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Castles Web Hosting Terms of Service
The use of services from Castles Information Network, Inc [hereafter
referred to as "Castles"] constitutes agreement to these terms.
Account Setup / Email on file
We will setup your account after we have received payment and we and/or our
payment partner(s) have screened the order(s) in case of fraud. It is your
responsibility to provide us with an email address which is not @ the domain(s)
you are signing up under. If there is ever an abuse issue or we need to contact
you, the primary email address on file will be used for this purpose. It is
your responsibility to ensure the email address on file is current or up to
date at all times. If you have a domain name registered with Castles, it is
your responsibility to ensure that the contact information for your domain
account and your actual domain name(s) is correct and up-to-date. Castles is
not responsible for a lapsed registration due to outdated contact and/or billing information being
associated with the domain. If you need to verify or change this information,
you should contact our sales team via email. Providing false contact
information of any kind may result in the termination of your account. If you fail to meet these requirements, the order may be
considered fraudulent in nature and be denied.
Transfers
Our transfers team will make every effort to help you move your site to us. However,
transfers are provided as a courtesy service, and we can not make guarantees
regarding the availability, possibility, or time required to complete an
account transfer. Each hosting company is configured differently, and some
hosting platforms save data in an incompatible or proprietary format, which may
make it extremely difficult if not impossible to migrate some or all account
data. We will try our best, but in some cases we may be unable to assist you in
a transfer of data from an old host.
Content
All services provided by Castles may only be used for lawful purposes. The
laws of the State of Florida, the State of Texas, the State of California, and the United States of
America apply.
The customer agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Castles
from any claims resulting from the use of our services.
Use of our services to infringe upon any copyright or
trademark is prohibited. This includes but is not limited to unauthorized
copying of music, books, photographs, or any other copyrighted work. The offer
of sale of any counterfeit merchandise of a trademark holder will result in the
immediate termination of your account. Any account found to be in violation of
anothers copyright will be expeditiously removed, or access to the material
disabled. Any account found to be in repeated violation of copyright laws will
be suspended and/or terminated from our hosting. If you believe that your
copyright or trademark is being infringed upon, please email
abuse@castles.com with the information required. A list of required
information may be found here.
If the request is of a licensing issue, we may require further documentation.
Using a shared account as a backup/storage device is not
permitted, with the exception of one cPanel backup of the same account. Please
do not take backups of your backups.
Examples of unacceptable material on all Shared and Reseller
servers include:
Topsites
IRC Scripts/Bots
Proxy Scripts/Anonymizers
Pirated Software/Warez
Image Hosting Scripts (similar to Photobucket or Tinypic)
AutoSurf/PTC/PTS/PPC sites
IP Scanners
Bruteforce Programs/Scripts/Applications
Mail Bombers/Spam Scripts
Banner-Ad services (commercial banner ad rotation)
File Dump/Mirror Scripts (similar to rapidshare)
Commercial Audio Streaming (more than one or two streams)
Escrow/Bank Debentures
High-Yield Interest Programs (HYIP) or Related Sites
Investment Sites (FOREX, E-Gold Exchange, Second Life/Linden
Exchange, Ponzi,
MLM/Pyramid Scheme)
Sale of any controlled substance without prior proof of
appropriate permit(s)
Prime Banks Programs
Lottery/Gambling Sites
MUDs/RPGs/PBBGs
Hacker focused sites/archives/programs
Sites promoting illegal activities
Forums and/or websites that distribute or link to
warez/pirated/illegal content
Bank Debentures/Bank Debenture Trading Programs
Fraudulent Sites (Including, but not limited to sites listed
at aa419.org & escrow-fraud.com)
Mailer Pro
Broadcast or Streaming of Live Sporting Events (UFC, NASCAR,
FIFA, NFL, MLB, NBA, WWE,
WWF, etc)
Tell A Friend Scripts
Examples of unacceptable material on all Dedicated servers
include:
IRCD (irc servers)
IRC Scripts/Bots
Pirated Software/Warez
IP Scanners
Bruteforce Programs/Scripts/Applications
Mail Bombers/spam Scripts
Escrow
High-Yield Interest Programs (HYIP) or Related Sites
Investment Sites (FOREX, E-Gold Exchange, Second Life/Linden
Exchange, Ponzi,
MLM/Pyramid Scheme)
Sale of any controlled substance without prior proof of
appropriate permit(s)
Prime Banks Programs
Lottery/Gambling Sites
Hacker focused sites/archives/programs
Sites promoting illegal activities
Forums and/or websites that distribute or link to
warez/pirated/illegal content
Bank Debentures/Bank Debenture Trading Programs
Fraudulent Sites (Including, but not limited to sites listed
at aa419.org & escrow-fraud.com)
Mailer Pro
Broadcast or Streaming of Live Sporting Events (UFC, NASCAR,
FIFA, NFL, MLB, NBA, WWE, WWF, etc)
Castles services, including all related equipment,
networks and network devices are provided only for authorized customer use. Castles systems may be monitored for all lawful purposes, including to ensure
that use is authorized, for management of the system, to facilitate protection
against unauthorized access, and to verify security procedures, survivability,
and operational security. During monitoring, information may be examined,
recorded, copied and used for authorized purposes. Use of Castles system(s)
constitutes consent to monitoring for these purposes.
Any account found connecting to a third party network or
system without authorization from the third party is subject to suspension.
Access to networks or systems outside of your direct control must be with
expressed written consent from the third party. Castles may, at its
discretion, request and require documentation to prove access to a third party
network or system is authorized.
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Any
material that, in our judgment, is obscene, threatening, illegal, or violates
our terms of service in any manner may be removed from our servers (or
otherwise disabled), with or without notice.
Failure to respond to email from our abuse department within
48 hours may result in the suspension or termination of your services. All
abuse issues must be dealt with via troubleticket/email and will have a
response within 48 hours.
Sites hosted on Castles service(s) are regulated
only by U.S. law. Given this fact, and pursuant to Section 230(c) of the
Communications Decency Act, we do not remove allegedly defamatory material from
domains hosted on our service(s). The only exception to this rule is if the
material has been found to be defamatory by a court, as evidenced by a court
order.
Castles is not in a position to investigate and validate or
invalidate the veracity of individual defamation claims, which is why we rely
on the legal system and courts to determine whether or not material is indeed
considered defamatory. In any case in which a court order indicates material is
defamatory, libelous, or slanderous in nature; we will disable access to the
material. Similarly, in any case in which a US Court has placed an injunction
against specified content or material; we will comply and remove or disable
access to the material in question.
The language of Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency
Act fundamentally states that Internet services providers like Castles
are
republishers and not the publisher of content. Our service merely provides a hosting
platform and space on which to host content, and any creation or publication of
content on our services is the sole responsibility of the third-party user
which creates or publishes the content. Therefore, Castles should not be
held liable for any allegedly defamatory, offensive or harassing content
published on sites hosted under Castles webhosting service(s).
If in doubt regarding the acceptability of your site or
service, please contact us at abuse@castles.com and we will be happy to
assist you.
Potential harm to minors is strictly forbidden, including
but not limited to child pornography or content perceived to be child
pornography (Lolita):
Any site found to host child pornography or linking to child
pornography will be suspended immediately without notice.
Violations will be reported to the appropriate law
enforcement agency.
It is your responsibility to ensure that scripts/programs
installed under your account are secure and permissions of directories are set
properly, regardless of installation method. When at all possible, set
permissions on most directories to 755 or as restrictive as possible. Users are
ultimately responsible for all actions taken under their account. This includes
the compromise of credentials such as user name and password. It is required
that you use a secure password. If a weak password is used, your account may be
suspended until you agree to use a more secure password. Audits may be done to
prevent weak passwords from being used. If an audit is performed, and your
password is found to be weak, we will notify you and allow time for you to
change/update your password.
Zero Tolerance Spam Policy
We take a zero tolerance stance against sending of unsolicited e-mail, bulk
emailing, and spam. "Safe lists", purchased lists, and selling of
lists will be treated as spam. Any user who sends out spam will have their
account terminated with or without notice.
Sites advertised via SPAM (Spamvertised) may not be hosted
on our servers. This provision includes, but is not limited to SPAM sent via
fax, phone, postal mail, email, instant messaging, or usenet/newsgroups. No
organization or entity listed in the ROKSO may be hosted on our
servers. Any account which results in our IP space being blacklisted will be
immediately suspended and/or terminated.
Castles reserves the right to require changes or disable
as necessary any web site, account, database, or other component that does not
comply with its established policies, or to make any such modifications in an
emergency at its sole discretion.
Castles reserves the right to charge the holder of the
account used to send any unsolicited e-mail a clean up fee or any charges
incurred for blacklist removal. This cost of the clean up fee is entirely at
the discretion of Castles.
Payment Information
You agree to supply appropriate payment for the services received from Castles, in advance of the time period during which such services are
provided. You agree that until and unless you notify Castles of your desire
to cancel any or all services received, those services will be billed on a
recurring basis.
Cancellations must be done in writing. Once we receive your cancellation and have confirmed all necessary
information with you via e-mail, we will inform you in writing (typically
email) that your account has been canceled. An employee
will confirm your request (and process your cancellation) shortly thereafter.
If you do not hear back from us, or do not receive a confirmation
email within a short period of time after submitting your cancellation, please contact
us immediately via phone.
We require that cancellations of service are done in writing to
(a) confirm your identity, (b) confirm in writing you are prepared for all
files/emails to be removed, and (c) document the request. This process reduces
the likelihood of mistakes, fraudulent/malicious requests, and ensures you are
aware that the files, emails, and account may be removed immediately after a
cancellation request is processed.
As a client of Castles, it is your responsibility to
ensure that your payment information is up to date, and that all invoices are
paid on time. You agree that until and unless you notify Castles of your
desire to cancel any or all services received (by the proper means listed in
the appropriate section of the Terms of Service), those services will be billed
on a recurring basis, unless otherwise stated in writing by Castles. Castles reserves the right to bill your credit card or billing information on
file with us. Castles provides a 10 day grace period from the time the
invoice is generated and when it must be paid. Any invoice that is outstanding
for 10 days and not paid will result in a $10 late fee and/or an account
suspension until account balance has been paid in full. The $10 late fee is
applied in addition to whatever else is owed to Castles for services
rendered. Access to the account will not be restored until payment has been
received.
Domain renewal notices and invoices for domains registered with Castles are provided as a courtesy reminder and Castles cannot be held responsible for failure to renew a domain or failure
to notify a customer about a domain's renewal.
Subsequently, domain renewals are billed and renewed 30 to 60 days
before the renew date. It is the customer's responsibility to notify our billing
team via email at billing@castles.com for
any domain registration cancellation. No refunds can be given, once a domain is
renewed. All domain registrations, and renewals are final.
Castles reserves the right to change the monthly payment
amount and any other charges at anytime.
Backup and Data Loss
Your use of this service is at your sole risk. Our backup
service is provided to you as a courtesy. Castles is not responsible for
files and/or data residing on your account. You agree to take full
responsibility for files and data transferred and to maintain all appropriate
backup of files and data stored on Castles servers. Backups will not be
provided for accounts that have been suspended or terminated for any reason
unless otherwise agreed to in writing by Castles.
Cancellations and Refunds
Castles reserves the right to cancel, suspend, or otherwise restrict access
to the account at any time with or without notice.
Any abuse of our staff in any medium or format will result
in the suspension or termination of your services.
Customers may cancel at any time.
Cancellations will go into effect on the renewal date for that
particular hosting package. Unless specifically requested, the account will
remain active until the period expires. Any request for a will be given on a prorated basis from when the refund
was requested, if the account is eligible for a refund. Refunds are determined
by the Cancellation agents at the time the account is canceled.
Resource Usage
User may not:
1) Use 25% or more of system resources for longer then 90 seconds. There are
numerous activities that could cause such problems; these include: CGI scripts,
FTP, PHP, HTTP, etc.
2) Run stand-alone, unattended server-side processes at any point in time on
the server. This includes any and all daemons, such as IRCD.
3) Run any type of web spider or indexer (including Google Cash / AdSpy) on
shared servers.
4) Run any software that interfaces with an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network.
5) Run any bit torrent application, tracker, or client. You may link to legal
torrents off-site, but may not host or store them on our shared servers.
6) Participate in any file-sharing/peer-to-peer activities
7) Run any gaming servers such as counter-strike, half-life, battlefield1942,
etc
8) Run cron entries with intervals of less than 15 minutes.
9) Run any MySQL queries longer than 15 seconds. MySQL tables should be indexed
appropriately.
10) When using PHP include
functions for including a local file, include the local file rather than the
URL. Instead of include("http://yourdomain.com/include.php") use
include("include.php")
11) To help reduce usage, do not force html to handle server-side code (like
php and shtml).
12) Only use https protocol when necessary; encrypting and decrypting
communications is noticeably more CPU-intensive than unencrypted
communications.
INODES
The use of more than 250,000 inodes on any shared account may potentially
result in a warning first, and if no action is taken future suspension.
Accounts found to be exceeding the 100,000 inode limit will automatically be
removed from our backup system to avoid over-usage, however databases will
still be backed up. Every file (a webpage, image file, email, etc) on your
account uses up 1 inode.
Backup Limit
Any shared account using more than 20 gigs of disk space will be removed from
our off site weekly backup with the exception of Databases continuing to be
backed up. All data will continue to be mirrored to a secondary drive which
helps protect against data loss in the event of a drive failure.
Bandwidth Usage
You are allocated a monthly bandwidth allowance. This allowance varies
depending on the hosting 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.
Server Uptime
Third party monitoring service reports may not be used for sever uptime reporting due to a variety of factors including the monitor's network
capacity/transit availability. The uptime of the server is defined as the
reported uptime from the operating system and the Apache Web Server which may
differ from the uptime reported by other individual services.
Price Change
The amount you pay for hosting may be increased from time to time.
We reserve the right to change prices listed on castles.com, and the right to
increase or decrease the amount of resources given to plans at any time.
Indemnification
Customer agrees that it shall defend, indemnify, save and hold Castles
harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims,
including reasonable attorney's fees asserted against Castles, 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
customer, its agents, employees or assigns. Customer agrees to defend,
indemnify and hold harmless Castles against liabilities arising out of; (1)
any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise
distributed in connection with Castles; (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 customers
from Castles servers.
Mediation and Arbitration
By using any Castles services,
you agree to first submit to mediation services in Solano County, California. If the issue cannot be resolved in mediation you agree to submit to binding arbitration. If any disputes or claims arise
against Castles or its subsidiaries, such disputes will be handled by an
arbitrator of Castles choice. An arbitrator from the American Arbitration
Association or the National Arbitration Forum will be selected in the state of California. Arbitrators shall be attorneys or retired judges and shall be selected
pursuant to the applicable rules. All decisions rendered by the arbitrator will
be binding and final. The arbitrator's award is final and binding on all
parties. The Federal Arbitration Act, and not any state arbitration law,
governs all arbitration under this Arbitration Clause. You are also responsible
for any and all costs related to such arbitration.
Disclaimer
Castles shall not be responsible for any damages your business may suffer. Castles makes no warranties of any kind, expressed or implied for services we
provide. Castles disclaims any warranty or merchantability or fitness for a
particular purpose. This includes loss of data resulting from delays, no
deliveries, wrong delivery, and any and all service interruptions caused by
HostGator and its employees.
Disclosure to Law Enforcement
Castles may disclose any subscriber information to law enforcement agencies
without further consent or notification to the subscriber upon lawful request
from such agencies. We will cooperate fully with law enforcement agencies.
Changes to the ToS
Castles reserves the right to revise its policies at any time without notice.