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Acceptable Use Policy

Technical and anti-abuse rules for using POY.

Draft v0.1 — Effective date: [GO-LIVE DATE] (drafted 2026-06-08)

This Acceptable Use Policy governs how you may interact with the POY service, app, and systems. It complements the Community Guidelines (which govern what you may post) and forms part of the Terms of Service. Breaching this AUP can result in content removal, suspension, a permanent ban, and — where conduct is unlawful or causes us loss — referral to the authorities or legal action.

By using POY you agree to everything below.

1. Eligibility & account integrity

You must not:

  • use POY if you are under 16, or help anyone under 16 to use it;
  • use POY if you have been previously banned, or to evade any suspension or ban ("ban evasion"), including by using a new phone number or device;
  • create, operate, or control multiple accounts (one account per person), or sell, buy, rent, or transfer an account;
  • impersonate any person or entity, or misrepresent your identity, age, or affiliation;
  • share your account or let anyone else use it; or
  • provide false information (including a false date of birth) to bypass the age gate.

2. Lawful use

You must not use POY:

  • to break any applicable law or regulation, or to facilitate anyone else doing so;
  • to infringe anyone's rights (privacy, data protection, IP, publicity, or other);
  • in breach of the Community Guidelines or Copyright & IP Policy; or
  • in any way that exposes us or our users to legal liability or harm.

3. Respect other users

You must not:

  • harass, bully, threaten, stalk, or intimidate any person;
  • attempt to identify, locate, de-anonymise, or contact any POY user on or off the platform;
  • collect, store, or share other users' content or information beyond using POY's normal features; or
  • use reports, votes, or "Decide" questions as a tool to harass or target someone.

4. No automated, bulk, or manipulative use

You must not:

  • use bots, scripts, scrapers, crawlers, automation, or any non-human means to access, vote on, post to, or interact with POY;
  • scrape, harvest, copy, cache, or index content, images, or data from POY, or build any dataset, database, or AI/ML training corpus from it;
  • manipulate votes or engagement (inflating, gaming, or trading votes), or participate in any vote-manipulation scheme;
  • generate spam, bulk posts, or repetitive content; or
  • circumvent or interfere with rate limits, the 5-vote posting gate, the daily upload/vote caps, the age gate, or any other usage control.

5. No interference, probing, or security circumvention

You must not:

  • interfere with, disrupt, overload, or degrade the Service, its servers, or its networks (including denial-of-service or flooding);
  • probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service, or breach or circumvent any security or authentication measure (including App Check / Play Integrity, Firebase security rules, or the kill switch);
  • access, tamper with, or use non-public areas of the Service, our systems, or other users' accounts or data;
  • forge headers, spoof identifiers, or otherwise falsify the origin of any request; or
  • exploit, or attempt to exploit, bugs, glitches, or undocumented behaviour to gain an advantage or access you're not entitled to (responsible disclosure: see §9).

6. No tampering with the app

You must not, except where this restriction is prohibited by law:

  • reverse-engineer, decompile, or disassemble the app or attempt to derive its source code, keys, or secrets;
  • modify, hack, or create derivative/unauthorised versions of the app, or use a modified/emulated client to access POY;
  • remove, obscure, or alter any proprietary notices; or
  • distribute, sublicense, or commercially exploit the app or Service.

7. No abuse of content moderation or support

You must not:

  • file knowingly false or malicious reports, or weaponise the reporting system;
  • submit false copyright or other takedown claims (see Copyright & IP Policy);
  • submit false or abusive support messages, or spam our support channels; or
  • abuse the appeals process in bad faith.

8. No misuse of personal data or system data

You must not:

  • upload malware, viruses, or harmful code;
  • use the Service to collect, mine, or exfiltrate personal data;
  • attempt to correlate POY identifiers (e.g. account IDs) with real-world identities; or
  • use any data obtained from POY for marketing, profiling, or resale.

9. Security research (responsible disclosure)

We welcome good-faith security research. If you discover a vulnerability, do not exploit it, access more data than necessary, or disclose it publicly before we've fixed it. Report it privately to [security@heypoy.app / privacy@heypoy.app] and give us a reasonable time to remediate. Good-faith research conducted within these bounds will not be treated as a breach of this AUP. [Define a formal disclosure/safe-harbour policy before launch.]

10. Consequences

We may, at our discretion and proportionately to the breach:

  • remove content, reset manipulated counters, or restrict features;
  • warn, suspend, or permanently ban the account(s) involved;
  • rate-limit, block, or ban devices, numbers, or networks involved in abuse;
  • preserve evidence and report unlawful activity to the authorities; and
  • pursue legal remedies for losses we suffer (e.g. from abuse, fraud, or SMS-pumping).

We also operate technical protections (App Check, server-authoritative rules, rate-limits, anomaly handling) and may take automated action against abuse, subject to the appeal rights in the Community Guidelines and Privacy Policy.

11. Changes

We may update this AUP as threats and the Service evolve. The current version lives at heypoy.app/acceptable-use. Continuing to use POY after a change means you accept it.

Questions: [privacy@heypoy.app].

Questions about this policy? Contact privacy@heypoy.app or visit our contact page.