Partner Suspension, Termination and Appeals
Effective Date: October 15, 2026 Version: 1.0 Applies to: All Developers and Partners subject to enforcement under the Company's developer and partner documents, and to every suspension, termination, and credential measure taken under them.
Article 1: Introduction and Scope
1.1 This Policy governs suspension and termination of Developer accounts, application programming interface keys, authorization applications and grants, webhook subscriptions, marketplace listings, and partner status, together with the appeal path and the consequences that follow a measure. This Policy is the procedure to which the developer and partner documents refer when a measure is taken under them.
1.2 Two tracks govern every measure. The remediable track, in Article 4, covers violations that can be fixed, and gives the Developer a defined period to fix them. The immediate track, in Article 5, covers conduct for which no cure period is given, because the harm is too severe or too intentional. The track is determined by the conduct, not by the Developer's history; a first offense on the immediate track is still on the immediate track.
1.3 If a provision of this Policy conflicts with the Terms of Use, this Policy controls for the subject it governs. If a provision of this Policy conflicts with the terms of a program in which the Developer participates, the program terms control for that program. Policies and help pages explain this Policy; they do not amend it, and in any conflict this Policy 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 Developer offers through the Platform or the App Marketplace.
2.3 Company: All About Pawz, LLC, a Tennessee limited liability company.
2.4 Credential: an application programming interface key, token, password, signing secret, or other means of authentication issued to the Developer, and any authorization grant held by an Application.
2.5 Developer: a person or business the Company has accepted to build on the Platform's application programming interface or to participate in a partner program, including a publisher and a solution provider.
2.6 Measure: a warning, a listing removal or suppression, a Credential suspension or revocation, a suspension of an Account, Application, or program participation, a downgrade to Sandbox-only access, or a termination, taken under this Policy or under another developer or partner document.
2.7 Platform: the websites, applications, and services the Company operates under the name All About Pawz, including aapawz.com.
2.8 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: Measures Available
3.1 Proportionate to a violation, the Company may: (a) issue a written warning; (b) remove or suppress a listing or content; (c) suspend or revoke a Credential, in whole or in part; (d) disable a webhook subscription; (e) suspend an Account, an Application, or a program participation, in whole or in part, including by downgrade to Sandbox-only access; (f) terminate the Developer's participation and the Account; and (g) exercise any other right or remedy available under the governing document or at law.
3.2 A Measure is the minimum action necessary to stop the harm. The Company does not terminate where revocation of a Credential stops the harm, and does not merely revoke a Credential where the conduct shows the Developer cannot be trusted with any access.
3.3 The Developer retains portal access during a suspension for the purposes of remediation and appeal. Cutting off the ability to cure what was demanded is not a Measure under this Policy.
Article 4: The Remediable Track: Notice and Cure
4.1 A remediable violation carries a ten (10) day cure period running from the written cure notice. The notice states: (a) the exact violation, with dates and evidence: the rule, the conduct, and when the conduct occurred; (b) the rule violated, cited to its document and article; (c) the required remediation, stated as an outcome, not as a general direction to improve practices; (d) the cure deadline, as a calendar date; (e) the consequence if the deadline passes without cure; and (f) the appeal path and deadline under Article 8.
4.2 Cure within the period closes the matter. The violation is recorded, because repeat violations escalate under Article 4.4, but no further action follows, and the closure is confirmed to the Developer in writing. A cure is not probation; once cured, the Developer operates normally.
4.3 Cure means the violating condition is eliminated and measures are in place to prevent recurrence: over-retained data is deleted, a scope wider than authorized is narrowed, a missing disclosure is published, a key-handling gap is closed with evidence. Partial remediation, remediation that leaves the root cause intact, and a remediation plan without execution are not cure; a plan is what Article 9 asks for after suspension, not what this Article accepts during cure.
4.4 A repeat violation of the same rule within twelve (12) months receives no second cure period and escalates by one Measure under Article 3.1. The second notice cites the first, with its date and closure. A third violation of the same rule within twelve (12) months is treated as evidence that the Developer cannot or will not comply, and termination is available.
4.5 The cure period does not run during active harm. Where continued access risks data exposure, security compromise, or marketplace integrity, the Company may suspend first and deliver the cure notice at the same time; the suspension stops the harm, and the cure period governs what happens next. The notice in such a case states why immediate action was taken. Immediate suspension for a security incident is governed further by Article 5.3.
Article 5: The Immediate Track: No Cure Period
5.1 Each of the following is defined by the behavior, and lack of intent is not a defense on this track, though intent may affect what follows: (a) scraping or circumvention: systematically obtaining Platform or marketplace data outside the application programming interface, hoarding interface responses beyond authorized use, rotating identities or infrastructure to evade rate limits or blocks, or defeating technical access controls, as the Scraping Prohibition governs; (b) data sale or taking: selling, renting, or licensing Platform Data or end-user data to a third party, or moving buyer personal data outside the Application's authorized scope and purpose, as the Data Use, Retention and Deletion governs; (c) breach concealment: knowing of a confirmed breach and failing to notify within the window the Breach Notification Requirements set, filing a materially incomplete or misleading notice, destroying forensic evidence, or instructing any person not to report; (d) unregistered agent operation or human impersonation: operating an artificial intelligence agent on the Platform without registration and approval, or an agent presenting as human to users, staff, or systems, as the Automated Access and Agent Disclosure governs; (e) revenue fraud: manipulating revenue, including fake installs, self-purchases, and refund gaming, to inflate payouts or measures of performance, including collusion between two parties to manufacture volume, as the Partner Revenue Share Policy governs; (f) deceptive authorization consent: a consent screen that misrepresents what an Application accesses or why, judged from the end user's perspective, as the OAuth App Registration and Review governs; and (g) compromise of Platform infrastructure: attacking the Company's own systems beyond the bounds of authorized research in the Vulnerability Disclosure Policy.
5.2 Immediate action under this Article is the minimum necessary to stop the harm under Article 3.2: Credential revocation, grant revocation, webhook disablement, Application delisting, or full Account termination, selected by the facts.
5.3 Immediate suspension for a security incident. The Company may suspend a Credential, a webhook subscription, or an Application immediately, before notice, where a security incident is in progress or Platform Data is actively exposed. The Company shall give the notice Article 6 requires at the same time as the suspension or as soon as the exposure is contained, and the Developer's appeal rights under Article 8 are unaffected by the order in which notice and suspension occur.
5.4 Termination for fraud under Article 5.1(e) forfeits unpaid payouts attributable to the fraud. Forfeiture is limited to the amounts attributable to the fraud; legitimate earnings from legitimate activity are not taken as punishment. Where the Developer's own records are unreliable, the Developer bears the burden of separating amounts attributable to fraud from amounts honestly earned.
Article 6: Procedure: Notice, Response, Decision
6.1 Every enforcement action begins with a written notice to the Developer's contact on file, containing: the track (Article 4 or Article 5); the violation with evidence; the rule cited; the action taken or proposed; the effective date and time; the appeal path and deadline under Article 8; and, for a remediable violation, the cure requirements under Article 4.1. A notice that does not state the appeal path is procedurally defective, and the defect extends the appeal deadline until a corrected notice issues.
6.2 For a remediable violation, the ten (10) day cure period is the response window: the Developer answers by curing, by appealing, or by both. For an action on the immediate track, the Developer has five (5) business days from the notice to submit a written response with evidence before the action becomes final, except where the action was already taken to stop active harm under Article 4.5 or Article 5.3, in which case the response window runs against the action already in effect.
6.3 A reviewer who was not the investigating party decides the response: uphold, modify (by reducing the action: termination to suspension, suspension to a cure period), or reverse. The decision is written, states its reasons, and is delivered within fourteen (14) calendar days of the response deadline. Silence at fourteen (14) days is not approval of the response, but the Developer may escalate the delay under the Partner Support and Incident Escalation Policy.
Article 7: Effect on Live Integrations
7.1 On suspension, Credentials are deactivated, webhooks are paused, marketplace listings are hidden, and new installs are blocked. In-flight user sessions end at their natural expiry; the Company does not interrupt an active buyer checkout mid-transaction where interruption can be avoided, and instead stops new activity and lets the in-flight transaction complete or time out.
7.2 On termination, all Credentials and authorization grants are revoked, listings are removed, and partner status ends, as Article 10 states.
7.3 Orderly degradation is the Developer's duty. An Application shall handle a revoked Credential and a paused webhook without corrupting user data and without presenting a false success state: an authentication or authorization failure response is a terminal signal, not an instruction to retry. Webhook events queued during a pause are redelivered on resumption where the delivery record supports redelivery; an Application whose design does not tolerate redelivery, or its absence, bears the consequence of that design.
7.4 An end user affected by a suspension or termination is notified by the Company where the Company determines notice is necessary for the end user's protection: including a buyer whose orders route through a suspended integration and a user whose data a terminated Application held. The notice is factual: what happened, what the event means for the end user, and what the end user is to do.
7.5 On termination, the deletion duties in the Data Use, Retention and Deletion apply in full: the Developer shall delete all Platform personal data within thirty (30) days and shall certify the deletion in writing within forty-five (45) days. The certification names the data classes, the deletion method, and the systems covered; a general statement that data was deleted is not a certification. Failure to certify is itself a violation, enforced independently of the termination. Financial settlement runs in parallel: certification is not withheld for a payment dispute, and payment is not withheld for certification.
Article 8: Enforcement and Appeals
8.1 Investigation. The Company may investigate any suspected violation of the Company's developer and partner documents. The Developer shall cooperate with an investigation and shall produce the records the governing document requires the Developer to keep. The enforcement record for every action consists of the notice, the evidence, the Developer's response, the decision, and the appeal outcome, and the record is retained under the Company's records schedule.
8.2 Appeal. The Developer may appeal a Measure by written notice to legal@aapawz.com within thirty (30) days of the Measure. The appeal states the enforcement notice identifier, the grounds (factual error, misapplied rule, disproportionate action, or new evidence), and the supporting evidence. The appeal is decided by a reviewer who did not take the action.
8.3 A Measure remains in effect during an appeal unless the reviewer grants a stay. A stay is granted where the Developer shows the action was likely erroneous and continued enforcement causes harm that cannot be undone; a stay is not granted where safety requires the Measure to hold, including an active breach, ongoing data exposure, or an unregistered agent in operation. A protective action taken for a security incident under Article 5.3 carries the same appeal rights and is never stayed where safety requires the action.
8.4 The appeal decision issues within fourteen (14) calendar days of filing, in writing, with reasons. The Company's decision on appeal is final, subject to the Dispute Resolution Policy.
8.5 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 9: Reinstatement
9.1 Reinstatement after suspension requires all three of the following: (a) completed remediation of the violation; (b) a written remediation plan showing the root cause is addressed: what changed in process, tooling, or personnel, not only in the one broken integration; and (c) re-verification of the control that was violated, which may include issuance of new Credentials under the API Key Management and Rotation, scope re-review under the OAuth App Registration and Review, and a fresh attestation under the Partner Security Requirements where security was the issue. The Company re-verifies; the Developer's assertion is the application, not the evidence.
9.2 A terminated Developer may reapply after twelve (12) months. Reapplication is discretionary and requires full review as a new applicant: new identity verification, new use-case review, and new Credentials, with no carried-over scopes or listings. A terminated Developer that reappears under a different entity to evade the twelve (12) month bar commits fraud under Article 5.1(e), and the evasion is a new violation on the immediate track.
9.3 Reinstatement is never available where the termination rested on data sale under Article 5.1(b), concealment under Article 5.1(c), or fraud under Article 5.1(e). The termination notice states whether reapplication is closed permanently or available after twelve (12) months.
Article 10: Term and Termination
10.1 Term. This Policy takes effect when the Developer is accepted into a developer or partner program and continues until terminated under this Article.
10.2 Termination by the Company. The Company may terminate the Developer's participation and the Account on thirty (30) days' written notice for any reason, and immediately on written notice where the Developer materially breaches a governing document, engages in fraud, or becomes ineligible to participate, subject to the procedure in Articles 4 through 6.
10.3 Termination by the Developer. The Developer may terminate participation on thirty (30) days' written notice to support@aapawz.com, provided the Developer has no Order, incident, or investigation outstanding.
10.4 Effect of termination. On termination: (a) the rights granted under the Company's documents end; (b) the data duties in Article 7.5 begin to run; (c) legitimate unpaid amounts not attributable to fraud are settled under the Partner Revenue Share Policy; and (d) obligations that arose before termination: including payment, refund, chargeback, record-keeping, and indemnification obligations: survive until satisfied.
10.5 Survival. The Definitions, Liability, Indemnification, Enforcement and Appeals (for Measures taken before termination), Dispute Resolution, and General Provisions Articles survive termination.
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 Policy, 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 Policy shall not exceed the greater of (a) the amounts the Developer paid to the Company under this Policy 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 Policy; (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 Developer 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 Developer's breach of this Policy or of a governing document; (b) the Developer's Applications, services, listings, or content; (c) the Developer's violation of any law or of the rights of any person; and (d) taxes for which the Developer is responsible under the Company's documents.
12.2 Procedure. The Company shall give prompt written notice of a claim under this Article. The Developer shall control the defense with counsel reasonably acceptable to the Company. The Company may participate in the defense at its own expense. The Developer 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 Policy.
Article 13: Dispute Resolution
13.1 Any dispute arising out of or relating to this Policy, or to the relationship it governs, is governed by the Dispute Resolution Policy, which is incorporated into this Policy by reference.
Article 14: General Provisions
14.1 Amendments. The Company may amend this Policy by posting the amended Policy in the Document Center and giving notice to the Developer at the email address in the Account. An amendment that materially increases the Developer'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 Developer does not accept an amendment, the Developer's remedy is to terminate under Article 10 before the amendment takes effect.
14.2 Notices. Legal notices and appeals under this Policy 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 Developer 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 Developer shall keep the email address in the Account current.
14.3 Governing law. This Policy 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 Policy shall be brought in the state or federal courts located in Shelby County, Tennessee, and the parties consent to personal jurisdiction there.
14.4 Severability. If any provision of this Policy is held unenforceable, the provision shall be enforced to the fullest extent permitted, and the remaining provisions continue in full effect.
14.5 Entire agreement. This Policy, together with the documents it incorporates by reference, is the entire agreement between the Company and the Developer for the subject it governs and supersedes every prior or contemporaneous statement, communication, or agreement on that subject, whether written or oral.
14.6 Assignment. The Developer shall not assign this Policy 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 Policy to an affiliate or in connection with a sale of all or part of its business, on notice to the Developer.
14.7 Waiver. A waiver of any provision of this Policy is effective only in writing and only for the instance stated. No waiver is a waiver of any other provision or instance.
14.8 Interpretation. Headings are for convenience only. "Including" means "including without limitation." This Policy shall not be construed against a party as its drafter. The English-language text controls over any translation.