Terms of service

1. Who these terms are between

These terms are between Guarded Servers(“we”, “us”) and the person who opens an account (“you”). By creating an account you agree to them. If you do not, do not create one.

We may update these terms. When a change matters we will tell you by email before it takes effect, and the version and date at the top of this page always say which wording is current. Carrying on using the service after a change means you accept the new version. If you would rather not, cancel, and we will not charge you again.

2. Who may open an account

You must be at least 18 and legally able to enter into a contract. The service is designed for a parent or guardian setting something up for a child, and the account holder is responsible for it.

Children do not get accounts here. There is no login for them, nothing for them to install, and no way for them to change who is allowed in. That is the point of the product rather than an oversight.

Keep your password to yourself. Anything done through your account is treated as done by you, so if you think somebody else has your password, change it from your account page and tell us.

3. What we provide

A private Minecraft server for your household, reachable from Java and Bedrock editions, with an approval list you control. Specifically:

• One world per account, on hardware we choose and manage. We do not sell you an amount of memory or a specific machine, and we may move or resize it.
• An approval list. Nobody can join until you approve them, and you can remove anybody at any time.
• Daily backups, with the last 7 kept and any of them restorable by you.
• Worlds that sleep when nobody is playing and wake when someone joins, so the first person in after a quiet spell may wait a little.

We will keep the service running as well as we reasonably can, but we do not promise it is never unavailable. Maintenance, a fault, an upstream provider or something outside our control can all interrupt it. If we have to stop offering the service altogether we will give you notice, refund any period you have paid for and not yet had, and give you time to take a copy of your world.

4. What you may not do

Using the service, you agree not to:

• Break the law with it, or help anybody else to.
• Use it to harass, bully, threaten or sexualise anybody, or to share material that does any of those things.
• Attack, overload or attempt to gain access to any part of our systems you were not given, or to anybody else’s world.
• Resell, sublicense or rent out the server, or run something on it that is not a Minecraft world for your household and its guests.
• Upload or install anything you do not have the right to, or anything designed to damage other people’s computers.

If any of that happens we may suspend the world while we look into it, and end the account if it is serious or repeated. Where we can, we will tell you what happened and give you a chance to put it right first. If we end an account for one of these reasons we will refund the unused part of anything you have paid.

5. Minecraft, Mojang and Microsoft

Guarded Serversis not affiliated with, endorsed by or associated with Mojang AB or Microsoft. Minecraft is a trademark of Mojang Synergies AB. Everyone playing needs their own copy of the game and remains subject to Mojang’s own terms and community standards, which we cannot vary.

6. Your world and your content

The world your family builds is yours. We store and run it so that it works, back it up so that a bad afternoon is not permanent, and look at it only where we have to: to fix a fault, to restore a backup you asked for, or where the law requires it.

You are responsible for what is built and said on your world. If somebody on it is being unkind, removing them from the approval list stops them getting back in, and you never have to explain yourself to them.

7. Trials, payment and renewal

The free trial

New accounts get 14 days free. We collect card details when the trial starts, both to confirm a grown-up set the account up and so the world keeps running afterwards without anybody having to remember anything. Nothing is charged during the trial. One trial per household.

What happens at the end of it

Three days before the trial ends we email you to say what will be charged and when. If you do nothing, the plan you chose starts on the day after the trial ends and the first payment is taken then. If you cancel before that day you are never charged at all.

Renewal

Plans renew automatically — monthly or yearly, whichever you picked — at the price shown when you signed up, until you cancel. Every charge comes with a receipt by email showing the amount, the date and when the next one is due.

Changing plan

You can move between monthly and yearly at any time, in either direction. Moving credits the unused part of what you have already paid against the new plan.

If a price changes

We will email you at least 30 days before any price change takes effect on your account, and you can cancel before it does.

If a payment fails

The world keeps running while we retry, and we will tell you so that you can update your card. If the payment still cannot be taken after the retries, access stops until it is sorted out.

Taxes

Prices are in US dollars. Where sales tax or VAT applies it is shown before you pay.

8. Pausing, canceling and refunds

Pausing stops the billing and keeps the world exactly as your child left it. Nobody can play while it is paused, and you can start it again whenever you like.

Canceling takes one click in your account. There is no phone call, no chat window and nothing designed to change your mind. Canceling stops the next charge; the world keeps running until the end of the period you have already paid for, and we delete it 30 days after that.

Refunds. We do not refund part-used periods as a matter of course, because canceling already leaves you with what you paid for. We do refund when we have got something wrong, when a charge was taken in error, and where the law where you live says we must. Email [email protected] and tell us what happened. A person reads every message.

9. Deleting your account

You can delete your account from your account page. When you do, the world stops and your plan ends immediately, so there are no further charges.

Everything we hold — the account, the worlds, the backups and the approval list — is then erased 30 days later. During those 30 days nothing is lost: sign in, choose to keep the account, and it all comes back exactly as it was. After that day it is gone and we cannot get it back for you.

Your invoices stay with Stripe, our payment processor, for as long as tax law requires. That is the one thing deleting an account does not reach, and it is out of our hands as well as yours. The privacy page explains what is held and by whom.

10. Suspending or ending an account ourselves

We may suspend or end an account that breaks section 4, that is being used to harm somebody, or where we are required to by law. Where we reasonably can we will warn you first and give you a chance to fix it. If we end an account for a reason that is not your fault, we refund the unused part of what you have paid.

11. What we do not promise

We provide the service as it is. Beyond what these terms say, and beyond what the law gives you and cannot be signed away, we do not promise the service will be uninterrupted, error free, or that the approval list will catch everything. It is a good tool and it is not supervision.

To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you for anything arising out of the service is limited to what you paid us in the 12 months before the problem. We are not liable for indirect or consequential losses. Nothing here limits liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited, and if you are a consumer your statutory rights are unaffected.

12. Law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Vermont, United States, and its courts have jurisdiction, except where the law where you live gives you the right to bring a claim locally.

Please email us first. Most things people go to the trouble of escalating turn out to be a misunderstanding we could have fixed the same day.

13. Odds and ends

If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, the rest still stands. Not enforcing something immediately does not mean we have given it up. You may not transfer your account to somebody else without asking us; we may transfer these terms if the business is sold, and we will tell you if that happens.

Questions about any of this go to [email protected].