Copyright © Smartweb Group (Pty) Ltd
These terms and conditions govern the use of the Smartweb domain registration and hosting services. By contracting with Smartweb for the services you will be lawfully regarded as having agreed to your use of the services specified being governed by this Agreement.
The customer or the customer's agent certifies that he/she is above the age of 18 years, has full contractual capacity and is duly authorised by the customer to contract on customer's behalf.
Smartweb registers domains on the Internet through the relevant governing bodies and hosts websites and related material on the Smartweb server(s) on behalf of customers. These terms and conditions apply to the use and registration of domain names and the web hosting services offered by Smartweb.
Each of Smartweb's web hosting packages, reseller hosting packages & SSL certificates includes a 30 day money back guarantee. If you are not completely satisfied with our services within the first 30 calendar days, you may cancel your service and request a refund. This refund amount will not include setup fees (if included).
The following products/services are non-refundable:
Domain Registrations, Domain Renewals, Domain Transfers, WHOIS Protection.
In the case of SSL certificates, this 30 day period is irrespective of whether the client has successfully completed the validation process with the relevant certificate authority.
Following the first 30 days, the customer is no longer eligible to apply for a refund.
If we choose to terminate a service for any reason (e.g. spam, illegal content, abuse of our services) then a refund may not be granted.
For refunds of amounts greater than R1000.00, a 5% transaction fee will levied and deducted from the amount refunded.
Refunds may only be provided by EFT to South African bank accounts.
A free domain name (co.za, net.za, org.za or web.za) is offered to customers signing up for a web hosting package on an annual billing period. After the first year, your domain will be renewed at the standard domain price.
If a shared hosting package is cancelled within 6 months, the customer is liable to pay for his or her free domain.
Free domain names are not inclusive of premium domain names.
If you wish to cancel your services, you must notify us at least thirty (30) business days prior to your renewal date (i.e. before you receive the renewal invoice). If your notice of cancellation is not received within this time frame, you will be liable for payment of the proceeding installment period and hereby agree to complete payment as invoiced accordingly. You may cancel by sending a support ticket or by using the cancellation form within your client area.
Invoices are generated and issued 14 days prior to their due date. If payment is not received by the due date, a series of email notifications are sent as a reminder of the outstanding payment. Smartweb will give the customer a few more days to settle the account. Following 5 (five) days of non-payment, the account will be suspended, and following 60 (sixty) days of non-payment, the account will be terminated. Smartweb will accept no responsibility for any loss of data or transactions during this period.
In the case of an annual or biannual web hosting account being terminated by the client before their prepaid hosting term ends there will be a calendar month notice period and a R100 administration fee charged.
Smartweb may record the existence of the customer's account with a Credit Bureau.
Smartweb may record and transmit details of how the customer has performed to a Credit Bureau, and how the account is conducted by the customer in meeting their obligations on the account.
By accepting these Terms and Conditions, clients hereby authorize Smartweb to debit their nominated bank account or credit card any variable amount pertaining to the service or products they have selected, on sign up for a calculated pro-rata and thereafter in the beginning of each month (or on signup entirely for purchase of non-service products). This sum being the amount for settlement of the monthly amount due by the client in respect of services or products.
The client authorises Smartweb's nominated agent to debit their account or card on Smartweb's behalf. The debit authority will remain in force until such services or products are cancelled, though the client agrees that debits related to cancellation notice periods will be honoured before the expiration of the debit authority.
The client agrees that the party hereby authorized to debit their bank account or credit card may not cede or assign any of its rights and that the client may not cede any of their obligations in terms of this debit order instruction to any third party without prior written consent of the authorized party.
In instances where the client has requested that Smartweb deduct their service fees using their credit card, it is their responsibility to ensure that they provide valid and current credit card details. The client will be held liable for all fines and penalties charged by Visa and MasterCard resulting from a failed transaction due to incorrect details.
A processing fee of R50.00 is charged on all returned debit orders.
Smartweb has not and does not conduct pre-registration searches in respect of the customer's use and registration of its selected Domain Name/s and is therefore not obliged to either advise the Domain Name customer/customer about possible conflicting third party rights or to take steps to ensure against possible disputes concerning a third party's intellectual property or other rights.
The use or registration of the Domain Name by customer does not interfere with nor infringe the rights of any third party in any jurisdiction with respect to trademark, service mark, tradename, company name, close corporation name, copyright nor any other intellectual property right, and that customer has the right to use the Domain Name as requested.
Smartweb cannot act as an arbiter of disputes arising out of the registration and use of Domain Names. At the same time, customer acknowledges that Smartweb may be presented with evidence that a Domain Name registered by customer violates the rights of a third party. In such instance Smartweb shall be allowed to provide a complainant with customer 's name and address and all further communication will exclude Smartweb and Smartweb will have no further obligations to the customer. In such instance customer shall be entitled to continue using the Domain Name registered for customer by Smartweb until a court or other body with jurisdiction directs otherwise.
Smartweb reserves the right to suggest suitable alternatives to the customer and / or charge for excessive traffic as it deems necessary at its sole discretion.
Smartweb reserves the right to suggest suitable alternatives to the customer for excessive Web Server Processor usage as it deems necessary at its sole discretion.
Smartweb reserves the right to move a website between web servers and internet backbones, both within South Africa and internationally as it deems necessary.
Smartweb reserves the right (but does not assume any obligation) to inspect the contents of data that the customer transmits, receives or stores on an Smartweb Server to ensure compliance with this Agreement or any applicable laws regulations or codes of practice.
Smartweb will not be liable for any loss or damage, interruption of business, or any indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages of any kind (including lost profits), regardless of the form of action, whether in contract, delict, or otherwise which may be suffered as a result of or which may be attributable, directly or indirectly, to the use and/or registration of the Customer's selected domain names/s OR ANY ACTION TAKEN BY Smartweb IN RESPONSE TO THE ABUSE OF THE DOMAIN REGISTRATION SERVICES WHICH IT OFFERS.
The Customer hereby indemnifies and holds harmless Smartweb against any loss whatsoever arising from any dispute or claim or other action occasioned by the Customer's use and registration of its selected Domain Name, even if Smartweb has been advised of the possibility of such damages;
Smartweb will not be liable for any indirect or consequential loss, damage, cost or expense of any kind, irrespective of how such damage or loss was caused, whether arising under contract, delict or otherwise, including, and not limited to, data loss or corruption, loss of profits, contracts, operation time and goodwill.
Neither Smartweb, its employees, affiliates, agents, third party information providers, merchants, licensers or the like, warrant that Smartweb's Server service will not be interrupted or error free; nor do they make any warranty as to the results that may be obtained from the use of the Server service or as to the accuracy, reliability or content of any information service or merchandise contained in or provided through the Smartweb Server service, unless otherwise expressly stated in this Agreement.
Smartweb expressly limits its damages to the Customer for any non-accessibility time or other down time to the pro-rata monthly charge during the system unavailability. Smartweb specifically denies any responsibilities for any damages arising as a consequence of such unavailability.
Smartweb is not responsible if an external company network and firewall is setup to block access to services Smartweb provides. If a client's network is setup to block certain ports or web addresses that compromise the services Smartweb provides it is the client's responsibility to ensure that their network configurations are changed as necessary.
Smartweb reserves its rights to change its prices at any time on reasonable notice. Smartweb reserves the right to stop offering certain web hosting package types if it deems it necessary. Smartweb will then either provide the web hosting service for the remainder of the time that has been paid for or refund the amount paid for that specific package.
The 99.9% website uptime guarantee is applicable only if the web server on which a customer 's shared web hosting account resides crashes or goes down at an unscheduled time. This guarantee is not valid if there is any network problem between the customer and the web server which prevents the customer from seeing the web server, e.g. if the customer 's ISP's link goes down or is faulty, but the web server Smartweb hosts is still up, we are not responsible for the customer not being able to reach their website.
Smartweb is not responsible if any third party operated network or service experiences problems and outages (i.e. all network infrastructure and links, customer 's internet connection, firewall service). If the applicable web server is up and running at all times then the website will deemed to have achieved 100% uptime.
The 99.9% website uptime guarantee does not apply to any scheduled downtime for maintenance of any of the Smartweb web servers. If there is scheduled maintenance to be done the customer will be notified at least 24 hours in advance. The scheduled maintenance will always be done after hours (based on Central African Time (CAT)) and the web server downtime will be kept to a minimum.
Similiarly, the 99.9% website uptime guarantee does not apply to web hosting accounts that exceed their disk space or bandwidth usage limits, or maintain incorrect DNS settings on their domains.
Third party monitoring service reports may not be used for justification due to a variety of factors including the monitor's network capacity/transit availability. The uptime of the server is defined as the reported uptime from the operating system and the Apache Web Server which may differ from the uptime reported by other individual services.
If your service drops below 99.9% uptime in any given month you will be credited with one free month. This must be claimed within 7 days of our monitoring dropping below this level.
Any planned maintenance work is except from this guarantee and will be ignored. Dedicated servers currently have no SLA.
Uptime level is calculated by our status page and monitors only.
Downtime occurring due to natural disasters or DDoS attacks against the network do not count towards the SLA calculations.
Smartweb will exercise no control whatsoever over the content of the material hosted on, or the information passing through the Smartweb network and in no way moderates such content.
Customer expressly agrees that use of Smartweb's Server(s) and Services are at customer's sole risk.
Smartweb is not responsible for files and/or data residing on your account. You agree to take full responsibility for files and data transferred and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on the Smartweb web servers, including e-mail, databases and site content.
Smartweb is not responsible for any damages your business may suffer. Smartweb does not make implied or written warranties for any of our services. Smartweb denies any warranty or merchantability for a specific purpose. This includes loss of data resulting from delays, non-deliveries, wrong delivery, and any and all service interruptions caused by Smartweb.
Smartweb reserves the right to refuse domain and hosting services based on network, domain and/or equipment identifiers.
Should customer breach of any of the terms and conditions contained herein, including but not specifically limited to the payment terms, Smartweb has the right (solely at Smartweb's discretion) to immediately demand payment of the full amount owing and demand compliance forthwith with all the terms and conditions, alternatively to terminate the agreement and services forthwith, in either instance without in any way derogating from any common law, contractual and or delictual rights which Smartweb may have.
You agree to comply with these Terms and Policies. Any violation of either, these Terms and Policies or the other rules, regulations or policies noted above may serve as cause for Smartweb to suspend or terminate your account. You agree that Smartweb has the right, with or without notice, to suspend or terminate your account upon the first or subsequent occurrence of any of the following:
* Using the Service in a way, which constitutes violation of any applicable statute, law, court order, tariff, regulation, or treaty (including, but not limited to, intellectual property, communications, privacy, criminal and international law)
* Illegality in any form, including but not limited to activities such as unauthorized distribution or copying of copyrighted material, violation of export restrictions, harassment, fraud, trafficking in obscene material, child sexual abuse imagery, drug dealing, and other illegal activities.
* Smartweb's services and servers may be used only for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes a legal threat, or violates export control laws. Examples of unacceptable content or links: "Pirated software", "Hackers programs or archives", "Warez Sites", "Irc Bots", "Illegal Mp3's" etc.
Examples of unacceptable content or links:
- Pirated software
- Hacker programs or archives
- Fraudulent activies
- Adult sites
- Warez sites
* Using the Service in a manner intended to abuse or violate the privacy or property rights of others, including but not limited to sending bulk spam (both solicited & unsolicited); this is grounds for suspension or termination and is separate from and in addition to the fees which will result from such activity. You agree to pay a clean up fee of R500 per hour if any of our server IP addresses appear on a blacklist as a result of spam from your account.
* Smartweb prohibits the use of the shared webhosting service disk space to be utilised for purposes other than its intended function: content hosting, personal and small enterprise email and relevant web files.
* Using our shared web hosting service as a file or image hosting service.
* Storing or running back-door shells, mass mailing scripts, proxy servers, web spiders, phishing content, or peer-to-peer software.
* Storing malicious content, such as malware or links to malware.
* Due to the nature of a shared web hosting environment, Smartweb reserves the right to ask customers to upgrade or correct issues pertaining to upgrade their shared web hosting package, or to correct issues on their shared web hosting package, should it adversely affect the network or server performance for the majority of our hosting customers.
* Using the Service in an attempt to break security, or so as to actually break security of any computer network (including the Service itself), or to access an account, message, or file which does not belong to you.
* Using your account as a backup service. All files must be part of your website and must be linked to from your account. Dedicated server clients are excempt from this.
* Using the Service in such a way as to forge or mis-represent headers, addresses, or other identification in electronic mail or websites, or using any other method to disguise the sender's identity or location. This includes the hosting of Proxy Server applications.
* Assisting in or directly distributing copyrighted material.
* Excessively using the Service in such a way as to limit the bandwidth available to others.
* Providing fake or incomplete contact details, including name, postal address and telephone number.
* Using the Service to operate server programs, including, but not limited to mail servers, IRC servers, game servers, ftp servers, Web servers, or streaming audio/video servers.
* Using the Service for unauthorised relays through any third party systems.
* Attempting, in any way, to interfere with or deny service to any user or any host on the Internet.
* Performing a chargeback on any transactions past or present will result in account suspension until resolved. If a chargeback is issued we reserve the right to remove your account any deny any future business.
* Using the Service for mail bombing, which includes any instance where multiple messages are sent to a specific destination with the intent to render the recipient and/or the electronic system serving that recipient dysfunctional.
* Using the Service to add or attempt to add addresses to any mailing list (yours or a third party's) without the explicit positive consent of the addressee(s).
* Attempting to cancel, supersede, or otherwise interfere with email other than your own.
* Engaging in harassment, whether through language, frequency, or size of messages, either with email or website content.
* Using the Service to engage in syn flood attacks, which are defined as overburdening a recipient computer system by sending a high volume of spurious data which effective impedes or totally disables functionality of the recipient system(s), or any other methods of denial-of-service attacks.
* Furnishing false data on your sign-up form, contract, or online application, including providing fraudulent credit card or other payment information.
* No bill credit will be given for a period of suspension. In the event of termination of your use of the Service under this section, Smartweb may at its sole discretion retain any or all amounts you have paid for use of the Service as liquidated damages for your actions.
* Security - You agree not to access or attempt to access private areas of the Service. You agree to notify Smartweb as soon as you become aware of an unauthorized use of your account and/or any breach or attempted breach of security on the Service.
* Intellectual Property - Smartweb does not undertake to examine or review messages, files, or other materials, which are accessible through, pass through, or reside on the Service. Complaints regarding alleged copyright infringement can be sent to abuse@smartweb.co.za.
* Continuing a specific identification of the allegedly infringing material and the location(s) on Smartweb facilities where the materials are to be found. Upon receipt of such written notice, Smartweb will expeditiously remove or block access to the allegedly infringing material, and provide notice to the person who had posted that material. If Smartweb receives a notification from that person indicating that the claim of infringement was based upon mistake or misidentification, Smartweb will send you a copy of that notification. Unless you notify Smartweb of appropriate court action to restrain the alleged infringement, the challenged material will then be restored or other wise made accessible again.
* Liability - You agree that use of the Service is at your own risk. Except for information, products, or services clearly identified as being supplied bySmartweb, neither Smartweb nor any of its affiliate controls, provides, operates, or is in any way responsible for any information, products, or services accessible through the Service.Smartweb neither endorses nor is responsible for the accuracy of third-party material(s), and you agree that Smartweb is not responsible for any loss or damage caused by your use of, or reliance on, such material(s). You understand and agree that you have sole responsibility for your posting of any information or material to any site or newsgroup on the Internet, including but not limited to postings to Web sites, whether residing on Smartweb equipment or not, postings to newsgroups, and participation in any on-line chat sessions. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Smartweb and its employees, and other customers and subscribers from and against any claims, losses, costs, liability, damages or expenses arising out of your postings.
* You agree that, should you use the Service to send or receive voice communications, Smartweb is not acting as a telecommunications carrier or telephone , that there is no representation made by Smartweb as to the suitability of the Service for such use, and that all risk of connection, transmission quality, and accuracy of communications is solely on you, and that Smartweb has no liability of any sort for the failure or lack of quality of such use of the Service.
* You agree to be liable for any damages or loss of service which results in damages to Smartweb as a result of any spamming or other violations of Section 5 above. These damages include, but are not limited to, system shut downs, retaliatory attacks or data flooding, and loss of peering arrangements. You agree that Smartweb may pursue any such claims against you in Court.
* Any fraudulent activity whatsoever, including dubious financial practices, such as pyramid schemes; the impersonation of another client without their consent; or any attempt to enter into a transaction with Smartweb on behalf of another client without their consent.
* You agree that in no event will Smartweb have financial liability to you.
* Warranty - SMARTWEB MAKES NO EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, REGARDING THE SERVICE, OR ANY SOFTWARE OR OTHER MATERIAL AVAILABLE THROUGH THE SERVICE, REGARDLESS OF WHAT YOU MAY HAVE TOLD SMARTWEB ABOUT YOUR INTENDED USE OF THE SERVICE. NO ORAL ADVICE OR INFORMATION GIVEN BY SMARTWEB OR ITS EMPLOYEES SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY OR OTHERWISE ALTER THE PROVISIONS OF THIS SECTION.
* THE SERVICE AND ANY SOFTWARE PROVIDED TO YOU BY SMARTWEB ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS, AS AVAILABLE" BASIS; SMARTWEB DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THEY WILL BE ERROR-FREE AND/OR UNINTERRUPTED, OR THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED. SMARTWEB DOES NOT GUARANTEE THE SECURITY OR BACK-UP OF ANY OF YOUR DATA WHICH MAY BE STORED ON THE SERVICE.
Accounts with many files can have an adverse effect on server performance. Smartweb has the following limit: 200 000 files (i.e. an email, web page, image file, directory etc.), or 50 000 files per directory. Accounts exceeding the above limit will have those files and/or directories excluded from our backup system.
Using our servers as a personal storage facility is not permitted. Any content stored must be directly related to the website(s) in question.
Mailboxes that build up large volumes of email without being accessed are not allowed (e.g. catchall mailboxes or bounce message mailboxes). The primary cause of excessive disk usage can be due to customers having their catchall address enabled, yet never checking their primary account mailbox. Over time, tens of thousands of messages build up, pushing the account past our file limit.
Email older than five years may not be stored on the server.
Individual emails that are 5 MB or larger may not be stored on the server for more than 1 month.
Users may not:
Use 10% or more of system resources for longer then 60 seconds. There are numerous activities that could cause such problems; these include: CGI scripts, FTP, PHP, HTTP, etc.
Run any type of interactive real-time chat applications that require server resources. Remotely-hosted services are fully allowed.
Run stand-alone, unattended server-side processes at any point in time on the server. This includes any and all daemons, such as IRCD.
Run any software that interfaces with an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network.
Run any bit torrent application, tracker, or client.
Participate in any file-sharing/peer-to-peer activities
Run any gaming servers such as counter-strike, half-life, battlefield1492, etc
Run cron entries with intervals of less than 15 minutes
You may create your own backup of your account from your control panel however these may only be stored for up to 7 days. Please download archives to a local source and remove them from your account.
You understand and agree that information and access available through the Service may include controversial, sexually explicit, or other material that may be offensive to you or users for whom you are responsible. Smartweb has no responsibility for or control over such materials, and you take sole responsibility for using any available screening software or other methods of limiting access (specifically including the access of minors) to any material you may find objectionable.
Customer confirms that all statements made in this application are true and correct. Smartweb reserves the right to request proof thereof.
Any disputes arising in relation to this application or the supporting documents shall be governed by the applicable laws of the Republic of South Africa. .
Any form of abuse of Smartweb staff will result in suspension or termination of your services, irrespective of the form and medium of this abuse.
In the event that any of the terms of this document are found to be invalid, unlawful or unenforceable, such terms will be severable from the remaining terms, which will continue to be valid and enforceable.
Smartweb reserves the right to remove any content hosted by that customer which it considers illegal or for which it has received a take-down notice.
In addition to the above the following terms and conditions are applied by the relevant domain registrars for the following domains:
These terms were last updated on 04 July 2016