Privacy Policy
How Hosting You collects, uses and protects your personal information, in plain English.
Effective date: 29 October 2026
The short version.
We only collect what you choose to send us, we use it to reply to you and quote, we don’t sell it, and you can ask us to see, correct or delete it at any time.
Who we are
Hosting You is a small web design, hosting and IT business based in Randpark Ridge, Johannesburg. In this policy, “we” and “us” means Hosting You, and “you” means anyone who visits hostingyou.co.za or contacts us through it.
We are the responsible party for the personal information described here, under the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). You can reach us by email at hello@hostingyou.co.za or on WhatsApp at 071 484 0489.
The quote form
When you fill in the quote form on our Contact page, we collect your name and email address (both required), and anything else you choose to add: your phone number, location, company name, domain name, whether you have a website, your industry, company size and target audience, and details about your project such as pages, timeline, design and tone preferences, websites you admire, content and branding, goals, extra services and any notes.
The form sends this information to our business email inbox. We use it only to reply to you and to prepare a quote. We don’t sell it, and we don’t add you to a mailing list. The form also has a hidden spam-trap field that people don’t see, which helps us block automated spam.
The AI chat assistant
Our website has an AI chat assistant. When you send a message, your recent messages in that conversation are sent from our server to Google’s Gemini API, which generates the reply. Google processes these messages under its own API terms, and its servers may be outside South Africa.
We don’t keep a copy of your chat messages on our server. Your conversation is kept in your own browser (session storage) so it doesn’t disappear when you move between pages, and it’s cleared when you close the tab. To prevent abuse, our server keeps short-lived usage counters linked to a scrambled (hashed) version of your IP address, not the address itself, and deletes them after about two days. If something goes wrong, our server records a short technical error note with the time, which is designed not to include your messages.
Please don’t share personal, financial or other sensitive information in the chat. For anything private, send us a WhatsApp or an email instead.
Many buttons on our site open WhatsApp with a short message ready to send. Nothing is sent until you press send. Messages on WhatsApp are handled by WhatsApp under its own privacy policy. We use what you send us there to reply to you and help with your request.
Cookies and analytics
We don’t use analytics, advertising trackers or marketing cookies. If you choose Light or Dark mode with the theme button, your choice is saved in your browser’s local storage so the site remembers it. That setting stays on your device and isn’t sent to us.
Where your information is kept
Our website runs on a server in South Africa, managed through cPanel. Like most websites, the server may keep standard technical logs, such as IP addresses and the pages requested, to keep the site secure and running. Quote requests and emails are kept in our business email inbox.
How long we keep it
We keep your information only for as long as we need it to deal with your enquiry, provide our services to you and keep the records the law requires. After that, we delete it.
How we protect it
Our site uses a secure (HTTPS) connection, access to our systems and inbox is limited to the people who need it, and the key for the AI service stays on our server and is never shared with your browser. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information and will let you and the Information Regulator know if a breach affects you, as POPIA requires.
Your rights
Under POPIA you can ask us what personal information we hold about you and ask for a copy of it. You can ask us to correct it or to delete it, and you can object to us using it.
To make a request, email hello@hostingyou.co.za or WhatsApp us on 071 484 0489. We may need to confirm who you are before we act, and we’ll respond as soon as we reasonably can.
Complaints
If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Regulator (South Africa): email POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za, call 010 023 5200, or visit inforegulator.org.za.
Changes to this policy
We may update this policy when our website or services change. The latest version will always be on this page, with the date it took effect.
Questions about your privacy?
Send us a WhatsApp or an email and a real person will help.
WhatsApp 071 484 0489hello@hostingyou.co.za