The following document covers the terms and conditions for Tecology Consulting Group Limited, this website, our other online services and all Tecology customer projects.

These terms and conditions lay out, in as simple language as we can, our expectations. They are intended to protect you and us from anything unexpected happening when we are working together.

For the purposes of these terms and conditions, “we”, “us”, “Tecology” and “our” refers to Tecology Consulting Group Limited, and “you” and “your” refers to you or the organisation that you represent.

1. Privacy

We have a separate privacy policy, as well as a cookie policy which should be read in conjunction with the information below. This privacy information applies to Tecology Consulting Group Limited customers, visitors and users of this website and users of all our other online services.

Should you choose to comment on the articles on the Tecology website, we collect some private information including your name, email address and should you choose to enter it, your website URL. Your email address will always be kept private, however, should your comment be published, your name will be displayed next to the comment. You should only provide information in a comment that you are happy to be published on the internet. Tecology will always have the last word to approve or not approve a comment for any reason.

2. Hosting

This information on hosting applies to any Tecology customers that host a website with us, including a staging site:

2.1. We do not host your website on servers owned and operated by us. Instead, we re-sell hosting from larger companies. As a consequence, these larger hosting companies have their own terms and conditions, terms of use as well as other legal documents. These will be provided to you (or links to them) when you host with us. You must accept these documents in order to host with us.

2.2. Of course we will try to keep your site up and running at all times however we cannot guarantee that your site will always be online. This is because we are subject to the availability of our hosting provider and we can accept no liability for losses that may be incurred as a result of your website being offline or failing.

2.3. Although Tecology does keep a backup of your site(s) hosted with us, this backup cannot be guaranteed to be available at any point in time. Tecology is not responsible for any data that is lost or damaged. We can help you with setting up a backup service should you wish us to do so.

2.4. Our hosting services should not be used to host anything illegal or offensive. If you need clarification on examples of this then please let us know. If it is deemed that you are hosting such content, your site will be immediately suspended, and we are not responsible for any loss of data that could happen.

2.5. Under the terms of the GDPR, it requires that you, as a data controller for the content you host, enter into a data processing agreement with us. By accepting these terms, you are also accepting our data processing agreement.

3. Data, Designs and Backup

This section applies to all Tecology customers.

3.1. We always send project deliverables in an electronic format.

3.2. We will keep copies of the code or designs that we have delivered to you and you agree to this, including allowing us to store this on whatever storage we deem necessary.

3.3. You are responsible for making sure that your code, website or software is backed up and Tecology is not liable for any data that is lost or damaged.

3.4. When migrating a site developed by us to replace an existing site, you authorise us to take and store a copy (a backup) of the old site. This is for restoration purposes should this data be needed in the future. We will keep this backup (un-accessed unless necessary) for the duration of your new sites ‘warranty period’, after which it will be deleted from our storage.

4. Copyright, Content and development (code)

This section applies to all Tecology customers.

4.1. Usually we build our customer projects using software (WordPress) which is released under an open source license. As a result of this, any derivative work we create for you means that:

• You are free to use, copy and modify the work yourself
• You maintain the copyright of the work
• You are not required to release it to the public, but should you choose to do so, you must do so using the same license

4.2. For any work that you create using our services you will own the copyright as much as is allowed.

4.3 Any work that we create for you will be owned by you, and you will grant Tecology an unlimited license to use, copy and modify the work as well as allowing Tecology to base other works upon them. The reason for this is to allow us to re-use things we and built before rather than having to re-build everything from scratch each time.

4.4. Any content or assets (including but not limited to images, videos and fonts) uploaded to your site must either be owned by you, licensed to you for use on your site or in the public domain and therefore free from copyright restrictions. You take full responsibility for any content and assets you add to your site. Any content or assets uploaded to our servers that is found to not have the relevant permissions will be removed by either ourselves or our hosting company. We cannot accept any liability for costs as a result of content or asset removal.

4.5. Sometimes we take advantage of third party code (commonly in the form of plugins for WordPress) in order to complete specific parts of your project. We do this to speed up the time it takes to build some features which can reduce the cost of your project. From time to time these third party solutions are updated, sometimes with feature enhancements and sometimes because of a security update. You agree that we cannot be held responsible if these updates have an adverse effect on your project. In addition, we are only allowed to allow clients to use our license for these third-party solutions to clients with whom we have an ongoing relationship. Once a project is completed, if we no longer have a working relationship (for example a client choose not to have a website maintenance plan), these licenses must be removed from your project and although these plugins will continue to function, it does mean that updates won’t be available. Clients always have the option to purchase licenses for these plugins themselves.

4.6. During the course of a project you agree that Tecology will be the sole developers on the project unless otherwise agreed in writing beforehand.

5. Data Processing Agreement

This section applies to all Tecology customers.

5.1. Many, if not most of the projects that we carry out require us to process some of your personal data for which you are the data controller. By accepting these terms you are also accepting our data processing agreement.

6. Technical Support

This section applies to all Tecology customers.

6.1. We are not perfect! and we sometimes don’t get everything correct. Therefore if you find a bug (something that is in scope and not working correctly) within 1 year of your project being delivered and assuming that the codebase to your project has not been altered since launch, please get in touch and we will endeavour to correct this as soon as is practically possible.

6.2. We try our very best to make websites display on a wide range of modern devices and browsers. However, we cannot be responsible when pages or content do not display on older out-of-date browsers. If you require support for a specific device and/or browser, please indicate this at the start of your project.

7. Portfolio Usage

This section applies to all Tecology customers.

7.1. We love to talk about, display and publish information about the work that we do with our clients. It often helps new customers make informed decisions about engaging with us. You, therefore, agree that we can display, publish and talk about the work that we do with you and this can be included in our portfolio on our website as well as published on our site in other ways we deem helpful e.g. a blog post or case study about a particular project. We will of course never include any sensitive information in such portfolio items. If for some reason you do not want our relationship public, please let us know.

7.2. We also include a small backlink to our website in the footer of websites we produce and you agree to keep this link present on your site. Again if this is a problem, please let us know.

8. Payment terms

This section applies to all Tecology customers.

Unless otherwise agreed all invoices from Tecology are issued with a 15-day payment term, to be paid via electronic transfer into the Tecology bank account. All payment details are included on the invoice.

For websites, the final invoice must be paid before the site can be launched.

For all pre-paid work, where you pay for a number of hours/days to be delivered, ad-hoc or via a retainer package, time purchased must be used within 180 days of the payment being made.

9. Disclaimer

This section applies to all Tecology customers.

9.1. During our professional relationship we may give advice on software tools and other digital solutions. Although we are confident that we know about lots of useful tools we cannot guarantee that this advice is the best and most up-to-date. With this in mind, we cannot, therefore, accept liability for any costs incurred by you that are caused by us providing you with such advice and information.

9.2. We both agree that we’ll adhere to all relevant laws and regulations in relation to our activities whilst working together and not cause the other to breach any relevant laws or regulations. Our agreement and work completed by us are under the jurisdiction of English and Welsh courts. This does mean any claims arising from work undertaken between you and us will be handled in Scottish courts.