Terms of service

Version: Draft 1, 12 August 2026. Replaces the terms published in 2006.

1. Who these terms are between

These terms are an agreement between you (“you”, “the customer”) and Zabtek LLC and Henry Digital Media LLC (together “Zabtek”, “we”, “us”), trading as Zabtek Web Solutions. Both entities contract with you jointly and are jointly responsible for the obligations in these terms. Registered address: [CONFIRM: registered address for each entity]. They apply to every service we provide: hosting, reseller hosting, domain registration, design and development work, and support.

By ordering a service, paying an invoice, or using an account we provide, you accept these terms. If you are agreeing on behalf of a company, you confirm you are authorised to do so.

2. Accounts and setup

We set up an account once payment has been received and the order has passed fraud screening. You must give us a working email address that is not on a domain hosted in the account, because that address is how we reach you if the account is unreachable.

You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for everything done through your account. Tell us immediately if you believe an account has been compromised.

3. Acceptable use

Our services may be used only for lawful purposes. You may not use an account to store, publish, or transmit:

• material that infringes copyright, trademark or other intellectual property rights;
• material that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, or that promotes violence or hatred against people on the basis of a protected characteristic;
• malware, exploit kits, phishing pages, or tools intended to gain unauthorised access to systems;
• pirated software, cracked licences, or media distributed without the right to do so;
• sexually explicit material.

We may require changes to, or disable, any site, account, database or component that breaches this section. Where the breach is causing active harm, such as a live phishing page, an ongoing attack or a court order, we may act immediately and tell you afterwards. Otherwise we will contact you first and give you a reasonable opportunity to fix it.

4. Unsolicited email

We do not permit unsolicited bulk email of any kind. Purchased lists, harvested addresses and “safe lists” are treated as spam regardless of how they are described. Sending spam from an account we provide is grounds for immediate suspension.

If spam sent from your account causes our sending reputation or IP addresses to be blacklisted, we may charge you the reasonable cost of remediation. We will tell you the amount and the reason before charging it.

5. Fair use of shared resources

Shared hosting means many accounts share one environment, and one account cannot be allowed to degrade the rest. On shared plans you may not:

• sustain resource use that materially degrades service for other accounts;
• run stand-alone background processes, daemons, or public game or chat servers;
• use the account primarily as file storage, backup, or a media distribution point rather than to serve a website.

Where usage becomes a problem we will contact you and discuss the options: optimising the site, moving to a larger plan, or moving to a dedicated environment. We would rather solve it than suspend it.

6. Fees, invoicing and renewal

Hosting is billed in advance for the period you select and renews automatically until you cancel. Invoices are issued before the renewal date and are payable by the due date shown.

If an invoice is unpaid we will send reminders at 5, 10 and 15 days overdue. Services may be suspended once an invoice passes the final reminder at 15 days, and an account that remains unpaid may be terminated and its data deleted at 30 days. We will tell you in writing before termination. Suspension does not stop fees accruing. These periods are the ones configured in our billing system, so what you read here is what the system does.

Domain registrations are non-refundable once registered or renewed, because we pay the registry at the point of purchase and cannot recover it.

7. Price changes

We may change the recurring price of a service. If we do, we will give you at least 30 days' written notice before the new price takes effect, and it applies from your next renewal after that notice.

You are never locked in. If you do not want to continue at the new price, cancel before the renewal date and you will not be charged it. We would rather tell you a price is going up and let you decide than quietly degrade the service to hold the number still.

Existing customers. Customers already hosting with us when these terms were published keep the price they are paying today. A change to our published rates does not automatically move an existing account onto them.

[CONFIRM] Migrating customers from the 2006 terms. Those terms said the price “will never increase from the date of purchase”. This section replaces that for services taken out under these terms, but it does not by itself release a promise already made to someone who signed up under the old ones. Moving an existing customer onto these terms needs notice, and possibly their acceptance. Worth ten minutes of a solicitor's time before the first price change goes out.

8. Backups

Where a plan includes backups, we take them on the schedule described for that plan and will restore from them on request where a working backup exists. Backups are part of the service, not a favour, and we will tell you honestly if a restore is not possible. What each plan includes is stated on the hosting page.

You should still keep your own copy of anything you cannot afford to lose. Backups can fail, and a backup taken after a problem started can carry the problem with it. Our responsibility for lost data is limited as set out in section 15.

9. Availability and support

We aim for continuous availability and monitor the services we manage, but we do not offer a guaranteed uptime percentage or service credits on standard plans. Planned maintenance will be announced in advance where practical, and scheduled outside business hours where we can.

Support is provided by the people who build and manage the services, during business hours, through the client area or by email. We do not currently offer a contractual response-time guarantee. If you need one, ask and we will quote for it separately.

10. Domain names

Domains registered on your behalf are registered in your name and belong to you. You are responsible for keeping registrant contact details accurate, as registries require. We will send renewal notices, but a domain that expires because an invoice went unpaid can be expensive or impossible to recover, and that risk sits with you.

We will not withhold a domain transfer over an unrelated dispute. Unlock and authorisation codes are provided on request once any invoice relating to that domain is settled.

11. Design and development work

Project work is quoted individually and governed by these terms together with the written quote or proposal. Where the two conflict, the quote takes precedence for that project.

• Scope. The quote states what is included. Work outside it is quoted separately before it is carried out; we will not do unrequested work and invoice you for it.
• Deposits. Projects normally start on a deposit, with the balance due on completion. Deposits cover work already scheduled and are non-refundable once work has begun, except where we fail to deliver.
• Your input. Projects need content, feedback and approvals from you. If a project stalls on our side we will say so; if it stalls waiting on you for an extended period we may invoice for work completed to that point and reschedule the remainder.
• Acceptance. You get a reasonable opportunity to review before launch. Faults against the agreed scope are fixed at no charge.

12. Ownership of work, content and code

On final payment, the custom design and code we produce for your project become yours. You get the source, and you are free to move it, change it, or have someone else work on it. We do not hold a site hostage to keep a hosting account.

Two exceptions, which are normal and worth being clear about:

• Third-party components. Open-source libraries, licensed fonts, stock photography and paid plugins stay under their own licences. We will tell you what a project depends on and what those licences require.
• Our own tools. Generic components, snippets and internal tooling we reuse across clients stay ours. Your project gets a licence to use them for as long as you like; it does not get exclusivity over them.

Content you supply stays yours. You confirm you have the right to use it, and you are responsible for what is published on your site.

We may reference the work publicly, including name, screenshot and a description of what was built, unless you ask us in writing not to.

13. Cancellation and refunds

You may cancel hosting at any time through the client area or in writing. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period you have paid for, and we will not bill you again.

[CONFIRM] The old terms offered an unconditional 30-day money back guarantee on shared hosting, first accounts only, prorated thereafter. Confirm whether that stands as written. Whatever is published here must match what the billing system actually does, because a refund promise the cart cannot honour is worse than no promise.

Refunds are not given where an account has been suspended or terminated for breach of these terms, and domain fees are not refundable once registered.

14. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate a service for non-payment, for breach of these terms, or where we are legally required to. Except where the law or an active harm requires immediate action, we will contact you first and give you a reasonable opportunity to put it right.

On termination you may request a copy of your data, and we will provide it in a usable form, for at least 30 days afterwards. After that period data may be deleted permanently. If we terminate a service without cause, we refund the unused portion of what you have paid.

15. Liability

We provide the services with reasonable skill and care. We do not warrant that a service will be uninterrupted or error-free.

To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for lost profits, lost revenue, lost business, or lost or corrupted data, and our total liability to you in connection with a service is limited to the fees you paid us for that service in the 12 months before the claim.

Nothing in these terms limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.

16. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify us against claims, losses and reasonable legal costs arising from content you publish, products you sell, or material you supply through a service we provide, including claims that such material infringes someone else's rights.

17. Privacy

How we handle personal data is set out in our privacy notice, which forms part of these terms. In short: we use what you give us to provide the service and to reply to you, and we do not sell it.

18. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. For material changes affecting an active service we will give at least 30 days' notice by email or through the client area, and the change takes effect at your next renewal. Continuing to use the service after that constitutes acceptance. The old terms allowed revision “at any time without notice”; that is not reasonable and is not carried across.

19. Governing law

[CONFIRM: the state each entity is registered in. Ohio is the assumption written below, and with two joint parties it has to hold for both] These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Ohio, and the courts of that state have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising from them.

20. Contact

Questions about these terms: support@zabtek.com. Billing questions: billing@zabtek.com.