generated: '2026-08-12'
method: probed
source: |
  DNS resolution and HTTP probes for status/trust subdomains and policy pages,
  plus the corporate sitemap at https://www.people.inc/sitemap.xml (200).
description: |
  Lifecycle posture for People Inc. There is no API to version, deprecate or
  put behind an SLA, and the company publishes none of the operational
  transparency surfaces the rating looks for. This file records those
  absences with the probes that established them, so a reader can see they
  were checked rather than skipped.

versioning:
  scheme: none
  current: null
  docs: null
  detail: No API version namespace exists. See conventions/meredith-conventions.yml.

deprecation:
  policy_url: null
  policy_published: false
  sunset_header: false
  deprecation_header: false
  rfc8594: false
  detail: |
    No deprecation policy is published, and no Sunset or Deprecation response
    header was observed on any probe. NO `Deprecation` pointer is emitted.
  historical_note: |
    Deprecation at People Inc happens at the BRAND level, not the endpoint
    level, and it is not announced in any machine-readable form. Brands in the
    portfolio have been folded or retired over the past several years
    (MyRecipes, for instance, still has a corporate brand page at
    https://www.people.inc/myrecipes listed in the sitemap). A consumer
    tracking these feeds learns a brand is gone by getting a 404, not by
    reading a notice.

sla:
  url: null
  published: false
  uptime_target: null
  detail: No SLA is offered — there is no paid API tier to attach one to.

status_page:
  url: null
  published: false
  detail: |
    No status page exists. DNS probes for status.people.inc, trust.people.inc
    and security.people.inc all fail to resolve (NXDOMAIN). No third-party
    status page (statuspage.io, status.io, instatus) was found for People Inc
    or Dotdash Meredith. NO `StatusPage` pointer is emitted.
  probes:
    - host: status.people.inc
      result: NXDOMAIN
    - host: trust.people.inc
      result: NXDOMAIN
    - host: security.people.inc
      result: NXDOMAIN

changelog:
  url: https://www.people.inc/news-awards
  kind: corporate-press-releases
  api_changelog: false
  detail: |
    apis.yml carries a ChangeLog pointer at the corporate news-and-awards
    page. That page is a press-release and awards listing, NOT a product or
    API changelog — it announces business news, not interface changes. The
    pointer is left in place because it is the only dated update stream the
    company publishes, but no separate changelog/ artifact is authored, and
    a reader should not expect breaking-change notices there.
  fetch_note: |
    The page itself could not be read this round: it returns 403 to browser-UA
    machine clients and 402 Payment Required to declared AI crawlers.

deprecated_operations: []

corporate_lifecycle:
  note: |
    The identity churn is itself a lifecycle hazard for anyone integrating.
    About.com (1997) -> Dotdash (2017) -> Dotdash Meredith (Dec 2021, on the
    $2.7B Meredith acquisition) -> People Inc (July 31, 2025). Artifacts still
    on the wire lag the current name: the live security.txt says "Dotdash",
    and dotdashmeredith.com 301s to www.people.inc. Any consumer hard-coding a
    corporate domain has been broken at least twice.
  redirect_chain_observed:
    - from: https://dotdashmeredith.com/
      status: 301
      to: https://www.dotdashmeredith.com/
    - from: https://www.dotdashmeredith.com/
      status: 301
      to: https://www.people.inc/

x-evidence:
  checked: '2026-08-12'
  probes:
    - url: https://www.people.inc/sitemap.xml
      status: 200
    - url: https://dotdashmeredith.com/
      status: 301
    - url: https://www.dotdashmeredith.com/
      status: 301
    - url: https://www.people.inc/news-awards
      status: 403
    - host: status.people.inc
      status: NXDOMAIN
    - host: trust.people.inc
      status: NXDOMAIN