Terms & Conditions

Quat, also written as ቋት, is an S3-style object storage console operated by VP Solutions and ZERGA Technologies. In these Terms, Quat, we, us, and our refer to the operators of the Quat website, account portal, storage console, APIs, support channels, and related services.

Public contact addresses for the operators: VP Solutions, Ras Mekonnen Ave, ORDA Building, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and ZERGAW Technologies, HQ, ICT Park ZERGAW Building, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Leghar, ORDA Bldg, 15th Floor, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

You can contact Quat for support, account, billing, privacy, or legal questions at hello@quat.et or +251991222444.

These Terms form a binding agreement between Quat and the individual or organization that accesses or uses the services. You accept these Terms when you create an account, click an acceptance control, access the account portal, renew a plan, generate credentials, upload content, use an API key, or otherwise use Quat.

If you use Quat on behalf of a company, government body, association, or other organization, you confirm that you have authority to bind that organization. In that case, you and your refer to that organization and its authorized users.

If you do not agree to these Terms, do not use Quat. Separate written agreements, order forms, data processing terms, service level terms, or enterprise terms may apply to some customers and will control if they expressly conflict with these Terms.

You must be legally able to enter into a contract and use Quat under applicable law. If you are an individual consumer, you must be at least the age of majority required for online services in your jurisdiction or have lawful consent from a parent or guardian.

You must provide accurate account, billing, tax, and contact information and keep it current. Quat may rely on the email address, phone number, billing contact, and administrator details in your account for operational and legal notices.

You are responsible for all activity under your account, including activity by administrators, staff, contractors, invited users, applications, API keys, and end users. You must promptly notify Quat if you suspect unauthorized access, credential compromise, or a security incident involving your account.

Quat provides a customer console and related services for object storage workflows, including bucket creation, file and object upload, object organization, access controls, CORS configuration, API key management, usage visibility, subscription status, and support workflows.

Quat is designed for S3-style storage operations, but Quat does not promise full compatibility with every Amazon S3 feature, third-party tool, SDK, or integration unless expressly stated in product documentation or a separate agreement.

Quat may update, improve, limit, rename, replace, or discontinue features, plans, limits, support channels, and documentation. Where a material change materially reduces a paid service you are actively using, Quat will try to provide reasonable advance notice unless urgent security, legal, infrastructure, or operational reasons require faster action.

Paid plans are based on usage quotas and limits, which may include storage volume, upload volume, download volume, bucket count, object count, API key access, bandwidth, request volume, support level, and related capabilities. Current plan details are shown in the account portal, order flow, invoice, quotation, or plan description provided to you.

Plan quotas are not unlimited. Quat may prevent or restrict actions that exceed plan limits, avoid billing controls, degrade service quality, or create risk for Quat, other customers, infrastructure providers, or third parties.

Usage measurements shown in the console are intended to help you manage your account. Quat's system records, metering tools, invoices, and billing reports are the authoritative basis for quota and billing calculations unless Quat confirms an error.

Customer Content means files, objects, data, text, images, media, software, backups, archives, and other materials that you or your users upload, store, process, retrieve, publish, or make available through Quat. You retain ownership of your Customer Content.

You grant Quat a limited right to host, store, copy, transmit, process, display, retrieve, secure, back up, delete, and otherwise handle Customer Content only as needed to provide, maintain, secure, support, improve, bill for, and comply with legal obligations relating to the services.

You are responsible for having all rights, consents, licenses, notices, and legal bases needed for Customer Content and for any use, sharing, publication, transfer, or deletion of that content through Quat.

Bucket names, object names, object metadata, access settings, CORS rules, API key state, usage summaries, account activity, request logs, security logs, billing records, support messages, and technical telemetry may be processed by Quat to operate, secure, troubleshoot, measure, bill, support, and improve the service.

Do not place passwords, payment credentials, national identifiers, sensitive personal data, or confidential business secrets in bucket names, object names, public URLs, CORS labels, metadata fields, support ticket titles, or other places not designed for sensitive content.

Quat may preserve and disclose account information, service data, metadata, logs, or Customer Content where reasonably necessary to comply with law, respond to lawful requests, enforce these Terms, detect abuse, resolve support requests, collect fees, protect rights or safety, or maintain service integrity.

You are responsible for configuring buckets, object permissions, public access, signed URLs, CORS rules, API keys, users, and integrations. A misconfigured bucket, permission, CORS rule, or key can expose Customer Content or allow unauthorized activity.

API keys, access tokens, passwords, private links, and other credentials are sensitive. You must keep them confidential, rotate them when appropriate, remove unused keys, restrict privileges, and promptly revoke any credential that may be compromised.

Quat may restrict, disable, rotate, or require renewal of keys, sessions, or access controls if Quat reasonably believes they are exposed, abused, unlawful, inactive, tied to an expired plan, or risky to the service or third parties.

Quat will use reasonable technical and organizational measures designed to protect the service, accounts, and locally collected personal data. No online service can guarantee absolute security, uninterrupted availability, or permanent preservation of every item of data.

You are responsible for choosing appropriate security settings, access permissions, encryption practices, retention policies, versioning, lifecycle rules, redundancy, independent backups, and recovery procedures for your own content and workloads.

Quat object storage may be part of your backup strategy, but Quat is not responsible for your overall business continuity, disaster recovery, legal retention, archive integrity, or ability to restore content unless a separate written agreement expressly says otherwise.

You may use Quat only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms, product documentation, applicable plan limits, and applicable law.

You must not use Quat to store, process, distribute, host, link to, or enable content or activity that is illegal, abusive, fraudulent, harmful, infringing, defamatory, invasive of privacy, exploitative, malicious, deceptive, or likely to expose Quat or others to liability.

Prohibited activity includes malware, phishing, credential theft, spam, botnets, denial-of-service activity, unlawful surveillance, unauthorized scanning, child sexual abuse material, terrorist content, hate or violence incitement, intellectual property infringement, sanctions evasion, attempts to bypass quotas or billing, and activity that materially burdens or disrupts Quat or third-party systems.

You are responsible for your end users and for responding to complaints, takedown requests, abuse notices, and legal notices related to your Customer Content or use of Quat.

Quat's handling of personal information is described in the Privacy Policy at /privacy. These Terms and the Privacy Policy should be read together.

Quat is designed for Ethiopia-hosted storage of personal data collected or obtained locally, consistent with Ethiopia's Personal Data Protection Proclamation No. 1321/2024. If cross-border transfer, remote support access, disaster recovery, or use of a foreign infrastructure provider is needed, Quat will handle it only where Quat reasonably believes it is lawful and supported by appropriate safeguards, permissions, or approvals.

If you upload personal data about other people, you are responsible for providing required notices, obtaining required consent or another lawful basis, honoring data-subject rights, and using Quat in a way that complies with applicable data protection, consumer protection, sector, employment, and professional secrecy laws.

Fees, plan limits, billing periods, taxes, accepted payment methods, and any promotional terms are shown in the account portal, quotation, invoice, plan page, or order confirmation. Prices are in Ethiopian birr unless another currency is clearly stated.

You are responsible for all fees, usage charges, taxes, duties, bank charges, payment processor charges, withholding obligations, and other amounts associated with your plan and use of Quat, except for taxes based on Quat's own income.

Quat may correct pricing, metering, or billing errors. If you dispute a charge, you must contact Quat promptly and in good faith with enough detail to review the issue. Undisputed amounts must still be paid or renewed when due.

For the MVP release, Quat does not automatically charge renewal fees. You must manually renew a paid plan before expiry through https://myaccount.quat.et or another renewal method Quat makes available.

If you do not renew before the end of the subscription period, the plan may expire even if your Customer Content remains stored for a limited period under the lifecycle below. Continuing access after expiry is not guaranteed.

Quat may later offer automatic renewal or automatic billing only where it is clearly presented, you expressly opt in, the material renewal terms are confirmed to you in a durable format, and a simple cancellation method is provided. Unless and until you opt in to such a future feature, these Terms do not authorize Quat to automatically charge you for renewal.

The following lifecycle applies when a paid plan is not manually renewed by expiry, when renewal payment fails, or when required subscription action is not completed. Days are calendar days counted from the plan expiry date unless Quat states a different date in a notice.

You may stop using Quat at any time. Cancelling a plan, closing an account, deleting an application, or allowing a plan to expire does not automatically erase all amounts already due or remove your responsibility to export or delete Customer Content before access ends.

For individual consumer transactions made electronically, Quat will honor mandatory cancellation, refund, and cooling-off rights required by Ethiopian consumer and electronic transaction law. Where such a right applies, you may request cancellation within the legally required period and Quat will process any required refund within the legally required timeframe.

Unless required by law or expressly stated in a plan, quotation, invoice, or separate written agreement, fees for an active subscription period, consumed usage, support, setup, custom work, excess usage, and partially used billing periods are non-refundable.

Quat may suspend, restrict, disconnect, remove, block, or limit all or part of the service immediately upon notice, or without prior notice where urgency reasonably requires it, if Quat believes that your account, users, Customer Content, configuration, credentials, or use of the service creates a security risk, legal risk, fraud risk, payment risk, infrastructure risk, harm to other customers, violation of these Terms, or violation of law.

Immediate action may apply to abuse, malware, unlawful content, compromised credentials, exposed API keys, attacks, excessive load, quota or billing circumvention, legal orders, sanctions concerns, intellectual property complaints, privacy complaints, or threats to the confidentiality, integrity, availability, or resilience of Quat or third-party systems.

Quat will try to limit suspension to the minimum scope and duration reasonably needed. You remain responsible for fees and obligations incurred before or during suspension unless Quat confirms otherwise in writing.

You may terminate your account or subscription through the account portal or by contacting Quat, subject to payment of amounts due and completion of any required account-verification steps.

Quat may terminate your account or subscription for material breach if the breach is not cured within 30 days after notice, or sooner if the breach cannot reasonably be cured, creates urgent risk, violates law, infringes third-party rights, involves abuse, or follows repeated suspension events.

After termination, Quat may disable access and start deleting Customer Content, account records, credentials, and service configurations after any stated export window ends. Backup copies, logs, invoices, security records, and legal records may remain for a limited period under ordinary retention schedules or as required by law.

Deleted content may be unrecoverable. You should export Customer Content before cancelling, before expiry, during any available export window, and whenever Quat asks you to cure a suspension or termination event.

Quat support is available through the support channels shown on the website, account portal, or support communications. Support availability, response times, and scope may vary by plan unless a separate written support agreement applies.

Quat may send notices by email, phone, SMS, account portal message, dashboard alert, invoice note, website posting, or other reasonable electronic method. You are responsible for keeping account contacts current and for reviewing notices.

You may access available account, billing, usage, and transaction records through the account portal where the feature is available. If you need a record that is not available in the portal, contact Quat at hello@quat.et.

Quat and its licensors own the website, console, software, design, workflows, documentation, trademarks, logos, product names, code, and other service materials, except for Customer Content and third-party materials. These Terms give you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use Quat during an active account or subscription as permitted by these Terms.

You must not copy, modify, reverse engineer, bypass technical controls, resell, sublicense, misrepresent, scrape, or exploit Quat except as permitted by law, documentation, or a separate written agreement.

If you provide suggestions, ideas, requests, comments, or feedback, Quat may use them without restriction or payment to you, provided Quat does not disclose your confidential information in violation of these Terms.

Each party may receive non-public business, technical, security, billing, product, or operational information from the other party. The receiving party must use reasonable care to protect confidential information and may use it only to perform or receive the services, exercise rights, comply with law, or enforce these Terms.

Confidentiality obligations do not apply to information that is public through no fault of the receiving party, already known without restriction, independently developed, lawfully received from another source, or required to be disclosed by law or a competent authority.

Quat aims to provide a reliable and secure service, but the service is provided on an as-is and as-available basis to the maximum extent permitted by law. Quat does not promise that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, immune from attacks, compatible with every tool, suitable for every workload, or free from loss, corruption, delay, or unauthorized access.

Nothing in these Terms excludes rights or warranties that cannot be excluded under applicable consumer, data protection, or other mandatory law.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, neither party will be liable for indirect, incidental, special, punitive, exemplary, or consequential damages, loss of profits, loss of revenue, loss of goodwill, business interruption, loss of anticipated savings, or loss of data arising out of or related to these Terms or Quat.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Quat's total aggregate liability for claims related to the service will not exceed the amounts you paid to Quat for the affected service during the six months before the event giving rise to the claim. If you used a free, trial, or unpaid service, Quat's total liability will not exceed ETB 10,000.

These limits do not apply where liability cannot legally be limited, or to your payment obligations, misuse of Quat intellectual property, confidentiality breach, fraud, intentional misconduct, or indemnity obligations for business use.

If you use Quat for a business, organization, government body, customer-facing application, or other non-personal purpose, you will defend and indemnify Quat, VP Solutions, ZERGA Technologies, and their personnel from third-party claims, damages, penalties, costs, and expenses arising from your Customer Content, your users or end users, your breach of these Terms, your unlawful use of the service, your infringement of third-party rights, or your products and services built on or connected to Quat.

Quat will notify you of claims requiring indemnity where reasonably possible and may control its own defense where needed to protect its interests, customers, infrastructure, or legal position.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Mandatory consumer protections under applicable law continue to apply where they cannot be waived.

Before filing a formal claim, each party should try in good faith to resolve the dispute by contacting the other party and allowing 30 days for review and response, unless urgent injunctive relief, security action, debt collection, or legal compliance requires faster action.

Unless a mandatory law or separate written agreement requires otherwise, disputes arising from or relating to these Terms or Quat will be handled by the competent courts in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

You may not assign or transfer these Terms, your account, or your subscription without Quat's prior written consent. Quat may assign these Terms as part of a merger, restructuring, acquisition, financing, sale of assets, partnership restructuring, or transfer of the Quat service, provided the assignee assumes the relevant obligations.

Neither party will be liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond reasonable control, including power failure, internet outage, payment network failure, infrastructure provider failure, labor dispute, war, civil disturbance, natural disaster, government action, legal change, cyberattack, or emergency. This does not excuse payment obligations already incurred.

If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining parts remain in effect. Failure to enforce a term is not a waiver. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, plan details, invoices, order confirmations, and any applicable written agreement, form the agreement for your use of Quat.

Quat may update these Terms by posting an updated version at /terms or by sending notice. Material updates will take effect 30 days after posting or notice unless a shorter period is needed for new features, legal compliance, security, or abuse prevention. Continued use after the effective date means you accept the updated Terms.