Partner Code of Conduct
Effective Date: October 15, 2026 Version: 1.0 Applies to: All developers, publishers, solution providers, and certified integration partners participating in the Company's developer and partner programs.
Article 1: Introduction and Scope
1.1 This Code states the conduct duties of every participant in the Company's developer and partner ecosystem: developers building on the application programming interface, publishers listing applications in the App Marketplace, solution providers, and certified integration partners. The Code binds the Partner organization, not only the individual account holder; a Partner does not avoid a violation by acting through a contractor or agent, and conduct of a Partner's contractors and agents within the program is the Partner's conduct.
1.2 Specific policies govern their subjects: data duties are governed by the Data Use, Retention and Deletion, scraping by the Scraping Prohibition, security by the Partner Security Requirements, vulnerability disclosure by the Vulnerability Disclosure Policy, and breach notification by the Breach Notification Requirements. This Code states the remaining conduct duties. Where this Code and a Partner Agreement differ, the stricter rule applies unless the agreement expressly overrides the rule by article number.
1.3 If a provision of this Code conflicts with the Terms of Use, this Code controls for the subject it governs. If a provision of this Code conflicts with the terms of a program in which the Partner participates, the program terms control for that program. Policies and help pages explain this Code; they do not amend it, and in any conflict this Code prevails.
Article 2: Definitions
2.1 Account: the account a person or business establishes with the Company to use the Platform.
2.2 Application: a software application, integration, or service the Partner offers through the Platform or the App Marketplace.
2.3 Company: All About Pawz, LLC, a Tennessee limited liability company.
2.4 Installer: a person or business that installs or subscribes to the Partner's Application through the App Marketplace.
2.5 Partner: a developer, publisher, solution provider, certified integration partner, or other participant in the Company's developer and partner programs.
2.6 Platform: the websites, applications, and services the Company operates under the name All About Pawz, including aapawz.com.
2.7 Platform Data: data obtained through the Platform, including data obtained through the application programming interface, webhooks, authorization grants, and the marketplace integration surface, and data derived from such data.
Article 3: Honesty in Representations
3.1 Every claim a Partner makes about the Partner's Application: in a listing, in marketing, and in sales communications with Installers: shall be true of the shipped product and provable on demand. A capability claim is true only if the capability has been exercised as described: a claim that an Application synchronizes data on a stated cadence is a representation that the synchronization runs on that cadence and completes.
3.2 Capability claims shall match what cleared review under the App Listing Standards. A feature shipped without the review that the standards require for it is an unreviewed material change, and a claim made for such a feature is a misrepresentation until the feature clears review.
3.3 A Partner shall claim a status only if the Partner holds it. "Certified," "official partner," "platform-endorsed," and "preferred" each correspond to a status granted under the Solution Provider Program, the Integration Certification Policy, or the Developer Brand and Trademark Use Policy. Use of a status word without holding the status is deceptive regardless of intent.
3.4 Testimonials, case studies, and customer references shall be genuine and current: the customer named shall have used the Application, the quotation shall be the customer's, and a customer whose use ended shall not be presented as a current success story without a date.
Article 4: Reviews and Ratings
4.1 A Partner shall not create, buy, incentivize, or coordinate a false review of the Partner's own Application or of a competitor's application. Prohibited conduct includes posting reviews under fictitious Installer accounts; paying for positive reviews; offering discounts, credits, or feature unlocks in exchange for reviews; and selectively soliciting only satisfied customers while suppressing dissatisfied customers.
4.2 A Partner is responsible for a review the Partner causes or pays for, even if a third party posts it. An undisclosed material connection between a reviewer and the Partner makes the review deceptive, and the Partner bears the consequences under Article 10.
4.3 A Partner shall not retaliate against an Installer for an honest negative review. Degrading service, withholding support, threatening legal action, or otherwise punishing an Installer for a review is prohibited. Support quality shall be identical for an Application's critics and its supporters; the service standards in the Partner Support and Incident Escalation Policy have no reviewer exception.
4.4 A Partner shall not manipulate ratings by any other means, including review-gating (funneling satisfied users to public reviews while diverting dissatisfied users to private feedback), mass-flagging of competitors' legitimate reviews, and impersonating Installers to dispute genuine ratings.
Article 5: No Circumvention
5.1 A Partner shall not use the Partner's position in the program to divert Platform customers off the Platform. Prohibited conduct includes soliciting Installers or their buyers to transact outside the Platform to evade Platform fees; embedding off-platform checkout links in an Application or listing; and harvesting Installer or buyer contact data through an integration and using the data for unsolicited off-platform marketing.
5.2 The line is purpose, not contact. Operational contact within the service the Application provides: notice to an Installer of a failure in the Application's own function: is permitted. Use of contact data obtained through a Platform integration for off-platform marketing is prohibited even where the product marketed is legitimate, because the data came through the integration.
5.3 Structuring transactions to avoid the revenue share under the Partner Revenue Share Policy or usage fees under the API Monetization and Usage Fees Policy: routing payments around the marketplace, or splitting one sale into pieces to stay under a threshold: is a conduct violation and a money violation together.
Article 6: Statements About Others
6.1 A Partner shall not make a false or misleading statement of fact about the Platform, the Company, or another Partner in Installer-facing materials, including listings, in-application copy, marketing sites, sales materials, or public posts made in a Partner capacity. Liability for a false statement, including defamation exposure, rests with the Partner that made it.
6.2 The following are not violations of this Article: (a) a truthful comparative claim about the Partner's own Application measured against a competitor's, where the claim is verifiable; (b) a good-faith report of another Partner's genuine violation made through the procedure in the Partner Suspension, Termination and Appeals, rather than by public post; and (c) private feedback to the Company about Platform problems. Honest criticism, privately given or truthfully and verifiably stated, is not a breach of this Code.
6.3 The test under this Article is verifiability. A claim the Partner can prove with records or public documentation is comparative advertising. A claim the Partner cannot prove, stated publicly, is a violation of Article 6.1.
Article 7: Confidentiality
7.1 A Partner shall keep confidential the Company's non-public information obtained through the program: including unreleased program terms, non-public documentation, security information, and the contents of investigations: and shall use such information only for participation in the program. The Partner shall not disclose such information to any person outside the Partner's organization with a need to know for the program, and shall protect it with at least the care the Partner uses for the Partner's own confidential information.
7.2 A Partner shall keep confidential Platform Data and Installer information as required by the Data Use, Retention and Deletion, which governs that subject. This Article does not reduce any duty under that Policy.
Article 8: Cooperation With Investigations
8.1 A Partner shall cooperate with Company investigations, audits under the Data Use, Retention and Deletion, and security reviews under the Partner Security Requirements: the Partner shall respond truthfully, preserve evidence, and produce the records this Code and the governing policies require.
8.2 The Partner shall: (a) respond to a Company compliance notice within five (5) business days; (b) designate a reachable contact for compliance matters and keep the contact current; (c) preserve logs, records, and communications relevant to an open investigation; and (d) submit to an audit under the Data Use, Retention and Deletion when noticed. Deletion of relevant records after notice of an investigation is an independent violation of this Code.
8.3 Access to the program is conditioned on the transparency this Article requires. A Partner that declines to cooperate has breached this Code whether or not the underlying matter is established.
Article 9: Support Channels and Competitive Conduct
9.1 A Partner shall use support channels as provided in the Partner Support and Incident Escalation Policy: the correct channel, the correct severity, one report per issue. Prohibited conduct includes filing duplicate reports across channels to advance in a queue; marking a routine issue at the highest severity to obtain a faster response; and abusive, threatening, or harassing communication toward support staff. Escalation follows the path stated in that Policy; contacting individual engineers privately or publishing internal support correspondence to force a response is a violation even where the underlying issue is genuine. Abuse of a support channel is graded separately from the underlying issue: a genuine highest-severity incident is handled on its standard, and a threat made in reporting it is handled under Article 10.
9.2 Competition conducted honestly is the program working as designed. A Partner shall not interfere with a rival's application, listing, or integration, including by filing a false violation report, copying a competitor's listing by prohibited means, or degrading shared infrastructure.
9.3 Reporting a competitor's genuine violation through the proper channel is protected conduct. Filing a report the reporter knows, or in the exercise of reasonable care would know, is false: to trigger an investigation, a review hold, or reputational harm: is itself a violation, and a false report filed to harm a competitor is subject to immediate suspension or termination without a cure period under Article 10.
9.4 A Partner shall not use Platform communication channels for unsolicited marketing, and shall not obtain an Installer's data through a shared integration for a purpose outside the integration's authorized scope.
Article 10: Consequences
10.1 Violations of this Code are enforced under the Partner Suspension, Termination and Appeals. Consequences, proportionate to the violation, include: (a) a written warning with a named remediation and deadline; (b) corrective action, including listing correction, removal of a false review the Partner caused, and re-attestation under the App Listing Standards; (c) suspension of a listing, of application programming interface access, or of Partner status for the cure period; and (d) termination, with the deletion and certification duties that follow under the Data Use, Retention and Deletion.
10.2 Placement among the consequences in Article 10.1 reflects severity, intent, and history. A first inaccurate marketing claim corrected within the deadline is a warning; the same claim made again after correction is suspension; deception as a business practice is termination.
10.3 The following carry no cure period and are subject to immediate suspension or termination under the Partner Suspension, Termination and Appeals: organized review fraud; fee circumvention at scale; destruction of evidence after notice of an investigation; a false report filed to harm a competitor; and a conduct violation committed to facilitate data exfiltration or revenue fraud.
Article 11: Liability
11.1 Exclusion of certain damages. To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither party is liable to the other for indirect, incidental, special, punitive, or consequential damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, or loss of goodwill, arising out of or relating to this Code, even if the party has been advised of the possibility of those damages.
11.2 Cap. To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Company's total liability arising out of or relating to this Code shall not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts the Partner paid to the Company under this Code in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred dollars ($100).
11.3 Carve-outs. This Article does not limit (a) a party's indemnification obligations under this Code; (b) liability for fraud or willful misconduct; (c) amounts owed for Orders, fees, chargebacks, or refunds under the Company's documents; or (d) liability that cannot be limited under applicable law.
11.4 Essential purpose. The parties agree that this Article allocates risk between them, that it is an essential part of the basis of their bargain, and that it applies even if a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose.
Article 12: Indemnification
12.1 Duty. The Partner shall indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the Company and its members, managers, employees, and agents from and against every claim, demand, action, loss, liability, judgment, settlement, cost, and expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or relating to: (a) the Partner's breach of this Code; (b) the Partner's Applications, services, listings, or content, including claims arising from the Partner's marketing statements and reviews the Partner caused; (c) the Partner's violation of any law or of the rights of any person; and (d) taxes for which the Partner is responsible under the Company's documents.
12.2 Procedure. The Company shall give prompt written notice of a claim under this Article. The Partner shall control the defense with counsel reasonably acceptable to the Company. The Company may participate in the defense at its own expense. The Partner shall not settle a claim in a manner that imposes any obligation or restriction on the Company, or that does not release the Company fully, without the Company's prior written consent.
12.3 Survival. This Article survives the termination of this Code.
Article 13: Enforcement and Appeals
13.1 Investigation. The Company may investigate any suspected violation of this Code. The Partner shall cooperate with an investigation and shall produce the records this Code requires the Partner to keep.
13.2 Notice. If the Company determines that the Partner has violated this Code, the Company shall give written notice stating the provision violated and the facts relied on, except where notice would compromise an investigation of fraud, a safety risk, or a legal obligation.
13.3 Opportunity to cure. Where a violation is capable of cure, the Partner has ten (10) business days from notice to cure it and to confirm the cure in writing. No cure period applies to fraud, counterfeiting, a risk to the safety of a person or an animal, unlawful conduct, or a violation that by its nature cannot be cured, including the violations listed in Article 10.3.
13.4 Measures. If a violation is established and is not cured within the period allowed, the Company may, proportionate to the violation: (a) issue a written warning; (b) remove or suppress a listing or content; (c) suspend the Partner's credentials, listings, or program participation, in whole or in part; (d) terminate this Code as it applies to the Partner and terminate the Account; and (e) exercise any other right or remedy available under this Code or at law. Procedure for suspension, termination, and credential measures is governed by the Partner Suspension, Termination and Appeals.
13.5 Appeal. The Partner may appeal a measure under this Article by written notice to legal@aapawz.com within thirty (30) days of the measure, stating the grounds and attaching the records relied on. The appeal is decided by a person who did not make the original decision. The Company's decision on appeal is final. A measure remains in effect during an appeal unless the Company directs otherwise in writing.
13.6 No waiver by delay. The Company's delay in acting on a violation is not a waiver of the violation or of any later violation of the same kind.
Article 14: Term and Termination
14.1 Term. This Code takes effect when the Partner is accepted into a developer or partner program and continues until terminated under this Article.
14.2 Termination by the Company. The Company may terminate this Code as it applies to the Partner, and the Account, on thirty (30) days' written notice for any reason, and immediately on written notice if the Partner materially breaches this Code, engages in fraud, or becomes ineligible to participate.
14.3 Termination by the Partner. The Partner may terminate participation on thirty (30) days' written notice to support@aapawz.com, provided the Partner has no investigation outstanding.
14.4 Effect of termination. On termination: (a) the rights granted under the Company's documents end; (b) obligations that arose before termination: including confidentiality, record-keeping, and indemnification obligations: survive until satisfied; and (c) the Company shall disburse amounts owed, less amounts the Company may set off under the Company's documents, within thirty (30) days, except amounts held in connection with an open investigation or dispute.
14.5 Survival. The Definitions, Liability, Indemnification, Enforcement and Appeals (for measures taken before termination), Dispute Resolution, and General Provisions Articles survive termination.
Article 15: Dispute Resolution
15.1 Any dispute arising out of or relating to this Code, or to the relationship it governs, is governed by the Dispute Resolution Policy, which is incorporated into this Code by reference.
Article 16: General Provisions
16.1 Amendments. The Company may amend this Code by posting the amended Code in the Document Center and giving notice to the Partner at the email address in the Account. An amendment that materially increases the Partner's obligations takes effect thirty (30) days after notice; other amendments take effect on posting. Continued participation after the effective date of an amendment is acceptance of it. If the Partner does not accept an amendment, the Partner's remedy is to terminate under Article 14 before the amendment takes effect.
16.2 Notices. Legal notices under this Code shall be sent to legal@aapawz.com. Operational notices and all other communications shall be sent to support@aapawz.com. A notice to the Company is effective when the Company acknowledges receipt or, for email, one business day after sending, whichever is earlier. Notices to the Partner are effective when sent to the email address in the Account or posted to the Account's notice facility in the portal, whichever occurs first. The Partner shall keep the email address in the Account current.
16.3 Governing law. This Code is governed by the laws of the State of Tennessee, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Subject to the Dispute Resolution Policy, any proceeding arising out of this Code shall be brought in the state or federal courts located in Shelby County, Tennessee, and the parties consent to personal jurisdiction there.
16.4 Severability. If any provision of this Code is held unenforceable, the provision shall be enforced to the fullest extent permitted, and the remaining provisions continue in full effect.
16.5 Entire agreement. This Code, together with the documents it incorporates by reference, is the entire agreement between the Company and the Partner for the subject it governs and supersedes every prior or contemporaneous statement, communication, or agreement on that subject, whether written or oral.
16.6 Assignment. The Partner shall not assign this Code or any right or obligation under it without the Company's prior written consent, and an assignment without consent is void. The Company may assign this Code to an affiliate or in connection with a sale of all or part of its business, on notice to the Partner.
16.7 Waiver. A waiver of any provision of this Code is effective only in writing and only for the instance stated. No waiver is a waiver of any other provision or instance.
16.8 Interpretation. Headings are for convenience only. "Including" means "including without limitation." This Code shall not be construed against a party as its drafter. The English-language text controls over any translation.