Petco Love Lost API Terms of Service – Petco Love Lost

Effective Date: August 3, 2026

Introduction

Thank you for partnering with us to help reunite lost pets with their owners. These API Terms of Service (the “Terms”) govern your access to and use of our application programming interface (the “API”) and all associated data or content, including but not limited to pet listings, geographic data relating to lost or found pets, pet name and descriptions, pet photographs, and pet owner contact or other owner personal information of registered users of Petco Love Lost, our database that connects families with missing dogs and cats (“PLL Users” and such data collectively, the “API Data”).

By applying for an API key, accessing, or using the API, you agree to be bound by these Terms, which are a legally binding contract between you and Petco Love (“we,” “us,” “our” and “Petco Love”), a California nonprofit public benefit corporation. If you are entering into these Terms on behalf of an organization, company, or other legal entity, you represent that you have the authority to bind that entity to these Terms. We reserve the right to modify these terms and your continued use of our API after such modification indicates your agreement to such modified Terms.

1. Access, Registration, and Eligibility

API License: Subject to your compliance with these Terms and the terms of any other agreement we may enter into with you, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, and revocable license to access and use the API solely to develop, test, display, operate and support your application or website (your “Application”) designed to assist in pet reunions or to transmit lost/found pet and owner data to our Petco Love Lost platform and to display any API Data accessed through the API within your application or website. We expressly reserve all other rights.
No Educational Keys: We do not offer or permit the use of our API for general educational, academic, or speculative testing projects. Every API key must be tied to an active, specific service aimed at achieving positive pet reunion outcomes in furtherance of our charitable mission.
Key Confidentiality: Your API key, which is a credential we supply to you that enables us to associate your API activity with your Application, is your credential. You are entirely responsible for maintaining its confidentiality and for all activities that occur when it is used. You may not share, sell, rent, transfer or lease your API key or access to the API with any third party.

2. Data Rights, Integrity, and Privacy

As between us and you, we own all right, title and interest to the API Data. Because our API Data may include personal information of PLL Users such as owner contact information to help missing pets get home, data integrity and security are paramount.

Permitted Data Use and Privacy Policies: If you process any personal information received from us, you agree to comply with the terms of our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated herein, and any other data processing agreement or privacy terms that we may agree upon with you. You may use the API Data only within the specific application or website described in your Application for the purpose of reuniting pets. You may not share, sell, rent, lease, redistribute, or syndicate the API Data to any third party or use it for advertising purposes, including targeted ads or cross-context behavioral advertising. Your Application must include a privacy policy that accurately discloses your collection, use, distribution, transfer, storage, sharing, and deletion of data.
Owner and Pet Data Transfers: For partners transmitting pet and owner data to our platform, you represent and warrant that you have obtained all necessary and legally valid consents, permissions (including copyright), or other legal rights, including from the pet owners or your Application end users, to share that information including personal information, if any (such as names, phone numbers, and email addresses) for the purposes for which you are sharing that information and that you have complied with all applicable laws in doing so, including those related to privacy and data protection.
Caching and Synchronization: To ensure accuracy and protect privacy (e.g., preventing the public display of a pet that has already been reunited), you may cache API Data temporarily. However, you must refresh your cached data at least once every 24 hours.
Data Storage Generally and Removal on Request: You must store all API Data in a manner which enables you to identify, segregate, and selectively delete such content and you will store API Data only for the duration necessary for you to provide your Application’s services to your end users. The API Data must not be stored in a data repository that would enable any third-party access. You must possess the technical capability to delete specific pet or owner records or other personal information from PLL Users within twenty-four (24) hours of a request from us or from the data subject.
Security and Data Breach: You must implement industry-standard administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to secure API Data against unauthorized access or disclosure (including with respect to personnel, facilities, hardware and software, storage and networks, access controls, monitoring and logging, vulnerability and breach detection, incident response, encryption of personal information while in transit and at rest). In the event of any security incident or data breach affecting your Application or the API Data, you must notify us immediately at api@petcolove.org but in any event no less than within twenty-four (24) hours of discovery.
Your account data: You agree that we can use, store, distribute, transfer, and share information submitted by you in connection with your Application to contact you, for attribution purposes, handling inquiries about your Application, for other purposes under these Terms (for example, we may email you with updates regarding these Terms), and as otherwise permitted in our Privacy Policy. You acknowledge that if you share the contact information of your employees with us, we may contact them in accordance with these Terms.

3. Acceptable Use and Restrictions

Except as otherwise set forth in these Terms or in any other agreement entered into between you and us, you agree that you will not, and will not permit or authorize others to:

Disclose or provide the API, your access credentials or to any person or entity other than your employees;
Use, distribute, or transfer the API Data for any purpose other than to allow end users of your Application to use API Data in your Application for the purposes of reuniting pets;
Charge fees for access to the API or API Data;
Use the API or API Data for any illegal, fraudulent, or malicious purpose or in any manner which would violate these Terms, or breach any laws or regulations regarding privacy or data protection, or violate the rights of third parties or expose Petco Love or PLL Users to legal liability;
Copy, adapt, reverse engineer, disassemble, decompile, or otherwise attempt to modify or extract the source code of the API or our underlying platform through any means.
Interfere with, exceed or circumvent reasonable rate limits on API calls and use, disobey any requirements, procedures, or policies or regulations of networks connected to our service and platform, transmit any viruses, worms, defects, Trojan horses or other malicious code or flood the API with requests in a manner that degrades performance, causes instability, or disrupts our services or platform for us and for PLL Users.
Use the API Data to train machine learning models or to create create competitive databases, or use automated scrapers or any other software to bypass our standard API protocols.
Remove any legal, copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights notices contained in or on materials you receive or access pursuant to these Terms, including the API and the API Data;
Attempt to re-identify any de-identified, anonymized or obfuscated data

4. Branding and Attribution

To help spread awareness and scale the network of pet reunions, clear attribution is required:

Attribution Requirement: If your use of API Data has been approved in writing by us to be public-facing, you must include a visible attribution on all public-facing pages or screen views where the API Data is displayed. The attribution must state "Powered by Petco Love" or feature a Petco Love logo approved in writing by us. Any goodwill resulting from the use of our name and logo will inure solely to us. Other than the foregoing or as may be set forth in any other agreement we may enter into with you, no license is granted to you through these Terms to use the Petco Love name, logo or other trademarks and any such use is strictly prohibited.
Live Hyperlink: The text or logo attribution described above must contain a live, direct hyperlink back to our primary platform. This link must be structured for informational or search engine visibility and should not disrupt your user experience.

5. Availability, Modifications, and Liability

"As-Is" Service: WE PROVIDE THE API AND THE API DATA ON AN "AS-IS" AND "AS-AVAILABLE" BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED AND WE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AVAILABILITY, SECURITY, TITLE AND/OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT REPRESENT, WARRANT OR MAKE ANY CONDITION THAT THE API AND THE API DATA ARE FREE OF ERRORS, BUGS OR INTERRUPTIONS, OR THAT THE API DATA IS ACCURATE, COMPLETE OR OTHERWISE VALID. YOUR USE OF THE API AND THE API DATA IS AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK, AND YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE THAT RESULTS FROM SUCH USE.
API Modifications: We reserve the right to modify, update, or discontinue any version of the API, its endpoints, or features at any time for any reason including to protect the security or integrity of the API, to address user security or user privacy issues or for necessary legal compliance reasons. We will make reasonable efforts to provide advance notice of these changes, but it may not be commercially reasonable in all circumstances, and we are not liable for disruptions to your service caused by our exercising of these rights. If we terminate the API in accordance with the foregoing, the provisions below with respect to Data Destruction Upon Termination and Survival apply.
Limitation of Liability: TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WE AND OUR SUPPLIERS AND OUR AND THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES, OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS: (A) WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR LOSS ARISING OUT OF YOUR USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE API OR API DATA, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES; OR (B) ANY LIABILITY OR DAMAGES, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLINGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY, OR OTHERWISE, IN EXCESS OF ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS ($1000).

6. Suspension and Termination

Inactivity: You may terminate these Terms by discontinuing use of our API. In addition, API keys that remain completely inactive for a continuous period of ninety (90) days may be automatically disabled by us. You may contact us to request reactivation.
Termination for Breach: We reserve the right to suspend or permanently terminate your API key and access to the API and the API Data immediately, without prior notice and liability to you, if we determine or reasonably believe: (i) that you have violated any provision of these Terms or provided false information during registration; or (ii) that providing you with continued access jeopardizes our tax-exempt status. You agree to assist us in verifying your compliance with these Terms, including by providing us with information about your Application and your use, distribution, transfer, disclosure, and storage of API Content upon our reasonable request.
Data Destruction upon Termination: Upon the termination of your access or the expiration of your key for any reason, all licenses are terminated and you must immediately and at your own cost delete all copies of the API Data, cached files, and metadata derived from our API from your servers and backups.

Survival: The following sections of these Terms will survive termination: 2,3,5 and 6 (Data Destruction upon Termination and Survival).