Acceptable Use Policy

Preamble

This Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) sets out what Merchants may and may not do on the StoreBaze platform. It applies to every Merchant, every Store, every staff member, every product and every piece of Content on the Platform. It is incorporated by reference into the Terms of Service and forms part of the contract between you and StoreBaze. Violating this AUP is a material breach of the Terms.

Capitalized terms not defined here have the meanings given in the Terms of Service.

1. Prohibited goods and services

You must not sell, list, promote, advertise, ship, or fulfil the following categories through your Store. This list is not exhaustive; if in doubt, contact [email protected] before listing.

1.1 Illegal goods and services

• Anything unlawful under the laws of Canada, Quebec, or any jurisdiction where you sell or ship.
• Stolen goods.
• Products that infringe another person’s intellectual-property, publicity, or privacy rights.

1.2 Controlled substances

• Cannabis and cannabis-derived products (recreational or medicinal, including CBD in any concentration), regardless of the legality in the buyer’s or seller’s jurisdiction. This is a categorical StoreBaze policy.
• Alcohol of any kind (beer, wine, spirits, coolers, ready-to-drink cocktails, non-alcoholic-brand extensions marketed alongside alcohol brands). This is a categorical StoreBaze policy.
• Controlled substances, prescription drugs, and drug paraphernalia.
• Kratom, kava, salvia divinorum, nitrous oxide “whippets”, and other regulated or semi-regulated psychoactive substances.
• Tobacco, cigars, cigarettes, e-cigarettes, vape hardware, and vape juice.

1.3 Weapons

• Firearms of any kind, including replicas, airsoft, paintball markers over provincial limits, and 3D-printable firearm files.
• Ammunition, primers, propellants, silencers.
• Explosives, fireworks (retail sale), incendiaries.
• Knives designed primarily as offensive weapons (switchblades, ballistic knives, butterfly knives), brass knuckles, batons, tasers, stun guns.

1.4 Adult content and services

• Pornography and sexually explicit content.
• Adult toys marketed with sexually explicit imagery or copy.
• Escort, sexual services, or adult companionship arrangements.
• Age-verified content platforms.

1.5 Gambling, wagering, and games of chance

• Casinos, sportsbooks, poker rooms, or other regulated gambling operators.
• Lottery tickets, raffles, sweepstakes for money, fantasy-sports contests for prizes.
• “Skill” games with cash entry and cash prizes.
• Loot boxes and randomized-reward mechanics sold for money.

1.6 Financial and investment products

• Cryptocurrency as a product (mining hardware is allowed subject to Section 1.10; sale of crypto tokens themselves is not).
• ICOs, token sales, NFT primary sales, DeFi products.
• Securities, futures, options, forex trading services.
• Debt-collection services, credit-repair services, high-interest loans, payday lending.
• Money-transmission services, currency exchange, cheque cashing.
• “Get-rich-quick” programs, binary options, HYIP schemes.

1.7 Multi-level marketing, pyramid schemes, chain schemes

• Pyramid schemes, chain-letter schemes, matrix schemes.
• Multi-level marketing organizations where compensation is derived primarily from recruitment rather than product sales.

1.8 Health and wellness with unsupported claims

• Products marketed with claims to prevent, treat, cure, or diagnose disease unless the seller holds a Health Canada authorization for those claims.
• Nutraceuticals sold with disease claims.
• Unregistered medical devices.
• Fraudulent COVID cures, fake vaccines, fake vaccine certificates.

1.9 Counterfeit, misrepresented, or grey-market goods

• Counterfeit or replica branded merchandise.
• Grey-market goods sold in a way that misrepresents authorized-dealer status.
• Products with removed, altered, or obscured serial numbers.
• Fake reviews, fake followers, fake engagement services.

1.10 High-risk hardware and technical goods

• Devices marketed primarily to defeat security, encryption, or DRM (chip programmers for automotive ECU tuning where illegal, cellphone jammers, RF-signal boosters not certified for the destination country, dashboard-camera-cloak devices).
• Cellphone unlocking services offering to unlock devices without carrier authorization.
• SIM-swap or SIM-cloning services.
• Cryptocurrency mining hardware is allowed only where destination shipping is lawful and where the seller does not offer bundled “mining pool” or “cloud mining” investment products.

1.11 Live animals and animal parts

• Live animals of any kind.
• Endangered species, CITES-listed species, ivory, rhino horn, shark fins, and similar wildlife products.
• Pet-food or pet-supplement products with medical claims.

1.12 Hazardous, restricted, or export-controlled goods

• Toxic chemicals, industrial solvents in retail quantities, precursors to controlled substances.
• Radioactive materials.
• Asbestos-containing goods.
• Export-controlled dual-use technology, cryptographic products under export restrictions, military hardware.

1.13 Content violating public order

• Hate propaganda targeting an identifiable group by race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, or age.
• Terrorism promotion, glorification, or fundraising.
• Content that promotes or glorifies self-harm, suicide, or eating disorders.
• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM). This is reported immediately to Canada’s National Child Exploitation Crime Centre and the account is terminated without notice.

1.14 Occult, deceptive, and predatory services

• Psychic readings, fortune-telling, tarot, astrology, spell services, “curse removal”, and similar services sold as literal outcomes rather than entertainment.
• Ghost-writing academic assignments, essay-mill services.
• Impersonation services, fake-identity documents, fake diplomas, fake vaccination or health certificates.

1.15 Other

• Any category that Stripe, Cloudflare, or another material sub-processor prohibits. Prohibitions applied to us upstream are automatically applied to Merchants downstream.
• Any category StoreBaze reasonably determines poses undue legal, regulatory, financial, or reputational risk.

2. Prohibited conduct

You must not:

2.1 Abuse Platform resources.

• Consume Platform resources (bandwidth, CPU, storage, database, email volume) in a manner that materially exceeds normal expected use for your Plan or that impairs service for other Merchants.
• Use the Platform for cryptocurrency mining, distributed computing, torrenting, or other workloads unrelated to running an online store.
• Store personal files, backups, or archives unrelated to your Store’s operation.

2.2 Attack the Platform or its Merchants.

• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any account, system, or data.
• Probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Platform or any other Merchant’s Store without prior written authorization from StoreBaze.
• Interfere with the operation of the Platform through denial-of-service attacks, malformed input, or automation designed to disrupt.
• Introduce malware, viruses, worms, trojans, ransomware, spyware, or any harmful code.
• Scrape or harvest data from the Platform or from other Merchants’ Stores by automated means, except with prior written authorization or through officially documented APIs.

2.3 Circumvent technical controls.

• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or disassemble Platform code, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by law.
• Circumvent, disable, or interfere with security features, rate limits, quota limits, or Plan-tier limits.
• Register multiple accounts to circumvent Plan limits, trial limits, or a suspension.
• Use scripts or bots to perform actions on the merchant dashboard in a way that mimics manual use in order to bypass rate limits.

2.4 Deceive us or your Customers.

• Misrepresent your identity, your business, your location, or your products.
• Impersonate another person, business, or brand.
• List products you do not have the right, capacity, or intention to fulfil.
• Set prices, taxes, shipping charges, or refund policies in a way calculated to defraud Customers.
• Manipulate reviews on your own Store or elsewhere on the Platform.

2.5 Use the Platform for non-store purposes.

• Use your storename.storebaze.com subdomain or a custom domain hosted through StoreBaze for phishing, malware distribution, redirects to unrelated destinations, or non-e-commerce content.
• Use StoreBaze-provided email deliverability for non-transactional or non-marketing purposes beyond what a normal Store would send.

2.6 Violate someone else’s rights.

• Post, upload, or transmit Content that infringes another person’s intellectual-property, privacy, publicity, or contractual rights.
• Collect personal information about Customers beyond what is necessary for your Store, or use Customer information in a manner inconsistent with your own privacy policy or with the law of the Customer’s jurisdiction.
• Sell or share Customer email lists collected through your Store without the Customer’s consent.

3. Email and communications

Storefront transactional and marketing emails sent through Platform-provided infrastructure (currently Resend) must comply with:

3.1 Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL).

• Consent (express or implied under CASL) is required before sending commercial electronic messages.
• Every commercial email must include (a) sender identification, (b) sender contact information valid for at least 60 days, and (c) a clear and functional unsubscribe mechanism honoured within 10 business days.
• No misleading subject lines, sender names, or transmission data.
• Purchased or scraped email lists are prohibited.

3.2 The US CAN-SPAM Act

(for emails to US recipients) and equivalent laws in destination jurisdictions.

3.3 Platform-specific rules.

• Do not send emails at a volume materially exceeding your Store’s actual order volume without prior arrangement with StoreBaze; volumes that damage Platform sender reputation are grounds for suspension.
• Do not use Platform-provided email to send messages unrelated to your Store (personal correspondence, chain letters, political advocacy, unrelated newsletters).
• StoreBaze may throttle or block outbound email that generates spam complaints, hard-bounce rates, or reputational harm to shared sending infrastructure.

3.4 Cold outreach.

Cold email to prospects who have not opted in is generally not permitted through Platform email infrastructure. If you need cold outreach for B2B sales, use a dedicated third-party tool outside the Platform.

4. Content standards

4.1 Your Store’s public content (product titles, descriptions, images, pages, blogs) must not:

• contain hate speech, harassment, threats, or content directed at demeaning an identifiable group;
• contain sexually explicit imagery or copy;
• glorify violence, self-harm, or dangerous behaviour;
• contain images or descriptions of the categories prohibited in Section 1 in a manner that promotes them;
• deceive Customers about products, prices, shipping, or refunds.

4.2 You must obtain and retain the rights necessary to use every image, video, font, model release, and audio clip on your Store. On request, you must provide proof of licence.

5. Enforcement

5.1 Investigation. StoreBaze may investigate suspected AUP violations. During an investigation StoreBaze may access account metadata, Content, and logs to the extent reasonably necessary. StoreBaze respects Merchant confidentiality and limits access to personnel with a need-to-know.

5.2 Enforcement actions. Depending on the severity and history of the violation, StoreBaze may take one or more of the following actions:

• Warning — notice by email, dashboard banner, or both, with a reasonable time to cure.
• Content restriction — take down specific products, pages, or media items.
• Feature restriction — disable email sending, custom domains, checkout, or specific features while the account remains otherwise usable.
• Suspension — temporarily block access to the Platform. Storefront may be taken offline.
• Termination — permanent termination of the account under Terms of Service Section 14.3. On termination for AUP violation, no refund of pre-paid Fees is due.

5.3 Immediate action without warning. For high-severity violations, StoreBaze may take immediate action (suspension or termination) without prior warning. High-severity includes without limitation:

• CSAM;
• fraud, phishing, or malware distribution;
• attacks on the Platform, another Merchant, or a third party;
• sale of goods in Sections 1.1, 1.2 (cannabis, alcohol, controlled substances, tobacco, vape), 1.3 (weapons), 1.5 (gambling), 1.13 (public-order content), 1.14 (fraudulent services);
• any action creating imminent legal, financial, or reputational risk to StoreBaze;
• repeated prior violations of the same category.

5.4 Legal reporting. StoreBaze may report AUP violations to law enforcement, regulators, and (where appropriate) affected third parties. For CSAM, StoreBaze reports to Canada’s National Child Exploitation Crime Centre and preserves evidence as required by law.

5.5 No obligation to monitor. StoreBaze has no general obligation to monitor Merchant Content proactively, but reserves the right to review any Store at any time, particularly in response to complaints, third-party notices, or automated abuse signals.

5.6 Appeals. If your account is suspended or terminated under this AUP, you may appeal by emailing [email protected] within 30 days. Include your Merchant identifier, the enforcement action received, and the basis for appeal. StoreBaze will review in good faith but is not obligated to reverse an enforcement decision.

6. Reporting violations

If you believe another Merchant on the Platform is violating this AUP:

• General abuse, prohibited goods, spam, phishing, malware: email [email protected] with the offending URL (storename.storebaze.com or custom domain) and a description.
• Copyright infringement: follow the notice procedure in Terms of Service §8.8, email [email protected].
• CSAM: email [email protected] marked “URGENT — CSAM”; you may also report directly to Cybertip.ca (Canadian Centre for Child Protection).
• Security vulnerabilities in the Platform itself: email [email protected]. Do not exercise the vulnerability against another Merchant’s Store.

We investigate reports in good faith. False reports made to harass a competitor may themselves violate this AUP.

7. Changes to this AUP

StoreBaze may update this AUP from time to time. Material changes (including adding a new prohibited category) will be notified by email at least 30 days before the effective date. Non-material changes (clarifications, typos, examples) may be posted with an updated “Last updated” date at the top of this document.