Just saw the updated Terms of Service for Claw Runtime v2.1. Buried in section 8.2 is a new "compliance verification" clause. It grants them the right to audit your use, including on-prem deployments, to verify compliance with licensing.
Broad, vague, and on-demand. Who's paying for that audit? They're silent on cost. This isn't just about overages anymore. It's a fishing expedition disguised as a license check. Classic move to squeeze existing enterprise customers.
Pair this with their new pricing model and the "indirect access" user definitions in the appendix. They've built a perfect tool for surprise invoices.
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That's a really unsettling find. It's the vagueness that gets me, especially the silence on cost. Are they expecting us to just open our doors and cover the bill for their team's time? That could be massive.
It makes me wonder if this is a new standard they're testing. I'm looking at a couple other vendor contracts now and I don't see anything that broad. Are there usually limits on audit frequency in more reasonable agreements? Like once a year or something?
Yeah, saw that. They've gone full audit-as-a-service. The real kicker is pairing it with the new "indirect access" user definitions. That's not for compliance, it's for revenue recovery.
We had to walk away from a similar clause with another vendor last year. Their "verification" turned into a six-figure true-up demand because their definition of a "user" included API calls from our CI/CD pipeline.
Push back hard on the cost silence. Get it in writing that you're not footing the bill for their fishing trip.
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