Acceptable Use Policy

Trade License HQ Effective Date: April 7, 2026

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") is published by Ritt & Royce, doing business as Ritt & Royce and Trade License HQ ("Trade License HQ," "we," "us," or "our"). It governs how you may and may not use the Trade License HQ platform and services. By using the Service, you agree to this AUP. Capitalized terms not defined herein have the meanings given to them in the Trade License HQ Terms of Service.

1. Overview

1.1 Part of the Terms of Service. This AUP is incorporated by reference into the Trade License HQ Terms of Service ("Terms"). It is a binding part of the agreement between you and Trade License HQ. In the event of a conflict between this AUP and the Terms, the Terms shall control.

1.2 Scope of Application. This AUP applies to all persons who access or use the Trade License HQ platform in any capacity, including:

Business owners, administrators, and project managers who hold Trade License HQ accounts;
Individual users operating as sub-users within an organizational account;
Subcontractors and other external parties who submit documents through the Guest Upload Portal, even without a registered account;
Any person who accesses or interacts with the Service in any other capacity.

1.3 Purpose. This AUP is intended to protect the integrity, security, and lawful operation of the Trade License HQ platform; to protect other users and third parties from harm; and to ensure the platform is used in a manner consistent with its intended purpose as a business compliance management tool.

1.4 Policy Updates. Trade License HQ reserves the right to update this AUP at any time. Material changes will be communicated in accordance with the Terms. Your continued use of the Service following any update constitutes your acceptance of the revised AUP.

2. Permitted Use

2.1 Intended Purpose. The Service is designed and intended for use by trade businesses and their personnel as a compliance document management and tracking tool. Permitted uses include:

(a) Licence and Certification Tracking: Entering, uploading, managing, and tracking employee-level compliance credentials, including OSHA safety cards, trade licences (electrical, plumbing, general contractor, and related disciplines), first aid and CPR certifications, and other government-issued or industry-recognized employee credentials, including their issuing authorities, document numbers, and expiry dates.

(b) Company-Level Compliance Management: Tracking company-wide compliance obligations, including general contractor licences, insurance certificates, bonding documents, business registrations, and other organizational credentials.

(c) Job-Site Permit Management: Creating and tracking permits associated with specific projects and job sites, including building permits, electrical permits, plumbing permits, and related government authorizations, including permit numbers, issuing jurisdictions, and expiry dates.

(d) Document Upload and Storage: Uploading legitimate, authentic business documents in supported file formats (PDF, JPG, PNG) to associate with tracked licences, certifications, permits, or employee records.

(e) Employee and Organizational Records Management: Maintaining records of employees, business units, and organizational structure as necessary to associate compliance credentials with the appropriate personnel and teams.

(f) Subcontractor Compliance Data Collection: Using the Guest Upload Portal to collect compliance documentation from subcontractors and external trade partners in connection with legitimate business relationships and project requirements.

(g) Report Generation and Data Export: Generating compliance status reports and exporting data via CSV or other available export formats for legitimate internal business use, regulatory documentation, or project management purposes.

(h) Use of AI-Assisted Features: Using any AI-assisted or automated processing features provided within the Service for their intended compliance management purposes, subject to the limitations and notices applicable to such features.

(i) Automated Reminder Configuration: Configuring automated expiry reminder notifications to alert designated users of upcoming compliance deadlines.

2.2 Business Use. The Service is intended for business use by trade industry professionals and their organizations. While individual sole proprietors operating a trade business may use the Service, the platform is not intended for personal, consumer, or non-commercial use.

3. Prohibited Conduct

The following conduct is expressly prohibited. Violations of any of these prohibitions may result in immediate suspension or termination of your account, removal of content, and reporting to relevant authorities, as further described in Section 7.

3.1 Fraudulent and Falsified Documents. You may not upload, submit, store, or manage through the Service any document that you know or have reason to believe is fraudulent, forged, falsified, materially altered, counterfeit, expired, or otherwise not an accurate representation of an authentic credential or authorization. This prohibition applies to all documents, including employee licences and certifications, company-level compliance documents, job-site permits, and subcontractor submissions. Using Trade License HQ to organize or appear to maintain falsified compliance records is a serious violation of this AUP and may constitute criminal fraud.

3.2 Misrepresentation of Compliance Status. You may not use the Service to misrepresent your organization's, an employee's, or a subcontractor's actual compliance status to any regulatory agency, licensing authority, client, general contractor, government entity, or any other party. This includes, without limitation:

(a) Generating, exporting, or presenting compliance reports that you know reflect inaccurate or falsified data;

(b) Using the platform to create a false appearance of compliance where actual licences, certifications, or permits have lapsed, been revoked, been suspended, or were never obtained;

3.3 Malicious Files and Code. You may not upload, transmit, or introduce through the Service any file, attachment, code, script, or other content that contains or is designed to deliver malware, viruses, Trojan horses, worms, ransomware, spyware, adware, or any other harmful, destructive, or malicious software or code.

3.4 Unauthorized Access Attempts. You may not attempt to access, view, modify, copy, or delete any data, records, or account belonging to another Trade License HQ user or organization, except as expressly authorized in writing by Trade License HQ. This includes:

(a) Attempting to guess, brute-force, steal, or otherwise obtain another user's login credentials;

(b) Exploiting session management, authentication, or authorization vulnerabilities to gain access to another account;

(c) Accessing any part of the platform's administrative interface, database, or back-end infrastructure that you are not expressly authorized to access.

3.5 Automated Bots, Scrapers, and Crawlers. You may not access or interact with the Service using automated scripts, bots, crawlers, or other automated tools that are designed to extract, copy, or harvest data from the platform, other than through any published API made available by Trade License HQ and used in strict accordance with Trade License HQ's API terms and rate limits. Automated tools used outside of authorized API access may be blocked without notice.

3.6 Reverse Engineering and Competitive Intelligence Gathering. You may not:

(a) Reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to derive the source code, underlying architecture, algorithms, or trade secrets of any portion of the Service;

(b) Copy, reproduce, or create derivative works based on any component of the Service;

(c) Use the Service to build a competing product, service, or platform, or to provide access to the platform's functionality to any third party for competitive purposes;

(d) Access the platform for the purpose of monitoring its performance, availability, or functionality for competitive benchmarking without Trade License HQ's prior written consent.

3.7 Misuse of AI and Automated Features. You may not use any AI-assisted or automated processing features of the Service for any of the following purposes:

(a) Attempting to manipulate, circumvent, or exploit any AI or automated feature's intended operational parameters through adversarial inputs, prompt injection, or similar techniques;

(b) Using AI-assisted features to generate, draft, or produce falsified compliance documentation, fraudulent licence applications, forged certification records, or any other document intended to deceive a regulatory authority, employer, client, or other party;

(c) Using AI-assisted features to generate statements, reports, or summaries intended to deceive a regulatory authority, licensing board, client, employer, insurer, or other party regarding actual compliance status;

(d) Attempting to extract, reproduce, or reverse engineer any proprietary aspect of any AI or automated feature's implementation;

(e) Using AI-assisted features to generate content unrelated to trade compliance management, or to generate content that is illegal, harmful, abusive, defamatory, or otherwise violates applicable law or these policies.

3.8 Subcontractor Portal Abuse. You may not:

(a) Submit documents through the Guest Upload Portal that you are not authorized to share, that belong to another person or organization without their consent, or that are fraudulent or falsified;

(b) Use a Guest Portal link for purposes other than the specific compliance document submission for which the link was issued;

(c) Share, redistribute, or publish a Guest Portal link with parties other than the specific intended recipient, or use a Guest Portal link received by another party to gain unauthorized access or submit unauthorized content;

(d) Use the Guest Portal to submit spam, unsolicited commercial materials, or content unrelated to legitimate trade compliance documentation.

3.9 Interference with Service Operation. You may not take any action that interferes with, disrupts, degrades, or places an unreasonable or disproportionate load on the Service's infrastructure, servers, networks, or database systems. This includes:

(a) Conducting denial-of-service or distributed denial-of-service attacks;

(b) Uploading an excessive number of files or records in bad faith for the purpose of degrading platform performance;

(c) Exploiting bugs, vulnerabilities, or errors in the platform in any way other than promptly reporting them to Trade License HQ through responsible disclosure at info@tradelicensehq.com.

3.10 Circumventing Plan Limits and Usage Restrictions. You may not attempt to circumvent the usage limits, feature restrictions, or storage limits associated with your subscription plan. This includes, without limitation, creating multiple accounts to obtain additional free tier access, manipulating data structures to exceed applicable limits, or exploiting system behaviors to access features available only at higher subscription tiers.

3.11 Unauthorized Resale and Sublicensing. You may not resell, sublicense, rent, lease, transfer, or otherwise provide access to the Service to any third party for commercial purposes without Trade License HQ's prior written consent. You may invite authorized sub-users within your organization in accordance with your plan's user limits, but you may not commercialize access to the platform.

3.12 Violation of Applicable Law. You may not use the Service in any manner that violates applicable federal, state, or local laws or regulations, including but not limited to:

(a) Laws and regulations governing professional licensing and trade certification;

(b) Privacy laws governing the collection, storage, and use of personal information about employees, subcontractors, or other individuals;

(d) Computer fraud and unauthorized computer access laws, including the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030);

(e) Laws governing electronic records and signatures;

(f) Export control laws and regulations;

(g) Anti-money laundering and financial crime laws.

3.13 Harassment and Harmful Conduct. You may not use the Service to harass, threaten, defame, or harm any individual or organization, or to engage in any conduct that is abusive, discriminatory, or harmful to others.

4. Document Upload Standards

4.1 Authenticity Requirement. All documents uploaded to the Service must be authentic, unaltered, and accurately represent the credential, permit, certification, or record they purport to be. Uploading altered, expired (without accurate status notation), or fabricated documents is a violation of this AUP and may constitute fraud.

4.2 File Size Limit. Individual uploaded files must not exceed sixteen (16) megabytes (16 MB) per file. Files exceeding this limit will be rejected by the platform.

4.3 Supported File Formats. The Service accepts documents in the following formats only: PDF (.pdf), JPEG/JPG (.jpg, .jpeg), and PNG (.png). Uploads in unsupported formats will be rejected. Do not attempt to circumvent file format restrictions by renaming files with a supported extension.

4.4 Relevance Requirement. Uploaded files must be relevant to legitimate trade compliance management purposes — specifically, documents that evidence the existence, validity, or status of a licence, certification, permit, insurance policy, or other compliance-related credential. Uploading irrelevant, personal, or unrelated content to the platform is prohibited.

4.5 Right to Reject or Remove Files. Trade License HQ reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to reject files during upload or to remove previously uploaded files that we reasonably believe violate this AUP, applicable law, or our Terms. We are not obligated to review all uploaded files but may do so in connection with abuse investigations or regulatory compliance.

4.6 No Sensitive Personal Data Beyond Business Records. While the Service stores basic employee identifying information (name, title, business unit) and certification data, you should avoid uploading documents that contain sensitive personal data not necessary for compliance tracking purposes, such as employee social security numbers, financial account information, or medical information, unless such inclusion is inherent to a specific required compliance document (e.g., certain government-issued identification documents). Even where inclusion is inherent, you are responsible for ensuring that collection and storage of such data complies with applicable privacy law.

5. Subcontractor Portal Use

5.1 Authorized Submissions Only. Subcontractors and other Guest Users who access the Guest Upload Portal must only submit documents that they are personally authorized to share and that are directly relevant to the compliance documentation requested by the Inviting Organization. You represent and warrant that any document you submit through the Guest Portal is authentic, unaltered, and that you have the right to share it.

5.2 Intended Recipient Only. Guest Portal links are issued for a specific subcontractor or external party and for a specific compliance documentation purpose. Guest Users may not share their Guest Portal link with other parties or use a Guest Portal link received by another party.

5.3 No Account Created; Terms Still Apply. Even though Guest Users do not create a Trade License HQ account to submit through the Guest Portal, all Guest Users are bound by these Terms and this AUP with respect to their Guest Portal activity. Submission of documents through the Guest Portal constitutes acceptance of these terms.

5.4 Inviting Organization Responsibilities. The Inviting Organization that issues a Guest Portal link is responsible for:

(a) Ensuring that Guest Portal links are distributed only to the intended, specific subcontractor or external party for whom the link was issued;

(b) Revoking Guest Portal links promptly when they are no longer needed or when the business relationship has changed;

(c) Ensuring that the collection of compliance documentation from subcontractors through the Guest Portal complies with all applicable privacy, employment, and contracting laws;

(d) Not misusing subcontractor-submitted documents beyond the legitimate compliance management purposes for which they were collected.

5.5 No Spam or Unsolicited Submissions. The Guest Portal may not be used to submit unsolicited, irrelevant, or spam content. Any Guest Portal link misused in this manner will be revoked, and the responsible party may be reported to Trade License HQ.

6. AI and Automated Processing

6.1 General Notice. Trade License HQ does not currently offer any artificial intelligence (AI)-powered features directly to users through the platform interface. However, Ritt & Royce d/b/a Trade License HQ reserves the right to use AI tools, automated processing systems, or machine learning technologies internally in connection with the processing, review, analysis, storage, or management of data and materials submitted to or through the Service. Such use may include, but is not limited to, internal document review, data quality analysis, system operations, or service improvement activities.

Additionally, we may introduce AI-powered features accessible to users in the future. If and when such features are introduced, we will update these policies and provide appropriate notice.

By using the Service, you acknowledge and consent to the potential use of AI and automated tools in the internal processing of your data and materials as described above. We do not guarantee the accuracy of any AI-generated or automated output. You are solely responsible for reviewing and verifying all results produced by the Service.

6.2 Permitted AI Feature Use. Where AI-assisted or automated features are made available within the Service, you may use them only for their intended compliance management purposes and subject to all other provisions of this AUP and the Terms of Service.

6.3 Prohibited Conduct. The prohibited conduct described in Section 3.7 applies to all AI-assisted and automated features of the Service.

6.4 Output Verification. You are solely responsible for reviewing and independently verifying any output produced by AI-assisted or automated features before relying on it for any compliance decision, regulatory submission, or business purpose. AI-generated or automated outputs are provided for informational and organizational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice, a compliance certification, or a guarantee of accuracy.

7. Enforcement

7.1 Investigation. Trade License HQ reserves the right to investigate suspected violations of this AUP. We may review, access, and disclose information about your account and activity as necessary to investigate a suspected violation, comply with applicable law, or protect the rights and safety of Trade License HQ, our users, or the public.

7.2 Enforcement Actions. In response to a violation or suspected violation of this AUP, Trade License HQ may, in its sole discretion and without prior notice, take any one or more of the following actions:

(a) Warning: Issue a formal written warning to the account administrator regarding the violation, requiring remediation within a specified period.

(b) Content Removal: Remove, disable, or quarantine any content, file, record, or data that we reasonably believe violates this AUP, applicable law, or the Terms.

(c) Feature Restriction: Temporarily or permanently restrict access to specific features of the Service, including the Guest Portal, any AI-assisted or automated features, or bulk upload functionality.

(d) Account Suspension: Temporarily suspend your account and all associated access pending investigation or remediation.

(e) Account Termination: Permanently terminate your account and all associated access to the Service, with or without notice, depending on the severity of the violation.

(f) Reporting to Authorities: For violations that constitute or appear to constitute fraudulent, criminal, or otherwise illegal conduct — including but not limited to the uploading or management of fraudulent licensing documents, identity theft, computer fraud, or abuse — Trade License HQ may report the violation to relevant law enforcement authorities, regulatory agencies, or licensing boards, and may cooperate fully with any resulting official investigation.

7.3 Severity-Based Response. The enforcement action taken will reflect the nature and severity of the violation:

Minor violations (e.g., uploading an unsupported file type, minor misuse of a feature) will typically result in a warning and an opportunity to correct the issue.
Serious violations (e.g., circumventing plan limits, repeated minor violations after warning, unauthorized access attempts) may result in suspension pending remediation or account termination.
Egregious violations (e.g., uploading fraudulent or forged compliance documents, using the platform to facilitate regulatory fraud, malicious code uploads, criminal conduct) will result in immediate account termination without notice and may result in referral to law enforcement.

7.4 No Obligation to Monitor. Trade License HQ is not obligated to monitor user content or activity on the platform and assumes no liability for failing to detect or act upon any particular AUP violation. However, we reserve the right to monitor at any time in our sole discretion.

7.5 No Liability for Enforcement Actions. Trade License HQ shall not be liable to you or any third party for any enforcement action taken in good faith pursuant to this Section, including the removal of content, suspension of accounts, or termination of service.

7.6 Appeals. If you believe an enforcement action was taken in error, you may contact Trade License HQ at info@tradelicensehq.com to request a review. Include a detailed explanation of your position and any supporting evidence. Trade License HQ will review appeals in good faith but retains sole discretion over all enforcement decisions.

8. Reporting Violations

8.1 How to Report. If you observe conduct by another user, Guest User, or any other person that you believe violates this AUP or may be fraudulent or illegal in nature, we encourage you to report it promptly to:

Trade License HQ — Policy Violations Email: info@tradelicensehq.com Subject line: "AUP Violation Report"

8.2 What to Include. When reporting a violation, please include as much of the following information as possible:

A description of the conduct or content you believe is in violation;
The date and time you observed the conduct or content;
Any relevant account identifiers, project names, or document information that would help us locate the relevant content;
Your contact information so we may follow up with you if needed.

8.3 No Retaliation. Trade License HQ prohibits retaliation against any user who in good faith reports a suspected AUP violation. If you experience retaliation after making a report, please notify Trade License HQ immediately at info@tradelicensehq.com.

8.4 Good Faith Reporting. Reports must be made in good faith based on a genuine belief that a violation has occurred. Filing false, malicious, or bad-faith reports is itself a violation of this AUP and may result in enforcement action against the reporting party.

8.5 No Obligation to Investigate. Trade License HQ will review all reports made in good faith but is not obligated to investigate every report or to take any particular enforcement action in response to a report. We appreciate user assistance in maintaining a trustworthy platform.

Contact

For questions about this Acceptable Use Policy or to report a violation:

Trade License HQ Ritt & Royce Michigan, United States Email: info@tradelicensehq.com

This Acceptable Use Policy was last updated and is effective as of May 1, 2026.

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