Terms of Service
Effective: September 1, 2026.
1. Acceptance of these terms
These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern access to and use of whoreallyowns.org and whoreallyowns.com (together, “the site”), operated by the site’s owner (“we”, “us”). By accessing the site you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the site.
2. The service
The site is a public-interest directory reporting the ownership of US local businesses — which are owned by private equity firms and corporate consolidators — compiled from public records and published sources, with citations. It is provided free of charge for individual, personal, and journalistic reference use.
3. Informational only; no professional advice
Nothing on the site is legal, financial, investment, medical, or veterinary advice. Ownership information is provided for transparency and general information. Decisions you make based on the site are your own.
4. Accuracy, currency, and corrections
We work from cited sources and publish only claims our evidence supports, but we do not warrant that any entry is complete, current, or error-free. Ownership changes; sources lag; extraction can err. Each entry shows its citations and the date it was last observed in a source — verify against the cited sources before relying on an entry. If you represent a listed business or owner and believe an entry is wrong, contact [email protected] with the entry link and supporting documentation; corrections are made when the evidence supports them. Note that “no known corporate owner” is not an assertion that a business is independent — it means our sources contain no ownership record.
5. Ownership of the site and data
The database, its compilation, curation, evidence records, and presentation are proprietary to us. All rights reserved. No part of the database may be reproduced, redistributed, republished, incorporated into another dataset, product, or service, or used to train or fine-tune machine-learning models, whether commercial or not, without our prior written permission. Requests: [email protected].
Limited exception — citation: you may quote individual entries (for example in an article, a post, or an assistant’s answer) provided the quotation is attributed to “whoreallyowns.org” with a link to the entry’s page and is not part of a systematic reproduction of the database.
6. Acceptable use
- No scraping or bulk extraction. Automated harvesting, crawling for content extraction, systematic downloading, or bulk querying of the site or its underlying API beyond ordinary individual lookups is prohibited.
- Search and assistant indexing. Crawling by search engines and AI assistants that honor robots.txt is permitted solely for the purpose of indexing and directing users to the site — not for reconstituting the database.
- Do not misrepresent the site’s claims, remove citations or attribution from quoted entries, or present an entry as asserting more than it says.
- Do not interfere with the site’s operation, probe or circumvent its access controls or rate limits, or use it for unlawful purposes.
7. API
The site’s API exists to serve the site’s own pages. It is not a public API; access limits apply and may change without notice. Use of the API other than through the site’s own interface is prohibited.
8. Third-party sites and citations
Citations link to third-party sites we do not control. We are not responsible for their content or availability.
9. Disclaimer of warranties
THE SITE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION.
10. Limitation of liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, OR GOODWILL, ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF THE SITE. OUR AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM RELATING TO THE SITE WILL NOT EXCEED ONE HUNDRED US DOLLARS (US$100).
11. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from claims arising out of your violation of these Terms, including unauthorized reproduction or redistribution of the database.
12. Access revocation
We may suspend or block access (including by technical means such as rate limiting or IP blocking) for conduct that violates these Terms.
13. Changes to these terms
We may update these Terms; the effective date above changes when we do. Continued use after changes constitutes acceptance.
14. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. Exclusive venue for disputes lies in the state or federal courts located in Delaware.
15. Miscellaneous
If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the remainder stays in effect. These Terms are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the site. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver.