This policy defines what you may and may not do when using ScanAbility. These rules protect website owners from unauthorized scanning, ensure responsible use of accessibility data, and prevent misrepresentation of compliance status.
Permitted Uses
- ✓Website owners auditing their own web properties
- ✓Web development agencies auditing client websites under a professional services agreement
- ✓Government agencies and public entities conducting ADA Title II compliance assessments
- ✓Accessibility consultants engaged by website owners
- ✓Educational institutions conducting research on web accessibility
1. Unauthorized Scanning
You must not use ScanAbility to:
- ✗Scanning websites you do not own and for which you have not obtained written authorization from the owner
- ✗Scanning competitor websites for competitive intelligence without authorization
- ✗Mass data collection on third-party websites without authorization from each site owner
Unauthorized scanning may violate the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. § 1030). ScanAbility cooperates fully with law enforcement investigations.
2. Denial-of-Service via Bulk Scanning
You must not use ScanAbility to:
- ✗Submitting URLs in a manner that creates unreasonable load on a target website's servers
- ✗High-frequency scanning of the same URL (more than once every 24 hours without a material page change)
- ✗Scanning campaigns that may constitute a distributed denial-of-service attack
3. Misrepresentation of Compliance Status
You must not use ScanAbility to:
- ✗Presenting ScanAbility scan results as a legal ADA compliance certification in regulatory submissions or court proceedings without appropriate disclaimers
- ✗Misrepresenting the scope of an automated scan as equivalent to a comprehensive manual accessibility audit
- ✗Creating fraudulent compliance reports that omit known accessibility barriers
- ✗Using ScanAbility reports to make affirmative legal compliance claims without engaging qualified accessibility counsel
Automated tools detect approximately 30–40% of accessibility issues. Legal compliance requires manual testing and professional legal assessment.
4. Competitive Intelligence Scraping
You must not use ScanAbility to:
- ✗Collecting accessibility scan data on third-party websites for the purpose of selling or licensing that data
- ✗Building competitor accessibility databases without written authorization from each scanned website
5. Service Abuse
You must not use ScanAbility to:
- ✗Attempting to access scan reports or account data belonging to other users
- ✗Reverse-engineering ScanAbility's scanning algorithms or WCAG rule sets
- ✗Reselling or sublicensing ScanAbility access without written authorization
Enforcement
ScanAbility reserves the right to investigate suspected violations, suspend or terminate accounts in violation without notice or refund, implement rate limiting for unusual scanning volumes, and cooperate with law enforcement regarding unauthorized scanning.
Report violations: [email protected]