WordPress Security & Performance Terms and Conditions
Last Updated: August 16, 2024
Introduction
Made Neat (“us”, “we”, “our”) provides ‘WordPress Security and Performance’ services (the Services) to keep our Clients’ (“Client”, “you”, “your”) WordPress websites secure and performing optimally, with regular updates and other services.
These Terms and Conditions (the “Terms”) set out the terms and conditions upon which Made Neat will provide ‘WordPress Security and Performance’ to the Client. The Terms are designed to ensure consistent quality service and performance, to protect and benefit all Clients and to maintain the integrity of our infrastructure.
Acknowledgements
You have contracted Made Neat to provide ‘WordPress Security and Performance’ for a single WordPress website.
These Terms form part of your Service Agreement with us to provide the ‘WordPress Security and Performance’ Service to you.
By registering for our Made Neat ‘WordPress Security and Performance’ Services you acknowledge you have read, understood and agree to be bound by these Terms and also our General Terms & Conditions.
You acknowledge that these Terms are non-negotiable.
The Service
The monthly cost of this Service will be as stated in your Service Agreement to purchase a WordPress Security and Performance Service.
‘WordPress Security and Performance’ Packages are provided on a either month-to-month or annual contract basis. We encourage you to read and understand your Service Agreement.
Services, tasks and support not considered standard website Security and Performance and support are subject to be charged at our regular hourly rate if in business hours, plus our rush rate if outside of business hours, and will not be considered part of these Terms.
Details provided by the Client during the sign-up process will be used as the point of contact unless otherwise specified.
Automatic Renewal
At the end of the agreed service term, whether annual or monthly, the Service will automatically renew based on the original agreement’s terms. If your agreement was annual, it will renew for another annual term; if it was monthly, it will renew on a monthly basis. Invoicing for the renewal term will be automatically issued for the appropriate amount.
To avoid automatic renewal, a written termination request must be received at least 30 (thirty) days prior to the renewal date. Failure to provide timely notice will result in the automatic renewal of the Service, and you will be charged accordingly.
Cyber Security Insurance
Select WordPress Security and Performance plans include the option to make a claim under our Cyber Security Insurance. This right is valid only for websites that are current on all payments, hosted on our servers, and have an active plan. Any late payments or payment defaults will result in the immediate suspension of this right.
Coverage under this insurance is strictly limited to the website hosted on Made Neat’s servers and does not extend to any other aspects of your business, systems, or third-party entities such as your clients, customers, or patients. Claims can only be made by the client who has purchased the service from us and pertain exclusively to damages or losses directly associated with the covered website and its data. Incidents affecting other parts of your IT infrastructure, such as compromised emails or network breaches, are not covered under this policy.
This right to claim is only valid from the date of your signed enrollment in our 2024 plans. No claims can be made for incidents occurring before this date.
Coverage is contingent upon the website being hosted on Made Neat’s servers, with Made Neat as the sole provider having admin-level access. If any party other than Made Neat is granted admin-level access or makes changes to the website, the Cyber Security Insurance coverage will be voided.
While clients with eligible plans have the right to make a claim to our cyber insurance provider in the event of a cyber incident, this does not guarantee that the claim will be approved or that coverage will be provided. The determination of coverage is subject to the terms and conditions of the insurance policy and the assessment of the insurance provider. In cases where coverage is voided, any damages or issues must be rectified at the Client’s expense, at our standard hourly rates during business hours or our rush rates outside of business hours.
Acceptable Use
All services provided by Made Neat may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data, or material in violation of any Australian Federal, State or Local law is prohibited. We reserve the right to refuse sites promoting anything that violate the laws of other countries as well.
Made Neat will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. Content that does not meet these standards will be removed without prior notice to the subscriber.
High-Risk Use
You may not use the Services in any circumstance or fashion where a failure of the Services could result in death or physical injury.
Security Requirements
You must take reasonable security precautions in connection with your use of the Services. You are responsible for the actions and omissions of your Authorized Users and anyone to whom you provide access to the Services or the content you create using the Services.
For the duration of your Agreement, you agree that Made Neat and its team members will be the only authorized admin-level accounts for your website. If any external party is granted an admin-level account, whether approved or not, any issues or errors resulting from the use or misuse of that account will not be covered under your plan. Such issues will be separately billable at our standard hourly rate during business hours, and our rush rate outside of business hours. Made Neat will maintain Super Admin rights and permissions, including the ability to limit access and visibility for other users within the Admin area to ensure the security and performance of your website.
WordPress Themes and Plugins
WordPress themes and plugins are created by a number of individuals or organisations acting independently of each other and of the core WordPress team. Although we aim to test themes and plugins for compatibility before upgrading them, it could still occur that a conflict arises between plugins, themes and other elements of WordPress. By using a theme or plugin you are bound by the terms and conditions of that plugin author – the details of which can be located via the relevant Theme and Plugins section of your website dashboard. In instances where we built the theme for the client, and it was within the last 2 years, we will carry out any required adjustments to ensure that the compatibility is addressed.
Should an issue occur in relation to a theme or plugin which negatively impacts on our clients we will prioritise and rectify the problem as soon as possible. Where we decide to deactivate a theme and plugin and the act of doing so has a negative impact on the appearance or performance of your website, then we will work to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
Should an issue be isolated to just your website, and we are able to isolate the issue to a plugin or theme not installed by us then it is possible we may charge you based on our hourly rate to fix the issue.
You acknowledge and agree that Made Neat is not liable for any damage to your website that may result from your use of a theme or plugin.
Made Neat will update WordPress core and plugins, and whenever possible the underlying theme. When a compatibility issue occurs, and the compatibility issue cannot be resolved due to a discontinuation of one or more plugins or components of the website such as its theme, the website will be reverted to a backup version to resolve the issue until the Client is able to provide instructions.
The Client will then be notified and will be provided with one or more remedies. These remedies may include billable hours when the plugin or component of the website causing the issue cannot easily be substituted for an alternative of equivalent functionality.
Cancellation, Suspension, and Termination
The Client may cancel the services at any time, for any reason, by providing 30 (thirty) days’ written notice, via Email for security purposes. However, this cancellation policy does not supersede any specific terms or conditions outlined in any separate contract or agreement made between Made Neat and the Client, including any fixed-term contracts.
No refund will be made for payments already made prior to cancellation being received by Made Neat.
Any outstanding invoices must be paid in full before a cancellation will be processed for the requested service.
Made Neat reserves the right to suspend all services if any invoices remain unpaid for a period of 30 (thirty) days or more.
Made Neat also reserves the right to terminate its agreement with a Client at any time, for any reason, without prior notification and will provide a cancellation notice either electronically or in writing sent to the address of record for the Client.
Made Neat reserves the right to terminate and delete all data (including backups) for any services which remain unpaid for a period of 60 (sixty) days or longer.
Dispute Resolution
The Client agrees that in case of a dispute arising from the provision of Services, these Terms, or the Service Agreement, the Client will first attempt in good faith, to informally negotiate a settlement or resolution of the dispute by contacting us in writing and informing in a comprehensive way of the grounds of the dispute.
If after bargaining in good faith, a resolution cannot be found, the parties will utilise an external mediation service, and pay their own costs. If the external mediation service cannot resolve the issue, court proceedings will be considered as a last resort.
Billing and Refunds
The establishment of this service is dependent upon receipt by Made Neat of payment of stated charges. Our billing and refund policy forms part of our Terms and can be found here – Billing & Refund Policy
Websites not built by us
We offer incredibly powerful and secure custom-built websites. Website build quality from third parties or agencies is not within our control. Therefore, we reserve the right to refuse to provide ‘Website Security and Performance’ Services on websites built by a third party or agency.
For third party websites that we agree to provide Services for, which have technical issues, the troubleshooting of these issues is deemed out of scope and a chargeable service at our standard hourly rate. Where a Support Pack Service has been purchased from Made Neat on such a website, troubleshooting will be included in the billable hours under that Support Pack Service.
All websites that are not built by us and hosted on our infrastructure are subject to an audit before publication.
Service Availability
We shall endeavour to provide continuing availability of services and server stability, but we shall not, in any event, be liable for service delays and interruptions or downtime of the server, outside of our Service Level Agreement. Your or your website users’ Internet or browser reliability or access to your website is not within our control, and we will not be liable for loss resulting from such.
If our Services become unavailable, then Made Neat will use reasonable measures to repair and reinstate those services within 24 hours of detection. Where such unavailability is due to the negligent failure of Made Neat to deal with circumstances within its control and is for more than a total of 24 hours in any 30-day period then Made Neat will at its discretion either pay to Client’s a compensatory monetary sum limited to a refund of the monthly fee paid or provide a credit up to the same amount.
Neither Made Neat nor anyone else who has been involved in the creation, production or supply of the services described in the WordPress Security and Performance Package or any Additional Services shall be liable to the Client or any other person for any loss in contract, tort (including negligence or breach of statutory duty) or otherwise howsoever and whatever the cause thereof by reason of or in connection with the Contract or those services for any:
• economic loss of any kind whatsoever, or
• loss of profit, business contracts, revenues or anticipated savings, or
• damage to your reputation or goodwill, or
• loss resulting from any claim made by any third party, or
• special, indirect or consequential loss or damage of any nature whatsoever, and you shall indemnify the Made Neat from and against any claim which may be made against Made Neat in respect thereof.
Content
Copyright
As the website owner, you agree to make all reasonable efforts to ensure that your content does not contravene copyright laws, and that you have been granted an intellectual property rights licence to display any third-party materials.
If we receive legal correspondence relating to a copyright breach on your website, we reserve the right at our discretion, to either issue you a Notice giving you 14 (fourteen) days to allow you the opportunity to remove the content yourself, or we may choose to remove the content.
If we issue a Notice for you to remove the content within 14 days, and the content is not removed within this timeframe, we reserve the right to remove the content immediately and to issue an account termination notice. An account termination notice provides you with 14 calendar days to migrate your services to another website Security and Performance service provider, after which time your account will be terminated and deleted from our servers.
Defamation
As the website owner, you agree to make all reasonable efforts to ensure your content is free of defamatory content.
Defamatory content is a breach of our Acceptable Use policy, and this clause should be read in conjunction with the Acceptable Use policy.
If we receive legal correspondence relating to any defamatory content on your website, whether actual, deemed or perceived to be defamatory by the injured party, whether known by you to be defamatory or not known, we will remove the content and provide notice to you of our reasons for removing it. Additionally we reserve the right at our discretion to terminate our agreement with you as per the Acceptable Use policy.
Service Performance – force Majeure
The Performance of our service is governed by these Terms and your Service Agreement. All services within our network are monitored 24/7 for potential performance issues. Accordingly, our service provision is generally of an extremely high standard.
There are many technical factors outside our control (force Majeure) that can impact on the performance of a given service – ie) software being used, excessive traffic or denial of service attacks, internet connection speeds, usage of a service in a way that it is not designed. As a result, service performance, speed or degradation issues affected by force Majeure will necessarily and proportionately limit our obligation to fulfil the requirements of a Service Level Agreement.
If you suspect a service-related performance issue, please open a support ticket or contact us so that we may investigate and report back to you.
Made Neat shall have no liability for loss or damages arising from being prevented or delayed in or from performing any of the services described in the WordPress Security and Performance Services or any of the Additional Services, due to circumstances beyond its control. Such circumstances are, but shall not be limited to, service-related performance issues mentioned above, governmental acts, war, riots, strikes or trade disputes (including by and with our own employees), technical failure, general availability of the Internet, power failure, communications failure, weather, flood, fire or explosion, natural or local emergency.
Incident Reports
Outages
For downtime greater than 12 hours, we will issue an incident report outlining the nature of the incident and steps taken to resolve and prevent repeat occurrences.
For downtime greater than 60 minutes and less than 12 hours, we will send you an email with relevant information and notification of a resolution.
Website hacking or defacement
Made Neat takes hacking and defacement attempts seriously, and we understand how they can impact on our Clients. We have employed security software to disable malicious code or files uploaded to your account to help protect against hacking or defacement, however we do not guarantee to monitor for such issues. If we detect an issue, we will contact you and provide information as to the cause and best method of resolution.
As you have the freedom to upload files to your website, you also have the freedom to unknowingly upload vulnerable or malicious files. Malicious files will be scanned and quarantined by our malware scanners, however, there is no such scan for a vulnerable file.
Firewalls, brute force and intrusion detection methods are used, however, it is your obligation to ensure that best practice security measures are followed ie) strong passwords.
Should you discover a hacking or defacement related issue before we do, please open a support ticket, or contact us so that we may investigate further. After our investigation is complete, we will issue an incident report outlining what has occurred and how to prevent it from reoccurring in the future.
Governing Law
This website is governed by the laws of the state of Queensland, Australia. Any dispute with Made Neat arising from the use of our website or services will be settled in this jurisdiction.
Terms and Conditions Updates
We reserve the right to revise, amend and modify the Made Neat Terms of Service at any time. For any minor amendments, we will notify you in writing by sending an email. For any material or significant amendments, we will broadcast the amendment on our website, and notify you in writing.
Liability and Indemnity
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Made Neat, its contractors, and its licensors, and their respective directors, officers, employees and agents from and against any and all claims and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, arising out of your use of Made Neat services, including but not limited to your violation of this Agreement.
To the fullest extent allowable at law, we will only accept liability to you, as required by Consumer or other laws, which cannot be excluded by contract.
Notwithstanding any other provision in the Terms or in the Service Agreement, in no event will Made Neat be liable to any party including the Client for any indirect, punitive, special, incidental or consequential damage in connection with or arising out of these Terms (including for loss of profits, use, data or other economic advantage) however it arises whether for breach of the Terms or in tort. The Client will indemnify Made Neat and keep it indemnified from and against any claims by any third party for or in respect of such damages. Made Neat’s liability is limited to the value of the contract with the Client or the value of the loss whichever is the smaller.
Questions
If you would like further information or have any questions regarding our terms of service, please do not hesitate to contact us using our contact us form or call 1300 254 791.