Website hosting agreement
Before jumping into bed with a website host, it’s worth thinking through what you expect of them – and making sure you agree these requirements in writing. Any agreement should, at the very least cover:
- Amount of storage space, bandwidth and provision for scaling up.
- The availability of the system (24/7?) and downtime for maintenance.
- Security for data processing.
- A confidentiality clause.
- The procedure to be adopted if an allegation is made that there is defamatory (or other unacceptable) content on the site. (It appears it will be a defence to such claims to have a system in place and move quickly to remove the offending material).
- Security, passwords and procedures for uploading material.
- An indemnity for claims against you if their provision or lack of it causes claims against you (e.g. downtime causes an advertiser to request money back).
- Assistance on transfer of materials/info/software, codes etc on termination.
- An indemnity from them in case they use software, which is not licensed to them.
If you have an arrangement with a website host but it doesn’t cover these 9 key areas or, worse still, you don’t have an agreement, your business could lose customers, revenue and worse – face legal proceedings for anything from breaches of the Data Protection Act to breaking obscenity laws.
Contact Cousins Business Law for advice on this topic.
Article added before March 2008 © Cousins Business Law
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