This Registrar Agreement is the contract that governs the commercial relationship between the registry and you, one of our registrars. Through this agreement, we want to:

• Ensure and reward higher standards to reinforce the reputation of the MU namespace as trusted, relevant and competitive
• Demonstrate how the MU domain name industry is responsibly self-regulating and working in the interests of registrants
• Strengthen the MU namespace, promoting best practice and supporting you, our registrars, by providing additional benefits and services to help you build a more robust MU business

Registrar Agreement

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

1. Interpretation

Good Practice Terms

are the terms which bring in the requirements and obligations helpful to the process of raising industry standards which are available from our website;

Systems

our registry systems for Registrars,

Transaction

any communication between you and us (or the Registrant and us) entered into with the intention of

(i) providing information to us

(ii) obtaining some sort of response from us or

(iii) entering into a contract (either for you or Your Registrant) with us;

Registrant

the person who is recorded on the Registry as being the one that the registration is ‘for’, and for these purposes also means applicants who have not yet entered into a contract with us but want to do so.

Your Registrant

means the Registrant that you are an agent for (which can be you).

2. Recognition and promises as to authority to act

2.1. On the terms of this Contract, we recognise you as being a Registrar and therefore able to act as an agent for Your Registrants (which can include you). This Contract contains some limits on what you can do for Your Registrant.

2.2. When the Registrant you act for is you the extra provisions of Schedule 1 apply.

2.3. We may require Your Registrant to Transact with us only via you, or to attempt to deal with you first, or to receive notices via you. Despite that, we remain allowed to deal directly with Your Registrant and we may set out situations where you have no power to act for Your Registrant or where the power you have is limited.

2.4. In relation to Your Registrant we will recognise you as having authority to act for that Registrant if:

2.4.1. (for an existing registration) the Registry records you as being the appointed Registrar;

2.4.2. the Transaction you are requesting is one which Registrars are allowed to request for their Registrants (see clause 2.3);

2.5 and we have not been told by you or the Registrant that you cannot act for them (we may set up procedures which set out how and when we need to be told).

2.6. We may allow some Registrars who enter into further contracts with us or who provide other undertakings or security to act in a greater range of Transactions than is permitted to Registrars generally, but if we do this, we will do so on a neutral and open basis, so that any Registrar who meets the criteria and enters into the extra obligations can have these benefits.

2.7. You promise us that in respect of every Transaction request you make:

2.7.1. you have the authority of the Registrant to make that request and (if applicable) enough authority from the registrant to fully commit them to all the terms of the contract or obligations connected with that request;

2.7.2. you will make the Registrant aware of the Registration Agreement and inform the Registrant that the registration cannot be completed until the Registrant agrees to the policies in the Registration Agreement;

2.7.3. you and only you who has been identified by us as a registrar is allowed access to our systems. You will not give these access credentials to anyone else;

2.7.4. you agree that the data shared between the registry and you may include information of a confidential nature and this information will not be shared with third parties;

2.7.5. the request for the Transaction is not prohibited by clause 3.2; and

2.7.6. you have complied with the Good Practice Terms in relation to the transaction.

2.8. If you break any of the promises in clause 2.7 and we or our staff (including contractors or agents) or directors later suffer loss caused in whole or in part upon our reliance on those promises, we reserve the right to suspend your status as registrar or put your registrar status on hold and you will pay us back for those losses, including any damage to our reputation, and the reasonable costs of any investigation, litigation or settlement.

3. Submitting Transactions

3.1. You must comply with the Policies in force at any particular time (they will change over time as our systems develop and you must regularly check which are the most recent versions and comply with them).

3.2. You should not request a Transaction if you know, or have reason to believe that any of the following apply or probably apply:

3.2.1. some or all of the information provided by or through you to us is false, deceptive, misleading, inaccurate or incomplete;

3.2.2. some or all of the Registrant identity information does not meet the requirements of the System Instructions;

3.2.3. the Registrant you identify to us in the Transaction has not instructed or requested you to act on its behalf or does not exist;

3.2.4. the System Instructions prohibit making that Transaction on behalf of the Registrant;

3.2.5. the Registrant has not been made aware of the policies in the Registration Agreement, or does not agree with the policies set in the Registration Agreement;

3.2.6. you no longer have authority to Transact with us on behalf of the Registrant; or

3.2.7. the service requested is one for which we require Registrants to enter into terms and conditions with us (e.g. the registration or renewal of a domain name) and you have not received positive confirmation that they are aware of, and accept in full, the current terms and conditions we offer for that service or Transaction at the date of the request for it.

3.3. Unless clauses 2.3 (limits on your authority) or 3.2 (transactions you must not request) apply, you must request the relevant Transaction promptly if:

3.3.1. the Good Practice Terms require it;

3.3.2. you are informed by or on behalf of Your Registrant of a change in their name or contact information, whether or not they request you to update the Register;

3.3.3. you are aware that there is duplicate information on the Registry in relation to Your Registrant that can be amalgamated or improved; or

3.3.4. we inform you that the Transaction is required (for example, we tell you that the registrant information you provided is formatted wrongly and ask for it to be corrected).

4. Recording information and data protection

4.1. You will not do anything which could put us in breach of the laws on data protection and the protection of personal information, or allow us to be put in this position because of your inaction.

4.2. We will hold records of your identity, and any Contacts relevant to the service being provided. You will ensure that every Contact consents to us holding the information and using it as needed (or reasonably helpful) in carrying out this Contract. It is your duty to keep us Notified of your Contacts and your current name and contact details at all times.

4.3. If you are issued with or have an identifier that is supposed to be secret for use with us or our systems, you must keep this identifier and access to your system secret and safe, to be used solely by yourself and no other party. We shall be allowed to assume that any action done or requested using that identifier or a product of it was done or requested by you or by someone authorised to act for you and we shall have, and be entitled to enforce, procedures for dealing with lost, revoked or compromised identifiers. Giving access to our systems to a third party without our consent can result in your registrar status to be suspended or revoked.

5. Dealing with Your Registrant indirectly

5.1.1. you may not transfer, subcontract or delegate any of your rights or obligations under this Contract;

5.1.2. you are responsible for Your Registrant and the information, service, marketing and advice they are given, whether or not you actually deal with them directly; and

6. Payment

6.1. We do charge for the provision of the services we provide to Registrants and Registrars (e.g. the registration of a domain name).

6.2. When you register a domain name for your registrant, you undertake to pay fees on behalf of Your Registrants and these fees will be payable by you even if your Registrant does not pay you.

6.3. The Payment And Credit Terms are incorporated in this Contract in full

7. Acceptable Use and Enforcement

7.1. We may require you to confirm to us (and provide reasonable evidence) how, and whether, you comply with the requirements of this Contract (including the Good Practice Terms) and the requirements of our use policies within a reasonable timescale set by us.

7.2. We aim to provide our services in a neutral and impartial way, and we have obligations to protect the information on the Registry. Accordingly we will have, and update from time to time, an Acceptable Use Policy which may include rules on restricting your access to our Systems if you do not comply with it. The Acceptable Use Policy will be written and enforced in line with our acceptable use principles, which are available on our website.

7.3. The Acceptable Use Policy may require that you declare in advance of any investigation any connections you have with another Registrar or any other party and you must do this.

8. Starting and ending the Contract

8.1. This Contract begins on the date that either:

(a) we notify you that we have accepted your application; or

(b) if you are an existing registrar, after a copy of these terms and conditions have been published on our website, and continues indefinitely unless terminated, or suspended, in accordance with the Contract.

8.2. Either party may terminate the Contract by Notifying the other party in writing

8.3. If you do not comply with this contract we may put it into a Special Status. In doing so, and in deciding which form of Special Status to put the contract into, we will act reasonably and consider (in addition to any relevant fact):

8.3.1. the reason for taking the action and whether the Special Status is relevant to it;

8.3.2. steps you have taken to resolve the problem and stop it happening again;

8.3.3. your past conduct;

8.3.4. the urgency of the problem; and

8.3.5. the Acceptable Use Policy.

8.4. (Without affecting the operation of clause 8.3) either party may terminate or suspend this Contract by Notifying the other if the other:

8.4.1. breaks any term of the Contract and (if it is possible to put right) does not put it right, and explain in writing the steps that have been taken to put it right, within 14 days after the other Notifying them that they should do so;

8.4.2. has been Notified of a breach before under 8.4.1 (whether or not they were put right) and is then Notified of a further breaking of the terms (whether or not it can be put right); or

8.4.3. stops (or threatens to stop) trading, or dies or enters any process (such as administration or liquidation) which may lead to that party not existing any more (except for the purpose of a genuine scheme of solvent amalgamation or reconstruction) or being bankrupt or insolvent.

8.5. If a party dies (for individuals) or otherwise stops existing (for businesses, companies and so on) the duty to Notify under clause 8.3 shall not apply.

8.6. Any termination, suspension or ending of the contract will not affect

8.6.1. any rights of action that either party has built up,

8.6.2. the coming into force or continuation in force of any provision of this Contract  which is expressly, or by implication, intended to come into or continue in force on or after the contract ends; or

8.6.3. the application to or validity of any wording or term which is used both in this contract and another one (for example, The Definition And Interpretation Terms are used in several of our contracts and will not be invalid just because this one ends).

9. Exclusions of Liability

9.1. Nothing in this Contract shall be taken to attempt to exclude or limit liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraudulent misrepresentation.

9.2. Subject to clause 9.1;

9.2.1. all representations, and all warranties, whether express or implied by law or otherwise, relating to the operation of our Systems and the data in them are excluded to the maximum extent permissible by law; and

9.2.2. we will not have any liability whatsoever to you or any End User to whom you relay results as a result of any failure or inaccuracy, delay or error in the operation of our Systems or the information from them.

9.3. Subject to clause 9.1, we will not be liable (on any legal basis) for any loss to you arising out of this Contract or your use of our Systems which could be described as;

9.3.1. loss of revenue;

9.3.2. loss of profits;

9.3.3. loss of goodwill;

9.3.4. loss of data;

9.3.5. indirect losses; or

9.3.6. consequential loss suffered by you.

10. Intellectual Property and Relationship of the Parties

10.1. Nothing in this Contract, or the actions we or you take because of it creates any sort of partnership, joint venture or other association between us. Neither party shall have any authority to bind the other in any way.

10.2. Both you and the registrant agree the Registry, WHOIS, and the data contained within them, belong to us and we can change them at any time.

10.3. As a confirmatory assignment you assign to us any Intellectual Property Rights you have in the Registry.

10.4. You must not use any of our Intellectual Property Rights or information they protect without our written permission.

11. General

11.1. If you or we cannot do what we must do under this contract for reasons totally out of our control (like wars, terrorism, natural disasters or major accidents) then the person involved is excused from having to do anything that it is unable to do until the cause is fixed (even if they should have had procedures in place to minimise disruption and did not).

11.2. We may make reasonable changes to the terms of the Contract from time to time.

11.3. This Contract is the entire contract between you and us in relation to the topics that it covers and replaces all earlier agreements, arrangements and understandings between you and us.

11.4. Nothing in this Contract is intended to grant rights to anyone other than you and us. This does not stop third parties (for example, registrants) from asking us to enforce this contract, but it means that they cannot do it themselves.

11.5. If any clause of this Contract is held to be invalid or unenforceable in whole or in part, the invalid or unenforceable wording shall be treated as if it did not exist.

Schedule 1 – Acting for yourself

1. When acting for yourself you are subject to both the contract for the service involved and this Contract. Where there is a conflict between the provisions, the contract for the specific service will apply.

2. You agree that if we have reason to believe that you have broken our Acceptable Use Policy and through this have gained some advantage in making a registration, we may suspend or cancel that registration.

Good Practice Terms

The Good Practice Terms are the terms first introduced in response to calls create a code of conduct for .mu registrars.  These terms strengthen the Registrar Agreement (which they are part of) to benefit end users and generally raise standards.  They cover good practice regarding the provision of pricing and service information, data accuracy, technical and business competence, and the publication of information about charges and service levels.

The Good Practice Terms

1. What can your customers expect?

The Internet industry is highly competitive, offering a wide choice to Registrants.  The current arrangements allow Registrars to decide how best to structure their relationship with their customers and this has led to a dynamic and competitive market for Internet services.  These Good Practice Terms do not seek to limit this.

However, it is essential that your customers (that is, Your Registrants) are well informed and understand the service that they are buying.

Therefore you must (in advance):

• Make your customers aware of the policies and charges associated with domain name registration, renewal and maintenance.
• Give details of the domain name related services you provide, which are relevant to this customer, information on how to invoke the service, any charges payable and how long you take to carry out the service.
• Make your customers aware of changes to your charges.
• Detail the method, availability and cost of customer service provided.

And you must:

• Act quickly after getting a request from your registrant to take some action for them; and
• update their details soon after you know that the current ones are out of date or wrong.

2. Registrant data

The contract has several requirements about giving us correct information about your Registrant.  In practice this means:

• You must not knowingly provide poor quality Registrant data.  If a Registrant has provided poor quality data you should attempt to correct the data. If you know that a particular Registrant usually gives poor quality data, you should take it up with your customer to stop this happening.
• A small number of Registrars routinely register domain names in their own name without the knowledge or permission of their customer.  This breaks the terms of the contract, because it can cause major problems for the intended Registrant.  If you receive a request to register a .mu domain name for a customer you must register the domain name in your customer’s name.  You may only register the domain name in your or your organisation’s name with the explicit prior written consent of your customer.  We might ask you to prove it if there is a query.

3. Explaining the registration contract

It is important that registrants understand that registering a .mu domain name involves making a contract with the registry. We may need to rely on this contract later, for example if we cancel a domain name for non-payment of renewal fees.  For this reason registrars are required to make registrants aware of the current version of our Terms of Domain Name Registration before the Contract is made and at renewal.  Remember that you provide a contractual promise to us confirming that you have made your customer aware of the Contract.

4. Handling complaints

As a Registrar we ask you to provide, and publish details of a complaints procedure that your customers can use if they are dissatisfied with your service.

5. How we enforce this

These Good Practice Terms are part of the Contract.  The terms and conditions requires you to prove how you meet your obligations under the Contract when we ask you to.  It requires you to provide evidence of how you do this, and prove this within time limits we set.

If you do not do this, the contract allows us to put the contract into Special Status.  The practical effect of that is that we may stop you acting as a Registrar for a while or forever, or may limit your access to our systems.  The Contract requires us to act reasonably and to think about various things when we are deciding what to do, such as your history, what the problem is, and what would be a sensible response.

Our approach will be to work with you to help you understand what you need to do.

Credit and Payment Terms

1.       We may (but are not obliged to) provide and maintain a credit account for you.

2.       When deciding whether to let you have a credit account, and during any time when you do have a credit account with us, we reserve the right to conduct credit checks in relation to you from time to time and to make a decision based in part on those references.

3.       The level of credit (if any) will be set by us from time to time, and we will notify you of our decision. You may request a different credit limit from time to time and we will consider your request but retain an absolute discretion as to what limit to offer you.

4.       We will have the right to inform a registrant if any fee for that domain name is outstanding.

5.       If you have outstanding arrears and/or exceed any credit limit in force from time to time, we may put the contract into a special status until the amount of recorded debt is less than the credit limit (but note the next clause). Most commonly this consists of declining to act on any request from you or relayed for an end user by you for which there is a charge payable.

6.       Where the money on account is insufficient to meet the debt outstanding, we may:

6.1.    require you to take actions other than payment to reduce the debt outstanding; and/or

6.2.    allocate the money on account to outstanding invoices without instructions from you.

6.3.    disallow any further requests by you and terminate your contract as a registrar

7.       We will charge any fees incurred by you (either directly, or because our processes allow you to pay them on behalf of another) direct to the credit account unless:

7.1.    you pay via another method at the time;

7.2.    the particular fee is one which we are not prepared to give credit for; or

8.       We use a credit system which allows you as a registrar to register, renew and transfer domains under .mu. Credits deposited should be in as a minimum deposit of USD 1000 (or equivalent in another currency). Depending on the method of deposit, it may take up to 5 business days for the deposit to be cleared. Please ensure that you provide adequate buffer for the payment to clear before it is updated in your account. The amount deposited will be net of all fees deducted by the respective payment providers. If the amount deposit is less than USD 1000, the account will not be updated until it has reached that amount.

9.       If there are any unpaid amount beyond 14 days from the date of the credit we may (in addition to any other rights we may have) decline to act on any request from you or relayed for an end user by you for which there is a charge payable.

10.   If any invoice(s) remain unpaid beyond 30 days from the date of the invoice we may (in addition to any other rights we may have) charge interest on a daily basis (compounded annually) on that part of the invoiced amount(s) remaining unpaid at the rate of 4% above the bank rate until payment in full is received.

11.   On termination of this contract (however it comes about) all credit facilities provided under this contract are withdrawn and any sums on the account become immediately due and owing unless we specify otherwise.

EPP Acceptable Use Policy

General use of our EPP service

The specific limits on the use of the create, check and delete commands are set out below.

Notwithstanding the above, it is not acceptable to use the EPP service, or knowingly or recklessly permit others to use the EPP service:

• to allow access by another party other than the authorised registrar
• so as to interfere with the use of the EPP by other customers or authorised users;
• in a manner which does, or is designed to, harass or cause a denial-of-service to any other user of the EPP service; or
• in a manner which causes or is likely to cause an interruption or degradation of, interference with, or disproportionate burden on the operations of the EPP service, regardless of whether such interruption, degradation, interference or burden is the result of the registrar’s actions or those of a third party over which the registrar has no control.

If, in the registry’s reasonable opinion, a registrar is using the EPP service in such an unacceptable manner, the registry will take such steps as it deems appropriate to stop the unacceptable use including, but not limited to, suspending, restricting or terminating the registrar’s access to or use of some or all of registrar systems.

Simultaneous connections

Each tag is limited to a number of connections to the EPP service.  The IP addresses used by each tag is set in advance. If more connections are opened, then older connections will be forcibly closed.

As registrar, I agree to the terms and conditions as set forth by this agreement.

Name:

Title:

Date: