Terms of Service
Last Updated 2nd July 2024.
The document that follows contains the Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy and Service Level Agreements for using services which SharedGrid provides. Ensure you read these documents carefully and understand them before using or ordering any services from our website. If you do not agree with any of the points outlined in this document then do not order any services from our website. By ordering a service from our website then you agree to the points outlined in this document. Check back frequently as this document could be updated at any time, when the document changes, you will automatically be bound by the new terms.
Contract
The contract between yourself and SharedGrid is not formed until the order has been accepted by SharedGrid. If payment has been taken, this does not mean the contract has started and may be revoked at any point until the order has been accepted.
Once the order has been accepted, the contract will commence on the commencement date and will renew equal to the billing period set out within the order form/your account or a period that has been agreed between you and SharedGrid in writing.
To enter a contract with SharedGrid, you need to be of legal age within your country of residence. You cannot form a contract if you do not meet these legal requirements and the contract will be immediately void.
Your responsibilities
You agree to keep your username and password secure for services that are administered by SharedGrid. These include but are not limited to, control panel, billing panel, email system, ftp system etc. In the event of your username and password being compromised and being used by an unauthorised person, we are not responsible.
SharedGrid offer a backup service for Shared and Reseller web hosting which is constantly monitored to ensure it is working and the integrity of data is met. However, it is your responsibility to ensure you backup your data and store this in a secure location. We are not responsible for any data loss.
You agree that you will not:
- Perform any action that will adversely affect the performance of services SharedGrid offer, or affect any other customers of our services.
- Upload any file that is a virus, malware, or any other similar type of file to our services.
- Upload any material which infringes the intellectual property rights of any other party.
- Upload any material which may be considered to be contrary to public decency and morality including (but not limited to) pornographic, barbaric and overtly tasteless material.
- Cause or permit or in any way assist in any unauthorised publication or any dissemination of defamatory material or any material which could be considered to be in breach of the civil or criminal laws of any country located within the UK jurisdiction.
- Commit any act whereby access is gained by you to any information or resources of any person, body corporate individual, partnership, government agency, national institution, charity or recognised organisation without first having obtained authority from those persons or institutions.
- Use our servers or network to send unsolicited or spam e-mails to other Internet users regardless of whether we are referred to or not either directly or indirectly in such postings.
- Not to use our servers or network either directly or indirectly in a way that would have a detrimental effect on network performance.
- Do any act or omission the result of which would have the effect of bringing us into disrepute.
Failure to adhere to any of these responsibilities may results in the termination of your contract without a refund.
Resource Usage Policy
SharedGrid have comprehensive monitoring of our servers and networking equipment which monitors system usage. This monitoring also includes the resources that is being used by each customer and website, this include but not limited to: CPU usage, Memory Usage, Disk Metrics and Network Metric. It is in our best interest and our customer interests that we offer the best service possible, therefore in the rare case that a customer or website is affecting the performance of our services for other customers then we have the right to throttle the performance of the offending process. However, once the throttle is in place we endeavour to speak to the customer about the problems this is causing, why and help to the best of our abilities – this may include, but not limited to, pointing the customer in the direction of where the problem lies, pointing the customer towards a external company who can help, advising to upgrade to a different service with more resource.
We do not place any bandwidth or traffic limits on our Shared and Reseller web hosting services, however we may limit the maximum bandwidth a website can utilise if it is causing a issue to the services we provide. Again, we will work with the customer once the limit is in place on how we can combat this.
If a customer refuses to acknowledge the problem, or refuses to fix the offending process then we reserve the right to cancel the service. At any point, we can recommend upgrading to a different service or larger plan to help out.
Charges and Payments
Charges for your service are due in advance of the service commencing. Your payment details can be updated from the billing control panel.
You will ensure that all payments due to us are paid before or on the invoice due date. Failure to pay the invoice before or on this date will result in your services being terminated and hosting data deleted without backup. If you have selected to auto renew your services with SharedGrid, then you accept we will take payment when it is due automatically, until we receive a cancellation notice from you in writing, either via email or support ticket.
VAT (Value added Tax) will be paid by you where we need to abide by VAT taxation laws. You will be notified during the signup process of your VAT liability.
If you dispute a payment that has been taken by SharedGrid then you must notify us immediately either via email, support ticket or phone. We will work with you to resolve the issue. If you submit a unjustified chargeback or payment dispute via a third party payment processor then the following charges will be due from you to SharedGrid: The charges of the service taken out by you, any chargeback costs that are levied upon us by your bank, credit card company or any of our third party payment processors, a chargeback administration fee of £50, and our reasonable costs and losses incurred in recovering the above fees, including debt recovery, legal fees and debt collection costs.
Termination of contract by SharedGrid
We reserve the right to immediately cancel our contract with you if payment is not made before the due date, without prior notification.
If a due payment is not paid after 7 days of the due invoice then we have the right to suspend your website, without prior notification.
If a due payment is not paid after 14 days of the due invoice then we have the right to remove your website, database, email and any other associated data from our systems, without prior notification.
Should we reasonably deem you a threat to the integrity of our network whether as a result of your actions or threats of such actions or by the hostility of your actions or due to any other reason which in our considered opinion would be against our business interest, then we can terminate this Contract immediately without the requirement for prior notification
If you go into liquidation or (in the case of an individual or firm become bankrupt) make a voluntary arrangement or have a receiver or administrator appointed we can terminate this Contract immediately without the requirement of prior notification.
Termination of this Contract by us will result in the retaining by us of all monies received from you who will not be entitled to a refund of monies paid.
Upon termination of this Contract you shall nevertheless remain liable for all charges due or which would have been payable under this Contract.
On termination of this Contract we will remove all materials held on our systems and remove all your system privileges.
Termination of contract by you
You can terminate your contract with SharedGrid at any time within the first 30 days for Shared and Reseller web hosting only. Domain Names are not included within the 30 day money back guarantee as they are a external cost that we are charged and don’t receive a refund on. If you would like to cancel your Shared or Reseller web hosting within the first 30 days and receive a refund, you can let us know in writing via email or support ticket and a refund will be given to you within 14 working days.
You may also cancel your Shared and Reseller web hosting services after 30 days. However, the earliest effective cancellation date will be your next renewal date. You will not be refunded for any usage up until that point, and you are liable for any charges up until your due date.
You can let us know about cancellation either via email to [email protected], or log into your billing panel via https://my.sharedgrid.com/
Refunds
We reserve the right to withhold refunds in cases of misuse, abuse, or caused downtime to our systems.
A cancellation notice must be received prior to the relevant Renewal Date in order for a cancellation to be effective and processed prior to a renewal payment being taken. On receipt of a valid cancellation notice, we may, at our sole discretion, refund unused time paid.
Force Majeure
We are not liable for any breach of this Contract if the breach was caused by an act of God, insurrection or civil disorder, war or military operations, terrorism, national or local emergency, protests, riot, civil commotion, acts or omissions of government, highway authority or other competent authority, our compliance with any statutory obligation, industrial disputes of any kind (whether or not involving our employees), fire, lightning, explosion, flood, subsidence, the weather of exceptional severity, acts of omission of persons whom we are not responsible (including in particular other telecommunication service providers), or any other cause whether similar or dissimilar outside our reasonable control provided that, if the event in question continues for a continuous period in excess of 90 days, you shall be entitled to give notice in writing to us to terminate the Contract.
Fraud
We utilise third party fraud screening services during signup of services to ensure you are who you say you are. We currently utilise the services from FraudLabs Pro, but be aware that we may change provider at any point without notice. Using a fraud screening service allows us to verify new orders and report customers who break our Terms of Service. You may be reported if you break any of our policies.
We may also require extra identification from you if we cannot verify your identity. This will be performed via a third party who specialises in identification, and may require government ID documents.
You agree not to use the email services provided to you for anything against the law within the UK, sending SPAM, harassment, unwanted files, unwanted emails, mass mailing, unwanted marketing emails. SharedGrid have the responsibility to protect our network and reputation in name and IP addresses, therefore breaking these rules will mean your account is suspended and data removed.
SharedGrid use a third party cloud based ‘smart host’ within our mailing systems which means all outbound email is screened and sent from a third party IP address. We use such a service to ensure your emails have good deliverability to another email providers who are known to block or quarantine emails from unknown senders. We currently use the MailBaby service to do this, please refer to their legal policies if you have any questions.
Acceptable Use Policy
The below will describe our acceptable use policy. This applies to any service provided by SharedGrid.
Prohibited Uses
You may not use our services for any unlawful services. You may also not use our services for any of the following: In any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation; In any way that is unlawful or fraudulent, or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect; For the purpose of harming or attempting to harm minors in any way; To transmit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (spam); To knowingly transmit any data, send or upload any material that contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware; To send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which: is defamatory of any person; is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory; promotes sexually explicit material; promotes violence; promotes discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age; infringes any copyright, database right, trademark or other intellectual property right of any other person; is likely to deceive any person; is made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence; promotes any illegal activity; is threatening, abusive or invades another’s privacy, or causes annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety; is likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person; advertises for the sale of substances that are legal in law but are known to be abused; is used to impersonate any person, misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person, or give the impression that it emanates from us if this is not the case.
You also agree not to access without authority, interfere with, damage or disrupt: any part of our site; any equipment or network on which our site is stored; any software used in the provision of our site; or any equipment or network or software owned or used by any third party. You may not register for an account with us or sign up or use our services for the purposes of testing or vetting security measures in any way or format without our express written consent to do so.
Content
Your web hosting account cannot be used to permanently store files and must be used for website purposes. It cannot host the following content: Warez, cracked, pirated or illegal copies of software; copyrighted works from a third party;do any content that is illegal in the UK; torrents; proxy services.
See email section further up in this document.
Personal Conduct
We ensure that all collegues within SharedGrid are professional, courteous and respectful at all times, therefore we expect the same from our customers. We will not tolerate any abuse towards collegues. If this has been reported then it will be investigated and the customer’s service will be suspended.
Suspension and Termination
If you are found to break any of these points within the Terms of Service or Acceptable Use Policy then your account will be suspended and/or terminated immediately.
Complaints
SharedGrid strive to offer the best service possible to all customers, however for some reason you may not be happy about something. You can email us [email protected] and let us know what you’re not happy about. We want all customers to enjoy the experience we offer, therefore are happy to listen to complaints and constructive feedback on how we can improve.
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
SharedGrid is commited to providing customers of our services an uptime of 99.9% at an efficient and professional level. The below document explains our Service Level Agreement, also known as, SLA. The customer agrees that measurements via our internal support team will establish the necessary support and or level of services required. In the event you wish to claim SLA Credit please open a billing ticket.
Service downtime is the unavailability of a customer to access the Shared or Reseller web hosting services provided by SharedGrid, provided the downtime is caused by a problem within the services section of SharedGrid. This includes server or network downtime where SharedGrid directly influences or controls the equipment, and does not include anything outside of our control such as third party services. SharedGrid is not responsible for any unplanned outages due to third party software and/or hardware. Downtime is measured as the total length of time of the unplanned interruption in Service Availability during a calendar month.
Service level agreement credit occurs after a service has been unreachable for more than 15 consecutive minutes. For each hour of consecutive downtime after the 15 minutes the client will be credited 1% of the effected services’ monthly bill up to 100% of the value of the service.
Planned downtime is where a customer has been given prior notice of a downtime, and this is excluded from the SLA.
SharedGrid employs technology to avoid as much downtime as possible, such as software which allows live patching on a servers kernel and services without rebooting the server to maximise uptime for customers. However, it is sometimes impossible to avoid a restart if not doing so will impede the performance or integrity of the service therefore these are types of downtime are also excluded from the SLA. If a reboot is needed which affects your service then we will give as much notice as possible and aim for this to be done outside of peak hours.
The following will also be excluded from our SLA:
- Acts of God; in the event downtime is suffered due to extreme weather at data centres and or any other means defined by legislation will not be covered.
- Any unlawful activities against the client and or caused by the client; such as DDOS attacks, server illegal activities and terminations.
- Internet unavailability due to client issues; In the event the customers own internet and or uptime is interrupted not caused by SharedGrid.
- And/or exceeding resourced allocated by the customers plan.
- If SharedGrid believes the SLA claim to be fraudulent.