Acceptable Usage Policy

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ACCEPTABLE USAGE POLICY

Hosting For Humans exists to serve our customers and their best interests, and have developed the following policies designed to help protect our customers against those who might attempt to abuse the services we provide.

VIOLATION OF ANY OF THE FOLLOWING POLICIES IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED AND MAY RESULT IN IMMEDIATE TERMINATION OF ALL ACCOUNTS AND MAY ADDITIONALLY INCUR FINANCIAL PENALTIES TO THE VIOLATOR.

HFH provides various services to our customers in good faith, but recognizes the potential for abuse of those services. HFH reserves the right to limit or discontinue service to those who act with malicious or destructive intent to the detriment of our other customers or to HFH network or business operations.

HFH will be the sole and final arbiter regarding use of any service or resources that constitutes a willful violation or intent to violate our policies. Users found in violation of these policies are subject to a service charge for each instance of violation, exclusive of charges for the bandwidth and/or other resources utilized.

Services provided by HFH may be used solely for lawful purposes. Storage, transmission, presentation or knowing reception of any information, data or material in violation of any US State or Federal regulation or law, or by the common law, is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, any unauthorized offering of copyrighted material, the volume and type of material associated with commercial adult sites (such as pornographic material specifically geared towards a paying audience [1]), any material that is in violation of trademark, patent, or other trade secret statutes, and any content comprised of, links to, or pointers to, information on how to access pirated software (warez), software used to exploit security weaknesses of computers connected to the Internet (hacks), passwords to commercial content available via the Internet, serial numbers for copyrighted software, or software designed to circumvent copyright protection methods (cracks).

Customers are prohibited from transmitting on or through any of HFH’s facilities any material that is, in HFH’s sole discretion, unlawful, threatening, abusive (such as hate speech [2]), libelous, or encourages conduct that would constitute criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any local, state, national or international law, statute or regulation.

Customers may not engage in tortious conduct including, but not limited to, posting of defamatory, scandalous, or private information about a person without their consent, intentionally inflicting emotional distress, or making physical threats against another person via email, news, or any other electronic media/service we provide.

Customers are responsible for providing and maintaining accurate and up-to-date billing information. Furnishing false data on the initial order form, contract, or online application, including fraudulent use of credit card numbers, is grounds for immediate termination and may subject the offender to civil or criminal liability.

Customers that do not comply to the terms and conditions set out here may have their accounts frozen or canceled and/or either the total or offending content or areas of their website removed from HFH servers at the discretion of HFH. Customers who violate these terms and limitations are subject to reasonable service charges for the freezing, cancellation, and removal of offending material at the discretion of HFH.

Customer accounts that HFH must suspend or cancel due to violation of these terms are not eligible to receive a refund under any of our guarantees or terms, and are subject to all applicable charges for storage, bandwidth and other resource utilization.

Acceptance of these Policies constitutes an acceptance of any fines, penalties or service charges that might arise out of violation of these policies.

No customer may use any service provided by HFH to host or provide game rooms, MUDs, chat rooms, or CGI, PERL, Java or other applications that are CPU and memory intensive without prior written consent from HFH. HFH reserves the right to charge approved customers an additional fee in relation to the provision of these applications. HFH reserves the right to kill CPU intensive process without prior notice or incurring of any liability.

No customer may use any service provided by HFH to encourage, sponsor, or promote any illegal content, activity or information that may be damaging to HFH servers, other servers on the Internet, or personal computers connected to the Internet. Links to content of this nature are also prohibited.

All materials stored on HFH’s servers in a customer’s directory or directories will be considered directly those of the customer.

Customers of HFH acknowledge that HFH cannot provide technical assistance, advice, or support for software and/or CGI, PERL, Java, or other script installed by the customer. HFH shall supply our customers with reasonable technical assistance, advice, and support solely for issues relating to services provided to customer by HFH. Use of HFH’s facilities requires a certain level of knowledge in the use of Internet languages, protocols, and software. This level of knowledge varies depending on the anticipated use of the facilities. Customers are responsible for having this level of expertise. It is not the responsibility of HFH to provide this knowledge or customer support outside of the service defined in the Service Agreement.

Customers may not send email to any person who does not wish to receive it. If a recipient asks to stop receiving email, the Customer must cease sending that person email.

Customers may not send harassing (whether through language, frequency, or size of messages) or malicious (including, but not limited to, flooding a user or site with very large or numerous pieces of email and posting outrageous messages to generate numerous responses) email.

Customers may not permit the use of mail services, mail-forwarding capabilities, POP accounts, or auto-responders other than for the Customer’s own account. HFH accounts or services may not be used to collect replies to messages sent from another Internet Service Provider where those messages violate this Usage Policy or the usage policy of the other provider.

• Excessive volume, or more than 150 email messages in a 24-hour period unless prior written approval from HFH has been obtained.

• Unsolicited Email, being any email that falls under one or more of the following: commercial solicitations where no prior commercial relationship exists and where the recipient has not previously initiated communication; religious, philosophical, or charitable solicitations where the recipient has not previously initiated communication.

Customers violating this clause may have their accounts immediately terminated or frozen, and may be charged a service charge for each instance of verifiable Spam that is reported to HFH. In addition, no customer may knowingly allow Spam to be sent from any server in any protocol that mentions a domain, IP address, email address, or other service provided by HFH.

HFH customers may not resell or otherwise provide web space under their domain name to a third party or use any service of HFH to make available sub-domain websites on behalf of a third party unless that customer is a member of an HFH reseller program and has prior written consent from HFH.

HFH will not sell or knowingly disclose its customer lists or customer email or listserv address lists. We will attempt to protect the privacy of our Customers and their information that is stored on our network. HFH will only access and disclose information as necessary to comply with applicable laws and government orders, to operate and maintain our systems and services, or to protect ourselves or our Customers. HFH will not disclose a Customer’s private email messages or other facility usage unless required by court order or law. We will cooperate with the authorities and will notify such authorities if they suspect that a Customer is engaged in illegal activities to the limit the law allows or requires, at HFH’s sole discretion. HFH will, from time to time, use our customer mailing lists for network updates, system information and general sales information. HFH may in the future limit all mailings to those clients who want to participate.

Credit and credit card information will be held in confidence, however, it will be used in any way possible to aid in the recovery of delinquent or defaulting debtors.

Customer passwords are confidential and will not be made available to any person or company outside of HFH for any reason whatsoever.

All information will be stored as securely as possible while maintaining the ability for authorized HFH staff to quickly and effectively access this information when required operational purposes.

Customers may not attempt to circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network, or account (hacking/cracking). This includes, but is not limited to, accessing data not intended for the Customer, password sniffing, security hole scanning, IP spoofing, logging into a server or account the Customer is not expressly authorized to access, or probing the security of other networks.

Customers may not attempt to interfere with service to any user, host, or network (“denial of service attacks”). This includes, but is not limited to, “flooding” of networks, deliberate attempts to overload a service, and attempts to “crash” a host.

Customers may not use any kind of program/script/command, or send messages of any kind, designed to interfere with a user’s terminal session, via any means, locally or by the Internet.

Customers must safeguard their account passwords to prevent unauthorized access to their account; this includes using any non-secure third-party website or service (i.e. any service that stores or asks you to enter your password over a non-SSL connection) as an intermediary to access any service or feature provided by HFH. Secure third-party websites or services are not prohibited.

Users who violate systems or network security may incur criminal or civil liability. HFH will cooperate fully with investigations of violations of systems or network security at other sites, including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations.

Customers of HFH agree not to cause harm, attempt to cause harm, or attempt to undermine through action or inaction any server, software, system, data or other customer of HFH, whether through malicious intent or negligence.

HFH reserves the right to determine when a customer is in violation of any of the preceding terms in its sole and absolute discretion. HFH reserves the right to terminate any users account at any time for a violation of the above terms and conditions. Any violation of the above terms or conditions may result in immediate account termination and forfeiture of any possible refund. HFH reserves the right to remove any account without prior notice. Violation of these terms and conditions may result in legal action, service fees, or a combination thereof.

HFH reserves the right to refuse service to any potential customer at any time at our sole discretion.

EXCEPT AS SPECIFICALLY SET FORTH IN THESE STANDARD APPLICABLE POLICIES, HFH MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO SERVICES PROVIDED. HFH SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THIS INCLUDES LOSS OF DATA, WHETHER RESULTING FROM DELAYS, NON-DELIVERIES, WRONG DELIVERY, AND ANY AND ALL SERVICE INTERRUPTIONS CAUSED BY HFH AND ITS EMPLOYEES OR OTHER CAUSES.

THE SOLE CUMULATIVE LIABILITY OF HFH FOR ALL CLAIMS MADE BY CUSTOMER OR ANY OTHER PARTY, REGARDLESS OF FORM, INCLUDING ANY CAUSE OF ACTION BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT OR STRICT LIABILITY, SHALL NOT EXCEED THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF ALL FEES AND CHARGES PAID TO HFH BY THE CUSTOMER.

HFH reserves the right to revise or change these policies, terms, and conditions at any time.

This agreement shall be governed in all respects under the laws of the Commonwealth State of Virginia applicable to legally binding contracts made, accepted and performed wholly in Alexandria, Virginia, without application to principles of conflict of laws, and Customer and HFH acknowledge and agree that the sole venue and jurisdiction for any disputes arising from this agreement shall be the appropriate federal or state court located in the Commonwealth State of Virginia.

THE USAGE POLICY DEFINES THE ACTIONS WHICH HFH CONSIDERS TO BE ABUSIVE, AND THUS, STRICTLY PROHIBITED. THE EXAMPLES SET FORTH IN THIS POLICY ARE NON-EXCLUSIVE, AND ARE PROVIDED SOLELY FOR GUIDANCE TO HFH’s CUSTOMERS.

If you are unsure whether any contemplated use or activity is prohibited, please send mail to policy@hostingforhumans.com and we will assist you. Please note that the activities set forth above are also not permitted from other Internet Service Providers on behalf of, or to advertise, any service hosted by HFH, or connected via our network. HFH must further limit any exceptions made to the Usage Policy as secondary in regards to server and network security, performance and integrity. Any user, regardless of exception status, may have his or her service disabled if it is interfering with our servers or network. Specific questions about this policy should be sent via e-mail to policy@hostingforhumans.com. Reports of activity in violation of this policy may be sent via e-mail to abuse@hostingforhumans.com.

[1] Our restriction policy regarding adult content is based solely on server load and bandwidth considerations. We do not prohibit our customers from posting images or content intended for a mature audience on their websites, provided that content meets the copyright and other legal restrictions outlined above.[click here to return]

[2] We are ardent believers of free speech. While we believe people have the right to lawfully express their beliefs and opinions, we choose not to support or accept websites featuring hate speech. HFH reserves the right to determine what constitutes hate speech, on a case-by-case basis, in its sole and absolute discretion. [click here to return]