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Crystal Web Customer Relationship Agreement (Terms and Conditions)
Key Provisions
The service provided under this agreement is an “as is”, “best effort” and “contended” Internet
service intended for consumer use, or business use where the product is suitably marketed as such.
It is your responsibility to ensure that the Internet services made available under this agreement are
used in a lawful and responsible manner. Any use of the service in pursuance of criminal activity, or
which gives rise to an action at law (by any person) against you, is in breach of this agreement. You
are required to ensure that your use of the service does not cause harm to our network or to the
network operations of any other provider. You further are responsible, at Crystal Web’s election, for
any misuse of your connection by any third person to whom you give permission to use the service
or who acquires access as a result of your failure to take reasonable precautions to prevent access.
[A] Parties to this agreement & Knowing Our Customers
1. This agreement is between a customer (you) and Crystal Web (Pty) Ltd (Crystal Web, we or us).
2. Crystal Web is constantly striving to improve our services to you and therefore we may amend this
agreement. While we will ordinarily give you at least 20 working days’ notice of any change by
electronic mail, exceptional circumstances may require an immediate change made in our sole
discretion.
3. We require you to provide us with honest and truthful information about yourself and may
require you to send us documentation confirming your identity and address. If you fail to provide us
with this, information we may have to, without notice or warning, suspend your access to certain, or
all, of our products and services. Crystal Web is afforded by this agreement the right to verify any
information you provide us together with any customer history with any credit bureau and we may
provide any bureau with such personal information as may be necessary to verify information.
4. This agreement represents the consumer agreement between Crystal Web and you in terms of
the Consumer Protection Act (68 of 2008) and any other applicable legislation or regulation.
5. The service provided under this agreement is an “as is”, “best effort” and “contended” Internet
service intended for consumer use.
6. It is your responsibility to ensure that the Internet services made available under this agreement
are used in a lawful and responsible manner. Any use of the service in pursuance of criminal activity,
or which gives rise to an action at law (by any person) against you, is in breach of this agreement.
You are required to ensure that your use of the service does not cause harm to our network or to
the network operations of any other provider.
7. Further, you are responsible, at Crystal Web’s election, for any misuse of your connection by any
third person to whom you give permission to use the service or who acquires access as a result of
your failure to take reasonable precautions to prevent access.
8.The email address from which you agree to this agreement shall be regarded as your email address
and all communications to and from from same will be regarded as correspondence from and with
you.
[B] Interpretation of this Agreement
1. This agreement is entered in to in accordance with the laws of the Republic of South Africa. The
meaning ascribed to any term is to be that customarily used by companies involved in internet
service providing.
2. All clauses of this agreement are severable. If any clause in this agreement is for any reason
unenforceable, or void at law, such clause shall be severed without voiding the remainder of the
agreement.
3. Each service for which you subscribe will carry product terms of service which shall form part of
our agreement with you.
[C] Representation, Advertising Warranties and agents
1. While every effort is made to ensure that all public representations from Crystal Web are
accurate, it is agreed that Crystal Web will not be liable in any manner whatsoever if a
representation contains an error or inaccuracy.
2. In the event that it comes to our attention that an advertisement, or publication of any sort, made
by Crystal Web appears, in context, to be an erroneous advertisement upon which a reasonable
person would place reliance or belief, such advertisement will be retracted or corrected.
3. No representation or undertaking made by a member of staff at Crystal Web shall be binding on
Crystal Web unless such undertaking is made or confirmed by email to you by a director of the
company.
4.You undertake to respect Crystal Web’s intellectual property rights and agree to refrain from any
activity which would cause harm to Crystal Web with respect to intellectual property including:
a.malicious misuse of Crystal Web trademarks (whether registered or unregistered), branding and
logos; b.decompiling and reverse engineering any system or website operated by, or on behalf of,
Crystal Web without our written consent.
[D] Cancellation Process
1.Subject to this section, and any term contract you may enter into with Crystal Web, it is agreed
that you may cancel any or all of your services before the 19th of the month such that the service
will be terminated from the last day of the month, unless otherwise indicated by the product
description or marketing. Any cancellation notice received between the 19th day of the month and
the last day of the month will be regarded as a cancellation effective on the last day of the following
month.
2. A cancellation may not be processed while the parties are engaged in a dispute resolution
process, or there is an outstanding invoice to be settled, or if a contract is attached to the service.
3.Crystal Web reserves the right to terminate this agreement and the contractual relationship with
you under the following circumstances: a.you have breached this agreement and have failed to
remedy such breach within 48 hours of being notified of the requirement to remedy the breach;
b.on the basis of an AUP or FUP violation as envisaged by clauses F.8 and G.3 of this agreement;
c.where a cancellation termination of this agreement is imposed upon Crystal Web by operation of
any law, regulation or regulatory action in force in the Republic of South African; d.at our election
under the same terms and rights as are afforded to you in terms of clause D.1.
[E] Billing
1. You agree to settle any charge invoiced to your account promptly and on the due date, unless
otherwise agreed, and will present any queries relating to your invoice to [email protected]
no later than 7 days after the date the invoice is issued
2. Crystal Web charges for service in advance and not in arrears. While a service may be provisioned
and available to you before you receive an invoice such provisioning does not constitute a line of
credit upon which future payment may be made in arrears.
3. It is agreed that in any instance where Crystal Web provides immediate access to a service for
which the invoice is issued, such invoice shall be due and payable immediately but a three day
period shall be allowed as an agreed date of payment.
4. Should you subscribe to a debit order or any other automated processing arrangement with
Crystal Web then the date upon which such arrangement is scheduled for payment shall be the date
agreed upon on which the account must be paid.
5. The subscription of any order or processing arrangement involving any third parties shall not
indemnify you against responsibility to pay Crystal Web in the event that such arrangement does not
constitute settlement of your invoice in full.
6. Non-payment, or short payment of any invoice on the due date, or such other date as agreed, of
that invoice, constitutes a breach of this agreement. Nothing in this agreement shall be read to
preclude Crystal Web’s right to tempore morae interest under the common law.
7. It is agreed that the nature of an Internet service using DSL technology precludes any reasonable
expectation of full uptime and full speeds, and Crystal Web shall not be obliged to effect any refund
or pass any credit note in respect of any period during which a service is not available or degraded.
8. It is agreed that any billing error resulting in an overcharge or overpayment will result in the
passing of a credit note (which shall include any interest charged by Crystal Web in error) to any
outstanding invoice. If there are no outstanding invoices such credit note will be passed on the next
invoice issued. Refunds shall only be made in the event that the amount of the credit note would
exceed the amount of anticipated future invoices arising in the sixty days after the passing of the
arising of credit note. Any refund of monies by Crystal Web shall be paid by means of an electronic
payment into a banking account designated by you.
9. It is agreed notwithstanding the existence of a dispute resolution process that Crystal Web may
cede, collect and enforce through any competent court any amount owing to Crystal Web on an
attorney own client scale.
10. It is agreed that in the event that your DSL circuit operates at a higher speed than the service for
which you have applied that we may charge you the amount due in respect of the higher speed.
11. Ordinarily invoices shall be issued on the 1st day of the month and be due for payment and full
settlement immediately, however circumstances may arise that cause invoices to be issued on a
different day from time to time . In the month of December invoices may be issued early with
payment due before the 16th of December.
12. It is agreed that if you are being provided with a discount of any nature for any product(s)
provided by Crystal Web or any Crystal Web affiliates, and you maintain an outstanding balance due
for a period of 14 days or more, or are in breach of this agreement in any way, and where such
balance is not the subject of a legitimate dispute as per the rights afforded to you in this agreement,
that all discounts applicable to your billing relationship with Crystal Web shall be terminated from
the date upon which the outstanding balance initially became due.
13. All non-contractually assured discounts offered or applied by Crystal Web remain within Crystal
Web's sole reasonable discretion , and may be amended or terminated.
[F] Acceptable Use policy
1. The Acceptable Use Policies (AUP) of every network on which your product(s) operate forms part
of the contractual relationship between you and Crystal Web. Violating any applicable AUP
constitutes a breach of contract and an infringement of the rights of Crystal Web. The applicable
AUP for the network is appended as part of the product description.
2. Should Crystal Web for any reason whatsoever cause your product to operate on another network
you will be obliged to adhere to the AUP of that network.
3. Where there is a reasonable suspicion of a serious breach of the AUP, or the law otherwise
requires, we will not hesitate to, without warning or notice, suspend any account connected to you.
The right to suspend any account for a suspected violation of the AUP is extended to any upstream
providers and channel partners.
4. The Internet is made up of many networks under the responsibility and control of various
different parties in different jurisdictions. As a result, any particular usage by you may result in your
traffic transiting on networks with AUP provisions which differ from those of Crystal Web. Crystal
Web shall not be responsible for any liability that may arise nor any failure of performance that may
result as a consequence of your violating another providers AUP. Crystal Web regards abuse of
another network originating on our network as a violation of the AUP where the infringer could
reasonably be expected to know or believe that such conduct would constitute an AUP violation on
the recipient network.
5. While unintentional conduct will ordinarily not be regarded by Crystal Web as an infringement of
the AUP, you are required to take all reasonable steps, and gross negligence on your part may be
regarded as a serious contravention.
6. Crystal Web, may recover from you any damages or costs that are a result of any breach of this
AUP by you. Such recoverable costs include costs consequent upon the utilizing of legal services on
an attorney own client scale.
7. Any party affiliated to Crystal Web may (with Crystal Web’s consent) recover any damages or
costs caused by a violation of the AUP committed by you. Such damages must be proved by such
affiliate in accordance with the dispute resolution provisions of this agreement.
8. Serious contraventions of the Acceptable Use Policy may result in Crystal Web terminating all
services and our relationship with you with immediate effect and without entitlement to any refund.
9. Any complaint concerning a contravention of an AUP shall be received by email at
[email protected]
10. Absent a specific AUP applying the following carriage standard AUP shall apply and any entity
whatsoever who is involved in the provisioning of the service shall be a “provider”.
Unlawful Activity
The provider’s services/website may only be used for lawful purposes and activities. We prohibit any
use of our website/network including the transmission, storage and distribution of any material or
content using our network that violates any law or regulation of the Republic. This includes:
Any violation of local and international laws prohibiting child pornography; obscenity; discrimination
(including racial, gender or religious slurs) and hate speech; or speech designed to incite violence or
hatred, or threats to cause bodily harm.
Any activity designed to defame, abuse, stalk, harass or physically threaten any individual in the
Republic or beyond its borders; including any attempt to link to, post, transmit or otherwise
distribute any inappropriate or defamatory material.
Any violation of Intellectual Property laws including materials protected by local and international
copyright, trademarks and trade secrets. Moreover the provider cannot be held liable if you make
any unlawful use of any multimedia content accessed through the search facility provided by the
provider ’s network, or otherwise available through access to our network, whether for commercial
or non-commercial purposes.
Any violation of the individual’s right to privacy, including any effort to collect personal data of third
parties without their consent.
Any fraudulent activity whatsoever, including dubious financial practices, such as pyramid schemes;
the impersonation of another subscriber without their consent; or any attempt to enter into a
transaction with the provider on behalf of another subscriber without their consent.
Any violation of the exchange control laws of the Republic.
Any activity that results in the sale, transmission or distribution of pirated or illegal software.
Failing to respond to a request by a recipient of unsolicited mail to be removed from any mailing or
direct marketing list and continuing to send unsolicited mail following such a request for removal.
Where any user resides outside of the Republic, permanently or temporarily, such user will be
subject to the laws of the country in which s/he is currently resident and which apply. On
presentation of a legal order to do so, or under obligation through an order for mutual foreign legal
assistance, the provider will assist foreign law enforcement agencies (LEA) in the investigation and
prosecution of a crime committed using the provider ’s resources, including the provisioning of all
personal identifiable data.
The following sections outline activities that are considered an unacceptable use:
Threats to Network Security
Any activity, which threatens the functioning, security and/or integrity of the provider’s network is
unacceptable. This includes:
Any efforts to attempt to gain unlawful and unauthorised access to the network or circumvent any
of the security measures established by the provider for this goal;
Any effort to use the provider equipment to circumvent the user authentication or security of any
host, network or account (“cracking” or “hacking”);
Forging of any TCP-IP packet header (spoofing) or any part of the header information in an email or a
newsgroup posting;
Any effort to breach or attempt to breach the security of another user or attempt to gain access to
any other person's computer, software, or data without the knowledge and consent of such person;
Any activity which threatens to disrupt the service offered by the provider through “denial of service
attacks”; flooding of a network, or overloading a service or any unauthorised probes ("scanning" or
"nuking") of others' networks;
Any activity which in any way threatens the security of the network by knowingly posting,
transmitting, linking to or otherwise distributing any information or software which contains a virus;
Trojan horse; worm, lock, mail bomb, cancelbot or other harmful, destructive or disruptive
component.
Any unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on the network without the provider’s explicit,
written consent.
Any unsolicited mass mailing activity including direct marketing; spam and chain letters for
commercial or other purposes, without the consent of the recipients of those mails.
Public Space and Third Party Content and sites
You acknowledge that the provider has no power to control the content of the information passing
over the Internet and its applications, including e-mail; chatrooms; news groups; or other similar
fora, and that the provider cannot be held responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any of the
abovementioned content, in any way for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of, or in
connection with your use of, or reliance on, any such content.
Our services also offer access to numerous third party webpages. You acknowledge that we exercise
absolutely no control over such third party content, or sites and in such cases, our network is merely
a conduit or means of access and transmission. This includes, but is not limited to, third party
content contained on or accessible through the provider’s network websites and web pages or sites
displayed as search results or contained within a directory of links on the providers network. It
remains your responsibility to review and evaluate any such content, and that any and all risk
associated with the use of, or reliance on, such content rests with you.
Access to public Internet spaces, such as bulletin boards, Usenet groups, chat rooms and moderated
forums is entirely voluntary and at your own risk.
The provider employees do not moderate any of these services, or your communications,
transmissions or use of these services. We do not undertake any responsibility for any content
contained therein, or for any breaches of your right to privacy that you may experience as a result of
accessing such spaces.
Usenet Newsgroups
The customer is responsible for determining and familiarizing himself or herself with the written
policies of a given newsgroup before posting to it.
The customer must comply with these guidelines at all times which can be obtained from other
users of the newsgroup upon request, or from the group's administrators/moderators.
The following are prohibited practices with regard to Usenet newsgroups and the provider reserves
the right to delete and/or cancel posts which violate the following conditions:
Excessive cross-posting of the same article to multiple newsgroups.
Posting of irrelevant or off-topic material to newsgroups (also known as USENET spam).
Posting binaries to a non-binary newsgroup.
Posting adverts, solicitations, or any other commercial messages unless the guidelines of the
newsgroup in question explicitly permit them.
Unsolicited, Spam and Junk mail
Spam and unsolicited bulk mail are highly problematic practices. They affect the use and enjoyment
of services by others and often compromise network security. The provider will take swift and firm
action against any user engaging in any of the following unacceptable practices:
Sending unsolicited bulk mail for marketing or any other purposes (political, religious or commercial)
to people who have not consented to receiving such mail;
Operating or maintaining mailing lists without the express permission of all recipients listed;
Failing to promptly remove from lists invalid or undeliverable addresses or addresses of unwilling
recipients;
Using the provider’s service to collect responses from unsolicited e-mail sent from accounts on other
Internet hosts or e-mail services, that violate this AUP or the AUP of any other Internet service
provider;
Including the provider’s name in the header or by listing an IP address that belongs to the provider in
any unsolicited email sent through the provider’s network or not;
Failure to secure a customer’s mail server against public relay as a protection to themselves and the
broader Internet community. Public relay occurs when a mail server is accessed by a third party from
another domain and utilised to deliver mails, without the authority or consent of the owner of the
mail-server. Mail servers that are unsecured against public relay often become abused by
unscrupulous operators for spam delivery and upon detection such delivery must be disallowed.
The provider reserves the right to examine users' mail servers to confirm that no mails are being
sent from the mail server through public relay and the results of such checks can be made available
to the user. The provider also reserves the right to examine the mail servers of any users using the
provider’s mail servers for "smarthosting" (when the user relays its mail via the provider’s mail
server to a mail server of its own) or similar services at any time to ensure that the servers are
properly secured against public relay. All relay checks will be done in strict accordance with the
provider’s privacy policy.
Spam/virus Filtering
The provider provides a spam and virus filtering system to protect customers from unsolicited mail
and viruses. The customer acknowledges that this system might incorrectly identify a valid message
as spam or as a virus and consequently this message might not be delivered to the customer. The
customer acknowledges and agrees that the provider shall without limitation have no responsibility
for, or liability in respect of any data lost as a result of this system.
Protection of Minors
The provider prohibits customers from using the provider’s service to harm or attempt to harm a
minor, including, but not limited to, by hosting, possessing, disseminating, distributing or
transmitting material that is unlawful, including child pornography.
[G] Fair use Policy and Product Description
1. Each product may have a Fair Use Policy (FUP) attached to the product. The FUP will be included
in the product description for the product.
2. A product’s fair use policy may be changed by Crystal Web by giving you notice of the change at
least one week before the start of the next billing cycle.
Shaping
3. In developing product terms one or more of the following shaping policies may be used.
First tier data (‘“unshaped”’) is prioritized data where traffic is not shaped by default, unless
extraordinary network preservation demands as such. On exhausting a first tier data allocation a
customer will be migrated to either the second (or third tier shaping, as set out in the product
description or as requested by a customer and approved by Crystal Web) for the remainder of the
calendar month, or such period as set in the product term, or the account will be capped depending
on the product the customer has purchased from Crystal Web. Higher allocation of this tier is
recommended for large volume downloaders.
Second tier data (‘priority’) is shaped during peak hours to exclude entirely or shape peer-to-peer
and nntp traffic, and to deprioritise large downloads on any protocols. CDN streaming, browsing,
VPN, gaming and some other traffic is prioritized. Between 00:30 and 07:00 shaping is released
dynamically on all protocols based on network capacity availability, however ordinary network
contention applies. Higher allocation of this tier is recommended for medium to heavy users of
streaming, gaming, VPN and other traffic. Second tier data is not recommended for large volume
downloads during peak hours. Peak hours are determined by peak capacity load times on the
network.
Third tier data (‘entry’) is shaped, with CDN streaming, browsing, and local VPN traffic prioritised.
Certain accounts operating in this tier may be subjected to thresholds on usage of certain protocols
depending on the product description. Shaping is released dynamically between 00:30 and 07:00
based on network capacity availability. This tier is for entry level products as part of efforts to make
affordable Internet products for a broader community and is not suited to broadband intensive
usage during peak hours.
Bypassing of shaping or network management systems employed by Crystal Web or its upstream
providers, either intentionally or unintentionally, by use of third party tools, encryption services, or
services intended for use to download traditionally shaped services over alternate ports or
protocols, is a contravention of this agreement, and may result in either deprioritisation of your
account, irrespective of the account type you have purchased, and/or suspension of services without
refund. You are required to rectify any such contravention within 24 hours of notice of such a breach
being served on you by way of official communication from Crystal Web by any traditional support
channels.
Continued and persistent load data throughput on any uncapped product that causes either
degraded performance for other Crystal Web users or a loss to be incurred by Crystal Web may
result in deprioritisation at the discretion of Crystal Web, to ensure that a fair allocation of
bandwidth is maintained for all customers. Should your account be deprioritised, such action shall
be lifted or removed upon Crystal Web's systems identifying a noticeable and substantial decrease in
requests or throughput from your connection that is not as a result of ordinary deprioritisation.
Crystal Web reserves its rights to terminate access to any customer with 7 days notice provided
should your connection continue to cause degraded network performance for others or incur a loss
for Crystal Web for 2 consecutive months.
[H] Privacy
1. We take your right to privacy seriously and shall, save as provided in this agreement or when
required by law, not provide a third party with information that infringes on your privacy without
your consent.
2. Crystal Web may store personal identifying and other information about you on cloud services
administered by third parties. Such information shall be for the exclusive use of Crystal Web.
3. We will report any information that comes to our knowledge of a breach of your privacy as soon
as possible, unless we are prohibited by doing so by law.
4. Crystal Web may send you promotional material relating to Crystal Web unless you have provided
an indication that you wish to opt out of receiving such material. You indemnify Crystal Web against
any claims arising from sending of promotional material by Crystal Web made in error.
5. In taking your right to privacy seriously whilst still satisfying legal obligations, Crystal Web (or any
of its affiliates) may have to employ the services of legal professionals and you agree that in the
event that Crystal Web is required as a matter of urgency to incur costs in order to protect your
privacy, to settle reasonably incurred costs.
[I] Take Down Procedure
6. Crystal Web, and any affiliated party, may take down any data hosted on a network involved in
this arrangement if such content is subject to a take down notice as envisaged by section 77 of the
Electronic Communication and Transactions Act (No. 25 of 2002).
7. Crystal Web confirms the all immediate upstream providers for Crystal Web have a procedure in
place for the notice and take-down of illegal material. In compliance with section 77 of the Electronic
Communications and Transactions Act (No. 25 of 2002) . The designated agent for this process can
be reached at (010) 500 1200 or at [email protected] .The notice and take-down procedure can
be viewed at http://www.ispa.org.za/code.
8. You are also notified of the content and procedures of the ISPA Code of Conduct
(http://www.ispa.org.za/code) which may be used against any Internet service provider who fails to
comply with the code of conduct. We urge you to familiarise yourselves with this code.
[J] Dispute resolution and complaints process
1. Crystal Web will receive formal complaints both through the dedicated email address
[email protected] as well as through the ordinary support channels wherever you clearly
indicate that you wish for a complaint escalation to take place. A complaint will need to contain the
following information:
a. The identity of the complainant;
b. The email address with which to correspond to resolve the complaint;
c. The nature of the complaint;
d. The facts and allegations upon which the complaint is dependent; and
e. Any historic information relevant to the complaint.
2. On receipt of a formal complaint, or the escalation of support communication to a formal
complaint, an acknowledgement of the complaint together with a reference number will be sent to
you by email within three days.
3. Any correspondence received which we reasonably believe to be a complaint that does not satisfy
the requirements to be processed as a complaint will be treated as a query as to the complaint’s
procedure. Queries as to what the complaint’s procedure is will be replied to with an explanation of
the formal complaint’s procedure.
4. Should further particulars be required in order to resolve a complaint, such information will be
requested by email.
5. A complaint shall be resolved within ten working days of the receipt of the complaint unless the
parties agree to a longer period, provided that the reasoning underlying a resolution may be
delivered thirty days after the resolution of the complaint.
6. Crystal Web may cause an external professional person or organization to resolve a complaint at
Crystal Web’s expense, if any expenses arise.
7. Notwithstanding any other law or principle of natural justice, any person designated by internal
policies of Crystal Web may attend to a complaint even if such person has prior involvement in the
matter.
8. It is agreed that, subject to this agreement, confidentiality with respect to any complaint will be
respected by all persons involved unless a disclosure is agreed to in writing during the dispute
resolution process. However, the preservation of disclosure shall not be interpreted as to prevent
you from making a reasonable and fair expression of dissatisfaction with the service provided by
Crystal Web in a public space or forum, or for Crystal Web to in same place or forum acknowledge
that it has received a complaint and is attending to same.
9. It is agreed that Crystal Web will compile reports on the resolution of complaints for regulatory
and internal quality assurance processes. Such reports will redact all personal identifying
information.
10. It is agreed that Crystal Web is indemnified against any costs incurred by you in any dispute
resolution process and that you may employ the services of a legal professional at your own expense
to prepare or transmit any complaint.
11.On completing the complaints process (and in the absence of any other channel and a failure of
mediation), or if the time periods for complaints resolution prescribed by this agreement are not
adhered to, the parties agree to resolve any dispute by means of binding arbitration administered by
the Arbitration Foundation of South Africa in accordance with its rules.
12. Any dispute not related to a formal complaint, under this agreement, which is not resolved by
negotiation between the relevant parties (which includes any party that obtains rights stipulo alteri )
shall be resolved by arbitration administered by the Arbitration Foundation of South Africa.
If you would like any assistance please contact us by email at [email protected] or
[email protected] for all queries relating to the contents of this Customer Relationship
Agreement