Strategies Group Plc Terms & Conditions Of Business
Revised, 4th May 2006
These terms and conditions set out the agreement between you (the customer) and us (Strategies, The Strategies Group Ltd)
Our Hosting & Web Design Services
Strategies host web sites for customers in accordance with our particular set of services set out in our attached proposal or schedule of services and extra agreements. In the absence of a proposal the terms and conditions of hosting are specified in this agreement.
We will host your site and make best efforts for it to be available on the World Wide Web (WWW). The WWW is comprised of many networks and connections outside of Strategies control and we can in no way guarantee availability of a site at any time. Strategies offer two levels of service:
- Normal business hours in the UK. This is our normal level of service.
- Extended service where Strategies can be contacted 24hrs a day. This level of service does not guarantee correcting problems because of the likely unavailability of the correct programmer but will in general reboot a server.
Strategies will back up a customer's site onto tape on a daily and weekly basis. This tape will be stored off site in case of fire or theft. In the case of failure of equipment or networks, we will make best efforts to restore the connection to the web as soon as possible.
Strategies can in no way be held responsible for any damage to a companies business by a web site or services such as email or FTP being unavailable.
Access to a web site, email or FTP is via an ISP (Internet Services Provider). Strategies cannot be held responsible for any of the policies or actions of an ISP and the customer must be prepared to change ISP if the service of their current supplier no longer works with Strategies systems.
We will hold a domain name on behalf of a customer and will direct that domain name to both a web site and email and FTP accounts. The domain name may be transferred to another company at any time at the standard charge prevailing at the time, providing all payments of outstanding accounts are complete.
All code whether it be HTML, DHTML, JavaScript for display of web pages will be designed for:
Primary Support - everything works
- IE6+ Windows
- Firefox 1+ Mac/Windows
- Safari 1.2+ Mac
- Platforms: Mac OSX, Windows XP
Secondary Support - possible layout issues due to age/standards of browsers
- IE5/IE5.5 Mac/Windows
- Netscape 6 Mac/Windows
- Opera 7+ Mac/Windows
- Platforms: Mac OS 9, Windows 2000
Tertiary Support
Content will be visible (generally unformatted) to all other users of earlier browser versions and alternative platforms - modern PDA's will often use their own css adaptation to make a css-based site work surprisingly well on a small screen.
Our Fees
All fees for web sites, email and FTP sites are payable yearly in advance. Notice may be given up to 1 month before the anniversary of the hosting otherwise it will be assumed that the hosting will continue for another year at the prevailing rate. We will be fully entitled to turn off a service if an account is more than 30 days overdue without any further notice. Consequences of the site and email being unavailable are the full responsibility of the customer. In the event of termination of the contract the unused portion of the fees paid for the year will be refunded by Strategies.
Taxes
All payments mentioned are net of applicable taxes.
Limitations Of Services
Whereas Strategies make every effort to make web sites hosted by them available for the maximum amount of time, the servers will be down from time to time because of both routine maintenance and failure of operating and systems software. Strategies do not guarantee that the web systems will be available at any particular time.
Web Marketing
Strategies provide a number of services to submit web sites to search engines. This agreement recognises that the nature of search engine acceptance changes on a weekly basis. Strategies shall not give any guarantees on the outcome of promotion of a domain name and web site to search engines. If a web site does not appear in a search engine for any reason the company will in no way be held responsible.
Domain Names
Domain names can be purchased on behalf of customers. The hosting of these domain names can also be performed by us both with and without a web site attached. It is the responsibility of the customer to ensure that a domain name does not infringe any trademarks or copyrights and indemnifies us against any action that may be taken to recover a domain name. Transfer of a domain name and any cost ensuing including legal cost will be the responsibility of the customer. Ownership of a domain name will not be passed to the customer until all outstanding payments are made. The ownership of a domain name passes to Strategies if all no disputed debts are overdue by more than 120 days.
For any domains bough on behalf of customers but held in Strategies name, the customer must have a signed document from Strategies to prove ownership. No transfers can be made without proof of ownership.
The Customer Agrees
The information that you give, both us, and make available on the web both now and in the future is accurate and not in any way false, defamatory, libelous, indecent, obscene, misleading or offensive. We retain the right to amend or remove any information which we consider not accurate and in any way false, defamatory, libelous, indecent, obscene, misleading or offensive.
Your business and any other materials or information you provide to us do not infringe any law, regulations or rights including IPR of other people or organisations.
To comply with our reasonable operating instructions including without limitation instructions to modify your software and hardware for Internet connection in order to receive our services.
Not to use products for any illegal or improper purpose nor allow others to do so.
Agree to notify us and assist in providing a forecast of traffic likely to be directed to any web site. If the traffic volume more than doubles over a one month period without prior agreement we shall be within our rights to disconnect your site to protect the rest of our network from saturation.
If any campaigns such as television or mass advertising are to be initiated we need to be informed in writing a minimum of 8 weeks in advance and agreement made on the capacity for specified volumes of traffic and the costs associated with this. If traffic volumes exceed the estimated amount we shall retain the right to disconnect the service.
The systems and pages designed to a customer's specification must comply with various differing country regulations. The customer indemnifies us against any action that may be brought because of infringement of regulations of another country.
Where information is taken from other sources or databases it is the responsibility of the customer to ensure that there is an agreement for supply of this information with the owner.
The customer is responsible for any final checking of content and user functionality before systems go live. Strategies can in no way be held responsible for any consequence of a site not being checked before announcement. It is the responsibility of the customer to adequately check the site to their own satisfaction.
Customers will not approach or offer any of Strategies employees or contractors any work or employment other than via Strategies for a period of at least 6 months after their final contract or employment with Strategies and at no time while they are working with Strategies.
Where email or FTP services are provided the customer agrees to not use or attempt to use the account to send unsolicited email or "spam" in any way. Use of such email will result in immediate termination of all services.
Intellectual Property Rights
For The Web
All intellectual property rights in any design work specifically produced for the customer will be transferred to them on payment of final invoice. A license is issued to the customer for use of the systems and any applications produced for the hosting period on payment of the invoices for the project. As all systems are designed for Strategies specific hosting environment, email, security, ecommerce and other systems, the systems will only be warranted to work on Strategies hosting. On agreement and on further work some systems may be available on external hosts. In no circumstances will Strategies allow its package modules be hosted on external system unless under the control of Strategies in order to protect its IPR from copying.
All data stored on a web site is owned by the customer. This includes and databases of customers, suppliers, advertisements and documents. It is the responsibility of the customer to manage the rights under data protection of all data on the web site.
For Printed Material
When designs, photographs and copy are produced for use in printed material, the IPR will be assigned to the customer for that particular project on payment of invoice.
Digital Imagery
Images on a web site must have the correct rights to be used. Images can be sourced in a number of ways.
From the customer. In this case the images will be assumed to be owned by the customer or they have acquired the rights to use them on the web. It is the responsibility of the customer to ensure they have the correct rights to use an image.
Strategies use the following sorts of images:
Royalty Free. This is where Strategies have acquired the rights to use the images on web sites. This is typically by purchasing a disc. These images are sold to the customer as part of the digital images charge in the web site build.
Rights Managed Images. These images have a specific set of terms and conditions for each image. Typically an image is bought for a particular purpose e.g. a web site (use in a brochure would be extra). These images tend to have a time charge ie for use over 1 year. These images need to be bought directly by the customer as they will need to manage the use of the image over the duration of existence of the web site and this may be longer than the relationship with Strategies.
