Skeptic Hosting Terms of Service (ToS)
The Terms of Service (TOS) below apply to Skeptic Hosting services, also known as Steve's Web Hosting, including any free services provided to certain clients via our Skeptic Hosting brand. If you have any questions about these terms, please contact us ASAP.
All clients receiving web hosting services at no charge agree to hold Skeptic Hosting blameless for any difficulty using the service, including any partial or total loss of data, or any other real or perceived harm.
By beginning or continuing to use any services provided by Skeptic Hosting at no charge you agree that we are under no obligation whatsoever to provide any level of service or to continue providing service. By continuing to use our free services you acknowledge that these services are provided at will, and that we retain the right to discontinue those services to any Client hosted at no charge at any time and for any reason. Except for the terms outlined in this document you agree that Skeptic hosting is not liable in any way for any action, failure to act, service failure, or inability to access our servers.
Acceptable Content
All services provided by Skeptic Hosting may be used for lawful purposes only. It is a violation of these Terms of Service to transmit, store, upload or present any information, data or material in violation of any United States Federal, State or local law. This includes, but is not limited to, material for which you do not hold the copyrights or legitimate authorization for its use, material that we judge to be threatening, material that jeopardizes national security, and/or material protected by trade secret or any other laws.
Further, the following content is prohibited on Skeptic Hosting accounts, as are links to such content:
Websites that promote any illegal activity or content or files that may be damaging to our servers or any other server on the Internet.
Fraudulent, illegal, get rich quick or hate material
IRC Software
Pirated software
Hacking sites, programs or archives
Warez Sites
Distribution of music files or any other material for which the account holder does not own the copyright
Game Servers (dedicated game server programs, not applicable to forum games)
DMCA Claims
By using or continuing to use any service provided by Skeptic Hosting whether free or for payment you agree that you will not host copyrighted material on any of our servers, and that if a claim of violation of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act or any other law is received regarding your free or paid account you will hold Skeptic Hosting blameless, and you will reimburse Skeptic Hosting for any costs associated with a claim of copyright violation brought against us because of content hosted on your account.
Storage or use of any of the following types of files is considered a violation of the terms of service:
IRC, Egg Drops, BNC, or IRC bots to be operated on our servers. Files with references to IRC or any likeness thereof are prohibited, as are programs that act like an IRC server or that provide chat functions that run as background processes. Links to chat services hosted elsewhere are not affected by this clause and are welcome.
Proxies: we do not allow clients to install or use proxy servers of any kind, whether for personal or business use.
PortScanning: we do not allow any kind of port scanning to be done on or from our servers. Port scans directed at any of our servers will be automatically blocked in our firewall.
Malicious Activity: we do not allow any of our facilities to be used for any type of attack against another client, our servers, or any other host connected to the Internet. Any account found to be attacking any system will be suspended immediately, and pending your response to the matter may be deleted from the server with no further warning.
Skeptic Hosting will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. Content that does not meet these standards may be removed without prior notice to Client.
Client agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Skeptic Hosting from any claims resulting from Client's use of Skeptic Hosting services which damages or seems to damage Client or any other party.
Unsolicited Commercial Advertising - Email
No Spam: Sending of unsolicited email (email spam) from our servers is STRICTLY prohibited. While we attempt to be fair, Skeptic Hosting will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. This does not include legitimate non-commercial emails sent by blog or forum software for which users have opted-in.
Unconfirmed Mailing Lists: subscribing email addresses to any mailing list without the express and verifiable permission of the email address owner is prohibited. All mailing lists run by Client must be Closed-loop ("Confirmed Opt-in"). The subscription confirmation message received from each address owner must be kept on file for the duration of the existence of the mailing list. Purchasing lists of email addresses from 3rd parties for mailing to or from any Skeptic Hosting-hosted domain (website), or referencing any Skeptic Hosting account is prohibited. For the purposes of this clause the normal designed functions of widely used software packages such as blogs and forum software may be considered to be Confirmed Opt-in if Client's site visitors create an account and provide Client with an email address.
Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this Acceptable Use Policy or the Acceptable Use Policy of any other Internet Service Provider, including but not limited to, the facilitation of the means to send Unsolicited Bulk Email, initiation of pinging, flooding, mail-bombing, denial of service attacks is prohibited.
Email address cultivating, or any unauthorized collecting of email addresses without prior notification of the email address owner is strictly prohibited.
Operating an account on behalf of, or in connection with, or reselling any service to, persons or firms listed in the Spamhaus Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database at www.spamhaus.org is prohibited.
Unacceptable Software and Server Abuse
Use of the following is in violation of our Terms of Service, and may result in immediate termination of the account:
ShoutCast Servers - Shoutcast Servers are not allowed due to bandwidth and load issues.
Background Running Programs - We ask that users request permission before enabling persistent background processes likely to create substantial load.
PHP Shells or any likeness thereof are prohibited. Files with any reference to PHP Shells or likeness thereof are prohibited.
Server Abuse - any attempts to undermine or cause harm to a Skeptic Hosting server or Client of Skeptic Hosting is strictly prohibited including, but not limited to: Logging in or attempting to log in to a server or account that you are not authorized to access, Accessing data or taking any action to obtain services not intended for you or your use, Attempting to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of any system, subsystem or network, Tampering, hacking, modifying, or otherwise corrupting or breaching security or authentication measures without proper authorization, Transmitting material that contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots or other computer programming routines or engines with the intent or effect of damaging, destroying, disrupting or otherwise impairing a computer's functionality or the operation of the System, Interfering with, intercepting or expropriating any system, data or information, Interfering with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, by means of intentionally overloading, "flooding," "mailbombing," or "crashing" any computer system, Setting permissions on your web hosting account that could allow outside parties to upload files that could damage, intrude on or interfere with other websites on the server or the server itself, or otherwise allow outside parties access to the server such that they can install phishing files, shell access files, or other similar files.
By using any of our services you agree to be held responsible for all actions performed on your account whether it is done by you or by others.
Scheduled Maintenance and Downtime
Skeptic Hosting currently intends to make reasonable efforts to provide our free and paid services 24 hours a day, seven days a week, however we reserve the right to cease providing services to any or all clients as our needs and abilities may dictate. Client acknowledges that from time to time the services may be inaccessible or inoperable for various reasons, including periodic maintenance procedures or upgrades ("Scheduled Downtime"); or service malfunctions, and causes beyond the control of Skeptic Hosting or which are not reasonably foreseeable by Skeptic Hosting, including the interruption or failure of telecommunications or digital transmission links, hostile network attacks, or network congestion or other failures. Skeptic Hosting will attempt to provide at least 4 hours advance notice to Client for Scheduled Downtimes, and will use reasonable efforts to minimize any other disruption, inaccessibility and/or inoperability of its web servers. Skeptic Hosting has no responsibility for downtime resulting from any actions of ours or any other party.
Limitations on Use and Cancellation Policy
We maintain the right to cancel any web hosting accounts at our discretion.
Any web hosting account using so much of the server CPU or memory as to negatively impact other accounts in a significant fashion for a prolonged period may be suspended and/or terminated. We will make every effort to work with our clients to remediate server load issues, but we reserve the right to ask any client to seek web hosting elsewhere. In the event we do ask a Client to remove their account from our servers because of a server load issue we will make a reasonable attempt to assist Client in finding a new service and migrating their account. Client agrees that Skeptic Hosting will not be liable for any costs or damage associated with moving or removing their account from our servers.
Account Billing and Termination: Paid web hosting accounts will be billed yearly. We normally will send an email invoice approximately one month prior to the lapse of your yearly paid account.
Overdue Payment and Termination of Account: Accounts hosted for a charge will be disabled or terminated, at our discretion, if payment is not received by the renewal date. If your account has been disabled, you may be charged a reconnection fee of up to $50 in order to re-enable your account. Alternatively, the account may be terminated and all information within the account deleted. If you are not intending to pay for your web hosting account, or if you know that your payment will be late, it is your responsibility to back up your website files to ensure that you do not lose your data. Obviously this clause does not apply to Clients receiving free accounts.
Refunds: for the sake of convenience, we state our web hosting fees to paying clients in terms of months (e.g., $25 per month). However, our web hosting fees are based on a yearly payment paid in full. Should you wish a refund for an incompletely used year, we will pro-rate the amount based on time used. Obviously this clause does not apply to Clients receiving free accounts.
Cancellation Procedure: Valid proof of account ownership will be required to terminate a paid account. This includes, but is not limited to, billing information in the form of a partial credit card number or other payment information, or the billing password. Non-secure information, such as the contact email address or account billing address, is not sufficient as a security verification. Clients receiving free accounts need only send us an email or use a contact form on the Skeptic Hosting website.
Courtesy Backup and Services for Clients: all services such as backup and cPanel are provided as a courtesy to Client. We will do our best to help; however, it is the sole responsibility of Client to maintain Client's own backup of any data. Skeptic Hosting is not responsible for lost data under any circumstances, including our direct actions. (cPanel is a commercial product not associated with Skeptic Hosting.)
Limitation of Damages
Recovery of damages from Skeptic Hosting may not exceed any payments it has collected from a paying Client. Clients receiving services at no charge agree that no liability or possibility of liability exists. In appreciation of the fact that Skeptic Hosting provides certain clients with hosting at no charge such clients agree that we are not legally obligated to them in any way at all.
Refunds
Refunds are not available to clients hosted at no charge as no money has changed hands and Skeptic Hosting has no contractual obligations of any kind to Clients hosted at no charge.
30-day Money Back Guarantee: For any client paying for services, if you wish to cancel your web hosting account within 30 days of ordering it, we will refund your funds within a reasonable period of time, not to exceed 60 days, less any setup fee you paid. Obviously this clause does not apply to Clients receiving free accounts.
General: Refunds will be made for FULL months only. Notice of cancellation must be given before the month in question begins. Setup fee is NON-refundable. Obviously this clause does not apply to Clients receiving free accounts.
Violation of Terms of Service: In addition to the above, any violation of our Terms of Service Agreement shall result in no refund. This includes, but is not limited to, criminal actions that result in termination of a web hosting account.
General
For Clients paying for our services these Terms of Service are a legally binding contract between Client and Skeptic Hosting. By using our services, each paying Client agrees to the above-stated terms.
For Clients receiving our services at no charge you agree to abide by these Terms of Service and you acknowledge that Skeptic Hosting is not legally bound to any obligations to Client because no funds have changed hands. By using our services, each Client receiving free services agrees to the above-stated terms.
These Terms Of Service are subject to change without any prior notification, and any changes will be posted at http://skeptichosting.com/tos.php. Anything not listed in the Terms of Service is open to interpretation and change by Skeptic Hosting without prior notice.
All prices, with the exception of the 30-day money back guarantee, are nonrefundable and nonnegotiable. Obviously this clause does not apply to Clients receiving free accounts.
Any violation of these Terms of Service may result, at our discretion, in termination of the account. Skeptic Hosting maintains the right to terminate accounts without prior notification. This clause applies to all accounts.
Skeptic Hosting reserves the right to suspend services to any Client at any time for any reason. If we choose to suspend an account the Client will be permitted to download any legal content and/or databases for use elsewhere for a period of at least 48 hours. This clause applies to all accounts.
We reserve the right to remove any account with 10 days prior notice. This clause applies to all accounts.
Lastly, we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason.
Dispute Resolution
Clients receiving services at no charge agree that Skeptic Hosting is under no obligation to provide any service or preserve any data associated with their free account. If a dispute arises Clients hosted at no charge agree that any decisions made by Skeptic Hosting for dispute resolution shall be final.
Clients receiving services for which payment has been made agree that Skeptic Hosting shall not be responsible for any amount of reimbursement under any circumstances that exceeds the amount paid by Client.
Disclaimer (all accounts)
Skeptic Hosting cannot be held liable for system down time, crashes or data loss. We cannot be held liable for any predicated estimate of profits which a client would have gained if their site was functioning. Certain services provided by Skeptic Hosting are resold. Thus, certain equipment, routing, software and programming used by Skeptic Hosting are not directly owned or written by Skeptic Hosting. Moreover, Skeptic Hosting holds no responsibility for the use of our clients' accounts. Failure to comply with any terms or conditions will result in the automatic deactivation of the account in question. We reserve the right to remove any account, without advance notice for any reason without restitution, as Skeptic Hosting sees fit.
Account Activation (all accounts)
By activating your account or continuing to use your existing account with Skeptic Hosting, you agree to the above policies and disclaimer. Upon requesting activation of an account or continuing to use an existing account, you are required to accept these policies, guidelines and disclaimer.
Server Uptime Guarantee (all accounts) Although Skeptic Hosting has an excellent record for reliability, we do not offer an uptime guarantee. However, our network and servers are monitored continuously, and are rarely down except for scheduled maintenance, network outages, and hardware and software upgrades.
Skeptic Hosting reserves the right to amend any or all of the above policies, guidelines and disclaimer without notification. We also retain the right to increase any pricing for paid Clients and make changes to our account plans without notification. Further we reserve the right to discontinue providing free hosting to any or all accounts receiving our services at no charge. As of this writing we do intend to continue providing free services to all existing accounts willing to comply with these Terms of Service.