Channel Digital Terms and Conditions
The following terms and conditions apply to all Channel Digital transactions. When an order with Channel Digital has been placed these Terms & Conditions are considered accepted. Please read through these carefully before placing an order and print a copy for future reference.
Definitions:
Channel means Channel Digital Limited.
The Client: The company or individual requesting the services of Channel.
Terms and Conditions for website design, development and marketing
Whilst every endeavour will be made to ensure that the website and any scripts or programs are free of errors, Channel cannot accept responsibility for any losses incurred due to malfunction, the website or any part of it.
The website, graphics and any programming code remain the property of Channel until all outstanding accounts are paid in full.
Any scripts, cgi applications, php scripts, or software (unless specifically agreed) written by Channel remain the copyright of Channel and may only be commercially reproduced or resold with the permission of Channel.
A non-refundable deposit making up a percentage of the total quoted price is required for any contract with a value of £500 or over before any work will be carried out.
The Client agrees to make available as soon as it is reasonably possible to Channel all materials required for completion of the site to the agreed standard and within the set deadline. All these materials, both text and images will remain the Client's property. Channel cannot take responsibility for any copyright infringements caused by materials submitted by the Client. We reserve the right to refuse any material of a copyrighted nature unless adequate proof is given of permission to use such material.
Any additions to the brief will be carried out at the discretion of Channel and where no charge is made by Channel for such additions, Channel accept no responsibility to ensure such additions are error free and reserve the right to charge an according amount for any correction to these or further additions.
Content or features listed in the original quote but not provided during the development phase by the Client will be added at any time in the future, however invoices must be paid in full including sections which the Client still has to provide content.
Channel reserve the right to alter prices during their annual pricing review on January 1st. If a quote at an original price has been made it will be valid for 28 days and subsequently during the life of the current commission, however additional work may be charged for using the new pricing structure.
Channel will not be liable for costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the failure to meet agreed deadlines.
Channel will not be liable or become involved in any disputes between the site owner and their Clients and cannot be held responsible for any wrongdoing on the part of a site owner.
Channel will not be liable for any costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the work carried out on behalf of the Client or any of the Clients appointed agents.
Channel will not be liable for any costs incurred, compensation or loss of earnings due to the unavailability of the site, its servers, software or any material provided by its agents.
The Client is ultimately responsible for checking the correctness of the site before they give Channel the go ahead to make the site publicly available. When a Client agrees that a site can be made publicly available they are agreeing that the design and development of the site has satisfied all their requirements.
Once a website or software project has been designed and completed the final balance of payment is then due on the ‘go live’ date. If work on a project is cancelled by the Client, Channel will charge for all work done at our hourly rate plus any committed third party contract charges.
During a project build the client is responsible for providing all information needed to Channel in a timely manner. When Channel have completed the work requested and are held up by a lack of client feedback, Channel will invoice the total amount due for the whole project after a period of 30 days
Terms and Conditions for Website Hosting
Channel offer annually renewable packages of hosting services which can be purchased as part of a content management package or separately. Start dates are based on when the domain name is first registered or the web project has been moved over to Channel.
No guarantees can be made as to the availability of this service. Channel cannot accept liability for losses caused by the unavailability, malfunction or interruption of this service, or for loss of turnover, sales, revenue, profits or indirect, consequential or special loss.
Channel reserve the right to refuse to handle in any way, material which may be deemed offensive, illegal or in any way controversial, and also to terminate the hosting service, giving 28 days notice to the termination date, should the necessity arise. We will not be held responsible for any charges directly, indirectly or otherwise due as a result of suspension of Services.
It is the Client’s responsibility to back up all their data.
The Client may terminate their account at any time after the minimum term of 3 months, giving 28 days notice to the termination date. The request to terminate the account must be in writing. The Client may send his cancellation request via email or by postal mail to Channel.
Customers wishing to cancel a hosting service must inform us before the invoice date otherwise full annual payment will be required.
No partial refunds will be given for hosting services cancelled during the current agreements time period.
Standard hosting (Starter, Premium and Enterprise) website database size limit is up to 1GB. For larger sites we provide bespoke hosting packages.
Hosting packages are reviewed annually on June 1st and include a pricing review. We will discuss with you any changes needed to ensure you have the right package for your website.
Proactive Software Updates
Channel will proactively manage all pre-installed software for you including the Operating System (OS) and services like Apache, PHP and MySQL. For example, if there were to be a critical security update for Apache or PHP then we will contact you and proactively schedule a time with you for the update to be applied. Updates as listed above will be applied to your hosting account at no extra charge, on all shared servers or VPS machines. Dedicated machines are subject to their own terms & conditions.
Channel will also proactively audit and update all scripts on all client web sites, and update them to the latest versions when these become available. If an extension becomes known as insecure we will make you aware and then replace or remove it. This time is billed to the owner of the web site, and differs dependent on the type and complexity of the web site. If an agreement has not been taken out for annual security updates with Channel, then this work will be billed and paid for on an ad-hoc basis as required. Typically it will not take more than 1 hour at a time to keep a site up to date, and should it take longer then Channel will endeavour to contact the web site owner for permission to proceed further. However Channel will never be delayed in applying web site security updates or security changes.
Clients not wanting their sites to be automatically updated by Channel should not use this hosting service, as we can not have any out of date opensource scripts on our servers.
Channel Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for hosting
Violation of the Acceptable Use Policy in part or whole may result in suspension or partial suspension of the service or in cases of a severe or repeat violation termination of the service.
Prohibited Material
Channel Digital does not allow any of the following to be hosted:
- Illegal Material - Includes transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation. This includes, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property rights used without proper authorization or material that violates export control laws.
- 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 Channel.
- Warez - Includes pirated software, ROMS, emulators, phreaking, hacking, password cracking, IP spoofing, and encrypted or password protected versions of any of the above. Also includes any sites which provide "links to" or "how to" information about such material.
- Vulnerable Scripts - Includes scripts (inclusive of all extensions, add-ons or plug-ins) with known security vulnerabilities. E.g. -- An outdated Wordpress plugin or Joomla extension. Customer must keep all scripts hosted under their account up-to-date and properly secured.
- Other Material - Includes material that is obscene, indecent, defamatory, or constitutes an illegal threat. Also includes material Channel feels to be abusive or could affect the operation of the service or affect other users of the Internet.
Zero Tolerance Spam Policy
Channel takes a zero tolerance stance against the sending of unsolicited email. Users may not send unsolicited email which is email that is sent to recipients who have not opted-in to mailings from the user.
Users who send mass mailings must maintain complete and accurate records of all consents and opt-ins and provide such records to Channel upon request. If a user cannot provide positive and verifiable proof of such consents and opt-ins, we will consider the mass mailing to be unsolicited. Users are prohibited from operating mailing lists that do not target an audience that has voluntarily signed up for email information using an opt-in process.
Any mailing list must also allow any party on the list to remove itself automatically and permanently and be operated in accordance with any applicable law or regulation.
Email Limits
No account may send in excess of six hundred (600) emails per one (1) hour or five thousand (5000) emails per twenty-four (24) hours. This limitation does not apply to Managed Virtual Server or Dedicated Server accounts, nor to accounts that have been set up using one of our email marketing plans.
Data Transfer
Users are allocated a monthly data transfer allowance. This allowance varies depending on the hosting plan purchased. Should an account exceed the allocated amount we reserve the right to suspend the service until the start of the next allocation, suspend the service until more data transfer is purchased at an additional fee or suspend the service until the user upgrades to a higher level of hosting plan. Managed Server accounts may have the option of being charged an additional fee for any overages at a prior agreed overage rate.
Terms and Conditions for Database, Application and E-Commerce Development
Channel cannot take responsibility for any losses incurred by the use of any software created for the Client. Whilst every care has been taken to ensure products are problem free and accurate, the ultimate responsibility lies with the Client in ensuring that all software is functioning correctly before use.
Any scripts, cgi applications or software (unless specifically agreed) written by Channel remain the copyright of Channel and may only be commercially reproduced or resold with the permission of Channel.
Where applications or sites are developed on servers not recommended by Channel, the Client is expected to provide or seek any information, additional software, support or co-operation pertaining to the server required in order for the application to be correctly developed. Where large applications are to be developed, it is the Client’s responsibility to provide a suitable testing environment which is identical to the final production environment.
The Client is expected to test fully any application or programming relating to a site developed by Channel before being made generally available for use. Where "bugs", errors or other issues are found after the site is live, Channel will endeavour (but is not obliged to) to correct these issues to meet the standards of function outlined in the brief.
Compatibility
Channel will endeavour to ensure that any developed/designed site or application will function correctly on the server it is initially installed in and that it will function correctly when viewed with the modern desktop web browser software Chrome, and to an acceptable level with Mozilla, Safari and Edge browsers. Channel can offer no guarantees of correct function with all browser software.
Visits to Client’s premises/Training charges
We will visit any premises in Cornwall free of charge for a no obligation consultation. Any further visit may be charged at our mileage rate of 45 pence per mile return at our discretion. Any additional meeting time of the web development project will be included in the initial quoted price, the Client will not be charged any extra. Any time spent on any other job that is not already included in a package deal, for example content management system data entry/training, may be charged at our normal hourly rate at our discretion.
General Payment Terms and Conditions
Payment of Accounts
Online orders have to be prepaid by credit card.
For all other orders the following conditions apply: A deposit is required from any new Client before any web design work is carried out. It is the Channel policy that any outstanding accounts for work carried out by Channel or its affiliates are to be paid in full, no later than 14 days from the date of the invoice.
Once a deposit is paid and the work completed the Client is obliged to pay the final balance of payment in full. Should the scale of the project require staged payments each staged payment must be paid in advance of each phase of work on the project to ensure its continuation.
Payment must be made by cheque, cash or electronic bank transfer (BACS). Any payment returned by the bank will incur a £15 administration charge. This will be invoiced and will be added to the total outstanding debt owed by the customer. Late payments will be charged interest at our rate of 8.5% and a late payment handling charge of £40 plus VAT will be added to each invoice overdue.
If accounts are not settled or Channel have not been contacted regarding the delay, access to the related website may be denied and web pages removed. Should your hosting be suspended a reconnection fee of £50.00 will be charged.
Terms and Conditions for Domain Name Registration
By registering domain names through Channel, you are entering into contracts not just with Channel, but with the domain registration authorities as well. Your registration of a domain name indicates that you have read, understood and agreed to our domain registration terms and conditions as well as those of the appropriate domain registration authority. Nominet Terms & Conditions for all .uk domain registrations.
All domain names are registered on a first-come, first-served basis. Domain names often appear to be available up to 24 hours following registration. For this reason, Channel make no guarantee that the domain names you have chosen are available and can be registered. You are therefore advised not to take any action in respect to a domain name until full registration has been completed and your details are shown in whois query results.
Domain names are personalized to the consumer's specifications and service provision will begin from the moment the domain name registration is submitted to the registration authorities. Therefore, the consumer's right to cancel does not apply and Channel will make no refund for any domain name registration.
Domain name registrations are normally completed in about 24 hours, but in some cases, registrations may not be completed for up to 72 hours. The length of time it takes for a domain registration to be completed will depend on the domain registration authority, not on Channel. Channel will not accept any liability for delays in domain registration caused by the registration authorities or by any other party that Channel has no control over.
Channel accept no responsibility for usage of domain names, specifically including where conflict arises with trademarks, registered or unregistered or the right to use a name in any other context. A confirmation of registration is not intended to be evidence of ownership of a particular name.
If Channel is requested by the Client to purchase a domain registration this will be recharged to the client at cost plus 25%. Unless specifically instructed to cancel the registration in writing by the Client, Channel will automatically renew your domain registration and bill the cost plus 25% onto the client.
Terms and Conditions for 3rd Party Software
Any third party software purchased by Channel will be billed onto our clients plus 25%. There will be a mimimum handling fee of £15. Annual subscriptions will automatically be renewed unless the client specifically instructs Channel to cancel registration in writing.