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Xeyla
You'd probably want to send a Contact Us for a official word from the staff on questions like this this, but I think the rule is less about strict ownership and more about intent.
Plenty of players buy or adopt dragons that they eventually get tired of, and you're always allowed to resell or exalt as you please as per the ownership agreement. People have bought dragons for hundreds, thousands of Gems, and yet ended up exalting them all the same. If someone outright tells you not to exalt a dragon you buy from them, or gets angry and starts insulting you for exalting that dragon,
that's considered harassment.
But in an adoption thread, the point is to take in a dragon you like, and don't plan on exalting right away. The expected etiquette is to at least take care of the dragon you liked enough to adopt until you fall out of love with them, like you might with any other dragon. The gifters/sellers are perfectly aware that they can't (and shouldn't) enforce a strict exalt ban, but the hope is that adopters will take a dragon they'd like to keep, at least for a little while.
It's also worth noting that the same rule quotes an example with spite-exalting, specifically.
Quote:
Example: A player uses an 'adoption' thread for the purpose of upsetting the gifting players by exalting the gifted dragon."
Without the clause against adopt-exalting, the staff has no explicit rule in place to disallow players from adopting & exalting dragons from a specific player out of personal vendetta. This would be a loophole users could exploit to target and harass players they don't like by taking their free dragons and exalting them, without technically falling under any other rules against spite-exalting.
So I believe the rule is trying to say, "when someone's running a free/cheap adoption thread, don't be mean and adopt dragons for exalt fodder just because you want more profit. Going against the trade agreement as per the gifter's wishes on purpose is a jerk move that can upset other players, so just don't do it."
Though it's definitely confusingly worded, the goal of this rule is preventing upset and harassment from both sides of a trade agreement.