Acceptable Use Policy

How to use our APIs

This page is intended as an easy-to-read summary of a subset of our Terms of Use. It does not replace the Terms of Use, which always take precedence.

No scraping

Don't systematically scrape the APIs and store the results. For example, if you systematically request all available eclipse paths, that would be considered scraping.

No redistribution

By all means, use our API data to power your user interfaces, or to derive your own data to power your own sites or applications, but don't grab it from our APIs and redistribute it in substantiallly similar form.

For example, when showing a GeoJSON file on a digital map, the file should be sourced by your app, web page, or other software directly from our API URLs by each end user. Don't store the file on your own server and distribute it from there.

No hacking or digital spelunking

Follow our published methods for accessing the APIs. Don't try to subvert security mechanisms or dig around in dark corners for undocumented end points or parameters.

Respect cache headers

Respect the cache headers included in our API responses. If a response includes Cache-Control: private don't store that in your own shared cache. If your use case warrants a different approach, talk to us about it.

Note, there's unlikely to be a performance-related reason to attempt your own caching: our API runs on CloudFlare and responses are automatically served from locations close to users.

Don't share API keys

Keep control of your own API keys and do not share them with others. If you think your API keys are compromised, disable or delete them, and let us know.

No API key stuffing

Don't encourage or provide means for end users of your software or service to sign up for their own accounts and enter their own API keys. We've seen some apps do this over the years to avoid paying for services - it's a bad look.

Follow attribution requirements

Be sure to follow any attribution requirements posted on this site.

Rate limits

Be aware that rate limits apply to API usage on platform, account and individual end-point levels. Adjust your usage or plan to avoid regularly blowing through them.