This AUP governs the use of SmartHost LLC services. Violation of this AUP may result in suspension or termination of your service. In the event of a dispute between you and SmartHost LLC regarding the interpretation of this AUP, SmartHost LLC's interpretation, in its reasonable commercial judgment, shall govern.
The following is the entire Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) agreement between SmartHost LLC and the client / account holder. SmartHost LLC provides Web Hosting, Computing, IT, and Internet-related services. SmartHost LLC has certain legal and ethical responsibilities consisting with the use of its servers and equipment involved in these services. SmartHost LLC's general policy is to act as a provider of Internet presence. SmartHost LLC reserves the rights to suspend or cancel a customer's access to any or all services provided by SmartHost LLC when we decide that the account has been inappropriately used.
This Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP) applies to all individuals, businesses, organizations, resellers, and end-clients/users employing any SmartHost LLC services, hardware, property, or other products.
Usage of SmartHost LLC resources constitutes acceptance of all policies in effect at the time of use. Modification to this policy may be made at any time and will be immediately effective upon posted changes.
SmartHost LLC reserves the right to protect its resources, users, and reputation from any activity deemed damaging, offensive or abusive. To this measure, SmartHost LLC will act as sole arbiter in determining violations of this policy.
Provisions
Usage of SmartHost LLC services indicates the acknowledgment that;
a) Users are responsible for the security of accounts, systems, passwords, etc...and will not hold SmartHost LLC liable for any loss or damages caused by exploitation or any other misuse of SmartHost LLC resources;
b) SmartHost LLC is not responsible for any damages, anticipated or otherwise, caused by viewing materials, links, or other content posted to systems on the local network or linked via this network. All users agree to indemnify SmartHost LLC from any claims resulting from any use of its services;
c) Adult content is sanctioned by applicable local and federal governments/laws. Legal adult content is permitted on all SmartHost LLC product lines. The viewing, downloading, or possession of legal adult content by SmartHost LLC users and other Internet viewers, is not governed by SmartHost LLC policy, and is left to the discretion of individuals requesting this material;
d) SmartHost LLC may monitor its network and audit systems for any data or activity indicating potential policy violations;
e) SmartHost LLC reserves the right to remove any account without prior notice. If SmartHost LLC deactivates an account due to the direct or indirect participation of users engaging in illicit activities, any rights to a refund are forfeited by the client/reseller in control of the account at the time of the violation. Furthermore, no refunds for advance payments will be granted for deactivated accounts. Critical offenses and involvement in illegal activity will negate any perceived obligation of SmartHost LLC to return data.
Abusive Clientele
SmartHost LLC may, at its discretion, suspend or terminate the service of any client/reseller who is financially delinquent, abusive/harassing to SmartHost LLC personnel, or causes general disruption to the operation of the company and service of its users. Examples of such activity include, but are not limited to;
a) verbal or written abuse of SmartHost LLC personnel (obscene language, threats, etc.);
b) excessive complaints or persistent disregard for alerts, warnings, and/or notices;
c) repeated reactivation of abusive users;
d) consistent errors or administrative changes causing unnecessary workload;
e) spamming SmartHost LLC email addresses, ticket systems, and/or servers;
f) frequent late or bounced payments;
g) issuing chargebacks;
h) public harassment or derogatory/false/exaggerated forum/discussion group postings
What is Appropriate Usage?
Some of SmartHost LLC's services are shared/virtualized, which means that a number of customers' websites and other email or storage services are hosted from the same server. SmartHost LLC uses abuse controls to help ensure that use of our services does not adversely affect the performance of our systems or other customers' sites.
Bandwidth
In most cases, if you use our services consistently with our Terms of Service, 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, server processing power, server memory, or abuse controls could limit downloads from your site. You will always be able to use as much bandwidth as your account has been allocated with your purchase. For example our base Dedicated Server package comes with 5000GB of bandwidth, which is a huge amount, and all of this 5000GB can be used. Bandwidth is also reset every month.
You are allocated a monthly bandwidth allowance. This allowance varies depending on the service package you purchase. Should your account pass the allocated amount, we reserve the right to suspend the account until the start of the next allocation, suspend the account until more bandwidth is purchased at an additional fee, suspend the account until you upgrade to a higher level of package, terminate the account and/or charge you an additional fee for the overages. Unused transfer in one month cannot be carried over to the next month. Our bandwidth allocation usage calculations are based on overall total of both outbound and inbound usage combined.
Basic services are installed on unthrottled ports, unless service is sold with a specified port size (ie. 100MBPS UNMETERED) or specified/requested as a 'capped' port. SmartHost LLC reserves the right to monitor network usage and throttle the available speed (if a service significantly exceeds average usage) to conserve network resources and to prevent any large billing anomalies. This will generally not include short spikes in usage, but will include, and not be limited to, sustained transfers of significantly larger than average amounts of bandwidth. If, at any time, the data transfer rate of a client affects other SmartHost LLC clientele, SmartHost LLC reserves the right to throttle and/or disconnect the service at the source of the problem.
Unlimited Usage
You may have noticed some services or features may be marketed as unlimited in some cases. SmartHost LLC may limit such, in cases where your usage affects the service levels and performace of other clientele utilizing SmartHost LLC services.
Offensive Content
You may not publish or transmit via SmartHost LLC's service any content that SmartHost LLC reasonably believes:
a) constitutes child pornography;
b) is excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence, or contains harassing content or hate speech;
c) clearly infringes on another person's trade or service mark, patent, or other property right;
d) is unfair or deceptive under the consumer protection laws of any jurisdiction, including chain letters and pyramid schemes;
e) is defamatory or violates a person's privacy;
f) 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;
g) improperly exposes trade secrets or other confidential or proprietary information of another person;
h) is intended to assist others in defeating technical copyright protections;
i) promotes illegal drugs, violates export control laws, relates to illegal gambling, or illegal arms trafficking;
j) is otherwise illegal or solicits conduct that is illegal under laws applicable to you or to SmartHost LLC;
k) is otherwise malicious, fraudulent, or may result in retaliation against SmartHost LLC by offended viewers;
l) is Proxy, Warez, Escrow, High Yield Investment Programs (HYIP), illegal Gambling and Lottery sites.
Content published or transmitted via SmartHost LLC's service includes Web content, e-mail, forum postings, chat, and any other type of posting or transmission that relies on any Internet service provided by SmartHost LLC.
* SmartHost LLC can terminate service for any of the above reasons, and it's at SmartHost LLC's sole discretion whether to issue a refund in such cases.
Security
You must take reasonable security precautions. You must protect the confidentiality of your password, and you should change your password periodically.
Bulk Comercial Email
Bulk commercial email and mailing lists are permitted on SmartHost LLC's servers, however we do only allow a maximum of 500 emails per hour on shared/virtualized accounts such as VPS and Cloud packages (due to performance issues for other clientele). For any emails sent from your SmartHost LLC account you must adhere to the following rules:
a) Your intended recipients have given their consent to receive e-mail via some affirmative means, such as a double opt-in procedure;
b) Your procedures for soliciting consent include reasonable means to ensure that the person giving consent is the owner of the e-mail address for which the consent is given;
c) You may not obscure the source of your e-mail in any manner;
d) You promptly honor and complete all unsubscription requests;
e) You promptly supply SmartHost LLC with signup information of specific subscribers when requested, so that we may process spam inquiries and blacklisting removal requests as necessary;
f) You otherwise comply with the CAN SPAM Act and other applicable law;
These policies apply to messages sent using a SmartHost LLC service, or to messages sent from any network by you, or any person on your behalf, that directly or indirectly reference a service hosted or supplied via SmartHost LLC. In addition, you may not use a third party e-mail service that does not practice similar procedures for all its customers.
Unsolicited E-Mail
You may not send any unsolicited e-mail, either in bulk or individually enmasse, to any person who has indicated that they do not wish to receive it, or that has not specifically requested such. You must comply with the rules of any other network you access or participate in using your SmartHost LLC services. Forging of headers or misrepresenting details of message headers, whether in whole or in part, or masking the originator of the message, is not permitted in ny circumstance.
Material Protected By Copyright
You may not publish, distribute, or otherwise copy in any manner any music, software, art, or other work protected by copyright law unless:
a) you have been expressly authorized by the owner of the copyright for the work to copy the work in that manner.
b) you are otherwise permitted by established United States copyright law to copy the work in that manner.
SmartHost LLC will terminate the service of repeat copyright infringers.
Background Processes
Background Running Programs - Background Daemons in general are prohibited on SmartHost LLC shared/virtualized services, including, but not limited to, IRC bots, eggdrop, BitchX, XiRCON, warez sites and any other programs that interfere with normal server operations. SmartHost LLC has the sole responsibility of deciding what consitutes a violation of the this policy.Malware Distribution
Distribution of Internet viruses, worms, trojan horses, or other destructive activities is not permitted, including pinging, flooding, mailbombing, or denial of service attacks. Also, any activity that disrupts the usage of, or interferes with the ability of others, to effectively utilize the SmartHost LLC network, or any connected network, system, service, or equipment, is strictly prohinited.DMCA Policy
It is SmartHost LLC's policy to expeditiously respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). It is expected that all users of any part of SmartHost LLC's services will comply with applicable copyright laws. However, if SmartHost LLC receives proper notification of claimed copyright infringement, our response to these notices will include removing or disabling access to material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity and/or terminating subscribers, regardless of whether we may be liable for such infringement under United States law or the laws of another jurisdiction. If we remove or disable access in response to such a notice, we will make a good-faith attempt to contact the owner or administrator of the affected site or content so that they may make a counter notification pursuant to Sections 512(g)(2) and (3) of the DMCA. We may also document notices of alleged infringement on which we act. In accordance with Section 512(i)(1)(a) of the DMCA, SmartHost LLC will, in appropriate circumstances, disable and/or terminate the accounts of users who are repeat infringers. SmartHost LLC may optionally charge a $50 penalty fee to your account for each DMCA notice occurence, to cover our time and expenses handling such matters. The full SmartHost LLC DMCA policy and procedural information is available online.
Hacking
Websites dedicated to the discussion of hacking activities or the distribution of hacking tools are prohibited. Also, the usage of SmartHost LLC services to access any system, service, or network without the consent of the owner(s) is expressly forbidden.
Personal Information Harvesting
Collecting or using email addresses, screen names or other personal identifiers without the consent of the person identified (including, without limitation, phishing, Internet scamming, password robbery, spidering, and harvesting) is prohibited.
Anonymous Proxies
Anonymous proxies are easily abused and often cause a negative impact on both the servers and the network they are connected to. As such, they are prohibited on the SmartHost LLC network. Authenticated proxies are permitted.Blacklisting
You agree that if the SmartHost LLC IP address numbers assigned to your account are listed on an abuse database or blacklist like Spamhaus, as a result of your actions, you will be in violation of this AUP, and SmartHost LLC may take reasonable action to protect its IP address space, including suspension and/or termination of your service. SmartHost LLC may optionally charge a $100 penalty fee to your account for each blacklisting occurence, to cover our time and expenses handling such matters.
Spoofing/Impersonation
Usage of the SmartHost LLC network to impersonate another person or entity, be it through Email, Internet Forums, or any other means, is strictly prohibited. This includes spoofing email or network packet headers whether or not it is done for malicious purposes.
Crypto-Currency Mining
Usage of SmartHost LLC services to mine crypto-currencies (ie...Bitcoin, Litecoin, etc...) is not permitted. Our services are not priced to accomodate for the excessive power usage such draws, nor is our equipment and infrastructure designed to handle such excessive usage.
Domain Registration Data
You must have valid and current information on file with your domain name registrar for any domain hosted on the SmartHost LLC network.
Internet Abuse
You may not engage in illegal, abusive, or irresponsible behavior, including:
a) 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 (including those belonging to SmartHost LLC and its customers) without express authorization of the owner of the system or network;
b) monitoring data or traffic on any network or system without the authorization of the owner of the system or network;
c) Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks;
d) Use of an Internet account or computer without the owner's authorization, including, but not limited to Internet scanning (tricking other people into releasing their passwords), password robbery, security hole scanning, and port scanning;
e) Forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in an e-mail or a newsgroup posting; or
f) Any conduct that is likely to result in retaliation against the SmartHost LLC network.
g) Use of SmartHost LLC's network in a way that unreasonably interferes with SmartHost LLC's other customers use of the network
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.
Disclaimer
SmartHost LLC is under no duty, and does not by this AUP undertake a duty, to monitor or police our customers' activities and disclaims any responsibility for any misuse of any SmartHost LLC services.
