Acceptable Use Restrictions

What it is

You cannot use Fireworks AI to build a competing product, run benchmarks against it for competitive purposes, or engage in any other activity that Fireworks determines harms its business interests.

Why it matters (compliance & governance perspective)

This restriction limits how developers and businesses can use the service, including prohibiting competitive benchmarking, which is a common practice in the AI industry for evaluating model quality.

Consumer impact (what this means for users)

Developers and AI researchers who want to benchmark Fireworks AI models against competitors or use the platform to inform the development of similar services are contractually prohibited from doing so.

Institutional analysis (Compliance & governance intelligence)

(1) REGULATORY LANDSCAPE: Restrictions on competitive benchmarking in software licenses have been the subject of antitrust and competition law scrutiny. The FTC and Department of Justice have examined whether such restrictions in technology platform agreements impede competition. The clause also interacts with the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) and Lanham Act in terms of the limits of acceptable use enforcement. (2) GOVERNANCE EXPOSURE: Medium. The prohibition on competitive analysis and benchmarking is broader than what many enterprise SaaS agreements include and may be difficult to enforce against users conducting independent evaluations of publicly available AI model outputs. The vague standard of 'otherwise to our detriment or disadvantage' gives Fireworks broad discretion to characterize a wide range of legitimate uses as prohibited. (3) JURISDICTION FLAGS: EU/EEA competition law may limit the enforceability of restrictions that prevent users from evaluating competing products or engaging in legitimate market analysis. The enforceability of anti-benchmarking clauses under US law is not uniformly settled and may depend on whether the restriction is found to be anticompetitive in context. (4) CONTRACT AND VENDOR IMPLICATIONS: AI research teams and technology procurement groups should assess whether their intended use of Fireworks AI includes any benchmarking or competitive evaluation activity. The prohibition on competitive analysis may conflict with standard enterprise vendor evaluation practices. Legal teams should consider whether this restriction creates antitrust exposure for Fireworks or procurement risk for enterprise customers. (5) COMPLIANCE CONSIDERATIONS: Organizations with AI governance frameworks that require comparative model evaluation before deployment should assess whether their evaluation processes would constitute prohibited competitive analysis under this clause. Independent security researchers and academic institutions should also review this clause before using the platform for evaluation purposes.

Applicable agencies

Provision details

Other risks in this policy

• Mandatory Individual Arbitration high
• Class Action and Jury Trial Waiver high
• Organizational Account Liability high
• Prohibition on AI/ML Training Use of Service Content medium
• Fireworks IP License Over User Content medium
• Unilateral Termination Without Cause medium

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