Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") supplements and forms an inseparable part of the Trawl Terms of Service published at /terms. It expands and clarifies Section 5 of the Terms (the AUP clause), to which it remains subordinate; in case of any conflict between this document and the Terms of Service, the Terms of Service govern. By using Trawl services, you agree to comply with this AUP. Violations may result in suspension or termination of your account under Section 14 of the Terms; refund eligibility upon termination is governed by the Refund Policy at /refund.

1. Purpose & Scope

Trawl is a web monitoring and orchestration platform. The Service helps users observe public web pages, generate structured digests of changes, and surface signal via dashboards, webhooks, CLI, and MCP integrations. Trawl operates a Managed mode in which scrapers run on Trawl-operated infrastructure per Section 7 of the Terms; additional execution modes may be introduced in the future and will be governed by an updated version of this AUP. The user remains responsible for the legality and appropriateness of the data they collect.

2. User Responsibility — Scraping

Users are solely responsible for ensuring their monitoring activities comply with applicable laws, the target site's robots.txt directives, the target site's Terms of Service, and applicable data protection regulations (GDPR, CCPA, and equivalents). The prohibition in Section 5(i) of the Terms (accessing data behind login or paywall) remains in full effect. In the limited cases where a user supplies credentials, session cookies, or other authentication tokens to the Service via scoped account features, the user warrants that they hold valid authorization from the target site to use those credentials for automated access; supplying credentials does not by itself confer permission to bypass Section 5(i) of the Terms or any other Terms restriction.

3. Prohibited Content

The user must not use Trawl to collect, store, or distribute: (a) content that is illegal under applicable laws of France, the European Union, or the user's country of residence; (b) content that infringes intellectual property rights, trade secrets, or rights of publicity; (c) malicious software, exploit code, or content designed to compromise computer systems; (d) personal data of identifiable individuals processed without a lawful basis under Article 6 GDPR or equivalent; (e) content in violation of export control or sanctions regulations.

4. Prohibited Activities

The user must not use Trawl to: (a) gain unauthorized access to systems, accounts, or data; (b) disrupt the availability of any third-party service; (c) circumvent technical protection measures (CAPTCHA, rate limits, IP blocks, anti-bot defenses, authentication, paywalls, or DRM) on websites that have explicitly prohibited automated access in their terms of service or via robots.txt, in line with Section 5(iii) of the Terms; (d) conduct mass automated collection in violation of target sites' Terms of Service; (e) harvest personal contact information (email addresses, phone numbers) for unsolicited marketing or harassment; (f) conduct competitive intelligence in a manner that violates trade-secret laws; (g) re-sell or redistribute Trawl's infrastructure access; (h) use Trawl to flood, denial-of-service, or otherwise harm target sites.

5. Trawl Platform Operation

Trawl operates as an orchestration layer between the user and target sites. Trawl provides routing intelligence, anti-bot resolution, scheduled execution, and a shared knowledge base of selector patterns to keep monitors reliable when sites change. Trawl does not pre-screen the legality of any specific monitor configured by a user. Trawl reserves the right to inspect and remove any monitor or output that, in Trawl's reasonable judgment, violates this AUP, applicable laws, or the rights of third parties.

6. Rate Limiting & Site Protection

Trawl applies API-level rate limits to its own service endpoints to prevent abuse of the platform infrastructure. These API limits indirectly cap the burst frequency at which any single account can trigger scraping operations, which in turn limits load on target sites. Per-target-host throttling on outgoing scraping operations is governed by the schedule and configuration the user defines for each Scrap; Trawl provides technical means (cron scheduling, configurable request delays, robots.txt parsing) but does not by default enforce a specific request rate against any individual target site beyond what the user configures, in line with Section 6 of the Terms. Users must not attempt to bypass Trawl's API rate limits or distribute the same monitor across multiple accounts to evade them. Site owners who wish to be excluded from Trawl-originated traffic may contact brisorgueilp@gmail.com with their domain; Trawl will honor reasonable requests and will block the domain from the platform in compliance with applicable laws and contractual obligations.

7. Reporting Suspicious Activity

If you become aware of a Trawl user engaged in activity that violates this AUP, contact brisorgueilp@gmail.com with the subject line "AUP report: [domain or user reference]". Trawl will investigate and respond within ten (10) business days.

8. Enforcement

Trawl reserves the right to terminate accounts engaged in: (a) aggressive scraping causing target site harm; (b) copyright infringement; (c) harvesting personal data without a lawful basis; (d) circumventing technical protection measures for unauthorized access; (e) any other activity prohibited under this AUP. Severe violations may be reported to competent authorities. Termination does not entitle the user to a refund of unused subscription periods or compute packs, except as provided in the Refund Policy at /refund.

9. Updates

Trawl may update this AUP from time to time. In line with Section 5 of the Terms, updates take effect on publication and apply to all subsequent uses of the Service. Trawl may, at its discretion, communicate material changes by email or via a banner on the Service, but is not required to do so. Continued use of the Service after publication constitutes acceptance of the updated AUP.

10. Contact

For questions about this AUP, contact brisorgueilp@gmail.com.

Last updated: 2026-05-11