Acceptable Use

1. Who this applies to

This Acceptable Use Policy applies to everyone who uses The RainMakers, on every plan including the free one. It forms part of your agreement with us under the Terms of Service, and breaking it is a breach of that agreement.

We may update this policy as the law and the platform change. Where a change materially reduces what you are permitted to do, we will give you reasonable notice before it takes effect.

2. You are the controller of the data you collect

This is the most important thing on this page, so it comes first.

When you use The RainMakers to collect information about a business or a person, you decide who to search for, what to collect, and what to do with it afterwards. In data-protection terms that makes you the controller of that data. We provide the tool and process the data on your instructions, which makes us your processor.

The practical consequence is that the legal duties attaching to that data are yours. You need a lawful basis for collecting it, you must handle it in line with data-protection law, and you must be able to answer to the people it concerns and to the regulator if asked. Our Data Processing Agreement sets out this split in full and forms part of your agreement with us.

We cannot carry those duties for you, because we do not know who you are contacting or why. Do not assume that because a tool makes something easy, it is lawful for you to do.

3. Collecting data

You may use the platform to collect business contact information that is already published publicly, for legitimate business-development purposes.

You must not use the platform to:

• collect data in a way that breaches the terms of service of the site or platform it comes from
• circumvent a technical measure, rate limit, login wall or robots directive intended to prevent automated access
• collect special category data — health, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, biometric or genetic data — or data about criminal offences
• collect data about children, or about anyone you know or suspect to be under 18
• build a general-purpose database of individuals unconnected to a genuine business purpose
• resell, licence or redistribute collected data as a data product

That first point deserves emphasis. Google Maps, LinkedIn, Meta and X each restrict automated collection under their own terms. Those terms are an agreement between you and them, and using our platform does not put you outside them or transfer them to us. Whether a given collection is permitted is a question you must answer for yourself, and take your own advice on if you are unsure.

4. Contacting the people you find

Finding someone's contact details does not give you permission to contact them. Those are two separate questions and the law treats them separately.

In the UK, unsolicited direct marketing by email is governed by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations. Broadly, and this is not a substitute for advice on your own situation:

• Marketing to individuals — which includes sole traders and unincorporated partnerships — generally requires their consent, or an existing customer relationship on closely related products
• Marketing to registered companies and public bodies is more permissive, but you must identify yourself, state that it is marketing, and offer a working way to opt out of further messages
• You must honour an opt-out promptly and permanently, and keep a suppression list so that a later campaign does not contact them again
• If you are contacting people outside the UK, other laws apply — the GDPR across the EU, CAN-SPAM in the United States, CASL in Canada — and some are stricter than the UK's

You must comply with all of these where they apply to you. You must not send messages with misleading sender details or subject lines, and you must not continue contacting someone who has asked you to stop.

We provide no assurance that any particular outreach campaign is lawful, and nothing in the platform should be read as advice that it is.

5. General prohibited conduct

You must not use The RainMakers to:

• harass, stalk, threaten, defame or intimidate anyone
• send spam, chain messages, malware, phishing attempts or fraudulent offers
• impersonate any person or organisation, or misrepresent your affiliation with one
• break any law, or facilitate anyone else in doing so
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to the platform, other users' accounts, or any connected system
• probe, scan or test the platform's security without our prior written permission
• reverse engineer, decompile or attempt to extract the platform's source code, except where that right cannot lawfully be excluded
• resell or sublicense access to the platform, or share your account credentials
• place unreasonable load on our infrastructure, or use automated means to exceed your plan's limits

6. Enforcement

If we reasonably believe you have breached this policy, we may suspend or terminate your account, remove data, and report the matter to the relevant authorities. Where the breach is serious — anything unlawful, or anything that puts other users or third parties at risk — we may act immediately and without notice.

Where the circumstances allow it, we will tell you what the problem is and give you a chance to put it right before we act. We are not obliged to do so, and we will not do so where telling you first would defeat the purpose or prejudice an investigation.

Suspension for breach of this policy does not entitle you to a refund. If you think we have acted wrongly, write to support@therainmakers.uk and we will review it.

7. Reporting misuse

If you believe someone is using The RainMakers in breach of this policy — including if you have received unwanted contact from one of our users — please tell us at abuse@therainmakers.uk. Include as much detail as you can, such as the message you received and any sending address.

We investigate every report. We may not be able to tell you the outcome, because doing so may involve disclosing information about another person.