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Acceptable Use Policy

Effective Date: June 1, 2026
Last Updated: June 1, 2026

Applies to: All users of OS-Scribe, OS-Agent, and any other Alongside products or services that incorporate this policy by reference.

1. Introduction and Scope

Alongside Finance, Inc. (“Alongside,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) provides AI-based products — including the Notetaker (“OS-Scribe”), the Agent (“OS-Agent”), and any related services (collectively, the “Services”) — to help users be more productive in their work and personal lives. We have built the Services to be useful, private, and trustworthy. This Acceptable Use Policy (the “AUP”) describes what users may and may not do when using the Services.

This AUP is part of, and is incorporated by reference into, our Terms of Service. Capitalized terms not defined in this AUP have the meanings given to them in the Terms of Service. If there is a conflict between this AUP and the Terms of Service, this AUP controls with respect to the subject matter described here.

This AUP applies to you (the “User” or “you”) whether you access the Services as a paying customer, a free user, an employee or contractor of a business customer, or any other capacity. If you allow another person to use your account or your purchased credits, you are responsible for that person’s compliance with this AUP.

We may update this AUP from time to time. When we make material changes, we will provide notice through the Services or by other reasonable means before the changes take effect. Your continued use of the Services after the changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated AUP.

2. Core Principles

Three principles run through this entire policy and explain the specific rules below:

  • Use the Services lawfully. Do not use the Services to do anything that is illegal where you are, where the people affected by your use are, or where Alongside operates.
  • Use the Services honestly. Do not use the Services to deceive, defraud, or impersonate other people. Be transparent with people you interact with that AI is involved when our products require it.
  • Use the Services with respect for others. Do not use the Services to harm, harass, surveil, or violate the rights of other people — especially children and vulnerable individuals.

If a specific use case is not addressed by the rules in this AUP but would clearly conflict with one of these principles, the principle controls.

3. Prohibited Content and Content Categories

You may not use the Services to create, generate, request, transmit, process, store, distribute, or display content that falls into any of the following categories. This list is not exhaustive — content that is materially similar to the categories below is also prohibited, even if it does not match a listed example exactly.

3.1 Child Sexual Abuse Material and Exploitation of Minors

You may not use the Services in any way that involves:

  • Child sexual abuse material (“CSAM”), as defined under 18 U.S.C. § 2256 and analogous laws of any other jurisdiction, including computer-generated or AI-generated CSAM that is indistinguishable from real children, virtual CSAM that is obscene under applicable law, and CSAM involving identifiable minors.
  • Sexually explicit or sexually suggestive content depicting minors, regardless of whether the minors are real, fictional, or AI-generated.
  • Grooming, solicitation, or attempted solicitation of minors for sexual or otherwise exploitative purposes.
  • Content that sexualizes minors in any form, including pseudo-historical, pseudo-medical, or pseudo-artistic framings.
  • Content designed to facilitate the trafficking, abduction, or exploitation of minors.

Alongside has a zero-tolerance policy for this category. We use automated detection technologies at our content-filtering layer, and where we obtain actual knowledge of apparent CSAM, we will report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in accordance with 18 U.S.C. § 2258A and analogous obligations under non-U.S. law. We will preserve evidence of violations, suspend or terminate the relevant accounts, and cooperate with law enforcement.

3.2 Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery and Deepfakes

You may not use the Services to:

  • Create, generate, modify, or distribute intimate images or videos of any person without that person’s informed and explicit consent, including AI-generated or “deepfake” intimate content.
  • Create, generate, or distribute sexual content depicting an identifiable real person without that person’s explicit consent.
  • Create or distribute synthetic media intended to deceive viewers about whether the depicted person actually engaged in the depicted conduct.

This category includes obligations imposed by the TAKE IT DOWN Act and analogous state and non-U.S. laws. If you receive a takedown notice for content you have generated through the Services, you must promptly cooperate.

3.3 Weapons, Violence, and Hazardous Materials

You may not use the Services to:

  • Plan, design, manufacture, acquire, or use weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapons (“CBRN”).
  • Develop or refine pathogens, toxins, or other biological agents capable of causing mass casualties.
  • Plan, facilitate, or carry out acts of terrorism, mass violence, targeted attacks on identifiable individuals or groups, or political violence.
  • Acquire conventional weapons or weapon components in violation of applicable law, including circumventing background checks or other legal controls.
  • Plan or facilitate physical attacks on critical infrastructure (energy, water, financial, transportation, healthcare, government, or election systems).

3.4 Cybercrime and Malicious Code

You may not use the Services to:

  • Develop, distribute, or operate malware, ransomware, spyware, stalkerware, or other malicious code.
  • Conduct unauthorized intrusion into computer systems, networks, or accounts.
  • Develop or deploy phishing, smishing, vishing, or other social-engineering attacks.
  • Steal credentials, payment information, identity documents, or other sensitive data.
  • Circumvent security measures, access controls, rate limits, paywalls, or anti-fraud systems on third-party services.
  • Conduct denial-of-service attacks, botnets, or other attacks on the availability of computer systems or networks.

3.5 Fraud, Deception, and Impersonation

You may not use the Services to:

  • Commit financial fraud, including investment fraud, insurance fraud, tax fraud, wire fraud, or fraudulent solicitations.
  • Engage in deceptive trade practices in violation of consumer protection laws.
  • Impersonate any person or entity in a manner intended to deceive, including identity theft.
  • Generate fake credentials, fake documents (including identification, academic, employment, medical, or legal documents), or counterfeit goods.
  • Generate content intended to manipulate elections, mislead voters, or interfere with democratic processes, including AI-generated content depicting candidates, officials, or election infrastructure in deceptive ways.
  • Create or operate fake accounts, fake reviews, or coordinated inauthentic behavior on third-party platforms.

3.6 Harassment, Threats, and Hate

You may not use the Services to:

  • Harass, threaten, intimidate, or stalk any person.
  • Generate or distribute content that incites violence against or dehumanizes any individual or group on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, disability, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, or other protected characteristic.
  • Dox, swat, or otherwise publish private information about a person without their consent in a manner intended to facilitate harm or harassment.
  • Coordinate or conduct targeted harassment campaigns.

3.7 Privacy Violations

You may not use the Services to:

  • Collect, infer, or distribute personal data about individuals without a lawful basis under applicable law.
  • Conduct surveillance of any person without that person’s consent or other lawful authority.
  • Re-identify individuals from anonymized or pseudonymized data.
  • Operate facial recognition, voice-print identification, or other biometric identification systems on individuals who have not consented, except where expressly permitted by applicable law.
  • Process special-category personal data (as defined under the EU General Data Protection Regulation or analogous laws) without the explicit consent or other lawful basis required by that law.

3.8 Intellectual Property Infringement

You may not use the Services to:

  • Infringe copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, rights of publicity, or other intellectual property rights of others.
  • Circumvent technical protection measures, digital rights management, or paywalls.
  • Distribute pirated software, media, or other content.

3.9 Regulated Goods and Services

You may not use the Services to:

  • Manufacture, sell, or distribute controlled substances, prescription medications, or precursor chemicals in violation of applicable law.
  • Conduct unlicensed gambling activity or facilitate gambling by minors.
  • Sell firearms, ammunition, or other regulated weapons in violation of applicable law.
  • Promote or facilitate human trafficking, forced labor, or commercial sexual services in violation of applicable law.

3.10 High-Stakes Automated Decisions Without Human Oversight

You may not use the Services as the sole basis for decisions with significant legal or similarly significant effects on other individuals, including:

  • Eligibility for employment, promotion, or termination.
  • Eligibility for credit, insurance, or housing.
  • Eligibility for healthcare or medical treatment.
  • Eligibility for education, scholarships, or government benefits.
  • Determinations in criminal justice contexts, including risk assessment, sentencing recommendations, or eligibility for parole.

A qualified human must be meaningfully involved in any such decision. The Services are intended to support, not replace, professional and human judgment.

3.11 Misuse of Outputs in Professional Contexts

You may not represent outputs of the Services as professional advice from a licensed professional unless a licensed professional has independently reviewed and endorsed the output. The Services do not provide legal, medical, financial, tax, mental health, or other licensed professional advice. If you are a licensed professional using the Services in connection with services you provide to clients or patients, you remain solely responsible for those services and for compliance with the rules of your profession.

4. OS-Scribe — Recording and Transcription Rules

OS-Scribe records and transcribes audio on your device. Because recording other people’s voices is legally sensitive, the following rules apply in addition to the general prohibitions above.

4.1 Consent to Record

You are the “recording party” when you use OS-Scribe. You are responsible for ensuring that recording is lawful in your jurisdiction and the jurisdictions of all participants whose voices are captured. In particular:

  • In “two-party consent” or “all-party consent” jurisdictions — including, in the United States, California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Washington — you must obtain the consent of every participant before recording.
  • In the European Union and the United Kingdom, you must have a lawful basis under the General Data Protection Regulation for processing the personal data of every participant. If OS-Scribe is configured to identify speakers (speaker diarization), the processing involves biometric special-category data and requires explicit consent from each speaker.
  • You must not use OS-Scribe to record any conversation in a context where you have a reasonable expectation that recording is prohibited — including, without limitation, courtrooms, jury deliberations, executive sessions of public bodies where recording is restricted, and any setting where signage or other notice prohibits recording.

OS-Scribe provides features intended to help you meet these obligations, which may include an audible recording-start indicator, a visible recording indicator, and a helper to communicate consent language to other participants. You must not disable or circumvent these features in a manner that defeats their consent function.

4.2 Protected and Privileged Communications

Special caution is required when OS-Scribe is used to record communications in the following contexts. You may not use OS-Scribe to record any such communication without the authority required to do so under applicable law and the rules of any applicable profession:

  • Attorney-client communications, work-product, or other privileged legal communications.
  • Doctor-patient or therapist-patient communications, or other communications protected by medical privilege or psychotherapist privilege.
  • Communications subject to the HIPAA Privacy Rule, except where you are a covered entity or business associate operating with the controls required by HIPAA.
  • Communications subject to clergy-penitent privilege, journalist-source privilege, or other recognized professional privileges.
  • Communications subject to a confidentiality agreement, court order, or protective order that prohibits recording.

4.3 Minors

You may not use OS-Scribe to record a minor (a person under the age of majority in the applicable jurisdiction) without the consent of the minor’s parent or legal guardian, or other authority required by law. Additional protections apply to communications involving children under 13 in the United States under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and under 16 in many European jurisdictions; you are responsible for compliance with those protections.

4.4 Surveillance and Stalking

You may not use OS-Scribe to surveil any person without their knowledge and consent, to stalk or track any person, to record any person in a setting where they have a reasonable expectation of privacy (including but not limited to restrooms, locker rooms, bedrooms, and medical examination rooms), or to facilitate domestic abuse or other interpersonal harm. OS-Scribe’s purpose is to help users capture meetings and conversations they participate in — not to capture conversations they are not part of.

5. Agent — Rules for Use of OS-Agent

OS-Agent is a more powerful product than typical chatbots because it acts in the world on your behalf. The following rules apply to your use of OS-Agent in addition to the general prohibitions above.

5.1 Authorization to Act

When you direct OS-Agent to perform an action, you represent and warrant that you have the authority to perform that action yourself, and that delegating the action to OS-Agent does not violate any law, contract, or third-party policy. You are responsible for everything OS-Agent does at your direction.

5.2 Third-Party Platforms and Services

If you direct OS-Agent to access, interact with, or operate on any third-party platform, website, application, or service (each, a “Third-Party Platform”), you must comply with the following:

  • You may direct OS-Agent to operate only on Third-Party Platforms where automated, agent-based, or programmatic access is permitted by the operator of that platform — either expressly (through documented API or agent policies) or by reasonable interpretation of that platform’s terms of service.
  • You may not direct OS-Agent to access any Third-Party Platform after the operator of that platform has revoked authorization for OS-Agent, whether by cease-and-desist letter, public policy, technical block, or other means of communication.
  • You may not direct OS-Agent to bypass, circumvent, or defeat any technical access controls of a Third-Party Platform, including but not limited to CAPTCHAs, rate limits, IP-based blocks, account-verification challenges, paywalls, or content licensing controls.
  • You may not direct OS-Agent to disguise itself as a human user or as a different software product, including by spoofing user-agent strings, fingerprinting evasion intended to defeat detection, or impersonation of a different browser, application, or service.
  • You may not direct OS-Agent to access any account that you are not personally authorized to access, or to use any credentials that you are not personally authorized to use.

Alongside may, in its discretion, maintain and update a list of Third-Party Platforms on which OS-Agent will refuse to operate by default, including platforms whose operators have publicly objected to AI agent access or with which Alongside has received cease-and-desist communications. You may not attempt to circumvent these restrictions.

5.3 Agent Self-Identification

OS-Agent may identify itself as an AI agent to Third-Party Platforms it interacts with and to natural persons it communicates with on your behalf, in a manner consistent with applicable law (including, for users in the European Union, the EU AI Act, and for users in the United States, applicable state AI disclosure laws). You may not disable, suppress, alter, or circumvent these self-identification features.

5.4 Communications with Third Parties

If you direct OS-Agent to communicate with any natural person on your behalf — including by email, message, voice call, or other channel — you must:

  • Have authority to communicate with that person on the topic in question.
  • Comply with all applicable laws governing the communication, including anti-spam laws (CAN-SPAM in the U.S., CASL in Canada, GDPR ePrivacy provisions in the EU, and analogous laws elsewhere), do-not-call rules, and consumer protection laws.
  • Ensure that the communication accurately discloses, where required by law, that it was sent by an AI agent acting on your behalf.
  • Not direct OS-Agent to send communications that are harassing, threatening, deceptive, or designed to defraud the recipient.

5.5 Financial Transactions and Irreversible Actions

Certain actions are sufficiently consequential that OS-Agent may require additional confirmation from you before proceeding. You may not configure the Agent or use the Services to bypass these confirmations. These actions may include, without limitation:

  • Initiating payments or transfers of money or virtual assets above a per-action threshold.
  • Entering into contractual commitments, including by clicking “I agree” or accepting terms of service on behalf of a person or entity.
  • Creating new accounts or identities on Third-Party Platforms in your name or in any other name.
  • Sending communications that purport to come from you personally (as opposed to from an identified AI agent acting on your behalf).
  • Publishing content publicly under any name.
  • Deleting, modifying, or transferring data that cannot be readily restored.

5.6 Critical Decisions

You may not direct OS-Agent to autonomously make decisions relating to other individuals in the categories listed in Section 3.10 above (employment, credit, insurance, housing, healthcare, education, government benefits, criminal justice). If you use the Agent in a process that contributes to any such decision, a qualified human must be meaningfully involved before the decision is made.

5.7 Sensitive Sectors

The Services are not designed or authorized for the following uses, and you may not use OS-Agent or OS-Scribe in connection with them without express written authorization from Alongside:

  • Operation of weapons systems, including target identification, tracking, or engagement.
  • Operation of safety-critical industrial control systems.
  • Mass surveillance by government or private actors.
  • Social scoring systems, as that term is used under the EU AI Act.
  • Biometric categorization to infer race, ethnicity, political opinions, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, or trade union membership.
  • Predictive policing based solely on profiling or assessment of personality traits.

6. General Use Restrictions

6.1 Age

The Services are not directed to children. You may not use the Services if you are under 13 years of age, and you may not use the Services if you are under the age of majority in your jurisdiction without the involvement of a parent or legal guardian who agrees to be bound by our Terms of Service and this AUP on your behalf. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (or the equivalent minimum age in the applicable jurisdiction).

6.2 Sanctioned Jurisdictions and Persons

You may not use the Services if you are located in, ordinarily resident in, or organized under the laws of a country or region subject to comprehensive U.S. sanctions (currently, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions of Ukraine), or if you are listed on the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Specially Designated Nationals list, the U.S. Commerce Department’s Entity List or Denied Persons List, or any comparable list maintained by the European Union, the United Kingdom, or the United Nations.

6.3 Resale and Redistribution

You may not resell, sublicense, lease, or otherwise commercially redistribute access to the Services without our prior written consent. This restriction does not limit the rights granted under the open-source licenses applicable to the source code of OS-Scribe and OS-Agent, which are governed separately by those licenses; this AUP governs your use of the hosted Services.

6.4 Service Integrity and Security

You may not:

  • Probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Services, except in accordance with our Vulnerability Disclosure Policy.
  • Interfere with or disrupt the operation of the Services or attempt to circumvent any rate limits, security measures, or usage controls.
  • Reverse engineer the Services (other than as expressly permitted by the open-source licenses applicable to the source code, or as permitted by applicable law notwithstanding contract).
  • Use the Services to train, fine-tune, or otherwise develop competing AI systems, except as expressly permitted by the open-source licenses.
  • Submit content designed to manipulate, jailbreak, or evade the Services’ safety mechanisms — including content designed to elicit responses that would otherwise be prohibited by this AUP.

6.5 Use With Other AI Systems

If you incorporate the Services into a workflow that also involves other AI systems or tools, this AUP applies to your use of the Services in that workflow. You are responsible for compliance with the terms of any other systems you use. You may not use the Services to launder prohibited content or activity through an intermediary system.

7. Your Responsibilities

In addition to the specific rules above, you are responsible for the following at all times when using the Services:

  • Compliance. Complying with this AUP and with all applicable laws, regulations, and third-party agreements.
  • Account security. Maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and promptly notifying us of any unauthorized use of your account.
  • Lawful inputs. Ensuring that any inputs you provide to the Services — including audio recordings, prompts, files, and data — have been obtained lawfully and may lawfully be processed by the Services.
  • Consent. Obtaining and documenting any consents required from third parties (including meeting participants, people whose data you process, and platforms whose systems you access via OS-Agent).
  • Output verification. Reviewing and verifying outputs of the Services before relying on them or distributing them. The Services may produce inaccurate, incomplete, or fabricated information; you are responsible for any outputs you rely on or publish.
  • Disclosure to affected persons. Disclosing the use of AI to natural persons interacting with the Services where required by law (including under the EU AI Act, applicable U.S. state AI disclosure laws, and comparable provisions in other jurisdictions).
  • Authorized users. Ensuring that anyone using the Services through your account (employees, contractors, family members, or others) complies with this AUP.

8. Reporting Violations and Concerns

If you become aware of a violation of this AUP, of a security vulnerability, or of any other concern about the Services, please report it using the channels below. We commit to reviewing reports promptly and to not retaliating against good-faith reporters.

  • Abuse, harassment, or content violations: For reports of prohibited content, harassment, or other AUP violations.
  • Child safety: For reports of content involving the sexual exploitation of minors. We report apparent child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) in accordance with 18 U.S.C. § 2258A.
  • Intellectual property infringement.
  • Security vulnerabilities: Our Vulnerability Disclosure reporting address is support@opensoftware.co. Please do not report vulnerabilities through public channels.
  • Privacy rights and data subject requests: For requests to access, correct, delete, or otherwise exercise rights with respect to personal data.

9. Detection, Enforcement, and Consequences

9.1 Detection

We use automated systems to detect content and conduct that may violate this AUP, including content filters that screen requests against prohibited categories before they are processed. We may also review reports of suspected violations and conduct investigations as appropriate. We do not affirmatively monitor or scan content that does not trigger our automated filters or a report, and our use of detection systems does not change the data-minimization commitments described in our Privacy Policy.

9.2 Enforcement Actions

If we determine, in our reasonable judgment, that you have violated this AUP, we may take one or more of the following actions, depending on the nature and severity of the violation, the user’s history, and any other relevant factors:

  • Refuse to process specific requests.
  • Issue a warning.
  • Suspend your access to the Services or to specific features, temporarily or permanently.
  • Terminate your account.
  • Block future signups from you.
  • Preserve evidence of the violation in accordance with applicable law and our Privacy Policy.
  • Report the violation to appropriate authorities, including NCMEC for apparent CSAM, law enforcement for credible threats or evidence of crimes, and third-party platforms whose terms of service have been violated.
  • Cooperate with civil or criminal proceedings to the extent required by law.

For serious or willful violations — including any violation involving CSAM, terrorism, mass-violence planning, or fraud — we may proceed directly to immediate termination and reporting, without prior warning. Credits forfeited as a consequence of termination for an AUP violation are not refundable, and unused credits at the time of such termination are not refundable. Termination of an account for an AUP violation does not relieve you of liability for the violation.

9.3 Appeals

If your account is suspended or terminated for an alleged AUP violation, you may request review of that decision. We will review timely appeals in good faith. We may decline to restore access where doing so would be unlawful, would create a substantial risk of further violation, or would conflict with the safety of other users or the public.

9.4 Indemnification

You will indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Alongside and its officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any third-party claims, damages, fines, penalties, and reasonable costs (including attorneys’ fees) arising from or related to your violation of this AUP, your use of the Services in a manner inconsistent with this AUP, or any actions you direct the Agent to perform. This obligation is in addition to, and not in lieu of, the indemnification obligations set forth in our Terms of Service.

10. Relationship to Other Documents and Open-Source Versions

This AUP applies to your use of the hosted Services that Alongside makes available through its platform. The source code of OS-Scribe and OS-Agent is also available under open-source licenses, which are governed separately by those licenses. If you run OS-Scribe or OS-Agent code yourself, outside of Alongside’s hosted platform, your obligations are governed by the applicable open-source license — not by this AUP. However, you remain responsible for complying with all applicable laws when you operate the software, regardless of whether you do so under this AUP or under an open-source license.

This AUP is incorporated into our Terms of Service. The Terms of Service contain additional provisions governing your relationship with us, including provisions regarding intellectual property, warranties, limitations of liability, dispute resolution, and governing law. Our Privacy Policy describes how we collect, use, and protect personal data.

11. Contact

Questions about this AUP may be sent to support@opensoftware.co. The reporting channels in Section 8 should be used for reporting violations and concerns; general questions and policy interpretation requests may be sent to the address in this section.

Alongside Finance, Inc.
support@opensoftware.co