1. What This Policy Covers.
This Acceptable Use Policy ("Policy") sets the rules for using anything ErateSync makes available: the eratesync.com website and its content (the "Site"), the ErateSync software platform and applications (the "Platform"), any free trial, pilot, demonstration, sandbox, or evaluation access we grant ("Evaluation Access"), and any data, analyses, reports, alerts, or other output the Platform produces ("Output") (together, the "Services"). This Policy is incorporated into and forms part of the ErateSync Terms of Service. By accessing or using any part of the Services, you agree to this Policy. If you are using the Services on behalf of an organization, you agree on that organization's behalf and are responsible for its users' compliance.
2. Accounts, Trials, and Who May Use the Services.
- Truthful identity. You must register using your real name, your real organization, and a genuine business email address. Registering under a false, misleading, or borrowed identity, or concealing the organization on whose behalf you are acting, is a violation of this Policy.
- Evaluation Access is for genuine evaluation. Free trials, pilots, and demos are provided solely so a prospective customer can decide whether to purchase the Services for its own use. One evaluation per organization unless we agree otherwise in writing.
- Competitors may not use the Services. Access to the Services, including Evaluation Access and product demonstrations, is not available to any person or organization that develops, markets, or sells a product or service competitive with the Services, or that is acting for one, except with ErateSync's prior written consent. If you are unsure whether this applies to you, ask us before registering.
- Credentials are personal. Do not share, sell, or transfer login credentials, or allow access by anyone who is not an authorized user under your organization's agreement with us.
3. No Competitive Use.
You may not access or use any part of the Services, directly or through another party, in order to:
- build, train, improve, inform, or benchmark a product or service that competes with the Services;
- copy, reproduce, or imitate the Services' features, functions, workflows, user interface, visual design, data structures, scoring or analytical approaches, or documentation;
- conduct competitive analysis of the Services for a competitor's benefit, or publish or disclose performance, benchmark, or feature comparisons of the Services without our prior written consent;
- monitor the Services' availability, functionality, or content for competitive purposes; or
- reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code, underlying models, algorithms, or non-public methods of any part of the Platform, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by applicable law.
4. No Scraping or Unauthorized Automated Access.
Except as expressly permitted below, you may not use any robot, spider, crawler, scraper, headless browser, script, plugin, AI agent, or other automated means to access, extract, harvest, index, monitor, or copy the Site, the Platform, or any Output. In particular, you may not:
- scrape, bulk-download, or systematically copy Site content, Platform screens, or Output, whether manually or by automation;
- extract or compile data from the Services to create or supplement any dataset, database, product, or model outside the Services, including training or fine-tuning artificial intelligence or machine learning models on Site content or Output without our prior written consent;
- circumvent, disable, or interfere with any authentication, rate limit, access control, or other technical protection measure, or access any area of the Services you have not been authorized to use;
- probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Services without our prior written authorization; or
- impose an unreasonable load on our infrastructure, or interfere with any other party's use of the Services.
Permitted automated access: operators of public search engines may crawl publicly available Site pages solely to build searchable indexes, consistent with our robots.txt directives. This permission does not extend to the Platform, to Output, or to any bulk copying of Site content, and may be revoked at any time.
5. Content, Data, and Intellectual Property.
- The Site, the Platform, and all Output, including the selection, organization, enrichment, and presentation of data in them, are the property of ErateSync or its licensors and are protected by intellectual property and other laws. Underlying government data is public; the way the Services organize, connect, analyze, and present it is not.
- Subject to your agreement with us, you may use Output for your organization's own internal business purposes. You may not republish, resell, redistribute, or make Output or Platform data available to any third party, including on a service-bureau basis, without our prior written consent.
- You may quote briefly from our public articles and guides with attribution and a link to the source page. Wholesale reproduction, translation, or republication of Site content is not permitted without our prior written consent.
- Exports and reports the Platform provides are for your organization's internal use and for sharing with your own customers or stakeholders in the ordinary course of your business, not for redistribution as a standalone data product.
6. Data Accuracy and Limitation of Liability.
- Informational only. The Services organize, connect, and analyze data that originates in public government sources, including USAC and FCC records, together with ErateSync's own analyses. Output is provided for informational and planning purposes. It is not legal, compliance, procurement, or financial advice, and it is not a substitute for the official record.
- The official record controls. Where Output differs from USAC's or the FCC's own systems, filings, letters, or published data, the official source controls. You are responsible for verifying any figure or status against the official record before relying on it for a filing, certification, bid, purchase, or other decision.
- No warranty. The Site, the Platform, and all Output are provided "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE." To the maximum extent permitted by law, ErateSync disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including accuracy, completeness, timeliness, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. Public source data contains errors, revisions, and delays that we do not control.
- Your decisions are yours. You are solely responsible for the decisions, filings, communications, and business actions you take based on the Services, and for your own compliance with E-Rate program rules and applicable law. To the maximum extent permitted by law, ErateSync is not liable for any loss, denied or reduced funding, missed deadline, audit finding, recovery, lost profits, or indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from use of, reliance on, or inability to use the Services or any Output.
- Liability cap. To the maximum extent permitted by law, ErateSync's total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Services is limited as set out in the Terms of Service, and in the absence of an applicable provision there, to the amounts paid by your organization for the Services in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or one hundred dollars if you have paid nothing.
7. General Conduct.
You may not use the Services to violate any law or regulation, including the FCC's E-Rate program rules; to infringe or misappropriate anyone's rights; to transmit malware or malicious code; to send unsolicited bulk communications through our forms or systems; to misrepresent your affiliation with any person or organization; or to upload content you do not have the right to use.
8. How We Enforce This Policy.
- We may monitor use of the Services for compliance, including patterns that indicate automated access, credential sharing, or competitor evaluation.
- We may throttle, suspend, or terminate access, including Evaluation Access, immediately and without refund where we reasonably believe this Policy has been violated.
- We may remove content, revoke permissions granted under this Policy, and preserve and disclose information as described in our Privacy Policy, including where required by legal process.
- Violations may also constitute breach of contract and violations of applicable law, and we reserve all rights and remedies, including damages and injunctive relief. Provisions of this Policy that by their nature should survive termination, including Sections 3, 4, 5, and 6, survive it.
9. Reporting Violations.
If you believe someone is violating this Policy, including scraping our content or misusing evaluation access, report it to support@eratesync.com. We investigate every report.
10. Changes to This Policy.
We may update this Policy from time to time. Material changes will be posted on the Site, and the "Last updated" date above will change. Continued use of the Services after a change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.
Questions about whether a planned use is permitted? Ask first: support@eratesync.com.