HOSTING
Terms of Business
Service Overview
These Web Services Terms of Business describe the standard level of service that all website hosting, support and maintenance customers can expect from JNB Publishing Limited trading as Treacle Factory. They attempt to quantify the levels of service that all hosting customers can expect, and the remedies we offer if we fail to provide service at those levels.
The registration, renewal and use of your domain name are subject to the Terms of use applied by the relevant naming authority (such as ICANN for .com domain names, and Nominet for .uk domain names). You should ensure that you are aware of and in compliance with those terms. For .uk domains, you are specifically agreeing with Nominet’s terms; see www.nominet.org.uk/go/terms. You accept that we use 34SP.com to register, renew and administer domain names, and that you agree to their Terms of use.
You agree that we have no liability in respect of the use of any domain name by you. You further agree that you have no right to bring any claim against us in respect to the refusal to register any domain name. For the avoidance of all doubt it shall remain Your sole responsibility to check if the Domain has been successfully registered by contacting the appropriate authority.
You agree that any administration charge paid by you to us is non-refundable, notwithstanding a refusal by the naming authority to register the desired name. Should you and a third party raise a dispute over a domain name, that dispute should be resolved between you and the third party. We may be obliged to make representations to the relevant naming authority. Should you wish to raise a dispute regarding a domain name that you have registered or attempted to register through us, you should contact us immediately.
Your domain name will be renewed automatically, if payment is not received the domain will expire. It is the customer’s responsibility to make sure payment is received for their domain renewal and the domain does not expire. Domains are automatically renewed 30 days prior to the registry expiration date. If you have failed to request a cancellation of the domain name prior to this date, then payment will be taken for the domain renewal. This is a non-refundable charge. You accept that failure to pay your renewal invoice for your domain name will mean your domain may be lost and accept full liability in the event of failure to pay before the renewal date. We will not release any domain name registered through us to any other provider, unless full payment for the registration or renewal of that domain name has been received by us.
You accept that should you fail to pay renewal invoices for any domain name by the due date of the invoice, that we are entitled to withhold, suspend or cancel the provision of this domain name to you. Should a domain expire or enter a redemption period following non-payment of an invoice, you accept that this is a result of your inaction and that any fees required to reclaim the domain, or that the loss of the domain itself, is your responsibility.
You agree that we reserve the right to refuse to register a domain name, if we have not received payment in full for that domain name. You accept that the minimum renewal period for a .uk domain is 2 years.
Treacle Factory accepts no liability for the loss of registration of any Domain that has failed to be renewed due to an invalid email address or other details provided to us, late payments received or technical faults which are beyond our control.
If you are registering a domain on behalf of another party, please note that our relationship is with you as our client, not with the party you are registering the domain for. Therefore, we will hold you responsible for the accuracy and usage of the domain, and for all terms relating to the domain name.
For .uk domains, we need to verify that the registrant data for new registrations, and/or domains transferring to our IPS TAG, is correct. The general aims and standards we will apply correspond to Nominet’s own standards which can be found here. If we cannot verify your registrant data, we reserve the right to refuse to register or accept the transfer of the domain. We will attempt to contact you to resolve the issues with the data. If we can resolve the issues, then the registration or transfer of the domain will be accepted.
If Nominet contact us to request that we obtain further verification for a domain that we already administer on your behalf, and we are unable to validate this data with you within 30 days of our receipt of this notification, we reserve the right to lock that domain until it has been validated.
As long you are using your account in a fair and reasonable manner, consistent with other websites, we’re not going to charge for bandwidth. If you’re running a typical website, online store or blog you’ll be fine. Should any of your domains exceed what we consider to be ‘fair usage’, we will begin a process of contacting you to investigate methods for reducing your usage, or, where this is not possible, for upgrading to a more suitable platform. Our hosting service includes the provision of unlimited email mailboxes that can be accessed via webmail, IMAP or POP connections.
You agree that, should you fail to implement recommended changes that would reduce your usage, or should you refuse to upgrade to a package that suits your bandwidth usage, then the bandwidth usage for your domain may be throttled by us. We will give you prior warning via email that this will happen. This will reduce your potential connection speed to a rate that ensures that your domain cannot exceed our soft limits. This does not affect indemnity or liability Terms in any manner.
Every account has a specific disk space limit of 5GB which includes any email mailboxes associated with the account. These limits are not hard limits, so it is possible to exceed them. If you exceed your account limit we will contact you to discuss reducing your usage, or, where this is not possible, upgrading your account to a more suitable package.
You agree that, should you fail to implement recommended changes that would reduce your usage, or should you refuse to upgrade to a package that suits your disk space usage, that we will take steps to reduce your usage. We will only delete data that will not affect the performance of your site, such as (but not limited to) backups, log files, cached content, and emails. Should these steps fail to reduce your usage you agree that we have the right to suspend your account until steps can be taken to reduce usage or upgrade the account, and that this does not affect the indemnity or liability Terms in any manner.
Treacle Factory provides a reactive hosting service and guarantee a 99.99% availability of your website hosting excluding hardware failures. We do not constantly check the websites we host to ensure they are functioning correctly as routine use, maintenance and software updates can affect website functions. It is therefore the responsibility of the client to ensure their website is operating as it should and to notify Treacle Factory in the event of any issues affecting this.
Should we fail to meet this level of availability the following levels of service credit are applicable:
| 99.99% thru 99.9% | 10% monthly fee |
| 99.9% thru 99% | 25% monthly fee |
| 99% thru 95% | 50% monthly fee |
| 95% of lower | 100% monthly fee |
Our clients like to have regular access to our support team via both telephone and email which is included within our hosting service. Support includes ad-hoc support with using the WordPress content management system, resolving technical issues arising from normal use and where possible, restoration of your website to the most recent fully functioning state. Support provides telephone and email support from 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday excluding public holidays.
Support is intended to maintain existing services and does not include addition of new content, functionality or services. Updates to the functionality or content of your website is not provided within the support service. Support is not available at weekends, on public holidays or between 25th December and 2nd of January. Whilst we will do our best to resolve any issues arising from accidental or malicious damage, editing or deletion of files we cannot guarantee this will be possible in all cases.
Email mailboxes associated with your hosting are covered within the support service which is limited to the provision of email via webmail, IMAP or POP access. Support of email services excludes setup and or configuration of any email clients i.e. Outlook or on your mobile phone. In cases where your email is provisioned by another party i.e., a Hosted Exchange service, we will update the appropriate DNS records to point this service away from our network at which time any email support will cease to be included within the hosting service.
Just like desktop computers, mobiles and tablets content managed websites run on a software platform. Whereas your PC will most likely run Microsoft Windows, your website operates on WordPress, currently the most widely used content management system (CMS). As is the case with most software, WordPress updates are released on a regular basis to rectify any bugs and most importantly to upgrade any security vulnerabilities that may have been discovered. It is vitally important that these updates are applied to your website to protect from malicious attacks, that in extreme cases can result in your entire site being destroyed.
Keeping your website safe from potential attack simply means keeping WordPress up-to-date with the latest stable version of the software. As your website uses other software known as ‘plugins’ it is also important to update each of these for exactly the same reasons. Because the plugins and WordPress need to be compatible with each other it is important to ensure that updates to one or other doesn’t create a conflict. Finally, it makes sense to take regular back-ups of the website content and the database that runs behind it, so that in a worst case scenario it can be restored.
For peace of mind and to save you the hassle we can provide regular maintenance for your WordPress website. On a monthly basis we will:
• Back-up the website content and database
• Update WordPress to most current stable version
• Update of plug-ins to most current stable versions
• Test plug-in compatibility
• Email you to advise you that maintenance has been completed
Ensuring your website software is up-to-date is essential to protect against malicious attacks. Most attacks are based on exposed security weaknesses and sites are targeted for their exposure to this, rather than any deliberate targeting a specific business.
You agree that we are fully indemnified, and will remain fully indemnified, from and against all actions, demands, costs, losses, penalties, damages, liability, claims, expenses, and legal fees whatsoever, incurred by us, and/or arising from:
• Your breach of this Agreement.
• Your negligence or other act or omission.
• Any claim brought against us by any third party alleging that Intellectual Property Rights have been infringed, where such infringement arises from your modification or use of the Software and/or Services, and/or any materials or information provided to you by us, or available to you from us.
• The operation or break down of any equipment or software owned or used by you.
• Your use or misuse of our Services and/or the Server.
• Your agreements with other parties.
We shall not be liable for any of the following types of loss, regardless of whether they are direct, indirect or consequential, or whether we have notified you that you would incur any of these losses:
• Financial loss of any kind, including but not limited to loss of profits, earnings, business, goodwill, reputation, business interruption, clients or sales.
• Loss, corruption or amendment of any data or content stored on our Servers.
Hosting is provided on an initial 12-month basis and will automatically renew on an annual basis until such time as either party terminates the agreement. Notice of cancelation by either party will be made in writing and is subject to a 30-day notice period.
Domain renewals are subject to the length of registration provided by the domain registrar and will be renewed automatically unless written notice of cancelation is provided 60 days in advance of the renewal date. Domain registry fees are non-refundable.
Failure to make payment when due may result in suspension or disconnection of the Hosting Service. A re-connection fee will be payable thereafter for resumption of service upon receipt of overdue payment.
To cancel all or part of your Service, we require written confirmation, requesting that all or part of the Hosting Service be cancelled. Any Service that you do not specifically request for cancellation will continue and auto renew until we receive an official request from you in this manner.
Hosting Service cancellation requests will be actioned from the date of receipt of written confirmation of cancellation, with that service terminating/cancelling at the end of your current contractual billing cycle (monthly, quarterly, annual or biannual).
Please note no cash refund or credit of paid invoices will be given for hosting service/s cancellation as the service will terminate at the end of your current contractual billing cycle, with the service provided to you by us until this date.
All outstanding invoices on the account must be paid before a cancellation request is actioned. Failure to pay these invoices before a cancellation may lead to the debt being referred to a debt reclamation agency to reclaim the outstanding fees if we are unable to process payment with you.
If your service is suspended, we will retain your data on the server (or another server on the same platform) for 30 days after the suspension date after which point we reserve the right to treat this as a cancellation of the service. If the service is cancelled all data on our server will be permanently deleted immediately on completion of the specified notice period. If the data has not been removed and you need your service restored, you will have to pay any outstanding invoices on the account before we will reactivate your service.
