RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service Terms and Conditions

Introduction

This document stipulates the Terms and Conditions under which the RIPE NCC offers its secondary DNS service.

Article 1 – Definitions

In these Terms and Conditions, the following terms shall be understood to have the meanings assigned to them below:

RIPE NCC – Réseaux IP Européens Network Coordination Centre, a membership association under Dutch law, with its registered office in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service – the secondary DNS service offered by the RIPE NCC to Subscribers.

Subscriber – the party that, in accordance with the RIPE Community Guiding Principles, is qualified as eligible to receive the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service for a Zone.

RIPE community – RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens) is a collective forum open to all parties interested in wide area IP networks in Europe and beyond. The objective of RIPE is to ensure the administrative and technical coordination necessary to enable the operation of a pan-European IP network.

RIPE Community Guiding Principles – the criteria developed by the RIPE community according to which the RIPE NCC may provide the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service as updated according to the relevant procedures.

DNS – the Domain Name System (DNS) is a globally distributed Internet service, translating domain names to IP addresses and vice versa as a query-response protocol. The specification and implementation of the DNS protocol are defined and described in detail in various publications of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) such as in RFC1034, RFC1035 and RFC2182.

Zone – the section of the DNS name space (as described in RFC2182) for which a Subscriber requests the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service.

Zone's Primary DNS Server – the server configured as the primary one for handling DNS requests for the Zone containing all authoritative data about the Zone.

Article 2 – General

2.1 The Terms and Conditions come into effect by means of an offer by the RIPE NCC and its acceptance by the Subscriber.

2.2 The use of the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service is subject to these Terms and Conditions. By using the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Services, the Subscriber confirms that they have read, understood and agree to be bound to these Terms and Conditions for every future use of the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service.

2.3 The Subscriber acknowledges and accepts that the Terms and Conditions may be amended by the RIPE NCC. The RIPE NCC will inform the Subscriber of such amendments at least 30 days before the amendments become effective. If the Subscriber continues to use the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service after the amendments become effective, the Subscriber agrees to the amended Terms and Conditions.

2.4 These Terms and Conditions replace any and all existing oral or written agreements between the RIPE NCC and the Subscriber with regards to the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service.

Article 3 – Use of the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service

3.1 The RIPE NCC offers the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service on a best-effort basis to Subscribers for the purpose of contributing to the overall stability of the global DNS.

3.2 In order to use the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service, the Subscriber is required to provide the RIPE NCC with the Subscriber's organisation name, the name of the Zone and the IP address details of the Zone's Primary DNS Server, as well as a valid email address and contact details of the Subscriber.

3.3 Once the above information is provided and the Subscriber allows the RIPE NCC to retrieve the Zone data from the Zone's Primary DNS Server, the RIPE NCC will configure its DNS servers as secondary DNS servers for the Zone and as such they will automatically obtain and refresh the Zone data using standard DNS transfer mechanisms. The Zone's Primary DNS Server will be configured by the Subscriber to notify the RIPE NCC DNS servers of changes in the Zone data following standard DNS notification mechanisms.

3.4 During the term of this agreement, and while the RIPE NCC's DNS servers have a valid and up-to-date copy of the Zone data as described in Article 3.3, the RIPE NCC's DNS servers will respond to DNS queries for the Zone.

Article 4 – Eligibility of the Subscribers

4.1 The RIPE NCC will evaluate every request for the provision of RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service based on the RIPE Community Guiding Principles applicable at the time of the request.

4.2 The RIPE NCC shall be entitled to re-examine the eligibility of the Subscriber on a yearly basis and evaluate if the Subscriber is still qualified to receive the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service.

4.3 The RIPE NCC shall be entitled to reject a request for the provision of the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service to a Subscriber for technical, operational, legal, security, anti-abuse or any other reasons within the scope of managing the operations of the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service.

Article 5 – Termination of the Use of the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service

5.1 The RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service will be available on a best-effort basis and the RIPE NCC may suspend or cancel its operation, availability or liability to any Subscriber for technical, operational, legal, security, anti-abuse or any other reasons within the scope of managing the operations of the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service.

5.2 The RIPE NCC, upon re-evaluation of the eligibility of a Subscriber according to Article 4.3, shall be entitled to terminate the provision of the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service to anyone that is no longer eligible, unless otherwise provided in the RIPE Community Guiding Principles.

5.3 The Subscriber shall be entitled to discontinue their use of the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service at any time, for any reason, provided that the RIPE NCC is immediately notified in writing via email to dns@ripe.net.

Article 6 – Liability

6.1 The RIPE NCC shall not be liable against the Subscriber for any direct, or indirect, damages caused by a failure by the RIPE NCC to meet any obligation under these Terms and Conditions, including damages to the Subscriber's business or loss of profits.

6.2 It shall be the sole responsibility of the Subscriber to provide the RIPE NCC with complete and accurate information about the Zone and a complete and accurate copy of the data of the Zone's Primary DNS Server.

6.3 In no case shall the RIPE NCC be considered as the responsible party for either entering the data in the Zone's Primary DNS Server and/or in the Subscriber's Zone or for updating and maintaining their correctness and accuracy.

6.4 The Subscriber indemnifies the RIPE NCC against any third-party claims filed against it in relation to the Subscriber's use of the RIPE NCC Secondary DNS Service or resulting from the non-performance by the Subscriber of any obligation arising out of these Terms and Conditions.

6.5 The RIPE NCC shall not be liable for damage as a result of a failure to meet any obligation under this agreement if such failure is due to circumstances for which the RIPE NCC is not considered accountable according to law, contract or trade custom. The RIPE NCC in any event shall not be accountable for failures to perform resulting from the interruptions or improper functioning of power or telecommunications services facilities.

Article 7 – Miscellaneous

7.1 The RIPE Documents referred to in this agreement are available on https://www.ripe.net/. The Subscriber will regularly take notice of updated RIPE Documents on the website. The RIPE Documents referred to in these Terms and Conditions, as well as any related supplemented agreements signed with the RIPE NCC, may be replaced by new documents or agreements. Without prejudice to Article 2.3, any change to the text will then immediately become a part of these Terms and Conditions.

7.2 The RIPE NCC's intellectual property (agreements, documents, software, databases, website, etc.) may only be used, reproduced and made available to third parties upon prior written authorisation from the RIPE NCC.

7.3 If any provision contained in the Terms and Conditions is held to be invalid by a court of law, all other provisions of these Terms and Conditions will continue to be effective.

Article 8 – Governing Law

These Terms and Conditions shall be exclusively governed by the laws of the Netherlands. The competent court in Amsterdam shall have exclusive jurisdiction with regards to disputes arising from these Terms and Conditions.