Hosting Agreement
siteChisel is designed to serve the web hosting needs of small, independently owned and operated businesses in a single country. It is not appropriate to use our services to support large enterprises or internationally based businesses with a sustained demand that places undue burden on our systems or negatively impacts use by small, independently owned and operated businesses.
siteChisel is a shared web hosting service, which means that a number of customers web sites and other email or storage services are hosted from the same server. siteChisel uses abuse controls to help ensure that use of our services does not adversely affect the performance of our system or other customers sites. It is not appropriate to use an account primarily as an online storage space or for archiving electronic files.
DISK SPACE
If you use your services consistently with the Terms of Service and these paragraphs, your site can grow as large as necessary to meet your small business needs, but to ensure a great experience for all, we will place some constraints on how fast you can grow. The vast majority of our customers sites grow at rates well within our rules, but our abuse controls may cause a brief delay while we evaluate if expansion is appropriate.
DATA TRANSFER
In most cases, if you use our services consistently with the Terms of Service and these paragraphs, visitors to your web site will be able to download and view as much content from your site as they like. However, in certain circumstances, our server processing power, server memory, or abuse controls could limit downloads from your site. You can also upload as much as content as you like each month, subject only to the Terms of Service and the rules that control how fast your site can grow (see above).
VISITS PER MONTH
Our standard hosting plan comes with a soft cap at 25,000 visits per month. If your visits are higher that 25,000 per month we may offer an upgraded hosting plan which will come with an increase in cost. Visits are calculated as actual users visiting your site. We do count bots or spiders
UPTIME
We always strive for a 99.9% uptime per month on our servers. Events can happen that are out of our control. For this reason we can't guarantee an uptime percentage. You may view our server status and uptime percentages by visiting https://status.sitechisel.com. Most months we have a 100% server uptime.
FTP ACCESS
We do not allow ftp access to our servers. We limit this access for security reasons. If you have a need to edit a file or upload files please send a support ticket to [email protected].
ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY & TERMS OF SERVICE
The following is the entire Acceptable User Policy (AUP) agreement between siteChisel and the personal or corporate account holder (YOU/YOUR Customer). siteChisel provides World Wide Web Hosting, Marketing, and Development. siteChisel has certain legal and ethical responsibilities consisting with the use of its servers and equipment involved in these services. siteChisel general policy is to act as a provider of Internet presence. siteChisel reserves the rights to suspend or cancel a customers access to any or all services provided by siteChisel when we decide that the account has been inappropriately used.
WORDPRESS PLUGINS
siteChisel does not allow plugins to be installed by end users, customers, or admins of the sites that are hosted on our network. We limit this functionality for security and stability reasons. There are many plugins that in the WordPress repository and other resources that contain outdated codebases. We have a large plugin library that has been scrutinized by our team. If you require the use of a plugin that is not in our repository you may submit a support ticket at [email protected] and we will take a look to see if it is a good fit for our network.
SERVER ABUSE
Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server or customer of siteChisel is strictly prohibited. siteChisel will strongly react to any use or attempted use of an Internet account or computer without the owners authorization. Such attempts include Internet scamming (tricking other people into releasing their passwords), password theft, security hole scanning, etc. Any unauthorized use of accounts or computers by YOU, whether or not the attacked account or computer belongs to siteChisel, will result in action against YOU. Possible actions include warnings, account suspension or cancellation, as well as civil or criminal legal action, depending on the seriousness of the attack.
IMPORTANT NOTE – siteChisel has the right to discontinue service, or deny access to anyone who violates our policies or the terms and conditions shown below WITHOUT WARNING or PRIOR NOTICE. No refunds of fees paid will be made if account termination is due to violation of the terms outlined below. YOU may not run IRC, bots or clients on shared servers. Unacceptable uses also include, but are NOT limited to: Bulk emailing, unsolicited emailing, newsgroup spamming, pornographic content, illegal content, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, warez sites (including links to/from), torrents, cracks, software serial numbers, proxy-relaying, link farming (the act of or by use of scripts), link grinding, link-only sites, spamdexing, FFA (Free-For-All) and/or anything else determined by siteChisel to be unacceptable use of our services including abuse of server resources.
WEB APPLICATIONS and WEB ACCESSIBLE SCRIPTS
Shared hosting accounts may also be terminated if it includes the following content or have links to the following content: Providing material that is grossly offensive to the Web community including blatant expressions of bigotry, racism, hatred, or profanity; promoting or providing instructional information about illegal activities; promoting physical harm or injury against any group or individual; displaying material containing obscene nudity or pornographic material; displaying material that exploits children under 18-years of age; acts of copyright infringement including offering pirated computer programs or links to such programs; information used to circumvent manufacturer-installed copy-protect devices, including serial or registration numbers for software programs, or any type of cracker utilities. Don't bother asking us no matter how silver your tongue is, we're not allowing any of this nor will we for the remainder of the known world, period.
STORAGE SPACE ABUSE
siteChisel will not tolerate any form of storage space abuse. At least 90% of YOUR web pages (HTML) must be linked with files (GIF, JPEG, etc.) stored on siteChisel servers. Website that are found to contain either/or no HTML documents, a large number of unlinked files are subject to files deletion or account cancellation at the discretion of siteChisel Management (MANAGEMENT), with or without prior notice. Storage space will be monitored to ensure that you're within the limits of what we consider average customer use(ACU). If for some reason we find that you're far exceeding our ACU, an email will be sent to inform you that you're over, and the steps that can be taken to reduce the amount of file storage you require. 99% of our clients will never run into this problem, but we will certainly work with that 1% to ensure that they have everything they need to operate. This does not apply to co-location clients. Co-location clients will be billed for the overages based on switch reports. Co-location clients must pay for the overages IMMEDIATELY once billing or siteChisel has the sole decision to deactivate any and all servers. siteChisel will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.
BANDWIDTH ABUSE
The intention of siteChisel is to provide a large bandwidth to transfer web documents, and not an offsite storage area for electronic files. If YOU violate this condition, YOU will be notified and given 48 hours to remedy the problem. Failure to do so will result in YOU being billed for the overages. Bandwidth will be monitored to ensure that you're within the limits of what we consider ACU. If for some reason we find that you're far exceeding our ACU, an email will be sent to inform you that you're over, and the steps that can be taken to reduce the amount of bandwidth you require. 99% of our clients will never run into this problem, but we will certainly work with that 1% to ensure that they have everything they need to operate. This does not apply to co-location clients. Co-location clients will be billed for the overages based on switch reports. Co-location clients must pay for the overages IMMEDIATELY once billing or siteChisel has the sole decision to deactivate any and all servers. siteChisel will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.
UNSOLICITED EMAIL & SPAMMING
Unsolicited commercial advertisements (SPAM) are not allowed in e-mail, and will likely result in account cancelation. siteChisel takes a zero-tolerance approach to SPAM originating from its servers or for spam advertising of domains hosted within our network. If found, we will charge YOU up to $25 per unsolicited email message sent and delete YOUR account with any prior notice. The following activities are not allowed: SPAM, which includes, but is not limited to, bulk mailing of commercial advertising, informational announcements, charity requests, petitions for signatures, and political or religious tracts (such messages may only be sent to those who have explicitly requested it from your domain); Forging, altering or removing electronic mail headers – any domain sending stealth spam will be terminated without warning and without refund.
Sending numerous copies of the same or substantially similar message with the intent to disrupt a server or account (mail bombing); Spamming Newsgroups: Commercial advertisements are unwelcome in most Usenet discussion groups and on most e-mail mailing lists. Inappropriate posting may result in account cancelation. See the newsgroup or mailing lists charter for whether advertising is allowed or not. Sending a message to many different off-topic newsgroups, is particularly unethical and will be treated as such; Mail may not be used to harass or intimidate others. Harassment, whether through language, frequency of messages, or size of messages, is prohibited. Sending a single unwelcome message may be considered harassment. If a recipient asks to stop receiving e-mail, YOU must not send that person any further messages.
NOTE – If YOU use the services of another provider to promote a website hosted by or through siteChisel (spamvertising), then the provisions of the above policy shall apply as if the SPAM were sent through our servers.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT BOUNDARIES
siteChisel provides technical support for YOU that encompasses within our area of expertise only. Such expertise includes assistance, troubleshooting, and debugging of our cPanel control panel interface, servers within our immediate responsibility and any other hosting related issues.
However, in under no circumstances is siteChisel neither obligated to help YOU in the installations of new application modules, templates and/or programming languages, nor in providing assistance for any errors produced by any applications that have been modified by YOU previously. We will only provide assistance in making sure any EasyApps applications that are installed through the cPanel control panel interface are installed as directed.
CHAT ROOMS
We do not allow YOU to install YOUR own chat rooms within a shared hosting account, without approving it with siteChisel. This includes, but not limited to, chat applications written in PHP, Perl, CGI, Python, Ruby, etc. Any web application that provides real-time chat is also not permitted. Most chat rooms tend to be large system hogs and we cannot allow it as an account option. However, web based forums such as vBulletin, phpBB or similar forum scripts are acceptable.
FILE SERVER
siteChisel installed and provides special file-servers in our network infrastructure for YOUR benefit as a means of storage for electronic files and applications that are not dynamically generated and is downloadable in nature. Files such as MP3, AVI, MID, MIDI,MPG, MPEG, MOV, ZIP, RAR, EXE and anything else we deemed as downloadable and not dynamically generated scripting languages are to be stored within these file-servers, away from the web servers. This Policy does not apply for image files formats such as JPG, JPEG, GIF,PNG, and BMP. In addition, all electronic files stored within siteChisel file-servers must be legally owned and be accompanied with a valid license and/or copyright. This include and is not limiting to MP3, AVI, MID, MIDI, MPG, MPEG, MOV, EXE, ISO. Should we discover any unlicensed and/or illegal files within YOUR account, the files will be subjected to deletion without any further notifications. File-servers will not be backed up.
YOU are advised to have YOUR own backup locally or elsewhere other than within the siteChisel servers. If YOU are found to not adhere to this Policy, the offending material(s) will be deleted from YOUR hosting account without any prior notice. This service is only available for siteChisel SHARED-HOSTING customers.
SMTP AND PHP MAIL SERVER ABUSE
We do not allow YOU to send outbound mail to more than 20 recipients at any one given time and/or more than 1,000 pieces of e-mail per day from a shared hosting account with a maximum file size of 20MB per email message. If YOU violate siteChisel policies persistently in email activities, YOUR account will be suspended.
BACKGROUND RUNNING PROGRAMS
We may allow programs to run continually in the background. These are considered on a one-to-one basis and an extra charge will be incurred based on system resources used and operational maintenance needed. (This section does not apply to managed dedicated servers).
IRC
We currently do not allow IRC or IRC bots to be operated on our servers. IRC servers are not permitted on our network. YOU can however, install IRC clients on managed dedicated servers. The installation and/or execution of a script and/or binary that runs in the background or listens to any given port are also strictly prohibited.
PAYMENT POLICIES
All accounts are set up on a pre-pay basis. Setup fees are charged for all new accounts as well as major account changes and are non-refundable. All pricing is guaranteed for the term of prepayment. siteChisel reserves the right to change prices at any time, unless other terms have been agreed upon. Any account not brought current within a week (7 days) of e-mail notice or exceeding this time frame in any way is subject to suspension. YOU are responsible for all fees owed on the account from the time it was established to the time that YOU notifies siteChisel to request for termination of services. All payment is in U.S. currency.
siteChisel will bill each client $50 per returned check, per wire transfer received and per credit card charge-back received. All siteChisel accounts are setup on anniversary billing cycles. YOUR particular billing cycle corresponds to the contract length that was initially chosen at setup. YOUR account will automatically renew at this length. There is no fee to change to a shorter billing cycle at the end of the current cycle. However, if you wish to change to a shorter billing cycle during a current cycle, there will be a $50.00 fee. Please contact the billing department at [email protected] should you wish to change your anniversary billing cycle.
CANCELLATION OF SERVICE
siteChisel reserves the right to cancel a service at any time. All fees paid in advance of cancellation will be pro-rated and paid by siteChisel if we institutes our right of cancellation. Any violation of policies which results in extra costs billed to YOU (i.e. transfer, space etc.). All of siteChisel PLANS are backed by a 30-day money back guarantee. If YOU are not completely satisfied with our services or support within the first 30 days of YOUR contract, YOU will be given a full refund of the contract amount excluding setup fees, domain registration fees, add-on/upgrade fees and overages. Setup fees are refundable only if the account order is canceled prior to account activation. If YOU cancel, the full contract amount less any setup fees and overages will be refunded if siteChisel is notified within the first 30 days following activation. This policy does not apply to any additional services such as overages, referrer logs, real audio/video, additional disk space, additional pop accounts, domain registration fees, etc. For credit card payment, refunds will be made to a PayPal account made available by the Customer after the 120th day. Refund policy will not be made available to Customers using wire transfers. All account cancellations must be done via our cancellation form at YOUR hosting account control panel. Phone or email requests will not constitute acceptance of any cancellation.
PROMOTIONAL RATES & SPECIAL OFFERS
siteChisel may offer subsequent promotional rates or special offers, the terms of which may or may not be more favorable than the terms and conditions for YOUR Services. Any such promotions or modifications shall not affect YOUR obligations under this Agreement. Promotional fees may be subject to additional terms and conditions which, to the extent they conflict with the terms of this Agreement, shall govern. Different promotional fees and special offers may not be combined together.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
Material accessible to you through siteChisel services may be subject to protection under the United States or other copyright laws, or laws protecting trademarks, trade secrets and proprietary information. Except when expressly permitted by the owner of such rights, YOU must not use siteChisel or its servers and network in a manner that would infringe, violate, dilute or misappropriate any such rights, with respect to any material that you access or receive through the siteChisel network. If YOU use a domain name in connection with siteChisel or similar service, YOU must not use that domain name in violation of any trademark, service mark, or similar rights of any third party. NETWORK SECURITY Customers may not use the siteChisel network with an attempt to circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network, or account. This includes, but is not limited to, accessing data not intended for YOU, logging into a server or account YOU are not expressly authorized to access, password cracking, probing the security of other networks in search of weakness, or violation of any other organisations security policy. YOU may not attempt to interfere or deny service to any user, host, or network. This includes, but is not limited to, flooding, mail bombing, or other deliberate attempts to overload or crash a host or network. siteChisel will cooperate fully with investigations for violations of systems or network security at other sites, including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations. Users who violate system or network security may incur criminal or civil liability.
ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
YOU will be solely responsible for the development, operation and maintenance of YOUR online store and products along with all content and materials appearing online or on YOUR products, including without limitation:
(a.) the accuracy and appropriateness of content and materials appearing within the store or related to YOUR products,
(b.) ensuring that the content and materials appearing within the store or related to YOUR products do not violate or infringe upon the rights of any third party, and
(c.) ensuring that the content and materials appearing within the store or related to YOUR products are not libelous or otherwise illegal.YOU will be solely responsible for the final calculation and application of shipping and sales tax. YOU will also be solely responsible for accepting, processing, and filling any customer orders, and for handling any customer inquiries or complaints arising there from. YOU are also responsible for the security of any customer credit card numbers and related customer information YOU may access as a result of conducting electronic commerce transactions through YOUR website. YOU will keep all such information confidential and will use the same degree of care and security as YOU use with your confidential information.
STATIC & DYNAMIC CONTENT CACHING
YOU expressly (i) grant to siteChisel a license to cache the entirety of YOUR website, including content supplied by third parties, hosted by siteChisel under this Agreement and(ii) agree that such caching is not an infringement of any of YOUR intellectual property rights or any third party intellectual property rights.
IP ADDRESS OWNERSHIP
siteChisel shall maintain and control ownership of all IP numbers and addresses that may be assigned to YOU by siteChisel. siteChisel reserves, in its sole discretion, the right to change or remove any and all such IP numbers and addresses.
LAWFUL PURPOSE
siteChisel reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. YOU may only use siteChisel server for lawful purposes and our services may not be used for illegal purposes or in support of illegal activities. We reserve the right to cooperate with legal authorities and/or injured third parties in the investigation of any suspected crime or civil wrongdoing. If anything is not legal in the United States of America, it is not permitted to reside on our servers. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes but not limiting material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws. Examples of non-acceptable content or links: Pirated Warez, Torrents, OGG, AVI, MPEG, ISO, Hacker programs or archives, Copyrighted Digital Movie Copies (DIVX) and Unlicensed MP3. The designation of any materials as such described above is left entirely to the discretion of siteChisel management. If illegal content or usage is found, the account will be suspended and/or terminated. YOU agree that siteChisel may disclose any and all YOUR information including assigned IP numbers, account history, account use, etc. to any law enforcement agent who makes a written request without further consent or notification.
Regardless of the place of signing this agreement, YOU agree that for purposes of venue this contract is entered in Atlanta, Georgia, and any dispute will be litigated or arbitrated in Atlanta, Georgia. Defendants further waive all objections to venue and acknowledge that venue in any such litigation will be held in Fremont courts.
IN NO EVENT SHALL siteChisel MAXIMUM LIABILITY EXCEED FIVE HUNDRED ($500.00) DOLLARS.
INDEMNIFICATION
YOU AGREE THAT IT SHALL DEFEND, INDEMNIFY, SAVE AND HOLD siteChisel HARMLESS FROM ANY AND ALL DEMANDS, LIABILITIES, LOSSES, COSTS AND CLAIMS, INCLUDING REASONABLE ATTORNEYS FEES ASSERTED AGAINST siteChisel, ITS AGENTS, ITS CUSTOMERS, OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES, THAT MAY ARISE OR RESULT FROM ANY SERVICE PROVIDED OR PERFORMED OR AGREED TO BE PERFORMED OR ANY PRODUCT SOLD BY YOU, YOUR AGENTS, EMPLOYEES OR ASSIGNS. YOU AGREE TO DEFEND, INDEMNIFY AND HOLD HARMLESS siteChisel AGAINST LIABILITIES ARISING OUT OF:
(1) ANY INJURY TO PERSON OR PROPERTY CAUSED BY ANY PRODUCTS SOLD OR OTHERWISE DISTRIBUTED IN CONNECTION WITH siteChisel SERVERS.
(2) ANY MATERIAL SUPPLIED BY THE CUSTOMER INFRINGING OR ALLEGEDLY INFRINGING ON THE PROPRIETARY RIGHTS OF A THIRD PARTY
(3) COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AND
(4) ANY DEFECTIVE PRODUCTS SOLD TO CUSTOMER FROM siteChisel SERVERS.
DISCLAIMER
siteChisel WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES YOUR BUSINESS MAY SUFFER. siteChisel MAKES NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED FOR SERVICES WE PROVIDE. siteChisel DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTY OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THIS INCLUDES LOSS OF DATA RESULTING FROM DELAYS, NON-DELIVERIES,WRONG DELIVERY, AND ANY AND ALL SERVICE INTERRUPTIONS CAUSED BY siteChisel AND ITS EMPLOYEES. siteChisel RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REVISE ITS POLICIES AT ANY TIME. ALL SUB-NETWORKS, RESELLERS AND DEDICATED SERVERS OF siteChisel MUST ADHERE TO THE ABOVE POLICIES.FAILURE TO FOLLOW ANY TERM OR CONDITION WILL BE GROUNDS FOR IMMEDIATE ACCOUNT CANCELLATION.
PRIVACY STATEMENT
siteChisel follows the strict guidelines of our customer privacy statement. Please make sure you understand this statement fully.