culture that is the Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen.
Security
The site is served over an encrypted connection. Sign-in uses a code sent to your email address rather than a stored password. Cookies use secure flags. Card details are handled entirely by Stripe and never reach this site.
Changes
This notice will change as the service changes. The version in force is the one published here.
Last updated: 8 September 2026.