FactoryChecks — Acceptable Use Policy

Effective: 2026-05-26 Operator: AlienLogicLab, LLC (Wyoming, USA), operating FactoryChecks ("FactoryChecks," "we," "us")

1. Purpose and Applicability

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") governs the conduct of all persons and entities ("you") who access or use the FactoryChecks website, applications, and services (collectively, the "Platform" or "Services"), whether as a Buyer, a Factory, or any other user.

This AUP is incorporated by reference into the FactoryChecks Terms of Service for Buyers and the Terms of Service for Factories (collectively, the "Terms"). Capitalized terms not defined here have the meanings given in the applicable Terms or in the shared drafting context. In the event of a conflict between this AUP and the applicable Terms, the Terms control unless this AUP expressly states otherwise.

By accessing or using the Platform, you agree to comply with this AUP. If you do not agree, you must not use the Platform.

2. Prohibited Uses

You must not use the Platform — including any Content, Capability Assessments, Inspection Reports, scores, or data made available through it — for any of the following purposes:

2.1 Unlawful, Infringing, or Harmful Activity

Violating any applicable local, national, or international law or regulation, including export-control, anti-corruption, sanctions, intellectual property, privacy, or data-protection laws.
Infringing the intellectual property rights of FactoryChecks or any third party, including unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or creation of derivative works.
Engaging in any activity that is tortious, defamatory, fraudulent, threatening, or otherwise legally actionable.

2.2 Uploading Content You Lack Rights to Submit

Submitting, uploading, or transmitting any data, document, image, or other material for which you do not hold the necessary rights, licenses, consents, or authority.
Disclosing third-party confidential information, trade secrets, or customer-confidential data without the authorization of the rights holder (see also Section 3 and the Factory authorization representation in the Terms of Service for Factories).

2.3 Misrepresentation and False Information

Providing false, misleading, or materially incomplete information at registration, in a profile, or at any point during use of the Platform.
For Factories: misrepresenting operational capabilities, certifications, headcount, equipment, production capacity, quality systems, or any other information that may inform a Buyer's sourcing decision or that underlies a Capability Assessment.
For Buyers: misrepresenting your identity, organizational affiliation, intended use of the Platform, or authority to bind any entity on whose behalf you act.
Impersonating any person, company, or entity, or falsely implying endorsement by or affiliation with FactoryChecks or any third party.

2.4 Scraping, Reverse Engineering, and Data Extraction

Accessing the Platform by any automated means — including bots, crawlers, scrapers, spiders, or similar tools — except through interfaces expressly authorized in writing by FactoryChecks.
Scraping, indexing, copying, harvesting, or extracting any Content, Capability Assessment data, Inspection Report data, scoring data, capability-taxonomy data, or any other Platform data or output, whether in whole or in part.
Reverse-engineering, decompiling, disassembling, or otherwise attempting to derive the source code, algorithms, models, data structures, scoring methodologies, or capability-intelligence logic underlying the Platform or any of its outputs.
Framing, mirroring, or republishing any portion of the Platform or its Content without express written authorization.

2.5 Circumventing Access Controls

Attempting to bypass, disable, or defeat any security mechanism, authentication control, rate limit, access restriction, or technical safeguard of the Platform.
Accessing accounts, data, or systems you are not authorized to access.
Testing the Platform for vulnerabilities without prior written authorization from FactoryChecks.
Sharing account credentials with unauthorized parties or allowing any person other than an authorized account holder to access the Platform under your credentials.

2.6 Reselling, Republishing, and Misuse of Reports

Reselling, licensing, sublicensing, republishing, publicly posting, or otherwise redistributing any Inspection Report, Capability Assessment, Inspector Confidence Score, or other Content obtained via the Platform, except as expressly permitted in the Terms of Service for Buyers.
Using Inspection Reports or Capability Assessments for any purpose other than your own internal, non-commercial sourcing and supplier-qualification decisions.
Publishing, disclosing, or transmitting any Inspection Report or Capability Assessment to any third party (other than your own internal personnel or authorized advisers bound by equivalent confidentiality obligations) without FactoryChecks' prior written consent.

2.7 Building Competing Services or Harvesting Capability Intelligence

Using the Platform, its Content, or any data or output derived from it to build, train, improve, or operate any dataset, database, model, system, product, or service that competes with FactoryChecks or replicates any material portion of the Platform's capability-intelligence functionality.
Harvesting, aggregating, or compiling factory capability data, scoring patterns, taxonomy structures, or assessment methodologies from the Platform for use outside the Platform.
Using the Platform as a means of intelligence-gathering about FactoryChecks' proprietary methods, factory relationships, or operational processes for competitive purposes.

2.8 Harassment and Abuse

Harassing, threatening, intimidating, abusing, or discriminating against FactoryChecks staff, inspectors, other users, or any third party in connection with use of the Platform.
Engaging in any conduct that creates a hostile, unsafe, or hostile environment for inspectors, factory personnel, or other Platform participants.

2.9 Introducing Malware or Interfering with Platform Integrity

Uploading, transmitting, or distributing any virus, malware, ransomware, spyware, Trojan, worm, or other harmful or malicious code.
Conducting or facilitating any denial-of-service, distributed denial-of-service, or other attack on the Platform or its infrastructure.
Taking any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionate load on the Platform's infrastructure, as determined by FactoryChecks.
Interfering with the integrity, availability, or performance of the Platform or its underlying systems.
Attempting to access, modify, or delete data belonging to other users.

3. Content Standards

All information, documents, photographs, and other materials you submit to the Platform ("User Content") must:

Be accurate and complete — not false, misleading, or materially incomplete.
Be lawful — not violate any applicable law, regulation, or third-party right.
Not infringe intellectual property — you must hold or have secured all necessary rights, licenses, and consents for any User Content you submit.
Not disclose unauthorized confidential material — you must not submit any third-party confidential information, customer data, trade secrets, or proprietary technical information that you lack the authority to disclose. Factories, in particular, represent and warrant (as more fully stated in the Terms of Service for Factories) that they have full authority to permit the Inspection and to disclose all information made available to FactoryChecks, and that doing so does not violate any non-disclosure agreement, customer confidentiality obligation, trade-secret right, or export-control or regulatory requirement.
Not include personal data beyond what is required — do not submit more personal data about third parties than is necessary for the purpose of using the Platform, and only if you have a lawful basis to do so.

FactoryChecks reserves the right, but assumes no obligation, to review, reject, remove, or disable access to any User Content that we reasonably believe violates this AUP, the Terms, or applicable law.

Where an Inspection or on-site assessment is authorized, all participants (including Factory personnel, Buyer representatives present at a facility, and any other party) are expected to:

Cooperate in good faith with the inspector and the Inspection process, providing reasonable access, accurate responses, and complete information as agreed.
Honor confidentiality and restricted-zone designations — if a Factory has designated certain areas, processes, or information as confidential or restricted, participants must respect those designations in accordance with the applicable inspection agreement and any non-disclosure arrangements in place.
Not interfere with or attempt to improperly influence the Inspection process, observations, or resulting assessments.

The specific obligations of each party in connection with an Inspection are governed by the applicable inspection agreement(s) and the respective Terms. In the event of conflict between this AUP and a signed inspection agreement, the inspection agreement controls with respect to inspection-specific conduct.

5. Consequences of Violations

FactoryChecks reserves the right, in its sole and reasonable discretion, to take any or all of the following actions in response to actual, suspected, or reported violations of this AUP:

Issue a warning (formal or informal) to the user.
Temporarily suspend access to the Platform, pending investigation.
Permanently terminate the user's account and all associated access.
Remove, disable, or restrict access to User Content that violates this AUP.
Restrict, throttle, or block specific functionality or data access.
Disclose relevant information to law enforcement or regulatory authorities where required or appropriate.
Seek injunctive relief, damages, or other legal or equitable remedies available under applicable law.

These remedies are cumulative and not exclusive. FactoryChecks' failure to act on a particular violation does not constitute a waiver of the right to act on that or any other violation. The exercise of remedies under this AUP does not limit FactoryChecks' rights under the applicable Terms, including rights of suspension and termination.

Users who believe their account was suspended or terminated in error may contact FactoryChecks at the address provided in Section 6.

6. Reporting Violations

If you become aware of any use of the Platform that you believe violates this AUP, or if you have a security concern, please report it promptly to:

FactoryChecks — Legal / Trust & Safety AlienLogicLab, LLC Email: [email protected] (confirm final contact address before adoption)

FactoryChecks will review reports in good faith but does not guarantee a particular response time or outcome. Reporting a violation does not guarantee that action will be taken.

7. Changes to This Policy

FactoryChecks may update or replace this AUP at any time. When we do, we will update the date at the top of this document. For material changes, we will provide notice via the Platform or by email to the address associated with your account, with at least [●] days advance notice (counsel to advise on required notice period, especially for EU/GDPR and CCPA contexts). Continued use of the Platform after the effective date of any revised AUP constitutes your acceptance of the changes.

If a proposed change is unacceptable to you, your sole remedy is to cease using the Platform and, where applicable, to terminate your account in accordance with the Terms.

Counsel Notes (Internal — Remove Before Publication)

The following items are flagged for attorney review before this AUP is finalized or adopted:

§2.4 (Scraping / Reverse Engineering) — The breadth of the anti-scraping clause (including "scoring methodologies" and "capability-intelligence logic") is intentionally aggressive. Counsel should confirm enforceability under applicable law, particularly in the EU (Database Directive / GDPR Article 22 / AI Act implications) and in light of recent US case law on web-scraping restrictions (hiQ v. LinkedIn).
§2.6 (Reselling / Republishing Reports) — This section should be read in conjunction with the confidentiality and permitted-use provisions in the Terms of Service for Buyers to confirm consistent treatment. Counsel should confirm that the "internal use only" restriction does not inadvertently conflict with any implied warranty of fitness or consumer-protection rights in relevant jurisdictions.
§2.7 (Competing Services / Harvesting) — The prohibition on using Platform data to "train" models or "build competing services" may be difficult to enforce uniformly and should be reviewed in light of copyright, database-right, and sui generis database-right law (especially EU). Consider whether a more targeted prohibition (e.g., limited to Inspection Report content or scored output) is more defensible than the current broad framing.
§4 (Inspection Conduct) — This section intentionally defers to the inspection agreement for operative obligations. Counsel should confirm that this deference is appropriate and that there are no gaps if no signed inspection agreement exists for a given visit.
§5 (Consequences) — "Sole and reasonable discretion" language should be reviewed for tension with good-faith/fair-dealing obligations in applicable jurisdictions (especially German UGB, French law, GDPR Article 22 automated-decision-making concerns if any suspensions are algorithmically triggered).
§7 (Changes) — The notice period placeholder ([●] days) must be filled in. Counsel should advise on the minimum required under GDPR, UK GDPR, Singapore PDPA (to the extent changes affect data processing), and any consumer-protection regimes applicable to Buyers in the EU or Vietnam.
Contact email — Confirm [email protected] (or appropriate alias) is a live, monitored inbox before adoption.
Integration with ToS — Confirm that the incorporation-by-reference language in §1 and the cross-references to Buyer ToS §2.6 and Factory ToS §3 are consistent with the final language in those documents once drafted.

FactoryChecks — Acceptable Use Policy | Effective: 2026-05-26 | Operator: AlienLogicLab, LLC