Public Documentation

Automated Access Framework

Placer.ai operates an internal automated framework that collects publicly available information from external websites and public endpoints to support Placer.ai's datasets, research, and data products.

What the framework does

  • Accesses public web pages and public endpoints that are available without authentication.
  • Collects non-personal information that is openly displayed, such as chain location data (for example, business name, address, hours of operation, and opening or closing dates).
  • Operates on controlled schedules with industry-standard rate limits to mitigate any risk of overloading destination sites.

What the framework does not do

  • No authentication: It does not log in, create accounts, or access gated or private content.
  • No personal data: It does not aim to collect personal data or user-generated content.
  • No circumvention: It does not bypass technical protections or access controls.
  • No impersonation: It does not disguise itself as a human user or consumer browser.

Access and execution principles

  • Identification: Automated requests use a clear, consistent identifier that names Placer.ai and references this documentation, so site operators can easily recognize the source.
  • robots.txt: Directives in robots.txt are respected where applicable, including rules targeting the user-agent token Placer.ai-Crawler and standard Crawl-delay directives.
  • Rate limiting: Request rates follow industry-standard limits to mitigate any risk of overloading destination sites. The framework also honors HTTP 429 and 503 responses, including Retry-After headers.
  • Scope limitation: Access is limited to relevant paths and resources.
  • Failure behavior: When restricted, access is reduced or paused rather than bypassed.
  • User-Agent: Requests are sent with the User-Agent string Placer.ai-Crawler/1.0 (+https://www.placer.ai/automated-access).

Purpose and acceptable use

This framework is used solely to support legitimate data products and research based on publicly available information. It is not used for abusive, deceptive, or harmful activities.

Contact and requests

If you are a website owner, operator, or infrastructure provider and have questions about Placer.ai's automated access, or would like to request reduced frequency, a pause, or an opt-out, please contact us.

Reach our data, security, and compliance team at:

Requests sent to this address are reviewed by Placer.ai's data, security, and compliance stakeholders. To verify whether traffic originated from Placer.ai's automated framework, operators may share request samples (such as user-agent strings and timestamps) with the address above for confirmation.