These Affiliate Program Terms (“Terms”) govern the Passings LLC (“Passings”) Affiliate Program.
This document covers one relationship: Passings as an Outbound Affiliate — where Passings earns commissions by linking to third-party services (for example, financing providers and physical-product merchants), including online physical-goods merchandise that is not a Provider-marketplace listing. Passings does not operate an inbound referral program and makes no offer of compensation to any person or organization for referring users to Passings. Any such program would be governed by separately published terms.
Legal-service affiliates are excluded. Passings does not maintain, and will not activate, an outbound-affiliate relationship with any provider of legal services, legal-document preparation, or legal-document software. No affiliate link to any such service is displayed on any Passings surface. This exclusion is a term of these Terms, not a statement of present practice only, and it may be lifted only by a published amendment to these Terms.
Not covered by these Terms. Physical-goods Providers that participate in the Passings Provider marketplace under a per-lead listing are governed by the Provider Agreement (Schedule GS-1, Physical Goods — Local), not by these Terms. The Provider Agreement creates a different relationship (a Provider listing in the marketplace) with different obligations (product accuracy, consumer-protection compliance, and FTC endorsement disclosure handled by Passings). If you are evaluating a Passings marketplace listing relationship, see the Provider Agreement rather than these Terms.
Scope of the Service
“Service” has the meaning given in Terms of Service §1. These Terms apply equally across web and mobile surfaces.
Part A: Passings as an Outbound Affiliate
There is no Part B; these Terms govern the outbound relationship only.
Passings may display affiliate links to third-party services within the platform, including but not limited to financing providers, physical memorial-product merchants, online physical-goods merchandise, prepared-meal and sympathy-gift merchants, pet-care service marketplaces, grave-care and memorial-maintenance services, and the affiliate programs operated by Providers or by intermediaries representing them. When a user clicks these links and completes a qualifying action, Passings may earn a referral commission from the third party. Affiliate links to legal services, legal-document preparation, and legal-document software are excluded under the exclusion stated above.
Launch scope. At launch, active outbound-affiliate relationships are limited to retail memorial goods (caskets, urns, and memorial products), prepared-meal and sympathy-gift merchants, and pet-care service marketplaces, in each case from merchants or services selling direct to consumers. Participation in Provider-operated affiliate programs is also active at launch, in the Provider categories permitted by §A.1a and no others; the point-of-link disclosure required by §A.1 is published for every link so activated. Links to financing providers, and links to grave-care and memorial-maintenance services, are authorized by this Part A but are not active at launch; each activates only upon publication of the corresponding point-of-link disclosure under §A.1.
A.1 Disclosure to Users
Wherever Passings displays an affiliate link or receives compensation for a referral, Passings will disclose this to users at the point of the link in clear and conspicuous language, conforming to the Federal Trade Commission’s Endorsement Guides (16 C.F.R. Part 255). Disclosures will appear adjacent to the link, not only in a footer or separate policy page. Examples:
“Passings may earn a commission if you purchase through this link, at no additional cost to you.”
“Affiliate link — Passings earns a small referral fee.”
Disclosure applies to each of the following, from the date the relationship is activated: financing partners; physical-product merchants (QR plaques, keepsakes, printed materials); online physical-goods merchandise; prepared-meal and sympathy-gift merchants; pet-care service marketplaces; grave-care and memorial-maintenance services; Provider affiliate programs in which Passings participates; and any future third-party service affiliate relationship.
The disclosure is presented at a size, contrast, and location that make it difficult to miss and readily understandable to an ordinary consumer reading the surface on which the link appears. A machine-readable link attribute (such as rel="sponsored") is not a disclosure and is never relied on as one.
A.1a Categories in Which No Affiliate Commission Is Taken
Passings does not participate in the affiliate program of, and takes no commission, revenue share, or other compensation measured by the value of a transaction from, any Provider listing under Schedule HC-1 (Hospice and Palliative Care), Schedule DN-1 (Organ and Tissue Donation Organizations), Schedule DN-2 (Whole Body Donation Programs), Schedule SL-1 (Senior Living and Care Communities), Schedule MH-1 (Grief Counselors and Mental Health Professionals), or Schedule LE-1 (Attorneys), nor from any provider of legal services, legal-document preparation, or legal-document software.
The reason differs by category and each is independent of the others. For the free-listing Schedules and for senior living, compensation measured by the value of a referred transaction is compensation "based on the volume or value of referrals" and falls outside the referral-services safe harbor at 42 CFR §1001.952(f)(2), which admits of no partial compliance; the free-listing Schedules state separately that no fee of any kind is charged. For Schedule MH-1, §MH-1.4(e) provides that Passings accepts no remuneration beyond the flat subscription. For Schedule LE-1 and for any other provider of legal services, a share of a legal fee paid to a person who is not a lawyer is prohibited by the rules of professional conduct on fee division, and no form of this arrangement is available. This subsection is not subject to modification by agreement of the parties.
Nothing in this subsection restricts Passings' outbound-affiliate relationships with retail-goods, prepared-meal, sympathy-gift and pet-care merchants, which are not Providers and are governed by the remainder of this Part A.
A.2 Affiliate Links on Curated Tasks
Where a Passings-curated checklist task suggests a third-party product or service via an affiliate link, the link is labeled as such in-product, and Passings receives a referral fee on qualifying actions. Affiliate revenue does not influence task ordering, checklist content, or which tasks name a merchant. Curated tasks are generated from the Plan Principal’s planning context and the editorial logic of the checklist, independent of whether any task carries an affiliate link.
A.2.1 Position is never sold. No merchant may purchase, bid for, or otherwise obtain an affiliate placement, a more prominent placement, or a more favorable position relative to any other option presented on the same surface. Passings does not negotiate merchant-specific commission rates; each selected merchant's standard published program rate applies. Commission rates do not vary by merchant in a way that affects which merchant is selected or where its link appears, and no merchant’s payment determines its selection or position. Where an affiliate link appears alongside a link to the Passings provider marketplace, the marketplace option is presented no less prominently than the affiliate link.
A.2.2 Affiliate links are not placed on every task in a category. An affiliate link is attached to an individual task only where the task involves an actual purchase decision. Passings does not attach affiliate links to tasks by category, and does not place an affiliate link on a task that is informational or ritual in nature, that records a preference rather than makes a purchase, or whose guidance contemplates that the reader may not make the purchase at all.
A.3 Selection of Affiliate Merchants
Passings selects each outbound-affiliate merchant itself, on written criteria adopted in advance, applied uniformly within a product category, and reviewed periodically. Selection is not determined by the amount of any commission offered. Passings does not represent that it has tested, inspected, or independently evaluated any affiliate merchant’s products, and does not describe affiliate merchants as vetted, verified, endorsed, or screened for quality. Passings does not guarantee the quality, accuracy, or fitness of any product or service accessible through affiliate links.
A.4 No Effect on Platform Features or Provider Ordering
Compensation Passings receives or expects to receive under Part A — including compensation from a Provider’s own affiliate program — does not influence: (a) the order in which Providers are returned in marketplace search results; (b) the visibility of any Provider in any wave activation; (c) the inclusion of any Provider in any operator-set notification; (d) eligibility for badges (Founding, Pro, Featured) or for marketplace placement of any kind; or (e) any other surface where Provider ordering or visibility is determined by the platform. Consumers may rely on the order in which Providers are presented as independent of outbound-affiliate compensation.
A.5 No Effect on Consumer Pricing
Outbound-affiliate compensation flows from the third party (including a Provider) to Passings on a consumer’s qualifying action. It does not change the price the consumer pays the third party. A consumer who is referred from the platform to a third party’s transactional surface pays the price that third party sets, on the terms it offers, without platform mark-up or mark-down on account of the affiliate relationship.
A.6 Tracking and Consumer-Data Interaction
Passings may use referral-tracking technologies (such as URL parameters, tracking pixels, or cookies set on the third party’s surface) to attribute referrals. These tracking technologies are subject to the consumer’s choices under the Privacy Policy and the “Your Privacy Choices” page. Consumers who have exercised their CCPA/CPRA opt-out under California Civil Code §1798.135 may continue to be referred from the platform to third parties, but outbound-affiliate compensation will not be attributed to such referrals; Passings does not condition the presentation of any listing on a consumer’s opt-out posture. Affiliate referral-click records are retained as described in the Privacy Policy Appendix A, under the “Affiliate link click logs” retention category (Provider Marketplace Data).
A.7 Grief-Sensitive Outbound Affiliate Standards
All outbound-affiliate relationships must meet Passings’ grief-sensitive content standards. Passings will not display affiliate links for: products or services that exploit grief or create pressure to purchase during acute bereavement; services that make misleading claims about legal or financial outcomes; or content that conflicts with Passings’ brand values or terminology standards.
Passings will not place an affiliate link on a task that describes a religious or cultural observance, a task that advises simplicity or restraint in purchasing, or a task whose guidance contemplates forgoing the purchase entirely. Passings will not place an affiliate link on a task that carries a legal-caution notice advising the reader that the step carries legal weight.
A.8 Operational Tooling and Reporting
Passings will provide participating Providers, at least quarterly, a Part A activity summary showing referral events, attributed commissions, and payout history at the per-listing level. Passings may satisfy this obligation by publishing a live activity dashboard in the Provider Portal. Where Passings is the payor of a commission, Form 1099-MISC is issued annually for any payee earning more than the IRS reporting threshold during the calendar year, in accordance with applicable tax law. Where the third-party retailer is the source of commission payment, that retailer — not Passings — is responsible for issuing tax documentation for those payments.