Effective Date: 07/01/2024

Last Updated: 01/23/2026

Introduction

This document explains the rules that keep our marketplacerunning. We call these rules our Terms of Use. They apply to zalow.com and allthe websites and apps we own or run. (And by we, we mean Zalow and ouraffiliates, which we may also refer to as us.) These terms explain how weexpect you to behave when you’re using Zalow – whether you’re a registered useror unregistered site visitor on our site. Please read these rules carefully: byusing our site, you’re agreeing to follow them.

These Terms of Use are part of Zalow’s Terms of Service andshould be read together with the Privacy Policy, User Agreement, and PaymentsTerms. In the event of any conflict, the Privacy Policy governs mattersrelating to personal data collection, processing, retention, and disclosure.

Contents

1.     About licensesand third-party content

1.1.     We let you useour site and services

1.2.   We can stop youusing our site and services

1.3.   We keep therights to our intellectual property

1.4.   You can use Zalowto share your content with the world

1.4.1.  You’reresponsible for what you post

1.4.2. Other people have some rights to what you post

1.4.3. We’re open to your ideas

1.5.   Third partiespost on Zalow too

1.6.   PlatformCommunications

1.7.   Project Data

1.8.   You can make acopyright complaint

2.    What you’reallowed to do on Zalow

3.    What you’re notallowed to do on Zalow

3.1.   Post unacceptablecontent

3.2.  Act in amisleading or fraudulent way

3.3.  Treat othersunfairly

3.4.  Abuse ourfeedback system

3.5.  Other uses thataren’t allowed

4.    Enforcing ourterms of use

4.1.   We enforce theserules

4.2.  Tell us if yousee someone breaking these rules

5.    Definitions

1. About licenses and third-party content

Here we’ve included the conditions for using our site, whichwe do our best to keep running smoothly (1.1). That means we have the right tostop people from using our site and services if needed (1.2). You can’t use ourintellectual property (1.3), but you can post your own content to Zalow. You’reresponsible for this content (1.4), and equally, we’re not responsible forcontent you come across from other users (1.5). If you think someone is usingsomething you’ve copyrighted, just let us know (1.8).

1.1 We let you use our site and services

Technically, we’re giving you a ‘limited license’ to thesite. Here’s what that means. We’re happy for you to access our website andservices (known as the services). You’re free to have this access (or limitedlicense) if you follow these terms of use and all our other Terms of Service asthey apply to you. We’ll do our best to make sure our services are safe andworking as they should, but we can’t guarantee you’ll have access continuously.In fact, we might even stop providing certain features or the servicescompletely, and don’t have to give notice if we do.

1.2 We can stop letting you use our services

We can take away your right to use our services at any time.If you violate our Terms of Use or other parts of our Terms of Service, we cantake away your access to Zalow. Officially, this is called terminating yourlicense, and if it happens, we’ll tell you and you must stop using our servicesimmediately.

1.3 We keep the rights to our intellectual property

Using our services doesn’t mean you can use any of ourtrademarks or other intellectual property, like copyrights and patents. We keepall our rights to our intellectual property, even though we let you use ourservices. Our logos and names are our trademarks and registered in certainjurisdictions. Any other product or company names, logos or similar marks andsymbols you see on Zalow may be trademarked by our partners or other users likeyou.

1.4 You can use Zalow to share your content with the world

1.4.1 You’re responsible for what you post

You’re responsible for how you use our site and anything youpost on it. If someone makes a claim against us because of anything you put onthe site, you agree to compensate us for our legal fees and expenses (thelawyers call this, ‘indemnification’). When you post content on (or through)our site or give us content for posting, you agree that you’re completely responsiblefor that content and we’re not. You also agree to only post or give us contentthat:

• you have the right to post
• is legal
• doesn’t violate anyone’s rights, including intellectual property rights.

You acknowledge and agree that whoever posts content isresponsible for any harm caused to anyone by that content – not Zalow – andthat you’ll compensate and defend us, our partners, employees andrepresentatives against any costs or legal or government action we have becauseof your content.

1.4.2 Other people have some rights to what you post

By posting content on the site, you give other people somerights to that content. Whenever you post content on our site, you give us andour affiliates a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store,display, and transmit such content solely as necessary to operate, maintain,and secure the Platform, subject to the Privacy Policy. If your name, voiceand image appear in content you post, we also might use those on the site or inour day-to-day business. For example, if you’re a freelancer, we might shareyour profile with clients we think could be a good match. You also give eachuser and site visitor the right to access and use your content through thesite. They also have the right to use, copy and share your content – if they doit through the site, and follow both our Terms of Service and the law. We maydisplay Platform features or marketplace information near your content withoutcompensating you. Depending on choices you make in your profile, we might alsoinclude your name or photo when promoting one of our features.

1.4.3 We’re open to your ideas

We’d love to hear your thoughts on improving Zalow. Here’swhat happens when you share them. You can send us comments and suggestionsabout our services and ways to improve them. If you do, you’re agreeing yourideas are free and unsolicited, and you don’t expect or ask anything in return,unless we’ve specifically asked you for your ideas and offered something inreturn (we like to keep our word). You agree we’re free to use, change andshare the idea as we like, without being obligated to give you anything for it.And if you do send us an idea, you also agree that this doesn’t affect ourright to use similar or related ideas – including those we already have or getfrom others.

1.5 Third parties post on Zalow, too

Anyone else who uses our site is responsible for what theypost or link on Zalow. We’re not responsible for the accuracy or reliability ofany content shared by other people on our site, unless they’re officiallyworking for us when they share or post the content. Any content represents theviews of the person sharing it, not Zalow. Our site might also contain links orother access to third-party websites and applications. These sites andapplications are owned and run by other parties, not Zalow. If we use a link orapplication that goes to a third-party website, it doesn’t mean that we endorseit, and you agree that you use it without our endorsement.

1.6 Platform Communications

Communications between users that occur through Zalow’smessaging or chat features may be processed by Zalow solely to delivermessages, enforce platform rules, prevent fraud or abuse, resolve disputes, andcomply with legal obligations. Zalow does not use platform communications foradvertising or marketing purposes. Users are responsible for the content oftheir communications.

1.7 Project Data

Files, documents, deliverables, work product, and othermaterials exchanged between users in connection with a service engagement(“Project Data”) are governed by Zalow’s Privacy Policy.

Zalow does not use, sell, analyze, or share Project Dataexcept as necessary to operate and secure the Platform. Zalow retains onlylimited metadata for reporting, billing, audit, and compliance purposes, anddoes not retain detailed Project Data beyond the retention periods described inthe Privacy Policy.

Nothing in these Terms of Use grants Zalow ownership ofProject Data or Work Product. For clarity, Project Data is distinct from“Content” as defined in these Terms of Use.

1.8 You can make a copyright complaint

If you think content on our site infringes your rights, youcan ask to have it removed. We’re committed to following U.S. copyright andrelated laws and need site visitors and users to follow them as well. That meansyou can’t use our site to store or share anything that infringes anyone’sintellectual property rights, including their rights under U.S. copyright law.

If you own copyrighted work and think your rights under U.S.copyright law have been infringed by anything on our site, the DigitalMillennium Copyright Act means you can ask us to take it down. Here’s how toreport it.

2. What you’re allowed to do on Zalow

Your use of the Platform and any Project Data is subject tothe Privacy Policy and applicable service contracts between users. You can onlyuse our services for work and to learn from the information we share. Our siteand services were made to be used for business, not for personal or consumeruse. We run our marketplace to help users find each other, build workingrelationships, and make and receive payments for that work. You can also usesome of our services to get information we think might be interesting anduseful for our site visitors and users. While we do our best to make sure thatthis information is timely and accurate, there might sometimes be mistakes. Wedon’t make any guarantees about information posted on our site, so never use itas tax or legal advice. And you should always double-check the information foryourself.

Payments, identity verification, and background checks areprovided by third-party service providers and are governed by the PaymentsTerms and Privacy Policy. Zalow does not store government-issued identificationdocuments, biometric data, or financial credentials.

3. What you’re not allowed to do on Zalow

Certain uses of the site are not allowed. Here we go intomuch more depth about those things, including:

• posting unacceptable content (3.1)
• acting in a misleading or fraudulent way (3.2)
• treating others unfairly (3.3)
• abusing our feedback system (3.4)
• other uses that aren’t allowed (3.5).

In short, you’re not allowed to use our services to do (orencourage others to do) anything that is illegal, fraudulent or harmful. If youdon’t see something on one of the lists below, you shouldn’t assume it’sallowed. When in doubt, contact us to check.

3.1 Posting unacceptable content

You can’t offer, share, support or try to find anythingthat:

• is illegal or defamatory
• is violent, discriminatory or harassing, eithergenerally or towards a specific person or group (or encourages others to be),including anyone who is part of a legally protected group
• is sexually explicit or related to sex work orescort services
• is in any way related to child exploitation
• would infringe on any intellectual propertyrights, including copyrights
• would violate our Terms of Service, anotherwebsite’s terms of service, or any similar contract
• would go against professional or academicstandards or policies – including improperly submitting someone else’s work asyour own, or by ghost-writing
• involves purchasing or requesting a fake reviewor is connected in any way to making or sharing misleading content (like ‘deepfakes’ or ‘fake news’) which is intended to deceive others.

3.2 Acting in a misleading or fraudulent way

On Zalow, you can’t do anything that’s dishonest or meant tofool others. You can’t misrepresent yourself, your experience, skills orprofessional qualifications, or that of others. This includes:

• lying about your experience, skills or professional qualifications
• using generative AI or other tools to substantially bolster your job proposals or work product if such use is restricted by your client or violates any third-party's rights
• passing off any part of someone else’s profile or identity as your own
• using a profile picture that isn’t you, misrepresents your identity or is someone else
• impersonating or falsely attributing statements to any person or entity, including an Zalow representative or forum leader
• falsely claiming or implying you’re connected to a person or organization (including Zalow) – for example, you can’t say you work for a particular company when you don’t.

Similarly, you must always be honest about who’s doing thework. That means you can’t:

• allow someone else to use your account, which misleads other users or
• falsely claim one freelancer will do a job when another will do it – including submitting a proposal on behalf of a freelancer who can’t or won’t do the work.

We’re particularly invested in avoiding fraud and misrepresentations when it comes to payments. This means Freelancers can’t fraudulently charge a client in any way, including by:

• falsifying the hours recorded in the Zalow app
• reporting or billing time you haven’t worked
• reporting time worked by someone else and claiming you did the work
• demanding bribes or other payments without the intention of or without providing services in exchange for the payment.

Clients can’t engage in fraud related to payments, including by:

• posting jobs with payment terms that are objectively unreasonable or disproportionate to the scope of services requested
• demanding services without the intention of or without providing payment in exchange for the services.

Users may not use Zalow content, communications, or Project Data to train artificial intelligence or machine learning models in violation of the Privacy Policy or applicable service contracts.

3.3 Treating others unfairly

Everyone should be treated fairly and legally on Zalow. You can’t use Zalow to:

• express an unlawful preference in a job post or proposal
• unlawfully discriminate against someone
• incite or encourage violence
• post personal identifying information or other sensitive, private data about another person
• spam other users with proposals or invites. This includes posting the same job several times at once and contacting people you connected with on Zalow outside of Zalow without their permission
• make or demand bribes or payments for anything other than the work
• ask for or demand free work – you can’t ask freelancers to submit work for little or no payment as part of a proposal bid or competition
• request a fee to submit a proposal
• request or provide services that primarily concern making purchases on behalf of another, including the purchase of cryptocurrency or NFTs.

3.4 Abusing our feedback system

You must use our feedback system honestly and fairly. Thatmeans you can’t:

• withhold payment or work until you’ve been given positive feedback
• swap payment (or anything of value) for feedback, including with third parties
• coerce another user by threatening negative feedback
• use the system to share unrelated views (like about politics or religion)
• offer or accept fake services to improve your feedback or rating score, which is called feedback building

3.5 Other uses that aren’t allowed

Zalow relies on technology and trust – here’s how we maintain those things.

• You can’t copy, share or give away your account. You can’t have multiple accounts, and you can’t sell, trade or give your account to anyone else without our permission.
•  You can’t go around us. You can’t talk to another user or ask for or share a way to get in touch – a means of direct contact - outside of Zalow before you’ve agreed to a service contract. This means you can’t add your contact details to a job post, your profile, communications or other content.
• You can’t promote other organizations –including advertising any other websites, products or services. You also can’t use our site to recruit freelancers or clients to join another agency, website or company, unless you pay us a fee to do so. For more information, look at Section 7 of our User Agreement.
• You can’t interfere with our technology or tamper with our site or services. That means you can’t:
  
  • bypass any security features we’ve put in placeto restrict how you use the site – you’re not allowed to try and get around restrictions on copying content
  • interfere with or compromise our systems, server security, or transmissions
  • use a robot, spider, scraper, or similar mechanisms on our site without written permission
  • copy, distribute, or otherwise use any information you found on Zalow, if whether directly or through third parties (like search engines), without our consent (no scraping allowed)
  • collect or use identifiable information,including account names)
  • overwhelm the site with an unreasonable or large amount of information
  • introduce any malware or any other code or viruses that could harm us, our customers, or our services
  • access our services through any technology other than our interface
  • frame or link to the services without our written permission
  • use our services to build a similar service, identify or poach our users or publish any performance or benchmark analysis relating to the site
  • reverse engineer, decipher, modify, or take source code from our site that is not open source without our written permission.

Zalow does not sell user data and does not permit the use ofPlatform data, communications, or Project Data for advertising or artificial intelligence training purposes.

4. Enforcing our terms of use

If you break any of these rules, we can suspend your accountand stop you from using Zalow (4.1). If you see someone else breaking theserules, please let us know (4.2).

4.1 We enforce these rules

We have the right to investigate any potential violations ofthese terms of use, and might decide to pause, change or take away any contenton our site when we do. We can’t guarantee that we’ll act against everypotential violation, but just because we don’t act against one breach doesn’twaive our right to act against any future breaches, whether they’re related tothe first breach or not. If we do suspect rule-breaking, we can stop you usingour site at any time. If we disable or close your account, you won’t be able touse any of our services, but these things will stay in place:

• our rights to use and share your feedback
• our users’ and visitors' rights to share your content (1.4.2)
• obligations relating to confidentiality, Project Data, data use restrictions, and the Privacy Policy
• your agreement to all the rules laid out in section 3 on this page.

4.2 Tell us if you see someone breaking these rules

What to do if you become aware of a violation of our Termsof Use. If you believe anyone is breaking any of our terms of use, please letour customer service team know.  If wefollow up on the breach, you agree to help with our investigation and takereasonable steps to help us fix the problem.

5. Definitions

Here, we explain some of the terms we’ve used in our Termsof Use. Any other terms in should be defined when they’re mentioned, in theUser Agreement or Terms of Service.

• An affiliate is anyone or anything that in any way manages, is managed by, or shares management with us.
• A client is someone using our site to find freelancer services from another user.
• A deep fake is a video or image that has been changed to replace one person with another in a deliberately misleading way, without asking the person whose face has been used.
• A freelancer is an individual or agency using our site to offer their services to clients.
• Freelancer services refer to the work freelancers do on Zalow.
• A means of direct contact is information that would let someone get in touch with you directly (or find the information to do that) so you can bypass our site. For example, phone numbers, email and physical addresses, social media accounts, and personal websites with contact information are means of direct contact.
• Site services are all services, applications and products – apart from freelancer services – that people can access through Zalow.
• Content is what users post to Zalow themselves, like comments, profiles, feedback, images, or other information. It includes anything posted by you even if elements of the content were originally generated by generative AI or other tools, or in response to questions posed to you by Zalow or other users or Zalow.
• “ProjectData” means files, documents, deliverables, work product, and other materials exchanged between users in connection with a service engagement.