Legal
API Terms
The terms covering the BuyByteData developer platform.
This document is a draft
It has no effective date and is not yet in force. 4 sections are still awaiting approved legal text and are marked below. What it does describe is how the platform actually behaves today, and that part is accurate.
1. Scope
1.Scope
These terms cover the BuyByteData API and apply to accounts on the API plan. They are in addition to the Terms & Conditions and the Acceptable Use Policy, not instead of them.
The documentation is technically authoritative
Where this document describes how the API behaves, the API documentation is the accurate technical reference. Nothing here changes how the API works.
2. Access
2.Access
- The API is available to accounts on the API plan, which is arranged with us rather than bought in the application.
- The API plan does not include the reseller console, and a reseller plan does not include the API.
- There is one version of the API, published at /api/v1.
3. Your credentials
3.Your credentials
- A key is shown once, when it is created. We store a hash, so we cannot show it to you again — a lost key is replaced, not recovered.
- A live key can spend your wallet from anywhere until it is revoked. Treat it as you would a password.
- A test key can read the catalogue, your wallet and your transactions, but cannot buy.
- You are responsible for purchases made with your keys.
- Revoke a key you believe has been exposed. Revocation takes effect immediately.
Never send a key to support
BuyByteData support will never ask for an API key, a secret or an Authorization header, and does not need one to help you. Your account and transaction references are enough.
4. Requests and rate limits
4.Requests and rate limits
Requests are rate limited per account, in two separate budgets, so that polling for a result can never exhaust your ability to buy.
| Bucket | Limit |
|---|---|
| Reads — catalogue, wallet, transactions | 120 per minute |
| Purchases | 60 per minute |
Exceeding a budget returns a rate-limit response carrying a Retry-After header. Use it rather than retrying immediately. These are the configured limits at the time of writing and may change; the API documentation is the current reference.
5. Purchases and duplicate protection
5.Purchases and duplicate protection
A purchase request must carry an idempotency key that you generate, one per purchase attempt. Reusing the same key for a retry returns the original transaction rather than buying again.
Accepted is not delivered
A purchase is answered with an acceptance, not a completion — the provider has not been contacted at that moment. Do not credit your own customer on acceptance. Poll the transaction reference until its status is final.
An unresolved transaction is not a failed one. No refund has been made while it is unresolved, and issuing the same purchase again could buy twice. Poll the reference instead.
6. Learning outcomes
6.Learning outcomes
BuyByteData does not currently send webhooks to your server. There is no endpoint to register a callback URL, no signing secret and no delivery log, so no delivery behaviour is promised.
Outcomes are learned by polling the transaction reference. If outbound webhooks are added, their terms will be published here.
7. Funding
7.Funding
API purchases are paid from the same wallet as everything else on your account. A purchase fails on an insufficient balance like any other, and your own customers see that failure.
8. Availability
8.Availability
Awaiting approved legal text
Any commitment about uptime, response time, maintenance windows or notice of breaking changes. No service level is currently promised, and none should be assumed.
Nothing has been drafted for this section, and nothing has been invented in its place. It will be published here once it is approved.
9. Suspension and termination
9.Suspension and termination
Awaiting approved legal text
The grounds on which API access may be suspended or closed, what notice is given, and what happens to a remaining wallet balance.
Nothing has been drafted for this section, and nothing has been invented in its place. It will be published here once it is approved.
10. Liability
10.Liability
Awaiting approved legal text
Limitation of liability, and the extent to which BuyByteData is responsible for losses arising from use of the platform.
Nothing has been drafted for this section, and nothing has been invented in its place. It will be published here once it is approved.
11. Changes to these terms
11.Changes to these terms
Awaiting approved legal text
How these API terms may be changed, what notice is given, and what continued use of the platform signifies.
Nothing has been drafted for this section, and nothing has been invented in its place. It will be published here once it is approved.
12. Contact
12.Contact
Questions about this document go to support. Signed-in customers can open a ticket, which attaches their account and any transaction they are asking about; anyone else can use the contact page.
BuyByteData has not published a support telephone number or a direct email address. Anyone offering one is not us.