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Tracehound

Legal

Acceptable Use Policy

Public information can still be used to hurt people. These are the rules that keep the Service on the right side of that line.

Effective November 11, 2026 · Tracehound

Why this policy exists

Tracehound finds public accounts tied to an identifier. That is useful for protecting people and powerful enough to hurt them. This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") sets the rules for using the Service and its results. It is part of our Terms of Service and applies to everyone, including demo users without an account. It applies equally to searches made through our API and to any other automated use.

The short version: have a legitimate reason, stay within the law, treat results as leads that need checking, and never use the Service against a person's safety or rights.

What the Service is for

Examples of legitimate use include:

  • investigations by licensed investigators, legal teams and compliance staff, within their legal authority;
  • fraud, scam and impersonation checks, and trust and safety work on your own platform;
  • protecting a brand, organization or its staff from impersonation and account squatting;
  • journalism, academic research and security research;
  • reviewing your own online presence, or that of someone who has asked you to help them.

No screening decisions (FCRA)

Tracehound is not a consumer reporting agency and its results are not consumer reports. You must not use the Service or its results, in whole or in part, as a factor in deciding a person's eligibility for:

  • employment, promotion, reassignment or retention, including contractors and volunteers;
  • housing, including tenant screening;
  • credit, loans or other financing;
  • insurance;
  • any other purpose covered by the Fair Credit Reporting Act or similar state or national laws.

No harm to people

You must not use the Service or its results to:

  • stalk, harass, threaten, intimidate, bully or shame anyone;
  • locate, contact or monitor a person who does not want contact with you, including a current or former partner;
  • publish or share a private individual's information to expose them or invite others to target them (doxxing);
  • discriminate against anyone based on race, ethnicity, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, age, nationality or any other protected characteristic;
  • infer or expose sensitive characteristics such as health, sexuality or political views;
  • target, identify or contact children;
  • blackmail, extort, defraud or impersonate anyone.

No data brokering

You must not:

  • build, enrich or maintain databases, dossiers or profiles of people from results, beyond what a specific, legitimate case requires;
  • sell, license, publish in bulk or otherwise redistribute results;
  • use results to send unsolicited marketing or to compile contact lists;
  • combine results with breached, leaked or stolen data;
  • try to circumvent an opt-out, for example by searching variations of a blocked identifier to reach the same person.

No technical abuse

You must not:

  • access the Service through bots, scrapers or scripts, except through our official API;
  • create multiple accounts, share accounts, or rotate IP addresses to get around search limits or demo limits;
  • probe, scan or test the security of the Service except as described in our vulnerability reporting guidelines on the security page;
  • interfere with, overload or disrupt the Service or the third-party sources it queries;
  • reverse engineer the Service, except where the law allows it;
  • use the Service to break the terms of a third-party site in a way that harms that site or its users.

Your responsibilities

  • Have a lawful basis. Know why you are searching and make sure the law allows it where you are.
  • Be proportionate. Search only what your purpose needs and stop when you have it.
  • Verify. Treat results as leads, not identity, and corroborate before acting on them.
  • Protect what you keep. Store exports securely and delete them when you no longer need them.
  • Follow your profession's rules. Licensing, editorial and ethical codes still apply when you use a tool.

Enforcement

We investigate reports of misuse and may review account activity, such as search volume and history metadata, when we do. Depending on the seriousness of a breach, we may warn you, limit features, suspend your account or close it permanently without refund, as set out in the Terms. Where the law requires it, or where we believe someone is at risk of serious harm, we may share relevant information with law enforcement.

We decide what counts as a breach of this policy, acting reasonably and in good faith. Not listing a specific behavior here does not make it acceptable.

Reporting misuse

If you believe someone is using Tracehound to harm you or someone else, email support@example.com with what happened and any details that help us identify the account involved. We read every report.

You can also stop searches for your identifiers right away on the opt-out page. If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services first.

Changes

We may update this policy to address new risks or legal requirements. The effective date at the top shows when it last changed. Material changes are announced as described in the Terms.