Web Hosting - General Terms & Conditions
This policy is presented by The Purple Spade, a USA-based web design and hosting provider.
On this page are our General Terms & Conditions for using web hosting supplied through The Purple Spade. Please also refer to other related hosting policy documents that cover different aspects of the web hosting provisions we offer as they all form part of an overall contract between us and yourself.
Provisioning servers:
From time to time, we (or our provisioning servers) may have to revise, change or update parts of the web hosting terms and conditions. Some areas of our web hosting terms and conditions are governed by our server provisions and therefore legally binding upon us, as well as our web hosting clients.
Where possible we work closely with our providers to ensure a stable hosting provision with limited changes.
General Information for web hosting clients:
When you register to have a website hosted by us, or purchase, transfer, or renew a domain name, you are agreeing to these Terms and Conditions as outlined on this page. You should read these Terms of Service carefully as they do form a legally binding contract between us and you, and your acceptance of them is agreed upon, upon your payment (be it a deposit or full payment) for our contracted services. At this moment, we are currently only accepting orders from customers who reside in the United States. If you cannot verify your residence or country of residence, then unfortunately we will be unable to proceed with any orders made by yourself. We have tried to keep the Hosting Terms of Service brief, easy to understand, and as straightforward as possible. If you have any questions, however, please do contact us.
Our Purple Spade Hosting Packages
More info coming soon!!
Registering your domain
As an authorized hosting provider, we offer to host with domain name registration, hosting on its own whereby you can point a domain at our services, or registering a domain name on its own. If you wish to register a domain without using our hosting packages, however, then you will have to pay the amount stated on the domain registration page, PLUS an administration and handling fee of $10 for each domain name you may wish to register. If you are choosing hosting services with us, then you will only have to pay the hosting package fee, plus any domain name fees, such as registration or transfer fees as stated at the time of purchase.
We make no representation that the domain name you may wish to register is capable of being registered by us, or on your behalf. You therefore should not assume the actual registration of any domain name you have selected until we have verified by email that the domain purchase has been completed. Any action taken therefore prior to our notification to you that the domain has been successfully registered is entirely at your own risk, such as publishing cards, leaflets, or any other materials bearing the domain name you have requested.
The registration of the domain name(s) are held with SiteGround. You should be aware of their own terms and conditions, and be able to agree with them. If for any reason we are unable to register a domain name on your behalf, you will have no right to bring a claim against us in respect of any such refusal by the registry service. Any registration fees payable are non-refundable, including any administration or handling costs incurred by us in connection with registrations, transfers, or renewals.
Renewing your domain
At least 30 days prior to your domain expiry date you will receive an invoice due for payment for whichever domain(s) are registered with The Purple Spade. Payment for domain renewals must be made prior to the actual date they may be due to expire, as domains may not be automatically renewed by us if payment has not been made.
If a domain name is not renewed by its expiry date, then any services relating to that particular domain name will cease working. This includes any websites hosted on that domain, web forwarding, email services, or email accounts used by that domain name. Any web files also within that domain (if a website exists on that domain) will be removed with no need for us to make any backups.
At our sole discretion, we may manually renew the domain name even if no payment has been made before the expiry date if we believe that there is a genuine reason for you not to have paid us beforehand. If we do renew the domain name (unless you have already specifically instructed us not to renew the domain name in writing) then you will be liable for the charges that we have incurred for renewing the domain on your behalf.
Your domain name is always registered to you. Keeping your domain name is important. This page here explains more about your domain name and why you may want to hold onto it. Renewing your domain name on time – More information about domain names
The Hosting Service
Hosting packages are offered by us in good faith. However, we accept no liability for any loss of data that may be stored on our servers. We do reserve the right to suspend or cancel any hosting account that may have been inappropriately used. You represent and warrant that the hosting services provided by us in connection with your service, website, or domain name will not be used for any unlawful purposes including but not limited to:
(1) The uploading of any material(s) which may violate or infringes on the copyright, intellectual property rights, or trademark rights of any individual or organization
(2) Any material which is unlawful, threatening, abusive, malicious, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, blasphemous, profane, or otherwise objectionable in any way
(3) Any material containing a virus or other hostile computer program
(4) Any file that you do not own the copyright to in the first person, including but not limited to; music files, mp3s, video files, movies, games (including mods, patches, and add-ons), software, and shareware
(5) Illegal Material – This includes copyrighted works, commercial audio, video, or music files, and any material which might be in violation of any Federal, State, or Local regulation at that time
(6) Adult Material – Includes all pornography, erotic images, or otherwise lewd or obscene content. The designation of “adult material” is left entirely to the discretion of The Purple Spade.
(7) Warez – Includes pirated software, ROMS, emulators, phreaking, hacking, and password cracking. IP spoofing, etc., and encrypting of any of the above. Also includes any sites which provide ‘links to’ or ‘how-to information about such material
(8) Any material that may be forbidden by our acceptable use policy
You will not employ programs that consume excessive system resources, including but not limited to processor cycles and memory. You should ensure that all web applications and scripts that you run on our servers that send email are adequately protected from malicious abuse, both from website visitors, remote submission, and automated spam programs. The Purple Spade reserves the right to delete any file on our network where we believe that said file or files are not permitted under these Terms and Conditions.
If for some reason your website(s) start exceeding the hosting package that you have purchased, you will be informed of this, and then given the opportunity to upgrade your hosting package to meet its current demands by being able to purchase further hosting space, bandwidth, or resources at rates that will be applicable at that time. Should you not wish to do this, then we fully reserve the right to suspend your hosting account with no notice to yourself, and no legal requirement for compensation on our part towards you.
Conducting your account
Any services used by you, or representatives of you, must be over 18 years of age. You must take all reasonable steps and precautions to ensure that your username and/or password are secure at all times, including any access codes that you may need to access Site Tools, or your client portal area. Furthermore, you must not disclose any confidential information that may be exchanged between us, either in connection with your account, hosting services, or any other services that you have agreed to with us. If for any reason your hosting account is disabled by us, because you may have illegal use, or because you have failed to observe the terms and conditions of hosting with us, then we will not be obligated in any way whatsoever to make any refunds for any of the services that you have purchased from us.
All clients are solely responsible for ensuring that all scripts or software installed by them (including any that may be available within your Site Tools) are patched and kept up to date. This includes, but is not limited to:
1. WordPress installations
2. ZenCart Software
3. Forum Software
4. Any other software that uses databases, scripting, or any type of connections that may be subject to tampering or interference with.
All script updates, patches, and fixes relating to security issues that any particular vendor has released should be applied within at least 96 hours of the vendor having made these updates available. If for some reason, you cannot apply the updates, not only do you risk having your site compromised, but the site may be closed by us, until you have applied the updates.
Please note: Running out-of-date scripts on any website puts your site at risk of being hacked or compromised. We strongly suggest that you keep any software installations that may be running within your hosting package, secure and up to date for your benefit, as well as others!
Email and Spam
As responsible hosting providers The Purple Spade operates a zero-tolerance policy towards abuse of email services, including spam. You, therefore, guarantee that all email accounts and emails sent using our hosting services are:
1. Sent in accordance with applicable legislation (including data protection legislation) and in a secure manner
2. You may not send any unsolicited e-mail (otherwise called spam), whether it may be commercial or non-commercial in nature, to any person who has indicated that they do not wish to receive emails from you
3. You agree not to use the services to send bulk emails that may result in damages or server blacklisting. You agree to hold us harmless and indemnify any and all costs involved in correcting this should it happen
4. While we will use every reasonable endeavor to ensure the integrity and security of the Servers, we do not guarantee that the Servers will be free from unauthorized users or hackers and we shall be under no liability for non-receipt or misrouting of email or for any other failure of email
5. You will keep your mailbox passwords confidential, and change passwords on a regular basis. The Purple Spade is not responsible for any data losses or security issues due to stolen passwords.
6. We monitor the servers as a whole but not individual mailboxes (unless specifically agreed for web design purposes with our web design clients beforehand).
7. You should scan your incoming email to and from your systems for viruses. We cannot guarantee that your email will be virus free and shall not be held liable in the event any of your systems become infected with a virus as a result of using our services.
The Purple Spade reserves the right to terminate or suspend services and accounts where it has been clearly identified that there has been an issue relating to the use of any email account on our hosting services.
ANTI-SPAM POLICY Full Terms and Conditions
Billing and Payments
All charges payable by you for the Services shall be in accordance with the scale of charges and rates published from time to time by us on our website and shall be due and payable in advance of provision of the Services. We reserve the right to change pricing at any time although all pricing is guaranteed for the period of pre-payment. Payment is due each anniversary year following the date the Services were established until closure notice is given in writing. The Purple Spade operates a paperless billing system, whereby invoices are sent as links in emails and can be downloaded as PDFs, as communications sent from us to you. It is your responsibility to ensure that we have the correct email address for you at all times that we can contact you, and if your email address should change, it is your sole responsibility to update this information in your client profile in your client portal area or on the Site Tools Hosting Control system.
Your hosting services account will be suspended if you fail to pay any invoice on time. Invoices are raised 28 days prior to your account renewals, including hosting, domain names, etc. You should ensure that payments are made promptly to avoid any disruptions to the services we provide for you, and if for some reason you have not paid any charges due at least 7 days prior to domain renewals, we may at our sole discretion, not renew the domain name. If you do not make payments within 7 days of the due date of any service expiry date, we reserve the right to suspend your services without warning, and we may at our discretion, remove any files, data, or stop any services as being provided still at that time, on your hosting account.
IMPORTANT: Once the domain name has expired services relating to this domain will stop working. If payments have lapsed and the account goes into suspension, then any files that are removed from the servers may be lost, and we are not liable in any way for data loss in any circumstances whatsoever.
If your account is suspended due to a billing issue then we reserve the right to charge you an administration fee of up to $25.00 to reinstate your account. This fee does not cover any domain name fees that we have no control over, and these also may be added, if the domain name has lapsed, or gone beyond its renewal date. If any payments are returned to us as “unpaid” then we reserve the right to charge you an administration fee of up to $25.00, plus any additional bank charges as may have been incurred by us.
Service Availability:
The Purple Spade shall use our reasonable endeavors to make available to you at all times the Servers and the Services but we shall not, in any event, be liable for interruptions of Service or down-time of the Services. We shall have the right to suspend the Services at any time and for any reason, generally without notice, but if such suspension lasts or is to last for more than 7 days you will be notified of the reason.
Termination and Refunds:
The Purple Spade shall be entitled to suspend the Services and/or terminate this Agreement forthwith without notice to you if you:
1. Fail to pay any sums due to us as they fall due
2. Break any of these Terms and Conditions, including the accompanying Acceptable Use Policy and Anti-SPAM Policy
3. Are a company and you go into insolvent liquidation or suffer the appointment of an administrator or administrative receiver or enter into a voluntary arrangement with your creditors
4. Refunds will be given at the discretion of the management, and administration fees may be deducted
5. The Purple Spade reserves the right to suspend the Services and/or terminate this Agreement at any time. In the event of this, you may be entitled to a pro-rated refund based upon the remaining period of prepayment, unless your account was suspended due to a breach of the terms and conditions
6. You may choose to cancel the Services at any time. To do so you must request cancellation of the Services in writing including your account username and password. We will cancel the Services within 5 working days of receipt of your request
7. During the first 14 days of Services, you may be entitled to a refund of the basic hosting package rental fee, but not including administration fees, special promotion fees, or special offer reductions, should you decide to cancel the service. No full refunds will be made if your account was suspended due to a breach of the Terms and Conditions or after the first 14 days of service should you decide to cancel the services
8. Where payment has been made by credit or debit card, any refund will only be issued to the same credit or debit card
9. On termination of this Agreement or Suspension of the Services we shall be entitled immediately to stop access to your Web Site and to remove all data located on the Servers
Cancellation of Contract:
If you are a ‘consumer’, you may have a right to cancel this contract under the Consumer Protection Act or similar laws amending or replacing it. The right must be claimed in writing within seven working days of the start of the services with The Purple Spade. Upon cancellation, access to services supplied by The Purple Spade will be removed, any account or services will be terminated and files or content, including web files and email, will be deleted. Once this is complete any monies paid to us will be returned to the consumer within 30 days (excluding domain name registration fees, any setup fees, and any promotional fees).
Indemnity:
You shall indemnify The Purple Spade and its agents and keep us indemnified and hold us harmless from and against any breach by you of these terms of business and any claim brought against us by a third party resulting from the provision of Services by us to you and your use of the Services and the Servers including, without limitation, all claims, actions, proceedings, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, expenses (including reasonable legal costs and expenses), howsoever suffered or incurred by us in consequences of your breach or non-observance of this Agreement.
You furthermore agree that you as our customer, are solely responsible for any content stored on our servers, either uploaded by yourself, or by your appointed representatives, or by failure to secure your username and password credentials.
Limitation of Liability:
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL THE PURPLE SPADE OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF INTERRUPTION IN SERVICE OR THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF GOODWILL, WORK STOPPAGE, COMPUTER FAILURE OR MALFUNCTION, OR ANY AND ALL OTHER COMMERCIAL DAMAGES OR LOSSES, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY THEREOF, AND REGARDLESS OF THE LEGAL OR EQUITABLE THEORY (CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE) UPON WHICH THE CLAIM IS BASED.
IN ANY CASE, ‘The Purple Spade’ ENTIRE LIABILITY UNDER ANY PROVISION OF THIS AGREEMENT SHALL NOT EXCEED IN THE AGGREGATE THE SUM OF THE FEES PAID FOR THE SERVICES (IF ANY) WHICH ARE THE SUBJECT OF ANY SUCH CLAIM, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF DEATH OR PERSONAL INJURY CAUSED BY THE NEGLIGENCE OF ‘The Purple Spade’ TO THE EXTENT APPLICABLE LAW PROHIBITS THE LIMITATION OF DAMAGES IN SUCH CASES. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THIS EXCLUSION AND LIMITATION MAY NOT BE APPLICABLE.
IF YOU ARE A CONSUMER, THESE CONDITIONS DO NOT AFFECT YOUR STATUTORY RIGHTS UNDER APPLICABLE CONSUMER LAWS. YOU MAY ASSERT SUCH RIGHTS AT YOUR DISCRETION.
Applicable Law and Dispute:
This Agreement and all matters arising from it are upheld by laws of The United States whose courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction over all disputes arising in connection with this Agreement and the place of performance of this Agreement is agreed by you to be the United States.
Entire Agreement:
These terms and conditions together with any documents expressly referred to in them, contain the entire Agreement between us relating to the subject matter covered and supersede any previous Agreements, arrangements, undertakings, or proposals, written or oral: between us in relation to such matters. No oral explanation or oral information given by any party shall alter the interpretation of these terms and conditions. In agreeing to these terms and conditions, you have not relied on any representation other than those expressly stated in these terms and conditions and you agree that you shall have no remedy in respect of any misrepresentation which has not been made expressly in this Agreement.
Failure to enforce these Terms and Conditions and related policies in every instance does not amount to a waiver of The Purple Spade’s rights.
Review Of This Policy
The Purple Spade reserve the right to add, delete, or modify any provision of this Term or Policy at any time without notice. Failure to receive notification of a change does not make those changes invalid.
We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in July 2022.
This policy represents your web design agreement with The Purple Spade, in addition to all emails exchanged between us and yourselves. Please retain your emails for future reference in the unlikely event of any dispute.