Note: Complying with the YouTube Developer Policies provides guidance and examples to help you ensure that your API clients follow specific portions of the YouTube API Services Terms and Policies (API TOS). The guide offers insight into how YouTube enforces certain aspects of the API TOS, but it does not replace any existing documents.
This document (the "YouTube API Services Policies" or "Policies") sets out the policies that you need to follow when accessing or using YouTube API Services in your service, product, or application. These Policies help you access and use YouTube API Services in ways that are consistent with YouTube's interests and that respect and foster the growth of YouTube's community of creators, viewers, content rights holders, and advertisers.
In addition to defining policies, this document explains some of the underlying principles that YouTube followed in creating these Policies. It also offers examples that demonstrate how these Policies would apply in practice.
Please note that this is a legal document and that these Policies are a component of the Agreement, so you must comply with them. YouTube reserves the right to change these Policies, and your continued access to, or use of, YouTube API Services constitutes your agreement to and acceptance of any such changes. Policy changes, like changes to the YouTube API Services Terms of Service, will be documented in the Terms of Service Revision History, and you can subscribe to the RSS feed for that revision history to be notified of any such changes.
I. Terminology and style
This is a legal document that specifies policies about allowed or prohibited actions. As such, it uses certain terms to specifically indicate whether you can or cannot do something. With that in mind, the following terms are used to explain your requirements as related to these Policies:
- The terms must and required refer to absolute requirements.
- The term must not refers to an absolute prohibition.
- The terms should, should not, recommend, and recommended indicate that the statement describes a general best practice. While these terms suggest certain actions or behaviors, they acknowledge that you might decide to follow a different course based on specific aspects of your use case.
- The term may indicates that an action is optional and left entirely to your discretion or, depending on the context in which it is used, to YouTube's discretion.
In addition, the Definitions section that concludes this document identifies other terms that have a very specific meaning when used in this document. For your convenience, this document uses a special style for those terms to so that you can easily identify them in context and link to their definitions.
II. Software Development Principles
These principles underlie many of the policies in this document. Even though they might not cover every policy, if you violate or your API Clients violate any of these principles, you are likely also violating the terms of the Agreement. That said, if local law requires you to do something other than what is stated in these policies -- for example, to store data for a particular length of time -- you should comply with that law.
-
Build high-quality applications and maintain them.
Build stable, easy-to-use, feature-rich API Clients that bring significant additional value to the YouTube ecosystem and its users. Promptly update API Clients as the features offered in YouTube API Services change.
-
Be honest and transparent.
This principle applies to all facets of API Clients and the way that they interact with users as well as with YouTube. In keeping with this principle, be clear about who you are and what your API Client does. Don't engage in any deceptive activity or messaging related to your identity, your data collection, storage, sharing, use and deletion practices, actions that your API Client takes on users' behalf, or anything else. Be honest and do not mislead or confuse users in the way you use and present data.
-
Give users control.
Building on the importance of transparency, this principle dictates that users must be aware of and have actively consented to the actions that an API Client takes on their behalf. It means that users know about and have final authority over any actions the API Client takes to insert, share, update, or delete their data. It also means that each API Client must provide a privacy policy that clearly informs users about the information that the API Client accesses, collects, stores, shares, and otherwise uses.
-
Respect users' privacy.
Make sure that your data collection, storage, use, security, and deletion policies and practices protect users. Don't allow unauthorized access to, or use of, user data. Don't store user data indefinitely, and provide a clear, straightforward process for them to delete data in your possession. Finally, don't, and do not make attempts to, request, collect, or store users' YouTube login credentials.
-
Be a good citizen.
Don't create API Clients that encourage or enable people to abuse, threaten, or harass each other. Don't use, distribute, or promote viruses, spyware, malware, or other bad stuff. Don't break the law or encourage or enable others to do so. Hopefully, this is all common sense.
III. General Developer Policies
A. API Client Terms of Use and Privacy Policies
-
API Clients must display a link to YouTube's Terms of Service (https://www.youtube.com/t/terms), and they must also state in their own terms of use that, by using those API Clients, users are agreeing to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service.
-
Each API Client must require users to agree to a privacy policy before users can access the API Client's features and functionality. The privacy policy must:
-
be prominently displayed and easily accessible to users at all times,
-
notify users that the API Client uses YouTube API Services,
-
reference and link to the Google Privacy Policy at http://www.google.com/policies/privacy,
-
clearly and comprehensively explain to users what user information, including API Data relating to users, the API Client accesses, collects, stores and otherwise uses,
-
clearly and comprehensively explain how the API Client uses, processes, and shares the user information described in section (III.A.2.e), including how the information is shared with either internal or external parties,
-
disclose, if it does so, that the API Client allows third parties to serve content, including advertisements,
-
disclose, if it does so, that the API Client stores, accesses or collects (or allows third parties to do so) information directly or indirectly on or from users' devices, including by placing, accessing or recognizing cookies or similar technology on users' devices or browsers,
-
if the API Client accesses or uses Authorized Data, explain that, in addition to the API Client's normal procedure for deleting stored data, users can revoke that API Client's access to their data via the Google security settings page at https://security.google.com/settings/security/permissions, and
-
if the API Client uses Authorized Data, explain how users can contact the API Client owner or developer with questions or complaints about the Client's privacy practices.
-
B. Maintainability and Deprecation
-
API Clients must use the most recent versions of YouTube API Services. This means that you must be able to update API Clients when newer versions of YouTube API Services are released. Non-website API Clients, like mobile apps or installed applications, must be capable of being remotely updated to use the most recent versions of YouTube API Services. You must update your API Clients to the most recent versions of the YouTube API Services within a specified time period if required by YouTube from time to time (e.g. for critical updates).
-
When YouTube intends to make backward incompatible changes to the YouTube API Services, such changes will be documented in the Terms of Service Revision History, and you can subscribe to the RSS feed for that revision history to be notified of any such changes.
-
You must promptly update non-deprecated API Clients to use newer versions of YouTube API Services as those versions are released.
-
You must update deprecated versions of your API Clients to clearly indicate to users that some functions or features of YouTube API Services might stop working due to the API Clients' deprecated status.
C. Implementing YouTube Features
-
API Clients must also comply with the Requirements for Minimum Functionality for YouTube API Services ("RMF"). In addition, API Clients must not place any limitations on the YouTube functionality required by the RMF.
For example, the RMF states that an API Client that enables users to upload videos to YouTube must enable those users to set a title for each uploaded video. YouTube's video title field has a maximum length of 100 characters, and an API Client must not set a shorter maximum length for that field.
-
Any API Client feature that initiates a user action related to a YouTube resource must be:
- clearly and unequivocally identifiable as a YouTube action,
- distinct and not mixed with your API Client's functionality, and
- clearly initiated by the user.
Examples of YouTube resources include videos, channels, playlists, playlist items, and subscriptions. Examples of actions include playing a video, liking a video, adding a video to a playlist, and subscribing to a channel.
-
API Clients that perform write operations may suggest parameter or property values, but users must have final control over the data that will be published to YouTube Applications. Similarly, API Clients must not modify user-provided values before sending them to YouTube by truncating, appending, or otherwise altering those values unless the user has explicitly consented to such changes.
API Clients that suggest values for text fields, like video titles or descriptions, must incorporate relevant keywords into those values. For example an API Client that suggests video titles should not generate the same default titles for all users.
These examples illustrate how this policy would apply to an API Client that uploads videos to YouTube:
-
The
-