API Terms of Use for UK software providers. Covers the licence, API keys, rate limits, acceptable use, data protection, liability and deprecation. B2B, English law. From £4.99.
API Terms of Use are the contract between a provider that exposes an application programming interface and the developers or business customers who build against it. They set out the licence to access the API, the rules for API keys and security, the rate and usage limits, what the API may and may not be used for, the data-protection position, and the provider's liability and right to change or withdraw the API. They are distinct from SaaS subscription terms (which govern an end-user product) and from a EULA (which licenses installed software).
Any business that lets others call its API — free or paid, public or partner-only — needs API terms in place before granting access. Without them, there is nothing governing what happens when a customer exceeds the rate limits, builds a competing product on your data, leaks an API key, or sends personal data through an endpoint that was never designed for it.
The licence grant and reservation of rights, API credentials and security responsibilities, rate and usage limits, acceptable use and prohibited use (including a reverse-engineering restriction drawn to preserve the interoperability acts that cannot lawfully be excluded under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988), the data-protection position and where a separate Article 28 UK GDPR Data Processing Agreement is required, intellectual property, fees, service availability (provided as is unless a separate SLA is agreed), warranty disclaimers, a UCTA-reasonable limitation of liability, suspension, deprecation and change notice, and termination. For business customers under the law of England and Wales.
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