Acceptable Use Policy

1. Purpose and scope

This Acceptable Use Policy (the "Policy") governs how you may use OAC Colophon and everything it produces. It is incorporated by reference into the Terms of Service and it enforces the Claims & Wording Standard. Capitalized terms not defined here have the meanings given in the Terms of Service.

This Policy applies to every person and organization that uses the Service, and to every surface the Service provides, including:

• the research tiers, the Arena, and Under the Price (formerly the Spectacle Exposer) and $MMR;
• the Storefront Badge (the embeddable badge and its overlay);
• Aura Tags (physical tags linking an object to its record, forthcoming);
• the API; and
• any Evidence, figure, mark, record, or output derived from any of the above.

The Service is evidence and information infrastructure. It surfaces data from public government ledgers (CITES and UN Comtrade) and applies the published OAC Colophon methodology. It does not certify, approve, or guarantee the sustainability, authenticity, quality, or legal compliance of any product, and it does not determine your compliance with any law or regime.

2. Definitions used in this Policy

• Evidence. The figures, provenance data, records, analyses, and other outputs the Service produces, including data drawn from public ledgers (CITES, UN Comtrade) and outputs of the OAC Colophon methodology.
• Customer Claim. Any representation you make to your own customers, the public, or a regulator that uses, cites, or is derived from the Evidence.
• Required Disclosures. The source attribution, evidence-not-certification line, ownership line, and timestamp or version that must appear wherever a figure or mark appears (reproduced in section 5).
• Marks. "OAC Colophon," the Storefront Badge mark, and any other name, logo, or badge we designate, in the approved form.
• Covered Regimes. The EU Empowering Consumers Directive (EU 2024/825, "ECGT"); the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and Digital Product Passport ("ESPR/DPP"); the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive ("CSDDD"); the EU Deforestation Regulation ("EUDR"); and any comparable law or regulatory scheme.

3. Claims restrictions, the core of this Policy

These are the restrictions that protect both you and the Service. They are not stylistic preferences; they are the line between defensible evidence and an unproven claim.

3.1 You must not represent that Colophon certifies, approves, or guarantees your product

You must not state, imply, or allow any Mark, badge, tag, or wording to suggest that OAC Colophon:

• certifies, approves, endorses, or guarantees the compliance of your product, your business, or any Customer Claim;
• has issued a "seal of approval," is a certification or conformity-assessment body, or has "verified," "approved," or "cleared" your product in a regulatory sense; or
• has judged your product to be "sustainable," "compliant," "authentic," or "safe."

The Service supplies a record and its working. It does not render approval or a verdict, and you must never present it as if it did.

3.2 You must not represent that the Badge, tags, or API make you legally compliant

You must not state or imply that displaying the Storefront Badge, applying Aura Tags, or using the API makes you, or is sufficient to make you, legally compliant with any Covered Regime, including ECGT, ESPR/DPP, CSDDD, EUDR, or any other law or regulatory scheme. Use of the Service is not "legal cover," is not "audit-proof," and does not satisfy any legal obligation. Whether you meet any legal requirement is your responsibility and, where appropriate, a matter for your own legal counsel.

3.3 You must not convert Evidence into a prohibited generic claim

You must not take any figure or record from the Service, including an $MMR figure, and use it as the basis for a restricted generic environmental or ethical claim. In particular, you must not relabel, market, or describe a product as "sustainable," "eco-friendly," "green," "conscious," "responsibly crafted," "environmentally friendly," "climate neutral," "carbon neutral," "net zero," or "planet positive," or make any comparable superlative environmental-benefit claim, on the strength of Evidence supplied by the Service. A material-to-marketing ratio is a measured fact about cost; it is not a certification that a product is good for the planet, and you must not present it as one.

For clarity, you may accurately describe what the Evidence is, for example "measured material and labour cost," "raw-material provenance drawn from public CITES and UN Comtrade records," or "a timestamped, auditable record," provided you carry the Required Disclosures (section 5) and do not cross into the prohibited claims above.

3.4 You must not alter, crop, or re-caption Evidence to strip its attribution or timestamp

You must not alter, crop, edit, overlay, truncate, re-caption, or otherwise present any Evidence, figure, badge, or record in a way that removes, obscures, or falsifies:

• the source attribution (that the figure is drawn from public CITES and UN Comtrade records and the OAC Colophon methodology);
• the timestamp or version of the underlying data; or
• the evidence-not-certification and ownership disclosures.

You must not present a stale figure as current, change a number, or reframe a figure so that its meaning is materially different from the record the Service produced. The working travels with the number. Removing it is a breach.

3.5 You must display the Marks only in the approved form, with the Required Disclosures

You must display the Storefront Badge, Aura Tags, and all Marks only in the approved form, and only with the Required Disclosures legibly present. You must not create your own version of the Badge or Marks, restyle or recolor them beyond any variations we publish, combine them with other certification-style logos in a way that implies endorsement, or use them on any product, page, or context we have not authorized.

3.6 You must not use the Service to make a claim the Indiana Deceptive Consumer Sales Act prohibits

You must not use the Service, the Evidence, the Badge, the Aura Tags, the API, or any output to make, support, or dress up a representation that the Indiana Deceptive Consumer Sales Act prohibits in a consumer transaction. In particular, you must not use anything the Service produces to represent, expressly or by implication, that a product or service:

• has sponsorship, approval, certification, characteristics, uses, benefits, or qualities it does not have, including that OAC Colophon or any public record certifies, approves, or guarantees it;
• is of a particular standard, quality, or grade, or is new or original, when it is not;
• has a specific price advantage, or that a figure means something it does not; or
• carries any other representation the Deceptive Consumer Sales Act treats as a deceptive or unconscionable act.

This restriction reinforces sections 3.1 to 3.3: a measured material-and-labour figure is evidence about cost, and converting it into a certification-style, superlative, or otherwise deceptive consumer representation is both a breach of this Policy and, potentially, an unlawful act for which you alone are responsible.

You must not use the Service, or anything obtained through it, to make a claim that is false, misleading, or deceptive to a consumer, or to imply that we certify, approve, or guarantee your product. Nothing in this Policy limits any right you have that cannot be limited under applicable law.

4. General prohibited uses

In addition to the claims restrictions in section 3, you must not use the Service, the Evidence, the Badge, the Aura Tags, or the API to do, enable, or attempt any of the following.

Unlawful and infringing use

• Use the Service in violation of any applicable law, regulation, sanction, or third-party right.
• Upload, submit, or process any content that is unlawful, infringing, defamatory, or that you do not have the rights to submit.
• Infringe, misappropriate, or violate any intellectual property, privacy, publicity, or contractual right of any person.

Misrepresentation and fraud

• Misrepresent your identity, your affiliation, or your authority to bind an organization.
• Use the Service to commit fraud, to deceive, or to mislead your customers, the public, or a regulator, including by making a Customer Claim you know to be false or unsupported by the Evidence.
• Use outputs of the Service to harass, threaten, intimidate, or mislead any person.
• Make, using the Service or the Evidence, any defamatory, disparaging, or knowingly false statement about a third party (including a competitor, supplier, artisan, or brand).

Scraping, bulk extraction, and resale

• Scrape, harvest, crawl, spider, or bulk-extract Evidence, data, or content from the Service by any automated or manual means beyond the access expressly granted by your plan or the API terms.
• Resell, sublicense, redistribute, syndicate, or commercially exploit the Evidence or any data or output of the Service beyond the license granted to you, or build or populate a competing dataset or product from it.
• Retain, cache, or store Evidence beyond what your license permits, or use it after your license or subscription ends.

Reverse engineering and circumvention

• Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to derive the source code, models, methodology internals, or trade secrets of the Service, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by applicable law.
• Circumvent, disable, or interfere with any rate limit, quota, authentication, access control, watermark, or other security or usage-metering feature.
• Access the Service or the API by any means other than the interfaces and credentials we provide, or share, sell, or transfer your credentials or API keys.

Interference and abuse of the Service

• Interfere with, disrupt, degrade, or overload the Service or the infrastructure that supports it, including by denial-of-service techniques, excessive request volume, or malformed requests.
• Introduce or transmit any virus, malware, or malicious code, or probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service without our prior written authorization.
• Use the Service to develop, train, or improve any competing product, model, or dataset, except as expressly permitted in writing.

Uploaded content

• Upload or transmit any content that is unlawful, infringing, malicious, or that contains personal data you are not authorized to process (see our Data Processing Addendum for EU personal-data handling).

5. Badge, tag, and API display and use requirements

Where you display any Evidence figure, the Storefront Badge, an Aura Tag, or an API-delivered record, you must comply with the following.

5.1 Required Disclosures

These must appear, legibly, wherever a figure or Mark appears. Each surface that shows a Colophon figure or Mark must carry:

1. Source attribution: "Drawn from public CITES and UN Comtrade records and the OAC Colophon methodology."
2. Evidence-not-certification line: "Evidence infrastructure. Not a certification of compliance or sustainability."
3. Ownership line: "The seller is responsible for its own claims."
4. A timestamp or version for the underlying data.

5.2 Badge mandatory footer (verbatim)

Where the Storefront Badge is displayed with its overlay, the following footer must appear verbatim and legibly:

Drawn from public CITES and UN Comtrade records and the OAC Colophon methodology. Evidence infrastructure, not a certification of compliance or sustainability. The seller is responsible for its own claims.

5.3 Approved form only

Use the Badge mark and any other Mark only in the approved wording and styling (primary badge mark: Material Integrity Record · OAC Colophon). Do not alter the proportions, wording, or presentation of the Badge or Marks except as we expressly permit.

5.4 No misleading placement

Do not place the Badge, a tag, or a figure next to a prohibited generic claim (section 3.3), or in any layout that implies the Service certifies, approves, or guarantees your product or your compliance (sections 3.1 and 3.2).

5.5 Aura Tags

For Aura Tags (when released), you may state that the tag "links the object to its record." You must not state or imply that a tag "guarantees authenticity," is "proof of authenticity," or certifies the object.

5.6 API use

Use of the API is subject to your plan's rate limits, quotas, and any API-specific terms. You must attribute, disclose, timestamp, and refrain from redistributing API-delivered Evidence on the same terms as any other Evidence, and you must not use the API to build a cache or downstream product that circumvents these requirements or the license.

6. Reserved rights and monitoring

We may, but are not obligated to, monitor use of the Service and public displays of the Badge, Marks, and Evidence for compliance with this Policy. We may remove, disable, or require correction of any display or Customer Claim that violates this Policy, and we may investigate suspected violations. We are not responsible for, and do not endorse, any Customer Claim you make; responsibility for your Customer Claims is yours alone.

7. Consequences and enforcement

Because a breach of this Policy is a material breach of the Terms of Service, we may take any one or more of the following actions, in our reasonable discretion and proportionate to the violation:

1. Warning and required cure. Notify you of the violation and require you to correct it (for example, to restore a stripped disclosure or remove a prohibited claim) within a stated period.
2. Suspension. Suspend your account, your access to the Service or API, or your right to display the Badge, in whole or in part, including immediately where the violation is serious, ongoing, unlawful, or poses a risk to the Service or to third parties.
3. Termination. Terminate your account and the Terms of Service for material breach.
4. License revocation. Revoke your license to use the Service, the Badge, the Aura Tags, and the Marks. On revocation or termination you must immediately cease displaying the Badge, the Marks, and the Evidence.

We may act without prior notice where a violation is unlawful, fraudulent, or materially harmful, or where the law or a regulator requires it. Our choice not to enforce any provision on one occasion does not waive our right to enforce it later. Nothing in this section limits any other right or remedy available to us under the Terms of Service or at law, including indemnification.

8. Reporting misuse and notice-and-takedown

8.1 Reporting misuse

If you become aware of any use of the Service, the Evidence, the Badge, the Aura Tags, or the Marks that violates this Policy, including a false or misleading Customer Claim, a stripped or altered disclosure, an unauthorized or counterfeit Badge, or misuse of the Marks, please report it to [email protected]. Please include the URL or location, a description of the issue, and any supporting detail. We review reports and respond as appropriate, but we do not guarantee any particular outcome or timeline.

8.2 Notice-and-takedown

Anyone, including a rightsholder, a person who is the subject of Evidence, or a member of the public, may notify us of content or a display made available through the Service that is unlawful, infringing, defamatory, or otherwise in breach of this Policy or applicable law, and request its removal. Send a takedown notice to [email protected] that identifies the content and its location (a URL or other locator), states the basis for the complaint (for example, infringement, defamation, or a prohibited claim), and gives your contact information and a good-faith statement of the grounds.

On receiving a valid notice, we may remove or disable access to the content, notify the affected user, and give the user an opportunity to respond, in each case in our reasonable discretion and proportionate to the issue (see section 7). We may reinstate content if the complaint is withdrawn or is not substantiated. We may act immediately, and without prior notice to the user, where the content is unlawful, poses a risk to a person or the Service, or where the law or a regulator requires it. Copyright complaints are handled under the DMCA notice procedure and the registered designated agent set out in the Terms of Service; use that procedure for claims of copyright infringement.

Send takedown requests, defamation complaints, and requests about how an individual is described to [email protected]. We acknowledge receipt and tell you what we intend to do. Where a complaint concerns evidence rather than conduct, we will say which public source the disputed statement rests on so you can address the source rather than only the statement.

9. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time, for example to keep it aligned with the Claims & Wording Standard or with changes in the Covered Regimes. We will post the updated Policy and, for material changes, provide notice. Your continued use of the Service after an update takes effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.