HostingAmerica.com
ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (AUP)
The purpose
of this Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) is to protect HostingAmerica.com’s Users,
Customers, and Services and to protect the Internet community as a whole from
illegal, irresponsible, or otherwise disruptive activities. As a
HostingAmerica.com Customer, you agree to abide by this AUP and to use common
sense and good judgment in connection with your use of HostingAmerica.com’s
Services. HostingAmerica.com maintains this AUP to prescribe rules with which
our customers must comply as a condition of continuing to receive our products
and services (collectively, the “Services”). HostingAmerica.com reserves the
right to initiate legal action against, to terminate any and all Services being
provided to, and to otherwise take action against any person who violates one
or more provisions of this AUP. HostingAmerica.com may modify this AUP at any
time. A Customer must modify its use of the Services as necessary to comply
with each modified AUP. When this AUP is modified, the updated policy will be
posted on the HostingAmerica.com’s Web site at http://www.hostingamerica.com/aup.aspx. By using
the Services, a Customer automatically accepts the AUP currently in effect at
the time of each use. This AUP is
incorporated by reference in your Service Order with HostingAmerica.com. Services
may be suspended or terminated for violation of this AUP in accordance with our
Terms of Service (“TOS”). This AUP supplements each contract between HostingAmerica.com
and a Customer and is incorporated by reference into each service order. This
AUP applies to each User and Customer.
Inquiries regarding this policy should be directed to abuse@HostingAmerica.com.
Please note the following:
•
Violations of this AUP may result
in criminal and/or civil liability.
•
HostingAmerica.com reserves the
right to refuse service to anyone at any time.
•
HostingAmerica.com is the sole
arbiter in determining what constitutes a violation of this AUP.
•
No credit or refund will be issued
for any interruption or termination of service resulting from a violation of
this AUP.
•
HostingAmerica.com reserves the
right at all times to prohibit Content and/or activities that damage its or any
of its Customers’ commercial reputation and goodwill.
•
HostingAmerica.com reserves the right at all times to prohibit Content
and/or activities that it deems to be disruptive or harmful, even if those
activities are legal or are not expressly prohibited by this AUP.
•
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;
·
Monitoring
data or traffic on any network or system without the express authorization of
the owner of the system or network;
·
Interference
with service to any user of the HostingAmerica.com or other network including,
without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a
system and broadcast attacks;
·
Use of
an Internet account or computer without the owner's authorization;
·
Collecting
or using email addresses, screen names or other identifiers without the consent
of the person identified (including, without limitation, phishing, Internet
scamming, password robbery, spidering, and harvesting);
·
Collecting
or using information without the consent of the owner of the information;
·
Use of
any false, misleading, or deceptive TCP-IP packet header information in an
e-mail or a newsgroup posting;
·
Use of
the service to distribute software that covertly gathers information about a
user or covertly transmits information about the user;
·
Use of
the service for distribution of advertisement delivery software unless: (i) the
user affirmatively consents to the download and installation of such software
based on a clear and conspicuous notice of the nature of the software, and (ii)
the software is easily removable by use of standard tools for such purpose
included on major operating systems; (such as Microsoft's "ad/remove"
tool); or
·
Any
conduct that is likely to result in retaliation against the HostingAmerica.com
network or Web site, or HostingAmerica.com's employees, officers or other
agents, including engaging in behavior that results in any server being the
target of a denial of service attack (DoS).
Bulk or
Commercial E-Mail
You must comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and other laws and regulations
applicable to bulk or commercial e-mail. In addition, you must obtain HostingAmerica.com's
advance approval for any bulk e-mail, which will not be given unless you are
able to demonstrate all of the following to HostingAmerica.com's reasonable
satisfaction:
·
Your
intended recipients have given their consent to receive e-mail from you via
some affirmative means, such as an opt-in procedure;
·
Your
procedures for seeking consent include reasonable means to ensure that the
person giving consent is the owner of the e-mail address for which consent is
given;
·
You
retain evidence of each recipient's consent in a form that can be promptly
produced on request, and you honor recipient's and HostingAmerica.com's
requests to produce consent evidence within 72 hours of receipt of the request.
·
You
have procedures in place that allow a recipient to revoke their consent - such
as a link in the body of the e-mail, or instructions to reply with the word
"Remove" in the subject line; you honor revocations of consent within
48 hours, and you notify recipients that the revocation of their consent will
be implemented in 48 hours;
·
You
must post an e-mail address for complaints (such as abuse@yourdoman.com) in a
conspicuous place on any Web site associated with the e-mail, you must register
that address at abuse.net, and you must promptly respond to messages sent to
that address;
·
You
must have a Privacy Policy posted for each domain associated with the mailing;
·
You have
the means to track anonymous complaints;
·
You may
not obscure the source of your e-mail in any manner. Your e-mail must include
the recipients e-mail address in the body of the message or in the
"TO" line of the e-mail.; and
·
You
must not attempt to send any message to an e-mail address if 3 consecutive
delivery rejections have occurred and the time between the third rejection and
the first rejection is longer than fifteen days.
These policies apply to messages sent using your HostingAmerica.com service, or
to messages sent from any network by you or any person on your behalf that
directly or indirectly refer the recipient to a site or an e-mail address
hosted via your HostingAmerica.com service. In addition, you may not use a
third party e-mail service that does not practice similar procedures for all
its customers. These requirements apply to distribution lists prepared by third
parties to the same extent as if the list were created by you. HostingAmerica.com
may test and otherwise monitor your compliance with its requirements, and may
block the transmission of e-mail that violates these provisions.
Vulnerability Testing
You may not attempt to probe, scan, penetrate or test the vulnerability of a HostingAmerica.com
system or network or to breach HostingAmerica.com's security or authentication
measures, whether by passive or intrusive techniques, without HostingAmerica.com's
express written consent.
Newsgroup, Chat Forums, Other Networks
You must comply with the rules and conventions for postings to any bulletin
board, chat group or other forum in which you participate, such as IRC and
USENET groups including their rules for content and commercial postings. These
groups usually prohibit the posting of off-topic commercial messages, or mass
postings to multiple forums.
You must comply with the rules of any other network you access or participate
in using your HostingAmerica.com services.
Offensive Content
You may not publish or transmit via HostingAmerica.com's network and equipment
any content or links to any content that HostingAmerica.com reasonably
believes:
·
Constitutes
pornographic content of any type including content which may be legal in the
United States;
·
is
excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence, or contains
harassing content or hate speech;
·
is
unfair or deceptive under the consumer protection laws of any jurisdiction,
including chain letters and pyramid schemes;
·
is
defamatory or violates a person's privacy;
·
creates
a risk to a person's safety or health, creates a risk to public safety or
health, compromises national security, or interferes with a investigation by
law enforcement;
·
improperly
exposes trade secrets or other confidential or proprietary information of
another person;
·
is
intended to assist others in defeating technical copyright protections;
·
infringes
on another person's copyright, trade or service mark, patent, or other property
right;
·
promotes
illegal drugs, violates export control laws, relates to illegal gambling, or
illegal arms trafficking;
·
is
otherwise illegal or solicits conduct that is illegal under laws applicable to
you or to HostingAmerica.com; or
·
is
otherwise malicious, fraudulent, or may result in retaliation against HostingAmerica.com
by offended viewers.
Content "published or transmitted" via HostingAmerica.com's network
or equipment includes Web content, e-mail, bulletin board postings, chat, and
any other type of posting or transmission that relies on the Internet.
Copyrighted Material
You may not use HostingAmerica.com's network or equipment to download, publish,
distribute, or otherwise copy in any manner any text, music, software, art,
image, or other work protected by copyright law unless:
·
You
have been expressly authorized by the owner of the copyright for the work to
copy the work in that manner;
·
You are
otherwise permitted by established United States copyright law to copy the work
in that manner.
HostingAmerica.com may terminate the service of copyright infringers.
Other
·
You
must have valid and current information on file with your domain name registrar
for any domain hosted on the HostingAmerica.com network.
·
You may
only use IP addresses assigned to you by HostingAmerica.com in connection with
your HostingAmerica.com services.
·
You
agree that if the HostingAmerica.com IP numbers assigned to your account are
listed on Spamhaus, Spews, NJABL or other abuse databases, you will be in
violation of this AUP, and HostingAmerica.com may take reasonable action to
protect its IP numbers, including suspension and/or termination of your
service, regardless of whether the IP numbers were listed as a result of your
actions.
Consequences of Violation of AUP
HostingAmerica.com may charge you its hourly rate for AUP breach recovery
(currently $250.00) plus the cost of equipment and material needed to (i)
investigate or otherwise respond to any suspected violation of this AUP, (ii)
remedy any harm caused to HostingAmerica.com or any of its customers by the
violation of this AUP, (iii) respond to complaints, including complaints under
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, (iv) respond to subpoenas and other third
party requests for information as described in the Master Services Agreement,
and (v) have HostingAmerica.com's Internet Protocol numbers removed from any
abuse database. No credit will be available under your HostingAmerica.com
Service Level Agreement for interruptions of service resulting from AUP
violations.
rev. January 2008