Terms of service

Terms Of Service

Nierika Digital, Terms of Service & Community Agreement

Last Updated: July 31, 2026

Agreement to Terms

By working with Nierika Digital, paying an invoice, or hosting your project on our infrastructure, you are joining our community and agreeing to these Terms of Service.

We operate on mutual trust and clear, usage based agreements rather than dense legal red tape or corporate contracts. If anything here does not align with your values or expectations, please reach out to us right away so we can talk. Continuing to use our hosting, support, or management services means you accept this policy and any thoughtful updates we make to keep our network healthy.

1. Our Craft, Uptime & Expectations

Nierika Digital is a worker owned collective. While we do not issue cold corporate SLAs or financial guarantees, we take immense pride in our craft and treat your digital home as if it were our own. We design our systems for maximum stability and actively aim for at least 99.9% operational uptime.

Our servers are backed up daily and monitored around the clock so that if something goes wrong, we are alerted and can step in immediately to fix it. That said, the internet relies on physical systems that can occasionally be affected by events beyond human control, such as extreme weather, upstream network cuts, power disruptions, or malicious attacks.

Important Boundary: If your organization runs life critical systems where a temporary outage poses a direct threat to safety or emergency services, our infrastructure is not intended for those specific high stakes requirements.

2. Shared Responsibility & Community Rules

We build digital tools for people who build communities. To keep our shared server environment fast, secure, and resilient for everyone, using Nierika Digital means agreeing to operate in good faith.

You agree that you WILL NOT:

  • distribute, send, or trigger unsolicited bulk email (spam) through our servers;
  • send bulk emails to more than 250 recipients at once using standard server mail functions (high volume newsletters or updates should always use dedicated tools like SendGrid or Postmark);
  • engage in illegal activities or use our network to harm others;
  • infringe on the creative work, copyrights, privacy, or human rights of any person or group;
  • attempt to probe, scan, hack, or disrupt Nierika Digital servers, neighbor sites, or outside networks;
  • monopolize or abuse shared system resources (CPU, RAM, or bandwidth) in a way that degrades performance for other community projects on the server;
  • cause our infrastructure to violate the ethical and operational guidelines of our upstream data center partners.

And you agree that you WILL:

  • take reasonable steps to safeguard your account, including using strong passwords and working with us to keep your custom plugins, themes, and scripts patched and updated.

3. Account Standing, Pricing & At Will Service

We operate on an at will basis built on mutual respect. We reserve the right to pause or end service for severe network abuse, non payment, or violations of this agreement, though our goal is always to build long term, supportive relationships.

Our pricing is honest and transparent. If your project grows significantly or requires unusual, heavy bandwidth, server resources, or specialized technical support hours beyond your base plan, we will work with you to adjust your rate fairly.

4. Migrations & Fully Managed Infrastructure

Incoming Migrations

We love welcoming new projects to our collective! Our technical team will make every effort to help move your website assets over to Nierika Digital smoothly. However, every host is built differently, and some corporate platforms use proprietary or locked down formats that make transfers complex or unpredictable. Because of this, we cannot guarantee the outcome or timeline of an incoming transfer, and we cannot be held liable for missing files from an old server. You are always responsible for keeping a safety backup of your site before initiating a move.

Fully Managed Infrastructure (No Control Panel Access)

Nierika Digital is a 100% fully managed service. You focus on your mission, your creative work, and your community; we handle the server administration, security hardening, caching, and technical maintenance. To keep our shared environment secure and pristine, we do not provide clients or third parties with direct backend server control panel access (such as cPanel) or root credentials under any circumstances.

Outgoing Transfers & Ownership

We believe in absolute digital autonomy, no lock ins, ever. You own your content, your design, and your data outright. If you ever decide to move your project to another host or team, we will generate and provide a downloadable archive package (a compressed .zip file containing all your web files and a complete database export). You or your new provider can take this package and set it up on any standard hosting environment. Our support covers creating and handing over your export, but does not extend to setting up or troubleshooting your site on a third party server.

5. Security, Server Protection & Hacking

We implement proactive server level security measures, automated firewalls, SSL certificates, and daily offsite backups to protect our infrastructure against unauthorized access, malware, and cyber attacks.

While we maintain active security monitoring and patch server level vulnerabilities continuously, no system connected to the internet can be guaranteed 100% immune from sophisticated cyber threats or zero day vulnerabilities. In the event of a security breach or hacked application, active Care Plan members receive emergency cleanup, malware removal, and backup restoration services at no extra charge. For non Care Plan accounts, compromised sites can be restored or cleaned through our emergency incident support service.

6. Our Stance on Spam & Email Deliverability

On Receiving Spam

Spam is a drain on energy, time, and attention. Identifying and stopping unsolicited bulk mail is essential to keeping our email systems clean and reliable.

On Sending Spam

We hold a strict zero tolerance stance on sending unsolicited bulk mail. When spam is sent from a server, major providers (like Gmail, Outlook, and Yahoo) and global blocklists (like Spamhaus) flag the server's IP address. That single action damages email deliverability for every other small business, nonprofit, and community group sharing that server.

We expect all clients to use thoughtful judgment when sending communications. If an account repeatedly sends mail that triggers spam complaints or threatens our network’s sender reputation, we reserve the right to pause or terminate that service to protect the rest of our community.

7. Prohibited Content & Applications

We build tech that respects people. We do not allow our infrastructure to be used for harmful, extractive, or malicious software. Strictly prohibited items include:

  • Topsites, Torrent trackers, or repositories for pirated software/warez;
  • IRC Bots, proxy scripts, anonymizers, IP scanners, or brute force tools;
  • Mail bombers, spam scripts, or illegal file dumping mirrors;
  • Predatory financial schemes, high yield investment programs (HYIP), or fraudulent escrow sites;
  • Unlicensed sales of controlled substances;
  • Gambling, lottery sites, or unlawful gaming platforms;
  • Hateful, racist, abusive, or harassing content targeted at protected groups or individuals;
  • Hacker exploit toolkits, malware archives, or malicious code distribution;
  • Deceptive or fraudulent websites (including those flagged on public anti fraud databases);
  • Threatening, defamatory, or harmful material that violates applicable laws;
  • Viruses, trojans, worms, or hostile computer scripts.

8. Invoicing, Overdue Payments & Domain Expiry

Invoicing & Financial Health

As a small worker owned collective, timely payments keep our doors open and our infrastructure running. Full account standing is required to initiate new site builds or support updates.

Overdue Payments & Recovery Fee

If hosting fees or domain registration renewals remain unpaid for more than 24 hours past the due date, services may be suspended. Reinstating a suspended account or recovering an expired service requires settling all outstanding balances plus a mandatory $95 recovery fee to cover administrative and technical restoration efforts.

Domain Expiry & Ownership Loss

Domain name registrations depend on strict third party registrar schedules and global internet registry rules (ICANN). If a domain renewal invoice is not paid on time, the domain name will expire and enter redemption or public auction. Nierika Digital has no control over third party domain registrars, registry redemption fees, or third party auctions. We cannot prevent an expired domain name from being acquired by a new owner or domain broker if renewal payments are missed. Nierika Digital assumes no responsibility or liability for lost domain names, transfer fees, or third party acquisitions resulting from late or unpaid domain invoices.

Policy Violations

If an account is closed due to severe, deliberate violations of this agreement (such as distributing malware or launching cyber attacks), service will be terminated immediately without refund.

9. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event will Nierika Digital, its worker owners, employees, or agents be liable to you or any third party for any indirect, consequential, incidental, or special damages, including lost profits, lost domains, or lost data, arising from your use of our services or any temporary service interruptions, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such issues.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

Nierika Digital provides all services on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We disclaim all warranties of any kind, expressed or implied, including warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. While we take deep care to protect your data through daily backups and proactive maintenance, clients are encouraged to maintain independent copies of their critical digital assets.