Terms of Service

Version: 5th April 2026

General Terms and Conditions

1. Scope of Application

These Terms of Service govern all contracts between Mats A. Stottmeister, operating under the MTN Media Group brand, Am Wimblech 55, 52224 Stolberg, Germany, hereinafter referred to as “MTN”, and its customers for digital services, including in particular hosting services, server and platform services, web hosting, domains, web design, cloud services, IT solutions, and the MTN AI platform.
These Terms apply to both consumers and business customers. Where individual provisions apply only to consumers or only to business customers, this will be stated expressly in the relevant section.
The version of these Terms incorporated at the time the contract is concluded shall apply.
Any deviating, conflicting, or supplementary terms of the customer shall only become part of the contract if MTN has expressly agreed to them in text form.
Where product pages, the order process, service descriptions, quotations, or individual offers contain more specific or deviating provisions, those provisions shall prevail over these general Terms in the event of a conflict.

2. Contracting Party and Definitions

The customer’s contracting party is Mats A. Stottmeister, operating under the MTN Media Group brand, Am Wimblech 55, 52224 Stolberg, Germany, VAT ID No.: DE329544496.
“Customer” means any natural person, legal entity, or partnership with legal capacity that enters into a contract with MTN or uses services provided by MTN.
“Consumer” means any natural person who enters into a legal transaction for purposes that predominantly fall outside that person’s trade, business, or self-employed professional activity.
“Business Customer” means any natural person, legal entity, or partnership with legal capacity acting in the exercise of its trade, business, or self-employed professional activity when entering into the contract.
“Services” means all services offered by MTN, including hosting, servers, web hosting, domains, cloud services, web design, IT solutions, and MTN AI.

3. Formation of Contract

The presentation of services on websites, customer panels, price lists, or quotation documents does not constitute a binding offer, but an invitation for the customer to place an order or submit a request.
A contract is formed when MTN expressly accepts the order, provides the service, issues an order confirmation, or submits an individual offer that is accepted by the customer.
MTN may reject orders or requests without stating reasons, in particular where there are technical, organizational, security-related, or legal concerns.
The customer must provide complete, accurate, and up-to-date information during the contract conclusion and throughout the contractual relationship. Changes, especially to billing details, contact persons, email addresses, or payment details, must be updated without undue delay.
The contract language is German unless expressly agreed otherwise.

4. Scope of Services and Changes to Services

The type and scope of the services owed are determined by the relevant product description, the order process, an individual offer, or another service description provided by MTN.
MTN may technically develop, adapt, or modify services, provided that the contractual purpose is not materially impaired and the change is reasonable for the customer.
MTN may use third parties or subcontractors to provide the services.
Where third-party providers, upstream suppliers, registries, model providers, software vendors, or other external platforms are involved, performance of the service may also depend on their availability, technical requirements, and terms of use.
Guarantees, warranted characteristics, or service level agreements shall only apply if they are expressly designated as such in writing.

5. Customer Account, Credentials, and Communication

Certain services require a customer account. The customer must keep account credentials confidential, protect them against unauthorized access, and notify MTN without undue delay of any suspected misuse.
Passwords must be at least 12 characters long and contain at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number, and one special character.
MTN may offer additional security features such as two-factor authentication, FIDO, or similar mechanisms for customer accounts. Customers are expected to use such protections where they are available.
In cases of higher contract value, higher revenue volume, elevated risk, or special security requirements, MTN may require two-factor authentication for some or all account access.
The customer is responsible for all activities carried out through its customer account or access credentials to the extent that the misuse is attributable to the customer.
The customer must ensure that its contact and billing details remain current and that communications from MTN, in particular regarding security, billing, misuse, or service disruptions, can be received.
MTN may send contractual notices, warnings, and other communications by email, through the customer panel, or by other electronic means.

6. Prices, Billing, Due Dates, and Late Payment

The prices displayed or individually agreed at the time the contract is concluded shall apply.
Unless stated otherwise, prices for consumers include applicable VAT, while prices for business customers are exclusive of applicable VAT.
Recurring and usage-based services may be billed periodically, based on term, or according to usage.
Usage-based services, especially MTN AI services, may be billed based on consumption, units, tokens, storage, transactions, or other technical usage parameters.
MTN may adjust prices for continuing obligations, recurring services, and continuously provided services if the costs or framework conditions relevant to service provision change. This includes, in particular, changes in infrastructure, energy, personnel, licensing, registration, upstream provider, software, tax, fee, or other cost factors relevant to pricing, as well as changes to functionality, security, or service scope.
Price changes will be communicated to the customer in text form with the notice period legally required in the respective case, or otherwise with the shortest notice period legally permissible.
As against consumers, price changes shall only be made where they are objectively justified, transparent, and reasonable for the customer. Where the customer has a statutory or contractual right to terminate in connection with a price change, MTN will inform the customer of that right in the notice.
Invoices are due immediately upon receipt unless otherwise agreed.
In the event of late payment, MTN may temporarily suspend services in whole or in part, restrict access, withhold provisioning, or decline to perform outstanding actions.
MTN’s right to assert any further statutory claims arising from late payment shall remain unaffected.
MTN may provide a virtual balance system within the customer panel for individual Services.
The customer panel balance does not constitute bank credit, electronic money, or legal tender, but rather a virtual prepaid balance that may be used exclusively to pay for Services offered by MTN.
Added balance is held in the customer account as a gross amount. The customer shall receive an invoice for the balance top-up in accordance with the applicable tax requirements.
The balance may be used to pay for various MTN Services, including hosting, platform, and AI Services.

7. General Obligations and Responsibility of the Customer

The customer must use the Services only in compliance with applicable law, these Terms, any other contractual documents, and any applicable usage policies.
The customer is solely responsible for all content that it or its users upload, store, process, transmit, generate, or publish through the Services.
The customer must ensure that its use of the Services does not infringe third-party rights, violate any laws or regulatory requirements, or impair MTN’s or any third party’s legitimate interests.
If the customer allows third parties to use the Services, the customer remains the contractual partner of MTN and is responsible for such third parties’ conduct as for its own.
The customer must take appropriate security measures of its own, including the use of secure passwords, maintaining local backups of important data, and securing its own systems and applications where these are within the customer’s sphere of control.

8. Content, Rights, and Indemnification

The customer represents that it holds all rights necessary to use the Services with respect to any content, data, files, domains, trademarks, logos, text, images, audio, software elements, or other materials it provides.
The customer grants MTN those usage rights in such content and data that are technically and organizationally necessary for MTN to perform the agreed services.
The customer shall indemnify MTN against all third-party claims arising from unlawful use of the Services, unlawful customer content, or any infringement of third-party rights attributable to the customer. This also includes reasonable legal defense costs.

9. Availability, Maintenance, Disruptions, and Data Backup

MTN provides its Services on a commercially and technically reasonable best-effort basis. Unless expressly agreed otherwise, MTN does not owe uninterrupted availability, error-free performance, a particular response time, a particular success rate, or a particular compatibility.
MTN may temporarily restrict Services for maintenance, updates, security measures, troubleshooting, capacity management, or service improvements, provided that the legitimate interests of the customer are reasonably taken into account.
As a general rule, the customer remains responsible for backing up its own data.
Where MTN creates backups for certain products, especially web hosting or MTN Media Cloud, such backups are provided solely on a best-effort basis and without any guarantee of recovery, completeness, retention, or availability.
For other hosting or server services, especially unmanaged services or services not expressly identified as backup-supported, MTN does not owe any backup service unless explicitly agreed.
Before making material changes to its own systems, applications, configurations, content, or data, the customer must create full backups independently.

10. Data Protection and Processing on Behalf of the Customer

Information on the processing of personal data is set out in MTN’s Privacy Policy, as amended from time to time.
Where MTN processes personal data on behalf of the customer, the parties shall enter into a data processing agreement where requested or where required.
The customer remains responsible under data protection law to the extent that it is the controller of personal data processed through the Services.
Where third-party providers, external infrastructure, registries, payment service providers, AI model providers, or other subcontractors are involved, processing may also occur through such parties where necessary for the performance of the Services.
Information on technical and organizational measures, subprocessors, data protection documentation, or trust center materials is provided for transparency and service description purposes; statutory obligations and expressly agreed guarantees remain unaffected.
Business customers may also find additional security, privacy, and compliance information in the Trust Center at https://trustcenter.mtnmedia.group.
Individual agreements, data processing agreements, privacy agreements, and any other expressly concluded contractual arrangements or mandatory legal provisions shall prevail over these Terms in the event of a conflict.

11. Suspension, Restriction, and Extraordinary Measures

MTN may, with immediate effect, suspend, restrict, or temporarily disable Services, accounts, individual functions, content, servers, domains, projects, chat histories, files, or access credentials in whole or in part where there are actual indications that:
1. the customer is violating these Terms, applicable law, or third-party rights;
2. the customer’s use poses a risk to the security, integrity, availability, or stability of MTN’s or any third party’s systems, networks, or services;
3. misuse, spam, malware, fraud, prohibited content, or other material breaches of contract are present;
4. the customer is in arrears with due payments; or
5. official, judicial, registry-related, or security-related measures require such action.
In the event of serious or repeated violations, MTN may terminate contracts for cause, permanently block accounts, definitively discontinue services, or refuse to continue fulfilling existing orders.
Where reasonably possible and appropriate under the circumstances, MTN will inform the customer of such measures. In cases of serious violations, urgent threats, or pressing operational necessity, the customer has no right to prior warning or advance notice.

12. Liability

MTN shall have unlimited liability in cases of intent or gross negligence, injury to life, body, or health, liability under the German Product Liability Act, and in all cases where liability is mandatory by law.
In the event of a slightly negligent breach of essential contractual obligations, MTN’s liability shall be limited to the foreseeable damage typical for the contract. Essential contractual obligations are those obligations whose fulfillment is necessary for the proper performance of the contract and on whose observance the customer may regularly rely.
In all other cases, MTN’s liability for slight negligence is excluded.
To the extent legally permissible vis-à-vis business customers, MTN shall in particular not be liable for loss of profit, indirect damages, consequential damages, lost savings, data loss, reputational damage, or business interruption losses.
Where liability is excluded or limited, this also applies in favor of MTN’s legal representatives, employees, agents, and other persons engaged by MTN.
Statutory rights of consumers remain unaffected.

13. Term, Termination, and End of Contract

Contract terms, notice periods, renewal periods, and billing cycles are determined by the relevant product page, the order process, the individual offer, or the specific service booked.
The right of either party to terminate for cause remains unaffected.
After the end of the contract or deletion of a service, MTN may delete content, data, configurations, projects, backups, or other customer-related records in accordance with the relevant service category, unless statutory retention obligations or legitimate reasons require longer retention.

14. Consumer Information

Where the customer is entitled to a statutory right of withdrawal as a consumer, the separately provided withdrawal information shall apply.
Where digital services require separate consent for early performance or for the loss of the right of withdrawal, the separate declarations and consents provided during the order process shall apply.
Statutory consumer rights remain unaffected by these Terms.
MTN is neither willing nor obliged to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board unless required by law.

15. Final Provisions

The laws of the Federal Republic of Germany shall apply, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. In relation to consumers, this choice of law shall apply only to the extent that it does not deprive the consumer of mandatory consumer protection provisions of the country in which the consumer has his or her habitual residence.
If the customer is a merchant, a legal entity under public law, or a special fund under public law, the exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising out of or in connection with the contractual relationship shall be Aachen, Germany. Any mandatory statutory places of jurisdiction remain unaffected.
Should any provision of these Terms be or become wholly or partly invalid, the validity of the remaining provisions shall remain unaffected.
Amendments or additions to the contract must be made at least in text form unless a stricter form is required by law.

16. Scope

The following provisions apply in addition to hosting services, virtual servers, dedicated servers, web hosting, game servers, MTN Media Cloud, related platform services, web-related managed services, and comparable infrastructure services.
In the event of a conflict, these special provisions shall prevail for the relevant service area.

17. Nature of the Service

MTN provides technical infrastructure, platform functions, administrative interfaces, storage, computing capacity, software environments, or related managed services.
Unless expressly agreed as a managed service, MTN does not owe content review, ongoing individual administration, application support, or customer-specific advisory services.
In the case of managed or platform services, support is limited to the scope expressly described for the respective service.

18. Permitted and Prohibited Use

The customer may use the Services only lawfully and within the technical, contractual, and organizational framework specified.
The following activities are prohibited in particular:
1. operating applications for mining, farming, plotting, or otherwise generating cryptocurrencies;
2. scanning third-party networks, systems, ports, or IP addresses without verifiable authorization;
3. manually changing or falsifying hardware addresses, especially MAC addresses;
4. using forged, manipulated, or otherwise impermissible source IP addresses;
5. sending spam, unsolicited commercial email, unsolicited bulk email, or other comparable mass messaging;
6. operating malware, botnets, phishing infrastructure, exploit systems, command-and-control structures, or other harmful systems;
7. conducting DDoS attacks, DoS attacks, reflection attacks, amplification attacks, brute-force attacks, or participating in such activities;
8. bypassing, disabling, or manipulating security, monitoring, protection, billing, or surveillance measures;
9. using the Services for unlawful, abusive, extremist, pornographic, harmful to minors, glorifying violence, discriminatory, or otherwise clearly unlawful content;
10. operating open relays, open proxies, open resolvers, or similar abuse-prone services unless expressly required for technical reasons and appropriately secured; and
11. any use that may impair the integrity, security, availability, or reputation of MTN’s or any third party’s networks or systems.
Even a concrete suspicion or technical indications of such use may justify immediate measures, including full suspension of all services assigned to the relevant account holder.

19. Content and Responsibility in the Hosting Environment

The customer is solely responsible for all content, data, applications, scripts, databases, game instances, websites, emails, and other materials hosted, operated, published, processed, or sent through the Services.
MTN is generally not obliged to proactively review content or usage. MTN’s right to review content or usage where violations are suspected remains unaffected.
Where third parties access, send, process, or administer content through the customer’s services, the customer is responsible for their integration and authorization.

20. Backup and Deletion in the Hosting Environment

The customer remains responsible for maintaining its own backups.
Where backups are created in connection with web hosting or MTN Media Cloud, they are provided solely as an additional technical protection measure on a best-effort basis.
There is no entitlement to specific backup times, retention periods, restoration windows, restoration rates, or full reconstruction unless expressly agreed.
For game servers, web hosting, web servers, MTN Media Cloud, and comparable platform or hosting services, server-related data will generally be deleted within 30 days after the end of the contract, deletion, or deprovisioning, unless statutory retention obligations or compelling legitimate reasons require earlier or later deletion.
For virtual servers and dedicated servers, data is generally deleted irreversibly when the respective server is deleted or permanently decommissioned. Recovery after deletion is generally not possible in such cases.

21. Domains

Where MTN arranges or performs the registration, transfer, renewal, or administration of domains, the relevant service also depends on the rules of the applicable registry, allocation authority, TLD rules, and any registrar or provider terms.
Domains are allocated subject to availability. There is no entitlement to the allocation or continued existence of a specific domain.
The customer is responsible for ensuring that the requested domain, its use, and the related content do not infringe third-party rights or violate any laws or registry rules.
MTN may take domain-related measures where required due to registry rules, legal requirements, late payment, misuse, missing verification, or other compelling reasons.
Domains may be subject to different terms, renewal mechanisms, and notice periods as set out in the relevant offer, order process, or domain-specific conditions.

Special Terms for MTN AI

23. Scope and Nature of the Service

The following provisions apply in addition to the use of the MTN AI platform and comparable AI and model access services provided by MTN.
MTN AI may provide access to various AI models, features, and services from different providers, especially for text, image, audio, file processing, personalization, organizational features, integrations, BYOK functions, and similar AI-supported workflows.
MTN does not guarantee the continued availability of specific models, providers, functions, model versions, privacy levels, or integrations. Models, functions, and providers may change, be discontinued, be restricted, or become subject to additional terms.

24. Data Processing via External Model Providers

When using MTN AI, prompts, files, system instructions, metadata, personalization data, outputs, and other usage-related information may be transmitted to external AI providers or integrated technical service providers where this is necessary to provide the requested function.
The customer acknowledges that, depending on the selected model or provider, processing may also take place outside the European Union.
The customer remains solely responsible for deciding what content, personal data, trade secrets, confidential information, or other sensitive data it enters into which models or functions.
MTN supports that decision through transparency, categorization, and guidance, but does not assume responsibility for the customer’s selection of a model or privacy level.

25. Privacy Levels and Transparency Notices

Where MTN labels models or functions with privacy levels, notices, or categories, these are intended to support transparency and informed decision-making.
Such labels, including references such as “GDPR-compliant”, “EU”, “ZDR”, “Confident”, or similar classifications, do not constitute a guarantee, warranty, or strict quality commitment. They reflect MTN’s assessment based on the information, technical settings, or contractual assurances available from third-party providers at the relevant time.
MTN may review provider information, conclude agreements with third parties, activate technical settings, or evaluate provider representations, but MTN cannot guarantee that a third-party provider will comply with such representations or settings at all times, without error, and on an ongoing basis.
The customer remains responsible for ensuring that only such data is entered into models or functions whose processing is lawful in light of the selected privacy level, the intended use, and the customer’s own legal obligations.

26. Use, Billing, and Accounts

MTN AI may be billed on a usage basis, especially by tokens, models, storage, functions, transactions, or similar usage metrics.
Team or organization plans may include additional administration, control, or billing features. The exact scope is determined by the relevant offer.
Where products or plans are expressly designated for private, non-commercial, or non-business use only, they may not be used for commercial, professional, public-sector, or other business purposes.
The customer is responsible for managing the use of its sub-accounts, team members, or other persons linked to its account.
For MTN AI, MTN may additionally use a Credit-based usage system.
Credits constitute an internal technical unit of account exclusively for AI Services and are separate from the customer panel balance. One Credit corresponds to a net amount of EUR 0.01.
Credits are acquired by converting existing customer panel balance. For the customer, the gross balance amounts displayed in the customer panel, together with the conversion and usage information shown there, shall be authoritative. The internal calculation of Credits is carried out solely for billing and usage purposes on the basis of the relevant net amount.
Purchased Credits are valid for 12 months from the date of acquisition and expire thereafter without compensation. Unused Credits are non-refundable and cannot be paid out.
MTN may grant additional Bonus Credits in the context of promotions. Bonus Credits may be subject to different conditions, in particular with regard to validity periods or expiry rules.
To the extent permitted by law and where separately indicated during the order process, any statutory right of withdrawal of consumers may expire prematurely if the customer expressly consents to MTN beginning performance before expiry of the withdrawal period and confirms knowledge of the resulting loss of the right of withdrawal.

27. BYOK, Integrations, and Third-Party Environments

Where MTN AI supports features such as Bring Your Own Key, external model connections, MCP servers, plugins, APIs, connectors, or other third-party integrations, such use takes place at the customer’s own responsibility.
In such cases, the customer is in particular responsible for:
1. the lawfulness of the use;
2. compliance with the terms of the relevant third-party provider;
3. securing, managing, and authorizing its API keys;
4. privacy, confidentiality, and protection of secrets;
5. rate limits, moderation, availability, suspensions, and costs of external providers; and
6. the quality, security, and lawfulness of integrated external tools or content.
Where MTN applies its own security or moderation mechanisms to such features, these are supplementary only and provided without any guarantee of completeness, detection rate, or prevention of all violations.

28. No Guarantee for Outputs and Rights in Outputs

AI-generated outputs may be inaccurate, incomplete, misleading, biased, legally incorrect, technically flawed, or unsuitable for the intended purpose.
AI outputs must therefore not be used without review for legal, medical, financial, safety-critical, personnel-related, regulatory, or other significant decisions.
The customer must independently review AI outputs for factual and legal suitability before productive, public, business, or otherwise relevant use.
MTN does not guarantee that any specific usage rights, protective rights, copyrights, trademark rights, design rights, license rights, or other rights do or do not exist in relation to prompts or outputs, or that such material is free of third-party rights.
The customer is solely responsible for determining whether prompts or outputs are protectable, usable, commercially exploitable, or free of third-party rights.

29. Prohibited Use of MTN AI

MTN AI may not be used for unlawful, abusive, deceptive, harmful, or otherwise impermissible purposes.
The following uses are prohibited in particular:
1. generating, processing, distributing, or promoting unlawful content;
2. sexual, pornographic, exploitative, or sexualized content where unlawful, harmful to minors, non-consensual, or otherwise problematic;
3. content glorifying violence, cruel content, extremist content, inhumane content, discriminatory content, or terror-related content;
4. deepfakes, identity deception, deceptive imitation of real persons, or other misleading synthetic content where unlawful or harmful;
5. phishing, social engineering, fraud, circumvention of security measures, and the creation or support of malware, exploits, or attack chains;
6. use for mass deception, disinformation, or covert manipulation;
7. use in fields or for purposes that violate the EU AI Act, other European law, German law, or any other applicable legal requirements;
8. unlawful assessment, classification, or automated decision-making concerning applicants, employees, or other persons;
9. use for the development, training, improvement, or reverse engineering of competing AI models or similar services where impermissible; and
10. any use that infringes third-party rights, confidentiality obligations, data protection law, professional secrecy, or similar protective duties.
Where violations are suspected, MTN may suspend, restrict, review, or delete content, prompts, files, outputs, projects, model settings, or accounts, to the extent legally permissible and technically feasible.

30. Retention and Deletion Logic

MTN may implement technical concepts for storing, logging, retaining, hiding, archiving, and deleting chats, files, usage data, or configurations in MTN AI.
Chats and the related input, output, and attachment data may be automatically deleted after a retention period selected by the user. Depending on the product and technical state of the system, this period may range from 1 to 12 months.
Users may be able to mark individual chats or similar content to be retained. Content marked as “keep” or otherwise designated for retention is exempt from automatic deletion for as long as that designation remains in place, unless legal or technical reasons require otherwise.
After the selected or system-defined retention period expires, the relevant data may remain accessible in a limited way to MTN administrators for up to one additional year for purposes such as abuse investigations, system security, compliance, technical traceability, or billing.
One month after the end of that subsequent period, the data will generally be deleted automatically in full unless statutory retention obligations, official orders, or compelling technical or security-related reasons require otherwise.
Information on deletion periods, soft-delete phases, storage tiers, or retention logic is generally provided for transparency regarding system operation unless expressly agreed otherwise.
Statutory retention obligations, security logging, abuse prevention, billing purposes, and technical constraints may mean that certain data is temporarily retained beyond its visible availability in the user interface.

Final Provision

These Terms form a unified framework for all Services offered by MTN. Depending on the Service booked, the relevant product descriptions, quotation documents, technical documentation, privacy information, data processing agreements, and other service-specific notices incorporated into the contract shall also apply.