SMELLiT Terms and Conditions

Last updated: 15 October 2026 · Previous version, which applies to participants who signed up before 15 October 2026

These Terms of Use (the “Terms”) govern your use of the SMELLiT mobile application (the “App”). The App is provided by the Weizmann Institute of Science, 234 Herzl Street, Rehovot 7610001, Israel (“WIS”, “we” or “us”), for the d2smell research project.

The App lets you take part remotely in a scientific study of what, when and where people smell in everyday life (the “Study”). The Study is led by Prof. Noam Sobel and his research group at WIS, together with our research partners:

1. The agreement

Downloading, installing, opening or otherwise using the App is subject to these Terms and to the Privacy Policy. Taking part in the Study is also subject to the Informed Consent Statement that you approve in the App. Please read all three. If these Terms and the Informed Consent Statement differ, the Informed Consent Statement prevails.

By using the App you accept these Terms and acknowledge the Privacy Policy. By taking part in the Study you also give your informed consent to take part.

2. The Study

The Study asks basic questions about the human sense of smell: How often do we smell? What do we smell? When and where do we smell it? Taking part is voluntary and based on an Informed Consent Statement approved by the Weizmann Institute of Science Institutional Review Board (IRB).

WIS may change, limit, pause or end the Study, or participation through the App, and will make reasonable efforts to tell participants in advance. WIS may also set technical requirements for taking part.

3. Who can take part

You can take part if you:

  • are 18 or older, or the age of majority where you live if that is higher (19 in South Korea);
  • have a normal sense of smell;
  • are legally able to enter into this agreement where you live, and the law there does not forbid your participation;
  • are in a country where we are currently recruiting.

Each person may take part once, with one phone number. We may decline a sign-up or end a participation without giving a reason. If we learn that someone under the minimum age has signed up, we will delete their account and any associated personal data as soon as reasonably practicable.

4. What taking part involves

  • You receive 4 notifications a day, at random times within the waking hours you set, for about 10 days. You have 15 minutes to open each one. A missed questionnaire is skipped, and the Study then lasts longer. The Study is complete once you have answered 40 questionnaires.
  • Each questionnaire contains a few short questions and a photo taken in the App.
  • You need one mobile phone for the whole Study, an internet connection, and permission for notifications, location and the camera.
  • After you sign up you receive a recovery code. It is the only way back into the Study on a new phone, after reinstalling the App, or after clearing its data, and no one, including us, can recover or reset it. Keep it somewhere safe.
  • Do not use the App while driving.

5. Honest effort and fair use

Please give each questionnaire a genuine, honest effort. We may end your participation and withhold payment if your answers do not reflect real effort, or if you take part more than once, give false information, or try to manipulate the Study or the payment process. We check sign-ups, answers and payment requests to keep the Study fair.

Do not share personally identifiable information in the App, including in free-text answers, photos or surveys, other than the details you are asked for at sign-up and for payment. Your photos must not show people or anything that identifies someone.

6. Payment

  • You receive €0.25 for each questionnaire you answer, a €5 bonus for completing all 40, and €2 for completing the optional demographic survey: up to €17 in total.
  • If you stop early, you are still paid €0.25 for each questionnaire you completed (and the €2 if you completed the survey), but not the €5 bonus.
  • The smallest payment we can issue is €1, so you need at least four questionnaires to be paid.
  • You request payment in the App when the Study ends or after you quit. You may instead waive payment as a donation to science.
  • Payment is made as a GoGift “Global Gift Card”, issued in EUR and sent to the email address you give us. When you redeem it you choose a currency: there is no fee for EUR, USD, GBP, CHF, DKK, SEK, NOK, CAD or AUD, and a 3% fee for other currencies (for example ILS). Please check that the card works where you live before you start. Redeeming the card is subject to GoGift’s Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy.
  • We check each payment request before paying. Payment may take up to 10 days to arrive.

7. Quitting and deleting your account

You may stop at any time: in the App, Settings → Quit the study. Quitting stops your notifications and keeps your account, so you can still request payment. To delete your account, use Settings → Delete my account in the App, or see our Delete Account page. The Privacy Policy explains what is deleted and what is kept.

8. Licence to use the App

WIS grants you a personal, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use the App for its intended purpose only, for your own personal non-commercial use, subject to these Terms and the Privacy Policy.

You may not (and may not allow others to):

  • use the App for any illegal purpose, including to send, disseminate, transmit or otherwise make available viruses, Trojan horses, worms or any other malicious software; any information or material that may constitute or encourage a criminal offence or civil wrong or otherwise violate any applicable law; or any information or material that may be deemed threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libellous, obscene, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
  • interfere with or disrupt the functionality of the App;
  • impersonate any person or make any false statement;
  • collect or process personal information of other users of the App;
  • copy, modify, create derivative works of, disassemble, reverse engineer or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the App, unless the law allows it (and only to the extent it allows);
  • use robots, crawlers or similar applications to collect and compile content from the App.

9. Updates and discontinuation

WIS may, at its sole discretion, publish updated versions of the App (for bug fixes, enhanced or new functions, etc.) and require you to install an update as a condition for continuing to use the App. WIS may, at its sole discretion, modify or discontinue the operation of the App, temporarily or permanently.

10. Intellectual property

All rights in the App and the Study (including, without limitation, any intellectual property, know-how or trade secrets) and WIS’s trademarks are and will remain the exclusive property of WIS.

You acquire no rights in the Study or its outcomes, including in any intellectual property that derives from the Study or in any commercial services or products that may be developed based on the Study in collaboration with third parties.

11. Your information

You retain all your rights in any information you provide to WIS. However, by providing information to WIS (through the App, by email or otherwise in the course of the Study) you grant WIS and its affiliated and collaborating third parties a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive and royalty-free licence to use such information, including de-identified, aggregated or statistical data based on it, in any way that the owner of such information is entitled to use it, including, without limitation, to copy, distribute, create derivative works of, adapt or publicly display it, all subject to your rights under the Informed Consent Statement and the Privacy Policy.

12. Privacy

The Privacy Policy explains what personal information WIS and its research partners collect during your use of the App and the Study, how and why it is processed and shared, and your rights. By taking part in the Study you acknowledge that Research Data (as defined in the Privacy Policy) will be used by WIS and its research partners for scientific research on the sense of smell, and that Research Data without directly identifying information, or aggregated statistical data based on it, may be published in a public research database for the benefit of the scientific community.

13. Changes to these Terms or to the Privacy Policy

We may change these Terms or the Privacy Policy from time to time. We publish each version on this website with its date and keep earlier versions available. Changes take effect seven days after their publication, or immediately if they are for your benefit, required by law or by an authority, or relate to new features of the App. Using the App after a change takes effect means that you accept the amended Terms and acknowledge the amended Privacy Policy. A change never reduces a payment you have already earned.

14. Disclaimer of warranty

THE APP IS PROVIDED “AS IS”.

WIS DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE APP WILL OPERATE IN AN UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE MANNER, OR THAT IT IS FREE FROM THIRD PARTIES’ HARMFUL COMPONENTS.

YOU WILL NOT HAVE ANY PLEA, CLAIM OR DEMAND AGAINST WIS AND ITS AFFILIATES (INCLUDING YEDA RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT COMPANY LTD.) IN RESPECT OF THE APP’S PROPERTIES, ABILITIES, AVAILABILITY, LIMITATIONS OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

THE USE OF THE APP IS ACCORDINGLY AT YOUR SOLE AND WHOLE RISK, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, COMPATIBILITY, SECURITY OR ACCURACY.

WIS DOES NOT WARRANT, AND HEREBY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE APP.

15. Limitation of liability

YOU WILL NOT HAVE ANY PLEA, CLAIM OR DEMAND AGAINST WIS AND ITS AFFILIATES, THEIR OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, SHAREHOLDERS, EMPLOYEES, STUDENTS, RESEARCHERS, SUB-CONTRACTORS, AGENTS OR ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY ACTING ON THEIR BEHALF, IN RESPECT OF THE APP, INCLUDING ANY CONTENT UPON WHICH YOU DECIDE TO RELY. WIS AND ITS AFFILIATES WILL NOT BE DEEMED RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY CONTENT OR ADVICE, AND RELIANCE ON SUCH CONTENT AND ADVICE IS AT YOUR SOLE AND WHOLE RISK.

IN ANY EVENT, WIS AND ITS AFFILIATES, THEIR OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, SHAREHOLDERS, EMPLOYEES, SUB-CONTRACTORS, AGENTS OR ANY OTHER PERSON OR ENTITY ACTING ON THEIR BEHALF WILL NOT BE LIABLE IN TORT, CONTRACT OR ANY OTHER CAUSE OF ACTION FOR ANY DAMAGE (DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL), LOSS, EXPENSE OR PAYMENT CAUSED TO OR INCURRED BY YOU DUE TO THE USE OF THE APP, INCLUDING THE INABILITY TO USE IT.

16. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms and any other matter in relation to the use of the App or the Study (including participation in the Study) are governed exclusively by the laws of the State of Israel, without giving effect to conflict-of-laws principles, and the competent courts in Tel Aviv, Israel, have exclusive jurisdiction over any of these matters.

17. Contact

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us at smellita@weizmann.ac.il.