Terms of use

Who we are

• Operator: 3L Group Consulting (Pty) Ltd, a private company registered in South Africa
• Registration number (CIPC): 2019/038018/07
• VAT number: 4420289102
• Director: Christo Fourie
• Registered office and physical address: 55 Blanc de Noir Street, Bellville, Cape Town, 7530, South Africa
• Email: api@3l-groupconsulting.co.za
• Website: https://domainref.dev

What it is

DomainRef grades a domain's public email and web security setup. It is non-intrusive: it makes only the ordinary requests a browser or mail server makes. For each check it sends:

• DNS-over-HTTPS lookups to Cloudflare and Google public DNS;
• a lookup to the registry's public RDAP service;
• Microsoft's public sign-in discovery requests, for Microsoft 365 tenant detection;
• one TLS handshake on port 443 of the domain, to read the website certificate;
• when an MTA-STS record is published, one HTTPS request on port 443 for the policy at mta-sts.<domain>.

No port scans and no other ports. Results are informational. They are not a security audit, a penetration test or legal advice, and a passing grade does not mean a domain is secure. To the extent the law allows, the service is provided as is, without warranty of any kind.

Acceptable use

• Check only domains you own or manage, or have a legitimate interest in, such as a vendor or a sender you are assessing.
• Do not use DomainRef to harm, harass or attack others, to plan abuse of a domain, or to get around its rate limits.
• Do not use DomainRef or its results to gain or attempt unauthorised access to any system (Cybercrimes Act 19 of 2020), or to build lists for unsolicited electronic marketing (POPIA section 69).
• We may block callers who abuse the service.

Fix records are suggestions

Fix records are suggestions. Check them against your own mail flows before publishing, start DMARC at p=none, and you are responsible for DNS changes you make.

Payment and refunds

Each call is paid through x402, MPP or an API key. An x402 payment settles only when the call succeeds, and a failed API-key call is refunded to the key. MPP settles before the answer is sent, so DomainRef runs all its lookups first and refuses free when it cannot answer. Refused requests (bad input, unknown or private-only domains, registries without RDAP, rate limits, outages) are never charged on any rail. If a paid call fails anyway, email api@3l-groupconsulting.co.za with the receipt or transaction hash and we refund it.

Liability

To the extent the law allows, our liability for any claim about the service is limited to the amount you paid for the call concerned. We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, including lost or rejected email after applying a suggested fix. Nothing here limits rights you have under the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 that cannot be limited.

Law and changes

These terms are governed by the law of South Africa. We may change them by updating this page. Questions: api@3l-groupconsulting.co.za.