Terms of Service for Arlong

Business Information

Arlong is operated by Padmalakshmi V, a sole proprietor. The Service is provided from India. For any inquiries, please contact us using the details at the bottom of this page.

Agreement to Terms

By accessing or using the services provided by Arlong at Arlong.org (the "Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you disagree with any part of these terms, you may not access the Service.

Use of Service

You agree to use the Service only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You agree not to:

• Use the Service in any way that violates any applicable law or regulation
• Use the Service to transmit any harmful, threatening, abusive, or otherwise objectionable material
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to any portion of the Service
• Use the Service to infringe upon the rights of others
• Use any automated system to access the Service in a manner that sends more requests than a human can reasonably produce

Intellectual Property & Ownership

All code, ranking algorithms, search indexes, user interface designs, trade secrets, and trademarks used by the Service belong exclusively to Arlong and its owner. The codebase is proprietary and private — it is not published or licensed for use by third parties.

• No reverse engineering: Please do not decompile, disassemble, or attempt to extract the source code, ranking models, or raw data structures behind the Service.
• No derivative engines: You may not build a competing search engine or derivative search tool by copying, cloning, or scraping Arlong's codebase or search output.
• We ask for this because building and maintaining the Service takes real effort, and an open copy of it can be re-hosted and abused at our expense.

API Access & Rate Limits

The public search API at /api/search is provided with two access tiers:

• Tokenless access: 2 requests per hour per IP address. Intended for occasional, exploratory use.
• Registered projects: After creating an account and accepting these Terms, you receive an API key granting 80 requests per 30 minutes per project.

Current account allowances are published on the membership page. Free accounts receive 10 Normal Search runs, 1 Agentic Search run, and 30 API/MCP credits every three days. Founder receives 300 Normal Search runs, 15 Agentic Search runs, and 600 API/MCP credits monthly; other Pro tiers receive the allowances shown at purchase. Prepaid API/MCP credits are a separate wallet and do not replace included search allowances.

We reserve the right to change rate limits, add per-minute throttling, or suspend any key that exceeds fair usage. We publish rate-limit changes in the changelog before applying them wherever practical.

API Key Security

You are responsible for keeping your API key confidential and for all activity performed under it. If a key is shared, leaked, or used in a way that exceeds fair usage, we may rotate or revoke it. Keys can be regenerated or revoked at any time from the API dashboard.

Caching & Data Storage

You may cache API responses temporarily to avoid unnecessary requests, but please do not store search results long-term. As a general guideline, keep cached results for no longer than 30 days and do not rebuild or resell a search database from API output. We're happy to work with you if you have a genuine need for longer retention — just ask.

Acceptable Use

Please use the Service responsibly:

• No scraping the UI: Automated scraping or bulk harvesting from the website interface should be done through the API instead.
• No malicious use: Do not use the Service for DDoS attacks, malware distribution, fraud, illegal activity, or attempts to bypass safety features such as crisis detection and content moderation.
• AI training: If you'd like to use search results or API data to train a third-party AI, LLM, or machine-learning model, please get our written consent first. It's a simple conversation — we rarely say no, but we'd like to know.

Subscriptions and Billing

Arlong offers optional recurring Founder and Pro subscriptions. Dodo Payments acts as our payment processor and merchant of record, displays the final local currency and applicable taxes at checkout, and processes recurring charges.

• Automatic renewal: Monthly and annual plans renew automatically until cancelled. The checkout page shows the price and interval before purchase.
• Cancellation: You may cancel through the customer billing portal. Unless stated otherwise at cancellation, access continues until the end of the paid billing period.
• Allowances: Paid plans include the usage allowances published on the pricing page. Allowances reset each billing period and do not roll over.
• Changes: We may change future prices or allowances with reasonable advance notice. Existing paid periods are not retroactively repriced.

User Content

You retain ownership of any content you submit to or through the Service. By submitting content, you grant Arlong a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, reproduce, and display such content in connection with operating the Service.

Product Analytics and Account Activity

We may record limited account activity to operate and improve the Service, as described in our Privacy Policy. Product Analytics records feature categories, timestamps, and outcomes, not your search queries, AI messages, URLs, page content, IP address, or API key value. You can disable non-essential Product Analytics in Settings. Necessary security, billing, fraud-prevention, and service-operation records may still be processed as described in the Privacy Policy.

Termination

We may terminate or suspend your access to the Service immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason, including without limitation if you breach the Terms.

In particular, we reserve the right to block IP addresses, revoke API keys, or close accounts when those measures are needed to protect the Service or other users. We try to give a clear reason whenever we take such action.

Upon termination, your right to use the Service will cease immediately.

Limitation of Liability

Arlong is a small project built by an individual, and to the maximum extent permitted by law:

• As-is, as-available: Search results are indexed automatically from the open web. We do not guarantee the accuracy, safety, or legality of third-party websites that appear in results, and we are not responsible for their content.
• No uptime guarantee: The Service is provided on an "as available" basis. We are not liable for service outages, interruptions, or loss of data.
• Cap on damages: Our total liability for any claim arising from your use of the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or $50 USD.
• Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited under applicable law, including your statutory rights as a consumer.

Disclaimer

The Service is provided on an "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" basis, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, or course of performance. Search results come from third-party sites over which Arlong has no control.

Governing Law (EU Users)

For users in the European Union, these Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with applicable EU laws. Nothing in these Terms shall affect your statutory rights as a consumer under applicable EU consumer protection legislation.

Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of the jurisdiction in which Arlong operates, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.

Changes to Terms

We reserve the right to modify or replace these Terms at any time. Updates are published on this page and announced in the changelog. If a revision is material, we will try to provide at least 30 days' notice prior to any new terms taking effect.

By continuing to access or use our Service after those revisions become effective, you agree to be bound by the revised terms.

Contact Us

If you have any questions about these Terms of Service, please contact us:

• By email: ahilan290@gmail.com
• By visiting: Arlong.org