General Terms and Conditions

§ 1 Scope and Provider

(1) The following general terms and conditions (GTC) apply to all business relationships between Wolfscastle Inh. Joshua Gerke, Am Sandberg 14, 38442 Wolfsburg, Germany (hereinafter the “Provider” or “Domain-Reseller-API”) and its customers (hereinafter the “Customer”).

(2) The services of Domain-Reseller-API are directed exclusively at entrepreneurs (Unternehmer) within the meaning of § 14 of the German Civil Code (BGB), legal entities under public law and special funds under public law (B2B). Contracts with consumers (§ 13 BGB) are excluded. In case of doubt, if no proof of entrepreneur status is provided, the Customer shall be deemed to be an entrepreneur.

(3) Conflicting, deviating or supplementary terms of the Customer do not become part of the contract unless the Provider expressly agrees to their validity in writing.

§ 2 Subject Matter and Scope of Services

(1) Domain-Reseller-API provides the Customer with a technical infrastructure for registering, managing and transferring domains via an API (application programming interface) as “Software as a Service” (SaaS). When registering domains, the Provider acts solely as an intermediary between the Customer and the respective registration authority (registry) or the upstream registrar.

(2) In addition to these GTC, the registration of domains is subject to the respective allocation policies and registration terms of the competent registration authorities (e.g. DENIC eG for .de domains, ICANN for gTLDs). The Customer is obliged to inform itself about these terms and to comply with them when registering domains.

(3) Domain-Reseller-API endeavours to achieve the highest possible availability of the services on an annual average. This excludes delays, interruptions or disruptions caused by factors beyond the Provider’s control (e.g. outages at upstream providers or registries, (D)DoS attacks) as well as necessary maintenance work.

§ 3 Conclusion of the Contract and Obligations of the Customer

(1) Third-party rights: The Customer undertakes to use the services exclusively for their intended purpose. No domains may be registered that infringe trademark rights, name rights, copyrights or other rights of third parties. The Provider does not carry out any legal review.

(2) Premium domains: Certain domains are offered by registries or third-party providers as premium domains at increased, domain-specific prices. Whether a domain is a premium domain and which price applies is shown to the Customer during the availability check or before the registration is completed; the regular list prices of the respective TLD do not apply in this respect. By placing the order, the Customer accepts the premium price displayed. The Customer is obliged to check before registration whether the domain is a premium domain.

(2a) Premium aftermarket domains: Premium domains from the secondary market (aftermarket) are provided via the upstream registrar in partnership with third-party providers (in particular Sedo.com and Afternic); their terms apply additionally. The Provider does not operate the underlying infrastructure and gives no warranty for its availability. Provision regularly requires a registrar transfer and may take several days; the Provider accepts no liability for delays. The deletion or termination of a premium aftermarket domain does not give rise to any claim to a refund of fees already paid. If the Customer registers premium domains for third parties (end customers), it is obliged to inform them of the above terms and of the terms of the third-party providers before the purchase and to obtain their consent.

(3) Contact data (handle data): The Customer ensures that the contact data stored for the domain holder (owner-C, admin-C, etc.) are always correct, complete and up to date. Upon request (e.g. due to ICANN requirements), the Customer is obliged to provide proper proof of identity within 24 hours.

(4) Prohibition of abuse: It is strictly prohibited to use the infrastructure for spam, phishing, the distribution of malware, (D)DoS attacks or the processing of payment card data (PCI) in breach of security policies.

§ 4 Prices, Terms of Payment and Prepaid Wallet

(1) Fees are paid via a prepaid wallet system. The Customer tops up its credit in advance. Registrations, renewals and other chargeable domain operations are automatically debited from the credit. All prices are net prices plus VAT.

(2) Insufficient funds: The Provider only carries out new registrations and renewals to the extent that the fees are covered by the wallet balance. Monitoring the available funds is the sole responsibility of the Customer. If the wallet does not contain sufficient funds, the Provider is entitled not to renew domains that are due. These domains are either deleted (close) or returned to the registry (transit). If the funds are only partly sufficient, domains are renewed in the order of their due dates until the credit is used up.

(3) Price adjustments: Price changes by the registration authorities (registries) or upstream providers are passed on directly to the Customer by the Provider. The Customer agrees to such price changes.

§ 5 Term, Termination and Transit

(1) The term of domain contracts is generally 12 months, unless the respective registry terms provide otherwise.

(2) The framework agreement is concluded for an indefinite period and may be terminated by either party at any time with 14 days’ notice to the end of a calendar month.

(3) The right to extraordinary termination for good cause remains unaffected. Good cause exists in particular in the event of abuse (§ 3), default in payment or serious breaches of registry terms.

§ 6 Liability and Indemnification

(1) Domain-Reseller-API is liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence. In the event of slight negligence, liability exists only for the breach of material contractual obligations (cardinal obligations) and is limited to the foreseeable damage typical for this type of contract.

(2) No guarantee of domain allocation: The Provider has no influence on the allocation of domains by the registries. It gives no warranty that requested domains will be allocated, are free of third-party rights or will remain registered permanently.

(3) Exotic domains (manual TLDs): For country-code top-level domains of small registries without automated interfaces (so-called exotic domains), the Provider expressly accepts no liability for any loss of the domain, in particular in connection with renewals.

(4) Indemnification: The Customer indemnifies the Provider against all claims, damages and costs (including reasonable costs of legal defence) asserted against the Provider by third parties on the grounds of infringements of rights (e.g. trademark rights, name rights) by the domains registered by the Customer or their use.

§ 7 WHOIS Privacy (Whois Privacy Protection)

(1) As an optional additional service, the Provider offers to replace the holder and contact data in the public WHOIS/RDDS with placeholder data (“WHOIS privacy”). Availability depends on the respective TLD and the upstream registrar used; there is no entitlement to this service.

(2) For certain TLDs, WHOIS privacy is provided by the Whois Privacy Protection Foundation via the upstream registrar. In this case, its terms of use (“WPP Terms”) apply additionally and must be accepted separately upon activation. If the Customer registers domains for third parties (end customers or domain holders), it is obliged to inform them of the WPP Terms and to obtain their consent before activation.

(3) Scope of service: WHOIS privacy only replaces the contact data in public WHOIS directories. Anonymity of the domain holder is not guaranteed; in particular, the holder’s identity may remain ascertainable from website content, name servers or other circumstances.

(4) No forwarding of communications: E-mails sent to the placeholder addresses are not forwarded but merely answered with an automatic notice explaining how to make contact. Postal items sent to the placeholder address are not forwarded and may be inspected, returned or destroyed by the privacy service provider. Claims based on communications not received for this reason are excluded; the Customer ensures that the domain holder is informed of this.

(5) Usage limits: WHOIS privacy is only available for domains of natural persons used for non-commercial purposes. Commercial use and breaches of the WPP Terms entitle the deactivation of the service.

(6) Suspension and disclosure: The privacy service provider and the upstream registrar are entitled to suspend or terminate the service at any time and to disclose the actual holder data, in particular where required by law, by court or official order, upon requests from dispute resolution bodies (e.g. UDRP), in the event of a well-founded suspicion of abuse, commercial use or default in payment. Where possible, advance notice is generally given 24 hours beforehand. The Provider is not liable for any such disclosure.

(7) Transfers: As long as WHOIS privacy is active, the privacy service provider may refuse to release the auth code and to carry out domain transfers. Where necessary, the Customer must deactivate the service before a transfer.

(8) The obligation to store correct, complete and up-to-date holder data (§ 3(3)) remains unaffected by the activation. Breaches may lead to the deactivation of the service or the deletion of the domain. The indemnification under § 6(4) also extends to claims asserted against the Provider, the upstream registrar or the privacy service provider in connection with the use of WHOIS privacy.

§ 8 Data Protection and Processing on Behalf

(1) The parties comply with the applicable data protection regulations (GDPR).

(2) Insofar as the Provider processes personal data on behalf of the Customer (e.g. holder data for the WHOIS/Registration Data Directory Service), the parties conclude a data processing agreement (DPA) pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR. The Provider is entitled to pass on data to registries and upstream providers insofar as this is strictly necessary for the performance of the contract.

§ 9 Amendments to these GTC

Domain-Reseller-API reserves the right to amend these GTC at any time. The Customer will be notified of amendments by e-mail at least four weeks before they take effect. If the Customer does not object to the amendments in text form within this period, the amendments are deemed to have been approved.

§ 10 Final Provisions

(1) The law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).

(2) The place of performance and exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from this contract is the registered place of business of Domain-Reseller-API (Wolfsburg).

(3) Should individual provisions of this contract be or become invalid, this does not affect the validity of the remaining provisions.