Acceptable Use Policy

The Third Connection is operated by RELAYLANE LABS LTD (company number 17162321), registered office: Lavender Cottage Hazelden Farm, Marden Road, Cranbrook, England, TN17 2LP, trading as "The Third Connection".

1. Purpose and scope

This policy governs technical and platform misuse of The Third Connection — how you may and may not interact with our app, website, APIs and infrastructure.

It works alongside our Community Guidelines (04-community-guidelines.md), which govern behaviour and content (harassment, prohibited content, photo rules, conduct at events). If conduct breaches both documents, we may act under either or both. Nothing in this policy limits rights you have under law that cannot be excluded.

By using the service you agree to this policy.

2. Prohibited technical use

You must not, and must not attempt to, do any of the following.

2.1 Scraping and data harvesting

• Access, collect or extract data from the service by automated means (scraping, crawling, harvesting), including other users' profiles, photos or messages.
• Compile databases of users or their information, whether for commercial use or otherwise.

2.2 Automation and inauthentic use

• Operate bots, scripts or other automated agents against the app, website or APIs.
• Automate account creation, messaging, matching actions, ticket purchase, or reporting.
• Use the service through unofficial clients or modified versions of the app.

2.3 Security probing and interference

• Probe, scan or test the vulnerability of the service, or breach or circumvent any security or authentication measure (including passkey authentication and session controls), without our prior written permission.
• Introduce malware, or interfere with the service's operation — including denial-of-service attacks, flooding, or deliberately circumventing rate limits.
• Access accounts, data or systems you are not authorised to access.
• Reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble any part of the service, except to the extent such a restriction is prohibited by applicable law.

If you believe you have found a security vulnerability, please report it responsibly to safety@thethirdconnection.com (mark your message "Security") rather than exploiting or publicising it.

2.4 Ban evasion and multiple accounts

• Create or use more than one account per person.
• Create a new account, or use another person's account, to evade a restriction, ban, block, or other enforcement action.
• Buy, sell, rent, share or transfer accounts or account credentials.
• Circumvent a block another user has applied to you (for example by contacting them through another account or off-platform using information obtained on the service).

2.5 Commercial solicitation

• Use the service to advertise, promote or sell goods or services, recruit for other platforms or events, solicit donations or investments, or conduct market research, unless we have agreed it in writing.
• Resell or transfer event tickets except as expressly permitted by our ticketing terms.

2.6 Misuse of platform mechanisms

• Submit knowingly false or bad-faith safety reports, or coordinate mass reporting of a user.
• Misuse ticketing, check-in or promotional mechanisms (for example forging or duplicating ticket QR codes, or abusing promotional codes).
• Interfere with moderation, or attempt to deceive or socially engineer our staff or event hosts.

3. Relationship with the Community Guidelines

• This policy covers how you use the platform (automation, security, accounts, commercial misuse).
• The Community Guidelines cover what you do and post (conduct, content, photos, behaviour at events).

A single incident can breach both — for example, using a second account to continue harassing someone who blocked you breaches sections 2.4 of this policy and section 4.1 of the Community Guidelines. Enforcement history is considered across both documents together.

4. Enforcement

Breaches of this policy are handled under the same enforcement ladder as the Community Guidelines (warning → content removal → account restriction → permanent ban), as described in 04-community-guidelines.md section 7 and 08-moderation-appeals.md.

In addition, for technical misuse we may:

• revoke sessions and restrict account standing immediately where necessary to protect the service or other users;
• block network access, tokens or devices associated with the misuse;
• cancel tickets obtained through misuse (subject to your statutory rights);
• report unlawful activity — including offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and fraud — to law enforcement, and pursue legal remedies.

Ban evasion accounts are removed when identified, without a fresh warning cycle.

Appeals against enforcement decisions are handled under 08-moderation-appeals.md.

5. Changes to this policy

We review this policy at least every 12 months and will publish updated versions with a revised "Last updated" date. Material changes will be notified in the app or by email.

6. Contact

• Support, complaints and appeals: support@thethirdconnection.com.
• Safety reports and security/vulnerability reports: safety@thethirdconnection.com (or in the app, or at www.thethirdconnection.com/report).
• Data rights: privacy@thethirdconnection.com.