Use Restrictions #

Last Updated: February 3, 2021

Many people use our services, and in turn those people have many customers who register using our services. We are proud to be a part of this community but realise that we can be used as an amplifier: it can enable helpful causes and it can amplify harm. That’s why we’ve established this policy. If you have an account with Outer Circle, you can’t use it for any of the restricted purposes listed below. If we find out you are, we will take action.

Restricted Purposes #

Child exploitation, sexualization, or abuse: We don’t tolerate any activities that create, disseminate, or otherwise cause child abuse. Keep away and stop. Just stop.
Doxing: If you are using Outer Circle to share other peoples’ private personal information for the purposes of harassment, we don’t want anything to do with you.
Infringing on intellectual property: You can’t use Outer Circle products to make or disseminate work that uses the intellectual property of others beyond the bounds of fair use.
Malware or spyware: Code for good, not evil. If you are using our products to make or distribute anything that qualifies as malware or spyware — including remote user surveillance — begone.
Phishing or otherwise attempting fraud: It is not okay to lie about who you are or who you affiliate with to steal from, extort, or otherwise harm others.
Spamming: No one wants unsolicited commercial emails. We don’t tolerate folks (including their bots) using Outer Circle for spamming purposes. If your emails don’t pass muster with CAN-SPAM or any other anti-spam law, it’s not allowed.
Violence, or threats thereof: If an activity qualifies as violent crime in the Australia or where you live, you may not use Outer Circle products to plan, perpetrate, or threaten that activity.

We’ve outlined these restrictions to be clear about what we won’t stand for. That said, this list is by no means exhaustive. We will make changes over time.

See someone using Outer Circle for one of the restricted purposes? Let us know by emailing [email protected] and we will investigate. If you’re not 100% sure, report it anyway.

Please share as much as you are comfortable with about the account, the content or behavior you are reporting, and how you found it. Sending us a URL or screenshots is super helpful. If you need a secure file transfer, let us know and we will send you a link. We will not disclose your identity to anyone associated with the reported account.

Someone on our team will respond within one business day to let you know we’ve begun investigating. We will also let you know the outcome of our investigation (unless you ask us not to or we are not allowed to under law).

How we handle abusive usage #

When we discover potentially abusive use of our Services, we will investigate using the following guiding principles and process.

Guiding Principles #

Human oversight #

Who’s “we”, you ask? It’s us: folks from the Outer Circle team. Abuse cases are reviewed by the company founder. On rare occasions for particularly sensitive situations or if legally required, we may also seek counsel from external experts.

Balanced responsibilities #

We have an obligation to protect the privacy and safety of both our customers and the people reporting issues to us. We do our best to balance those responsibilities throughout the process.

Focus on evidence #

We base our decisions on the evidence available to us: what we see and hear account users say and do. We document what we observe and ask whether that observable evidence points to a restricted use.

Process #

Every case goes through the same general process:

Discovery
Investigation
Decision, sometimes with right to an appeal

How do we discover potential abuse? #

From our experience, we learn about potential abuse because:

Someone alerts us. We give abuse reports our full care and attention. Our Support team also responds to every question or comment that comes in. If we notice anything in those emails that points to a violation, we will look into it.
We notice an anomaly in our business operations monitoring. We monitor a range of things about our products, like signup volume and error rates of web requests. If we see something weird with those numbers, we get to the bottom of it.
We stumble upon public web content that links an individual or organization to an Outer Circle account. We aren’t scouring the Internet looking for those links, but if we do come across any, we check them out.

This list is not exhaustive; there are always edge cases. We will update the list if we find regular new avenues.

How do we investigate? #

We focus on the evidence:

Language and imagery used by users on the account
Evidence of account users’ power and/or ability to act on spoken claims
Publicly available information about account users

We strive to balance privacy and safety for all those involved:

We make every effort to complete our investigations without accessing a customer account. For instance, if there are screenshots or public documents available, we review those. We also consider whether it is appropriate to involve the account owner in a given investigation and seek additional evidence from them.
As we review the evidence, we look for indications of existing negative impact. We also assess the severity of any potential negative impact, regardless of intent. When relevant, we look for and follow available guidelines from expert institutions.
If we cannot come to a fair assessment from the information available, we may decide to access a customer account without notice. We do not make this decision lightly. Customer privacy is a big deal to us and we only pursue this course of action if the evidence we have already is very concerning, but not definitive.

What happens if someone really broke the rules? #

We will terminate an account without advance notice if there is evidence it is being used for a restricted purpose that has, is, or will cause severe harm. If applicable, we will also report the incident to the appropriate authorities.

For other cases, we’ll take a case-by-case approach to clear things up.

Can you appeal a decision? #

If we terminate an account without notice, the decision is final.

For other cases, we will consider good faith appeals sent to [email protected] by the account owner within 14 calendar days.