Last update: July 16, 2024
Hive Computing Services SA (“Hive”, “we”, “us”) provides cloud storage services with user-controlled encryption. Using Hive, you and other users can encrypt your files using user-controlled encryption (“UCE”), upload, access, store, manage, share, download, and decrypt files and any data (all of which we call “data” in these terms) and give access to that data to others (all together, “services” and each, a “service”). We provide our services ourselves on our websites at http://hivenet.com subdomains and related sites (“websites”), using our mobile apps (“mobile apps”), our desktop apps (“desktop apps”), our command line tools (“cmd tools”), our browser extensions (“browser extensions”) and our application programming interface (“API”).
Please read these Terms of Use carefully before using Hive services. These terms are binding and apply to any use of the services by you and anyone you allow to access your data or our services. By using our services, you and they irrevocably agree to these terms. If you or they do not accept these Terms of Use, you or they are not authorized to continue using Hive.
Hive does not have access to any of the data you provide or store by using our services, except the data you provide to Hive for communicating with us, allowing us to offer you our services, and subscribing to our services or while navigating the Hive website and apps. See our Privacy and Data Policy and our Cookie Policy for more details in this respect. You and anyone else you give access to are also bound by our Privacy and Data Policy and our Cookie Policy. By accepting these terms, you also accept our Privacy and Data Policy and our Cookie Policy.
In light of the above, all data you provide by using our services belongs to you or, as applicable, you are deemed the controller in respect of any data you (or any other users to whom you give access to your files) provided and/or stored by using our services, assuming all the obligations and responsibilities provided for as per the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) or any other similar local data protection laws applicable. In this context, it is your responsibility (without limitation) to ensure that any person concerned by the personal data you provide and/or store using Hive services has been duly informed of any processing and, if required, has given any relevant consent.
If you allow others to access your data (e.g., by giving them a link to and a key to decrypt that data), in addition to them accepting these terms, you are responsible for their actions and omissions while they are using our services. You agree to fully indemnify us for any claim, loss, damage, fine, costs (including our legal fees), and other liability if they breach any of these terms. This is particularly the case where you are the administrator of a business account.
Please note that you can access your data or give someone else access to your data worldwide by using our services, including from a country that does not adequately protect personal information compared to that given under GDPR or Swiss data protection law. Accordingly, you will ensure compliance with any of your relevant duties in this respect under applicable laws and, by agreeing with these terms, authorize us to allow such access to you (or any other users to whom you give access to your data).
It is your sole responsibility to determine whether the services meet your needs, your business's, or any other needs and are suitable for the purposes for which they are used.
You must maintain copies of all data stored on our services. We do not guarantee that data will not be lost or that the services will be bug-free. You should download all data prior to terminating services.
Our services may automatically (without us viewing the file content) delete a file you upload, store, access, or share where it determines that the file is an exact duplicate of a file already on our service (a process usually referred to as deduplication). In that case, you and any other user will access the original file, which will be retained as long as any user has a right to access it under these terms. Any right of deletion that you exercise will not apply to a deduplicated file associated with another user.
When you use our services, your data is stored subject to these terms and any plan you subscribe to. If you choose to stop using our services, you must download your data first because, after account closure, we shall delete all your files unless otherwise required by you or the law.
If we suspend or terminate our services to you because you have breached these terms or someone you have given access to has breached these terms during the suspension term, we may deny your access to our services—and thus your files and personal data—but keep them for evidential purposes or delete them once investigations are complete.
In circumstances where we cease providing our services for other reasons, we will give you 30 days' notice to retrieve your data if we consider it appropriate, it is reasonably practicable, and we are not prevented by law or likely to incur any liability in doing so.
UCE is fundamental to our services. This means that you, not us, have encrypted control of who has access to your data. You should keep your password and Recovery Key safe and confidential. You must not share your password with anyone else and should not release encryption keys to anyone else unless you wish them to have access to your data. If you lose or misplace your password, you will lose access to your data. Encryption will not help, though, if someone has full access to your system or device. We strongly urge you to use best practices to ensure the safety and security of your system and devices (e.g., using unique passwords, security upgrades, firewall protection, anti-virus software, and securing and encrypting your devices). Hive will never send you emails asking for your password, so do not be fooled by any such email since it will not be from us.
If you register with us, you must use a password in conjunction with your specific account email address. You need to ensure your password is secure, confidential, and not used by you on other sites. Make sure you tell us immediately if you think someone else has used your password or if there has been any other security breach. We will hold you responsible for anything done using your account and password. MAKE YOUR PASSWORD A STRONG ONE AND KEEP IT SECURE. We are not responsible if someone else gains access to your computer or other device and/or your Hive password and/or encryption keys for any files.
Once you have subscribed to a plan for our services (with payment having been made via one of our websites, one of our mobile apps, or our desktop app), you need to continue to pay the fees (if any) for that plan (and any other taxes or duties). No matter which reseller or related or affiliated entity of Hive you make payment to, your contract for services is with Hive Computing Services SA and is governed exclusively by these terms and our policies referenced in these terms.
We can at any time change the fees for our services (other than those you have already paid for) and/or the terms of any services we provide to you (including without limitation the terms of any ‘achievements,’ ‘referral,’ or similar programs we may offer), as long as we give you, 30 days notice of any such changes. Where we change the fees for our services, in the absence of manifest error or other lawful error, you can not withhold payment or claim any set-off without getting our written agreement.
If at any time you do not make a payment to us when you are supposed to (including on termination), we can (and this does not affect any other rights we may have against you):
You must:
You cannot and will ensure that no users within a business account of which you are an administrator:
use our service:
These terms also apply to Hive's 'Refer a Friend' Program ("Program"). By participating in this Program, you agree to these Terms of Use.
Participants: The Program is open to all existing Hive users ("Referrers") and new users joining through a referral link ("Referees").
Data Use: Personal data provided during the Program will be used in accordance with Hive's Privacy Policy.
For any questions regarding the Program, please contact Hive support.
While we intend that the services should be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it is possible that our services may be unavailable to permit maintenance or other development activity to take place or be periodically interrupted for reasons outside our control.
We do not provide you with a warranty that the services will be without any faults, bugs, or interruptions.
WE DO NOT GIVE YOU ANY WARRANTY OR UNDERTAKING ABOUT THE SERVICES PROVIDED “AS IS”. TO AVOID DOUBT, ALL IMPLIED CONDITIONS OR WARRANTIES ARE EXCLUDED AS MUCH AS IS PERMITTED BY LAW, INCLUDING (WITHOUT LIMITATION) WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR PURPOSE, SAFETY, RELIABILITY, DURABILITY, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
We do not warrant that the services will meet your requirements or that they will be suitable for any particular purpose. Unless mandatory legal provisions to the contrary exist, Hive shall not be held liable for any direct or indirect damages of any nature, cause, origin, or consequence whatsoever resulting from the use of Hive or held liable for any loss of use, business interruption, loss of profits or data, regardless of the form of action, even if Hive has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
Information provided on our services will change regularly. We will try to keep the information up to date and correct, but again, we do not make any promises or guarantees about the accuracy of such information.
We are not legally responsible for:
Despite the above, if any court or other competent authority holds us (including our officers, staff, and agents) liable for any matter related to these terms or our services, our total combined liability will be limited to the most recent subscription amount you have paid to us.
Please note that in some jurisdictions, consumer protection laws may not allow certain exclusions or limitations of warranties or liability. Therefore, some of the above exclusions and limitations may not apply.
We respect the copyright of others and require that users of our services comply with copyright laws. Users are responsible for ensuring that they have all the required rights to the data, files, or content and that they do not infringe the rights of any third party, in particular copyright and personality rights, by uploading and sharing data, files, or content on the platform.
You are strictly prohibited from using our services to infringe any laws, including copyright. You are prohibited from uploading, downloading, storing, sharing, accessing, displaying, streaming, distributing, e-mailing, linking to, communicating, transmitting, or otherwise making available any files, data, or content that infringes any copyright or other proprietary rights of any person or entity.
You undertake to defend, indemnify, and hold Hive harmless from any and all claims of any nature made against us by third parties, including any demands, proceedings, damages, requests, losses, or liabilities (including, without limitation, legal fees) arising from or caused by a breach by you of any representation or warranty given in this section.
We will respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with applicable law and are properly provided to us. If you believe that your content has been copied or used in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please provide us with the following information:
We reserve the right to remove data alleged to be infringing without prior notice, at our sole discretion, and without liability to you. In certain circumstances, we may terminate your account if we consider you a repeat infringer.
Details of our designated copyright agent for notice of alleged copyright infringement are on our contact page.
We process all takedown notices based on the good faith acceptance of the representations from the party submitting the notice. We do not review the material before processing the notice.
You may file a counter-notice if you believe that access to a file you have uploaded has been wrongly disabled because it was the subject of an incorrect takedown notice. You should only do so if you are confident that no other party owns a copyright in the material, or you have rights to store the material and, if you are sharing it, that you have the right to do so.
Please understand that:
By filing a counter-notice, you are deemed to have accepted the above terms. If you do not accept the above terms, do not file a counter-notice.
To file a counter-notice with us, you must provide a written communication at support@hivenet.com that includes substantially the following:
We will only accept a counter-notification directly from the user from whose account a folder or file has been disabled. Counter-notifications must be submitted from the email address associated with that Hive account.
If we do not receive any further communication from or on behalf of the person who originally submitted the takedown notice, or if any communication we do receive does not, in our sole opinion, adequately justify the original takedown notice, we may, but shall not be obliged to, reinstate the material in approximately 10-14 days provided we have no reason to believe that the material infringes copyright.
Nothing in this counter-notice section prejudices our right to remove or disable access to any material at any time, for any reason or no reason.
If you consider there has been some other infringement or breach of law or of these terms and wish to file a complaint, contact us at the relevant address on our contact page. We will generally require the same amount of detail as set out above for copyright infringement notices.
Except where expressly stated otherwise, all rights, title, and interest in and to Hive and all the content, open source code processes, designs, technologies, URLs, domain names, marks, and logos forming part of our Websites, mobile apps, deskops apps cmd tools, browser extension and API are fully vested in us, our licensors, or our suppliers and protected by applicable copyrights, trademarks, patents, trade secrets, database rights, or the other proprietary rights and laws.
You are not allowed to, and you cannot let anyone else (including, in particular, any user within a business account of which you are an administrator), use, copy, alter, distribute, display, license, modify or reproduce, reverse assemble, reverse compile, communicate, share, transmit or otherwise make available, (whether digitally, electronically, by linking, or in hard copy or by any means whatsoever), any of our code, content, copyright materials, intellectual property or other rights without getting our permission in writing, other than to use our services as intended or as allowed under any open source licenses under which we use intellectual property provided by others. The open source code we use, where we obtained it, and licenses for that code are all referenced on our websites and mobile apps.
Without limiting any other provision of these terms, you are only permitted to directly and specifically use the API if you register at the developer registration page and agree that you may only publish or make available your application after we have approved it pursuant to our application approval process and license agreement available on request.
To enable Hive to send your files to designated third parties, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free license to use, transmit, distribute, communicate, and otherwise make available your data. This license is solely to allow you and those you authorize to use our services, as well as for any other purpose related to providing these services to you and your authorized users.
You may not use, export, re-export, import, or transfer any software or code supplied as part of your use of our services: (a) into any European Union or Switzerland embargoed countries and (b) to anyone listed as a specifically prohibited recipient by the European Union or the Switzerland Government. Using our websites and services, you represent and warrant that you are not located in any such country or on any such list. You also will not use our websites or services for any purpose prohibited by the European Union, Switzerland, or any other law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture, or production of missiles, nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.
You can terminate your access to our services at any time by following the ‘Cancel your account’ link in the Account section of our websites or the Settings section of our mobile apps. However, we will not provide any part refund for any allowance not used on any subscription you may have, other than the refund set out in these Terms of Use. If you are a business account administrator, you may also terminate access to any user within the business account.
We can immediately suspend or terminate your, and (as may be applicable) that of other users within a business account, access to our websites and our services without notice to you:
Without limiting the other rights available to us pursuant to these terms to take such further action as we deem necessary, in any case, we may temporarily suspend your account where a pattern of access to your account suggests to us that the account may have been compromised. You will subsequently be required to verify your right to access your account, as we deem appropriate, before we will unsuspend your account.
We may also terminate, suspend, or limit our services or any part of our services, for all users or groups of users, without notice, at any time, and as applicable for any duration of time(s) that we specify, for any reason or no reason, provided that in any such cases, to the greatest extent permitted at law, we will have no liability to you in any regard as a result of any such actions.
All charges outstanding on your account must be paid at termination.
We will not be liable by reason of any failure or delay in the performance of our obligations because of events beyond our reasonable control, which may include, without limitation, denial-of-service attacks, strikes, shortages, riots, insurrection, epidemics, pandemics, fires, flood, storm, explosions, acts of God, war, terrorism, governmental action, labor conditions, earthquakes, material shortages, extraordinary internet congestion or extraordinary connectivity issues or failure of a third party host, (each a “Force Majeure Event“). Upon the occurrence of a Force Majeure Event, we will be excused from any further performance of the obligations affected by that Force Majeure Event for so long as the event continues.
Unless otherwise provided by Swiss law or a particular service offer, all purchases are final and non-refundable. If you believe Hive charged you in error, you must contact us within 90 days of such charge. No refunds will be given for any charges more than 90 days old. We reserve the right to issue refunds or credits at our sole discretion. If we issue a refund or credit, we are not obligated to issue the same or similar refund in the future. This refund policy does not affect any statutory rights that may apply. If you have made a payment by mistake and have not used the subscription plan services, you must contact us within 24 hours. This will be acknowledged promptly and answered within 7 business days.
Recurring subscriptions will renew indefinitely, either monthly or annually, based upon your chosen subscription period, unless the subscription is canceled prior to a renewal date. For recurring subscriptions established via mobile apps using in-app-purchase platforms, you should refer to your app store account for details of the dates and terms of the subscription. Any other recurring subscription will renew on the same day of the month as it was established, except when the day is unavailable due to a short month, in which case the renewal date will be moved to the first day of the following month.
Recurring subscriptions established through the mobile app using in-app-purchase platforms should be canceled directly through the relevant app store account. Any other recurring subscription should be canceled by navigating to your account in your browser while you are logged into your account and selecting the option to cancel your subscription. We will promptly refund any payments processed after an effective subscription cancellation. If you cancel a paid subscription but maintain your Hive account as a free account, access to your account may be restricted or blocked if the level of use is above the limits applicable to free accounts at that time.
Hive employees, officers, agents, related companies, and affiliates, together with authorized suppliers of services to and authorized resellers of our services, are entitled to the benefit of all indemnities and other provisions of these terms, which are for the benefit of Hive in these terms.
These terms, our Privacy and Data Policy and our Cookie Policy, the terms of any plan you purchase, and any other terms and policies expressly referenced in these terms constitute the entire agreement relating to your use of our services. From the date they come into force, in respect of any use of any of our services after that, they supersede and replace any prior agreement, arrangement, or understanding between you and us regarding the use of our services. No agreement, arrangement, or understanding alleged to be made between us, or representation alleged to be made, by us or on our behalf, to you, if inconsistent with these terms, shall be valid unless agreed to in writing by an executive officer of Hive Computing Services SA.
If any provision of these terms is invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect. If we do not enforce any right or provision of these terms or if we in any instance grant any concession or indulgence, that will not be deemed a waiver of such right or provision or obligate us to grant any concession or indulgence to anyone else or to you again.
These Terms of Use shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Switzerland, without reference to conflict of laws. Any dispute, controversy, or claim arising out of or in connection with the Terms of Use, including as to the validity, invalidity, breach, or termination thereof, shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the Swiss Rules of International Arbitration of the Swiss Chambers of Commerce in force on the date when the Notice of Arbitration is submitted in accordance with these Rules. The number of arbitrators shall be one. The arbitration shall be held in Geneva, Switzerland. The arbitral proceedings shall be conducted in English.
We can change these terms at any time by providing you with at least 30 days prior notice of the change, whether via email or via a message in any service we provide. Your continued use after that notice means that you agree to the changed terms. If you have paid for a subscription that is due to expire after that 30 days’ notice period and you do not wish to continue to use our services under the new terms, you may terminate your subscription before the new terms come into force. We will then (but not otherwise) refund the unexpired portion of your subscription payment within 30 days and close your account.
If we need to contact you or provide you with notice, we will email you at the email address you have recorded in your account details. Such notices will be valid and deemed to have been received by you whether or not you are using that address. We may also send notices via any chat facility or internal messaging system we may provide.
You can contact us by email at support@Hivenet.com.