Terms of Service

1Acceptance & Eligibility

These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) form a legally binding agreement between you and Fastest Freelancers (“Fastest Freelancers,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) governing your access to and use of the Fastest Freelancers website, applications, and related services (collectively, the “Platform”). By creating an account, posting a project, submitting a proposal, funding a wallet, or otherwise using the Platform, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms and our Privacy Policy, Refund Policy, and Dispute Resolution Policy, each of which is incorporated by reference.

You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract to create an individual account.

Minors

Minors are strictly prohibited from creating individual accounts. A user under 18 may use the Platform only through an account owned and managed by a parent or legal guardian, who holds the account and is responsible for its ownership, its financial activity (including payments, Wallet balances, and withdrawals), and every contract entered into through it, and who is bound by these Terms for all use of the account. If we learn that an individual account was created by or belongs to a minor, we may suspend or close it.

Fastest Freelancers is a United States-only marketplace: you represent that you are a U.S. resident or a business entity organized under the laws of a U.S. state, that you reside and operate in the United States, and that you will provide or receive services from within the United States. If you are using the Platform on behalf of a company or other legal entity, you represent that you have authority to bind that entity, and “you” refers to that entity.

If you do not agree to these Terms, you may not access or use the Platform.

2Key Definitions

• Client: a user who posts projects or contests and engages freelancers to perform services.
• Freelancer: a user who offers, bids on, and performs services for Clients as an independent contractor.
• Project: a scope of work a Client posts and a Freelancer is engaged to complete, including any milestones.
• Contest: a posting in which multiple Freelancers submit entries and the Client selects one or more winners for a stated prize.
• Wallet: the balance of funds a user holds on the Platform. An account has a client balance (deposits and refunds, used to fund work) and a freelancer balance (earnings), and either can be withdrawn to a bank account.
• Escrow: Client funds collected through our payment processor and held on the Platform for a specific milestone, Project, or Contest prize, released to a Freelancer only upon milestone approval or automatic release, contest award, or dispute resolution, or refunded to the Client’s Wallet on cancellation or a dispute outcome.
• Processing Fee: the non-refundable, tiered fee a Client pays on top of the amount being funded, described in Section 7.
• Platform Fee: the fee deducted from a Freelancer’s or Contest winner’s payment when Escrow is released to them, described in Section 7.
• Hourly Contract: an engagement paid by the hour and billed weekly through Escrow, with time recorded by the Platform’s screenshot timer (or entered by hand where the Client allows it), described in Section 6.
• Upgrade: an optional paid add-on a Client may buy for a listing (for example Featured, Urgent, IP Agreement, NDA, or Hide Contest Entries), described in Section 6.
• AI Mediation: the automated, AI-assisted dispute-resolution process described in Section 11.

3Our Role: A Venue, Not a Party to Your Contract

Fastest Freelancers provides a marketplace and set of tools that allow Clients and Freelancers to find one another, agree on scope, exchange messages, transfer funds, and resolve disputes. The contract for services is directly between the Client and the Freelancer. We are not a party to that contract, are not an employer, employment agency, staffing agency, or general contractor, and do not supervise, direct, or control the work.

We do not guarantee the quality, safety, legality, or timeliness of any service, the accuracy of any listing or profile, or the ability of any Client to pay or any Freelancer to perform. Except for our role in AI Mediation and escrow administration described below, any dispute about the work itself is between the Client and the Freelancer.

4Accounts, Registration & Security

You must register for an account to use most features. You agree to provide accurate, current, and complete information and to keep it up to date. You may sign up with an email and password or through Google or Apple. Creating an account requires verifying a US mobile number (landlines are not accepted) and your email address with one-time codes. A profile photo you upload must show a real person’s face, and we check it automatically before accepting it. To withdraw funds, you (or your payment processor) may be required to complete identity verification (“KYC”) and provide tax information.

• You may turn on two-step verification in your security settings, and we strongly encourage it. Codes are sent by email by default; an authenticator app or text-message codes are available as alternatives.
• You are responsible for all activity under your account and for maintaining the confidentiality of your credentials.
• You may not share, sell, or transfer your account, or create an account using another person’s identity.
• You must notify us promptly at support@fastestfreelancers.com of any unauthorized use or security breach.
• We may refuse, suspend, or terminate accounts, and reclaim usernames, at our discretion, including for violations of these Terms.

5Independent-Contractor Relationship

Freelancers are independent contractors of their Clients, not employees, partners, agents, or joint venturers of either the Client or Fastest Freelancers. Nothing on the Platform creates an employment, agency, partnership, or joint-venture relationship between you and Fastest Freelancers.

• Freelancers control the manner and means of performing their work and use their own equipment and methods.
• Freelancers are solely responsible for their own business expenses, benefits, insurance, and compliance with applicable licensing, labor, and tax laws.
• Neither Fastest Freelancers nor any Client withholds payroll taxes on Freelancer earnings; Freelancers are responsible for their own self-employment and income taxes (see Section 9).

6Projects, Contests & Engagements

Posting and accepting work

Clients are responsible for accurately describing the scope, deliverables, timeline, budget, and acceptance criteria of each Project or Contest. Freelancers are responsible for reviewing scope before accepting and for communicating clearly about progress, changes, and delays. When a Client and Freelancer agree on a Project (or a Client awards a Contest), a direct contract is formed between them on the agreed terms, subject to these Terms.

Milestones and delivery

Projects may be structured into milestones. Client funds for a milestone are held in Escrow when the milestone is funded and are released to the Freelancer upon Client approval or a dispute outcome. Freelancers should not begin work on a milestone until it is funded. When a Freelancer delivers a milestone, the Client may release payment, request a revision, or open a dispute. A fixed-price milestone is never released automatically: a Freelancer who has delivered and has not been paid may open a dispute to have it released.

Contests

For Contests, the Client funds the prize into Escrow when the Contest is posted. Freelancers submit entries subject to the Contest rules. The Client awards the prize to one or more winning entries, and the winners are paid from that Escrow. A Client may cancel a Contest while it has fewer than three submitted entries, in which case the prize is refunded in full to the Client’s Wallet (see Section 8). If the Client has not awarded a Contest within 14 days after its deadline, the prize is split equally among the Freelancers who entered it (one share per Freelancer, less the Platform Fee on each share), or, if nobody entered, refunded to the Client’s Wallet.

Upgrades

Clients may buy optional Upgrades for a listing at the price shown at checkout: Featured and Urgent (placement and badges), IP Agreement, NDA (Projects only), and Hide Contest Entries (Contests only). An Upgrade is a completed purchase when it is applied, and it is not refunded if the listing is later canceled.

IP Agreement and NDA Upgrades

When a Client buys the IP Agreement or NDA Upgrade, the Platform generates that agreement from the listing’s title and description and attaches it to the listing’s files, where Freelancers can read it before they commit. The Client accepts the agreement by buying the Upgrade. A Freelancer must affirmatively acknowledge each required agreement before submitting a proposal or entry, and cannot submit without doing so. For a Project with the NDA Upgrade, the Freelancer who is awarded the Project is bound by that Project’s NDA. An awarded Freelancer who did not acknowledge the NDA before submitting a proposal (for example, because the NDA was added afterwards or they were hired without a proposal) is notified of it by a message on the Platform, and receiving any milestone on that Project, whether before or after that message, constitutes agreement to that Project’s NDA.

We record each acknowledgment against the accepting account with a timestamp and show it to the Client. That record is an electronic acknowledgment by an authenticated account, not a handwritten signature, identity verification, or countersigned document. The agreements are templates, not legal advice. They are between the Client and the Freelancer: Fastest Freelancers is not a party to them and does not enforce them, and they do not name a governing law, which is left to the parties.

No circumvention

To protect Escrow, dispute protection, and the integrity of the marketplace, Clients and Freelancers who meet through the Platform agree to transact through the Platform for the engagement, and not to solicit or arrange off-Platform payment to avoid fees. Circumvention is a material breach of these Terms, and the user who initiated the off-Platform payment arrangement is subject to being banned from the Platform.

7Fees, Wallets, Escrow & Payments

Payments, Wallet funding, Escrow, and payouts are processed by our third-party payment processor (currently Stripe). By transacting on the Platform, you also agree to the payment processor’s terms. You authorize us and our processor to charge your selected payment method and to move funds into and out of Escrow and Wallets as described here.

Processing Fee (non-refundable)

Clients pay a tiered Processing Fee on top of the amount funded, set according to the size of the amount. It applies when you fund a milestone or Project budget or a Contest prize, and to Upgrade purchases where shown at checkout. Depositing funds into your Wallet carries no Processing Fee. The applicable fee is disclosed to you before you pay. The Processing Fee is non-refundable, including where a Project is later canceled, a milestone is refunded, or a dispute is resolved in the Client’s favor. It covers payment-processing costs already incurred. Amounts held in Escrow for the work itself remain refundable as described below.

Platform Fee

When Escrow is released to a Freelancer or Contest winner, a Platform Fee, a percentage of the released amount shown in the product, is deducted, and the rest is credited to that user’s Wallet.

Withdrawals

Wallet balances, including a Client’s refunds and a Freelancer’s earnings, are withdrawn to a bank account through our payment processor. Refunds are not returned to the original card. Withdrawals carry a payout fee, and your first withdrawal in each calendar month also carries an account fee; both are shown to you before you confirm the withdrawal and deducted from the amount withdrawn (see the Refund Policy). Your first withdrawal requires completing the payment processor’s identity verification. You are responsible for providing valid payout and tax details; withdrawals may be delayed or held where verification is incomplete, where fraud is suspected, or as required by law.

VIP plan, and AI generation

The optional VIP subscription must be paid with a debit or credit card; it cannot be paid from your Wallet balance or by bank transfer. It is charged in full for each billing period and renews automatically, on the same date each period, at the price shown on the Plans page, charged to the primary card saved on your account, until you cancel. Your plan starts, and your billing period begins, on the day your payment goes through; while a payment is still processing, your plan is not yet active. If a renewal payment fails, we will email you and your plan is suspended until you update your card and the payment succeeds. Plan charges are non-refundable, including for unused time: you may cancel at any time, which stops auto-renewal, and your plan stays active until the end of the billing period you have already paid for. A refund of a plan charge may be requested from support@fastestfreelancers.com and is granted only at our discretion, as a credit to your Wallet. If you cancel while your first payment is still processing, the plan does not start, and that payment is returned to your Wallet only if and when it goes through, as described in the Refund Policy. AI drafting features include a monthly free allowance. On VIP, AI generations are unlimited for ordinary use, subject to a fair-use soft limit of 1,500 generations per billing period, which we review case by case and may raise for your account. Beyond your allowance or that limit, each generation is charged to your Wallet at the price shown in the product.

Chargebacks and reversals

A chargeback is a dispute you open with your bank or card issuer about a payment you made to us. When one is opened, your bank takes the disputed amount back from us straight away, and our payment processor charges us a dispute fee. Please use the Platform’s refund and dispute processes instead (see the Refund Policy and the Dispute Resolution Policy); they are faster and they are fair to the Freelancer too. If you do open a chargeback:

• Recovery and set-off. You authorize us to recover the disputed amount, first from your Client Account balance and then from any funds still held in Escrow that the disputed payment funded. Escrow for work not yet delivered may be recovered when the bank takes the money back; Escrow for work already delivered is held until the bank decides, and is recovered only if the bank decides in your favor. We do not take a Freelancer Account balance to cover a chargeback. Anything we recover beyond what you owe is returned to your Client Account when the dispute is decided.
• Amounts you owe. Any part of the disputed amount we cannot recover this way is a debt you owe us. If the bank decides the chargeback in your favor, the dispute fees our payment processor charged us are added to that debt. You agree to pay it, and authorize us to collect it from money that later reaches your Client Account, including funds you add by card.
• Account hold. While a chargeback is open, and afterwards for as long as you owe us money from one, your account is on hold: you cannot withdraw, fund new work, bid on projects, or release payments. If your card issuer only asks us about a payment without taking it back (an inquiry), withdrawals alone are paused until the inquiry is closed. We may also suspend your account under Section 20.
• If the bank decides for us. Everything we recovered for that chargeback is returned: your balance is credited back, Escrow is restored to the milestones it funded, the debt is canceled, and the hold is lifted. We do not pass on the dispute fees in that case.
• Freelancers are told. We notify each Freelancer whose Escrow is held or recovered because of your chargeback, including that the Client disputed the payment with their bank.
• Sharing records to contest it. To respond to a chargeback, we may share with the card networks, your card issuer and our payment processor the records of the transaction: your name and email address, your sign-in history (dates, IP addresses and browser), the payment and Escrow records, the delivery dates of the work, how many messages were exchanged and when, and your acceptance of these Terms and the Refund Policy. We do not send message contents or files.
• Unauthorized payments. If a payment was made on your card without your permission, contact support@fastestfreelancers.com before disputing it. Where the card network’s rules or the law require it, we will return an unauthorized payment to the card it was made with rather than to a Wallet.

For Freelancers: Escrow funded by a card payment is held subject to that payment not being reversed by the payer’s bank. If it is charged back, the Escrow may be held and, as described above, recovered to repay the bank, in which case it is not paid out to you from that payment. A chargeback never reduces your own Freelancer Account balance, and you are never charged for one. You may still bring a claim about delivered work through the Dispute Resolution Policy.

8Cancellations & Refunds

A Client may cancel a funded milestone that has not been released, including after the Freelancer has delivered it, and the Freelancer is notified. A milestone under an open dispute cannot be canceled; the dispute decides it. When a milestone is canceled, or a dispute outcome refunds it, the Escrow for that milestone is refunded to the Client’s Wallet. Funds already released for approved work stay with the Freelancer. A Contest may be canceled as described in Section 6, with its prize refunded to the Client’s Wallet.

The Processing Fee and any Upgrades are not refunded on cancellation or refund (see Sections 6 and 7). Refunds are credited to your Platform Wallet, not to your original payment method. You may spend that balance on the Platform or withdraw it to a bank account under Section 7, subject to the withdrawal fees described there.

The Refund Policy sets out every refund scenario for Clients and Freelancers in detail. A refund that depends on the quality, scope, or delivery of the work is decided under the Dispute Resolution Policy.

9Taxes

You are solely responsible for determining, collecting, reporting, and remitting all taxes associated with your use of the Platform and your earnings or purchases. Fastest Freelancers does not provide tax advice.

• Freelancers are responsible for self-employment and income taxes on their earnings.
• Where required by U.S. law, we or our payment processor may collect tax information (e.g., Form W-9) and issue information returns (e.g., Form 1099-K or 1099-NEC) and report to the IRS and applicable state authorities.
• You agree to provide accurate tax information and to update it as needed; failure to do so may result in withholding or held payouts as required by law.

10Reviews, Ratings & Feedback

Clients and Freelancers may leave reviews and ratings after an engagement. Reviews must be honest, based on a genuine transaction, and free of unlawful, harassing, or deceptive content. You may not offer or accept anything of value in exchange for a review, post fake or retaliatory reviews, or manipulate ratings.

You grant Fastest Freelancers a worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free license to host, display, and distribute your reviews and feedback in connection with operating and promoting the Platform. We may remove content that violates these Terms but are not obligated to monitor or verify reviews.

11Dispute Resolution Between Clients & Freelancers (AI Mediation)

Disagreements between a Client and a Freelancer about scope, quality, delivery, cancellation, or release of Escrow are handled through the Platform’s Resolution Center using a hybrid AI Mediation process backed by human review. This process is designed to reach a fair, fast, and documented outcome and to determine how Escrow is released. It applies only to disputes between users about an engagement; disputes between you and Fastest Freelancers itself are governed by Section 19. The full process, deadlines, and outcomes are set out in our Dispute Resolution Policy.

1. Direct resolution first

Before opening a formal dispute, the Client and Freelancer should attempt to resolve the issue directly through Platform messaging. Many issues are resolved by clarifying scope, revising a deliverable, or agreeing on a partial release.

2. Opening a dispute

Either party may open a dispute from the Resolution Center on a funded engagement. A dispute may generally be opened once a milestone or contest is funded and until the applicable review window closes. The party opening the dispute describes the issue and the outcome they seek (for example, full release, partial release, revision, or refund). While a dispute is open, the disputed Escrow is frozen and cannot be withdrawn by either party.

3. Evidence and dispute chat

Both parties are invited into a structured dispute chat and given a fair, equal opportunity to submit their position and evidence: messages, files, deliverables, the agreed scope, and Platform activity. The AI mediator may ask clarifying questions of either party. You agree to participate in good faith and to submit evidence honestly; fabricated or misleading evidence is a material breach.

4. How AI Mediation works

Our AI mediator reviews the agreed scope, the deliverables, the parties’ statements and evidence, and relevant Platform records, and proposes a resolution (for example, full or partial release of Escrow, a refund to the Client, or a revision-and-resubmit path). The AI mediator applies neutral criteria: what was agreed, what was delivered, and what a reasonable outcome is under these Terms. Its recommendation is presented to both parties with a plain-language explanation.

5. Acceptance, escalation & human review

If both parties accept the AI mediator’s recommendation, Escrow is released accordingly and the dispute is closed. If either party disagrees, they may escalate the dispute to Fastest Freelancers Support review, where a human reviewer re-examines the record (informed, but not bound, by the AI recommendation) and issues a decision on how to release Escrow. Escalation becomes free once negotiation has stalled (currently after three declined offers or six turns). Before that, a party may escalate early, once the other party has responded at least once, by paying an escalation fee (shown before they confirm) from their Wallet, and the other party may be invited to match it. The escalation fee is a Platform fee, not part of the disputed Escrow.

Each stage has a response deadline. If a party does not respond in time, the dispute may be decided against them on the available record. Currently, a Freelancer who does not respond for 72 hours when it is their turn results in a full refund to the Client, and a Client who does not respond for 10 days when it is their turn results in full release to the Freelancer. Reminders are sent before a deadline passes.

6. Effect of a decision

The Platform’s dispute outcome (whether by mutual acceptance of the AI recommendation or by human review on escalation) governs how the disputed Escrow is released and is final and binding for purposes of that release. The Processing Fee remains non-refundable regardless of outcome. A dispute outcome resolves the allocation of Escrow only; it does not adjudicate claims outside the Platform, and it does not limit either party’s separate legal rights against the other, which remain between those parties.

7. Good faith and abuse

Repeatedly opening bad-faith disputes, refusing to participate, attempting to move a funded engagement off-Platform to avoid dispute protection, or initiating a chargeback in lieu of the dispute process may result in an adverse dispute outcome, forfeiture, and account suspension.

12Acceptable Use & Prohibited Conduct

You agree not to, and not to help anyone else:

• Post false, misleading, infringing, defamatory, harassing, hateful, or unlawful content;
• Post work or seek services that are illegal, that facilitate fraud, or that violate a third party’s rights;
• Circumvent the Platform’s payments, Escrow, or fees, or solicit off-Platform payment to avoid fees;
• Misrepresent your identity, location, qualifications, or affiliation, or operate from outside the United States;
• Scrape, harvest, or collect other users’ data except as expressly permitted;
• Introduce malware, interfere with the Platform’s operation, probe or breach security, or bypass rate limits or access controls;
• Use the Platform to build a competing service, or reverse-engineer any part of it except as permitted by law;
• Discriminate against or harass any user in violation of applicable law.

We may investigate and take action (including content removal, warnings, feature limits, Escrow holds, suspension, or termination) for suspected violations. You may report violations or trust-and-safety concerns through the in-Platform report tools or at support@fastestfreelancers.com.

13Intellectual Property & Work Product

Work product between Client and Freelancer

Unless the Client and Freelancer agree otherwise in writing, ownership of deliverables transfers to the Client upon full payment for the applicable milestone or Contest award, and until then the Freelancer retains ownership. Freelancers represent that their deliverables are original or properly licensed and do not infringe third-party rights. Pre-existing materials and general tools, know-how, and techniques remain the Freelancer’s property, subject to a license sufficient for the Client to use the deliverable as intended.

Your license to us

You grant Fastest Freelancers a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, and transmit the content you submit (profiles, listings, messages, deliverables submitted through the Platform, and reviews) as necessary to operate, secure, improve, and promote the Platform and to administer Escrow and disputes.

Our intellectual property

The Platform, including its software, design, trademarks, and content we provide, is owned by Fastest Freelancers or its licensors and is protected by law. We grant you a limited, revocable, non-transferable license to use the Platform for its intended purpose. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

Copyright complaints

We respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Send notices to legal@fastestfreelancers.com with the information the DMCA requires. We may remove infringing content and terminate repeat infringers.

14Confidentiality

Clients and Freelancers may exchange confidential information during an engagement. Each party agrees to use the other’s confidential information only to perform the engagement, to protect it with reasonable care, and not to disclose it except as necessary to perform the work or as required by law. This does not restrict information that is public, independently developed, or rightfully received from another source. Where a Project carries the NDA Upgrade, that Project’s NDA also applies as described in Section 6.

15Third-Party Services

The Platform relies on third-party services, including payment processing, identity verification, and payouts (Stripe), text-message delivery (Twilio), email delivery, AI model providers, and sign-in with Google or Apple. Your use of those services is subject to their terms and privacy policies. We are not responsible for third-party services, and their availability or terms may change. Links to third-party sites are provided for convenience and are not endorsements.

16Disclaimers

THE PLATFORM AND ALL CONTENT AND SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE PLATFORM WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT ANY CLIENT OR FREELANCER WILL PERFORM. AI MEDIATION OUTPUTS ARE AUTOMATED, MAY CONTAIN ERRORS, AND ARE NOT LEGAL, FINANCIAL, OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW CERTAIN DISCLAIMERS, SO SOME OF THESE MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

17Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, FASTEST FREELANCERS AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, OR BUSINESS, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE PLATFORM OR THESE TERMS, WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT, OR ANY OTHER THEORY, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE PLATFORM WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE TOTAL FEES YOU PAID TO FASTEST FREELANCERS IN THE SIX (6) MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, OR (B) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS ($100). THESE LIMITS DO NOT APPLY TO LIABILITY THAT CANNOT BE LIMITED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW.

18Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Fastest Freelancers and its affiliates and their respective officers, directors, employees, and agents from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or related to: (a) your use of the Platform; (b) your Projects, Contests, proposals, deliverables, or content; (c) your engagement or dispute with another user; (d) your violation of these Terms or applicable law; or (e) your violation of any third-party right.

19Disputes With Fastest Freelancers: Arbitration & Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules, and by applicable U.S. federal law, including the Federal Arbitration Act.

Informal resolution. Before starting arbitration, you agree to contact us at legal@fastestfreelancers.com and give us 30 days to resolve the dispute informally.

Binding arbitration. Except for the matters below, any dispute between you and Fastest Freelancers relating to the Platform or these Terms will be resolved by final and binding individual arbitration administered by a recognized arbitration provider under its consumer rules, seated in the State of Maryland. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

Class-action waiver. You and Fastest Freelancers agree to bring claims only in an individual capacity and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, or representative proceeding.

Exceptions. Either party may bring an individual claim in small-claims court, and either party may seek injunctive or equitable relief in court for intellectual-property misuse or unauthorized access. This arbitration agreement does not govern user-to-user AI Mediation under Section 11, which is a separate Platform process.

Opt-out. You may opt out of this arbitration agreement by emailing legal@fastestfreelancers.com within 30 days of first accepting these Terms.

20Suspension & Termination

You may stop using the Platform at any time, and you may ask us to close your account by emailing support@fastestfreelancers.com. We may suspend or terminate your access, with or without notice, for any violation of these Terms, suspected fraud or illegal activity, risk to the Platform or other users, or as required by law.

On termination, funded engagements and open disputes will be handled to conclusion where practicable: Escrow is released per the applicable milestone, cancellation, or dispute outcome, and available balances are made payable subject to verification and legal holds. Sections that by their nature should survive (including fees owed, IP licenses, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and dispute provisions) survive termination.

21Changes to the Platform & These Terms

We may modify the Platform and these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will provide notice (for example, by posting the updated Terms with a new “Last updated” date or by email). Changes are effective when posted unless stated otherwise. Your continued use of the Platform after changes take effect constitutes acceptance. If you do not agree, you must stop using the Platform.

22AI Visitors & AI Agents

People increasingly use AI assistants and agents (for example ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or Gemini) to research freelancers and to get work started. This Section explains how such agents may use the Platform, what we record about them, and how a person stays in control of anything an agent prepares for them.

Agents acting for a person

• You are responsible for your agent. If you use an AI agent to act for you on the Platform, what it does in your name is your act under these Terms, including Section 12. We are not responsible for an agent’s mistakes, or for the AI service that runs it.
• Agents must identify themselves honestly. An automated agent must not pretend to be a person or another agent (for example by sending another operator’s user agent), must follow our robots.txt, and must not collect other users’ personal information, work around rate limits, or create accounts. These are prohibited uses under Section 12.

The Agent API and handoff links

• An agent can prepare, but never complete. Through our documented Agent API (described at /llms.txt), an agent may prepare one of three Client actions for the person it is helping: a Project draft, a Contest draft, or a listed service to buy. It receives a link (a “handoff link”) to give that person. Nothing is posted, purchased, or charged until the person opens the link, signs in or creates an account, reviews the draft, and posts or pays themselves. Every fee and term in these Terms applies to that action exactly as if they had started it themselves.
• A handoff link works like a key. It expires after 14 days, and the first account to sign in and continue with it claims the draft; after that, no other account can use it. Treat it as private and share it only with the person it was prepared for.
• Email addresses from agents. An agent may include the person’s email address only if that person has explicitly agreed to share it with Fastest Freelancers, and must tell us so along with the words they agreed to. We keep the address and that consent with the draft. We do not send email to an address an agent gives us. We use it only to recognize the person if they create an account, and to measure whether drafts prepared by agents lead to posts and purchases. The person may ask us to delete it at any time by writing to privacy@fastestfreelancers.com.

What we record about AI agents

We record page requests that we reasonably identify, in good faith, as coming from an AI agent. A request is identified that way only when it names a known AI agent and supports that claim in one of two ways: a cryptographically signed request (the Web Bot Auth standard), or a connection from the IP addresses the agent’s operator publishes for it. For each such request we record the agent and its operator, how it was identified, the page and query it requested, our response, the referrer and language headers it sent, its IP address and approximate location, and the time. We do not record cookies or credentials from these requests.

A request that claims to be a known AI agent but does not have that support (for example, one sending GPTBot’s user agent from outside OpenAI’s published addresses) is not recorded as a visit. Because impersonating a known agent is a common way to disguise scraping and attacks, we instead keep a daily count of such requests for each claimed agent and reason, grouped by the network block they came from (the first three parts of an IPv4 address, or the first three groups of an IPv6 address) rather than by the individual address, together with the last page requested. We use these counts only to detect and respond to impersonation and attacks, and we keep them for 90 days.

These records reflect our reasonable, good-faith identification, not a guarantee. The methods above are the ones AI operators publish for this purpose and are reliable, but no method can confirm with certainty who or what sent a request. A recorded request could, rarely, have been sent by a person or a system other than the AI agent it names, for example through the operator’s network or with that agent’s keys. We do not knowingly record requests from people, we treat every record under this Section the same way whatever its true source, and we will delete a record on request if you believe it describes your own activity. The IP address and location in a record are those of the agent’s operator, not of any person who may have asked the agent a question.

We use these records for two purposes: to understand what people ask their AI assistants about the Platform, and to monitor for patterns of abuse and cyber attacks (such as excessive or disruptive automated traffic, probing of the Platform, or attacks carried out through or disguised as AI agents) and to protect the Platform and its users against them. We keep them for 90 days, unless a record is needed longer to investigate or respond to a specific security incident, in which case we keep it only for as long as that investigation requires.

Arriving from an AI product

When you reach the Platform by following a link from an AI product, or by opening a handoff link, we note which product it was, the page you arrived on, any campaign tags in the link, and a random identifier stored in your browser. If you then sign in or create an account on that browser, we connect that first visit to your account so we can measure which AI products lead to new accounts, Projects, Contests, and purchases. We do not sell this information. The Privacy Policy describes it in full, including how long it is kept and how to ask us to delete it.

23General

• Electronic communications. You consent to receive notices and communications from us electronically, and agree that electronic agreements and records satisfy any legal requirement that they be in writing.
• Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Refund Policy, and the Dispute Resolution Policy are the entire agreement between you and Fastest Freelancers regarding the Platform.
• Severability. If any provision is unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect.
• No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver.
• Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
• Force majeure. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.