Acceptable use
A plain list of what is not allowed, and what happens.
Not allowed
- Sharing keys. A key is for one person or one project. Do not share it, sell it, publish it, or put it in code other people can read.
- Getting around limits. No extra accounts or keys to get more requests, no rotating addresses to hide, no splitting one job across many keys.
- Scraping the whole dataset. The API returns single records. Collecting it record by record to rebuild a copy, asking for record numbers in order, or sending requests at machine speed beyond the limits is not allowed.
- Reselling raw data. You may build products and services on the data. You may not sell or give away the raw data, or an API that is a thin copy of this one.
- Implying government endorsement. Do not suggest that an agency, or RecallDB, endorses you or your product. Do not use agency names, seals or logos to look official.
- Claiming a product is safe. Do not use the data to tell anyone that a car, product or food is safe, not recalled, or unaffected because nothing was found. The data shows what recall notices say. Tell people to confirm with the manufacturer or the agency.
- Attacking or abusing the service. No overloading, probing for weaknesses (report them instead: security), spam, or breaking the law.
- Skipping attribution. Free keys must show "Data from RecallDB" with a link (how).
What happens
We check usage automatically. A key that looks like it is breaking these rules is first warned (a notice in its responses), then throttled to 3 requests a minute, then suspended. Each step is logged with its reason. We may also revoke a key at once for serious misuse.
A suspended key's errors name support@recalldb.app. Write with your key id (the 8 characters after "rdb_") and tell us what you are doing; we will review it. Details of what is checked are in rate limits and fair use.