2. Prohibited Uses and Activities
Below is a non-exhaustive list of activities that are prohibited on the SLYD Platform. Engaging in these activities – whether directly, indirectly, or via use of the compute resources – is strictly forbidden. You are also required to comply with all applicable local, state, national, and international laws and regulations while using SLYD. If an activity is illegal or violates any applicable law, it is a violation of this AUP even if not explicitly listed here.
2.1 Illegal or Fraudulent Activity
You may not use our Services for any purpose that is illegal, fraudulent, or violates any law or regulation. This includes, but is not limited to, the following:
Criminal Acts: Using SLYD to plan or execute crimes such as theft, trafficking, distributing illegal drugs, illegal weapons manufacturing, or any other criminal activity.
Fraud and Impersonation: Engaging in phishing schemes, scam campaigns, pyramid schemes, or impersonating others (e.g. pretending to be a legitimate business or SLYD itself to deceive people).
Unauthorized Access: Hacking into systems, accounts, or networks without permission (even for ostensibly benign purposes) is illegal under anti-hacking laws. Do not launch port scans, vulnerability scans, penetration tests, or any kind of intrusion against any system that you do not own or have explicit permission to test. (If you are a security researcher wishing to test SLYD’s own security, contact us for permission – unsanctioned testing of SLYD’s systems is not allowed.)
Financial Crimes: Using our compute resources to facilitate money laundering, terrorist financing, Ponzi or pyramid schemes, or any form of financial fraud or evasion of trade sanctions.
2.2 Infringing Content or Activity
Do not use SLYD to host, transmit, or distribute content that infringes upon intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights of others. For example:
Copyright Infringement: Hosting or sharing pirated software, movies, music, or other copyrighted files without permission, running torrent seeders for copyrighted content, etc. (If you run an indexing or data processing job on SLYD, ensure your data sources are properly licensed.)
Trademark Infringement: Using someone else’s trademarks in an unauthorized way that is likely to cause confusion (for instance, spinning up a website or service using a name or logo you don’t own).
Counterfeit or Unauthorized Goods/Services: Using the Platform to process data or transactions for counterfeit goods, pirated software licenses, or unlicensed services.
Note: We comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and similar laws. If you repeatedly infringe copyrights via our Services, your account will be terminated in accordance with our repeat-infringer policy (as detailed in the Terms of Service).
2.3 Harmful, Offensive, or Exploitative Content
You may not use SLYD to create, store, or distribute content that is harmful, harassing, extremely offensive, or exploitative. This includes:
Child Exploitation: Absolutely no content involving the exploitation or abuse of minors (including child sexual abuse material). We have zero tolerance for this — any such content will be removed and reported to law enforcement authorities.
Harassment or Hate: Do not use our resources to engage in targeted harassment, bullying, or stalking. Additionally, do not promote or incite violence, hatred, or discrimination against any individual or group based on race, religion, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, disability, or other protected characteristics. (For example, you cannot run an online harassment campaign using our servers or host a website that encourages violence against a protected group.)
Violence and Terrorism: Do not store or disseminate extremely graphic or gruesome content for sadistic purposes, and do not use our Services to glorify or support terrorist organizations or violent extremist propaganda. You also may not use our compute resources to create weapons, plan violent wrongdoing, or engage in paramilitary training (academic or simulation research that doesn’t harm anyone is generally acceptable, but no actual bomb-making or similar instructions).
Self-Harm Encouragement: Do not run forums, bots, or any content that actively encourages self-harm, suicide, eating disorders, or other forms of self-injury. (Supportive discussion or content seeking help is allowed, but content actively facilitating or encouraging self-harm is not.)
2.4 Security Violations and Network Abuse
You may not engage in activities that jeopardize the security, integrity, or availability of any network, computer system, or communications system. This includes:
Malware Distribution: Creating, distributing, or controlling malware such as viruses, worms, trojans, ransomware, rootkits, keyloggers, or other malicious code via SLYD resources. Even for “research” purposes, you must ensure malware is contained—do not let malicious code escape into the wild. (If you are researching malware, it must be done in a controlled, isolated environment and in compliance with applicable law.)
Botnets: Using SLYD’s Platform to command, control, or participate in a botnet (a network of infected devices). Likewise, you cannot use our resources to send instructions or malware to compromised devices.
Denial of Service Attacks: Launching or facilitating any form of denial-of-service (DoS or DDoS) attack using SLYD’s infrastructure is strictly prohibited. Similarly, using SLYD to perform network flooding, DNS amplification, email bombing, or other disruptive attacks on any target is not allowed.
Interference with Other Users or Networks: You may not use our resources in a manner that interferes with or disrupts other SLYD users, other networks, or third-party services. For example, extremely excessive bandwidth or resource usage that is outside the agreed-upon limits and degrades the performance of the host system or network for others is forbidden. Likewise, actions that intentionally crash another server or service are prohibited.
Avoiding Security Measures: Do not attempt to bypass or undermine any security or access restrictions of SLYD or other systems. For example, you may not attempt to break out of containers or virtual machines to access the host system, forge packet headers or user identities to mask your activities, or reverse-engineer or misuse our API in unauthorized ways.
2.5 Unsolicited Communications (“Spam”)
You may not use SLYD to send unsolicited bulk communications or mass messages in violation of applicable laws. This includes:
Email Spam: Sending bulk emails without valid consent from recipients, or with deceptive headers, false sender information, or other fraudulent tactics. Operating a spam emailing service or mail relay from a SLYD compute instance is grounds for immediate suspension. We adhere to the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act and similar anti-spam laws – if you send emails via our Platform, you must comply with those laws.
Messaging Abuse: Similarly, using SLYD resources to send unsolicited or automated messages via SMS, messaging apps, social media, or comment threads is prohibited. For instance, you may not run scripts or bots on SLYD to blast out promotional or scam messages on social media.
Automated Calls/Text (Robocalls): You may not use SLYD’s resources to autodial or auto-text people en masse without proper consent (e.g. running a telemarketing robocall operation). Such use is not allowed on our Platform.
Phishing Communications: Sending communications (emails, texts, chats, etc.) from SLYD resources that are designed to trick recipients into revealing sensitive information (such as passwords, credit card numbers, etc.) by impersonating a trustworthy entity is absolutely banned. Phishing attempts will result in immediate termination of your account and may be reported to appropriate authorities.
2.6 Privacy and Data Protection Violations
Respecting privacy and data protection laws is mandatory. The following actions are prohibited:
Scraping Personal Data: Mass harvesting or web scraping of personal data using SLYD resources in violation of third-party site terms or data protection laws is not allowed. For instance, you must not crawl a website to collect people’s contact information without permission. If you engage in web crawling for legitimate purposes, you should honor robots.txt directives and only collect publicly available, non-sensitive information in compliance with applicable law.
Unauthorized Surveillance or Recording: Do not use SLYD to stalk, spy on, or illegally monitor individuals. This includes running software that activates cameras or microphones without the consent of those being recorded, or using packet sniffers or other tools to intercept data that is not meant for you (except when legally authorized or for legitimate network debugging on your own systems).
Data Breaches and Misuse: If you happen to gain access to personal data through SLYD (for example, by discovering a vulnerability or through logs), you must not misuse or publicize that data. Intentionally exposing or leaking someone else’s personal data (doxing) is strictly forbidden. If you store personal data as part of your use of SLYD, you are expected to implement appropriate security measures to protect it. Any willful violation of privacy laws or data protection regulations in your use of our Platform is a serious AUP violation.
2.7 Ethical AI and Computing Use
Given SLYD’s focus on providing compute power for AI and other high-performance computing uses, we have additional expectations to ensure ethical use of these resources:
AI Misuse: Do not use SLYD’s compute resources to develop AI or machine learning models for inherently unethical purposes. This includes, for example:
Generating deepfakes of private individuals without their consent (especially for malicious purposes). Creating satirical deepfakes of public figures can be a gray area, but harassing or defaming private individuals with AI-generated content is not allowed.
Training AI systems to conduct large-scale disinformation campaigns (e.g. bots that spread false political propaganda or “fake news” on a massive scale).
Creating tools for illegal mass surveillance or any AI-based social scoring systems in violation of fundamental human rights.
Developing AI models that intentionally violate privacy (for instance, facial recognition systems designed to track people without a lawful basis).
Automated Decision-Making Harm: If you are using our Platform to run algorithms that make decisions with significant effects on individuals (such as in lending, hiring, insurance, or other critical areas), you must ensure you comply with applicable laws and fairness regulations. No use of SLYD should involve unlawful discrimination or violation of civil rights. (While SLYD does not actively audit your algorithms for fairness, if we receive reports that someone is using our Platform for blatantly discriminatory or harmful profiling, it may be reviewed as a potential AUP violation.)
Resource Abuse: Use SLYD’s compute resources responsibly. Activities that recklessly or intentionally damage hardware or infrastructure are prohibited. For example, deliberately running workloads in a manner that exceeds hardware design limits – such as extreme overclocking or disabling safety controls to cause undue stress or overheating – is not allowed. In our decentralized marketplace, hardware owners (Suppliers) trust Consumers to use their machines properly; abusing that trust by causing hardware damage or premature wear is a violation.
2.8 API and Integration Use
If you use our APIs or integrate SLYD with other systems or software, you must do so in a manner that does not harm our Services or others. In particular:
Respect Rate Limits: Abide by any rate limits or usage guidelines we publish for our API. Do not send an excessive number of requests or attempt to circumvent throttling mechanisms. If no specific limit is stated, use reasonable judgment (e.g. avoid making continuous rapid-fire requests without caching). Excessive or abusive API usage that degrades our service is not allowed.
API Key Security: Keep your SLYD API keys and access credentials confidential. Do not embed them in publicly visible code, share them with unauthorized parties, or otherwise compromise them. You are responsible for all actions taken using your API credentials. If you suspect an API key is compromised, you should rotate (replace) it immediately and notify us.
Proper Integration Practices: Do not use our API or integrations in a way that harms the Platform or other users. For example, do not relentlessly poll our API for changes if we offer webhooks or more efficient methods. Also, if you integrate third-party services with SLYD, you must adhere to both SLYD’s AUP and the third party’s terms. (For instance, if you use SLYD compute to interact with a social media platform’s API, you must follow that platform’s rules for data usage – violating a third party’s terms via our Platform is considered a violation here as well.)
No Unauthorized Resale: You may not resell SLYD’s Services or provide a thinly veiled wrapper around our API without permission. For example, you cannot create your own cloud service or API that secretly routes calls to SLYD’s API or infrastructure, unless you have a partnership or written permission from us. (Note: Legitimate Suppliers offering compute through our Marketplace are authorized to resell their compute via the Marketplace – but a Consumer may not simply sub-lease or resell the compute time they purchased to someone else outside of our Platform.)
Respect Privacy in API Use: When using our API to retrieve data, you must respect privacy and confidentiality. Do not pull personal or sensitive data about other users and expose it publicly. Any data you retrieve via the API should be used only for the purpose allowed by that API endpoint and in line with our Privacy Policy.
2.9 Platform Integrity
Users must not undermine the integrity, security, or fairness of the Platform. Prohibited behaviors include:
Circumventing Restrictions: Do not attempt to circumvent any usage limits, suspension measures, or access restrictions that SLYD has put in place on your account or use of the Platform. For example, if your account has been suspended or restricted, you must not create a new account to bypass that suspension. If a feature is disabled or not available for your user role, do not attempt to hack around it.
Multiple Account Abuse: Do not create or use multiple accounts in an abusive manner. For instance, you are not allowed to create numerous accounts to gain unfair advantages (such as redeeming a promotional offer multiple times, evading individual resource quotas, or avoiding bans). If you truly need multiple separate accounts for legitimate purposes, please discuss it with SLYD to get approval and avoid misinterpretation.
Impersonation of SLYD: You must not impersonate SLYD, SLYD staff, or otherwise falsely represent yourself as an agent or representative of SLYD. For example, do not create an account username or online presence that could mislead others into believing you are officially affiliated with us (e.g. “SLYD_OfficialSupport”).
Unauthorized Reselling of Services: Outside of the intended use of the Marketplace (Suppliers selling compute to Consumers via our Platform), you are not allowed to resell, redistribute, or lease SLYD’s Services to third parties without explicit permission. In essence, a Supplier can sell compute time to Consumers through our Platform (that’s the core service we provide), but a Consumer cannot take the compute time they’ve obtained and sub-lease or transfer it to someone else off-platform.
3. Enforcement and Consequences
SLYD takes violations of this AUP seriously. We utilize a combination of automated systems, user reports, and other measures to enforce these rules and protect our community. In general, if we suspect or detect that you have violated this AUP, we reserve the right to take action at our discretion. This section describes how we monitor compliance and the consequences of violations:
Monitoring and Detection: SLYD may monitor usage of the Platform (including active compute instances and network traffic) for compliance with this AUP. We primarily rely on automated tools and community reporting to flag potential issues. While we do not routinely inspect the actual content of your computations or data without cause, we may analyze network metadata and other indicators for signs of abuse. For example, if network traffic from a SLYD instance is detected as sending spam or participating in a DDoS attack, our systems will flag it. We may also perform security scans on compute instances or storage volumes (e.g., antivirus scans or integrity checks) if we suspect malware or other violations. By using SLYD, you acknowledge and consent that your usage may be monitored and audited for compliance purposes.
Investigation: If we suspect a violation of the AUP, SLYD may suspend your account or specific resources (such as particular VM instances) on a temporary basis while we investigate, in order to prevent further harm. Our team may reach out to you for clarification or to request additional information. You are expected to cooperate with any investigation and to provide prompt, truthful responses. If we receive external abuse reports (for example, DMCA notices, spam complaints, or inquiries from law enforcement), we will investigate those as well. You agree that SLYD has the right to audit your usage and content on our Services as necessary to respond to a credible allegation of AUP violation.
Actions on Violation: If we determine (in our reasonable judgment) that you have violated this AUP, SLYD may take one or more of the following enforcement actions:
- Warning: For minor or first-time violations, we may choose to issue a warning and provide you an opportunity to rectify the issue. For example, we might notify you that you forgot to include an unsubscribe link in a marketing email and ask you to fix it to comply with anti-spam rules. Warnings will usually include a timeframe for compliance.
- Suspension: We may suspend your access to the Platform (in whole or in part) while the issue is ongoing. Suspension might apply to a specific compute instance (e.g., we temporarily shut down or isolate a VM or job) or to your entire account, depending on severity. During suspension, your data and instances may remain in place, but you will not be able to use the services. We typically invoke suspensions in cases of ongoing or imminent harm (for instance, an active malware distribution, DDoS attack, or other abuse that needs immediate containment).
- Termination: For serious violations or repeated offenses, SLYD may terminate your account entirely. Account termination means your access to the Platform is permanently disabled and your data may be deleted (except for data we must retain for legal compliance or evidence). Serious violations include those that pose significant security threats, are illegal, or cause harm to others, as well as repeated misconduct after warning. If your account is terminated for AUP breaches, you may be barred from re-registering with SLYD in the future.
- Removal of Content: If a violation involves specific content (for example, infringing material, hate speech hosted on a website, or other prohibited content stored or displayed via our Platform), we may remove or disable access to that content without prior notice. For instance, we might take down a public-facing site or storage bucket that contains banned content. In the case of copyright infringement, we will remove or disable access to the material in accordance with the law (e.g., DMCA process) and will notify the user who posted it, providing them an opportunity to file a counter-notice if applicable.
- Legal Action: Some violations may carry legal consequences, and SLYD reserves the right to refer such matters to law enforcement or pursue legal action on its own. For example, any evidence of child exploitation content will be reported to the appropriate authorities. Likewise, if your actions cause us significant harm or legal exposure (e.g., your misuse of our Platform leads to regulatory fines or lawsuits against SLYD), we may initiate legal proceedings to seek damages or injunctive relief to stop the activity.
- Recovery of Costs: If your violation causes SLYD to incur costs or expenses (such as regulatory fines, settlement payments, or costs of responding to the incident – for example, hiring a forensic investigator or security consultants), we may seek reimbursement from you. (Note: under our Terms of Service, you have agreed to indemnify SLYD for losses and expenses resulting from your violation of the Terms or this AUP. This means if your misuse of our Services causes us to be fined or sued, you are contractually obligated to cover those costs.)
Disclosure to Affected Parties: When necessary, SLYD may inform affected third parties of the incident or violation. For example, if you were found to be sending spam emails, we might notify relevant email service providers or blacklist operators to help mitigate the spam. If you were hosting stolen data or personal information, we might inform the rightful data owner or any impacted individuals. We will do so in accordance with our Privacy Policy and legal obligations.
Appeal Process: If you believe we have taken enforcement action against you in error, you have the right to contact our support or abuse team to dispute the decision. Please provide any evidence or explanation that might clarify the situation. SLYD will in good faith review appeals and, if we determine that a violation did not occur or was less serious than initially thought, we may reinstate your account or adjust the enforcement measure. However, frivolous or repeated appeals without new evidence, especially from egregious offenders, will not be entertained.
Notification: We strive to notify you of any enforcement action being taken, along with the reason, unless we are legally prohibited from doing so (for example, if we receive a law enforcement demand with a non-disclosure order) or if providing notice would likely result in further harm (for instance, alerting you might enable you to cover up evidence or continue a malicious activity). In most cases, you will receive an email or dashboard notification explaining what action was taken and why. In emergencies where rapid action is required, we may proceed to suspend or neutralize a threat immediately and inform you shortly afterward.
Suppliers’ Role in Enforcement: If you are a compute Supplier on the Marketplace, you have a degree of responsibility for monitoring the workloads running on your hardware for obvious abuses. SLYD may notify you if we detect that a Consumer using your provided resources is violating this AUP (for example, if an instance on your server is launching attacks or hosting illegal content). You are expected to cooperate with us to stop the abuse. This may include terminating the Consumer’s instance on your hardware or allowing SLYD to access the instance to investigate or remediate. If a Supplier consistently fails to address abuse coming from their provisioned resources or willfully ignores violations, the Supplier will themselves be considered in violation of this AUP. On the other hand, Suppliers who vigilantly monitor and enforce these rules on their own equipment (in coordination with us) are considered valuable partners in keeping the community safe.
No Liability for Enforcement: As stated in our Terms of Service, SLYD is not liable for any damages or losses that result from our good-faith enforcement of this AUP. You acknowledge that SLYD may take actions like shutting down an instance or terminating an account to protect the Platform and other users, and you agree that we will not be responsible for any consequences of those enforcement actions (such as loss of data or loss of income from your use of the Services). You expressly agree that SLYD has broad discretion to make judgment calls in enforcing this AUP for the overall security and integrity of the Platform, and we shall not be liable to you for the impacts of such enforcement as long as it is carried out in good faith.
If you become aware of any user violating this AUP, we ask that you report it to us immediately. You can contact us at abuse@slyd.com or through any designated abuse reporting mechanism on our site. Please provide as much detail as possible (e.g. logs, IP addresses, screenshots) to assist our investigation. We treat reports confidentially and will not disclose your identity as the reporter unless required by law.
4. Special Considerations for Third-Party Integrations and APIs
SLYD services often integrate with or connect to third-party services and platforms. When using SLYD in conjunction with external services, you must ensure that you comply with both this AUP and the acceptable use policies of the third-party services. In particular:
Follow Third-Party Rules: Ensure that any third-party service or API you access via SLYD’s resources is used in compliance with that third party’s terms of use, acceptable use policy, and applicable laws. You must adhere to the more stringent of the two policies (SLYD’s AUP and the third party’s rules) for any given activity. If there is a direct conflict between this AUP and a third-party’s policy, err on the side of caution and refrain from the activity, or consult with us for guidance. For example, if you use SLYD compute instances to interact with a cloud storage provider or social media platform, you must follow that provider’s usage policies (e.g., rate limits, data use restrictions) in addition to our own.
Responsibility for Integrations: Some third-party integrations (such as using SLYD’s compute power to interact with external APIs like those of Twitter, Google, etc.) carry additional rules. If you violate a third party’s terms through your use of SLYD (for example, using our compute to scrape a website that forbids scraping, or to violate another service’s API rules), that activity is considered a violation of this AUP as well, because it constitutes unauthorized or unlawful use of our Services. Always obtain any required permissions from third parties and use their services in an allowed manner when routing through SLYD.
Developer Obligations: If you are a developer building applications, tools, or integrations on top of SLYD’s Platform or API, you are expected to enforce this AUP within your own application. In practice, this means you should not design or permit your software to facilitate violations of these rules by your end-users. For instance, if you create a client application or bot that utilizes SLYD, you should not allow your users to deploy that tool for spamming, illegal content, or other prohibited conduct via SLYD’s infrastructure. We recommend that you display or link to this AUP within your application so your users are aware of these requirements. Remember, misuse via your integrated app can still result in enforcement action against your account or your app’s access to our API.
5. Updates to this AUP
SLYD may update or modify this Acceptable Use Policy from time to time as our services evolve or as legal requirements change. If we make significant changes to the AUP, we will notify users by posting the updated policy on our website with a new “Last Updated” date, and in certain cases we may provide additional notice (such as an email or platform notification). It is your responsibility to periodically review this AUP for any changes. By continuing to use SLYD’s Services after an updated AUP has been posted, you agree to the revised policy. We will not enforce material changes to this AUP retroactively on activities that were previously permissible, unless we are required to do so by law or if it is necessary for the safety and integrity of the Platform.
If you have questions about this Acceptable Use Policy or are unsure whether a particular activity is allowed, please contact SLYD support or refer to our other policy documents (such as our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy). We appreciate your cooperation in keeping the SLYD community safe, secure, and in compliance with all applicable standards.
