Acceptable Use Policy

About this policy#

This Acceptable Use Policy is part of the Terms of Service between you and Altius Web Solutions LLC (“Merkora”, “we”, “us”). Words defined in the Terms mean the same thing here: the “Services” are the Merkora platform, a “Store” is a store you run on it, and “Shoppers” are the people who visit or buy from your Store.

This policy applies to everything connected with your account: your Stores, the products and content in them, the code, scripts, apps and themes you add, the messages you send through the Services, and everyone you give access to. You are responsible for making sure your staff and contractors follow it.

The lists below are examples and are not complete. If something is harmful or unlawful in a way similar to what is listed, it is not allowed either. If you are not sure whether something is allowed, ask us at info@altiusapps.com before you do it.

Prohibited conduct#

You may not use the Services, or let anyone else use them, to do any of the following.

Illegal and harmful activity#

Break any law or regulation that applies to you, your products, your Shoppers, or the places you sell and ship to.
Threaten, harass, stalk or bully anyone, or encourage violence against any person or group.
Promote hatred or discrimination against people because of their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age or veteran status.
Exploit or endanger children in any way.
Promote or support terrorism, violent extremism, self-harm or suicide.
Publish someone's private information or intimate images without their consent.

Fraud and deception#

Take payment for goods or services that you do not intend to deliver or are not able to deliver.
Make false or misleading statements about a product, its price, origin, availability, results, or who endorses it.
Use fake discounts, fake countdown timers, fake stock warnings or other invented urgency.
Pretend to be another person, business or government body, or suggest a connection that does not exist.
Post fake reviews, pay for reviews without disclosing it, or hide honest negative reviews in a way that misleads Shoppers.
Add hidden charges, or bill Shoppers on a recurring basis without their clear consent and a simple way to cancel.
Take payments for another business, or for sales that did not happen in your Store.
Test stolen payment cards, or use the Services to launder money.
Give false information to us or to a payment processor.

Other people's rights#

Infringe anyone's copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret or right of publicity. This covers product listings, images, text, fonts, themes and code. See our Copyright Policy.
Collect, use or share personal information in a way that breaks privacy law or your own privacy policy.
Use another merchant's content, branding or store design without permission.

Security and abuse of the platform#

Upload, host or spread malware, spyware, or any code meant to damage, take over or secretly monitor a device or system.
Run phishing: pages, emails, forms or pop-ups that trick people into giving up passwords, payment details or personal information.
Probe, scan or test the Services for weaknesses without our written permission, or get around sign-in, access controls or security measures.
Access another merchant's Store, account or data without permission.
Overload or disrupt the Services, for example with denial-of-service attacks or excessive automated requests.
Scrape, crawl or copy other Stores, other merchants' data or Shoppers' data. Ordinary indexing of public pages by search engines is fine.
Get around plan limits, rate limits, usage caps or technical restrictions, including the limits we place on merchant code on checkout and account pages.
Open a new account or Store to get around a suspension or termination.
Use the Services mainly to store files, deliver content, redirect traffic or build link farms instead of running a real store.
Resell or rent out access to the Services. Giving access to staff and contractors who work on your own Store is fine.
Mine cryptocurrency or run other workloads that have nothing to do with your Store.

Spam and unwanted messages#

Send marketing emails, text messages or other messages to people who have not given the consent the law requires, or who have unsubscribed.
Use bought, rented, shared or scraped contact lists.
Use false or misleading sender names, subject lines or headers, or leave out an unsubscribe link or postal address where the law requires one.
Try to get around the unsubscribe and suppression controls in the Services, for example by adding back people who opted out.
Send messages that could get Merkora's sending domains or addresses blocked.

Unlawful tracking#

Tracking Shoppers in ways the law does not allow is prohibited. You choose which analytics, advertising and other tracking tools run in your Store, so you are responsible for making sure they run lawfully. You may not:

Collect, use, sell or share Shoppers' personal information without the notice and consent that the law requires where the Shopper is located.
Load advertising or analytics tags, pixels or cookies before a Shopper has consented where consent is required, or after the Shopper has declined or withdrawn consent.
Ignore an opt-out. This includes a “do not sell or share” request and a browser's Global Privacy Control signal.
Use fingerprinting, restored cookies, matched identifiers or any other technique to keep tracking a Shopper who opted out, or to get around the consent banner and privacy controls in the Services.
Send health information or other sensitive information about a Shopper to an advertising platform, data broker or similar company. Sensitive information includes anything that reveals a person's health, sex life or sexual orientation, precise location, race or ethnic origin, religion, immigration status or financial account details, and any information about children.
Record Shoppers' keystrokes, sessions or conversations without the notice and consent the law requires.
Knowingly collect personal information from children without the parental consent the law requires.
Set up consent tools so that they say one thing while your Store does another.

The Services include a consent banner and related privacy controls. They help, but using them does not by itself make your tracking lawful. See Tracking and consent in the Terms and our Cookie Policy.

Payment data and credentials#

No code in your Store may capture, copy or send out payment data or sign-in credentials. You may not add or allow any script, app, theme code, form or other tool that:

reads, records or intercepts card numbers, security codes, bank details or other payment credentials;
collects passwords, sign-in codes, session cookies or access tokens that belong to Shoppers, staff or anyone else;
imitates, covers or changes a checkout, sign-in or payment page in order to collect any of that information, or sends Shoppers to a fake one; or
sends any of that information to you or to anyone else.

Do not ask Shoppers to send card details by email, chat, contact form or order note, and do not store card details in any part of the Services that was not built to hold them.

We treat this as one of the most serious violations of this policy. We may disable the code and suspend the Store immediately and without warning, and we may report what we find to the payment processor, the card networks and law enforcement.

Prohibited goods and services#

You may never list, sell or promote the following through the Services, even if they are legal where you are.

Illegal drugs. Illegal drugs and other controlled substances, and products sold to imitate their effects.
Drug paraphernalia. Equipment marketed for making, hiding or using illegal drugs.
Unlicensed prescription products. Prescription medicines and prescription-only devices sold without the licenses and prescription checks the law requires. Licensed sellers need our approval first: see Restricted goods.
Weapons. Firearms, firearm parts and accessories, files or kits for making firearms, ammunition, explosives, fireworks, and other weapons such as stun guns, brass knuckles and knives that are illegal to sell or carry. Ordinary kitchen knives, tools and sporting goods are not weapons for this purpose.
Counterfeit and stolen goods. Counterfeit, replica or unauthorized copies of branded goods, goods that infringe someone's intellectual property, stolen goods, and goods with serial numbers removed or altered.
Child sexual abuse material. Any content that sexually exploits or sexualizes minors, whether photographed, drawn, animated or computer-generated. We report apparent child sexual abuse material to the authorities as the law requires.
Human trafficking and exploitation. Anything that involves or promotes human trafficking, forced labor, the sale of sexual services, or the sale of human organs or body parts.
Violence and hate. Items or content that promote, glorify or incite violence, or that promote hatred against people because of who they are, including merchandise for hate groups or violent organizations.
Pyramid schemes. Pyramid and Ponzi schemes, “get rich quick” offers, and programs where the reward comes mainly from recruiting others.
Tools for crime. Stolen or unlawfully obtained data, account credentials or card numbers; hacking tools, malware and stalkerware; fake IDs and forged documents; counterfeit money; and fake reviews, followers or engagement.
Unsafe products. Recalled products, products banned by a safety regulator, and hazardous materials that cannot lawfully be shipped.
Protected wildlife. Products made from endangered or protected species.
Anything illegal where it is sold or shipped. Any product or service that is illegal where you are based, where the Shopper is, or where the item is shipped to or from.

Restricted goods and services#

The categories in this section need our written approval before you list them. They are allowed only if all three of these are true: we have approved them in writing, you keep meeting the conditions below and any others we set, and your payment processor accepts them.

How approval works#

Email info@altiusapps.com before you list a restricted product. Tell us which Store it is for, what you plan to sell, where you will sell and ship it, which licenses and registrations you hold, and how you will check Shoppers' ages where that is required. We may ask for more information.

Approval is at our discretion. We may refuse it, attach conditions to it, or limit it to certain products or places.
Approval covers only the products and places you described. Ask again before you add to them.
We may withdraw approval if the law changes, if your payment processor objects, if you stop meeting the conditions, or if the products create risk for Shoppers or for Merkora.
Until you have our approval in writing, do not list the product.
Approval is not legal advice and does not mean that your products or your marketing are lawful. That remains your responsibility.

Restricted categories and their conditions#

Nicotine and vaping products. Tobacco, e-cigarettes, e-liquids, nicotine pouches and similar products. You must hold every license and registration required, verify the buyer's age at purchase and at delivery where the law requires it, follow the shipping, carrier and flavor rules of every place you ship to, collect and pay any excise taxes, and never market to minors.
Alcohol. You must hold the licenses and permits required for each place you sell and ship to, verify the buyer's age at purchase and at delivery, and ship only where it is lawful and only with carriers that allow it.
Hemp and CBD. Only hemp-derived products whose THC content is within the legal limit, both federally and in every place you sell or ship to. You must provide lab test results when we ask, make no claim that a product diagnoses, treats, cures or prevents any disease or condition, and follow the rules for food, drink and inhaled products where you sell them. Your payment processor must approve these products separately. Marijuana and other cannabis products above the legal THC limit for hemp are not allowed.
Dietary supplements. You may not claim that a supplement diagnoses, treats, cures or prevents any disease. You must have reliable scientific evidence for every health, performance or weight-loss claim before you make it, and show it to us when we ask. Products may not contain ingredients that a regulator has banned or declared unsafe, and must follow labeling rules. Testimonials must be genuine and must not suggest results that buyers will not typically get.
Adult content and products. Sexually explicit content and adult products must be lawful where they are sold. Everyone shown must be an adult who consented, and you must keep the records the law requires. Explicit images must sit behind an age confirmation and must not appear in ads, product feeds or emails sent to people who have not asked for them. Content involving minors or anyone who did not consent is never allowed.
Other regulated products and services. Anything that needs a license, registration, prescription or age check to sell, or that a regulator restricts. Examples include prescription medicines and devices sold by a licensed pharmacy, over-the-counter medicines and medical devices, peptides and other compounds sold for research use, gambling and paid-entry prize draws, and financial, investment or cryptocurrency products.

Your payment processor's rules also apply#

The payment processor you use with your Store, including Convesio Pay where it is enabled, has its own list of prohibited and restricted businesses and its own review of your account. That list applies in addition to this policy and may be stricter. The processor makes its own decision. Our approval does not bind it, and we cannot overrule it. If the processor declines a product or category, you cannot take payments for it through that processor.

Some products say something about a person's health just by being viewed or bought. Examples include products for fertility, pregnancy, menopause, sexual health, weight loss, sleep, anxiety or other mental health needs, and products for a specific medical condition.

You must turn on the “Sensitive (health-related)” setting for every product that points to a health condition. You will find it on the product's page in your Store admin. The setting is designed to keep that product's name, category and page out of the information the Services send to advertising and analytics partners, even when a Shopper has accepted cookies.

You must not work around the setting. Do not send information about Shoppers viewing or buying these products to advertising platforms by any other route, including your own scripts and pixels, server-side integrations, connected apps, or uploaded customer lists.

If you are not sure whether a product is health-related, treat it as if it is. You remain responsible for following the health privacy laws that apply to your Store. Some of them require a separate consent and a separate health data privacy notice.

Reporting abuse#

To report a Store or content that you believe breaks this policy, email info@altiusapps.com. Include the Store's web address, the exact pages or products involved, what you believe is wrong, and any evidence you have.

For copyright, trademark and other intellectual property complaints, follow our Copyright Policy.
To report a security weakness in the Services, write to the same address, and please give us a reasonable chance to fix it before you tell anyone else.
If you are a Shopper with a problem with an order, contact the Store first. The Store is the seller, not Merkora.

We review the reports we receive. We may not be able to reply to every report or tell you what action we took.

How we enforce this policy#

We do not review Stores, content or code before they go live, and we have no obligation to monitor them. We may investigate when we learn of a possible violation, and you agree to cooperate and give us the information we reasonably ask for.

Depending on how serious the problem is, we may take one or more of these steps:

warn you and ask you to fix the problem by a deadline;
remove, hide or disable content or products;
disable or remove scripts, apps, theme code or integrations;
limit features, such as checkout or email sending;
refuse or withdraw approval for restricted goods;
suspend the Store by taking its storefront offline;
terminate your account; and
report the matter to law enforcement, regulators, the payment processor or affected people where the law requires it or where we believe it is needed to prevent harm.

We try to give you notice and a chance to fix the problem first. We may act immediately and without notice when there is a risk of harm to Shoppers, to other people or to the Services, when the activity is illegal, when the violation is repeated, or when the law requires it. We decide which step fits. Choosing not to act in one case does not give up our right to act later.

The Terms of Service explain what suspension and termination mean for your Store, your data and your fees. If you believe we made a mistake, reply to our notice or email us and we will review it.

Changes to this policy#

We may update this policy as the law, our payment partners' rules and the risks we see change. We give notice of material changes in the way described in the Terms of Service.