For some time, I’ve been trying to get UPS to allow us to use their API. Here is their latest response:

Thank you for your interest in the UPS Ready™ Program.
UPS has reviewed your application and has made a decision not to authorize you at this time.  We consider business models, value to customers and UPS, size and age of company, ability to develop and support application(s) within given Program parameters, as well as the full completion of the Application form.  Our UPS Ready program supports hundreds of solution providers worldwide, and uses strict screening criteria for protection of UPS’s intellectual property, customer information, and representation of UPS trademarks and services.

Young Technologies LLC has been carefully reviewed by our program management, and does not meet our program entry criteria for several reasons. Among those reasons are:

• SimpleTracking.com functions as an aggregator business model, and UPS Ready does not support such models, or authorize such models to have access to UPS API technology. UPS’s APIs are licensed tools, and any unlicensed use is prohibited.
• UPS’s trademarks and service names are protected property worldwide, and unauthorized use of these names and marks is prohibited. We ask that SimpleTracking.com remove these references from your web site, accordingly.

We will retain your information for future reference, should you wish to re-apply for consideration to the Program.  In the interim, we would like to recommend that you have your client(s) register as an End User by clicking on the following link.

Well, I guess the next step is to start calling them. I’m hoping that persistence will pay off.

I would like to add support for end users entering their API key, and then be granted access to the tracking data. That would at least give some of our heavier users some options.

Another option is to scrape the data from their site, which obviously isn’t ideal. Does anyone have any other ideas?

They must not care about the 15,000+ monthly unique visitors, or the nearly 500 people that signed the petition.

As you know, SimpleTracking.com supports FedEx, DHL, and USPS. We’ve been trying to get back UPS support for well over a year.

Thank you all for the incredible support for trying to get UPS to let us use their tracking data the way YOU want. The response to our petition has been incredible, getting over 400 signatures in a few short months.

I’ve been working pleading with UPS to see this as an incredible opportunity for everyone. The only reason that we don’t have UPS support is because of the terms of service that their lawyers have written. They’re understandably very leery of making an exception to that rule.

I’m trying to make them understand that we’re receiving over 15,000 unique visitors every month. The masses have spoken. You want to track packages YOUR way.

I know it’s just a matter of talking to the right person in UPS. If any of you know who that person is, or have a contact of UPS that may be of use, please let me know. Email me at: jason at young-technologies.com, or leave a comment.

I’ll post updates as they arrive.