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TERMS OF SERVICE
This is
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting's Acceptable Use Policy. This document contains
information about what type of behavior is and is not allowed on the
Buck-a-Year Network. If you have any questions, please contact
us.
Background
From
time to time Buck-a-Year Web Hosting may impose reasonable rules and
regulations regarding the use of its services. Such rules and
regulations are called Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs) and are posted on
the Internet here at www.Buck-a-Year.com/tos.htm. The AUPs are not
exhaustive and Buck-a-Year Web Hosting reserves the right to modify the
AUPs at any time, effective upon either the posting of the modified AUPs
to www.Buck-a-Year.com/tos.htm or notification of the modified AUPs. By
registering for and using the services, and thereby accepting the terms
and conditions of the Master Services Agreement or its equivalent, you
agree to abide by the AUPs as modified from time to time. Any violation of
the AUPs may result in the suspension or termination of your account or
such other action as Buck-a-Year Web Hosting deems appropriate. An
unlisted activity may also be a violation of the AUPs if it is illegal,
irresponsible, or disruptive use of the Internet. No credits will be
issued for any interruption in service resulting from policy
violations.
VIOLATION OF ANY
AUP IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED AND MAY RESULT IN THE IMMEDIATE TERMINATION OR
SUSPENSION OF THE SERVICES YOU RECEIVE FROM Buck-a-Year Web Hosting. YOU
SHALL REMAIN SOLELY LIABLE AND RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES
AND ANY AND ALL CONTENT THAT YOU DISPLAY, UPLOAD, DOWNLOAD OR TRANSMIT
THROUGH THE USE OF THE SERVICES. "CONTENT" INCLUDES, WITHOUT LIMITATION,
YOUR E-MAIL, WEB PAGES, PERSONAL HOME PAGES, AND DOMAIN NAMES. IT IS Buck-a-Year Web Hosting'S POLICY
TO TERMINATE REPEAT INFRINGERS. Buck-a-Year Web Hosting RESERVES
THE RIGHT TO REFUSE SERVICE TO ANYONE AT ANY TIME.
Customer Security
Responsibilities
The
customer is solely responsible for any breaches of security affecting
servers under customer control. If a customer's server is involved in an
attack on another server or system, it will be shut down and an immediate
investigation will be launched to determine the cause/source of the
attack. In such event, the customer is responsible for the cost to rectify
any damage done to the customer's server and any other requirement
affected by the security breach. The labor used to rectify any such damage
is categorized as emergency security breach recovery and is currently
charged at $350 USD per hour.
System And Network Security
Violations
of system or network security are prohibited, and may result in criminal
and civil liability. Buck-a-Year Web Hosting may investigate incidents
involving such violations and may involve and will cooperate with law
enforcement if a criminal violation is suspected. Examples of system or
network security violations include, without limitation, the
following:
-
Unauthorized access to or
use of data, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan
or test the vulnerability of a system or network or to breach security
or authentication measures without express authorization of the owner of
the system or network.
-
Unauthorized monitoring of
data or traffic on any network or system without express authorization
of the owner of the system or network.
-
Interference with service to
any user, host or network including, without limitation, mailbombing,
flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast
attacks.
-
Forging of any TCP-IP packet
header or any part of the header information in an e-mail or a newsgroup
posting.
Violators of the policy are
responsible, without limitations, for the cost of labor to clean up and
correct any damage done to the operation of the network and business
operations supported by the network, and to respond to complaints incurred
by Buck-a-Year Web Hosting. Such labor is categorized as emergency
security breach recovery and is currently charged at $350 USD per hour
required. Buck-a-Year Web Hosting is concerned with the privacy of online
communications and web sites. In general, the Internet is neither more nor
less secure than other means of communication, including mail, facsimile,
and voice telephone service, all of which can be intercepted and otherwise
compromised. As a matter of prudence, however, Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
urges its customers to assume that all of their online communications are
insecure. Buck-a-Year Web Hosting cannot take responsibility for the
security of information transmitted over Buck-a-Year Web Hosting's
facilities.
Password Protection
The customer
is responsible for protecting customer's password and for any authorized
or unauthorized use made of customer's password. The customer will not use
or permit anyone to use Buck-a-Year Web Hosting's service to guess
passwords or to access other systems or networks without authorization.
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting will fully cooperate with law enforcement
authorities in the detection and prosecution of illegal activity.
Internet Etiquette
The customer is
expected to be familiar with and to practice good Internet etiquette
(Netiquette). The customer will comply with the rules appropriate to any
network to which Buck-a-Year Web Hosting may provide access. The customer
should not post, transmit, or permit Internet access to information the
customer desires to keep confidential. The customer is not permitted to
post any material that is illegal, libelous, tortuous, indecently depicts
children or is likely to result in retaliation against Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting by offended users. Buck-a-Year Web Hosting reserves the right to
refuse or terminate service at any time for violation of this
section. This includes advertising services or sites via IRC or
USENET in clear violation of the policies of the IRC channel or USENET
group.
Copyright Infringement - Software Piracy
Policy
The Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network may only be
used for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution, or storage of any
information, data or material in violation of United States or state
regulation or law, or by the common law, is prohibited. This includes, but
is not limited to, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade
secret, or other intellectual property rights.
Making unauthorized copies of
software is a violation of the law, no matter how many copies you are
making. If you copy, distribute or install the software in ways that the
license does not allow, you are violating federal copyright law. If caught
with pirated software, you or your company may be liable under both civil
and criminal law, and you may be fined up to $250,000 and/or receive up to
5 years in jail.
In compliance with the Digital
Millenium Copyright Act (the "DMCA"), please send DMCA notifications of
claimed copyright infringements to: Buck-a-Year Web Hosting, P.O. Box
1061, Theodore, AL 36590-1061or email Abuse@Buck-a-Year.com.
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting will
cooperate fully with any civil and/or criminal litigation arising from the
violation of this policy.
Network Responsibility
Customers have a responsibility to use the
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network responsibly. This includes respecting the
other customers of Buck-a-Year Web Hosting. Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
reserves the right to suspend and or cancel service with any Customer who
uses the Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network in such a way that adversely
affects other Buck-a-Year Web Hosting customers. This includes but is not
limited to:
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Attacking or attempting to
gain unauthorized access to servers and services that belong to
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting or its customers (i.e. computer hacking),
and/or
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Participating in behavior
which result in reprisals that adversely effect the Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting network or other customers' access to the Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting network.
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting will
react strongly to any use or attempted use of an Internet account or
computer without the owner's authorization. Such attempts include, but are
not limited to, "Internet Scanning" (tricking other people into releasing
their passwords), password robbery, security hole scanning, port scanning,
etc. Any unauthorized use of accounts or computers by a Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting customer, whether or not the attacked account or computer belongs
to Buck-a-Year Web Hosting, will result in severe action taken against the
attacker. Possible actions include warnings, account suspension or
cancellation, and civil or criminal legal action, depending on the
seriousness of the attack. Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a
server, or customer, of Buck-a-Year Web Hosting is strictly
prohibited.
Violations of this policy may
be reported directly to the FBI's Infrastructure Protection & Computer
Intrusion Squad at http://www.fbi.gov/programs/ipcis/ipcis.htm.
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting will cooperate fully with any civil and/or
criminal litigation arising from the violation of this policy.
Lawful Purpose
All services may be used
for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any
information, data or material in violation of any applicable law,
regulation, or AUP is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to:
copyrighted material or material protected by trade secret and other
statute or dissemination of harmful or fraudulent content.
Using any
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting service or product for the purpose of
participating in any activity dealing with subject matters that are
prohibited under applicable law is prohibited.
Any conduct that
constitutes harassment, fraud, stalking, abuse, or a violation of federal
export restriction in connection with use of Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
services or products is prohibited. Using the Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
network to solicit the performance of any illegal activity is also
prohibited, even if the activity itself is not performed. In addition,
knowingly receiving or downloading a file that cannot be legally
distributed, even without the act of distribution, is
prohibited.
Servers hosted
within Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network are open to the public. You are
solely responsible for your usage of the Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network
and servers and any statement you make on servers hosted within the
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network may be deemed "publication" of the
information entered. Acknowledging the foregoing, you specifically agree
not to use our service in any manner that is illegal or
libelous.
Child Pornography on the
Internet
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting will cooperate fully
with any criminal investigation into a Customer's violation of the Child
Protection Act of 1984 concerning child pornography. Customers are
ultimately responsible for the actions of their clients over the
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network, and will be liable for illegal material
posted by their clients.
According to the Child
Protection Act, child pornography includes photographs, films, video or
any other type of visual presentation that shows a person who is or is
depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is
depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or the dominant
characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a
sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen
years or any written material or visual representation that advocates or
counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen
years.
Violations of the Child
Protection Act may be reported to the U.S. Customs Agency at
1-800-BEALERT
Unsolicited Commercial Email/Unsolicited Bulk Email
(UCE/UBE)
Unsolicited commercial email (UCE) is defined
by Buck-a-Year Web Hosting as any electronic communication (e-mail, ICQ,
IRC, Instant Messenger, etc…) sent for purposes of distributing commercial
information of any kind, soliciting the purchase or sale of products or
services or soliciting any transfer of funds to a recipient who has not
agreed to receive such communication.
Unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE)
is defined by Buck-a-Year Web Hosting as any electronic communication
(e-mail, ICQ, IRC, Instant Messenger, etc…) to multiple recipients who
have not agreed to receive such communication.
Use of the Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting network, servers or services to transmit any unsolicited
commercial or unsolicited bulk-e-mail is expressly prohibited, as is
hosting web sites or services on a server which are advertised in any
UCE/UBE. Buck-a-Year Web Hosting also prohibits the sending of any
fraudulent, malicious, harassing, false or misleading electronic
communications, including, without limitation, chain letters, pyramid
schemes, or e-mails with forged headers. Posting off-topic advertisements
to Usenet discussion groups, ICQ, Instant Messenger, etc., is also
expressly prohibited. Additionally, Buck-a-Year Web Hosting customers are
expressly prohibited from sending any UCE/UBE from our network or any
email from another network that in any way references a document, image,
or Web site that resides on the Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network or in one
of our data centers. Violations of this type may result in the termination
of the offending Buck-a-Year Web Hosting account. Our customers are
ultimately responsible for any violations of the AUP by their clients, and
any violation of the AUP by a client of a Buck-a-Year Web Hosting customer
shall be deemed a violation of the AUP by such Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
customer.
Customers whose actions
directly or indirectly result in Buck-a-Year Web Hosting IP space being
listed in any of the various abuse databases may be subject to having the
offending domain(s), server(s), or user(s) immediately removed from our
network. In addition, if Buck-a-Year Web Hosting in its sole discretion
determines that a customer is in violation of our AUP, Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting may, at its sole discretion, restrict, suspend or terminate a
customer's account. Buck-a-Year Web Hosting will, in most cases, attempt
to contact a customer prior to suspension or termination of a server(s),
but can not guarantee prior notification. Any server suspended or
terminated for AUP violations will be reconnected only after the customer
agrees to cease all activities that violate the Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
AUP and pays all applicable reconnect fees and related charges. Any server
suspended a second time for AUP violations WILL be immediately and
permanently removed from our network.
Customers that Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting determines in its sole discretion to be in violation of the
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting AUP may be subject to additional fees or fines
including, without limitation, any applicable reconnect fees. Server
cleanup fee for spam starts at $250.
Violation of Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting's UCE/UBE policy may be reported to Abuse@Buck-a-Year.com.
Customers seeking to send any
permission-based email marketing should read Guidelines for
Permission-Based Email to see our guidelines for sending this type of
communication.
Guidelines for Permission-Based
Email
While Buck-a-Year Web Hosting prohibits the use of
its systems or network to send unsolicited email (UCE/UBE) as described
above, customers may send permission-based email marketing, subject to the
guidelines provided herein. Permission-based marketing is defined as
electronic marketing that an end user agrees to receive. This is often
referred to as 'opt-in' electronic marketing. All recipient information
for such marketing conducted by Buck-a-Year Web Hosting customers must be
documented and cataloged by the customer. This information is to include
date, time, originating IP and the location from which the email address
or other recipient information was obtained. Additionally, a customer must
at a minimum comply with the following guidelines, and any additional
guidelines established by Buck-a-Year Web Hosting from time to time in its
sole discretion, to engage in permission-based email marketing without
violating the AUP:
1. All commercial or bulk
email originating from a Buck-a-Year Web Hosting customer on the
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network must have a working unsubscribe link. The
customer must honor all requests to unsubscribe within 72 hours.
Additionally, there must be text in the email stating that while all
requests to unsubscribe are honored, it may take up to 72 hours to
process.
2. All commercial or bulk
email originating from a Buck-a-Year Web Hosting customer on the
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network must clearly list the email address to
which the email was originally sent (the intended recipient's email
address) in the body of the message OR in the 'TO:' line of the
email.
3. All Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
customers sending commercial or bulk email must have a working
abuse@domain.com address from EVERY domain associated with the email
campaign. Additionally, the abuse@ address must be prominently posted on
the front page of the associated web site. Customers must regularly answer
any messages sent to the abuse@ address.
4. All Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
customers sending commercial or bulk email must register the abuse@
address for every domain associated with commercial email they send at
abuse.net.
5. All Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
customers sending commercial or bulk email must have a Privacy Policy/AUP
posted for each domain associated with the email campaign.
6. All commercial or bulk
email sent must include information about where the email address was
obtained in the body of the email. For example:
"You opted-in to
receive this email promotion from our web site or from one of our partner
sites."
7. All Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
customers sending commercial or bulk email must answer all complainants'
requests for details regarding where the complainant "opted-in" to receive
electronic marketing within 72 hours. This information must include the
date, time, originating IP and the location from which the email address
or other recipient information was obtained. Instructions on how to get
this information must be stated clearly in the body of the email. For
example, a statement similar to the following must be present in the body
of the email:
"If you would like to learn more about how we received
your email address, please contact us at abuse@domain.com."
Requests for "opt-in"
information must be responded to within 72 hours.
8. All Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
customers sending commercial or bulk email must be able to track and
identify SpamCop complainants. There are several software packages (such
as RoboMail) that can help accomplish this.
9. If a Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting customer is using an affiliate program to send commercial or bulk
email through the Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network and the affiliate
program becomes subject to repeated abuse by users, the customer must
discontinue use of the affiliate program or be subject to immediate
suspension or cancellation.
10. All customers of
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting are required to have up-to-date and valid contact
information on file with their registrar for any domain hosted on the
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network.
Disclaimer
·
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting reserves the right to test portions of any
customer's email list and request opt-in information from a random sample
of that list at any time.
· Buck-a-Year Web Hosting reserves the right
to determine in its sole discretion the validity of any customer's email
list. Any list Buck-a-Year Web Hosting determines in its sole discretion
to be in violation of this AUP must be removed immediately or the customer
will be subject to immediate suspension or termination. Repeated
violations will result in permanent suspension.
· Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting reserves the right to test and otherwise monitor customer's
compliance with the above guidelines and requirements at any time during
the customer's term of service at Buck-a-Year Web Hosting.
· If
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting determines in its sole discretion that the
customer is not in strict compliance with the guidelines for
permission-based e-mail marketing, then Buck-a-Year Web Hosting may
immediately suspend or terminate the customer's service.
IP Address Overlap
Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting administers the network on which customer servers reside. The
customer cannot use IP addresses which were not assigned to them by
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting staff. Any server found using IPs which were not
officially assigned will be suspended from network access until such time
as the IP addresses overlap can be corrected.
IRC
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
allows the use of IRC inside the Buck-a-Year Web Hosting network as long
as the use of IRC on a Buck-a-Year Web Hosting server does not violate any
of the other terms of this AUP. As a policy, Buck-a-Year Web Hosting will
not provide vanity IRC reverse DNS records. To enforce this policy
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting does not turn the reverse address of IPs over to
the customer. Authority over this information remains with
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting. IRC Bots are prohibited.
Billing
The customer understands
that the customer is responsible for paying for any network resources that
are used to connect the customer's server to the Internet. The customer
may request that the customer's server be disconnected from the Internet,
but the customer will still be responsible for paying for any network
resources used up to the point of suspension or cancellation. It is the
clients responsibility to monitor CPU, Disk, and bandwidth usage. Any
customer who goes over their allotted amount will be billed immediately
for the amount of service used. Monthly billing occurs on the 1st and 15th
of the month. Account additions and/or overage will be billed
immediately.
Suspension
If Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
in its sole discretion determines that a customer's server has become the
source or target of any violation concerning the Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), Buck-a-Year Web Hosting reserves the right to
suspend network access to that server. While Buck-a-Year Web Hosting will
attempt to contact the customer before suspending network access to the
customer's server(s), prior notification to the customer is not assured.
In certain cases, Buck-a-Year Web Hosting will contact law enforcement and
other agencies regarding these activities. Customers are responsible for
all charges, as well as any fees relating to the investigation,
suspension, administration and handling of their servers before, during
and after the suspension period.
Cancellation
Buck-a-Year
Web Hosting reserves the right to cancel service at any time. If
inappropriate activity is detected, all accounts of the customer in
question will be deactivated until an investigation is complete. Prior
notification to the Customer is not assured. In extreme cases, law
enforcement will be contacted regarding the activity. Any violation
of policies which results in extra costs will be billed to the customer
(i.e. transfer, space etc.). Any
cancellations due to a TOS contract violation will result in an immediate
loss of any refund for services paid for. You may also be immediately
billed for unauthorized bandwidth fees. Please see that section of this
document for more information.
Indemnification
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting
wishes to emphasize that in signing the Master Services Agreement or its
equivalent, customer indemnifies Buck-a-Year Web Hosting for any violation
of the Master Services Agreement or its equivalent, law or AUP that
results in loss to Buck-a-Year Web Hosting or the bringing of any claim
against Buck-a-Year Web Hosting by any third-party. This means that if
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting is sued because of a customer's or a customer of a
customer's activity, the customer will pay any damages awarded against
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting, plus costs and reasonable attorney's
fees.
Disclaimer of
Responsibility
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting is under
no duty to look at each customer's or user's activities to determine if a
violation of the AUPs has occurred, nor do we assume any responsibility
through our AUPs to monitor or police Internet-related activities.
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting disclaims any responsibility for any such
inappropriate use and any liability to any person or party for any other
person's or party's violation of this policy.
INDIRECT OR ATTEMPTED
VIOLATIONS OF THE AUPs AND ACTUAL OR ATTEMPTED VIOLATIONS BY A THIRD PARTY
ON YOUR BEHALF, SHALL BE CONSIDERED VIOLATIONS OF THESE AUPs BY
YOU.
Server Resources
Any web site
that uses a high amount of server resources (such as, but not limited to,
CPU time, memory usage, and network resources) will be given the option to
either pay additional fees (which will depend on the resources required),
reduce the resources used to an acceptable level, or upgrade its service
to a Dedicated Server plan. Buck-a-Year Web Hosting shall be the sole
arbiter of what is considered to be a high server usage level.
All
shared web hosting accounts come with a limit of 5,000 files per account.
Each block of 5,000 files after the initial 5,000 will incur an additional
charge of $9.95/month.
Any web hosting account deemed
to be adversely affecting server performance or network integrity will be
shut down without prior notice.
CGI
Scripts
CGI script
sharing with domains not hosted by Buck-a-Year Web Hosting is not
permitted. Any CGI-scripts deemed to be adversely affecting server
performance or network integrity will be shut down without prior notice.
Chat
Rooms
Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting does not allow customers to install their own chat rooms / boards.
Chat rooms / boards tend to require significant system resources and
therefore cannot be permitted as an account option. Please contact
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting for alternatives.
Background
Running Programs and Cron Jobs
Buck-a-Year Web Hosting may allow programs to run in the
background. These programs will be considered on an individual basis and
customers will incur extra charges based on system resources used and
operational maintenance needed. If you wish to run background programs
please contact Buck-a-Year Web Hosting using our Contact page so that we
can arrange set-up.
Software
Distribution
Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting' shared web hosting accounts are not configured for the purposes
of distributing software and/or multimedia products. If you wish to
distribute software and/or multimedia files, please contact Buck-a-Year
Web Hosting using our Contact page to make special arrangements.
Multimedia
Files
Multimedia files
are defined as any graphics, audio, and video files. Buck-a-Year Web
Hosting shared web hosting accounts are not to be used for the purposes of
distributing and storing unusual amounts of multimedia files. Any web site
whose disk space usage for storing multimedia files exceeds industry
standards of its total usage, in terms of total size or number of files,
will be considered to be using an unusual amount of multimedia files and
will be subject to special pricing.
Databases
Any MySQL database stored on Buck-a-Year Web Hosting' servers shall
be limited in size to 10MB. Any single larger database will be subject to
extra fees. Any flat database files (i.e. text databases) will be limited
to size in 1 MB. This is due to the amount of server resources that
databases consume.
Unauthorized Bandwidth
If any terms of service violation is found, bandwidth
used while breaking the TOS agreement shall be billed at $20 per GB. 1 GB
minimum. This includes but is not limited to illegal transfers of MP3's,
illegal data, adult material without prior permission, and software that
you may or may not have the rights to. This charge will be for ALL
bandwidth the site incurred, not just the transfer of
files. |