Terms and Conditions

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using ULC Business Directory at ulc.co.za (the "Platform"), you agree to be bound by these Terms and Conditions. If you do not agree to these terms, please do not use the Platform.

These terms apply to all visitors, registered users, and business owners who use the Platform in any capacity.

2. Description of the Platform

ULC Business Directory is an online business directory that allows South African businesses to create free public listings and allows members of the public to search for, contact and review those businesses.

3. User Accounts

To list a business or submit a review you must register for an account. You are responsible for:

• Providing accurate and truthful registration information
• Maintaining the security of your password
• All activity that occurs under your account
• Notifying us immediately of any unauthorised use of your account

You may not create an account on behalf of another person without their permission, or create multiple accounts for the same business.

4. Business Listings

By submitting a business listing, you confirm that:

• You are authorised to list the business
• All information provided is accurate and up to date
• The business is legitimate and lawfully operating in South Africa
• You will keep your listing information current

All listings are subject to manual review before publication. We reserve the right to reject or remove any listing that does not comply with these terms or our content standards.

5. Prohibited Content and Conduct

You may not use the Platform to:

• Submit false, misleading or fraudulent information
• List a business you do not own or are not authorised to represent
• Post content that is defamatory, abusive, hateful or unlawful
• Advertise illegal goods or services
• Send spam or unsolicited commercial communications via our contact forms
• Attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Platform or other users accounts
• Scrape, crawl or systematically extract data from the Platform without our written consent

6. Platform Content Standards

All content submitted to the Platform, including business descriptions, gallery images, blog posts, services and profile information, must comply with the following standards. Violation of any of these standards may result in content removal, listing suspension or permanent account termination.

7. Job Board, Employers and Applicants

ULC operates a job board on which approved business owners may post vacancies, and on which registered job seekers may submit applications. The job board is a passive marketplace and bulletin board only and is provided as a free ancillary service.

ULC is not a recruitment agency, headhunter, labour broker, temporary employment service, or staffing service as defined by the Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995 or the Employment Services Act 4 of 2014. ULC does not participate in any employment decision and accepts no responsibility for hiring outcomes, employment disputes, wage disagreements, unfair-dismissal claims, recruitment-fee scams, identity theft, or any other matter arising from a relationship between an employer and a job seeker.

ULC does not vet, endorse, screen, verify, or guarantee the legitimacy, accuracy, BBBEE status, equal-opportunity compliance, salary range, working conditions, immigration status, tax compliance, or solvency of any employer or job posting. ULC does not verify the identity, skills, qualifications, references, criminal record, or employment history of any job seeker.

Employer warranties. Employers warrant that any vacancy posted is genuine, lawful, compliant with the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998, the Labour Relations Act, the Basic Conditions of Employment Act 75 of 1997, and not used to harvest personal information, run a scam, or solicit fees from applicants. Posting a fake, misleading, or scam vacancy is a material breach of these Terms.

Applicant warranties. Job seekers warrant that any information submitted in their profile, CV, cover letter, or application is true, that they hold any qualifications claimed, and that they have the legal right to work in South Africa where applicable.

Third-party sourced jobs. Where a job is sourced from a third-party recruitment website, ULC includes a clear link to the original source. ULC is not the originator and is not responsible for the substance of the original posting.

All employment arrangements that follow are solely between the employer and the job seeker. ULC is expressly excluded as a party.

8. Job Seeker Profiles and CVs

Registered users may create a job seeker profile and upload a CV to be discoverable by approved business owners. By creating a profile you agree that:

• Profile information (headline, summary, skills, location, availability) is visible to approved business owners who access the applicant board.
• You are solely responsible for the accuracy and completeness of every fact in your profile, and you hold the lawful basis to share any qualifications, employment history, or references claimed.
• You will not misrepresent qualifications, skills, experience, or identity.
• Profiles remain active for up to six (6) months from approval and must be renewed by updating profile details.
• You may delete your profile, CV, and full application history at any time via the job-seeker dashboard, or by emailing [email protected].
• ULC may reject, suspend, or remove any profile that does not meet content standards, contains false information, or is otherwise in breach of these Terms.
• ULC does not sell applicant data, does not pass profiles to data aggregators, and uses applicant data solely to facilitate employer-applicant introduction.
• Employers receiving applicant data are independently responsible as separate responsible parties under POPIA for any processing they carry out after introduction.

ULC does not verify the identity, skills, qualifications, references, criminal record, or employment history of any job seeker. Business owners who use the applicant board do so at their own risk and are solely responsible for conducting their own verification, screening, and due diligence before making any employment decision.

9. Employer and Business Owner Obligations

Approved business owners who post job listings or access the applicant board agree to the following:

• All job listings must represent genuine, lawful employment opportunities
• Job listings must not contain discriminatory requirements that are unlawful under South African law, including the Employment Equity Act 55 of 1998 and the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act 4 of 2000
• You may not post listings for multi-level marketing schemes, commission-only positions without clear disclosure, pyramid schemes or any role that requires the applicant to pay any fee to obtain employment
• Job seeker profile data accessed through the applicant board may only be used for the purpose of evaluating candidates for a genuine vacancy. It may not be sold, shared with third parties, used for unsolicited marketing or stored beyond the period necessary for a recruitment process
• You must comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) in your handling of all personal information obtained through the Platform
• You accept sole responsibility for any employment decision made, and for complying with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act, the Labour Relations Act and all other applicable South African employment legislation

We reserve the right to remove any job listing and revoke applicant board access at any time, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe the listing or access is being misused.

ULC Business Directory accepts no liability for any losses, claims, disputes or damages arising from your use of the job board or applicant board, including but not limited to a failed recruitment process, a misrepresentation by a job seeker, or an employment dispute arising from a hire made through the Platform.

10. Reviews

Reviews must reflect a genuine experience with the business. You may not:

• Submit a review for a business you own, operate or are affiliated with
• Submit fake, incentivised or coordinated reviews
• Post reviews that contain personal attacks, profanity or unverifiable claims

All reviews are moderated before publication. We may decline to publish or remove any review that violates these standards.

11. Blog Posts

Business owners may publish blog posts associated with their listing. Blog posts must be relevant to the business, accurate and compliant with applicable law. Posts are moderated before publication. We reserve the right to reject or remove posts that are misleading, promotional in a deceptive manner or otherwise in breach of these terms.

12. Intellectual Property

The Platform, including its design, code and original content, is owned by ULC Business Directory and protected by applicable intellectual property laws.

By submitting content to the Platform (including business descriptions, logos and blog posts), you grant ULC Business Directory a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to display and distribute that content on the Platform and in related promotional materials.

You retain ownership of content you submit and confirm that you have the right to grant this licence.

13. Disclaimer of Warranties

The Platform is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis without warranties of any kind, express or implied. We do not warrant that:

• The Platform will be uninterrupted or error-free
• Business listings are accurate, complete or current
• Reviews reflect the genuine experience of the reviewer

The inclusion of a business on the Platform does not constitute an endorsement by us.

14. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by South African law, ULC Business Directory shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages arising from your use of, or inability to use, the Platform or any content on it.

We are not a party to any transaction or communication between a visitor and a listed business. We accept no liability for the conduct, products or services of any business listed on the Platform.

15. Termination

We may suspend or terminate your account and remove your content at any time, with or without notice, if we reasonably believe you have violated these terms. You may close your account at any time by contacting us.

16. Changes to These Terms

We may update these terms from time to time. We will revise the effective date at the top of this page when we do. Continued use of the Platform after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.

17. Unclaimed Listings and the ULC Crawler

ULC operates a web crawler identified by the User-Agent ULCBot/1.0 (see /bot). The crawler retrieves publicly accessible pages on a business's own website to build free unclaimed listings. The crawler respects robots.txt, observes rate limits, honours noindex directives, and does not access login-gated content. Only factual information (business name, address, phone, services, hours, publicly listed certifications) is retained; long-form prose is paraphrased rather than reproduced verbatim. Source, source URL, and fetch date are recorded on every imported listing.

Each unclaimed listing displays the source website and date, together with a one-click Request removal link. A business's owner may at any time request removal under section 18 below.

18. Claiming a Listing

A business may be claimed free of charge by a person with authority to represent that business. To submit a claim the claimant must:

• provide an accurate name, work email, phone number, and role;
• attest that they are the owner or a direct employee of the business; and
• attest that they are not acting on behalf of a marketing agency, SEO consultant, or third party.

Claimant warranties. By submitting a claim you warrant that each attestation above is true; that you have actual authority to bind the listed business in relation to its ULC listing; and that you will indemnify and hold ULC harmless against any loss, damage, cost or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of any misrepresentation made by you during the claim process.

Marketing-agency and third-party prohibition. Marketing agencies, SEO consultants, PR representatives and any other third-party service providers may not claim a listing on behalf of a business without the business owner's written consent. ULC may, in addition to any other remedies, terminate accounts and pursue damages against any party that claims a listing in breach of this clause.

Verification. ULC verifies claims by one or more of the following: magic link to an email address on the business's own domain; one-time SMS code to the phone number already listed for the business; document upload (CIPC registration, SARS VAT certificate, utility bill, Google Business Profile ownership); or manual review. Pending verification tokens expire after 7 days. Once a claim is approved, any competing pending claims on the same listing are automatically rejected.

Auto-unclaim. If an account is dormant for 90 consecutive days the associated listing may revert to unclaimed status. Claimed listings can also be disputed in writing by the previously listed contact within 48 hours of a new claim being verified.

19. Data Removal and POPIA

ULC is a responsible party under the Protection of Personal Information Act, 2013 ("POPIA"). Each imported listing bears a visible notice of the source of its data and a Request removal link. On receipt of a valid removal request ULC will action it within seven (7) business days and confirm action by email. Audit trails for removal requests are retained for regulatory purposes.

For unclaimed listings any person may submit a removal request. For claimed listings only the verified owner may submit a removal request through the public form, other requests relating to a claimed listing must be made via the dashboard "request account deletion" flow or by contacting us directly.

Personal information collected through claim submissions (name, email, phone, IP, user-agent, timestamps) is processed strictly for the purposes of verifying ownership and preventing abuse. Retention, access, correction and objection rights under POPIA are described in the Privacy Policy.

20. Accuracy, Warranties and Indemnification

No warranty on crawled data. ULC makes reasonable efforts to accurately reflect facts published on a business's own website but does not warrant the accuracy, completeness or currency of any listing built from such data. Listed businesses are encouraged to claim and correct their listings. Visitors should confirm critical details (pricing, certifications, operating hours) directly with the business.

Indemnification by listed parties. Any party that claims a listing, submits content to a listing (including services, FAQs, reviews, photos, posts), or otherwise uses ULC in connection with a business ("Listing Party"), indemnifies and holds harmless ULC, its operators, directors, employees, agents, and the operators of JWD Website Design, against any and all third-party claims, regulatory complaints, damages, liabilities, costs and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to: (a) the Listing Party's content; (b) any misrepresentation in a claim; (c) infringement of intellectual-property, privacy or POPIA rights caused by content supplied by the Listing Party; (d) breach of these terms by the Listing Party.

Operator protection. Nothing in these terms creates any liability on the part of the individual operator of ULC in his or her personal capacity beyond that permitted by applicable law. The aggregate liability of ULC to any visitor or listed party, whether in contract, delict or otherwise, is limited to the greater of (i) the fees paid by that party to ULC in the six months preceding the claim, or (ii) ZAR 1,000. ULC shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages.

This clause does not exclude liability that cannot lawfully be excluded under the Consumer Protection Act, 2008, POPIA, or other applicable South African law.

21. In-Site Messages and Contact Forms

The site offers a contact form and an internal messaging facility through which users may send messages to listed businesses. ULC is a neutral conduit only. ULC does not pre-read, vet, moderate, or guarantee the receipt, response, accuracy, or appropriateness of any message. Users warrant that messages sent are not unsolicited commercial communications prohibited by section 45 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 (ECTA), not harassment, not threats, and not in breach of the Protection from Harassment Act 17 of 2011.

22. Listing Reports and User-Flagged Content

Users may report a listing for review. ULC reviews reports in good faith and at its sole discretion. The submission of a report does not guarantee any particular action, and the report itself is not a statutory notice for the purpose of takedown procedures. For statutory notices, refer to clause 24 (Intellectual Property Complaints) and clause 13 of the Privacy Policy (Right to Removal). Frivolous, vexatious, or coordinated reports may result in account suspension.

23. Business Posts, Videos, Galleries and FAQs

Where a listed business adds blog posts, services, FAQs, gallery images, videos, or other content to its listing, the business represents and warrants that it holds, or has lawful licence to, all intellectual-property rights in that content, including images of identifiable individuals (with model release where applicable), product photographs (with manufacturer permission where applicable), music or audio in videos (with sync licence), and all factual claims (with substantiation). The business grants ULC a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to host, display, cache, index, thumbnail, and syndicate that content for the purpose of operating the directory, for the duration of the listing and a reasonable period after removal to allow for cache clearing and search-engine de-indexing.

24. Intellectual Property Complaints (Notice and Takedown)

If you believe that any content on the site infringes a trademark, copyright, registered design, or other intellectual property right that you own or are authorised to enforce, send a written notice to [email protected] containing:

• Your full name, capacity (rights-holder or authorised agent), and contact details.
• The exact URL or URLs of the allegedly infringing content.
• A clear description of the right alleged to be infringed, including the registration number where applicable.
• A signed statement that you have a good-faith belief that use of the content is not authorised, and that the information in your notice is accurate.

Properly substantiated notices are actioned within seven (7) business days. ULC may reject notices that are insufficient, abusive, anti-competitive, or that appear to misuse intellectual-property law to suppress lawful comparison, criticism, or factual reference.

25. Quote Requests (Get 3 Quotes Service)

ULC offers a Get 3 Quotes service that introduces users seeking a service to up to three matched listed providers. By using this service:

• You acknowledge that ULC is an introductory router only and is not a party to, agent of, broker for, guarantor of, or warrantor of any quote, service, contract, transaction, payment, communication, or dispute that may follow between you and any matched provider.
• ULC does not vet, endorse, or pre-screen the workmanship, pricing, qualifications, insurance, licensing, regulatory standing, tax status, or trustworthiness of any matched provider beyond the basic requirement that they hold a listing on the directory.
• You release ULC, its operators, affiliates, and contractors from any and all claims of any nature arising out of or in connection with any quote, service, or interaction received from a matched provider.
• Providers contacted through this service are solely responsible for their own communications, marketing-law compliance (CPA, POPIA, ECTA, RICA), and for the substance of any quote or agreement reached with the requester.

26. Advertising and Third-Party Content

The site may display advertising, including programmatic advertising served by Google AdSense or other networks, and may use advertising and audience-measurement pixels from third-party platforms such as Meta (Facebook and Instagram) to build audiences and measure campaign performance. Such advertising pixels are loaded only after you accept all cookies, and may transfer data to servers outside South Africa as described in the Privacy Policy. The site may also link to third-party websites. ULC does not control, endorse, or assume any responsibility for the content, accuracy, legality, or practices of any third-party advertiser, advertised product, or linked website. Any transaction you enter into with a third party is solely between you and that third party.

27. Fees, Featured Placement and Refunds

Standard listing on ULC is free. Where ULC offers paid features (for example featured placement or advertising), the fees, billing cycle, and refund terms applicable are presented at the point of purchase and form part of these Terms by reference. Unless expressly stated, paid features are non-refundable once activated. ULC may amend fee structures on thirty (30) days written notice to active paying customers; continued use after such notice constitutes acceptance.

28. Automated Access, Crawling, Scraping and APIs

Automated access to the site, including but not limited to scraping, crawling, data extraction, machine-readable mirroring, or training of artificial-intelligence models on site content, is permitted only by search-engine robots whose user-agent honours the directives in robots.txt. All other automated access, and all use of any application programming interface (API) or Model Context Protocol (MCP) endpoint exposed by ULC, requires prior written agreement. Unauthorised automated access is a breach of these Terms, of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, of the Copyright Act 98 of 1978 (in respect of the database right), and may give rise to interdict and damages.

29. Influencer Programme

Where ULC operates an influencer or referral programme, terms specific to that programme are presented at sign-up and form part of these Terms by reference. Influencers warrant that they have made any disclosure of compensated promotion required by the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008, the Advertising Regulatory Board Code, and applicable platform rules of social-media platforms used.

30. No Agency, Partnership or Endorsement

Nothing in these Terms, in the operation of the site, in the existence of any listing, or in any feature offered by ULC, creates an agency, partnership, joint venture, franchise, employer-employee, broker-client, fiduciary, or representation relationship between ULC and any listed business, employer, advertiser, claimant, quote requester, or user. Listings do not constitute endorsement, recommendation, accreditation, or certification of any kind, even where a listing is marked as Verified or Featured. Verified means that ownership of the listing has been confirmed; it is not a quality, fitness, or solvency rating.

31. Force Majeure

ULC is not liable for any failure or delay in performance arising from causes beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, natural disasters, war, civil unrest, government action, regulatory takedown, pandemic, internet failure, hosting failure, denial-of-service attack, electrical disruption (including load shedding), or third-party service failure.

32. Equitable Relief

You acknowledge that breach of these Terms (including unauthorised automated access, intellectual-property infringement, defamation, or harassment) may cause irreparable harm to ULC for which monetary damages alone are not an adequate remedy, and that ULC is entitled to seek urgent interdict, mandatory or prohibitory relief, and specific performance, in addition to damages.

33. Limitation of Action

Any cause of action or claim a user may have against ULC must be commenced within six (6) months after the cause of action arises. Failing this, the cause of action is permanently barred. This clause shall not apply where prohibited by mandatory law.

34. Age Restriction

You warrant that you are at least 18 years of age, or that you have the consent of a parent or legal guardian to use the site. The site is not directed at, and shall not be used by, children under the age of 13. Where ULC becomes aware that a user is under 13, all related personal information will be deleted on receipt of credible notice.

35. Assignment

You may not assign, transfer, sub-licence, or delegate these Terms or any right or obligation under these Terms without our prior written consent. ULC may freely assign these Terms to any successor in interest, including in a sale, merger, or asset transfer of the directory.

36. Severability and Waiver

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force. No failure or delay by ULC in exercising any right under these Terms constitutes a waiver of that right.

37. Entire Agreement

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any feature-specific terms presented at the point of use, constitute the entire agreement between you and ULC in respect of the site. They supersede any prior oral or written representation, undertaking, or agreement on the subject matter. No amendment is binding unless published on this page or communicated by email to an account holder.

38. Governing Law and Exclusive Jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Republic of South Africa, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute, claim, or proceeding arising out of or in connection with these Terms, the Privacy Policy, or your use of the site is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the High Court of South Africa, Western Cape Division, Cape Town, and you irrevocably submit to that jurisdiction. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

39. Contact Us

If you have questions about these terms, please contact us at: