askNiva Terms of Service

> Notice to Consumers (CPA §49). South African law (Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008, section 49) requires that certain terms which may limit your rights or impose risk on you be specifically drawn to your attention before you agree. Please read the whole Agreement, but in particular the following clauses, which contain provisions that a reasonable Consumer might not expect in an agreement of this kind:

> - §5.6 — the Service is generic infrastructure; askNiva does not test it for fitness for your particular purpose.

> - §5.3A — acts and communications by any agent on your Instance are attributed to you, and you may not plead "the AI did it", unpredictability, or prompt injection as a defence to your indemnity — subject to a carve-out for any liability of any askNiva Party for gross negligence or wilful misconduct that cannot lawfully be excluded.

> - §6.6 — if your AI Provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, etc.) revokes your API key, your Instance may stop working and askNiva owes you no refund.

> - §8.7 and §16.6 of the AUP — if askNiva terminates you for breach, no fees are refunded.

> - §13.1 — askNiva may suspend your Account immediately without prior notice in the circumstances listed.

> - §13.7 and §§16.8 and 16.9 of the AUP — askNiva may preserve logs and Customer Data as evidence beyond normal deletion deadlines.

> - §14.3 — strong disclaimer of AI-output accuracy (Output may be inaccurate, incomplete, biased, or offensive; do not rely on it without human verification).

> - §14.4 — strong disclaimer of agent autonomy (the agent may take unexpected actions; you are responsible for configuring safeguards and confirmations).

> - §14.5 — you must not use the Service in life-safety, medical, aviation, criminal-justice, or other high-risk contexts; if you do so anyway, you assume all risk of the consequences and indemnify askNiva for third-party claims arising from that use.

> - §15.2 — a liability cap limiting askNiva's exposure (Business Users: greater of fees in the last 12 months or ZAR 2,000). For Consumers, the cap does not apply to any liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded, including (without limitation) liability for the gross negligence or wilful misconduct of any askNiva Party (CPA §51(1)(c)(i)), liability for death or personal injury caused by any act or omission of any askNiva Party (CPA Reg 44(3)(a)), and rights under POPIA and ECTA.

> - §15.5A — for upstream outages (Hetzner, AI Providers, Paystack, Google OAuth), askNiva's liability to Business Users is limited to what askNiva actually recovers from the upstream supplier. For Consumers, §15.5A does not apply — your CPA / POPIA / ECTA rights are preserved.

> - §15.6 — you agree not to sue askNiva's directors or employees personally (subject to non-excludable statutory and common-law carve-outs including Companies Act §§77 and 218, fraud, gross negligence, and wilful misconduct).

> - §16 — you indemnify askNiva for claims arising from your use, your Instance, and your agent's actions.

> - §16.1A (Business Users) — a primary payment obligation (not merely an indemnity) under which a Business User is liable to pay askNiva uncapped for claims Hetzner or any German / EU authority recovers against askNiva as a consequence of the Business User's conduct, including indirect, consequential, and financial-loss heads. This clause is independent and severable from §16.

> - §16.1A (Consumers) — for Consumers, §16.1A(a) does not apply; a Consumer's liability is limited to direct damages (no indirect/consequential heads), triggered only by the Consumer's own intentional misconduct or gross negligence, and capped at the §15.2(a) amount, subject to non-waivable CPA / POPIA / ECTA rights.

> - §16.1B (Business Users) — a primary payment obligation (not merely an indemnity) under which a Business User is liable to pay askNiva uncapped for claims any AI Provider recovers against askNiva as a consequence of the Business User's conduct (including where the Business User disabled any AI Provider safety filter).

> - §16.1B (Consumers) — for Consumers, §16.1B(a) does not apply; a Consumer's liability is limited to direct damages, triggered only by the Consumer's own intentional misconduct or gross negligence and by intentional disablement of an AI Provider safety feature of which the Consumer had actual notice, and capped at the §15.2(a) amount, subject to non-waivable CPA / POPIA / ECTA rights.

> - §21 — South African law and Johannesburg High Court jurisdiction; Business-User arbitration is opt-in; Consumer forum access under CPA §§51(1)(b), 52, 69–70 is preserved; a waiver of class actions (§23.7) where permitted by law.

> - §3.2 — a limited waiver of the ECTA §44 seven-day cooling-off right once deployment of your Instance begins, to the extent permitted by ECTA §42(2)(d).

> - §2.10 and AUP §13.5 — if you use the Service to target customers in the EEA, UK, or Switzerland in more than an incidental way, you must give askNiva 60 days' prior notice at legal@askniva.com so that an EU / UK / DSA representative can be appointed; if you fail to give notice and askNiva incurs the cost of appointment as a result, that cost falls within your indemnity in §16.

> Your statutory rights as a Consumer under the CPA, POPIA, ECTA, and other South African law that cannot be waived by contract are preserved — see Schedule A to these Terms. By clicking "I agree" you confirm that these clauses were drawn to your attention, that you have read and understood them, and that you accept them.

IMPORTANT — please read carefully. These Terms of Service (the "Terms") form a binding legal agreement between you and Mollo Innovations (Pty) Ltd, a company incorporated in the Republic of South Africa with registration number 2026/275132/07, trading as "askNiva" ("askNiva"). By clicking "I agree", creating an Account, or accessing any part of the Service, you confirm that you have read, understood, and accepted these Terms, the Acceptable Use Policy (the "AUP"), the Privacy Policy, and, to the extent applicable to your use, the Data Processing Addendum (the "DPA") (collectively, the "Agreement"). If you do not accept the Agreement, you must not create an Account or use the Service.

A note on plain English: these Terms use technical and legal language where precision is required. Headings and structure are plain so that you can locate the rules that matter to you. Section 1 defines the words used; Section 22 governs how legal notices are given under these Terms, and Section 24 sets out askNiva's contact details. In these Terms, "shall" and "will" denote an obligation; "may" denotes a discretion or permission; "must" denotes an absolute requirement; and "should" denotes a recommendation (consistent with RFC 2119 usage). For readability, askNiva uses "we", "us", and "our" interchangeably with "askNiva" only in explanatory passages; in operative provisions the defined term "askNiva" governs.

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1. Definitions

1.1 In these Terms, the following capitalised words have the following meanings:

"Account" — the account you register with askNiva to access the Service.
"AI Provider" — any third-party provider of artificial-intelligence, large-language-model, machine-learning, inference, generative, or agent-orchestration services whose application programming interface (API), SDK, OAuth grant, credential, or endpoint you configure, connect, route to, or make reachable from your Instance. The term includes, without limitation, Anthropic (Claude API), OpenAI (ChatGPT API, Responses API, Moderation API), Google LLC (Gemini API, Vertex AI, Google AI Studio, Google APIs — for the avoidance of doubt, Google LLC in its Gemini / Vertex AI capacity; Google LLC in its OAuth / identity capacity is treated as a Sub-processor under the DPA and Privacy Policy §9.2 and not as an AI Provider), Amazon Web Services, Inc. (including AWS Bedrock and any AWS AI service), Microsoft Corporation (including Azure OpenAI Service, Azure Cognitive Services, Microsoft Graph, and any Microsoft AI service), and any successor, affiliate, or additional provider whose service is reachable from your Instance via your API key, OAuth grant, network egress, or otherwise. For the avoidance of doubt, a provider is an "AI Provider" under the Agreement even if it is not also your "AI Provider" for purposes of that provider's own terms.
"AI Provider Terms" — the terms of service, acceptable-use policies, usage policies, and any other documents that govern your direct contractual relationship with any AI Provider.
"askNiva" — Mollo Innovations (Pty) Ltd, a private company duly incorporated in the Republic of South Africa under registration number 2026/275132/07, trading as "askNiva". References in the Agreement to "askNiva" are to Mollo Innovations (Pty) Ltd in its capacity as provider of the askNiva-branded Service. The trading name "askNiva" is used for branding and operational convenience; the contracting party in respect of the Agreement is at all times Mollo Innovations (Pty) Ltd.
"askNiva Parties" — askNiva, its holding company, affiliates, successors, assigns, shareholders, directors, officers, employees, contractors, sub-processors, and agents.
"AUP" — the askNiva Acceptable Use Policy, as amended from time to time, available at https://askniva.com/legal/aup.
"Business User" — a User who is not a Consumer, including any juristic person with an asset value or annual turnover equal to or greater than the threshold determined under section 6 of the CPA, and any natural person who uses the Service predominantly in the course or furtherance of a trade, business, or profession.
"Confidential Information" — any non-public information that you or askNiva discloses to the other, in any form, in connection with the Service, and that a reasonable person would understand to be confidential.
"Consumer" — a User who qualifies as a consumer under the CPA in respect of the transaction governed by the Agreement (generally, a natural person who acquires the Service for purposes unrelated to a trade, business, or profession, or a juristic person below the CPA threshold).
"CPA" — the Consumer Protection Act, 68 of 2008 (South Africa).
"Customer Data" — data that you or any user of your Instance submits to, stores on, or generates through your Instance, including prompts, inputs, Outputs, files, configuration, and any Personal Information of third parties.
"Customer Type" — whether a User is a Business User or a Consumer for the purposes of the Agreement; askNiva may require you to declare your Customer Type at signup, and may rely on your declaration.
"Data Subject" — has the meaning given in POPIA: the person to whom Personal Information relates.
"DPA" — the askNiva Data Processing Addendum, available at askniva.com/legal/dpa (or such other URL as askNiva may publish), which is incorporated into the Agreement by reference to the extent it applies to your use of the Service.
"ECTA" — the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 25 of 2002 (South Africa).
"FICA" — the Financial Intelligence Centre Act, 38 of 2001 (South Africa).
"Hetzner" — Hetzner Online GmbH, the infrastructure provider that askNiva contracts with to host Instances.
"Instance" — the preconfigured openClaw deployment provisioned for you on Hetzner infrastructure by askNiva, including associated storage, networking, and configuration.
"openClaw" — the open-source AI agent software distributed under the MIT License by the openClaw project / openClaw Foundation.
"Operator" — has the meaning given in POPIA: a person who processes Personal Information for a Responsible Party in terms of a contract or mandate, without coming under the direct authority of that party.
"Output" — content generated by an AI Provider, through openClaw's orchestration, in response to inputs submitted through your Instance. Output reflects the combined behaviour of the AI Provider's model and the openClaw software (third-party open-source software distributed under the MIT License).
"Paystack" — Paystack Payments Limited, the third-party payment processor askNiva uses to charge Subscription fees.
"Personal Information" — has the meaning given in POPIA: information relating to an identifiable, living, natural person and, where applicable, an identifiable, existing juristic person.
"POPIA" — the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 (South Africa).
"Responsible Party" — has the meaning given in POPIA: the person who, alone or in conjunction with others, determines the purpose of and means for processing Personal Information.
"Service" — the hosting, provisioning, deployment, management, and related services that askNiva makes available to you under the Agreement.
"Special Personal Information" — has the meaning given in POPIA §26: religious or philosophical beliefs, race or ethnic origin, trade-union membership, political persuasion, health or sex life, biometric information, and the criminal behaviour of a Data Subject.
"Subscription" — your paid subscription to the Service.
"you", "your", "User" — the individual accepting these Terms and, if you are contracting on behalf of an entity, that entity.

1.2 Words in the singular include the plural and vice versa. "Including", "in particular", and "for example" are not words of limitation. A reference to a statute is a reference to that statute as amended, substituted, or re-enacted from time to time.

1.3 Data-protection roles overview. For the purposes of POPIA, askNiva acts as a Responsible Party in respect of Personal Information that askNiva collects directly from Users (for example, account and billing information) and acts as an Operator in respect of Customer Data processed on an Instance on your instructions. Section 8 and the DPA develop these roles in detail.

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2. Eligibility, sanctions, and anti-corruption representations

2.1 Age and capacity. You may only use the Service if you are at least 18 years old, have the legal capacity to enter into a binding contract, and are not prohibited from doing so under any law that applies to you.

> In plain English: You must be 18 or older and legally able to enter into a contract. Under-18s cannot use askNiva.

2.2 Authority to bind. If you use the Service on behalf of an entity, you warrant that you are duly authorised to bind that entity, and references to "you" include that entity.

2.3 Customer Type declaration. You will declare your Customer Type (Business User or Consumer) at signup (or, if no declaration is taken, you are deemed to be a Business User unless you qualify as a Consumer under the CPA). You must update the declaration if your status changes.

2.4 Sanctions representations. You represent, warrant, and undertake on a continuing basis that:

(a) you are not located in, ordinarily resident in, organised under the laws of, or a national of any country or territory subject to comprehensive sanctions by the United Nations, the United States (including OFAC-administered sanctions), the European Union, the United Kingdom, or the Republic of South Africa (as at the date of these Terms, this includes Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions);
(b) you are not named on, and are not owned or controlled (50% or more) by any person named on, any sanctions, restricted-party, or prohibited-party list maintained by any of those authorities, including the US OFAC SDN and Consolidated Lists, the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) Entity List, Denied Persons List, Unverified List, and Military End User (MEU) List, the EU Consolidated List, the UK OFSI Consolidated List, any SA targeted-financial-sanctions list published under the Protection of Constitutional Democracy Against Terrorist and Related Activities Act 33 of 2004, and any list maintained by any AI Provider or hyperscaler identifying restricted end users or unsupported jurisdictions;
(c) you will not make the Service available, directly or indirectly, to any person or entity described in clauses (a) or (b);
(d) you will comply with all applicable export-control, import-control, and sanctions laws, including those of South Africa, the European Union (because infrastructure sits in Germany and Finland), and the United States (because AI Provider models may be subject to US export controls);
(e) you are not, to your knowledge, barred from using any AI Provider's services;
(f) your acceptance and use of the Service will not cause askNiva to be in violation of any law.

2.5 Anti-corruption representations. You represent, warrant, and undertake on a continuing basis that you will not, and you will not permit any person acting on your behalf (including any agent configured on your Instance) to:

(a) offer, promise, give, solicit, or accept any bribe, kickback, facilitation payment, or other improper advantage, whether to or from any public official, political party, candidate, private-sector counterparty, or any person;
(b) use the Service in violation of FICA, the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act 12 of 2004, the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), the UK Bribery Act 2010, or any other applicable anti-bribery, anti-corruption, or anti-money-laundering law.

2.6 PEP disclosure. You will disclose to askNiva, in writing, at signup or as soon as reasonably practicable thereafter, if you are a Politically Exposed Person (a "PEP") within the meaning of Schedules 3A or 3B to FICA, or a Prominent Influential Person within the meaning of Schedule 3C to FICA, or if you are a close associate or immediate family member of any of the foregoing. askNiva may decline to provide, or discontinue, the Service to any undeclared PEP or Prominent Influential Person.

2.7 Source of funds and suspicious transactions. askNiva may, acting reasonably, require you to provide documentary evidence of your identity, beneficial ownership, and the source of funds used to pay Subscription fees (including bank statements, corporate filings, or sworn declarations). Where askNiva forms a suspicion of money laundering, terrorist financing, proliferation financing, or other financial crime, askNiva may (and where required by law will) report the transaction to the Financial Intelligence Centre under FICA, suspend the Service pending resolution, and cooperate fully with any investigation, without notice to you where notice is prohibited by law. (askNiva's accountable-institution status under FICA Schedule 1 is reviewed on an ongoing basis; any registration or threshold reassessment required by such a change is recorded in the launch-readiness register.)

2.8 Discretion to refuse. askNiva may refuse to provide, or discontinue, the Service to any person, for any lawful reason, at any time, subject to any Consumer protection under the CPA that cannot be waived by contract.

2.9 Geographic scope of askNiva's offering. askNiva offers the Service to Users located in the Republic of South Africa. The Service is not marketed to, targeted at, or offered for the benefit of Data Subjects located in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland, and is not directed at recipients located in the European Union for the purposes of DSA Article 2(1). Mere accessibility of the Service or of askNiva's website (askniva.com) from those territories does not constitute (i) an offering of goods or services within the meaning of GDPR Article 3(2)(a) or UK GDPR Article 3(2)(a); (ii) monitoring of behaviour within the meaning of GDPR Article 3(2)(b) or UK GDPR Article 3(2)(b); or (iii) a substantial connection to the Union within the meaning of DSA Article 2(1) read with Recitals 7 and 8. The non-targeting indicators relied on in support of this position are recited in Privacy Policy §§1.3(b) and 1.4(b) and AUP §16A.0; appointment of a GDPR Article 27 representative, a UK GDPR Article 27 representative, or DSA Article 11 / Article 12 / Article 13 contacts is conditional on a change in that posture.

2.10 User warranty — no EEA / UK / Swiss targeting; notification trigger. You warrant that you are not using, and will not use, the Service, your Instance, or any agent configured on your Instance, predominantly to (i) offer goods or services to Data Subjects located in the EEA, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland; (ii) monitor the behaviour of Data Subjects located in the EEA, the United Kingdom, or Switzerland taking place in those territories; or (iii) acquire on askNiva's behalf a substantial connection to the Union within the meaning of DSA Article 2(1). You shall give askNiva at least sixty (60) days' prior written notice (to legal@askniva.com) of any change in your use that would, or would reasonably be expected to, cross any of those thresholds. Such notice gives askNiva the opportunity to designate a GDPR Article 27 representative, a UK GDPR Article 27 representative, and/or DSA Article 11 / Article 12 / Article 13 contacts before the threshold is crossed. The reasonable cost of any such designation attributable to your conduct (including where you fail to give the notice required by this §2.10) falls within the scope of your indemnity in §16, subject — as against a Consumer — to §15.2(b) and Schedule A. This §2.10 operates without prejudice to your independent obligations as a Responsible Party / controller for Customer Data on your Instance under POPIA, the GDPR, and the UK GDPR; AUP §13.5 contains the operational flow-down of this clause.

> In plain English: askNiva is set up for South African customers. If you start marketing your Instance, your application, or your agent at people in Europe, the UK, or Switzerland in a meaningful (not just incidental) way, you must tell us 60 days in advance by emailing legal@askniva.com so we can appoint the EU / UK / DSA representatives the law would then require. If you don't tell us in time and we incur the cost of those appointments because of what you did, you cover the cost.

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3. Pre-contract disclosures for Consumers (ECTA §43)

3.1 If you are a Consumer concluding an electronic transaction to which ECTA §43 applies, askNiva provides the following disclosures before you are bound:

(a) Supplier identity. Mollo Innovations (Pty) Ltd, a private company incorporated in the Republic of South Africa, registration number 2026/275132/07, trading as "askNiva".
(b) Contact information. Registered address: Regus Business Centre, 1st Floor, Block B, North Park, Black River Park, 2 Fir Street, Observatory, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa, 7925; general enquiries: hello@askniva.com; customer support: support@askniva.com; legal notices: legal@askniva.com; abuse reports: abuse@askniva.com; privacy: privacy@askniva.com.
(c) Description of the Service. See section 5 of these Terms and the plan descriptions on askniva.com.
(d) Full price. The applicable Subscription fee, inclusive of VAT where charged, is displayed on the checkout page before payment is confirmed.
(e) Payment method. Fees are charged through Paystack as described in section 8.
(f) Security of payment information. Paystack is responsible for the security of cardholder data in accordance with its PCI-DSS compliance programme; askNiva does not store full primary account numbers.
(g) Return, refund, and cancellation policy. See sections 3.2, 8.6, 8.7, 13.4, and 13.5.
(h) Complaints policy and dispute resolution. See section 21 (and section 21.5 for informal resolution) and AUP §16A.5 (internal complaint-handling). Consumers may also refer a complaint to the National Consumer Commission or the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud.
(i) Applicable code of conduct. askNiva subscribes to no formal industry code of conduct at the date of these Terms; if that changes, this clause will be updated.
(j) Cooling-off right. See section 3.2.

3.2 Cooling-off right (ECTA §44). If you are a Consumer concluding an electronic transaction to which ECTA §44 applies, you have the right to cancel without reason and without penalty within seven (7) days after the conclusion of the Agreement (ECTA §44(1)(b), the Service being a service rather than goods). This right does not apply to services the performance of which has begun, with your consent, before the end of that seven-day period (ECTA §42(2)(d)). Before deployment of an Instance, askNiva will present you with an express-consent record stating (i) that clicking "Deploy" causes performance of the Service to commence immediately, (ii) that by clicking "Deploy" you expressly consent to such commencement for purposes of ECTA §42(2)(d), and (iii) that the ECTA §44 cooling-off right will not be available to you in respect of that Instance from the moment of deployment. By clicking "Deploy" you confirm that record. To the extent permitted by law, you accordingly waive the statutory cooling-off right in respect of that Instance. If you have paid any fees and exercise the cooling-off right before any Instance has been deployed under the Subscription, askNiva will refund those fees within thirty (30) days as required by ECTA §44(3), net of the direct cost of returning performance already rendered to the extent permitted by ECTA §44(2). Nothing in this §3.2 prejudices any right you have under any other law, including under ECTA §44(4) or the CPA.

> In plain English: If you are a South African Consumer, you normally have 7 days to cancel an electronic transaction for a refund. Because deploying your Instance starts the Service immediately, once you click "Deploy" you give up that 7-day cancellation right for that Instance. If you change your mind before deployment, you can still cancel for a refund.

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4. Account registration

4.1 Google OAuth only. The Service uses Google as the sole identity provider. You register and sign in using your Google account. You shall not attempt to create an Account by any other means.

4.2 One Account per person. Each natural person may register no more than one Account. Each entity you are authorised to bind may register one Account per legal person. Shared, corporate-role, or pooled accounts are prohibited.

4.3 Accurate information. You shall provide current, complete, and accurate information (through Google OAuth or directly) and will update that information within fourteen (14) days of any material change. This fourteen-day update duty is imposed on askNiva by its infrastructure provider (Hetzner AGB §2.3); your failure to maintain accurate information is deemed to cause askNiva direct loss equivalent to any damages, fines, or penalties imposed on askNiva by any upstream provider as a consequence of out-of-date information. Providing false information is a material breach.

4.4 Credentials and security. You are solely responsible for keeping your Google credentials confidential and for all activity that occurs under your Account. You shall immediately notify askNiva of any suspected unauthorised access.

4.5 API keys. When you add an AI Provider API key to your Instance, you warrant that (i) the key belongs to you and was issued to you by the relevant AI Provider under a valid account that you lawfully opened in your own name or on behalf of an entity you lawfully represent; (ii) you have not bought, sold, leased, borrowed, transferred, shared, or otherwise obtained the key from any person other than the AI Provider itself; (iii) you are authorised to use the key for the purpose for which you are using it; and (iv) your use of the key on your Instance — including askNiva's hosting of the openClaw agent that invokes the AI Provider's API — complies with the AI Provider's account-security, key-sharing, intermediary-access, and supported-countries rules in force from time to time. You acknowledge that (a) API keys may be exfiltrated through vulnerabilities in openClaw (third-party open-source software), through prompt-injection attacks on your agent (AUP §9.5), or through your own misconfiguration; (b) if an AI Provider changes its position on third-party-hosted agents, your continued use is at your risk; and (c) all usage charges, overages, and claims asserted by any AI Provider in any such event are your sole responsibility as between you and askNiva. askNiva stores API keys using industry-standard encryption, but you remain solely responsible for the security of your keys and for all activity on your AI Provider account, including usage fees. Nothing in this §4.5 displaces any non-waivable liability of askNiva for its own gross negligence or wilful misconduct.

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5. The Service

5.1 What the Service is. askNiva provisions preconfigured Instances of openClaw on virtual servers supplied by Hetzner. askNiva installs openClaw and its dependencies, maintains the underlying operating system, applies security updates that askNiva, acting reasonably, considers appropriate to the underlying operating system, and, on a best-efforts basis, applies upstream security updates to openClaw as released by the upstream project. askNiva provides a web-based control panel for you to manage your Instance. A fuller description of each Subscription tier is available on askNiva's website. askNiva has no obligation to backport patches, to develop its own patches for openClaw, or to maintain openClaw if the upstream project discontinues it; upstream openClaw is distributed "as is" under the MIT License and askNiva passes through that risk (see §10.2). askNiva also makes no commitment to backport or develop patches for any other third-party component (including AI Provider SDKs).

> In plain English: askNiva rents you a server (from Hetzner) that has openClaw (an open-source AI agent) already installed and ready to run. askNiva is not the maker of openClaw and is not an AI company — you still need to bring your own AI API key (from Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, etc.).

5.2 What the Service is not. askNiva is not:

(a) the developer, licensor, or copyright owner of openClaw (openClaw is distributed under the MIT License by a third-party project or foundation);
(b) an AI Provider;
(c) a reseller, distributor, or sublicensee of any AI Provider's services;
(d) a party to your contracts with any AI Provider, Hetzner, or any other third party;
(e) the operator of any agent you deploy on your Instance;
(f) responsible for content generated, actions taken, or communications sent by openClaw or by any agent you configure;
(g) obligated to monitor, review, filter, or moderate Customer Data;
(h) affiliated with, endorsed by, sponsored by, or connected to the openClaw project, the openClaw Foundation, Peter Steinberger, MyClaw, StellarLinkCo, myclaw.ai, or any other commercial, community, or other provider of managed openClaw hosting, managed Claw hosting, or competing services. "openClaw" is the name of a third-party open-source project distributed under the MIT Licence; "MyClaw" is a separate commercial service operated by an unrelated third party. askNiva's use of each name is nominative fair use solely to describe the software it deploys or to disambiguate itself from a separate service;
(i) a contributor of any "Input" (within the meaning of any AI Provider's terms) to your AI Provider account. As between you and askNiva, every prompt, instruction, document, file, configuration, tool invocation, and system-prompt present on or routed through your Instance — including any content derived from askNiva-Supplied Configuration as defined in §5.7 — is Input submitted by you to the AI Provider on your own account.

5.3 You control your Instance. You are the operator of your Instance and of any openClaw agent configured on it. You decide what prompts to send, what tools to enable, what integrations to connect, what actions to authorise, and what API keys to use. You remain solely responsible for those decisions. askNiva does not supervise or instruct any openClaw agent or any AI Provider model.

5.3A Agency attribution. For all purposes of the Agreement and as between askNiva and you:

(a) every agent configured on, or operating from, your Instance is your agent at law;
(b) you are the principal for every act or omission of the agent, whether autonomous, directed, or emergent;
(c) every communication, undertaking, representation, commitment, data message, contract, order, booking, payment instruction, or other action generated by your agent and sent to or affecting any third party is a data message of which you are the originator under ECTA §25 (including §25(b) where the agent acted under authority you conferred, and §25(c) where the agent was operated automatically as a programmed information system), and, where it constitutes or forms part of an agreement, is an agreement concluded on your behalf under ECTA §§20 and 22; each such data message or agreement is enforceable against you by that third party as if you had generated it personally, and you shall not assert against askNiva that the data message should not be attributed to you under ECTA §25(c) on the basis that the information system "did not properly execute" your programming;
(d) you shall not disclaim an act or omission of your agent on the basis that "the AI did it", that the agent acted unpredictably, that a third party injected instructions into the agent (see AUP §9.5), or that the agent's behaviour followed from code or configuration not authored by you; this clause (d) does not purport to limit or exempt askNiva or any askNiva Party from any liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded (including any liability for the gross negligence or wilful misconduct of askNiva or any askNiva Party — CPA §51(1)(c)(i)); and
(e) accordingly, any such act or omission is a User act for purposes of §§11, 13, 16, and AUP §§4.2, 9.7, 13, and shall not be pleaded as a defence to your indemnity in §16.1.

For the avoidance of doubt, this §5.3A allocates risk and conditions the indemnity in §16.1 and the primary payment obligations in §§16.1A and 16.1B; it does not, as against a Consumer, limit or exclude any right or remedy conferred by the CPA, POPIA, ECTA, or any other South African law that cannot be waived by contract (see §15.2(b) and Schedule A).

5.4 Infrastructure disclosure. The Service runs on third-party infrastructure provided by Hetzner, located in the European Union and other regions Hetzner operates. Hetzner's own terms, acceptable-use policy, and data-protection regime apply to the servers on which your Instance runs. A breach of Hetzner's terms by you or by your agent can result in Hetzner locking or terminating your Instance; askNiva has no control over such action.

5.5 Service availability. askNiva shall use commercially reasonable efforts to keep the Service available but does not guarantee any specific uptime. The Service depends on Hetzner, Google OAuth, Paystack, and your chosen AI Providers. Downtime caused by any third party, by maintenance, by force majeure, or by your misconfiguration is excluded from any availability commitment.

5.6 No fitness-for-purpose testing. The Service is generic, preconfigured infrastructure. askNiva has not tested, assessed, or certified the Service for fitness for your particular use case, industry, workflow, or regulatory context. You are solely responsible for determining whether the Service is suitable for your intended use and for conducting any required testing, validation, or certification before placing the Service into productive use. This clause operates in conjunction with, and is not limited by, the disclaimers in section 14.

5.7 askNiva-Supplied Configuration. askNiva may ship or apply default openClaw configuration, including (without limitation) default system prompts, default tool permissions, default safety settings, default integrations, example skills, or example policies (the "askNiva-Supplied Configuration"). You accept the askNiva-Supplied Configuration on an "as is" and "as available" basis and must review, adjust, and harden it before productive use. As between you and askNiva, and as between you and any AI Provider:

(a) any content, Input, Output, or action generated on your Instance — including any content produced by virtue of askNiva-Supplied Configuration — is Customer Data and Input submitted by you on your own account (see §5.2(i)), and you warrant that you have all rights, licenses, and permissions required to submit it;
(b) askNiva does not contribute any Input recognised by any AI Provider's policies, and you shall not represent or plead that askNiva is a co-contributor of Input or a co-operator of any agent;
(c) your indemnity in §16.1 applies to claims arising from askNiva-Supplied Configuration to the same extent as to your own configuration;
(d) askNiva makes no representation that the askNiva-Supplied Configuration satisfies the conditions precedent of any AI Provider's customer indemnity, copyright commitment, or copyright shield (including Microsoft's Customer Copyright Commitment, OpenAI's Copyright Shield, Google's Generative AI Indemnity, AWS's model-output indemnity, or Anthropic's equivalent). You shall independently assess and harden the configuration to satisfy every such condition precedent before productive use, and you shall not represent that askNiva has done so. You waive any claim against askNiva based on the theory that askNiva-Supplied Configuration caused, contributed to, or resulted in the failure of a condition precedent of any AI Provider indemnity or copyright commitment.

5.8 No unnecessary forwarding. askNiva shall not forward to any AI Provider any data beyond what your Instance itself transmits to the AI Provider in the course of your use. askNiva does not independently log prompt content or Output content with any AI Provider and does not provide any AI Provider with metadata about your use beyond that which is implicit in the API calls your agent makes.

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6. User-supplied API keys and AI Providers

6.1 Bring Your Own Key. The Service does not include access to any AI Provider's models. To use an AI agent on your Instance, you must obtain an API key directly from each AI Provider you wish to use and provide it to your Instance through the provided interface.

6.2 Your contract with the AI Provider. Your use of any AI Provider is a direct relationship between you and that AI Provider. You are the AI Provider's customer. You are responsible for:

(a) accepting and complying with the AI Provider's terms of service, usage policies, prohibited-use policies, service-specific terms, and supported-countries / supported-regions policies (including, as applicable, Anthropic's Commercial Terms and Usage Policy; OpenAI's Services Agreement, Service Terms, and Usage Policies, including its Supported Countries and Territories list; Google's APIs Terms of Service, Gemini API Additional Terms, Google Cloud Platform Terms, and Generative AI Prohibited Use Policy; Amazon Web Services' Customer Agreement, Acceptable Use Policy, Service Terms, and Responsible AI Policy; Microsoft's Customer Agreement, Product Terms (including the Microsoft Acceptable Use Policy and any AI-Services-specific terms contained in or referenced from the Product Terms), the Code of Conduct for Microsoft AI Services, and any Limited Access / Managed Customer Access Program / Responsible AI requirement applicable to Azure OpenAI or any Microsoft AI Service the User invokes);
(b) all fees, overages, and charges on your AI Provider account;
(c) the security of your API key;
(d) any suspension, termination, rate-limiting, or key revocation by the AI Provider;
(e) warranting that you, your Instance, and any person acting through your Instance are located in a country or region supported by each AI Provider whose credential you configure, and that your use does not violate that AI Provider's supported-regions, age-gate, minors-directed-product, or geographic-restriction policy (for example, Google Gemini's EEA/UK/Switzerland paid-tier-only rule for agents serving end-users in those regions; AWS's 18+ / parent-consented 13+ floor; OpenAI's Supported Countries list).

6.3 askNiva is not a reseller. askNiva does not resell, sublicense, or distribute any AI Provider's services. askNiva does not have a contract with any AI Provider on your behalf.

6.4 Downstream compliance. You warrant that your use of the Service, your Instance, and any agent configured on it will comply with every AI Provider's terms and policies. A breach of an AI Provider's policy through your Instance is also a breach of the Agreement.

6.5 No warranty on third-party models. askNiva makes no representation or warranty about the accuracy, reliability, availability, or continued existence of any AI Provider's models, pricing, or policies. If an AI Provider revokes your key, changes its pricing, deprecates a model, or ceases operations, it is your risk, not askNiva's.

6.6 API-key revocation or suspension. If your AI Provider API key is suspended, rate-limited, revoked, banned, or otherwise rendered inoperable by the AI Provider (including because of your conduct, your breach of the AI Provider's terms, your non-payment to the AI Provider, or the AI Provider's independent decision), askNiva shall have no obligation to refund any Subscription fee, to restore access, to provide substitute model access, or to procure any alternative on your behalf. Your Instance may become inoperable as a consequence, and you remain liable for all askNiva fees accrued up to termination in accordance with section 7.

6.7 Free-tier warnings. Some AI Providers' free tiers (for example, Google Gemini's free tier via Google AI Studio without billing) use your prompts and Outputs to train their models and allow human review. You acknowledge this, and you must not submit Personal Information, Special Personal Information, Confidential Information, or any data you cannot lawfully share with the AI Provider if you have configured your Instance to use such a free tier. This is also an operative prohibition in AUP §15.5.

6.8 No AI-Provider indemnity passed through. askNiva is not a party to any AI Provider's customer indemnity (for example, OpenAI's Copyright Shield, Google's Generative AI Indemnity, Microsoft's Customer Copyright Commitment, or AWS's model-output indemnity). Each AI Provider's indemnity applies, if at all, only on the terms that AI Provider publishes to its direct customer (you) and may be conditional on enabling safety filters, using specific model versions, and refraining from disabling provider-side moderation. askNiva makes no representation that any AI Provider indemnity is available, adequate, or will be honoured. Nothing in the Agreement grants you any right against askNiva by reason of the unavailability of any AI Provider indemnity.

6.9 Cross-product integrations. If you configure your Instance to integrate with any third-party product other than the AI Provider itself (for example, Google Workspace, Gmail, Google Drive, Microsoft 365, GitHub, Slack, messaging platforms), you warrant that the combined flow — in particular the routing of content from one product to a generative-AI service — complies with each product's terms governing that content, including any restriction on routing that product's "customer data" to generative-AI services or free-tier AI models.

6.10 You are the "application publisher" for upstream API registrations. You, and not askNiva, are the "application publisher", "developer", "API client", or equivalent for purposes of any upstream API registration required by any AI Provider, hyperscaler, OAuth grantee, or integration partner reachable from your Instance (including Microsoft Graph, Microsoft Entra ID / Azure AD application registration, Google Cloud OAuth-consent-screen verification, Google API Console project registration, Microsoft 365 Certification, Microsoft Partner Center registration, or any AI-Provider publisher-verification or brand-verified process). You shall register as the publisher in your own name or your entity's name, complete any required attestation, and you shall not configure your Instance to use askNiva's identity, domain, publisher verification, or multi-tenant app registration. askNiva does not provide a shared or multi-tenant application registration for any upstream API.

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7. Third-party services

7.1 Dependencies. The Service depends on third parties including Hetzner, Google (OAuth), Paystack, and your chosen AI Providers. Each of these has its own terms; askNiva is not a party to those terms.

7.2 Hetzner as sub-processor. Hetzner hosts your Instance and acts as a sub-processor for any Personal Information you or your agent process on the Instance. Hetzner's terms are available at https://www.hetzner.com/legal/legal-notice/ (which links to Hetzner's current AGB, data-protection terms, and service-specific terms). If Hetzner takes any action against your Instance (for example, locking or null-routing it), askNiva may mirror that action and shall not be liable for the consequences.

7.3 Messaging and other platforms. openClaw typically connects to messaging platforms (for example, Signal, Telegram, Discord, WhatsApp) and to other third-party services (for example, email, calendar, file storage, web browsers). Your use of each platform is governed by that platform's terms and is your responsibility. Many platforms restrict automation; you warrant that you will not cause your agent to violate any platform's automation rules.

7.4 No third-party beneficiaries. Nothing in the Agreement creates any right for any third party to enforce any part of the Agreement.

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8. Fees, billing, and refunds

8.1 Subscription fees. You shall pay the fees for your chosen Subscription tier, as stated on askNiva's website at the time of signup, in the stated currency. All fees exclude VAT unless stated otherwise. If you are a South African resident and askNiva is VAT-registered, VAT shall be added at the applicable rate (currently 15%).

8.2 Payment processor. Fees are charged through Paystack. You authorise askNiva and Paystack to charge your nominated payment method on a recurring basis for the term of your Subscription. Paystack's terms apply to your use of the payment gateway, and askNiva shall not be liable for Paystack outages, fees, chargeback processes, or disputes.

8.3 Billing cycle and renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period (monthly or annual, as chosen at signup) unless cancelled in accordance with these Terms. You authorise the recurring charge.

8.4 Taxes. You are responsible for any taxes, duties, and governmental charges imposed on your use of the Service, other than taxes on askNiva's income. If any withholding tax applies to your payment, you shall gross up the payment so that askNiva receives the amount it would have received absent the withholding.

8.5 Late payment. If a fee is overdue, askNiva may (i) charge interest on the overdue amount at 2% per month, or the maximum rate permitted by law, whichever is lower; (ii) suspend the Service after seven (7) days' written notice; and (iii) terminate the Subscription if the fee remains unpaid for thirty (30) days.

8.6 Voluntary cancellation. You may cancel your Subscription at any time from within your Account. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the then-current billing period. Fees paid are not refundable for unused time within a paid period unless required by law (including the CPA and ECTA).

8.7 No refunds for for-cause termination. If askNiva suspends or terminates your Subscription because you breached the Agreement, an AI Provider's terms, or Hetzner's terms, or because of security, fraud, or legal-compliance reasons, fees paid are non-refundable. Access ceases immediately and Customer Data may be deleted subject to section 13.

> In plain English: If askNiva terminates you because you broke the rules, you do not get your money back. If askNiva terminates you for convenience (i.e. without your breach) under §13.4, askNiva will deal with any unused prepaid fees in accordance with applicable law and §13.5(d).

8.8 Changes to fees. askNiva may change the fees on at least thirty (30) days' notice by email or in-product notification. If you do not accept the new fees, you may cancel your Subscription before the change takes effect; continued use after the change takes effect constitutes acceptance.

8.9 Chargebacks. You shall contact askNiva before initiating a chargeback. Unjustified chargebacks are a material breach and askNiva may suspend your Account pending resolution.

8.10 Statutory cooling-off. Nothing in this section limits any statutory cooling-off right you may have as a Consumer under ECTA or the CPA. Section 3.2 governs ECTA §44 cooling-off.

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9. Customer Data

9.1 Ownership. As between you and askNiva, you own your Customer Data, including any Output generated by an AI Provider in response to your inputs (subject to any intellectual-property rights of the AI Provider or of third parties).

9.2 Licence to askNiva. You grant askNiva a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sub-licensable licence to host, store, reproduce, transmit, display, and otherwise process Customer Data only to the extent necessary to provide the Service, to operate and improve the platform, to prevent abuse, to comply with legal obligations, and to enforce the Agreement.

9.3 No training, no sale, no commercial exploitation. askNiva shall not, and shall not permit any Sub-processor to, (a) train, fine-tune, distil, or develop any artificial-intelligence or machine-learning model on Customer Data; (b) sell, rent, license, or commercially exploit Customer Data; (c) conduct cross-customer analytics on Customer Data; or (d) access Customer Data except (i) as directed by you, (ii) for security, abuse-prevention, or incident response, (iii) under a documented break-glass procedure with audit logging, (iv) as required by law, or (v) to comply with an instruction, notice, or deadline from Hetzner or another upstream supplier under §18.1 or AUP §14.

9.4 No content monitoring. askNiva does not inspect, pre-screen, filter, or moderate Customer Data. askNiva may scan for malware, known abuse signatures, or safety or security issues; may investigate reports of abuse; may access, modify, remove, or disable specific Customer Data or Instance components to the extent reasonably necessary to comply with any instruction, notice, or deadline from Hetzner or another upstream supplier, or to prevent a material breach of the Agreement (such access and modification is processing on your documented instruction under the DPA); and may comply with lawful requests (see section 18).

9.5 Your warranties about Customer Data. You warrant that:

(a) you have all rights, consents, and permissions required to submit and process the Customer Data;
(b) the Customer Data does not violate any law, the Agreement, or any third party's rights;
(c) if Customer Data contains Personal Information, you have a lawful basis to process it and you have, where required, notified the Data Subject and obtained any required consent;
(d) you will not submit to the Service any Personal Information of children under 18 without the necessary parental or guardian consent, and you will not submit any Special Personal Information unless expressly permitted by the applicable POPIA provisions;
(e) you will not submit regulated data (for example, data subject to HIPAA in the US, PCI-DSS cardholder data, or classified or export-controlled data) to the Service without a separate written agreement.

9.6 Data protection roles. askNiva acts as a Responsible Party under POPIA in respect of Account data that askNiva collects directly (email address, billing information, metadata about your use of the Service). askNiva acts as an Operator under POPIA in respect of Customer Data processed on your Instance at your direction; in that role, you are the Responsible Party. The DPA, to the extent applicable, governs the Operator relationship and includes the provisions required by POPIA §§20–21 (and Article 28 GDPR where relevant).

9.7 Data location. Your Instance is hosted in the Hetzner region you select at signup. Hetzner data centres are primarily located in Germany and Finland (European Union). If you select a non-EU region (for example, Hetzner's Ashburn or Hillsboro locations in the United States, or Singapore), your selection constitutes your consent under POPIA §72 and, where relevant, your Article 49 GDPR derogation, to the transfer of Customer Data to and processing in that region; EU Standard Contractual Clauses (Modules 2 or 3, as applicable) as scheduled to the DPA apply; and you warrant that you have separately executed any downstream SCC / UK IDTA / POPIA §72 instrument required by your relationship to the Data Subjects whose Personal Information you process. Data-location commitments of AI Providers (including any regional-data-processing commitment on the part of AWS, Azure, GCP/Vertex AI, or equivalent) are made by the AI Provider to you directly under its own terms; askNiva does not independently warrant AI Provider data residency.

9.8 Backups. You are responsible for maintaining your own backups of Customer Data. askNiva may provide backup facilities as a convenience; these are not a substitute for your own backup strategy.

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10. Intellectual property

10.1 askNiva Platform. askNiva and its licensors own all intellectual-property rights in the Service, the control panel, the deployment tooling, the askNiva brand, the askNiva website, documentation, and any improvements, modifications, or derivatives of any of the foregoing (the "askNiva Platform"). Subject to your compliance with the Agreement, askNiva grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable licence to access and use the askNiva Platform solely to use the Service during the term of your Subscription.

10.2 openClaw. openClaw is third-party open-source software distributed under the MIT License by its copyright holders. askNiva does not own openClaw. askNiva shall preserve the openClaw MIT License text, copyright notice, and any NOTICE, AUTHORS, or CONTRIBUTORS file present in the upstream repository at the time of deployment, in a discoverable location within every Instance (including at the openClaw installation path and, where applicable, in the Admin / About panel of the control plane) and on askNiva's public website under /legal/oss-attribution. openClaw is freely available from its upstream project under the MIT License; you may obtain, modify, and self-host openClaw independently of askNiva, and the Service is a managed-hosting convenience that creates no lock-in to askNiva as the source of openClaw itself. Your use of openClaw on your Instance is governed by the MIT License, not by these Terms. askNiva makes no warranty of any kind regarding openClaw. The MIT License contains no express patent grant; neither the openClaw contributors nor askNiva warrants that openClaw is free of third-party patent rights, and any third-party patent claim arising from openClaw's functionality is a risk you accept as a user of open-source software.

10.2A askNiva modifications to openClaw. askNiva may apply operational patches (security updates, configuration, control-plane hooks, packaging changes) to openClaw. Where askNiva modifies openClaw, the modified build remains labelled openClaw and the original MIT notice and copyright are retained; any askNiva-authored components shipped alongside openClaw are separately identified and licensed. For the avoidance of doubt and notwithstanding any reference to "derivatives" in §10.1, askNiva modifications applied to openClaw are treated as openClaw for the purposes of the §16.5(a) exclusion from the askNiva IP indemnity.

10.3 Trademarks — openClaw, AI Providers, and third parties. "openClaw" may be a trademark of the openClaw project, the openClaw Foundation, Peter Steinberger, or their successors; "MyClaw" is the trademark of its owner. askNiva uses each name only nominatively to identify the software it deploys or to disambiguate itself from a separate service. askNiva is not affiliated with, endorsed by, partnered with, or sponsored by the openClaw project, the openClaw Foundation, Peter Steinberger, MyClaw, or any other third party. The Agreement does not grant you, and does not grant askNiva, any right in any openClaw trademark, AI Provider trademark (including "Claude", "Anthropic", "GPT", "ChatGPT", "OpenAI", "Gemini", "Google", "Vertex", "AWS", "Bedrock", "Azure"), or any third-party logo. You shall comply with each trademark holder's brand guidelines and shall not use any such mark in the name, branding, UI, or marketing of any agent, product, or service you build on your Instance except as each relevant trademark holder expressly permits.

10.4 Your content. You retain all rights in your Customer Data, subject to the licence in §9.2.

10.5 Feedback. Any feedback, suggestions, or ideas you provide to askNiva about the Service may be used by askNiva for any purpose, without restriction and without any obligation to you. You grant askNiva an irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use, modify, and incorporate such feedback.

10.6 No reverse engineering. You shall not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to derive the source code of any non-open-source part of the Service, except to the extent permitted by mandatory applicable law. You shall not probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Service except as expressly permitted by askNiva in writing.

10.7 No resale. You shall not resell, sublicense, lease, rent, or otherwise make the Service available to any third party except as expressly permitted by these Terms (for example, allowing a specific authorised user under your Account).

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11. Acceptable use

11.1 The AUP is binding. The AUP is incorporated into, and forms part of, the Agreement. You shall comply with the AUP at all times. A breach of the AUP is a material breach of these Terms.

11.2 Flow-down to end users. If you allow any other person or system to use your Instance (for example, colleagues, family members, end users of an application you build, or automated systems acting on your behalf), you are responsible for their compliance with the AUP and with the Agreement. Their acts and omissions are treated as yours for the purposes of the Agreement.

11.3 No obligation to monitor. askNiva has no obligation to monitor your compliance with the AUP but may do so and may act on abuse reports, security alerts, or lawful notices from any source.

11.4 Simultaneous compliance. Compliance with the AUP does not excuse non-compliance with Hetzner's terms, any AI Provider's terms, or applicable law. You warrant that you will comply with all of them simultaneously.

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12. Confidentiality

12.1 Obligations. Each party shall (i) use Confidential Information of the other only to perform its obligations and exercise its rights under the Agreement; (ii) protect Confidential Information with at least the same degree of care it uses for its own similar information, and in any event no less than a reasonable degree of care; and (iii) not disclose Confidential Information to any third party except to its personnel, professional advisers, or sub-processors bound by equivalent obligations, or as required by law.

12.2 Exclusions. Confidential Information does not include information that is or becomes public through no fault of the receiving party, is independently developed without use of the disclosing party's information, or is rightfully received from a third party without a duty of confidentiality.

12.3 Compelled disclosure. If a party is compelled by law to disclose Confidential Information, it shall, where lawful, give the other party prompt notice and reasonable cooperation to seek a protective order.

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13. Suspension and termination

13.1 Immediate suspension. askNiva may suspend your Account, your Instance, or any part of the Service, and askNiva shall do so where §13.1(c) or §13.1(d) is engaged and an upstream provider requires it, immediately and without prior notice, if:

> In plain English: askNiva can pause or switch off your Instance without warning if there is a serious safety, legal, or payment problem. Where it is safe and lawful to tell you why, askNiva will — see §13.2.

(a) askNiva reasonably believes you have breached the Agreement, any applicable law, any AI Provider's terms, or Hetzner's terms;
(b) there is a security, fraud, or abuse risk;
(c) Hetzner locks, null-routes, or takes any adverse action against your Instance;
(d) an AI Provider, hyperscaler, infrastructure provider, OAuth grantee, payment processor, or other upstream supplier whose service is reachable from your Instance notifies askNiva of actual or suspected breach by you of that supplier's terms, or demands (including under OpenAI Services Agreement §8.1, Anthropic's equivalent end-user-suspension mechanism, Google / AWS / Microsoft equivalents, or Hetzner AGB §8.4) that askNiva suspend, terminate, restrict, preserve evidence against, or disclose information about you, your Instance, or an end user of your Instance — in which case askNiva shall act within the time frame the supplier specifies, without prior notice to you and without refund, to the extent permitted by applicable law;
(e) askNiva is required to do so by law, regulation, court order, or other legal process;
(f) you fail to pay a fee after the period in §8.5;
(g) you initiate a chargeback without first contacting askNiva.

13.2 Notice where practical. Where reasonably practical, askNiva shall tell you why it has suspended your Account and what you must do to have it restored. Where notice is prohibited by law or would frustrate the purpose of the suspension, askNiva is not required to give it.

13.3 Termination for material breach. Either party may terminate the Agreement if the other materially breaches it and fails to cure the breach within fourteen (14) days of written notice. askNiva may terminate without any cure period if your breach is of the AUP, of an AI Provider's terms, or of Hetzner's terms; if the breach gives rise to a security, legal, or reputational emergency; or if you have repeatedly breached the Agreement.

13.4 Termination for convenience. You may terminate your Subscription at any time in accordance with §8.6. askNiva may terminate your Subscription for convenience on thirty (30) days' email notice.

13.5 Consequences of termination. On termination:

(a) your right to access and use the Service ceases;
(b) all fees accrued up to termination become immediately due and payable;
(c) askNiva may delete your Instance and Customer Data after a grace period of fourteen (14) days (or less if the termination was for cause, fraud, abuse, or legal-compliance reasons — in which case askNiva may delete immediately);
(d) no refund is payable unless required by law.

13.6 Data export. During the grace period in §13.5(c), you may export Customer Data through the tools askNiva provides. After the grace period, askNiva is not obliged to retain or make Customer Data available, subject only to any legal hold or regulatory retention obligation.

13.7 Evidence preservation. Notwithstanding §13.5(c) and §13.6, askNiva may, at its discretion and to the extent permitted by applicable law, preserve evidence of suspected violations (including logs, snapshots, agent traces, configuration, Customer Data, and metadata) beyond any deletion deadline, in accordance with AUP §§16.8 (public-authority and askNiva-party limbs) and 16.9 (upstream-supplier limb) and the POPIA §14(1)(a)–(d) / §15 / §18(4) framing recited in those clauses. Preserved evidence will be held in accordance with askNiva's security controls and disclosed only as permitted or required by law.

13.8 Survival. The following provisions survive the expiry or termination of the Agreement, together with any other provision that by its nature is intended to survive: §1 (Definitions), §§2.4–2.7 (sanctions, anti-corruption, source of funds), §2.10 (EEA / UK / Swiss targeting warranty and indemnity hook), §8 (accrued fees and §8.7 no-refund), §9 (Customer Data, including licence to residual obligations), §10 (Intellectual property), §11.2 (flow-down of user acts), §12 (Confidentiality), §13.5–13.8, §14 (Disclaimers), §15 (Limitation of liability), §16 (Indemnification), §17 (Compliance with laws), §18 (Cooperation with law enforcement), §19 (Force majeure, for the period of the event), §21 (Governing law and dispute resolution), §22 (Notices), and §23 (General).

13.9 No waiver. askNiva's failure to enforce any right on a particular occasion does not waive that right on any other occasion.

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14. Disclaimers

14.1 AS IS / AS AVAILABLE. Except as expressly stated in the Agreement, the Service, the askNiva Platform, any openClaw deployment, any Output, and any advice, information, or material askNiva provides, are provided "as is" and "as available". To the maximum extent permitted by law, askNiva disclaims all warranties, representations, conditions, and terms, whether express, implied, statutory, or otherwise, including:

(a) any implied warranty of merchantability, satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement;
(b) any warranty arising from course of dealing, usage, or trade practice;
(c) any warranty that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or free of viruses or harmful components;
(d) any warranty that any Output will be accurate, complete, current, reliable, safe, fit for any purpose, or free of infringement;
(e) any warranty that the Service will meet your requirements or that any defects will be corrected;
(f) any warranty regarding any third-party service, AI Provider, Hetzner, Paystack, or openClaw;
(g) any warranty regarding the behaviour, reliability, safety, or Outputs of any AI agent you configure on your Instance.

14.2 No implied term as to suitability. Without limiting §14.1, the Service is generic, preconfigured infrastructure made available on a "bring your own configuration" basis. askNiva has no knowledge of, and makes no assessment of, your particular use case. You acknowledge that no term is implied into the Agreement that the Service is fit for, suitable for, or of a quality adequate to, any particular purpose that you have in mind. Where you are a Consumer, this clause operates subject to §14.6.

14.3 No AI-output warranty. Any Output is generated by a third-party AI Provider. Output may be inaccurate, incomplete, out of date, misleading, biased, or offensive. You shall not rely on Output without independently verifying its accuracy and appropriateness, including by human review where the context warrants it. Output is not professional advice and must not be treated as such.

14.4 No agent-autonomy warranty. openClaw is an autonomous agent. It may take actions (including sending messages, making purchases, writing files, calling APIs, or interacting with third parties) that were not specifically directed by you but that follow from your configuration of the agent. You acknowledge that:

(a) the agent may act unpredictably;
(b) an adversary may use prompt injection or other means to direct the agent to act against your interests;
(c) you are solely responsible for configuring the agent safely, including safeguards, confirmations, and spend limits;
(d) askNiva makes no warranty that the agent will behave as you intend or that its actions will be legal, ethical, appropriate, or safe.

14.5 High-risk uses. The Service is generic, preconfigured infrastructure. It is not designed, intended, tested, warranted, or made available for use in any activity where failure or incorrect operation could reasonably be expected to result in death, personal injury, severe property damage, environmental damage, or a violation of a person's fundamental rights. Without limiting the foregoing, this includes:

(a) life-support, clinical decision support, medical diagnosis or treatment, or any medical-device-regulated application;
(b) aviation, aerospace, maritime, automotive, or other autonomous-vehicle control;
(c) nuclear-facility operation or control;
(d) the development, targeting, or operation of weapons or autonomous weapons systems;
(e) emergency services, emergency dispatch, or life-safety-critical components;
(f) criminal-justice decisions (including sentencing, parole, bail, pre-trial risk, and predictive policing);
(g) credit, lending, insurance underwriting, or claims-processing decisions with material impact on a natural person;
(h) employment, housing, educational-admissions, or government-benefit eligibility decisions;
(i) social-scoring or general-purpose individual-behaviour scoring;
(j) any practice prohibited by Article 5 of the EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), or any AI system classified as "high-risk" under Article 6 and Annex III thereof, where an EU nexus exists; or
(k) any similar activity that a reasonable SA professional person would consider safety-critical, fundamental-rights-affecting, or otherwise high-risk.

You warrant and agree that you will not use the Service, configure any agent on your Instance, or permit any person to use your Instance, for any such activity. If you elect to do so notwithstanding this prohibition, you expressly assume all risk and liability flowing from that use, you do so entirely at your own risk, you assume full responsibility for the design, testing, human-oversight, failsafes, and regulatory compliance of that use (see AUP §§9.1A, 9.2, 9.3), and you agree that any third-party claim arising from that use is within the scope of your indemnity in §§16.1(a), (b), (d), (g), (h) and (i). This clause is drawn to your attention in accordance with CPA §49 and does not purport to limit any liability of askNiva that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded (see §15.2(b) and Schedule A). askNiva assumes no legal duty towards, and extends no benefit of the Service or of these Terms to, any person who may be affected by such a use; the Service is not made available for the benefit of any such person and nothing in the Agreement shall be read as creating any such duty.

> In plain English: Do not use askNiva in situations where a failure could hurt or kill someone, damage property, or affect someone's legal rights. The Service is not designed for that, askNiva has not tested it for such use, and if you use it for such a purpose anyway, you — not askNiva — take full responsibility for the design, oversight, and outcome, including covering askNiva for any claim a third party brings.

14.6 No fiduciary, professional, or advisory relationship. askNiva is not your agent, fiduciary, trustee, partner, joint venturer, financial advisor, tax advisor, investment advisor, legal practitioner, medical practitioner, psychologist, or any other regulated professional. Nothing askNiva, the Service, or any Output communicates constitutes regulated professional advice. You shall obtain independent advice from a suitably qualified professional before acting in reliance on any Output or any information provided through the Service.

14.7 South African law carve-out. Nothing in this §14 limits or excludes a liability that cannot be limited or excluded under South African law (including the CPA, POPIA, or the common law in respect of fraud, gross negligence, or intentional misconduct).

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15. Limitation of liability

15.1 Exclusion of indirect damages. To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party shall be liable to the other (or to anyone claiming through the other) for any indirect, consequential, incidental, special, punitive, or exemplary damages, including lost profits, lost revenues, lost business opportunities, lost goodwill, lost anticipated savings, business interruption, or loss or corruption of data, arising out of or in connection with the Agreement, even if the party knew or should have known such damages were possible. This exclusion does not apply to (i) your indemnification obligations under §16, (ii) a Business User's liability to askNiva under §16.1A(a) or §16.1B(a) for any sum askNiva is required to pay Hetzner, any AI Provider, or any other upstream supplier as a consequence of the Business User's act or omission, which liability expressly includes indirect, consequential, and financial-loss heads to the full extent Hetzner or the other supplier is entitled to recover from askNiva. For a Consumer, the Consumer's liability under §16.1A(b) and §16.1B(b) is expressly limited to direct damages and this §15.1 carve-out does not enlarge that liability.

15.2 Cap on direct liability — tiered.

(a) Business Users. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the total aggregate liability of the askNiva Parties to a Business User (and to any person claiming through a Business User) arising out of or in connection with the Agreement, whether in contract, delict, negligence, statute, or otherwise, shall be limited to the greater of:

(i) the total fees paid by the Business User to askNiva under the Agreement in the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the liability; or
(ii) ZAR 2,000 (approximately USD 100 at the date of these Terms).

(b) Consumers. For any User who is a Consumer, the cap in §15.2(a) does not limit any right or liability that cannot lawfully be limited or excluded by contract, including (without limitation) (i) any liability of any askNiva Party for loss directly or indirectly attributable to gross negligence or wilful misconduct (CPA §51(1)(c)(i)); (ii) any liability for death or personal injury caused by any act or omission of any askNiva Party (CPA Regulation 44(3)(a); CPA §§54–57 where applicable); (iii) any right or remedy conferred by POPIA §99 or by ECTA; and (iv) any other right preserved by Schedule A. Nothing in this §15 shall be read or applied so as to waive, restrict, or exclude any right or liability that cannot lawfully be waived by contract. Where the cap in §15.2(a) would operate to defeat any such right, the cap shall not apply to that right.

> In plain English: If askNiva is held liable to you, the cap on damages is the greater of (i) the fees you paid us in the last 12 months, or (ii) ZAR 2,000 (about USD 100) — but only if you are a Business User. If you are a South African Consumer, the cap does not apply to rights that South African law says cannot be signed away: that includes askNiva's liability for its own gross negligence or wilful misconduct, askNiva's liability for any death or personal injury caused by askNiva, and your rights under POPIA and ECTA. See Schedule A for the full list.

15.3 Scope of cap. The cap in §15.2(a) is aggregate for all claims combined, not per claim.

15.4 Carve-outs. The limits in this §15 do not apply to:

(a) your obligation to pay fees;
(b) your indemnification obligations in §16;
(c) a Business User's primary payment obligations under §16.1A(a) (Hetzner-Origin Claim Primary Payment Obligation) and §16.1B(a) (AI-Provider-Origin Claim Primary Payment Obligation), which are not "indemnification obligations" for purposes of this §15.4(b) despite being cross-referenced herein (see §16.1A(c) and §16.1B(c)); a Consumer's capped, direct-damages-only indemnity under §16.1A(b) and §16.1B(b) is subject to the §15.2 cap and to §15.2(b) Consumer preservation;
(d) liability for fraud, gross negligence, or wilful misconduct to the extent such liability cannot be excluded under South African law;
(e) any liability that cannot be excluded or limited under the CPA, POPIA, or any other South African law;
(f) any liability arising from Output, from the conduct of an AI Provider, or from any agent action — in respect of which askNiva's liability is excluded entirely under §§14.3–14.4 and §§5.2(i) and 5.3A allocate responsibility to you.

15.5 Basis of the bargain. You acknowledge that the pricing of the Service reflects the allocation of risk in the Agreement and that without the disclaimers and caps in §§14 and 15, askNiva could not provide the Service on the terms stated.

15.5A Hetzner back-to-back recourse cap for upstream-caused downtime. For any claim by a Business User against askNiva arising from Hetzner downtime, Hetzner acts or omissions, Hetzner SLA-credit events, or any upstream-supplier outage (including any AI Provider, Paystack, or Google OAuth), askNiva's liability to that Business User is limited to the amount askNiva actually recovers from the relevant upstream supplier in respect of that incident (typically the upstream supplier's SLA-credit-only remedy). This §15.5A does not apply to any claim by a Consumer; a Consumer's recovery is instead governed by §15.2(b), Schedule A, and any non-waivable remedy under the CPA, POPIA, or ECTA (and, for certainty, a Consumer's remedy is not limited to what askNiva recovers from any upstream supplier). The basis of this §15.5A is that askNiva is not a reseller of Hetzner, AI-Provider, or payment-processor services (see §§6.3, 7.1) and cannot underwrite their acts at greater than its own upstream recovery without materially increasing Subscription fees; for Business Users that allocation is proportionate and commercially reasonable under CPA §48(1)(c). This §15.5A is drawn to your attention in accordance with CPA §49; it operates subject to §15.2(b) and Schedule A and does not displace any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded.

15.6 No claim against individuals. You shall not bring, and you hereby waive the right to bring (to the fullest extent permitted by law), any claim, demand, action, or proceeding in respect of the Agreement or the Service against any director, officer, employee, shareholder, contractor, or agent of askNiva personally. Your sole recourse is against Mollo Innovations (Pty) Ltd (trading as "askNiva") as a juristic person. This §15.6 is stipulated for the benefit of each of the directors, officers, employees, shareholders, contractors, and agents of askNiva, each of whom may accept the benefit conferred by this clause at any time (including by pleading this clause in defence to a claim) and, upon acceptance, shall be entitled to enforce this clause directly against you as an independent right (stipulatio alteri). This clause does not purport to limit any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, including (without limitation) (i) any liability for a person's own fraud, wilful misconduct, or gross negligence to the extent such liability cannot be excluded under South African law (CPA §51(1)(c)(i)); (ii) any statutory liability of a director, officer, or prescribed officer under sections 76, 77 (including §77(3)) or 218 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008 or any other statute; (iii) any Consumer right under the CPA, POPIA, ECTA, or Schedule A; and (iv) any right a third party may have in delict against the individual independently of the Agreement.

> In plain English: You agree to sue only askNiva the company, not its founder, directors, employees, or contractors personally. This does not protect anyone from liability for their own fraud or from statutory liability that cannot legally be waived.

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16. Indemnification

16.1 Indemnity by you. You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless the askNiva Parties from and against any and all claims, actions, suits, proceedings, losses, liabilities, damages, fines, penalties, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees and expert fees on an attorney-and-own-client basis) arising out of or in connection with:

> In plain English: If a third party (for example, a person your agent contacted, or a regulator) sues or fines askNiva because of something you or your agent did, you agree to cover askNiva's costs and damages. This is a standard clause for platforms whose users run their own software on hosted infrastructure.

(a) your use of the Service, your Instance, or any Output;
(b) any action taken by any agent you configure on your Instance, whether directed by you or autonomous;
(c) any Customer Data;
(d) your violation of the Agreement or any applicable law (including POPIA, the CPA, the Cybercrimes Act 19 of 2020, the Films and Publications Act 65 of 1996, the Electoral Act 73 of 1998, FICA, and any applicable export-control or sanctions regime);
(e) your violation of any AI Provider's terms, usage policy, or prohibited-use policy;
(f) your violation of Hetzner's terms, acceptable-use policy, or any applicable instruction from Hetzner;
(g) your violation of any third party's rights, including intellectual-property rights, privacy rights, personality rights, publicity rights, or any contractual rights arising from a third-party service (such as a messaging platform, website, or SaaS service);
(h) any claim made against askNiva by or through Hetzner, by any AI Provider, by any payment processor, or by any regulator, arising from any act or omission attributable to you or your Instance;
(i) any claim made by any end user of your Instance, by any person with whom your agent communicated, or by any third party against whom your agent took any action;
(j) any subpoena, court order, civil investigative demand, discovery request, regulatory demand, or similar lawful process directed at askNiva seeking records or Customer Data relating to your use of the Service, including askNiva's reasonable costs and legal fees of responding, objecting, preserving, or producing.

16.1A Hetzner-Origin Claim — Primary Payment Obligation (standalone and severable).

> In plain English: If Hetzner, a German authority, or any other EU authority recovers money from askNiva because of something you (or your agent) did on your Instance, the rules differ by who you are. Business Users: you promise to pay askNiva back in full — no cap, including indirect and consequential losses. That is the deal askNiva needs so it can run on Hetzner on your behalf. Consumers: you only owe askNiva for direct damages, only where the claim stemmed from your own intentional misconduct or gross negligence, and only up to the §15.2(a) cap. Your CPA, POPIA, and ECTA rights are preserved — see Schedule A.

(a) Business Users. Because askNiva is Hetzner's direct contractual counterparty and is strictly liable to Hetzner for end-user conduct on Hetzner infrastructure (see Hetzner AGB §§7.1–7.3, §9.2), each Business User agrees, as a primary payment obligation (and not merely an indemnity), to pay to askNiva on demand all claims, damages (including indirect, consequential, and financial-loss heads to the full extent Hetzner is entitled to recover from askNiva), fines, penalties, costs, and legal-defence fees that Hetzner, any German federal or state authority, or any other EU authority asserts, imposes, or recovers against askNiva arising out of or in connection with the Business User's use of the Service, its Instance, any content hosted on or routed through its Instance, or any agent it configures. Each Business User acknowledges that this §16.1A(a) is the consideration for askNiva procuring Hetzner infrastructure at scale on its behalf, that without it askNiva could not offer the Service at the Subscription price, and that it is independent from and severable from the general indemnity in §16.1; invalidation, unenforceability, or non-application of §16 (in whole or in part) does not affect this §16.1A(a).

(b) Consumers. For each Consumer, §16.1A(a) does not apply. In its place, the Consumer agrees to indemnify askNiva on demand for the direct damages (excluding indirect, consequential, and financial-loss heads) that Hetzner, any German federal or state authority, or any other EU authority recovers from askNiva as a consequence of the Consumer's own intentional misconduct or gross negligence in the use of the Service, the Consumer's Instance, content hosted on or routed through the Consumer's Instance, or any agent the Consumer configures. For certainty, §16.1A(b) (i) does not require a Consumer to pay for loss not proximately caused by the Consumer, (ii) is capped at the §15.2(a) cap quantum (read-across by analogy only), and (iii) is subject in all cases to §15.2(b), Schedule A, and any non-waivable right under the CPA, POPIA, or ECTA.

(c) Administrative labelling. References elsewhere in these Terms to §16.1A as an "indemnity" or "indemnification obligation" are for administrative convenience only and do not re-characterise the primary-obligation nature of §16.1A(a) or the capped indemnity nature of §16.1A(b).

16.1B AI-Provider-Origin Claim — Primary Payment Obligation (standalone and severable).

> In plain English: If an AI Provider (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google Gemini, AWS, Microsoft, or similar) recovers money from askNiva because of your use — for example, because you misused their API or turned off a safety filter — the rules differ by who you are. Business Users: you promise to pay askNiva back in full (no cap), and if you disabled a safety feature that would have triggered the AI Provider's own indemnity or copyright shield, that amount is on you too. Consumers: you only owe askNiva for direct damages, only where the claim stemmed from your own intentional misconduct or gross negligence and you intentionally disabled a safety feature you were on notice of, and only up to the §15.2(a) cap. Your CPA, POPIA, and ECTA rights are preserved — see Schedule A.

(a) Business Users. Because askNiva is not a party to a Business User's contract with any AI Provider, and the AI Provider's direct contractual remedy for the Business User's conduct runs against that Business User, each Business User agrees, as a primary payment obligation (and not merely an indemnity), to pay askNiva on demand any amount that any AI Provider (including, as applicable, AWS under the AWS Customer Agreement §7.1 and the indemnity and customer-responsibility provisions of the AWS Service Terms and AWS Responsible AI Policy; Microsoft under the Microsoft Customer Agreement, Product Terms (including the Acceptable Use Policy and the Code of Conduct for Microsoft AI Services), and any Limited Access or MCAP terms; Google under the Gemini API Additional Terms, Google APIs Terms of Service, Google Cloud Platform Terms, and Generative AI Prohibited Use Policy; Anthropic under the Commercial Terms and Usage Policy; OpenAI under the Services Agreement, Service Terms, and Usage Policies; or any other AI Provider under its equivalent provisions) recovers from askNiva arising out of or in connection with the Business User's use, its Instance, any content hosted on or routed through its Instance, or any agent it configures. Without limiting the foregoing, where the Business User disabled, lowered, or circumvented any AI Provider safety, citation, filter, or moderation feature and the claim would have been covered by that AI Provider's indemnity or copyright shield but for that disablement, the Business User's obligation under this §16.1B(a) includes all such otherwise-covered amounts and is not subject to any cap.

(b) Consumers. For each Consumer, §16.1B(a) does not apply. In its place, the Consumer agrees to indemnify askNiva on demand for the direct damages (excluding indirect, consequential, and financial-loss heads) that any AI Provider recovers from askNiva where the Consumer's conduct that gave rise to the claim was intentional misconduct or gross negligence in the use of the Service, the Consumer's Instance, content hosted on or routed through the Consumer's Instance, or any agent the Consumer configures, and the Consumer (i) was on actual notice of the AI Provider safety, citation, filter, or moderation feature concerned, and (ii) intentionally disabled, lowered, or circumvented that feature. §16.1B(b) is capped at the §15.2(a) cap quantum (read-across by analogy only) and is subject in all cases to §15.2(b), Schedule A, and any non-waivable right under the CPA, POPIA, or ECTA.

(c) Administrative labelling. Section 16.1B(a) is independent from and severable from §16 and §16.1A. References elsewhere in these Terms to §16.1B as an "indemnity" are for administrative convenience only.

16.2 Control of defence. askNiva shall promptly notify you of any claim for which it seeks indemnity; you shall control the defence and settlement of the claim, provided that (i) you shall not settle any claim without askNiva's prior written consent (not to be unreasonably withheld) if the settlement imposes any non-monetary obligation on askNiva or any admission of wrongdoing; (ii) askNiva may participate in the defence at its own cost; and (iii) if you fail to promptly assume the defence, askNiva may defend the claim itself at your cost.

16.3 Uncapped. The cap in §15.2 does not apply to your indemnification obligations.

16.4 Narrow indemnity by askNiva. askNiva shall defend you against, and indemnify you for amounts finally awarded or agreed in settlement of, any third-party claim alleging that the askNiva Platform (as defined in §10.1), as provided by askNiva and used by you in accordance with the Agreement, directly infringes that third party's intellectual-property rights.

16.5 Exclusions from askNiva indemnity. askNiva's indemnity in §16.4 does not apply to any claim to the extent it arises from, or would not have arisen but for:

(a) openClaw (including any askNiva patches, operational configuration, or packaging applied to openClaw — see §10.2A), any AI Provider's models or Outputs, Hetzner's infrastructure, or any other third-party service;
(b) Customer Data;
(c) your combination of the Service with any other product, service, software, or data not provided by askNiva;
(d) any modification of the Service by anyone other than askNiva;
(e) your continued allegedly-infringing use after askNiva has told you to stop;
(f) your breach of the Agreement or of applicable law;
(g) any Output or any action of any agent you configure.

16.6 askNiva's options. If a claim in §16.4 is made or appears likely, askNiva may, at its option and cost, (i) procure the right for you to continue using the affected part of the Service; (ii) modify or replace the affected part so that it is non-infringing; or (iii) terminate the affected Subscription and refund any prepaid fees covering the period after termination.

16.7 Sole remedy. §§16.4–16.6 state your sole and exclusive remedy, and the askNiva Parties' sole and exclusive liability, for any third-party intellectual-property-infringement claim.

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17. Compliance with laws

17.1 Your compliance. You warrant that you, any person you grant access to your Instance, and any agent you configure, shall comply with all laws applicable to your use of the Service, including in particular:

(a) POPIA and any other applicable privacy or data-protection law;
(b) the CPA;
(c) the Cybercrimes Act 19 of 2020;
(d) the Films and Publications Act 65 of 1996 (as amended);
(e) the Electoral Act 73 of 1998;
(f) FICA and any applicable anti-money-laundering or counter-terrorism-financing law;
(g) South African export-control law (including the National Conventional Arms Control Act) and applicable US (OFAC, BIS/EAR), EU (dual-use, EU sanctions), and UN sanctions regimes;
(h) the laws applicable to any jurisdiction your agent acts in or any jurisdiction where your end users are located;
(i) any AI Provider Terms.

17.2 Export controls. You shall not export, re-export, or provide access to the Service, any Output, any Customer Data, or any underlying technology in violation of any export-control or sanctions law.

17.3 Anti-bribery. You shall not, and you shall not permit any person acting on your behalf to, offer, give, or accept any bribe, kickback, or other improper payment in connection with the Service. Section 2.5 governs and is without prejudice to this clause.

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18. Cooperation with law enforcement

18.1 Permitted disclosures. POPIA lawful-basis recital. The disclosures authorised by this §18.1 are grounded, under POPIA, on the stack of §11(1)(b) (necessary for the performance of the Agreement between you and askNiva and for askNiva's upstream contracts required to make the Service available to you), §11(1)(c) (compliance with a legal obligation imposed on askNiva, including by any order or process described in §18.1(a), (e), or (f)), and §11(1)(f) (legitimate interests of askNiva and of its upstream suppliers in the enforcement of their terms and in the defence of claims). Further processing under this §18.1 is compatible with the original purpose of collection within the meaning of POPIA §15, and in particular §15(3)(c) for the legal-process limbs and the compatibility test in §15(2) for the upstream-supplier-routing limbs. Where askNiva does not notify you of a specific disclosure, it does so in reliance on POPIA §18(4)(b), (c), or (d) as the case may be. The Privacy Policy §§8 and 20 constitute the §18(1) collection-notification; §18.2 below supplements that notification at the point a specific disclosure is made. Subject to that framing, askNiva may access, preserve, and disclose your Customer Data, Account information, Instance metadata, and conduct details if askNiva reasonably believes it is necessary to:

(a) comply with any law, court order, subpoena, or other legal process (including any order under Article 10 DSA or equivalent information order routed through Hetzner);
(b) enforce the Agreement;
(c) respond to claims that Customer Data violates the rights of third parties;
(d) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of askNiva, its Users, or the public;
(e) respond to a lawful request from a regulator, law-enforcement agency, or other competent authority (including SAPS, SARS, the Information Regulator under POPIA, the Financial Intelligence Centre under FICA, the National Director of Public Prosecutions, or an equivalent authority in another jurisdiction);
(f) disclose your identity, Instance metadata, and conduct details to Hetzner, to any AI Provider, to any OAuth grantee, to any payment processor, or to any other upstream supplier to the extent reasonably necessary to comply with that supplier's abuse, security, preservation, takedown, information-order, or audit process, or to respond to an AI Provider's own pre-litigation investigation. You authorise askNiva to act as your representative in good faith before Hetzner and any other upstream supplier in connection with any such matter relating to your Instance, including by acknowledging, on your behalf, that conduct complained of occurred on your Instance.

18.2 User notice. Where askNiva is permitted to, and where it is reasonable, askNiva shall notify you of a legal disclosure request before responding. askNiva is not required to give notice where it is prohibited by law or where it reasonably believes notice would frustrate the purpose of the request or create a risk to any person.

18.3 Your cooperation. If askNiva receives an abuse report, an AI Provider complaint, a Hetzner notice, or any lawful request relating to your Instance, askNiva may require you to take specified remedial action (such as removing content, changing configuration, or answering a question) within a specified time. You shall cooperate promptly and in good faith. Failure to cooperate is a material breach.

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19. Force majeure

19.1 Neither party shall be liable for any delay or failure to perform its obligations where the delay or failure results from any cause beyond its reasonable control, including acts of God, earthquake, flood, fire, war, terrorism, civil unrest, strike or labour dispute (other than of its own workforce), pandemic, power or telecommunications failure, internet outage, denial-of-service attack, cyber-attack, failure of any third-party provider (including Hetzner, Paystack, Google, or any AI Provider), legal, regulatory, or governmental act or order, or any other force majeure event.

19.2 Upstream action. For the avoidance of doubt, a force majeure event includes (i) Hetzner's lawful suspension, null-routing, account-lock, or termination of askNiva's account (or of any individual Instance) under Hetzner's terms, including as a consequence of another User's conduct; (ii) the discontinuation, deprecation, material change, or exercise of any carve-out right by any AI Provider (including GCP's §1.4(e) deprecation carve-out, Microsoft's Limited Access changes, AWS model-retirement, Anthropic / OpenAI / Gemini model retirement or policy change); (iii) any act or omission of Hetzner, an AI Provider, Paystack, a payment processor, a sanctions authority, or an OAuth grantee that materially impairs askNiva's ability to provide the Service or requires askNiva to change the Service on shorter notice than §20; (iv) any upstream export-control, sanctions, or other compliance-driven change requiring immediate action.

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20. Service modifications and discontinuation

20.1 Changes. askNiva may change the Service at any time, including by adding, modifying, or removing features. Where a change is materially adverse to you, askNiva shall give you at least thirty (30) days' notice by email or in-product notification.

20.2 Discontinuation. askNiva may discontinue the Service or any part of it. Where askNiva does so for a reason other than a legal, regulatory, security, or third-party-dependency emergency, askNiva shall give at least sixty (60) days' notice for paid Subscriptions.

20.3 Third-party-driven changes. Some changes are outside askNiva's control. If Hetzner retires a region, an AI Provider deprecates a model, or Paystack changes its terms, askNiva may have to implement changes immediately and without notice.

20.4 Beta features. Any feature askNiva labels as "beta", "preview", "experimental", or similar is provided "as is", with no SLA, no support commitment, and no guarantee of continued availability, and may be withdrawn without notice.

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21. Governing law and dispute resolution

21.1 Governing law. The Agreement is governed by the law of the Republic of South Africa, excluding its conflict-of-laws rules and excluding the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

21.2 Jurisdiction. Subject to §21.4 (Consumer carve-out), the parties submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court of South Africa (Gauteng Division, Johannesburg) for any dispute, claim, or proceeding arising out of or in connection with the Agreement, except that askNiva may, against a Business User only, bring proceedings in any court with jurisdiction over that Business User to recover fees or enforce its intellectual-property rights.

21.3 Business-user arbitration option. If you are a Business User, the parties may, by mutual written agreement, refer a dispute to arbitration administered by the Arbitration Foundation of Southern Africa ("AFSA") in Johannesburg, in English, before a single arbitrator, under AFSA's Commercial Arbitration Rules in force at the time. For any dispute in which the amount in controversy does not exceed ZAR 500,000, the parties may elect AFSA's Domestic Expedited Arbitration Rules in lieu of the Commercial Rules.

21.4 Consumer carve-out. Nothing in §§21.2 or 21.3 affects any right you have as a Consumer under the CPA (in particular §§51(1)(b), 52, 69, 70), POPIA, ECTA, or any other South African law that cannot be waived by contract. If you are a Consumer, you retain the right to bring a dispute before the National Consumer Tribunal, the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud, the National Consumer Commission, the Information Regulator (for POPIA complaints), or any court or other forum with jurisdiction over consumer complaints, and no provision of this §21 requires you to arbitrate or waives any of those rights.

21.5 Informal resolution. Before starting any formal proceeding, the parties shall make a reasonable effort to resolve the dispute informally by contacting each other using the notice addresses in §22 and attempting in good faith to negotiate a resolution for at least thirty (30) days. Compliance with this §21.5 is a condition precedent to any formal proceeding, except for any proceeding contemplated by §21.6 or any proceeding to enforce a Consumer statutory right under Schedule A.

21.6 Injunctive relief. Either party may seek urgent injunctive or interdictory relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to prevent actual or threatened infringement of its intellectual-property rights, breach of confidentiality, or other material breach of the Agreement, without first attempting informal resolution.

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22. Notices

22.1 Notices to you. askNiva may give you notice by email to the address on your Account, by a notification in the Service, or by posting on askNiva's website. A notice is deemed received when sent (if by email or in-Service notification) or when posted (if by website). You shall keep your Account contact information current; a notice is effective even if your information is out of date.

22.2 Notices to askNiva. You shall give askNiva legal notice by email to legal@askniva.com (or such other address as askNiva may publish), with a copy to the registered address in §23. A notice is deemed received on the next business day after it is sent.

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23. General

23.1 Entire agreement. The Agreement (these Terms, the AUP, the Privacy Policy, the DPA (to the extent applicable), and any order form executed with you) is the entire agreement between you and askNiva and supersedes all prior or contemporaneous agreements, representations, and understandings on the same subject matter.

23.2 Order of precedence. If there is a conflict between the parts of the Agreement, the order of precedence is: (i) any signed order form; (ii) the DPA to the extent it concerns data-protection matters; (iii) these Terms; (iv) the AUP; (v) the Privacy Policy; (vi) any other policy incorporated by reference.

23.3 Assignment. You shall not assign, transfer, or delegate any part of the Agreement without askNiva's prior written consent. askNiva may assign or transfer the Agreement (in whole or in part) to an affiliate, successor, or acquirer on notice to you. Notwithstanding the foregoing, where an assignment would transfer Google-derived Account Data (email, name, profile picture, Google sub identifier, or other OAuth-profile data) to the acquiring entity, such transfer shall take effect only after your affirmative prior consent, consistent with Google's API Services User Data Policy; if you do not consent, askNiva will delete your Google-derived data within 30 days of the assignment.

23.4 Severability. If any provision of the Agreement is held unenforceable, the remainder remains in force and the parties shall replace the unenforceable provision with an enforceable one that most closely matches the parties' original intent.

23.5 No waiver. A waiver of any breach of the Agreement is only effective if in writing and signed by the party giving it. No waiver is a waiver of any other or later breach.

23.6 Independent contractors. The parties are independent contractors. Nothing in the Agreement creates an agency, partnership, joint venture, or employment relationship.

23.7 No class actions. To the extent permitted by law, any dispute between you and askNiva shall be brought on an individual basis only, and not as a class or representative action.

23.8 Language. These Terms are in English. Any translation askNiva provides is for convenience only; the English version prevails in the event of any conflict.

23.9 Headings. Headings are for convenience only and do not affect interpretation.

23.10 Cumulative remedies. The rights and remedies in the Agreement are cumulative and in addition to any rights or remedies available by law.

23.11 Changes to these Terms. askNiva may change these Terms from time to time. If a change is material, askNiva shall notify you at least thirty (30) days before the change takes effect, by email, in-product notification, or by posting on askNiva's website. If you continue to use the Service after the change takes effect, you are deemed to accept the change. If you do not accept the change, you must cancel your Subscription before the change takes effect in accordance with §8.6. Changes required by law or regulation take effect as required by law, which may be immediately. askNiva may change the AUP, the Privacy Policy, the DPA, and any other document incorporated by reference on the same terms.

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24. Contact

Mollo Innovations (Pty) Ltd (trading as "askNiva")

Companies and Intellectual Property Commission (CIPC) registration number: 2026/275132/07

Registered office: Regus Business Centre, 1st Floor, Block B, North Park, Black River Park, 2 Fir Street, Observatory, Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa, 7925

Principal place of business: same as registered office above

General enquiries: hello@askniva.com

Customer support: support@askniva.com

Legal notices: legal@askniva.com

Abuse reports: abuse@askniva.com

Privacy / data-protection (POPIA): privacy@askniva.com

Data Protection Officer / Information Officer (POPIA §55): dpo@askniva.com

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Acknowledgement

By creating an Account or using the Service, you acknowledge that you have read these Terms, the AUP, the Privacy Policy, and (to the extent applicable) the DPA, that you understand them, and that you agree to be bound by all of them.

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Schedule A — Preserved Consumer rights under South African law

This Schedule lists specific provisions of South African consumer-protection legislation that these Terms do not purport to waive, limit, or exclude. In the event of any conflict between these Terms and any right conferred by the provisions below, those rights prevail. This is a non-exhaustive list; no other preserved right is extinguished by its omission.

A.1 Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 (CPA)

§48 (Unfair, unreasonable, or unjust contract terms). A term that is excessively one-sided in favour of askNiva, or that is otherwise unfair, unreasonable, or unjust, is unenforceable. askNiva does not rely on §15 (Limitation of liability) or §16 (Indemnification) to the extent those clauses would fall foul of §48 or Regulation 44 to the CPA. In particular, CPA Regulation 44(3)(a) preserves a Consumer's remedy for death or personal injury caused by defective, unsafe, or hazardous goods; Reg 44(3)(b) preserves Consumer remedies for supplier breach; Reg 44(3)(d) preserves supplier liability for the acts of its employees; Reg 44(3)(e), (r) preserve Consumers from being required to pay third-party claims or disproportionate damages; Reg 44(3)(x) preserves Consumers' right to legal action and remedy.
§49 (Notice required for certain terms and conditions). Consumers are entitled to have unusually onerous clauses — including any limitation of askNiva's risk, any assumption of risk by the Consumer, any acknowledgement, and any indemnity — specifically drawn to their attention in plain language. askNiva seeks to do so through the "Notice to Consumers" preamble, the "In plain English" callouts, and this Schedule.
§50 (Written consumer agreements). Where a written agreement is used, it must be in plain language that an ordinary Consumer can reasonably understand. askNiva has attempted to use plain language throughout; where technical or legal terms are unavoidable, Section 1 defines them.
§51 (Prohibited transactions, agreements, terms, or conditions). Any term purporting to waive a Consumer's statutory right (including any right under this Schedule) is void. In particular:
§51(1)(b) — askNiva does not rely on any term to avoid a supplier's obligation or duty under the CPA, to set aside or override the effect of any provision of the CPA, or to authorise anything the CPA prohibits;
§51(1)(c)(i) — no clause of these Terms limits or exempts any askNiva Party from liability for loss directly or indirectly attributable to the gross negligence or wilful misconduct of any askNiva Party;
§§52, 69, 70 — Consumers retain access to the ordinary courts, the National Consumer Tribunal, the National Consumer Commission, and the Consumer Goods and Services Ombud (and, for POPIA complaints, the Information Regulator) for enforcement of the CPA and of consumer rights; nothing in §21 (Governing law and dispute resolution) or §23.7 (class-action waiver) requires a Consumer to arbitrate, to waive, or to submit to a non-SA forum any such claim.
§§53–61 (Product liability framework). Where any component of the Service is deemed "goods" under §1 CPA, the product-liability framework (including §55 right to safe / good-quality goods, §56 implied warranty of quality, §61(1) strict liability, §61(4)(b) and (c) defences) applies and is preserved. Where the Service is characterised as a pure service, the analogous service-quality rights in §54 apply.

A.2 Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA)

§5 (Rights of Data Subjects). The right to be notified, to access, to correct or delete, to object to processing, to complain to the Information Regulator, and to institute civil proceedings.
§§8–25 (Conditions for lawful processing). askNiva's obligations as an Operator are set out in the DPA; nothing in the Agreement limits a Data Subject's rights directly against the Responsible Party.
§99 (Civil remedies). A Data Subject's right to sue a Responsible Party or Operator for damages is not waived.

A.3 Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 (ECTA)

§43 (Information to be provided). The disclosures required by §43 are set out in §3 of these Terms.
§44 (Cooling-off period). Preserved except to the extent of the deployment-commencement waiver in §3.2, which is itself subject to §42(2)(d) and to any contrary holding by a court or the Consumer Tribunal.

A.4 Other

Financial Intelligence Centre Act 38 of 2001 (FICA) — Consumer and customer rights under FICA are preserved.
Common-law rights — Nothing in these Terms excludes any common-law liability for fraud, gross negligence, or wilful misconduct.

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Schedule B — Glossary of Defined Terms (alphabetical index)

For the lawyer's convenience, the defined terms appearing in these Terms are listed alphabetically below, each with a reference to where it is defined.

| Term | Defined in |

|------|------------|

| Account | §1.1 |

| Agreement | Preamble (definitional) |

| AI Provider | §1.1 |

| AI Provider Terms | §1.1 |

| askNiva | §1.1 |

| askNiva Parties | §1.1 |

| askNiva Platform | §10.1 |

| askNiva-Supplied Configuration | §5.7 |

| Hetzner-Origin Claim (Primary Payment Obligation) | §16.1A |

| AI-Provider-Origin Claim (Primary Payment Obligation) | §16.1B |

| AUP | §1.1 |

| Business User | §1.1 |

| Confidential Information | §1.1 |

| Consumer | §1.1 |

| CPA | §1.1 |

| Customer Data | §1.1 |

| Customer Type | §1.1 |

| Data Subject | §1.1 |

| DPA | §1.1 |

| ECTA | §1.1 |

| FICA | §1.1 |

| Hetzner | §1.1 |

| Instance | §1.1 |

| openClaw | §1.1 |

| Operator | §1.1 |

| Output | §1.1 |

| Paystack | §1.1 |

| PEP (Politically Exposed Person) | §2.6 |

| Personal Information | §1.1 |

| POPIA | §1.1 |

| Responsible Party | §1.1 |

| Service | §1.1 |

| Special Personal Information | §1.1 |

| Subscription | §1.1 |

| Terms | Preamble |

| User / you / your | §1.1 |

(Additional capitalised terms defined in-line, such as "CBRNE" in the AUP or "CSAM" in the AUP, are defined at first use within the relevant document.)