Legal Information

Terms of Service

1. Who we are

IntenseServers is a trading name of Rogan Venter, a sole proprietor operating in the Republic of South Africa (the "Service Provider", "we", "us"). Our principal place of business is 2 Mozart Avenue, Riebeeckstad, Welkom, 9459, Free State, South Africa. You can reach us at support@intenseservers.co.za for service matters and legal@intenseservers.co.za for legal matters.

2. What these terms cover

These Terms of Service ("Terms") form a binding agreement between you (the "Customer", "you") and the Service Provider, governing your access to and use of any game server hosting service, control panel access, support service, or related product we provide (collectively, the "Services"). By creating an account, placing an order, or using any Service, you agree to be bound by these Terms, our Privacy Policy, our Acceptable Use Policy, and our Refund Policy.

If you do not agree with any part of these Terms, you must not use our Services.

3. Eligibility

You must be at least 18 years old, or have the consent of a parent or legal guardian, to enter into this agreement. By using our Services, you confirm that the information you provide to us is accurate, complete, and current, and that you have the legal capacity to enter into this agreement.

4. The Services we provide

We provide game server hosting on shared physical infrastructure located in South Africa. Each Service is provisioned with the resources (RAM, storage, network access) specified in your order. Specific game support, software versions, and feature availability are subject to change as the gaming and hosting ecosystems evolve.

No guaranteed Service Level Agreement (SLA). We make commercially reasonable efforts to maintain high availability and to respond to support requests promptly, but we do not currently offer a credit-backed uptime SLA. Scheduled and emergency maintenance may result in service interruption. Where reasonably possible, scheduled maintenance will be communicated in advance.

5. Account responsibilities

You are responsible for:

• Maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials, API tokens, and panel access;
• All activity that occurs under your account, whether authorised by you or not;
• Notifying us immediately at support@intenseservers.co.za if you suspect unauthorised access;
• Ensuring that the content you host, the software you install, and the activities you carry out on our infrastructure comply with these Terms, our Acceptable Use Policy, and all applicable South African law.

6. Payments, billing, and renewals

All prices are in South African Rand (ZAR) and inclusive of any applicable taxes unless stated otherwise. Payment is processed by PayFast (Pty) Ltd, our payment service provider. We do not store or have access to your full payment card details — these are handled directly by PayFast under their own security and privacy policies.

Services are billed monthly in advance via recurring PayFast subscription. By subscribing, you authorise us to debit the agreed amount on each billing cycle until you cancel. The first billing period begins on the day your Service is provisioned.

If a payment fails, your Service enters a grace period determined by your service tier (Starter: 3 days; Professional: 5 days; Premium: 7 days). During the grace period the Service remains accessible. After the grace period the Service is suspended, and after a further period (typically 30 days from the original due date) the Service and its data are permanently deleted.

7. No cooling-off period; all sales final

Hosting Services begin immediately upon payment and provisioning. Accordingly, our Services are excluded from the cooling-off provisions of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 2002. By placing an order you expressly consent to the immediate provision of the Service and acknowledge that you waive any cooling-off right that may otherwise have applied to a service of this nature.

All sales are final. Refunds are available only in the limited circumstances set out in our Refund Policy, namely: where we fail to provision the Service you paid for and cannot resolve the failure within 7 days of payment; or where you have been charged in error. Nothing in this clause limits any non-waivable rights you may have under the Consumer Protection Act, 2008.

8. Cancellation and termination by you

You may cancel your Service at any time from your client portal or by contacting support. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period — you will retain access to your Service until that date. No pro-rata refund is provided for partially used billing periods, except where required by law.

9. Suspension and termination by us

We may suspend or terminate your Service, with or without prior notice, if:

• You fail to pay amounts due after the applicable grace period;
• You breach these Terms or our Acceptable Use Policy;
• Your use of the Service threatens the stability, security, or reputation of our infrastructure or other customers;
• We are required to do so by law, court order, or instruction from a competent authority;
• You initiate a payment chargeback or dispute without first raising the issue with our support team (see clause 10).

Where we terminate for material breach, no refund will be issued, and we reserve the right to pursue any amounts owed.

10. Chargebacks

If you have a billing concern, you must contact support@intenseservers.co.za first. Initiating a chargeback or payment reversal through your bank or PayFast without first attempting to resolve the matter with us is a material breach of these Terms and may result in immediate Service termination, deletion of your data, and refusal of future Service.

11. Customer data and content

You retain all rights to the data, server files, world saves, plugins, configurations, and other content you upload to, generate on, or store on your Service ("Customer Data"). You grant us a limited licence to host, store, transmit, back up, and otherwise process Customer Data solely as necessary to provide the Service to you.

We do not access, inspect, or use the contents of your Customer Data except: (a) with your consent; (b) when necessary for technical support you have requested; (c) when investigating a credible report of abuse or breach of these Terms; or (d) when required by law.

12. Backups

You are responsible for maintaining your own backups of any Customer Data you consider important. While we may operate infrastructure-level backups for our own operational purposes, we do not guarantee that such backups will be available, complete, or recoverable on request, and we are not liable for any loss of Customer Data.

13. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by South African law, our total aggregate liability to you arising out of or in connection with the Services, whether in contract, delict (tort), statute, or otherwise, shall be limited to the total amount you have paid us for the Service in question during the three (3) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

We shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including without limitation loss of profits, loss of revenue, loss of data, loss of goodwill, or business interruption, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any liability that cannot be excluded or limited under South African law, including under the Consumer Protection Act, 2008.

14. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the Service Provider against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from: (a) your use of the Services; (b) your breach of these Terms; (c) your violation of any law or third-party right; or (d) Customer Data hosted on your Service.

15. Force majeure

We shall not be liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including but not limited to: load shedding and power grid failures, upstream network outages affecting our ISP, natural disasters, civil unrest, government action, pandemic, or third-party service provider failure (including PayFast, upstream transit providers, or hardware vendors).

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be communicated to you by email and posted on this page at least 14 days before they take effect. Continued use of the Services after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

17. Governing law and dispute resolution

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa. The parties consent to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Division, Johannesburg, for the resolution of any dispute arising out of or in connection with these Terms.

Before commencing legal proceedings, the parties agree to attempt to resolve any dispute in good faith through direct negotiation.

18. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, that provision shall be severed to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions shall continue in full force and effect.

19. Contact

Questions about these Terms can be sent to legal@intenseservers.co.za.

Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how IntenseServers (Rogan Venter, sole proprietor) collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal information. We process personal information in accordance with the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 (POPIA).

1. Who we are (Responsible Party)

For the purposes of POPIA, the Responsible Party is:

• Name: Rogan Venter, trading as IntenseServers
• Address: 2 Mozart Avenue, Riebeeckstad, Welkom, 9459, Free State, South Africa
• Information Officer: Rogan Venter
• Contact: legal@intenseservers.co.za

2. What personal information we collect

We collect the following categories of personal information:

• Account information: name, email address, username, hashed password, optional contact phone number;
• Billing information: billing name, billing email, payment transaction references and PayFast subscription identifiers (we do not store full payment card numbers, CVVs, or expiry dates — these are handled by PayFast);
• Service information: the Services you order, server names, plan tier, provisioning timestamps, server configuration metadata;
• Technical information: IP addresses used to access our website and panels, browser user agent, session cookies, server access logs, panel API usage logs;
• Support communications: any emails, support tickets, or messages you send us, including their contents and attachments;
• Customer Data on your Service: the files, world saves, configurations, plugins, and other content you upload to or generate on your hosted Service. We treat this as your data, not ours, and access it only as described in our Terms (clause 11).

3. Why we collect this information (lawful basis)

We process personal information for the following purposes:

• Performance of contract: creating and managing your account, provisioning and operating your Services, processing payments, providing support;
• Legal obligation: retaining billing records for tax purposes (SARS requires retention of financial records for at least 5 years), responding to lawful requests from authorities;
• Legitimate interest: investigating abuse, fraud, security incidents, chargebacks, and breaches of our Terms; improving our Services; protecting our infrastructure and other customers;
• Consent: sending optional service announcements or marketing communications, where you have opted in.

4. Who we share information with

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with the following categories of third parties, and only to the extent necessary:

• PayFast (Pty) Ltd — our payment service provider, for processing subscription payments. PayFast operates under its own privacy policy.
• Cloudflare, Inc. — our DNS and CDN provider, which may process technical information including IP addresses for security and performance purposes.
• Xneelo (Pty) Ltd — our outbound email (SMTP) provider, used to deliver transactional and support emails.
• Upstream network providers — our internet transit is provided through Vox Telecom and shared gateway infrastructure. Network-level traffic metadata may pass through this infrastructure as part of normal operation.
• Legal authorities — where required by law, court order, or lawful request from a competent South African authority.

We do not transfer personal information outside South Africa except where a third-party processor listed above operates internationally; in such cases we rely on the cross-border transfer provisions of POPIA section 72.

5. How long we keep information

• Account and service data: for the duration of your account, plus 12 months after account closure for operational and dispute-handling purposes;
• Customer Data on Services: deleted within 30 days of Service termination, in line with our suspension and deletion process;
• Billing and tax records: retained for at least 5 years from the relevant financial year, as required by South African tax law;
• Support communications: retained for up to 24 months for quality and dispute-handling purposes;
• Server access logs: typically retained for 30 to 90 days, longer if subject to an active abuse or security investigation.

6. Your rights under POPIA

You have the right to:

• Access the personal information we hold about you;
• Correct or update inaccurate or incomplete information;
• Delete your personal information, subject to our legal retention obligations;
• Object to processing of your information for direct marketing purposes;
• Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent;
• Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa (inforegulator.org.za) if you believe we have not handled your information in accordance with POPIA.

To exercise any of these rights, contact legal@intenseservers.co.za. We will respond within 30 days.

7. How we protect your information

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, including: encrypted connections (TLS) for all web traffic; hashed password storage; role-based access control on administrative systems; firewalled internal networks; regular security updates to our infrastructure software stack.

No system is perfectly secure. In the event of a personal information breach affecting your data, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as soon as reasonably possible, in accordance with POPIA section 22.

8. Cookies

Our website and client portal use cookies strictly necessary for authentication, session management, and security (such as CSRF protection). We do not currently use third-party advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. If this changes, this Privacy Policy will be updated.

9. Children

Our Services are not directed at children under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe we have inadvertently collected information from a child, please contact us and we will delete it.

10. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated to you by email and posted on this page.

Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") defines what you may and may not do with your IntenseServers Service. It exists to protect our infrastructure, our other customers, and our standing with our upstream providers. Breach of this AUP is a material breach of our Terms of Service and may result in immediate suspension or termination without refund.

1. Lawful use

You must use our Services in compliance with all applicable laws, including the laws of the Republic of South Africa. You must not use our Services to host, distribute, or facilitate anything that is illegal under South African law.

2. Prohibited content and activities

You must not use your Service to host, store, distribute, or transmit:

• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) or any sexualised content involving minors. This is a zero-tolerance category — accounts will be terminated immediately and reported to the South African Police Service.
• Content that incites violence, hatred, or discrimination on the grounds of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability.
• Content that infringes third-party intellectual property rights, including pirated games, cracked software, leaked source code, or unlicensed copyrighted media.
• Cheats, hacks, exploits, or game modification distribution platforms targeting games whose publishers prohibit such modifications.
• Malware, ransomware, viruses, worms, trojans, keyloggers, botnet command-and-control infrastructure, or any other malicious software.
• Phishing pages, scam sites, fraudulent storefronts, or any content designed to deceive users into disclosing credentials or financial information.
• Cryptocurrency mining of any kind. Game server resources are not to be repurposed for mining.

3. Network and infrastructure abuse

You must not use your Service to:

• Launch, participate in, or facilitate denial-of-service (DoS or DDoS) attacks against any target;
• Run port scans, vulnerability scans, or penetration tests against systems you do not own or have written permission to test;
• Send unsolicited bulk email (spam), or operate open mail relays;
• Run open proxies, open VPN exit nodes, or anonymisation services that hide the origin of abusive traffic;
• Bypass, disable, or interfere with any security or rate-limiting mechanism on our infrastructure;
• Use your Service in any way that materially degrades the performance or availability of our infrastructure for other customers, including through resource exhaustion, runaway processes, or unbounded recursion.

4. Abuse-attracting content

Game servers can attract retaliatory DDoS attacks, doxxing, and harassment. While running a legitimate competitive or PvP server is not a breach of this AUP, you remain responsible for managing your community and for the consequences of attracting sustained abuse to our shared infrastructure. We reserve the right to suspend or migrate Services that attract attacks threatening other customers' availability, even where the underlying use is lawful.

5. Reporting abuse

If you become aware of a breach of this AUP, please report it to abuse@intenseservers.co.za with as much detail as possible. Reports are reviewed promptly and treated confidentially.

6. Enforcement

We investigate AUP complaints in good faith. Depending on the severity, our response may include: a written warning; temporary suspension; permanent termination without refund; preservation and disclosure of relevant data to law enforcement; civil or criminal proceedings. We aim to be proportionate but reserve the right to act immediately where a breach poses an active risk to our infrastructure, our other customers, or third parties.