Acceptable Use Policy

Last Updated: February 10, 2026

The short version:

Use FineData to collect publicly available data for legitimate business purposes. Don't scrape personal data without consent, don't attack websites, and don't do anything illegal. We monitor for abuse and will terminate accounts that violate this policy.

1. Overview

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") defines the rules and guidelines for using the FineData.ai web scraping API platform (the "Service"), operated by Quality Network US LLC. This AUP is incorporated into and forms part of our Terms of Service.

We built FineData to empower legitimate data collection at scale. We take abuse seriously because it threatens the ecosystem for everyone — our users, target websites, and the broader web. This policy exists to keep the platform healthy for all users.

2. Permitted Use

The following activities are examples of acceptable use of the Service:

Market Research

Collecting publicly available product listings, pricing data, and market trends for competitive analysis.

Price Monitoring

Tracking e-commerce prices, travel fares, real estate listings, and other publicly listed pricing across websites.

SEO and SERP Tracking

Monitoring search engine rankings, keyword positions, and organic visibility for your own domains.

Content Aggregation

Collecting news articles, public reviews, job postings, and other published content for analysis or aggregation.

Academic Research

Collecting publicly available data for academic studies, machine learning training datasets, and research projects.

Brand Monitoring

Tracking mentions of your brand, products, or trademarks across public websites and social media platforms.

This list is illustrative, not exhaustive. If you are unsure whether your use case is permitted, contact us at support@finedata.ai before starting.

3. Prohibited Use

The following activities are strictly prohibited. Violation of any of these rules may result in immediate account suspension or termination.

Illegal Activities

Using the Service for any activity that violates applicable local, state, national, or international law. This includes but is not limited to fraud, money laundering, trafficking, and intellectual property theft.

Personal Data Harvesting

Scraping personal information (emails, phone numbers, physical addresses, social security numbers, financial data) without explicit consent from the data subjects or a valid legal basis under applicable data protection laws (GDPR, CCPA, etc.).

Credential Stuffing and Account Takeover

Using the Service to test stolen credentials, brute-force login pages, bypass authentication mechanisms, or gain unauthorized access to accounts on any website or service.

DDoS and Infrastructure Attacks

Using the Service to overwhelm, degrade, or disrupt target websites or any third-party infrastructure. This includes sending an excessive volume of requests designed to impair availability, and any form of denial-of-service attack.

Spam and Unsolicited Communication

Collecting contact information for the purpose of sending unsolicited emails, SMS messages, or other communications. This includes building email lists through scraping for cold outreach or marketing campaigns without consent.

Malware and Exploit Distribution

Using the Service to distribute malware, ransomware, phishing pages, or exploit kits. This includes scanning for vulnerabilities, injecting malicious payloads, or any activity that compromises the security of third-party systems.

Circumventing Access Controls for Paid Content

Bypassing paywalls, subscription walls, or other access controls to extract content that is not publicly available. This includes scraping behind login-only pages that you don't have legitimate access to.

Reselling the Service

Reselling, sublicensing, or providing access to the FineData API as a proxy or scraping service to third parties without our prior written consent. Building a product on top of our API is fine; repackaging our API as your own is not.

4. Personal Data and Privacy

4.1 Definition of Personal Data

For the purposes of this policy, "Personal Data" means any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person, as defined under GDPR Article 4(1) and equivalent provisions in other data protection laws. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Names, usernames, and social media handles
  • Email addresses and phone numbers
  • Physical addresses and location data
  • Government-issued identifiers (SSN, passport numbers, national IDs)
  • Financial information (bank account numbers, credit card details)
  • Biometric data and photographs
  • IP addresses and device identifiers when linked to an individual
  • Any combination of data points that could identify a specific person

The fact that data is publicly available does not exempt it from data protection laws. Publicly listed email addresses, social media profiles, and other personal information remain Personal Data and are subject to applicable privacy regulations regardless of their accessibility.

4.2 Handling Requirements

Given the nature of web scraping, we place special emphasis on the responsible handling of Personal Data:

  • Minimize collection. Only collect the Personal Data you actually need. Do not scrape entire user profiles when you only need publicly listed business information.
  • Respect opt-outs. If a website provides a mechanism for individuals to opt out of data collection, respect those preferences.
  • Secure what you collect. Any Personal Data you obtain through the Service must be stored and processed securely, in compliance with applicable data protection regulations.
  • No resale of Personal Data. You may not resell, redistribute, or make available to third parties any Personal Data collected through the Service unless you have a valid legal basis for doing so under applicable data protection laws. Selling scraped email lists, contact databases, or similar datasets composed of Personal Data is strictly prohibited.

We may request documentation of your legal basis for data collection if we receive complaints or have reason to believe Personal Data is being mishandled.

6. Data Retention Requirements

If you collect Personal Data through the Service, you are required to:

  • Define retention periods. Establish and document clear retention periods for all Personal Data collected. Data must not be retained longer than necessary for the purpose for which it was collected.
  • Implement deletion procedures. Delete or anonymize Personal Data when it is no longer required for its stated purpose, or when a data subject exercises their right to erasure.
  • Respond to data subject requests. Be prepared to honor access, correction, and deletion requests from individuals whose data you have collected, within the timeframes required by applicable law.

Indefinite storage of Personal Data collected through scraping without a documented purpose and retention schedule is a violation of this policy.

7. Rate Limits and Resource Usage

Each plan tier includes specific rate limits (requests per second) and concurrency limits (simultaneous requests). These limits are documented in your account dashboard and in our API documentation.

  • Do not attempt to circumvent rate limits through multiple accounts, distributed requests, or any other means
  • Implement reasonable delays between requests to the same target domain
  • Use async endpoints for large batch jobs rather than flooding the sync API
  • Honor HTTP 429 (Too Many Requests) responses with appropriate backoff

If your use case requires higher limits than your current plan provides, contact us about upgrading rather than working around the limits.

8. Respect for Target Websites

While FineData handles the technical aspects of accessing web pages, you bear responsibility for the ethical and legal implications of your scraping activities:

  • Robots.txt is guidance, not legal compliance. A website's robots.txt file is a voluntary technical standard that signals the site operator's crawling preferences. Compliance with robots.txt does not constitute legal authorization to scrape a website, nor does non-compliance automatically constitute a legal violation. You must independently assess the legality of your scraping activities regardless of robots.txt directives.
  • Paywalls and access controls. Circumventing paywalls, login walls, subscription barriers, or any other technical access controls to extract content that is not freely and publicly available is strictly prohibited.
  • Review terms of service — understand the target website's terms regarding automated access and ensure your activities comply
  • Don't overload servers — spread your requests over time to avoid placing excessive load on target infrastructure
  • Respect intellectual property — having access to data doesn't mean you have the right to republish or redistribute it

9. Monitoring and Enforcement

We actively monitor usage patterns on our platform to detect abuse. Our monitoring includes:

  • Automated detection of unusual traffic patterns (volume spikes, suspicious target patterns)
  • Analysis of target URLs for categories associated with abuse
  • Response to reports from third parties and target website operators
  • Review of flagged accounts by our trust and safety team

We respect your privacy during monitoring. We analyze request metadata (URLs, volumes, timing) for abuse patterns — we do not inspect the content of API responses returned to you.

10. Consequences of Violations

Violations of this AUP are handled through a graduated response, except in cases of severe or illegal activity:

1

Warning

For first-time, minor violations: we will contact you by email to explain the issue and request corrective action within 48 hours.

2

Temporary Suspension

For repeated violations or moderate severity: your API access will be temporarily suspended (typically 24-72 hours) while we investigate. You will be notified by email.

3

Account Termination

For serious, repeated, or intentional violations: your account will be permanently terminated. Remaining token balance or prepaid subscription fees will not be refunded.

4

Legal Action

For illegal activity: we will cooperate with law enforcement and may pursue legal action. This includes but is not limited to DDoS attacks, credential stuffing, and malware distribution.

We reserve the right to skip the graduated response and proceed directly to suspension or termination for severe violations, including any activity that poses an immediate risk to our infrastructure, other users, or third parties.

11. Reporting Abuse and Takedown Workflow

If you believe that a FineData user is violating this AUP, or if you are a website operator experiencing abusive scraping from our infrastructure, please report it:

Report abuse to:

support@finedata.ai — subject line: "Abuse Report"

When reporting, please include:

  • IP addresses involved (if available)
  • Timestamps of the abusive activity (with timezone)
  • URLs or domains affected
  • Description of the abuse and its impact
  • Any relevant logs or evidence

Our Response Process

1

Acknowledgment (within 24 hours). All abuse reports are acknowledged within one business day. Urgent reports involving active attacks are handled immediately.

2

Investigation (within 48 hours). Our trust and safety team investigates the reported activity, analyzes request logs, and determines the scope of the violation.

3

Enforcement. Appropriate action is taken per our graduated response framework (Section 10). For confirmed abuse, the offending user is notified and corrective action is enforced.

4

Reporter Update. The reporting party is informed of the outcome and any actions taken, within the limits of our privacy obligations.

12. Contact

If you have questions about this Acceptable Use Policy or need clarification about whether a specific use case is permitted:

Quality Network US LLC

30 N Gould St STE R
Sheridan, WY 82801
United States

Abuse reports: support@finedata.ai

General: info@finedata.ai

Phone: +1 (332) 214-8125