Acceptable Use

VCI SCRAPER exists to make publicly available business intelligence faster to access for people doing legitimate work. We are not a tool for harassment, doxxing, stalking, harvesting personal data for unlawful targeting, or building competing data products on top of our infrastructure.

This AUP is the line. If your use of the Service feels like it might be on the wrong side of the line, it is. When in doubt, ask: would I be comfortable explaining this use of VCI SCRAPER to a judge?

The following uses are explicitly allowed:

• Sales prospecting — identifying business prospects for B2B outreach
• Recruiting — sourcing licensed professionals for legitimate hiring
• Legal discovery — building evidence packages for civil litigation
• Fraud investigation — supporting forensic investigations into business fraud
• Compliance / KYC — verifying business identities, screening counterparties
• Journalism — research for accountability reporting on businesses and public figures
• Government enforcement — federal, state, and local agency investigations (with appropriate legal authority)
• Academic research — research conducted under institutional ethics review
• Competitive intelligence — analyzing publicly available information about competitors
• Real estate research — assembling public records on properties and owners
• Market research — sizing markets, identifying segments, tracking trends

You may NOT use the Service for any of the following. This list is illustrative, not exhaustive — if it's clearly bad, it's prohibited even if not listed here.

Harassment, Stalking, Doxxing

• Building dossiers on individuals to facilitate harassment, intimidation, or stalking
• Publishing personal contact information to expose people to threats or unwanted contact ("doxxing")
• Locating individuals attempting to remain hidden from abusive partners, family members, or other threats
• Tracking minors or building any data set primarily concerning minors

Discrimination & Targeting

• Building targeting lists based on protected characteristics (race, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, age, etc.) for any unlawful purpose
• Compiling data to enable housing, employment, lending, insurance, or other consumer-protected-area discrimination
• Creating "exclusion lists" for credit, housing, or employment

Unlawful Outreach

• Bulk unsolicited commercial email ("spam") in violation of CAN-SPAM
• Robocalls or unsolicited text messages in violation of the TCPA
• Calls to numbers on the Do Not Call Registry without an established business relationship
• Phishing, smishing, or social engineering campaigns
• Scam operations of any kind, including romance scams, advance-fee fraud, and impersonation

Regulated Decisions

• Making eligibility decisions for credit, insurance, employment, housing, or other FCRA-regulated decisions using VCI SCRAPER output — we are not a Consumer Reporting Agency and our data is not FCRA-compliant for these purposes
• Background checks for the purposes of hiring or housing without appropriate FCRA-licensed providers

You may not direct the Service to collect:

• Protected Health Information (PHI) — patient records, medical conditions, treatment history (HIPAA-protected data)
• Financial account data — credit card numbers, bank account numbers, social security numbers
• Login-protected data — anything behind authentication, paywalls, or session-based access controls
• Data from sites with anti-scraping technical controls — sites using CAPTCHA, IP rate limits, or similar defenses specifically designed to prevent automated access
• Personal data of minors — any data set primarily about people under 18
• Government-classified information — material classified at any level
• Intellectual property — copyrighted material in volume (full text of books, articles, movies, music, software)
• Biometric data — face recognition data, fingerprints, voice prints
• Trade secrets — non-public business information of identifiable companies
• Children's personal data subject to COPPA

Even data you legitimately collected may not be used to:

• Train or fine-tune AI models, language models, or other ML systems for resale or commercial deployment
• Build a competing data product, data broker service, or "people search" service
• Sell, license, or otherwise distribute raw VCI SCRAPER output as a standalone data product
• Aggregate into databases sold to data brokers
• Re-publish in a way that violates the source's terms of service

You are permitted to use delivered data internally, share it with clients of your professional services, and reference it in derivative analytical work products.

You may not:

• Probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of any VCI system without prior written authorization (legitimate security researchers, see security@vciscraper.com)
• Circumvent authentication, rate limits, credit checks, or any other access controls
• Create multiple accounts to circumvent free trial limits or evade suspensions
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble any portion of the Service
• Interfere with the proper functioning of the Service or impose unreasonable load
• Use automated tools (bots, scrapers, crawlers) against VCI's own properties
• Send malware, viruses, or other harmful code
• Misrepresent yourself or impersonate others when interacting with the Service or its operators

VCI SCRAPER is licensed for your own use or the use of your clients in connection with professional services you provide. You may not:

• Resell access to the Service or share credentials
• White-label the Service without an enterprise agreement
• Resell raw datasets as a data product
• Make VCI SCRAPER output available to third parties as a stand-alone offering

If you need redistribution rights (e.g., you are an agency delivering data to clients, an OEM, or a reseller), contact enterprise@vciscraper.com for an enterprise license.

You are solely responsible for ensuring your use of the Service complies with all applicable laws, including but not limited to:

This list is not exhaustive. Consult qualified counsel before using the Service for anything novel or sensitive.

We investigate reports of AUP violations and may, at our sole discretion, take any of the following actions:

• Warn — first-time minor violations may receive a written warning
• Suspend — temporary suspension of account access while we investigate
• Terminate — permanent termination of your account
• Forfeit credits — credits in a terminated account are forfeited and non-refundable
• Ban IP / fingerprint — block you from creating new accounts
• Refer to law enforcement — for violations that appear to be crimes
• Civil action — pursue civil remedies for serious violations

Appealing an Enforcement Action

If you believe an enforcement action was taken in error, you may appeal by emailing appeals@vciscraper.com within 30 days. Include your account email and a clear explanation. We will respond within 10 business days.

Repeat Violators

Users who repeatedly violate this policy will be permanently banned with no appeal.

If you believe someone is using VCI SCRAPER in violation of this AUP — or believe data delivered by the Service is being misused — report it to us:

Include as much detail as possible: usernames, timestamps, URLs, copies of communications. Anonymous reports are accepted and investigated.