Frenemy Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (the “Agreement”) are between Solvitur Studio LLC (“Provider,” “we”), the operator of the Frenemy service, and the customer accepting them (“Customer,” “you”). You accept this Agreement by checking the acceptance box at signup; we record the version you accepted and when.

This Agreement incorporates by reference the Common Paper Cloud Service Agreement Standard Terms, Version 2.1 (the “Standard Terms”). Where this document and the Standard Terms conflict, this document controls. Capitalized terms not defined here have the meanings in the Standard Terms.

1. Definitions

• Agent — an automated software visitor to a website, including search crawlers, AI training crawlers, and AI agents acting on behalf of a human user.
• Classification — the Service’s determination of whether a visitor is an Agent and, if so, of its type. Classification is heuristic and probabilistic.
• Verdict — the action the Service applies to a visitor per Customer configuration: observe, block, throttle, or charge.
• Observe Mode — operation in which Verdicts are logged but not enforced.
• Enforce Mode — operation in which Verdicts are enforced in the request path (blocking, throttling, or charging live traffic).
• Ledger — the Service’s record and reporting of the estimated cost and value of machine traffic.
• Visitor Data — data the Service processes about visitors to Customer’s website, principally IP addresses and user-agent strings.

2. The Service

The Service identifies and classifies automated visitors to Customer’s website, applies the per-Agent Verdicts that Customer configures, and reports estimated financial outcomes of machine traffic through the Ledger. Enforcement of Verdicts requires the Service to operate in the request path as server-side middleware or an equivalent adapter.

The Service is an analytics and traffic-management tool. It is not a security product: it does not detect adversarial or malicious bots, defend against attacks, or measure advertising click fraud.

3. Early access

The Service is provided on an early-access basis. Provider may add, change, suspend, or discontinue features at any time. The Service is provided “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE,” without any service-level commitment. Feedback you provide may be used by Provider without restriction or obligation.

4. Customer responsibilities & configuration

• Customer controls the Verdicts. Customer configures the policies and Verdicts applied to its traffic. The Service executes Customer’s configuration; Provider does not select, review, or approve Customer’s policy choices.
• Customer bears the consequences of its configuration, including any effect of block, throttle, or charge on its own visitors, customers, revenue, or search-engine treatment.
• Enforcement is opt-in and should be validated first. Enforce Mode is disabled by default. Customer acknowledges that it should evaluate Classifications in Observe Mode (including dry-run previews) before enabling Enforce Mode, and that enabling Enforce Mode is done at Customer’s own risk.
• Customer’s own compliance. Customer is responsible for ensuring that its blocking, throttling, or charging of traffic complies with Customer’s own legal and contractual obligations.
• Controller obligations. As between the parties, Customer is the controller of Visitor Data and is responsible for the lawful basis for its collection and processing (see Section 6).

5. Fees & payment

Plans and prices are as published on the pricing page at the time of purchase; billing is handled by our payment processor, and subscriptions renew until cancelled (self-serve, effective at the end of the paid period). Standard Terms mechanics apply to invoicing, taxes, and non-payment.

Every plan begins with a 14-day free trial, so you can evaluate the Service before you are charged. You may cancel at any time from your billing settings; cancellation stops future charges and takes effect at the end of your current paid period. We do not refund fees for a period that has already begun. If you believe you were charged in error, contact support@frenemy.dev and we will make it right.

A charge Verdict is a gating response (HTTP 402 Payment Required) that withholds content unless access terms are met. Frenemy does not collect, hold, or transfer money between Customer and any Agent or Agent operator.

6. Data, privacy & security

• Roles. For Visitor Data, Customer is the controller and Provider is the processor. Provider processes Visitor Data only to provide the Service.
• DPA. A Data Processing Agreement is available on request and governs Provider’s processing of personal data on Customer’s behalf. The current subprocessor list is published in the Privacy Policy.
• Data minimization. The Service strips advertising click identifiers (click IDs) at ingest and does not retain them, and never stores raw visitor IP addresses (see the Privacy Policy for the mechanism).
• Security. Provider uses commercially reasonable security measures. No specific security certification or standard is warranted during early access.

7. Warranties & disclaimers

The Service is provided “AS IS.” To the maximum extent permitted by law, Provider disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. Without limiting that general disclaimer, Provider specifically does not warrant:

• (a) Accurate Classification. Classification is heuristic and probabilistic. False positives and false negatives will occur. Provider does not warrant that any particular visitor is correctly classified, that legitimate traffic — including search-engine crawlers such as Googlebot — will never be blocked, throttled, or charged, or that any particular Agent will be detected.
• (b) Availability. In Enforce Mode the Service operates in Customer’s request path. Provider does not warrant uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free operation, and provides no service-level or uptime commitment. Support response goals (such as replying within one business day) are goals, not commitments.
• (c) Ledger accuracy. Ledger figures are good-faith estimates of the cost and value of machine traffic. They are not audited or accounting-grade and must not be relied upon for financial reporting, tax, or similar purposes.
• (d) Outcomes. Provider does not warrant any particular result, including cost savings, revenue, protection of search ranking or visibility, or reduction of unwanted traffic.
• (e) Scope. The Service is not represented to detect adversarial or malicious bots or to measure advertising click fraud, and no such capability is warranted.

8. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Provider will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or exemplary damages — including in particular lost revenue or profits, lost or blocked traffic, loss of search-engine ranking or visibility, and lost sales — whether arising from misclassification, from enforcement of any Verdict, or from unavailability of the Service, and regardless of the theory of liability.

Provider's aggregate liability is capped at the fees Customer paid in the 12 months before the claim arose or, for accounts that have paid no fees (including trials), fifty US dollars ($50).

9. Indemnification

Standard Terms indemnification mechanics apply. In addition, Customer will defend and indemnify Provider against third-party claims arising from Customer’s own policy configuration and use — its blocking, throttling, or charging decisions — since Provider does not control those choices.

10. Ownership & usage data

Provider owns the Service; Customer owns its data. Customer grants Provider a license to use aggregated, de-identified usage data to operate and improve the Service, including the shared bot registry and published aggregate research (the Frenemy Report). Aggregates are never sold and never attributable to any individual site.

11. Term, termination & removal

Standard Terms mechanics govern term, renewal, termination for cause, and suspension. Because the Service sits in Customer’s request path, on termination Customer is responsible for removing the Frenemy middleware or adapter from its systems — it runs in Customer’s own infrastructure and can be removed by Customer at any time, without Provider’s involvement. Provider has no liability for effects of Customer’s continued use of the integration after termination.

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. For material changes we will provide notice and, where required, ask you to re-accept; the version and effective date above always identify the current terms.

13. General

This Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of California, with exclusive venue in the state and federal courts located in California. Notices to Provider go to support@frenemy.dev; notices to Customer go to the account email. Together with the Standard Terms and your plan selection, this Agreement is the entire agreement between the parties.

Portions of this Agreement incorporate the Common Paper Cloud Service Agreement Standard Terms v2.1, used under CC BY 4.0.