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Effective 10 July 2026

Privacy policies are usually long, vague and written for lawyers. Ours isn't, because our approach is simple: collect as little as possible, use it only to serve you, and never sell it. Here's the full picture. This policy works alongside our terms of service.

1. Who we are

Custom Hosting is a web hosting & development company based in South Africa. Under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA), we are the "responsible party" for the personal information described in this policy — in plain English, that means we decide how and why your information is used, and we're accountable for looking after it.

2. What we collect

If you use our contact form, we collect exactly what you type in: your name, your business name (optional), your email address, your phone number (optional), what you need, and your message. Your submission is emailed straight to hosting@customhosting.co.za. The form also has a hidden "honeypot" field that only spam bots fill in — it collects nothing from real people, and it's why we don't need a CAPTCHA or any tracking to keep spam out.

If you become a client, we keep the account and billing information needed to run your services — your contact details, the hosting, website or custom build services you've signed up for, and your invoicing and payment history.

Server logs. Like almost every server on the internet, ours keep standard technical logs (things like IP addresses and requested pages). We use these only for security.

What we don't collect: this website sets no cookies and runs no analytics or trackers. None. We genuinely don't watch what you do here.

One honest disclosure: our site loads its fonts from Google Fonts. When your browser fetches those fonts, your IP address is disclosed to Google. That is the only third-party resource on the site.

3. Why we use it

We use your information for four things, and nothing else:

  • Answering your enquiries — if you contact us, we use your details to reply to you.
  • Providing and supporting your services — hosting your site, building your website, and helping when something needs attention.
  • Billing — invoicing you and keeping our payment records straight.
  • Legal obligations — keeping the records South African law, such as tax law, requires us to keep.

In POPIA terms, that means we process your information because you've asked us to, because it's necessary to conclude or carry out our agreement with you, because we have a legitimate interest in running our business properly, or because the law requires it. We don't use your information for anything beyond that — no profiling, no marketing lists you didn't ask for.

4. Who we share it with

Nobody, for marketing. Ever. We do not sell, rent or trade your information, and we never will.

We share information only where it's genuinely needed to deliver a service:

  • Payment providers — if we build you an online store, PayFast processes your store's customer payments. We don't store card details. Payments to us by EFT or card go through the usual banking and card channels.
  • Google Fonts — as explained above, your IP address is disclosed to Google when the site's fonts load.
  • Authorities — if we're legally required to hand over information (for example, under a court order), we'll comply, but only to the extent the law demands.

5. How we protect it

  • SSL encryption — our website and hosting services use SSL, so information travels between you and us encrypted.
  • Daily backups — our hosting is backed up every day, so information isn't lost if something goes wrong.
  • Limited access — we're a small team, and only the people who need your information to help you can get to it.

No system on earth is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable, practical steps to keep your information safe, as POPIA requires.

6. How long we keep it

  • Enquiries: if you contact us and don't become a client, we keep your enquiry for around 12 months (in case you come back to us), then it goes.
  • Client records: we keep these for as long as you're a client, plus whatever period South African tax law requires us to hold financial records afterwards.

7. Your rights under POPIA

POPIA gives you real rights over your information, and we honour all of them:

  • Access — ask us what information we hold about you, and we'll tell you.
  • Correction — if something is wrong or out of date, we'll fix it.
  • Deletion — ask us to delete your information and we will, unless the law requires us to keep it (tax records, for example).
  • Objection — you can object to how we process your information.

To use any of these rights, just email hosting@customhosting.co.za — no forms, no fuss. If you're not happy with how we respond, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator (South Africa).

8. Email & hosting clients' data

If we host your website or email, your mailboxes, site files and databases live on our servers — but that content belongs to you, not us. We don't read it, mine it or use it for anything of our own. Our team only accesses it when you ask us for support — restoring a backup for you, for instance. Whatever your own customers send to your mailboxes or through your site is between you and them.

9. Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we'll update this page and the effective date at the top. If a change is significant and you're a client, we'll tell you directly. We won't quietly water down your protections.

Questions about any of this? We're happy to explain in plain English — contact us and a real person will get back to you.