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Touchstone Hosting Policies
Touchstone Hosting.com Terms Of Service
This Services Agreement (the “Agreement”) contains the complete terms and conditions which govern your subscription of web hosting, e-Commerce and other Internet-related services provided by Touchstone Hosting.com (the “Services”). As used in this Agreement, “Touchstone Hosting.com” and “Client”, “you”, or “your” means you. By clicking on the “Submit Order” or “Sign Up” or “Order” button, you acknowledge that you have read the Agreement, and you agree to its terms and conditions and all policies posted on the Touchstone Hosting.com site. As referred to in this Agreement, “Site” refers to a World Wide Web site and “Touchstone Hosting.com Site” refers to the Site located at the URL http://www.Touchstone Hosting.com, or any other successor Sites owned or maintained by Touchstone Hosting.com.
Touchstone Hosting.com reserves the right to change this Policy any time, so please, check this page at least once a month or when in doubt. The Client agrees to this upon ordering our services or products.
Touchstone Hosting.com strives to provide the best possible service to all our customers, but we will not tolerate any unlawful activity or abuse on our servers. This Agreement is imposed to protect you, other Touchstone Hosting.com customers, and us against harm.
1. APPROPRIATE USE OF THE SERVICES
Touchstone Hosting.com provides the Services exclusively and makes no effort to edit, control, monitor or restrict the content of data other than as necessary to provide such Services.
Client Content:
Client agrees that it will not distribute, electronically transmit or display any materials supplied by Client – or through Client by a third party – to any Touchstone Hosting.com server in connection with Client’s use of the Services which: infringe on any intellectual property rights (e.g., copyright, trademark, patent or other proprietary rights) of Touchstone Hosting.com or any third party; Touchstone Hosting Copyright and Intellectual Property Agent for Notice violate any provincincial, state, federal or foreign laws or regulations; are defamatory, slanderous or trade libelous; are threatening or harassing; are discriminatory based on gender, race, age, or promotes hate; violate any Touchstone Hosting.com policy posted on the Touchstone Hosting.com Site including, but not limited to, our Acceptable Use Policy (includes Adult Material Policy), UCE (SPAM) Policy, and CGI Abuse Policy; contain viruses or other computer programming defects which result in damage to Touchstone Hosting.com or any third party.
Bandwidth:
Client may occupy only the amount of disk space on the Touchstone Hosting.com Server and utilize no more than the network bandwidth that is allotted by Touchstone Hosting.com. Additional fees, specified in the plans and packages page, will be charged for exceeding the disk space and/or network bandwidth allowance of your selected plan.
No “SPAM”:
Client shall not use the Services for chain letters, junk mail, spamming, email distibution through autoresponders, or any use of distribution lists to any person who has not given specific permission to be included in such a process. Client also shall not engage in any unsolicited email practices at Touchstone Hosting.com, or otherwise, that mentions or reference any domain hosted on Touchstone Hosting.com servers or parked on Touchstone Hosting.com DNS servers. NOTE: This policy applies to all accounts and all domains, name servers and parked domains hosted on the servers (Violators will be fined! Refer to our UCE (SPAM) Policy).
Licensed Software Only:
Client agrees to use only properly licensed third party software in connection with Client’s use of the Services.
Back-Up Files:
Client will have the ability to reinstate files which are automatically archived by Touchstone Hosting.com; however, Touchstone Hosting.com does not guarantee the existence, accuracy, or regularity of its backup services and, therefore, Client is responsible for making back-up files in connection with its use of the Services. Backup capability is available through the Client’s Control Panel. If data loss occurs due to negligence of Client in securing their account or by an action of the Client, Touchstone Hosting.com will attempt to recover the data from the most recent archive for a $150.00 fee.
Termination:
Touchstone Hosting.com reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. Touchstone Hosting.com, in its sole discretion, may immediately terminate this Agreement if Client engages in any of the foregoing; or at our discretion.
To report any unacceptable behavior by a third party using the Services, please contact Customer Support.
2. PAYMENT OBLIGATIONS
Full payment is required from Client before any Service is rendered, which includes renewals. All payment-due notices will be sent by electronic mail. No bills or invoices will be sent by postal mail or fax.
Prompt Payment.
Client must promptly remit payment to Touchstone Hosting.com when it is due. If payment or credit authorization is not received by the date due, Touchstone Hosting.com reserves the right to delete all content from the Client website and make it inaccessible to Client. Furthermore, Touchstone Hosting.com shall utilize the services of collection agencies to collect amounts due and also reserves the right to report delinquent accounts to credit bureaus.
Domain Names.
If Client chooses to register a domain name(s) through Touchstone Hosting.com, Client acknowledges and agrees that Client will pay a registration fee(s) to register the domain name(s) with the applicable domain name registrar. Touchstone Hosting.com does not offer refunds for domain name registrations for any reason, including misspelling of the domain name.
3. CLIENT LIABILITY AND INDEMNIFICATION
The parties agree that in no event shall Touchstone Hosting.com be liable to any third party for Client’s breach or alleged breach of any of the terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement. Client agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Touchstone Hosting.com from any and all expenses, losses, liabilities, damages or third party claims resulting from Client’s breach or alleged breach of any Client obligations set forth hereunder.
You agree to use all Touchstone Hosting.com Services and facilities at your own risk. Touchstone Hosting.com specifically disclaims all warranties of merchant ability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall Touchstone Hosting.com be liable for any loss, or loss of data, or other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, acts of god, consequential or other damages. Client agrees that it shall defend, indemnify, save and hold Touchstone Hosting.com harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims, including reasonable attorney’s fees asserted against Touchstone Hosting.com, 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 Client, it’s agents, employees or assigns. Client agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Touchstone Hosting.com against liabilities arising out of:
(1) any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with Touchstone Hosting.com Services;
(2) any material supplied by 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 Touchstone Hosting.com’s servers.
Touchstone Hosting.com shall be the sole judge of what violates this Policy.
4. TERM, TERMINATION & CANCELLATION
Subject to the terms and conditions hereof, this Agreement shall be effective on the date you register for the Services (“Billing Cycle Date”), and shall automatically renew and continue in effect for the period of time selected during the signup process (“Billing Cycle”) or specified by separate agreement or unless terminated earlier pursuant to the provisions of this Section 4.
Because we offer a 30 day money back guarantee this shall serve as the trial period for which you determine the value of our services. Following the 30 day trial period the Client forfeits the right to monetary refund!
Either party will have the right to terminate this Agreement, however, notification of termination must be received at least 15 business days prior to your Billing Cycle Date in order to avoid charges in full for the next Billing Cycle.
If Client is terminating this Agreement, Client must request cancellation by emailing the Touchstone Hosting.com billing/support department. Touchstone Hosting.com will respond with a cancellation email, which Client shall retain as proof of termination. It is the Clients Responsibility to secure email confirmation from Touchstone Hosting.com that account has been cancelled. If the Client has not received email confirmation of account cancellation, then the account remains active, and you will continue to be invoiced. If Client has a balance due at the time of termination, this balance must be paid in full. Termination does not absolve Client of any outstanding financial obligations. All Client cancellation requests will become effective within 30 days after termination notice has been provided to Touchstone Hosting.com. Any other attempt by Client to cancel this Agreement by written or e-mail notice shall be void. Sections 3 – 8 shall survive termination or expiration of this Agreement. In case that the Client’s continuing usage of the service is jeopardizing the stability of Touchstone Hosting.com’s service to other clients, Touchstone Hosting.com reserves the right to immediately terminate this agreement.
5. PRICE CHANGES
Touchstone Hosting.com reserve the right to change the price of any services at any time with a 15 days notice to current Clients. Currents Client will not be affected by any price change throughout any existing contract (“Billing Cycle”) period.
6. TAXES
Client will pay and indemnify and hold Touchstone Hosting.com harmless from any and all taxes associated with or arising from Client’s use of the Services, including any penalties and interest and any costs associated with the collection or withholding thereof.
7. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
The services, Touchstone Hosting.com, including without limitation, all products and services displayed or offered on the Touchstone Hosting.com site, and all text, graphics, links and applications are provided to client on an ‘AS IS’ basis and without warranty of any kind.
Touchstone Hosting.com disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to each of the foregoing, without limitation any warranty of merchant ability, fitness for a particular purpose non-infringement or arising from a course of dealing. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, Touchstone Hosting.com specifically disclaims any warranty that
(1) The services will be uninterrupted or error-free;
(2) Defects will be corrected;
(3) There are no virii or other harmful components; and
(4) The security methods employed will be sufficient.
8. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
In no event shall Touchstone Hosting.com be liable for damages resulting from loss of data, profits, use of the Touchstone Hosting.com site or any Touchstone Hosting.com products or services, or for any incidental, indirect, punitive, or consequential damages in connection with this agreement or in connection with any products or services provided hereunder.
If any of the provisions, or portions thereof, of this Agreement are found to be invalid under any applicable statute or rule of law, then, that provision notwithstanding, this Agreement shall remain in full force and effect and such provision or portion thereof shall be deemed omitted.
This Agreement (including the Exhibits, attachments and/or addenda, if any,) represents the entire agreement of the parties with respect of the subject matter hereof and supersedes all prior and/or contemporaneous agreements or understandings, written or oral between the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof.
This Agreement and the rights granted and obligations undertaken hereunder may not be transferred, assigned or delegated in any manner by Client, but may be so transferred, assigned or delegated by Touchstone Hosting.com.
Any waiver or any provision of this Agreement, or a delay by any party in the enforcement of any right hereunder, shall neither be construed as a continuing waiver nor create an expectation of non-enforcement of that or any other provision or right.
This Agreement is made under and shall be governed by the laws of the United States of America and Canada, except with regard to their conflict of law rules.
This Agreement and Touchstone Hosting.com’s policies are subject to change by Touchstone Hosting.com without notice. Continued usage of the Services after a change to this Agreement by Touchstone Hosting.com or after a new policy is implemented and posted on the Touchstone Hosting.com Site constitutes your acceptance of such change or policy. We encourage you to regularly check the Touchstone Hosting.com Site for any changes or additions.
Last modified on: July 1, 2004
Touchstone Hosting.com Acceptable Use Policy
As a provider of web site hosting, and other Internet-related services, Touchstone Hosting.com offers its clients, and their customers and users, the means to disseminate a wealth of public, private, commercial, and noncommercial information. Touchstone Hosting.com respects that the Internet provides a forum for free and open discussion and dissemination of information, however, when there are competing interests at issue, Touchstone Hosting.com reserves the right to take certain preventative or corrective actions. In order to protect these competing interests, Touchstone Hosting.com has developed an Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”), which supplements and explains certain terms of each customer’s respective service agreement and is intended as a guide to the customer’s rights and obligations when utilizing Touchstone Hosting.com’s services. This AUP will be revised from time to time. A customer’s use of Touchstone Hosting.com’s services after changes to the AUP are posted on Touchstone Hosting.com’s web site, http://www.Touchstone Hosting.com, will constitute the customer’s acceptance of any new or additional terms of the AUP that result from those changes.
One important aspect of the Internet is that no one party owns or controls it. This fact accounts for much of the Internet’s openness and value, but it also places a high premium on the judgment and responsibility of those who use the Internet to disseminate information to others.
When information is disseminated through the Internet, they also must keep in mind that Touchstone Hosting.com does not review, edit, censor, or take responsibility for any information its clients may create. When users place information on the Internet, they have the same liability as other authors for copyright infringement, defamation, and other harmful speech. Also, because the information they create is carried over Touchstone Hosting.com’s network and may reach a large number of people, including both clients and non-clients of Touchstone Hosting.com, clients’ postings to the Internet may affect other clients and may harm Touchstone Hosting.com’s goodwill, business reputation, and operations. For these reasons, clients violate Touchstone Hosting.com policy and the service agreement when they, their customers, affiliates, or subsidiaries engage in the following prohibited activities:
Spamming
Sending unsolicited bulk and/or commercial messages over the Internet (known as “spamming”). It is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward Touchstone Hosting.com, but also because it can overload Touchstone Hosting.coms network and disrupt service to Touchstone Hosting.com clients. Also, maintaining an open SMTP relay is prohibited. When a complaint is received, Touchstone Hosting.com has the discretion to determine from all of the evidence whether the e-mail recipients were from an “opt-in” e-mail list.
Intellectual Property Violations
Engaging in any activity that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, software piracy, and patents held by individuals, corporations, or other entities. Also, engaging in activity that violates privacy, publicity, or other personal rights of others. Touchstone Hosting.com is required by law to remove or block access to customer content upon receipt of a proper notice of copyright infringement. It is also Touchstone Hosting.com’s policy to terminate the privileges of customers who commit violations of copyright laws.
Adult Material
Because the Internet is a global communication tool, and we have clients from nearly every country in the world it is difficult to dictate what is considered “adult material.” However, it is not our function to discriminate against those who choose to utilize adult content or adult related material. This being said, there are still several reasons why Touchstone Hosting.com has created a NO adult material policy.
What does Touchstone Hosting.com consider “Adult Material?”
- Any site whose revenue is gained in part or whole from its adult or adult related content.
- Photos, videos or any web page content showing or inferring nudity on either men or women for non-scientific or non-artistic purposes.
- Revenue-generating hyperlinks to sites who violate any of the above policies.
- Touchstone Hosting.com will be the sole arbiter in determining what is and what is not “Adult Material”.
Why does Touchstone Hosting.com have this policy?
A virtual server is a shared environment where many servers reside on each particular machine. Consider that an average “adult site” gets more hits than 100 standard websites. Some of the smaller adult sites get around 5 GB of transfer per day. With these types of resources being utilized, our servers would be severely slowed if we allowed these high traffic sites to also reside on our servers. On top of that, we would be forced to raise our prices to pay for the additional bandwidth. We strive to keep our servers fast and inexpensive, and our bandwidth clear; therefore, adult sites are not an option. Touchstone Hosting.com reserves the right to decide what it considers “adult content”, “adult material”, “sexually explicit”, or “sexually related”. Let us know if you are unsure of the approval of your site before placing an order.
Defamatory or Abusive Language
Using Touchstone Hosting.com’s network as a means to transmit or post defamatory, harassing, abusive, or threatening language.
Forging of Headers
Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the originator of the message.
Illegal or Unauthorized Access to Other Computers or Networks
Accessing illegally or without authorization computers, accounts, or networks belonging to another party, or attempting to penetrate security measures of another individual’s system (often known as “hacking”). Also, any activity that might be used as a precursor to an attempted system penetration (i.e. port scan, stealth scan, or other information gathering activity).
Background Running Programs
Background daemons in general are prohibited on Touchstone Hosting.com servers, including, but not limited to, IRC bots, eggdrop, BitchX, XiRCON, warez sites and any other program that interferes with normal server operation. Touchstone Hosting.com will be the sole arbiter of what constitutes a violation of the above policy.
Distribution of Internet Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses, or Other Destructive Activities
Distributing information regarding the creation of and sending Internet viruses, worms, Trojan horses, pinging, flooding, mail bombing, or denial of service attacks. Also, activities that disrupt the use of or interfere with the ability of others to effectively use the network or any connected network, system, service, or equipment.
Facilitating a Violation of this AUP
Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mail bombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software.
Export Control Violations
Exporting encryption software over the Internet or otherwise, to points outside the United States or Canada
Usenet Groups
Touchstone Hosting.com reserves the right not to accept postings from newsgroups where we have actual knowledge that the content of the newsgroup violates the AUP.
Other Illegal Activities
Engaging in activities that are determined to be illegal, including advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, fraudulently charging credit cards, and pirated software.
Other Activities
Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that Touchstone Hosting.com determines to be harmful to its clients, operations, reputation, goodwill, or customer relations. As we have pointed out, the responsibility for avoiding the harmful activities just described rests primarily with the client. Touchstone Hosting.com will not, as an ordinary practice, monitor the communications of its client to ensure that they comply with Touchstone Hosting.com policy or applicable law. When Touchstone Hosting.com becomes aware of harmful activities, however, it may take any action to stop the harmful activity, including but not limited to, removing information, shutting down a web site, implementing screening software designed to block offending transmissions, denying access to the Internet, or take any other action it deems appropriate. Touchstone Hosting.com also is concerned with the privacy of on-line 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, Touchstone Hosting.com urges its clients to assume that all of their on-line communications are insecure. Touchstone Hosting.com cannot take any responsibility for the security of information transmitted over Touchstone Hosting.com’s facilities. Touchstone Hosting.com will not intentionally monitor private electronic mail messages sent or received by its clients unless required to do so by law, governmental authority, or when public safety is at stake. Touchstone Hosting.com may, however, monitor its service electronically to determine that its facilities are operating satisfactorily. Also, Touchstone Hosting.com may disclose information, including but not limited to, information concerning a client, a transmission made using our network, or a web site, in order to comply with a court order, subpoena, summons, discovery request, warrant, statute, regulation, or governmental request. Touchstone Hosting.com assumes no obligation to inform the client that client information has been provided and in some cases may be prohibited by law from giving such notice. Finally, Touchstone Hosting.com may disclose client information or information transmitted over its network where necessary to protect Touchstone Hosting.com and others from harm, or where such disclosure is necessary to the proper operation of the system.
We hope this AUP is helpful in clarifying the obligations of Internet users, including Touchstone Hosting.com and its clients, as responsible members of the Internet. Any complaints about a client’s violation of this AUP should be sent to customer support.
Touchstone Hosting.com Privacy Policy
Because protecting your privacy is very important to Touchstone Hosting.com, we operate our website under the following guidelines to safeguard your personally identifiable information.
Touchstone Hosting.com’s policies and procedures for handling customer information have been created with the understanding that Internet technologies are still evolving and that Internet business methods are continuing to evolve to meet the needs and opportunities of the changing technologies. As a result, Touchstone Hosting.com policies and procedures are subject to change at any time.
What personal information does Touchstone Hosting.com collect?
In the course of serving its customers, Touchstone Hosting.com acquires, stores and transmits customer communications and information that customers may regard as private or sensitive. Some of this information – such as the customer’s name, address, telephone number, and credit card data – is provided to Touchstone Hosting.com by its customers in order to establish service. Other information – such as the customer’s account status, choice of services, and customer logs – is created and maintained by Touchstone Hosting.com in the normal course of providing service. Touchstone Hosting.com also uses cookies, which are small pieces of information that a web site can store in a designated file on a user’s computer. In addition, Touchstone Hosting.com may store customers’ electronic mail and other communications as a necessary incident to the transmission and delivery of those communications.
Data Security
Touchstone Hosting.com will protect the confidentiality of its customers’ information, account information and personal communications to the fullest extent possible and consistent with the law and the legitimate interests of Touchstone Hosting.com, its partners, its employees and other customers of Touchstone Hosting.com’s services. To protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of information that is collected from customers, Touchstone Hosting.com has appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures in place.
How is customer information used?
Touchstone Hosting.com may use customer information to provide its customers with system information or information about new or upgraded products or services.
Modification of customer information.
Customers may modify their personal information by sending an e-mail to Touchstone Hosting.com customer support.
Domain name customers, who have registered a domain name with Touchstone Hosting.com and wish to change the Technical Contact from Touchstone Hosting.com to another company, may send a request to customer support. It is important to note that customer domain name registration information is made publicly available in the registry of domain names.
Will Touchstone Hosting.com ever send me direct mailings?
From time to time, Touchstone Hosting.com may send its customers information about various products and services that may be of interest. We will not send you information of this type without specifically allowing you to “opt out” of such mailings. You can opt out by sending an e-mail to customer support.
How do I protect my personal information in public forums?
Touchstone Hosting.com may offer interactive forums, such as message boards and chat. Touchstone Hosting.com users should be aware that when they voluntarily disclose personal information to other users or to third parties on the Touchstone Hosting.com system, through e-mail, or outside of the Touchstone Hosting.com system, that information can be collected and used by others and may result in unsolicited messages from other members or third parties. While Touchstone Hosting.com strives to protect your personal information, Touchstone Hosting.com cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to Touchstone Hosting.com, and you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account information.
What about privacy on sites that Touchstone Hosting.com links to?
Touchstone Hosting.com may provide links to its partners and other Internet sites. These sites have separate data and privacy practices independent of Touchstone Hosting.com, and Touchstone Hosting.com disclaims any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions.
Disclosure of customer information and communications
Touchstone Hosting.com will not otherwise disclose its customers’ personal and account information unless Touchstone Hosting.com has reason to believe that disclosing such information is necessary to identify, make contact with, or bring legal action against someone who may be causing harm or interfering with the rights or property of Touchstone Hosting.com, Touchstone Hosting.com’s customers, or others, or where Touchstone Hosting.com has a good faith belief that the law requires such disclosure.
Touchstone Hosting.com also will not, except for reasons stated below, disclose to third parties the contents of any electronic mail or other electronic communications that Touchstone Hosting.com stores or transmits for its customers. The circumstances under which Touchstone Hosting.com will disclose such electronic customer communications are when:
- it is necessary in order to provide service to the customer;
- it is necessary to protect the legitimate interests of Touchstone Hosting.com and its customers;
- it is required to cooperate with interception orders, warrants, or other legal process that Touchstone Hosting.com determines in its sole discretion to be valid and enforceable;
- it is necessary to provide to a law enforcement agency when the contents are inadvertently obtained by Touchstone Hosting.com and appear to pertain to the commission of a crime.
Touchstone Hosting.com disclaims any intention to censor, edit or engage in ongoing review or surveillance of communications stored on or transmitted through its facilities by customers or others. Touchstone Hosting.com will, however, review, delete or block access to communications that may harm Touchstone Hosting.com, its customers or third parties. The grounds on which Touchstone Hosting.com may take such action include, but are not limited to, actual or potential violations of Touchstone Hosting.com’s Acceptable Use Policy.
Touchstone Hosting.com Unsolicited Email (SPAM) Policy
SPAM Policy
The abuse and misuse of e-mail is a serious problem and Touchstone Hosting.com is committed to a zero-tolerance, anti-spamming policy. Under this policy, we prohibit spam, or any unsolicited commercial email, from being sent either:
Over the Touchstone Hosting.com network, by customers or any other users of the Touchstone Hosting.com network (including customers’ customers);
Over ANY network if the message sent advertises or mentions a site hosted on an Touchstone Hosting.com server.
Definition of UCE (Unsolicited Commercial E-mail), or SPAM
Bulk UCE, promotional material, or other forms of solicitation sent via e-mail that advertise any IP address or URL belonging to or pointing Touchstone Hosting.com or any URL (domain) that is hosted by Touchstone Hosting.com, whether directly or indirectly.
Unsolicited postings to newsgroups advertising any IP or URL hosted by Touchstone Hosting.com.
The use of webpages set up on ISPs that allow SPAM-ing (also known as “ghost sites”) that directly or indirectly reference customers to domains or IP addresses hosted by Touchstone Hosting.com.
Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to facilitate a means to SPAM.
Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the true origin of the message.
For further information on mail abuse, please visit the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) website.
Repercussions of SPAM
Across the Web, it is generally accepted that SPAM is an inconsiderate and improper business practice.
Touchstone Hosting.com. SPAM is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward Touchstone Hosting.com, but also because it can overload Touchstone Hosting.com’s network and resources, especially on our shared (virtual) server environments.
Our Providers. Since it is unsolicited, users who receive SPAM often become angry and send complaints to our upstream providers. This upsets our providers who abhor SPAM for the same reasons that Touchstone Hosting.com does – it causes negative consumer attitudes and drains resources. We strive to maintain favorable business relationships in the Web community and obviously will not allow any practice that threatens these relationships.
Punishment For SPAM
Touchstone Hosting.com reserves the right to terminate, without warning, any account that violates this policy. Usage of Touchstone Hosting.com services constitutes acceptance and understanding of this policy.
Touchstone Hosting.com may, at its option, charge $150.00 per SPAM complaint we receive. These are non-refundable charges and will be invoiced at the time of complaint notification.
Touchstone Hosting.com reserves the right to decide what it considers “SPAM”, “UCE”, “mail bombing”, or “bulk e-mail”, and to determine from all of the evidence whether or not the e-mail recipients were from an “opt-in” e-mail list.
Should you choose to e-mail from Touchstone Hosting.com servers, especially if you use mailing lists, you must read and adhere to the following guidelines, which are offered as a statement of Internet standards and best practices for proper mailing list management and preventing e-mail abuse.
Basic Mailing List Management Principles for Preventing Abuse
Mailing lists are an excellent vehicle for distributing focused, targeted information to an interested, receptive audience. Consequently, mailing lists have been used successfully as a highly effective direct marketing tool.
Unfortunately, some marketers misuse mailing lists through a lack of understanding of Internet customs and rules of the forum pertaining to e-mail. Others fail to take adequate precautions to prevent the lists they manage from being used in an abusive manner.
The e-mail addresses of new subscribers must be confirmed or verified before mailings commence. This is usually accomplished by means of an e-mail message sent to the subscriber to which s/he must reply, or containing a URL which s/he must visit, in order to complete the subscription. However it is implemented, a fundamental requirement of all lists is the verification of all new subscriptions.
Mailing list administrators must provide a simple method for subscribers to terminate their subscriptions, and administrators should provide clear and effective instructions for un-subscribing from a mailing list. Mailings from a list must cease promptly once a subscription is terminated.
Mailing list administrators should make an “out of band” procedure (e.g., a means of contact by which messages may be sent for further correspondence via e-mail or telephone) available for those who wish to terminate their mailing list subscriptions but are unable or unwilling to follow standard automated procedures.
Mailing list administrators must ensure that the impact of their mailings on the networks and hosts of others is minimized by proper list management procedures such as pruning of invalid or undeliverable addresses, or taking steps to ensure that mailings do not overwhelm less robust hosts or networks.
Mailing list administrators must take adequate steps to ensure that their lists are not used for abusive purposes. For example, administrators can maintain a “suppression list” of e-mail addresses from which all subscription requests are rejected. Addresses would be added to the suppression list upon request by the parties entitled to use the addresses at issue. The purpose of the suppression list would be to prevent subscription of addresses appearing on the suppression list by unauthorized third parties. Such suppression lists should also give properly authorized domain administrators the option to suppress all mailings to the domains for which they are responsible.
Mailing list administrators must make adequate disclosures about how subscriber addresses will be used, including whether or not addresses are subject to sale or trade with other parties. Once a mailing list is traded or sold, it may no longer be an opt-in mailing list. Therefore, those who are acquiring “opt-in” lists from others must examine the terms and conditions under which the addresses were originally compiled and determine that all recipients have in fact opted-in specifically to the mailing lists to which they are being traded or sold.
Mailing list administrators should make adequate disclosures about the nature of their mailing lists, including the subject matter of the lists and anticipated frequency of messages. A substantive change in either the subject matter or frequency of messages may constitute a new and separate mailing list requiring a separate subscription. List administrators should create a new mailing list when there is a substantive change in either the subject matter or frequency of messages. A notification about the new mailing list may be appropriate on the existing mailing list, but existing subscribers should never be subscribed automatically to the new list. For example, if Company A acquires Company B, and Company B has compiled opt-in mailing lists, Company A should not summarily incorporate Company B’s mailing lists into its own.
*This SPAM Policy and all other Touchstone Hosting.com policies are subject to change by Touchstone Hosting.com without notice. Continued usage of our services after a change to this policy is implemented and posted on the Touchstone Hosting.com site constitutes your acceptance of such change or policy. We encourage you to regularly check the Touchstone Hosting.com site for any changes or additions. Visit our Terms & Conditions for further information regarding our policies.
CGI Abuse
We allow CGI to be used on all Servers.
CGI can be resource intensive however, and because a Server may be shared with other users, we must limit how much of the CPU can be used by any one account on a server. There are several reasons why we have created our CGI Abuse policy for our users:
What does Touchstone Hosting.com consider “CGI ABUSE”?
Any site whose CGI programs are using excessive amounts of system resources. Excessive amounts is defined as any amount that adversely effects normal server performance or service to other Touchstone Hosting.com customers. Touchstone Hosting.com is the sole determinant of what constitutes adverse server performance.
Due to their use of flat files instead of databases, Touchstone Hosting.com does not allow the use of UBB or YABB bulletin boards. Use of these boards for forums, results in system performance degradation, and cannot be allowed in our server environment. We suggest using VBulletin or phpBB as a more efficient, database-driven alternative to these bulletin boards.
Touchstone Hosting.com does not allow chat rooms, however you can however link your site to a chat provider. Some examples of chat providers are: www.humanclick.com, www.liveperson.com, and www.livehumanhelp.com.
Why does Touchstone Hosting.com have this policy?
A server may be shared, and as such, there may be many accounts per machine. In all fairness, Touchstone Hosting.com cannot allow one or two clients to monopolize the System resources on a shared machine and have all other clients on the machine suffer because of it. Excessive CPU usage by one or more clients causes extreme slowness in all areas: FTP, Telnet, Web Sites and more. If the CPU usage gets too far out of hand, all sites hosted on the machine will return Errors and become inaccessible.
What happens if I violate this policy?
All accounts that are found to using excessive amounts of system resources will receive an email warning from Touchstone Hosting.com. This warning will inform you that there is too much CGI process running and it will provide options for reducing the usage or upgrading your Service. If you do not reduce the usage within 24 hours of the email being sent, your CGI scripts will be disabled and you may be billed for time spent on corrective action.
Touchstone Hosting and Intellectual Property Agent for Notice
Touchstone Hosting.com respects the intellectual property of others, and we require our users to do the same. Touchstone Hosting.com will, under appropriate circumstances and at our discretion, disable and/or terminate the accounts of users who may be infringing the intellectual property rights of others.
If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or your intellectual property rights have been otherwise violated, please provide Touchstone Hosting’s Copyright Agent the following information:
- an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright or other intellectual property interest;
- a description of the copyrighted work or other intellectual property that you claim has been infringed;
- a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the site; your address, telephone number, and email address;
- a statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright or intellectual property owner, its agent, or the law;
- a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your Notice is accurate and that you are the copyright or intellectual property owner or authorized to act on the copyright or intellectual property owner’s behalf.
We are listed with the US Government Copyright office as an authorized ISP you can view our listing here.
Touchstone Hosting’s Agent for Notice of claims of copyright or other intellectual property infringement can be reached at the following: 2311 Young Drive, Augusta, GA 30906