Terms of Service

These Terms of Service ("Terms") constitute a legally binding electronic record and contract under the Indian Contract Act, 1872 and the Information Technology Act, 2000 (together with the rules framed thereunder) between you ("User", "Data Principal", "you", or "your") and The Pawsitive Community ("Platform", "we", "us", or "our"), governing your access to and use of thepawsitivecommunity.org and all associated services, communications, and social media broadcasts.

By accessing, browsing, registering an account, posting an animal listing, submitting an adoption/foster/rescue application, registering in the Pet Blood Bank, or interacting with any directory on the Platform, you expressly represent, warrant, and covenant that:

• You are at least 18 years of age, of sound mind, and legally competent to enter into a binding contract under Section 11 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872.
• You will comply with all applicable central, state, and municipal laws in India, including the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, the Animal Birth Control (ABC) Rules, 2023, the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS).
• You have read, understood, and agreed to our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.

The Pawsitive Community operates strictly as a passive, non-commercial "Intermediary" as defined under Section 2(1)(w) and protected under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, read with the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

The Pawsitive Community exists solely for non-commercial animal welfare. Companion animals are living beings, never commodities for sale.

• Total Ban on Pet Sales & Breeding: Listing animals for commercial sale, demanding "adoption prices", charging "stud/breeding fees", selling litters, or operating unregistered breeding kennels or pet shops in violation of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Dog Breeding and Marketing) Rules, 2017 and Pet Shop Rules, 2018 is strictly forbidden. Violators will be permanently banned and reported to the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI), State Animal Welfare Boards, and law enforcement.
• Strict Warning Against Advance Payments & Financial Scams: The Pawsitive Community never charges fees and never processes payments. You are strictly warned NEVER to send advance money, UPI transfers, bank deposits, "pet courier/transport charges", "cage fees", or "vaccination deposits" to any person claiming to offer a pet or return a lost animal. Any user who transfers money to a third party does so entirely at their own peril and waives any claim against The Pawsitive Community for financial fraud or cheating (punishable against the perpetrator under Section 318/319 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 and Section 66D of the IT Act, 2000).
• Transparent Veterinary Cost Sharing (NGOs Only): Where a registered animal welfare NGO requests direct, at-cost reimbursement for documented vaccinations or sterilization surgery, such reimbursement must be disclosed upfront, accompanied by verifiable veterinary clinic invoices, and verified directly by the adopter at the veterinary clinic.

When creating a listing on the Platform, you represent and warrant under penalty of law that:

• Truthful & Complete Disclosure: All details regarding the animal's species, breed, approximate age, sex, vaccination status, sterilization status, medical conditions, bite history, behavioral triggers, and location are truthful and accurate to the best of your knowledge.
• Authentic Photographs: All uploaded photographs depict the actual animal currently requiring adoption, fostering, or rescue. Uploading stock images, stolen photographs, or misleading visuals is prohibited.
• Lawful Authority: You are the lawful guardian, rescuer, or authorized representative of the shelter/NGO in custody of the animal, or (in the case of an injured/found street animal) a Good Samaritan reporting the animal's location in good faith.
• Prompt Status Updates: Once an animal is adopted, fostered, rescued, or reunited, you will promptly mark the listing status accordingly or remove the post.

Prospective adopters and foster caregivers agree to the following mandatory ethical obligations:

1. Honest Screening Submissions: Provide complete, truthful information in all screening applications regarding housing stability, family/landlord consent, and prior pet experience.
2. Humane Lifelong Guardianship: Provide species-appropriate nutrition, clean water, safe indoor shelter, daily exercise, routine vaccinations, deworming, and prompt veterinary care throughout the animal's life, in compliance with the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960.
3. Mandatory Sterilization Support: Cooperate with age-appropriate spay/neuter requirements to prevent unwanted litters and support humane population control.
4. Zero Abandonment Covenant: Abandoning an animal on the streets or leaving it chained/confined without food or water is a criminal offence under Section 11(1)(h) and Section 11(1)(i) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. If an unforeseen life crisis prevents you from continuing care, you must contact the original poster/rescuer or rehome the pet responsibly.

When using the Lost & Found Pet Radar:

• Mandatory Ownership Verification: Before handing over a found animal to a claimant, the finder must independently verify reasonable proof of guardianship (e.g., prior family photographs with the pet, veterinary vaccination booklets, microchip registration, or unique physical markings). The Pawsitive Community does not adjudicate ownership disputes between competing claimants.
• Criminal Prohibition on Extortion & Ransom: Demanding money, ransom, or extortion payments as a precondition to returning a lost pet is a serious criminal offence under Section 308 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 (BNS) (formerly Section 383 IPC). Any user engaging in extortion will have their logs handed over immediately to the police.
• Safe Public Handovers: Always conduct pet handovers during daylight hours in well-lit public locations, veterinary clinics, or police/community centers, accompanied by a trusted companion.

Our Injured / Stray Rescue module allows citizens to post alerts for injured, sick, or distressed street dogs and cats and enables community volunteers to submit "Emergency Rescue Offers".

The Pet Blood Bank module is a free, voluntary directory connecting guardians of healthy potential donor dogs/cats with pet parents facing veterinary emergencies.

• Strictly Informational Directory: The Pawsitive Community does not operate a physical blood bank, clinical laboratory, or veterinary hospital. We do not test, store, collect, or certify blood products.
• Mandatory Veterinary Supervision (Indian Veterinary Council Act, 1984): All donor eligibility assessments, physical examinations, blood typing (DEA/Mik/AB), cross-matching, tick-borne/infectious disease screening, sedation, phlebotomy, and blood transfusions must be performed exclusively by a qualified, registered Veterinary Practitioner in a licensed veterinary facility.
• Zero Liability for Medical Outcomes: The Pawsitive Community shall have zero liability for any adverse reaction, transfusion incompatibility, infection, injury, or mortality suffered by either the donor animal or the recipient animal.

The Platform features community-curated directories of Animal Welfare NGOs, Trusted Veterinary Doctors/Clinics, Pet Stores, Adoption Events, and Volunteers, along with educational Blog articles and Success Stories:

• No Agency or Employment Relationship: Listed veterinarians, clinics, NGOs, pet stores, event organizers, and community volunteers are independent third parties. They are not employees, agents, partners, or subcontractors of The Pawsitive Community.
• No Medical Advice or Commercial Warranty: Content in our Blogs, AI/Matchmaker quizzes, or directories is for general educational awareness only and never substitutes for professional veterinary diagnosis. We disclaim all liability for any veterinary malpractice, misdiagnosis, defective pet store merchandise, or incidents occurring at third-party adoption events.

To promote accountability, accounts require verification via email and mobile One-Time Passwords (OTPs).

• Account Custodianship: You are solely responsible for safeguarding your password, session access, and OTP codes. Any activity performed under your authenticated session shall be deemed your lawful act.
• Statutory Duties under Section 15 of the DPDP Act, 2023: You are legally bound not to impersonate any person, not to register with disposable/fraudulent numbers or someone else's phone/email, not to suppress material facts, and not to file false or frivolous grievances.
• Right to Suspend or Ban: We reserve the absolute right, in our sole discretion and without liability, to reject, unpublish, edit, suspend, or permanently terminate any listing or user account suspected of policy violations, suspicious activity, or risk to animal/human safety.

In strict compliance with Rule 3(1)(b) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 and applicable Indian criminal statutes, users are strictly prohibited from hosting, displaying, uploading, modifying, publishing, transmitting, storing, updating, or sharing any information or engaging in any conduct that:

1. Belongs to another person and to which the user does not have any right (including posting another person's phone number, address, or photographs without their explicit consent);
2. Is defamatory, obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of another's privacy (including bodily privacy), insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, libellous, racially or ethnically objectionable, or encourages money laundering or gambling;
3. Is harmful to children or minors in any manner;
4. Infringes any patent, trademark, copyright, or other proprietary rights of any third party;
5. Deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message or knowingly and intentionally communicates any misinformation or information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature;
6. Impersonates another person, NGO, veterinary clinic, or government official (punishable under Section 66C & 66D of the IT Act, 2000 and Section 319 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023);
7. Threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order, or causes incitement to the commission of any cognizable offence, or prevents investigation of any offence;
8. Contains software viruses, trojans, worms, malicious payloads, or any other computer code, file, or program designed to interrupt, destroy, or limit the functionality of any computer resource (punishable under Sections 43 and 66 of the IT Act, 2000);
9. Involves selling, trading, capturing, or listing any protected wild animal, bird, reptile, or exotic species prohibited under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972;
10. Promotes animal cruelty, dog fighting, illegal breeding, animal sacrifice, beastiality, or poisoning/relocation of community dogs in violation of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 and Supreme Court / High Court directives;
11. Involves automated scraping, crawling, data mining, harvesting of user phone numbers/emails, spamming, stalking, or using contact details obtained from the Platform for commercial telemarketing, harassment, or extortion.

We invest continuous effort into securing The Pawsitive Community through password hashing (`bcrypt`), `HttpOnly`/`SameSite` session cookies, CSRF tokens, strict file-upload filters, rate-limiting, and security audit logging.

User-Generated Content & Welfare Broadcast License: You retain ownership of the original photographs and descriptions you upload. However, by submitting a pet listing, story, or directory entry, you grant The Pawsitive Community a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable license to host, format, display, generate downloadable share posters, and broadcast the listing (including photos, pet details, city, and platform link) across our website, email alerts, and official social media channels (including Facebook Pages and Instagram accounts) for the purpose of animal welfare awareness and pet adoption/rescue.

Platform Intellectual Property: All platform source code, UI/UX architecture, custom graphics, poster templates, database schemas, and "The Pawsitive Community" brand name and logos are protected under the Copyright Act, 1957 and Trade Marks Act, 1999 of India. Unauthorized copying, cloning, or commercial exploitation is strictly prohibited.

Animals—especially rescued, stray, lost, or injured dogs and cats—are living creatures whose behavior and health can be unpredictable under stress or in new environments.

A. Absolute Limitation of Liability

Because The Pawsitive Community is provided 100% free of charge as a public-spirited, non-commercial animal welfare initiative, to the fullest extent permitted under the laws of India, in no event shall The Pawsitive Community, its founder (Sharan Sutrapu), its volunteer Maintainers, moderators, or contributors be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, physical injury, emotional distress, medical/veterinary bills, financial loss, or data loss arising out of or in connection with:

• The actions, omissions, misrepresentations, fraud, harassment, or criminal conduct of any user, pet poster, adopter, foster, rescuer, NGO, veterinarian, or third party;
• Any injury, bite, disease, death, or property damage caused by or to any animal listed on the Platform;
• Any cyberattack, DDoS disruption, unauthorized access, scraping, virus, or third-party infrastructure failure; or
• Any moderation decision to approve, delay, reject, or remove a listing or suspend an account.

Where applicable law does not allow the complete exclusion of liability, the total aggregate liability of The Pawsitive Community for all claims combined shall not exceed INR 0 (Zero Indian Rupees) or the amount actually paid by you to use the Platform (which is INR 0).

B. Force Majeure (Section 56, Indian Contract Act, 1872)

We shall not be held in breach of these Terms or liable for any delay, interruption, or failure in platform performance resulting from causes beyond our reasonable control, including acts of God, natural disasters, pandemics, power grid or telecommunications failures, internet backbone/DNS disruptions, cloud provider outages, cyberwarfare, DDoS attacks, zero-day vulnerabilities, civil unrest, or orders of any court or government authority.

C. Binding User Indemnification (Section 124, Indian Contract Act, 1872)

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold completely harmless The Pawsitive Community, its founder, volunteer Maintainers, and technical contributors from and against any and all claims, demands, FIRs/police complaints, lawsuits, regulatory penalties, losses, liabilities, damages, and expenses (including reasonable advocate and legal fees) arising out of or related to: (i) your use or misuse of the Platform; (ii) any content, listing, or application you submit; (iii) your violation of these Terms or any Indian law (including the PCA Act, 1960, DPDP Act, 2023, IT Act, 2000, or BNS, 2023); or (iv) any dispute, offline meeting, or animal handover between you and any other person.

Governing Law & Exclusive Jurisdiction: These Terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or relating to the Platform shall be governed by and construed exclusively in accordance with the laws of the Republic of India. Subject to amicable grievance redressal, the competent courts located in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India shall have exclusive jurisdiction over all disputes, suits, or proceedings.

Severability: If any provision of these Terms is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall continue in full force and effect.

Notice-and-Takedown & Grievance Redressal Mechanism (Rule 3(2), IT Rules, 2021): To preserve safe-harbour integrity and protect our community, we operate a strict Notice-and-Takedown mechanism. If you believe any listing or user violates these Terms, infringes your rights, impersonates you, or involves animal cruelty or fraud, please notify our Grievance Officer with the exact URL/listing ID and supporting details:

We reserve the right to amend or update these Terms at our discretion to address new platform features, security defenses, or changes in Indian law. Continued access or use of the Platform following any update constitutes binding acceptance of the revised Terms.