Terms and Conditions of Service
These terms and conditions form the basis of your contract with W & N TAYLOR so please read them carefully.
Who this affects
If you order or request any services from W & N TAYLOR or any of its brands you are bound by these terms and conditions.
How to agree to these terms and conditons by the customer
By ordering or requesting any of W & N Taylor products or services you agree to these terms and conditions.
If you do not agree to these Terms
Then please don't submit an order or request for any of our services.
Why we need terms and conditions
W & N TAYLOR provides services to many customers. We have a responsibility to protect our services from the adverse effects of other peoples activites. We also have a responsibility to ensure that our customers web sites and email services are available for them to use. This means that we need to limit customers activities to those which are compatible with running a reliable and safe service.
The following terms and conditions were designed to ensure these obligations are met.
Arbitration
W & N TAYLOR will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of the provisions described in this document.
Length of contract
If you pay your web hosting account monthly then your contract runs for one month and is renewed for another month when you make your next months payments. If you pay annually then your contract runs for 12 month from the date you first ordered. The year or month runs and ends from the time you ordered (e.g. if you order annual hosting at 2pm on the 1st of January it will expire at 2pm on 1st of January the following year). Details of how to cancel the contract can be found below.
Server abuse
Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server, or customer, of W & N TAYLOR is strictly prohibited. Offenders will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
The content of your web site
All services provided by W & N TAYLOR may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data or material in violation of any Australian, or any International laws is prohibited.
The following list is not exhaustive, but it will indicate the sort of material you are not permitted to host:
• copyright material.
• MP3 files containing copyright music, unless you created the music yourself and own the copyright.
• material we judge to be threatening or obscene.
• material protected by trade secret and other statute.
• pornography, including sites that links to such content.
• sex-related merchandising, including sex toys and sites that links to such content.
• escort services or anything related to prostitution.
• pirated software, also known as warez.
• hacker programs or archives, including sites that links to such content.
• hate propaganda.
• products designed to defraud others, e.g. satellite hacking equipment.
• promotion of illegal activities.
• content that may be damaging to our servers or any other server on the internet.
• Web sites promoted by spam or involved in spamming or spam related software or bulk email lists.
• IRC or IRC bots.
If you are unsure whether or not your site falls into these categories feel free to contact us with a description before you sign up for an account or publish material as an existing customer.
The content of your emails
Spam is "Unsolicited junk e-mail sent to large numbers of people to promote products or services".
We have a zero tollerance policy towards spam and we monitor our mail servers to ensure they are not being used for spamming. If we allowed customers to spam then our mail servers would be blacklisted and none of our customers would be able to send and receive mail reliably. It is in all customers interests that we stop spam.
We do not permit:
• The sending of spam through our servers.
• Sending out spam through another providers mail server which includes links to web pages or email addresses hosted on our servers.
• Web sites promoted by spam or involved in spamming or selling spam related software or bulk email lists.
As delegated by our upstream providers, any sites using spam or selling of spam related software or bulk email content will be closed.
If you spam, we will see you doing it, your account will be terminated and you will not get a refund.
If you run a mailing list all the people you mail must have opted into the list. The list must not have been obtained from a third party. Your list server must use a system where an email is sent to the user when they sign up and they have to reply or click on a link to confirm their email address. This is known as "double opt in". The mailman program we provide with some hosting packages matches these requirements, as do many other mailing list systems. You must honour all unsubscribe requests within 24 hours.
If we receive a spam complaint about your account we will.
• Suspend your account to prevent any further violations.
• Contact you to inform you of our reinstatement policy (see below).
• Either reactivate the account or terminate it depending on your response.
Email SPAM / abuse reinstatement policy
If an account has been suspended for spam or abuse it will only be reinstated if the customer sends a "reinstatement request" to us by helpdesk ticket or email.
The reinstatement request must, in the customers own words, explain:
• Why the SPAM incident or other abuse incident occurred.
• If applicable, display understanding of why mass mailing is forbidden.
• Commit to the incident not occurring again.
W&N TAYLOR will be the sole arbiter in making a decision as to whether or not the account should be reinstated. In making a decision we shall take into consideration:
• The authenticity of the reinstatement request (is it really from the owner of the account which it purports to be).
• The nature of the response and the understanding and commitment exhibited therein.
• The history of abuse on that domain.
• To the extent known, the history of abuse by that customer across different domains.
Communication of the decision will be sent to the email from which the customers reinstatement request was sent.
Protecting server resources
Each server has a limited amount of processing power and memory. We have found most our customers to stay within "reasonable limits", but sometimes people do cause problems for other users by using too many resources.
if you are a shared hosting customer you may not:
• Provide hosting for third parties, unless you have a proper reseller account.
• Link to cgi scripts running on your account from other domains (e.g. banner exchanges).
• Use more than 10% of system resources on the server.
We do not allow clients to install their own cgi or php chat rooms. These tend to be a large drain on system resources and we cannot allow it as an account option. However, we provide chat systems with some hosting accounts which you may use free of charge.
Bulletin boards are permitted, provided they stay within the 10% server usage limit explained above.
We allow you (subject to a suitable hosting plan) to run programs to run continually in the background (cron jobs). However, these must not overload the server or affect other users sites.
If you go over any of the limits described above we will suspend your account and contact you to resolve the situation. We may offer dedicated server hosting for an additional charge. If you do not move to a dedicated server or reduce your system usage we will terminate your account to protect other customers.
Specific programs/scripts not permitted.
We do not permit the use of :
• The webmail part of PHP nuke or any of its derivatives as this allows anyone to send out email and will be abused by spammers.
• Formmail.pl from Matts Script archive. We have a secure version already installed on our servers, use it instead.
• Formmail.php. Use the secure formmail.cgi which we have already installed on the server
Telnet / SSH / shell access
W & N TAYLOR provides SSH (secure telnet) access on some accounts on request. SSH access is provided for the purpose of testing scripts and carrying out site maintenace. It is not provided for any other purpose and there is no warranty of any kind should SSH fail to function for off server connections or activities. We reserve the right to withdraw SSH access at any time without notification. Customers are not permitted to run CGI or PHP shell emulation programs.
Bandwidth usage
Each hosting plan we provide has a set amount of bandwidth available per month. We monitor this usage and if your site goes over the limit it will be suspended until the second day of the next month. If you do not wish to wait until the next month you can upgrade your hosting plan to one with more bandwidth. If you are concerned about going over your limit you should check your bandwidth usage in the control panel in the middle of the month and contact us if you think you will go over.
99.9% uptime guarantee
If your web site down time exceeds this level in any calendar month, we will offer a 5% credit to your account for every hour the site is down. In order to receive credit for your down time, you must submit a request on this form within 30 days of the occurance.
Conditions:
1. W & N TAYLOR will issue a refund to the customers account in the event of a Service Outage due to the failure of one of the following pieces of equipment owned and operated by Hostroute.com or one of its suppliers; the ATM Network, the LAN or a web hosting server. For purposes of this guarantee, Service Outages shall be defined as 10 consecutive minutes of web site (HTTP) inaccessibility as measured by our independent monitoring services.
2. W & N TAYLOR will not be held responsible for Service Outages resulting from equipment not owned or operated by Hostroute.com or its suppliers. This includes, but is not limited to, Internet NAP failures or congestion (Problems with one specific dial up ISP etc.) and non Hostroute.com backbone failures. Additionally, Hostroute.com will not be held responsible for delays in the registration or transfer of a domain due to registry related issues, for outages resulting from malfunctioning customer scripts or applications that are installed by the customer, nor for unusual traffic spikes or "denial of service" attacks on customer web sites.
3. Refunds will be issued upon request by the customer and upon determination that a Service Outage, as defined by this guarantee, has occurred. Refund requests must be made within thirty (30) days of the time period during which the Service Outage took place. Regardless of the number of outages, all refunds are limited to a maximum of one month's hosting service fees and do not include excess usage fees, setup fees or other non-standard recurring charges. Additionally, Service Outages will not include downtime due to Acts of God, nor for outside security breaches. Finally, Hostroute.com will not be held liable for Service Outage damages resulting in the loss of prospective profits or anticipated sales or as a result of expenditures, investments, or commitments in connection with the business.
Please note that this is not an insurance scheme. We do not cover problems relating to the company that provides your internet connection and we do not cover you for attacks by hackers,denial of service attacks or other criminal activites. It is in your own interests to consider business continuity insurance if you rely on your web site for commercial purposes.
Server Issues
W & N Taylor will not be held responsible for Service Outages or server problems resulting from equipment not owned or operated by W & N Taylor. This includes, but is not limited to, servers, Internet NAP failures or congestion (Problems with one specific dial up ISP etc.) and non Hostroute.com backbone failures. Additionally, W & N Taylor will not be held responsible for delays in the registration, transfer or delegation of a domain name or any registry related issues, for outages resulting from malfunctioning customer scripts or applications that are installed by the customer, nor for unusual traffic spikes or "denial of service" attacks on customer web sites.
IP Addresses and DNS delegation
We provide IP address information in your welcome email. This is provided to allow access to the web site and control panel until the domain name has been transferred to our DNS servers. Customers are not permitted to link to their site or address via an IP address based link once the transfer is complete. This is for your own safety as it prevents links becoming out dated if we change your IP address.
All customers must change their domain names' DNS servers to those specified on their welcome email. We do not permit customers to use external DNS management tools because of the likelihood of failure if we change an IP address. If you decide to use an external DNS service then you agree to absolve W & N TAYLOR & Hostroute.com Ltd of all liability should your site fail due to DNS errors or the IP address changing at a later date.
All IP addresses remain the property of Hostroute.com Ltd or its upstream providers and are provided according to ARIN and RIPE rules and only when required for technical reasons.
DNS modifications
We do not provide DNS management services. If you require changes to DNS records (A, MX etc) we will do our best to carry them out but we cannot provide a warranty that the changes will continue to work in the future.
Billing
Monthly Billing: We DO NOT send out invoices (unless prior arrangement has been made). All credit cards are billed automatically on the anniversary of the date the account was ordered. So if a customer orders hosting on the 15th of the month they would be billed on the 15th every month. We believe this is sufficient advance notification of payment due. It is the clients responsibility to ensure that they have sufficient credit to cover this transaction. In the event that a card is declined for any reason we will send an e-mail with instructions for submitting a new credit card. If new card details are not supplied within 24 hours we will suspend the account. If new card details are still not received within 7 days we will delete the account.
If your web site is important, you are strongly recommended to pay annually (for which you will receive a discount).
Annual Billing: If you pay annually we will not bill your card automatically. We will send a renewal notice to the email address you provided us with when you signed up approximately one month before the renewal date. However, because 40% of our customers do not tell us when they change email addresses and because many ISP's spam filters remove emails which mention web hosting services we cannot guarantee delivery of these emails. We recommend that you make a note in your diary one year from the date you ordered the hosting originally. If we do not receive the renewal payment by the due date then we will suspend the account. If payment is still not received within 7 days we will assume the accout is no longer required and delete it.
Refunds
Cancellation Refunds: We DO NOT refund partial monthly or annual hosting fees for accounts cancelled from the date of activation. For example, if you cancel an annual account after 6 months you will not get a refund of 6 months hosting fees.
Account Cancellations
By ordering services from us you agree to abide by these cancellation procedures. Before we cancel an account we need to make sure it really is the site owner requesting the cancellation.
To cancel an account please
Contact account@wandntaylor.com.au
Accounts will be closed the same day, we do not schedule closures for the end of the current months hosting. Accounts are only be considered cancelled once we have conformed by e-mail that we have cancelled it for you. If you have not received conformation from us it means your account is still open and you will be billed for all services provided until we have given such confirmation.
W & N TAYLOR will not be held liable for the non arrival of your request to cancel an account. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have received confirmation of the account closure from us.
When an account is cancelled, all of its files are deleted and are not recoverable.
Extent of service
The service provided under this contract is the one listed on our web site on the day you ordered the service. For description purposes terms like PHP, Perl and Mysql refer to the versions of PHP, Perl and Mysql installed at the time you ordered. Although we regularly update these with security patches no commitment to upgrading to newer versions is intended or implied. The reasons for this are that some customers sites would not work with newer versions therefore upgrading to suit another customer's requirements could stop their site from working, and it may cause problems with some of our preinstalled scripts and software.
Limitations of support
We want your web site to be a success, because that way you will want to renew your account and continue using our service. We will do our best to help you so please contact technical support if you have any difficulties. However, customers sometimes get confused about what constitutes a realistic level of technical support so we need to explain this in detail.
Our technical support is limited to the service as originally provided (web hosting and email).
We will not provide support with:
• Any adaptations you have made to our service to take it away from its original specification.
• Scripts you have installed or written (cgi, perl, php etc).
• Web design issues or the content of your web site.
• Problems with software not provided by us (e.g. FTP programs, web design programs or email software).
• Modifications you have made to scripts installed using our control panel (e.g. the "cgi center").
Support is provided via an online support manuals and our technical support department (via our helpdesk).
We provide support in the English language only and we strongly recommend you have good conversational English before you sign up for any services with us.
W & N TAYLOR will not be held liable for any loss or damage caused by your inability to use the services (just as a car manufacturer could not be held liable for you being unable to drive).
Data integrity and backups
We will endeavour to keep backups of your data in order to restore the server if we have a disk failure. However, we provide no guarantee that we will be able to do so. It is in your own interests to keep a copy of your web site backed up on your own computer. You can do this by simply uploading changes from a copy you hold or by using the backup tool provided with most of our web hosting accounts.
If you have an accident with your site we will do our best to help, but we may not be able to restore your files for you.
It is impossible to have too many backups. Keeping a local copy at your location is the best way to protect your data. Again, we can make no guarantees about the integrity of backups.
Virus Scanning
Some of our hosting plans include virus scanning. If you have ordered a service that includes this feature we will scan your incoming mail for viruses and reject any email which appears to contain one. We will update our virus definitions on a daily basis.
However, we cannot guarantee to remove all viruses all of the time. For example, viruses hidden within certain types of attachment may not be detected. Viruses in emails forwarded from other domains may not trigger the virus scan as it goes through our mail transport agent. You should still have an anti virus program running on your own computer because it can check your whole system, not just your emails.
W&N TAYLOR will not be held liable for any damage caused by viruses received through emails received via our servers.
Controlling Incoming Spam
We provide tools to help you control spam on some of our accounts. These include Spam Assassin and Box Trapper. W & N TAYLOR can not be held liable for spam received in your account but there are a number of things you can do to prevent it being received.
The main reasons for people receiving spam are:
• They have published thier email address on a web site or signed a guest book where it has been harvested (if this happens to you then try and remove the email address from the web to prevent it being harvested again).
• They are using the default (catch all) email account and spammers are sending to things like webmaster@ and postmaster@ (if this is happeneing then set up a seperate email account and set the default account to forward to :fail: which will reduce your level of incoming spam.
If you are receiving a lot of spam using spam assassin (where provided) will help reduce the level. Instructions for this can be found in our supporrt manuals (accessible from our support page).
In some cases the level of incoming spam for one domain can be so high that we have to take special steps to protect our network. This is normally done by blocking incoming mail from servers listed in blacklists which track known commercial spam operations (e.g. Spamhaus). However, we do not use blanket or known innacurate blacklists as that could cause you to lose real mail. In some cases we will also block known sources of viruses. In extreme cases we may block all mail for a given domain or suggest other alternatives for mail delivery to protect our networks.
Passwords
We will provide you with a username and password for accessing your account. This will be sent to the email address you entered into our order form. If you lose your password we can resend it to the same email address. If your email address has changed you will need to supply proof of your identity before we will provide the password. The reason for this is that a large percentage of password requests we receive are from people trying to gain unauthorised access to customers accounts. It is in your interests that we verify your identity before issuing a password.
Correspondence
In the event of written notification of account termination being sent by W&N TAYLOR to a customer, any such communication sent by normal post shall be considered received by the customer seven days after it was posted.
Threats & Blackmail
In the past some customers have attempted to leverage free services by making threats against W & N TAYLOR, its staff or networks.
We deplore this activity because of the negative effect it has on our staff and other customers who pay for the services they require.
We take these sort of threats very seriously.
Making threats will result in your account being cancelled without notice.
Domain name registration
Where a domain name has been registered as part of the service provided by W&N TAYLOR the customer is bound by additional terms and conditions which were displayed during the registration process. Some of these are enforced by the different domain name registries and you should be aware that you may have a contract with them as well as with us. We register all domains with the customer as registrant. W & N TAYLOR may be listed as technical, admin (and sometimes billing) contact for some domain names but normally we enter the customers details into all of these fields as well. Domain name registration fees are not refundable because the registries will not refund us. It is the customers responsibility to ensure that all names are spelled correctly prior to ordering domain names.
Change of domain names
Domain names cannot be changed once they are registered. This is because the domain registries will not refund us once a domain name is registered.
We can change the domain name associated with your hosting account but you will need to register the new domain name first. Changing the domain name may require your account to be deleted and it may cause disruption to your web site. The old domain name will stop working. We reserve the right not to allow domain changes.
Refusal of Service
W&N TAYLOR reserves the right to refuse, cancel, or suspend services at our sole discretion.
Sub domains
If you have a web site without a domain name of your own which has a subdomain based on a domain name we own, you have no rights to transfer that domain name to another provider. W&N TAYLOR reserves the right to transfer any sub domain in domains of its possession to an alternative domain.
Indemnification
By ordering services from us you agree to indemnify and hold harmless W & N TAYLOR from any claims resulting from the use of the service which damages the subscriber or any other party.
Limitation of liability
Your use of W&N TAYLOR services are at your sole risk. All W&N TAYLOR services are provided on an "AS IS" basis WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS,IMPLIED, CONSTRUCTIVE, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING,WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, NON INFRINGEMENT OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so this exclusion may not apply to you in full.
W&N TAYLOR makes no guarantee of availability of service and reserves the right to change, withdraw, suspend, or discontinue any functionality or feature of the W&N TAYLOR service.
IN NO EVENT WILL W&N TAYLOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY
DAMAGES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DIRECT,
INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR
PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR
INABILITY TO USE W&N TAYLOR’s SERVICES OR ANY
CONTENT THEREON. THIS DISCLAIMER APPLIES, WITHOUT
LIMITATION, TO ANY DAMAGES OR INJURY, WHETHER FOR
BREACH OF CONTRACT, TORT, OR OTHERWISE, CAUSED BY
ANY FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE; ERROR; OMISSION;
INTERRUPTION; DELETION; DEFECT; DELAY IN OPERATION OR
TRANSMISSION; COMPUTER VIRUS; FILE CORRUPTION;
COMMUNICATION-LINE FAILURE; NETWORK OR SYSTEM
OUTAGE; OR THEFT, DESTRUCTION, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS
TO, ALTERATION OF, OR USE OF ANY RECORD.
The formation, construction and interpretation of this agreement shall be controlled by the laws of Australia. The U.N. Convention of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods is expressly excluded from any interpretation of this Agreement.
Legal jurisdiction
These terms and conditions are exclusively governed by Australian law and by ordering services from W & N TAYLOR you submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Australian courts.
Legal disputes
If you intimate that you are entering into legal action against us we will suspend your account until the legal dispute has been resolved.
Explanation of the above
We will do our best to keep the service running reliably but we will not be held responsible for any losses you incur through your use of it. If you are in business you should ensure you have adequate business insurance and we recommend you contact an insurance broker.
Web Design
1. It is the customers responsibility to ensure that any web site is lawful, does not infringe any copyright or any other laws. It is also the customers responsibility to carry out any market research as to the viability and profitability of any project before accepting any quote.
2. We reserve the right to refuse to construct a web site that we may judge as unfit due to content or otherwise. This includes, but is not limited by, sites containing adult oriented material such as pornography, sites which promote hatred towards persons belonging to any ethnic group, religion or sexual orientation and sites which infringe copyright or are contrary to Australian and International laws.
3. The acceptance of a commission quote either verbally or in writing shall be deemed as a contractual agreement between the client and W & N Taylor.
4. At project acceptance W & N Taylor can provide an estimated completion date, however we cannot guarantee this date as a final completion date.
5. A deposit of no less than 30% of the total quoted price must be provided before project commencement.
6. Once a work has commenced it will be completed using the information, data, text and images provided at project commencement or during the design phase. Once the design process has been completed the project will be presented to the client who may make any changes to design and content he wishes.
7. W & N Taylor reserve the right to alter our prices at any time without prior notice. If a quote at an original price has been made it will be valid for 28 days and subsequently during the life of the current work, however additional work may be charged for using the new pricing structure.
8. A clients site will be hosted once approval of the design and content is given however we reserve the right to suspend the hosting at any time until the invoice is paid in full.
9. When a quote has been accepted and a developed project approved by the client the invoice must be paid within 7 days regardless of the amount of content that the client still has to provide to W & N Taylor.
10. Content or features listed in the original quote but not provided during the development phase by the client will be added at any time in the future, however invoices must be paid in full including sections which the client still has to provide content for.
11. All material, both text and images, supplied by the client and used in the construction of the client's web site, will remain the client's property. All such material will be assumed to be the property of the client and free to use without fear of breach of copyright laws.
12. The copyright for all material provided by W & N Taylor, such as source code, graphics, photographs video, animation and text, will remain the property of W & N Taylor until such time as payment has been made in full whereupon they will become the property of the client.
13. W & N Taylor produce projects where every effort is made to display the pages acceptably on most popular browsers currently available, however we cannot accept responsibility for pages which donšt display properly on versions of browsers released after the project is completed.
14. The client is ultimately responsible for checking the correctness of the site before they give W & N Taylor the go ahead to make the site publicly available.
15. When a client agrees that a site can be made publicly available they are agreeing that the design and development of the site has satisfied all their requirements.
16 Once the site is publicly available it is the clients responsibility for checking the correctness of the site. W & N Taylor will not be held responsible for any content that appears on the clients site.
Changes to these terms and conditions
W&N TAYLOR reserves the right to change or amend these Terms of Service at any time without prior notice.