Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") sets out what is and is not permitted when using the Lotus platform. It applies to every user of every company on Lotus — sellers, company admins, and super admins — and to the auctions and communications they run through the Service.

You must not list, auction, or solicit bids for:

• Goods or services prohibited by the laws of Egypt or the laws of any country in which a buyer participates.
• Weapons, ammunition, explosives, or military equipment.
• Controlled substances, narcotics, prescription medication, or unregistered medical devices.
• Counterfeit goods or items that infringe intellectual property rights.
• Live animals (other than livestock auctions where this is a permitted commercial activity in your jurisdiction), human remains, or human body parts.
• Stolen property, or goods that lack lawful provenance.
• Adult content, hateful content, or any goods or media glorifying violence.

You must not:

• Misrepresent the nature, condition, provenance, or quantity of an auctioned good.
• Place fictitious bids ("shill bidding") on your own auctions.
• Coordinate with other sellers to manipulate bidding outcomes.
• Use the platform to facilitate money laundering, tax evasion, or sanctions circumvention.
• Share a single user account between multiple individuals, or transfer credentials to a third party.
• Bypass the platform to settle auctions off-channel in a manner that breaks the audit trail when the platform requires it for compliance.

When messaging buyers via the platform:

• You may only contact buyers in connection with auctions they are invited to or have engaged with.
• A message that promotes goods or services to a buyer, which may include an invitation to a sale, is electronic direct marketing under Articles 17 and 18 of the Personal Data Protection Law (Law No. 151 of 2020). Before sending it you must have the data subject's explicit consent to receive marketing communications, and each such message must state your identity as the sender and give the buyer a clear way to withdraw that consent (Section 4 of the Terms of Service).
• You must honour a buyer's withdrawal of consent or request to be removed from your invite list — promptly mark them inactive in Lotus.
• You must not use the WhatsApp channel for unrelated marketing, harassment, or unsolicited communication.
• You must comply with Meta's WhatsApp Business Messaging Policy in addition to this AUP.

Buyer information belongs to your company within Lotus but must be used only for legitimate auction-related communication. You must not export buyer data to use it outside the platform in violation of the buyer's reasonable expectations, nor share it with others without resting that processing on one of the cases in Article 6 of the Personal Data Protection Law.

You must not attempt to: scrape data from the platform via automation; reverse-engineer, decompile, or probe the Service for vulnerabilities outside an authorised security review; interfere with the operation of the WhatsApp webhook or any other infrastructure; or use the Service to send spam, malware, or phishing content.

Violations may result in any of the following at our sole discretion: a written warning, suspension of one or more users, suspension of your company's access, or termination under Section 12 of the Terms of Service. No refund is owed for credits used or forfeited because of enforcement action. Where we suspect unlawful activity we may also report it to the competent authorities, within the limits set out in Section 5 of the Privacy Policy.

If you become aware of a violation of this AUP — by your own users, another company on the platform, or a buyer — report it through our Contact page (lot-us.bid/contact). Reports are reviewed promptly and treated confidentially.

Use our Contact page (lot-us.bid/contact) or email legal@thefoundry.run for AUP violations and for legal questions. You can also call us on +20 12 90011016.