OUR TERM OF SERVICE AND ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY

 

This page tells you information about us and the legal terms and conditions ("Terms") on which we supply any services ("Services") listed on our website ("our site") to you.

Please read these Terms carefully and make sure that you understand them, before ordering any Services from our site. Please note that by ordering any of our Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms and the other documents expressly referred to in it.

If you refuse to accept these Terms, you will not be able to order any Services from our site.

You should print a copy of these Terms for future reference.

 

Information about us

1. We operate the website arkcloud.net. We are ARK Networks Ltd, a company registered in United Kingdom under company number 15052147 and with our registered office at 71-75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London, United Kingdom, WC2H 9JQ.
2. To contact us, please see our Contact Us page.

Use of our site

1. Your use of our site is governed by our Website Terms of Use. Please take the time to read these, as they include important terms which apply to you. When using our site, you must also comply with the provisions of our Acceptable Use Policy.

Our Contract with you

1. These Terms and any document expressly referred to in them constitute the entire agreement between you and us (the "Contract"). You acknowledge that you have not relied on any statement, promise or representation made or given by or on behalf of us which is not set out in these Terms or any document expressly referred to in them.
2. Where you are a consumer, you have legal rights in relation to Services that are not as described. Advice about your legal rights is available from your local Citizens' Advice Bureau or Trading Standards office. Nothing in these Terms will affect these legal rights.

How the Contract is formed between you and us

1. Our order process allows you to check and amend any errors before submitting your first order to us. Please take the time to read and check your order at each page of the order process.
2. After you place an order for hosting Services, you will receive an e-mail from us acknowledging that we have received your order. However, please note that this does not mean that your order has been accepted. 
3. If you are ordering hosting Services with us we will confirm our acceptance to you by sending you an e-mail ("Order Confirmation"). If you are ordering domain registration Services with us we will confirm our acceptance to you by sending you an invoice. The Contract between us will only be formed when we send you the Order Confirmation or invoice as described above.
4. The term of our contract for hosting Services is as described in each invoice you receive from us. Once we have provided domain registration Services for you once on any given domain we will send you an invoice for domain registration Services when payment for that domain is next due unless you inform us otherwise.
5. We will inform you of this by e-mail and we will not process your order. If you have already paid for the Services, we will refund you the full amount as soon as possible.

Our right to vary these terms

1. We may revise these Terms from time to time, including but not limited to the following circumstances:
   1. Changes in how we accept payment from you; and
   2. Changes in relevant laws and regulatory requirements.
2. Every time you order Services from us or the Contract between us is renewed, the Terms in force at that time will apply to the Contract between you and us.

Providing Services

1. We will supply the Services to you from the date set out in the Order Confirmation, in the case of hosting services, or invoice, in the case of domain registration services, until the completion or renewal date set out in the Order Confirmation. Where no completion date or renewal date is specified, we will supply the Services until the Contract is terminated in accordance with the Terms.
2. Where the Order Confirmation sets out any milestones for the provision of Services, we will make every effort to complete the Services on time. However, there may be delays due to an Event Outside Our Control. 
3. We will need certain information from you that is necessary for us to provide the Services, for example, name, address, contact details. We will contact you about this. If you do not, after being asked by us, provide us with this information, or you provide us with incomplete or incorrect information, we may make an additional charge of a reasonable sum to cover any extra work that is required, or we may suspend the Services by giving you written notice. We will not be liable for any delay or non-performance where you have not provided this information to us after we have asked. If we suspend the Services under this clause you do not have to pay for the Services while they are suspended, but this does not affect your obligation to pay for any invoices we have already sent you.
4. You are responsible for obtaining:
   1. Suitable licences of third party software; and
   2. Any third party cooperation and consents, which are required for the full use of the Services. We will not be liable for any delay or non-performance where you have not provided such licences and consents to us after we have asked.
5. We may have to suspend the Services if we have to deal with technical problems. We will contact you to let you know in advance where this occurs, unless the problem is urgent or an emergency. This does not affect your obligation to pay for any invoices we have already sent you.
6. Our distributed denial of service ("DDoS") protection is a network wide solution that covers all of our infrastructure. It is capable of mitigating the majority of DDoS attacks, but if the attack is large enough then I.P. addresses, servers or websites may be black-holed or removed from the internet whilst the attack is in progress.
7. Implementation and Transition
   1. We will make available the Services on or before the start date specified in the Order Confirmation.
   2. At your request and subject to our Free Migration offering, we will use reasonable endeavours to:
      1. Assist with the transfer of your website from your own development server; or
      2. Assist with the transition of any of your website(s) from any third party host
   3. During our scheduled server upgrades, we may provide an additional 28 day window for Domain Name System ("DNS") modifications to be performed. This will be provided at our discretion and does not apply to all migrations.
8. Shared Hosting
   1. Where the Services we provide to you include shared hosting, we will make available to you:
      1. Hosting capacity on a shared server meeting the specification set out on the site which may vary from time to time;
      2. The ability to access, update or amend any websites, web applications, software, information, data, databases and other works and materials stored, transmitted, published or processed using the Services (the "Hosted Materials") by FTP or similar means.
      3. You warrant that any material that you display on the respective sites do not and will not infringe any applicable laws, regulations or display material which is obscene, indecent, pornographic, seditious, offensive, defamatory, threatening, liable to incite racial hatred or acts of terrorism, menacing, blasphemous or in breach of any third party Intellectual Property Rights ("Inappropriate Content").
      4. For the avoidance of doubt, we will have administration rights in relation to any shared server, and we may refuse any request to change the configuration of a shared server at our sole discretion.
      5. With our Reseller Hosting accounts you can resell our cloud hosting and manage multiple websites with our fully white label plan. Please note that we will not support your customers directly. Please do not ask your customers to contact us for support. If your customers do contact us for support issues we will redirect them to you.

 

10. Virtual Private Server "VPS" and Dedicated Servers
    1. Where the Services we provide to you include a dedicated server, we will make available a VPS/dedicated server meeting the specification set out on our site, and will grant to you administration rights with respect to that server except where the services are managed, in which case we may refuse any request to change the configuration of the VPS/dedicated server at our sole discretion.
    2. For unmanaged dedicated servers you acknowledge that we will not provide support in connection with the administration of such VPS/dedicated server, and you warrant that you have all necessary expertise to configure, manage and keep the VPS/dedicated server secure at all times.
    3. You will not configure, or allow any other person to configure, a VPS/dedicated server in any way contrary to the guidelines published on our site from time to time.
    4. We may from time to time require that you apply software and/or hardware upgrades to the VPS/dedicated server.
    5. Un-managed dedicated systems are provided with a guarantee of power availability 100% of the time in any calendar month, and network connectivity availability
    6. For the avoidance of doubt, dedicated servers made available under this Contract will remain our property at all times.
11. Email Services
    1. Where the Services we provide to you include email transmission, storage and/or management services:
       1. We will provide POP3/IMAP/SMTP and webmail email services to you in accordance with the respective Services description.
12. Domain name registration
    1. Where the Services we provide to you include domain name registration, we will attempt to register domain names that you order using the interface on our site but we do not warrant that we will be able to do so.
    2. You warrant that:
       1. The information submitted for the purposes of a domain name registration is current, accurate and complete.
       2. You have the legal right to apply for and use the domain name, and
       3. Your use of the domain name will not infringe any person's Intellectual Property Rights or other legal rights; and
       4. You will keep the information required for the purposes of a domain name registration up-to-date (which changes may be subject to additional payments as set out on our site).
    3. We may not always be able to determine whether a domain will cost more than the standard price to register before we apply to register it. These domains are known as “premium domains”. If we apply to register or renew a domain and the relevant registry or registrar rejects the application on the basis that the fee for your chosen domain is greater than the amount we have advertised on our site we will communicate this to you. We will then provide you with the option of either paying the greater fee for your chosen domain name by sending you a revised invoice with a view to proceeding with your chosen domain name or will cancel the invoice for the domain name registration and refund any payments you have made against it if you decide you do not wish to proceed with registration at the higher price.
    4. You acknowledge and accept that certain information submitted for the purposes of a domain name registration will be published on the internet via "WHOIS" services.
    5. We may, in our sole discretion, reject any request to register a particular domain name.
    6. We do not offer any advice in relation to any actual or potential domain name dispute, and will have no liability in respect of the suspension or loss of a domain name by you as a result of any domain name arbitration procedure or court proceedings.
    7. Domain name registrations will be subject to periodic renewal fees and transfer fees as stated on our site from time to time. We have no responsibility for your use or retention of a domain name once registered, and it will be your responsibility to ensure that domain names are renewed and that applicable renewal charges are paid.

 

8. Free domains
   1. The free domain offer on certain plans is only for the first year and is only valid on standard domains: e.g. .uk, .com, .org. This isn't applicable on premium TLDs. e.g. .london.
   2. Certain of our Services come with free life long domains. These are only for the life of the specific plan and will return to full price as and when the specific plan is cancelled or downgraded.
   3. The free domain should be chosen at checkout with your hosting. This cannot be redeemed after your initial hosting purchase.
   4. Free domains are only applicable to new hosting accounts only, upgrading or switching from another ARK Cloud hosting package will not qualify for a free domain.
   5. If the hosting is refunded the cost of the free domain will be deducted from this as the domain is yours to keep until expiry.

13. Domain transfers
    1. You warrant that before submitting a request to us to transfer a domain that you will have already received consent to share the personal information for all domain contacts (for example, but not limited to, name, email address, home or business address, telephone contact information) with us, and/or the new account holder.
14. Support
    1. The Company will use reasonable endeavours to respond to requests for support in relation to our support Services.
    2. For business web hosting services, managed VPS and managed dedicated servers, we will use reasonable endeavours to ensure that a member of our support staff can be reached by telephone at all times in the case of an emergency.
15. We may be limited in the Services we can offer by the rules and regulations set out by our suppliers. In particular this may limit or prevent us offering Services to customers in certain geographical areas. We have various suppliers who may apply such restrictions on us.

Intellectual Property Rights

1. For the purpose of this Contract, "Intellectual Property Rights" shall mean all patents, rights to inventions, utility models, copyright and related rights, trade marks, service marks, trade, business and domain names, rights in trade dress or get-up, rights in goodwill or to sue for passing off, rights in designs, rights in computer software, database rights, moral rights, rights in confidential information (including know-how and trade secrets) and any other intellectual property rights, whether registered or unregistered and including all applications for and renewals or extensions of such rights.
2. You retain all Intellectual Property Rights in the software and materials that you provide to us and you grant us a licence to such Intellectual Property Rights to the extent required for us to perform our obligations pursuant to this Contract.
3. All Intellectual Property Rights in any works arising in connection with the performance of the Services by us (the "Works") shall be our property, and we hereby grant to you a non-exclusive licence to such Intellectual Property Rights for the sole purpose of receiving the benefit of the Services.

If there is a problem with the Services

1. In the unlikely event that there is any defect with the Services:
2. Please contact us through the helpdesk or via email and tell us as soon as reasonably possible (including details of your name, the respective domain name and server);
3. Please give us a reasonable opportunity to repair or fix any defect; and
4. We will use every effort to repair or fix the defect as soon as reasonably practicable and, in any event, within 1 working day.
5. If you are a consumer, you have legal rights in relation to Services not carried out with reasonable skill and care, or if the materials we use are faulty or not as described.

Price of Services

1. The prices for the Services will be as quoted on our site from time to time or as otherwise agreed between us.
2. Prices for our Services may change from time to time, but changes will not affect any order which we have confirmed with an Order Confirmation (in the case of hosting Services) or with an invoice (in the case of domain registration Services) or during the period shown on subsequent invoices in the case of renewals.
3. The price of the Services exclude VAT (where applicable) at the applicable current rate chargeable in the UK for the time being.
4. Our site contains a number of Services. It is always possible that, despite our reasonable efforts, some of the Services on our site may be incorrectly priced. If we discover an error in the price of the Services you have ordered we will inform you of this error and we will give you the option of continuing to purchase the Services at the correct price or cancelling your order. We will not process your order until we have your instructions. If we are unable to contact you using the contact details you provided during the order process, we will treat the order as cancelled and notify you in writing. Please note that if the pricing error is obvious and unmistakable and could have reasonably been recognised by you as a mispricing, we do not have to provide the Services to you at the incorrect (lower) price.

 

Termination

1. Either party (the "Non-defaulting Party") shall be able to terminate this Contract immediately in the event that the other:
   1. Commits a material breach of any of its obligations under this Contract and has not remedied such breach (if capable of remedy) within 30 days of request from the Non-defaulting Party for remedy by serving written notice; or
   2. Is subject to any winding up order or resolution, has any provisional liquidator appointed to it, has a receiver appointed or is the subject of an application made to court for an administration order or if a notice of intention to appoint an administrator is filed or an administration order made in respect of it, is unable to pay its debts within the meaning of Section 123 of the Insolvency Act 1986, enters into any arrangement for the benefit of or other compounds with its creditors generally or ceases or threatens to cease carrying on its business, or (being an individual) is the subject of a bankruptcy petition or order, or any equivalent processes in any jurisdiction.
2. Without prejudice to any rights that have accrued under a Contract or any of its rights or remedies, either party may terminate a Contract on giving not less than 30 days written notice to the other party. At our discretion we may accept requests to terminate Services in situations where you provide us with less than 30 days notice. You may be required to submit a cancellation request in the client area in order for us to process your cancellation. Notwithstanding the foregoing, if you have agreed and paid for Services on an annual or multi-year payment basis, we shall not be obliged to refund any pro rated payments if you cancel during the annual or multi-year term.
3. In accordance with our acceptable Use Policy, an account may be terminated by us unilaterally, without notice and at our discretion if we consider an account holder to be in breach of the stated prohibited uses.
4. An account may be terminated with immediate effect if abusive behaviour is directed at our staff.

Consequences of Termination

1. Other than as set out in these Terms, neither party shall have any further obligation to the other under a Contract after its termination.
2. Any provision of these Terms which expressly or by implication is intended to come into or continue in force on or after termination of a Contract shall remain in full force and effect.
3. Termination of a Contract, for any reason, shall not affect the accrued rights, remedies, obligations or liabilities of the parties existing at termination.
4. We will promptly provide to you an electronic copy of the Hosted Materials; and
5. We will provide such assistance as is reasonably requested by you to transfer the hosting of the Hosted Materials to you or another service provider, subject to payment of our reasonable expenses.

Our liability if you are a business
This clause 14 only applies if you are a business customer.

1. Nothing in these Terms limit or exclude our liability for:
   1. Death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
   2. Fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or
   3. Any other area where it would be unlawful or invalid to seek to exclude liability.
2. We will under no circumstances whatever be liable to you, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, arising under or in connection with the Contract for:
   1. Any loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
   2. Loss or corruption of data, information or software;
   3. Loss of business opportunity;
   4. Loss of anticipated savings;
   5. Loss of goodwill;
   6. Any indirect or consequential loss.
3. Our total liability to you in respect of all other losses arising under or in connection with the Contract, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, shall in no circumstances exceed the price of the Services in the previous twelve month period.
4. Except as expressly stated in these Terms, we do not give any representation, warranties or undertakings in relation to the Services. Any representation, condition or warranty which might be implied or incorporated into these Terms by statute, common law or otherwise is excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law. In particular, we will not be responsible for ensuring that the Services are suitable for your purposes.

Our liability if you are a consumer

This clause only applies if you are a consumer.

1. Nothing in these Terms limit or exclude our liability for:
   1. Death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
   2. Fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; or
   3. Any other area where it would be unlawful or invalid to seek to exclude liability.
2. If we fail to comply with these Terms, we are responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of our breach of these Terms or our negligence, we are not responsible for any loss or damage that is not foreseeable. Loss or damage is foreseeable if they were an obvious consequence of our breach or if they were contemplated by you and us at the time we entered into the Contract.
3. We only supply the Services for domestic and private use. You agree not to use the Services for any commercial, business or re-sale purposes, and subject to clause above, we have no liability to you for any:
   1. Loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue;
   2. Loss or corruption of data, information or software;
   3. Loss of business opportunity;
   4. Loss of anticipated savings; or
   5. Loss of goodwill.
4. Subject to the foregoing, our total liability to you in respect of all other losses arising under or in connection with the Contract, whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise, shall in no circumstances exceed the price of the Services in the previous twelve month period.

Indemnity

1. You shall indemnify us against all liabilities, costs, expenses, damages and losses (including any direct, indirect or consequential losses, loss of profit, loss of reputation and all interest, penalties and legal and other reasonable professional costs and expenses) suffered or incurred by us arising out of or in connection with:
2. any breach by you of the warranties contained; and
3. any claim made against us for actual or alleged infringement of a third party's Intellectual Property Rights arising out of or in connection with the our use of software and/or other materials provided by you.

Communications between us

1. When we refer, in these Terms, to 'in writing', this will include e-mail.
2. If you wish to contact us in writing, or if any clause in these Terms requires you to give us notice in writing, you can send this to us by email at [email protected]. We will confirm receipt of this by contacting you in writing by e-mail.
3. If we have to contact you or give you notice in writing, we will do so by e-mail or by pre-paid post to the address you provide to us in your order.
4. If you are a business, please note that any notice given by you to us, or by us to you, will be deemed received and properly served 24 hours after an e-mail is sent or 24 hours after posting on our website. In proving the service of any notice, it will be sufficient to prove, in the case of an e-mail, that such e-mail was sent to the specified e-mail address of the addressee.

Data Protection

1. Please read our Privacy Policy for further information (can be viewed under the 'Privacy Policy' tab above).

Other important terms

1. This Contract constitutes the entire agreement between you and us and supersedes and extinguishes all previous drafts, agreements, arrangements and understandings between you and us, whether written or oral, relating to its subject matter.
2. Each party agrees that it shall have no remedies in respect of any representation or warranty (whether made innocently or negligently) that is not set out in this Contract. Neither you nor we shall have any claim for innocent or negligent misrepresentation based upon any statement in this Contract.
3. You may not assign or transfer any of your rights or obligations under this Contract, in whole or in part, without our prior written consent.
4. A person who is not a party to this Contract shall not have any rights under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any of these Terms.
5. If any court or competent authority finds that any provision of this Contract (or part of any provision) is invalid, illegal or unenforceable, that provision or part-provision shall, to the extent required, be deemed to be deleted, and the validity and enforceability of the other provisions of this Contract shall not be affected.
6. If any invalid, unenforceable or illegal provision of this Contract would be valid, enforceable and legal if some part of it were deleted, the provision shall apply with the minimum modification necessary to make it legal, valid and enforceable.
7. If we fail to insist that you perform any of your obligations under these Terms, or if we do not enforce our rights against you, or if we delay in doing so, that will not mean that we have waived our rights against you and will not mean that you do not have to comply with those obligations. If we do waive a default by you, we will only do so in writing, and that will not mean that we will automatically waive any later default by you.
8. These Terms and any disputes or claims arising out of or in connection with it or its subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims) are governed by and construed in accordance with the law of England.
9. The parties irrevocably agree that the courts of England have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute or claim that arises out of or in connection with these Terms or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims).
10. Calls may be recorded for training or monitoring purposes.

 

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ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY

 

Prohibited Uses

2. You may use your hosting services only for lawful purposes. You and each authorised user may not use your services:
   1. In any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation, including copyright or other intellectual property law.
   2. In any way that is unlawful, fraudulent or otherwise dishonest, or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect.
   3. To promote any unlawful activity.
   4. For the purpose of harming or attempting to harm minors or any other person in any way.
   5. For using your services in a way intended to harm our network, operations, business, equipment, websites or systems, or the reputation of our company or any other person or entity (including any denial of service and similar attacks).
   6. to allow the use of our platform to provide free hosting to your customers because this encourages spamming and other abuses of the platform.
   7. To simulate communications from us or another service or entity in order to collect identity information, authentication credentials, or other information (phishing).
   8. To transmit knowingly any data, send or upload any material that contains viruses or disabling code including trojan horses, worms, time-bombs, ransomware, 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.
   9. To represent or suggest that we endorse any other business, product or service unless we have separately agreed to do so in writing.
   10. To gain unauthorised access to or use of any computers, data, systems, accounts or networks of any person.
   11. In any manner which may impair any other person's use of the Services or use of any other services provided by us to any other person.
   12. To attempt to circumvent any password or user authentication methods of any person.
   13. In any manner inconsistent with our agreement or inconsistent with any instructions provided by us from time to time.

Communication Standards

1. Any data, information or communication made on or using the Services by any person must conform to appropriate and lawful standards of accuracy, decency and lawfulness, which shall be applied in our discretion, acting reasonably. In particular, you warrant and undertake that any data and each such communication shall at all times be:
   1. Submitted lawfully and without infringement of any Intellectual Property Rights of any person;
   2. Free of any virus (at the point of entering our systems);
   3. factually accurate;
   4. provided with all necessary consents of all relevant third parties;
   5. not defamatory or likely to give rise to an allegation of defamation;
   6. not obscene, seditious, vulgar, pornographic, sexually explicit, discriminatory, or deceptive;
   7. not abusive, threatening, offensive, harassing or invasive of privacy;
   8. not racist, sexist of xenophobic; 
   9. not liable to offend religious sentiments or deeply held beliefs; and
   10. unlikely to cause offence, embarrassment or annoyance to any person.

Suspension and termination

1. Suspension of your services will occur automatically in the following cases:
   1. Payment is overdue. We accept no liability should our inability to take a payment cause an account to become overdue. Please ensure you receive a payment confirmation on the expected date.
   2. Malware or other suspect content has been discovered in your hosting account.
2. Notwithstanding the above, failure to comply with this acceptable use policy constitutes a material breach of the terms of use upon which you are permitted to use our services, and may result in our taking all or any of the following actions:
   1. Issue of a warning to you.
   2. Issue of a request to remove email or other media from your account or to upgrade to a VPS solution if your shared hosting account is determined to be over appropriate usage limits.
   3. Immediate, temporary or permanent withdrawal of your right to use our services.
   4. Immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any material from our services.
   5. Legal proceedings against you which may include, but not be limited to, recovery of all costs on an indemnity basis (including, but not limited to, reasonable administrative and legal costs) resulting from the breach.
   6. Notification of law enforcement authorities where we feel this is absolutely necessary.
3. We exclude liability for actions taken in response to breaches of this acceptable use policy. The responses described in this policy are not limited, and we may take any other action we reasonably deem appropriate.

Changes to the acceptable use policy

1. We may revise this acceptable use policy at any time by amending this page. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we make, as they are legally binding on you.