Terms

Any agreement regarding hosting or email services is between UNI WEB SERVE CC (UNI WEB SERVE) and the on-line individual or entity who is applying for Web Hosting Services, (THE CLIENT). THE CLIENT acknowledges that all information submitted is true and correct.

1. PROVISION OF SERVICES AND ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS. UNI WEB SERVE agrees to provide web site hosting services to THE CLIENT, subject to the following terms and conditions. Use of UNI WEB SERVE’s services constitutes acceptance of the terms and conditions contained in this agreement and any amendments thereto. In case of varying interpretations in translation, the most recently dated English Terms will supercede all others.

2. CONTENT LIABILITY AND INDEMNIFICATION. THE CLIENT acknowledges that UNI WEB SERVE does not regulate or take any responsibility for the content of its page or for the security of THE CLIENT’s password. THE CLIENT warrants that it has all rights necessary to lawfully submit any information or materials that it is passing on to UNI WEB SERVE, including all intellectual property rights. THE CLIENT agrees to indemnify UNI WEB SERVE against actions brought by a third party as a result of such material or information, or as a result of THE CLIENT’s use in any way of the services provided by UNI WEB SERVE.

3. CONTRACT TERMINATION. In the event that UNI WEB SERVE at any time reasonably believes that THE CLIENT is in breach of any of the terms and conditions contained in this agreement or is using UNI WEB SERVE services in an unacceptable manner, then UNI WEB SERVE may immediately terminate any services to the client without liability. THE CLIENT may terminate this contract at any time by notifying UNI WEB SERVE. At the time of notification, THE CLIENT shall be responsible for the entire amount of the most recent statement and any excess usage charges at the time of termination. Provision of false contact information is grounds for immediate termination.

SEE THE ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (AUP)

4. WARRANTIES AND GUARANTEES. UNI WEB SERVE makes no warranties or guarantees of any kind, whether express or implied, for the services to be provided. THE CLIENT agrees that UNI WEB SERVE shall not be liable for any losses or damages of any kind to Customer, including, but not limited to, those that may result from service interruption delays or non-deliveries. UNI WEB SERVE makes no warranties regarding its ability to recover lost data regardless of how or why the data was lost.

5. BILLING POLICY. Accounts 30 days past due are subject to a 28.5% penalty interest at the discretion of management and may be subject to cancellation which will result in deletion of all of THE CLIENT’s files, including email, backups, databases and domain name. UNI WEB SERVE will issue invoices by email only. The onus is upon the client to inform UNIWEBSERVE of any changes to their primary email address. Usually this is the address the client signed up with. For security we may not change an email address without written consent from the account holder. UNI WEB SERVE is not a VAT vendor.
REDEMPTION FEES: For co.za domains which enter redemption due to non-payment there is a recovery fee of R350. This fee may be reduced upon request after consideration by management, or we may levy a lesser fee at our discretion. Increases to this rate applied by ZACR which go over the amount of R350 will need to have the cost passed on to the customer (ie. if ZACR increases their price before these terms are updated, we will bill at the prevailing ZACR rate and not the amount quoted here). For international domains this recovery fee is approximately R1500 subject to Rand/Dollar fluctuations and the stipulations of the type of domain in question. Uniwebserve may levy an addition admin and/or late payment fee at its own discretion.

6. PAYMENT AND REFUNDS. The monthly hosting fees are payable in advance by the 25th day of each month, unless by prior arrangement. Clients who default on payments or regularly pay late may, at UNI WEB SERVE’s discretion, have their services suspended without notice. A re-connection fee of R250 applies, and needs to be paid along with all outstanding amounts before reconnection occurs. In circumstances where the client’s account shows a history of late payments, the billing may, at UNI WEB SERVE’s discretion, be switched to annual billing by EFT or monthly by Debit order. No claims will be entertained for domain names which are lost or have expired due to non-renewal during the period of suspension. Refunds will only be processed at the discretion of management upon receipt of a request in writing to billme @ uniwebsa.com. To prevent fraud any refunds for payment made by credit card have a waiting period of 180 days or more at the discretion of Uniwebserve and the applicant needs to complete a form, affidavit and provide certified identification and a copy of thecredit card used to make the purchase. Uniwebserve will determine the method of refund and any fees due. For credit card payments from foreign countries there are strictly no refunds. Domains which appear to be fraudulent or domains registered using fake details may be referred to relevant authorities. The account will be frozen during this process. There are strictly no refunds if fraud is found or if the registrant fails to provide supporting documentation requested by Uniwebserve.

Any errors or omissions on invoices must be addressed with our accounts department no later than 25 days after the issuance of said invoice. There will be NO REFUNDS on historical invoices even if they contain errors. The onus is on the client to notify us within the time period stipulated of such errors so that we can take remedial action.

7. CREDIT. Credit cards and debit cards are accepted. Deposits or incremental payments may be requested at any time at UNI WEB SERVE’S discretion (applies to ongoing web development work, SEO or other). When using a credit card with a name other than the name provided during signup, additional security checks may be required as deemed necessary by Uniwebserve admins.

8. SUSPENSION OF ACCOUNTS. No notice will be issued of UNI WEB SERVE’s intent to suspend a site if THE CLIENT is in breach of payment or any of the terms of this agreement. No refunds are processed unless by prior agreement with management in writing. UNI WEB SERVE will not be held responsible for any damages, losses or claims as a result of a site being suspended. Accounts 1 or 2 months in arrears will be suspended if not paid along with all outstanding accounts by the end of the most recent invoicing month. UNI WEB SERVE reserves the right to suspend the accounts of frequent late payers earlier than the above period, at its own discretion and without notice to the client (other criteria for early suspension may also be determined by UNIWEBSERVE at the time of suspension). Suspended sites will be charged a R250 reconnection fee which is payable upfront, and needs to be paid along with all outstanding amounts before reconnection occurs. This fee may be waived at UNIWEBSERVE’s discretion if a valid reason and supporting documentation is provided to UNIWEBSERVE in writing along with valid supporting documentation (eg. extended illness, time spent abroad, problems with your computer hardware eg. crashed hard drive etc.). Expired domains and/or domains that have entered redemption will require a fee as set by the registrar plus a UNIWEBSERVE admin fee to restore, to be determined at the time of recovery. There are no guarantees that expired domains can be renewed or that deleted website files can be restored and UNIWEBSERVE is not liable for any loss or damage, direct or indirect, incurred as a result thereof. Uniwebserve reserves the right to re-sell domains or work done to recover arrears amounts against any services which remain unpaid and are overdue.

9. DATA RECOVERY AND BACKUPS. UNI WEB SERVE shall make a reasonable effort to protect and backup data for THE CLIENT on a weekly basis. THE CLIENT will be charged R310 per hour for recovery of data or installation/reinstallation of components but does not guarantee the condition or availability of the data. Data retrieval from archives is a set fee of R250 per incident. UNI WEB SERVE is not responsible for files lost or damaged by users. Client-maintained backups of all site files are recommended. Our backups run twice weekly and the oldest backup is overwritten by the newest.

The client takes full responsibility for data transferred and for maintaining backups of their own files and data.

Any accounts exceeding 10GB in size or exceeding 100 000 inodes will no longer be backed up in entirety; rather, just the databases will be backed up. A web page, image file or email uses up one inode each.

10. CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (CMS). The client is solely responsible for the safety of their password and for keeping their CMS up to date. If a client loses or changes their CMS password after being granted administrative control, UNI WEB SERVE may at their discretion charge a pre-determined amount for resetting the password, recovery of data or the installation or re-installation of components. Sometimes these passwords cannot be recovered and the only option is to re-install the CMS and back up the most recent files. If the CMS is compromised due to the client’s neglect to keep it updated or to install necessary security plugins, Uniwebserve will attempt to restore the site from backups at a quoted restore fee. While we may send out occasional reminders to our clients to keep their CMS systems updated and to install security plugins, the onus is upon the client to ensure that their systems remain up to date and that security plugins are installed. We do not accept responsibility for any loss or damage arising as a result of the client’s neglect to keep their own CMS updated.

11. AMENDMENTS. UNI WEB SERVE reserves the right to make amendments or changes to this agreement from time to time. The client is responsible for visiting the UNI WEB SERVE site regularly to see if there are changes in the terms.

12. LITIGATION AND ATTORNEY’S FEES. In the event of any dispute arising out of or relating to this agreement, such dispute shall be resolved in HERMANUS, South Africa and the prevailing party in any such dispute shall be entitled to reasonable costs, including collection costs and attorney’s fees. Uniwebserve provides domain registration services and as such is never the owner of a client’s domain. Any claims to ownership need to be resolved directly with the listed domain owner.

SEE THE REGISTRANT AGREEMENT

13. PRIVACY. UNI WEB SERVE may provide aggregate statistics about our customers, sales, traffic patterns and related site information to reputable third-party vendors, but these statistics will not include any personally identifying information. UNI WEB SERVE may release account information when we believe that such release is necessary to comply with law, enforce or apply the terms of any of our user agreements or protect the rights, property or safety of UNI WEB SERVE, our users, or others, or when it is necessary to act on cases of abuse.

SEE OUR PRIVACY POLICY

14. LOSS OR DAMAGE: UNI WEB SERVE shall not be responsible and disclaims all liability for any loss, liability, damage (whether direct or consequential) or expense of any nature whatsoever which may be suffered as a result of, or which may be attributable, directly or indirectly, to the use of or reliance upon any information, links or service provided through this web site.

15. SPAM – Sending unsolicited commercial email, cross-posting messages to large numbers of usenet groups, posting obscene or threatening messages while using or referring to a UNI WEB SERVE email address or website URL is strictly prohibited. The use of UNI WEB SERVE servers as a mail drop for responses to activities described above is also prohibited. Security attempts to manipulate UNI WEB SERVE servers or client websites are prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, attempting to gain unauthorized access to UNI WEB SERVE servers, mail bombing, or other means of deliberately overloading systems.

16. SYSTEM ABUSE / RESOURCE USAGE – Includes, but is not limited to, excessive use of CPU resources or disk space, installing IRC bots, file sharing or chat systems, CGI scripts sharing with domains outside of UNI WEB SERVE, or other CGI scripts that use a disproportionate amount of system resources including auction sites, social media, dating, stocks, betting, gambling, magazine, news, aggregation, streaming, adult or file sharing websites. UNI WEB SERVE will determine what constitutes system abuse.

NO REFUNDS ARE PAYABLE FOR ANY AMOUNTS PAID TO US WHERE WE HAVE DEEMED THAT OUR SYSTEMS HAVE BEEN ABUSED OR USED FOR FRAUDULENT PURPOSES

a) Users may not use more than 25% of system resources for more then 90 secs at a time.
b) Users may not run unattended, standalone serverside processes on the server, including daemons such as IRC.
c) Users may not operate any type of webspider or indexing process on shared servers.
d) Users may not install anything that interfaces with an Internet Relay Chat network/site.
e) Users may not host any type of torrent.
f) Users may not join or host filesharing or peer-to-peer networks
g) Users may not host gaming servers
h) Users may not set up cron jobs with intervals less than 15 mins.
i) Users may not run any SQL queries greater than 15 secs and database tables should be indexed appropriately.
j) PHP include functions should include the local file instead of the URL, eg. you should use include.php instead of http://www.yourcompanyname.co.za/include.php
k) To reduce server load, avoid forcing html to handle serverside code eg. php/shtml
l) To reduce server load and speed up your site, only use https when absolutely necessary
m) Using more than 250 000 inodes on any of our shared servers will result in a warning, then if no action is taken or if server resources are severely monopolised the account will be suspended. A web page, image file or email uses up one inode each.
n) Accounts over 100 000 inodes will no longer be eligible for weekly backups, however the databases will still be included in the weekly backups. All data will still be mirrored to a secondary drive in case of HD failure or malfunction.
o) We do not permit mass-emailing to lists above 200 recipients.
p) Any bulk mailing found to be sent without the recipients’ double opt-in permission constitutes abuse. Opt-out newsletters are not acceptable, it has to be double opt-in and the sender may be required to provide proof of this opt-in (eg. clients may have opted in via a website or via a printed form, then verified subsequently via email)
q) Unlimited emails may not be used as a basis for a free email service or to re-sell email addresses.
r) Our shared hosting servers may not be used as “backup servers” or “backup mail servers” where the primary service is run off some other server. Accounts found to be directing secondary DNS or MX records to our servers for the purposes of backups may be suspended, terminated or modified with or without notice to the client.

17. Indemnification/Disclaimer – UNI WEB SERVE cannot guarantee that our services will be uninterrupted by external factors and will not be held liable for any claims resulting from the use or the inability to use our services, including, but not limited to, service interruptions, internet connectivity problems, damaged undersea or land cables, sabotage, theft of copper wire, internal company firewalls outside of our control, unauthorized access to our servers, domain name registrar problems, DNS caching, internet bandwidth congestion, power failures, lack of 3G reception, country legislation or privacy laws, riot, coup, piracy, fire, flood, nuclear, or any manmade or natural disasters. No refunds are payable. We also cannot guarantee or troubleshoot the networks of foreign countries or specialist networks such as, among others, WANs, PANs or geographically dispersed networks or VPNs. Note that foreign-language software products are not included in the scope of our support.

18. Adult Content and Piracy – UNI WEB SERVE reserves the right to terminate hosting agreements without refund should the client be found to be hosting illegal or unsuitable content. UNI WEB SERVE will determine what constitutes unsuitable content.

19. Policy Violation – If an account is used unlawfully or is in violation of the Terms, UNI WEB SERVE reserves the right to terminate the account without notice and without refunds. Files that violate our terms or the law are subject to deletion without notice and will be reported to the relevant authority, and will be held responsible for damages, including but not limited to, UNI WEB SERVE systems, servers, connectivity, reputation, business, service, network, operations, staff or equipment. Violations will be dealt with severely to the full extent of the law at the cost of the client.

20. Abuse of Staff: Please do not abuse the HelpDesk system or our operators. Abuse includes, but is not limited to, excessive number of tickets opened by one customer, aggressive, harassing or rude behavior, repetitive use of inappropriate categories for posting tickets, etc. Uni Web Serve shall determine what constitutes abuse. Abuse may result in warning, access restrictions, suspension or termination without refund.

21. Refunds: We do not process refunds unless by prior arrangement and approval from management. Kindly submit your request for refund to billme@uniwebsa.com for assessment. All refunds will be levied with an administration fee of R50, or a fee as determined by our accounts department, plus any bank fees which may be applicable. Absolutely no refunds are granted or considered for foreign clients although we may be able to allocate funds to credit another account hosted with us by the requester. Clients who register with false details will be terminated immediately with no refunds.

22. Security checks: Uniwebserve reserves the right on occasion to request additional information from clients to ensure security or to comply with the law. This information may include ID numbers, passport numbers, company registration number, physical address, landline telephone numbers, business references from other companies or any other documentation as determined by Uniwebserve. We respect the privacy of our clients and this information will not be divulged to any third parties. It is purely for Uniwebserve to determine the validity of a given transaction.

23. Domain registration via and managed by Uniwebserve is done on the understanding that the domain will be registered using Uniwebserve’s selected registrars/registries. As Uniwebserve is an accredited COZA registrar, co.za domain migrations from legacy to the new EPP system are mandatory. If clients wish to manage their own domains directly with their own registrar/registry of choice, please email techman @ uniwebserve dot com

24. Reseller Status vs Unlimited Subdomains It is not permitted to run subdomains to host content under your main site for various unrelated websites (sites which have no relation to your company or industry). We offer reseller plans with significant rebates if you plan on hosting a range of websites eg. if you would like to start your own website business with your own brand. The plans are robust and heavily discounted so that you are able to mark them up when reselling hosting to your clients. To find out more email info @ uniwebsa dot com

25. Reseller Support, Obligations and Terms: UNIWEBSERVE is under no obligation to provide support to the Reseller’s customers. If UNIWEBSERVE receives direct communications from reseller customers or from third parties regarding any services originally procured through the reseller, UNIWEBSERVE may forward these communications to the reseller without taking any other action, unless immediate action is required to prevent a security incident or any other matter deemed by UNIWEBSERVE to be urgent and/or requiring intervention. UNIWEBSERVE reserves the right to respond to such communications directly and to take any action UNIWEBSERVE deems necessary. If UNIWEBSERVE determines that the reseller is providing inadequate support to their customers then UNIWEBSERVE may, at its sole discretion, terminate the Reseller Agreement and recoup any costs associated with such termination (usually this would be any outstanding invoices and/or the cost to provide accoun backups to the reseller). Re-instantiating an account is possible and there may be a reconnection fee and backup restoration fee, though backup restoration after termination of the agreement is not guaranteed. A reseller’s customer will remain at all times the customer of the reseller unless the customer directly subscribes to UNIWEBSERVE or otherwise approaches UNIWEBSERVE directly or anyone of UNIWEBSERVE other resellers for services without any solicitation from UNIWEBSERVE or the other resellers. UNIWEBSERVE does not have a means of detecting when a new client may already be a client of one of our resellers and it is possible that they may sign up directly via our online signup systems. UNIWEBSERVE does not get involved in disputes of any nature between resellers and their customers.

26. News or Aggregation sites are not permitted

27. Clients found to be sending bulk unsolicited mail, spam or viruses or any sort of mailing which results in Uniwebserve IPs, servers or domains to be blacklisted (eg. on any RBLs or any other blocklists) may be suspended or terminated without notice to the client and details of the activity will be forwarded to the relevant legal authority on request. If the contravention occurred without the knowledge of the client we will consider changing all account passwords and notify the client to use a PROFESSIONAL, REGISTERED AND LEGITIMATE IT company to clear their systems. A certificate or invoice from the IT company will need to be supplied to Uniwebserve indicating in detail the type and degree of infection and the names of the viruses found, as well as the activity taken to ensure that such incursion will not occur again. Furthermore, Uniwebserve may request details of client systems using our services to ensure that all software is legally licenced (non-pirate) and not expired (past shelf-life). Such detail may include serial numbers or a report assessment from the IT company. A levy may be charged to the client for Uniwebserve admin and any associated costs to remove ourselves, our IPs or any affected domains from RBLs or any blacklists.

28. UPTIME GUARANTEE

Our service and uptime is near 100%. We do not believe in attracting customers with advertised uptimes when occasional brief downtime may be required due to a brief server restart after important software or hardware updates, upgrades or network infrastructure beyond our control. We always notify clients well in advance to the best of our ability of any upgrades or server maintenance with an exact timescale.

These terms and conditions represent the complete agreement and understanding between UNI WEB SERVE and THE CLIENT. In the event that any term or provision of this agreement is held by a court to be unenforceable, then the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect.

Here’s a quick summary of what’s not allowed:

• Use of our SMTP outgoing server service is only for clients using it for normal email sending. Mass mailing, automated mailings, unmonitored mailings and marketing mails are not permitted.
• It is not permitted to use our SMTP service with 3rd-party companies or providers to send mail on behalf of clients. Our service agreement is with our client, not with the 3rd party provider.
• The SMTP service may not be used via any other provider, channel or software which may or may not be hosted or operated off-site and does not belong to the client who enjoys the service with Uniwebserve.
• No pornographic content, pirate software (warez) sites, chat (IRC), file-sharing (peer-to-peer), dating, social media, auction, lotto, stocks, betting, gambling, loans, banking, news, magazine, crypto mining, online gaming, email scraping or selling of email lists, aggregation or live streaming video or audio
• No mass-emailing of the same message to more than 200 recipients in one month. Emails cannot be spam (they must have a genuine message and must offer an unsubscribe option to the recipient).
• No winnings or lotto-related mail is permitted, whether sanctioned by local agencies or not. Simply using related keywords in the body of an email may trigger spam filters and possible blacklisting
• Any email lists which you send to should be obtained lawfully via double opt-in subscriptions, written permission of each user or via user signups on your website.
• Purchased mailing lists where the users have not given you permission to send them mail are not permitted and may result in suspension or termination without notice.
• If you need to send to lists larger than 2000 recipients there are companies which specialise in bulk mailing. We do not permit mailings of the same message to more than 200 recipients in one month.

Mass Mail and bulk Email Marketing

Your recipients need to have double opted-in (agreed, in writing and confirmed subsequently) to receive marketing emails from you. It is a little-known fact that this is in fact banned by South African law – if you purchased your mailing list or acquired a ready-made mailing list from somewhere then the use or resale of that list is strictly not permitted.

It is OK to send emails to clients of yours with an existing business relationship, to people who may have requested info at a trade show or event or to people who have given you express written permission to send email to them.

Due to the prevalence of spam our server IP address will be blacklisted if we do not prevent our users from sending bulk unsolicited email. It degrades the mail service and destroys the reputation of our IPs. Due to the very strict international and local restrictions (and laws) on sending spam we are forced to have a no-nonsense approach. To keep our IP range clean and ensure a fast and reliable service to all our clients, users found to be abusing system resources according to our terms and conditions may be suspended with immediate effect.

For any types of abuse not mentioned here that may be discovered by our admins or systems, clients will be informed and we will suggest a solution. Suspension of these accounts is a last resort and will only occur if we need to protect our systems. Uniwebserve shall determine what constitutes abuse.

We ask only that you take extra care to ensure that all your recipients have willingly elected to receive mail from you. By South African Law, if a recipient asks you to provide evidence of their opt-in then you are obliged to produce this.

Every marketing email must have a working unsubscribe option.

Our servers are linux based for increased security therefore all linux compatible technologies can be used eg. PHP, MySQL, HTML, XHTML, JAVA. We do not provide support for Windows technologies such as ASP or MSSQL.