Acceptable Use Policy - Managed, Dedicated Server, Linux, Unix and Ecommerce Hosting With Frontpage Extensions.

Acceptable Use Policy 

Providing Internet hosting solutions, marketing, and Internet development. Our company has certain legal and ethical responsibilities consisting with the use of its servers, conduct of it's clients and equipment involved in these services.

Our general policy is to act as an Internet service & presence provider. We reserves the right to suspend or cancel a customer's access to any or all services provided by us when we decide that the account has been inappropriately used.

Unsolicited Email (spam)

Unsolicited commercial advertisements (spam) are not allowed in e-mail, and will likely result in account cancellation.

We take a zero-tolerance approach to spam originating from our servers or for spam advertising of domains hosted on our servers.

TO REPORT AN E-MAIL RELATED INCIDENT, OR COMPLAIN ABOUT UNSOLICITED E-MAIL ABUSE BY A CLIENT PLEASE E-MAIL ABUSE DEPARTMENT

The following activities are not allowed:

Unsolicited bulk or commercial messages ("spam"). This includes, but is not limited to, bulk mailing of commercial advertising, informational announcements, charity requests, petitions for signatures, and political or religious tracts. Such messages may only be sent to those who have explicitly requested it from your domain. 

Forging, altering or removing electronic mail headers is prohibited. Any domain sending stealth spam will be terminated without warning and without refund. 

Sending numerous copies of the same or substantially similar message with the intent to disrupt a server or account ("mail bombing"). 

Adult material permitted within the range of legalities provided within the state of Nevada. 

Spamming Newsgroups: Commercial advertisements are unwelcome in most Usenet discussion groups and on most e-mail mailing lists. Inappropriate posting may result in account cancellation. See the newsgroup or mailing list's charter for whether advertising is allowed or not. "Spamming," or sending a message to many different off-topic newsgroups, is particularly unethical and will be treated as such. 
Mail may not be used to harass or intimidate others. Harassment, whether through language, frequency of messages, or size of messages, is prohibited. Sending a single unwelcome message may be considered harassment. If a recipient asks to stop receiving e-mail, you must not send that person any further messages. 


Note: If you use the services of another provider to promote a web site hosted by or through (spamvertising), then the provisions of the above Policy shall apply as if the spam were sent through our servers. 

Server Abuse

Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server, or customer, on our network is strictly prohibited. 

Unauthorized use of other people's accounts or computers we will strongly react to any use or attempted use of an Internet account or computer without the owner's authorization. Such attempts include "Internet scamming" (tricking other people into releasing their passwords), password robbery, security hole scanning etc.

Any unauthorized use of accounts or computers by a customer, whether or not the attacked account or computer belongs to us, will result in action against the attacker. Possible actions include warnings, account suspension or cancellation, and civil or criminal legal action, depending on the seriousness of the attack.

IMPORTANT NOTE - We reserve the right to discontinue service, or deny access to anyone who violates our Policies or the terms and conditions shown below WITHOUT WARNING OR PRIOR NOTICE. No refunds of fees paid will be made if account termination is due to violation of the terms outlined below.

Customers may not run IRC, bots or clients on shared servers. Unacceptable uses also include, but are NOT limited to: Bulk emailing, unsolicited emailings, newsgroup spamming, illegal content, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, warez, cracks, software serial numbers, and/or anything else determined by our management to be unacceptable use of our services including abuse of server resources.

Shared hosting accounts may be terminated that include the following content or which have links to the following content:

Providing material that is grossly offensive to the Web community including blatant expressions of bigotry, racism, hatred, or profanity 

Promoting or providing instructional information about illegal activities, or promoting physical harm or injury against any group or individual 

Displaying material that exploits children under 18 years of age 

Acts of copyright infringement including offering pirated computer programs or links to such programs, information used to circumvent manufacturer-installed copy-protect devices, including serial or registration numbers for software programs, or any type of hacker utilities


Intellectual Property Policy and Procedures

BiCoastal Hosting of BiCoastal Consulting Services ("BiCoastal") & all other entities or branches of BiCoastal, processes all claims of copyright infringement in accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998, 17 U.S.C. § 512 et. seq ( the "DMCA"). The DMCA addresses the rights and obligations of owners of copyrighted material who believe that their rights under U.S. copyright law have been infringed on the Internet, as well as the rights and obligations of Internet Service Providers on whose servers infringing material may reside.

If you believe that your work has been copied, adapted, reproduced, or exhibited on web site hosted by us in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or that otherwise violates your intellectual property rights, you may provide written notice of the claimed infringing activity to our designated agent. 

Your notice must include substantially the following information:


Your physical or electronic signature. 

Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site. 

Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity, and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material. 

Your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address. 

A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law. 


A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that you are the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed, or are authorized to act on the owner's behalf. 

Designation of Agent to Receive Notification of Claimed Infringement to the designated agent to receive notification of claimed infringement is: 

Notification-Infringement@bicoastalhosting.com

Please note that under federal law, if you knowingly make a material misrepresentation that online material is infringing, you may be subject to significant civil penalties including, but not necessarily limited to, monetary damages, court costs, and attorneys fees incurred by us, by any copyright owner, or by any copyright owner's licensee injured as a result of our relying upon your misrepresentation. 

Notice and Takedown 


Upon receipt of written notification provided in the manner required by 17 U.S.C. § 512, we will:


Remove or disable access to the material that is alleged to be infringing; 

Forward the written notification to the alleged infringer ("Customer"); and 

Take reasonable steps to promptly notify the Customer that we have removed or disabled access to the material. 


Counter Notification

If you are a Customer who has received notice from us that material has been removed from your web site following our receipt of a notice of copyright infringement, and you are the owner of the material that was removed or are otherwise authorized to use such material, you may provide written counter notification to our designated agent. Your counter notification must include substantially the following information:

Your physical or electronic signature; 

Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled; 

A statement, under penalty of perjury, that you have a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification; 

Your name, address, telephone number, and e-mail address; and 

A statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court for the judicial district in which you are located, or if your address is outside of the United States, of any judicial district in which We does business, and that you will accept service of process from the complaining party or his agent. 


Upon receipt of written counter notification provided in the manner required by 17 U.S.C. § 512, we will:


Promptly provide the complaining party with a copy of the counter notification; 

Inform the complaining party that we will replace the removed material or cease disabling access to it within ten (10) business days; 

Replace the removed material or cease disabling access to the material within ten (10) to fourteen (14) business days following receipt of the counter notification, provided our designated agent has not received notice from the complaining party that an action has been filed seeking a court order to restrain Customer from engaging in infringing activity relating to the material on our network or system.


Please note that federal law provides significant penalties for submitting a false counter notification. Please also note that pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we cannot and do not judge the merits of your claim (or counterclaim). Accordingly, We will not remove, or disable access to, any allegedly infringing material, nor restore any material that has been so removed, except according to the procedure set forth herein.

Service Fees; Repeat Infringer's

Customers who have material removed in response to a notice of claimed infringement, and who do not assert that their use of the material removed was authorized (as evidenced by the filing of a counter notification), may be subject to a service fee of $200.00 per incident. We may, at our discretion, terminate the account of any Customer in connection with whose account we receive more than one notice of claimed infringement in any twelve-month period.

Root Access Requests

BiCoastal relinquishes all rights, responsibilities, and managed services to any and all clients requesting root access to any dedicated server plan or package. Furthermore, by requesting root access, the client assumes all legal responsibilities if said server is conducting any malicious or illegal activities performed on the server while in client care. Clients with root access responsibilities include, but are not limited to: server administration, server security and updates, & maintain backup functionality as prescribed by biCoastal technical staff. 

99.9% Uptime Guarantee

(1.) Coverage
This 99.9% uptime guarantee applies to any client in good financial standing with BiCoastal at the time of a service outage.

(2.) Service Level Agreement & Specifications
BiCoastal endeavors to have the content of your web site available for http access by any party in the world 99.9% of the time. Network downtime (unavailability) is defined as 100% packet loss from our servers to its backbone providers. Downtime is measured past 10 minutes after notification of network failure via our online ticketing system. If the ticketing system itself is unreachable, the ticket must be started by calling the on of our NOC's. Our administrators will determine the end of the downtime by a traceroute to the customer's machine from outside the network.

(3.) Credits
a. Shared Hosting - In the event that your web site is not available for more than 99.9%, We will credit the following month's service fee as follows. For any shared hosting client, such credit shall be retroactive and shall be as calculated below and as measured 24 hours a day in a calendar month, with the maximum credit not to exceed fifty (50) percent of the monthly service charge for the affected month. Monthly Uptime Credit 95% to 99.8% 10% 90% to 94.9% 20% 89.9% or below 50%

b. Managed Dedicated Servers - For managed dedicated server customers if the uptime is between 98.9% and 99.9% for any particular month the credit shall be retroactive and equivalent to the difference between the guaranteed level of availability of the customer's services during the month and the calculated actual level of availability of the customer's services, multiplied by the actual charges incurred by the customer for the services during that month period. In addition, for managed dedicated server, customers may be entitled to additional credits as calculated below and as measured 24-hours a day in a calendar month, with the maximum credit not to exceed twenty-five percent (25%) of the monthly service charge for the affected month.
Minutes of continuous downtime Credit
60 10%
5+ 60 minute intervals 25%

In order for you to receive a credit on your account, you must request such credit within seven (7) days after you experienced the down time. You must request credit by sending an electronic mail message to billing@bicoastalhosting.com. For security, the body of this message must contain your account number, the dates and times of the unavailability of your website, and such other customer identification requested by BiCoastal. Credits will usually be applied within sixty (60) days of your credit request. Credit to your account shall be your sole and exclusive remedy in the event of an outage. 

(4.) Restrictions
Credits shall not be provided to you in the event that you have any outage resulting from (1.) scheduled maintenance as posted from time to time at BiCoastal, (2.) your behavior or the performance or failure of your equipment, facilities or applications, or (3.) circumstances beyond BiCoastal's reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, fire, flood, strike or other labor disturbance, interruption of or delay in transportation, unavailability of interruption or delay in telecommunications or third party services, including DNS propagation, domain name registration / transfer, failure of third party software or hardware or inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of your web site, or (4.) a client breaking any item in BiCoastal's "terms of conditions and acceptable use policy" causing a machine to fail as a result.

CGI Scripts

Each shared web hosting account comes with its own cgi-bin. You are free to use any CGI scripts you wish, however we reserve the right to disable any CGI script that effects normal shared server operation without prior warning. (this section does not apply to managed dedicated servers) 

Chat Rooms

We do not allow clients to install their own chat rooms within a shared hosting account, without approving it with the BiCoastal Support Team. Most chat rooms tend to be large system hogs and we cannot allow it as an account option. However, we do provide a choice of Java chat rooms for a small extra charge that will more than fill your needs and run without hindering the performance of the machine for others. Note: Parachat chat rooms do not apply to this rule. They are perfectly fine to install.

Abuse of SMTP Mail Server

We do not allow clients to send more than 100 pieces of e-mail per day from a shared hosting account. If you do send more than 100 pieces of e-mail per day, your account will be placed on hold for Network Abuse. If you are sending legitimate e-mails and they total more than 100 per day your account will be moved to a special server that is specifically designed to handle high volumes of e-mail. You will be charged $75.00/month in addition to your regular hosting charges if your account is moved to this server. Please contact support@bicoastalhosting.com to have your domain moved.

Background Running Program

We may allow programs to run continually in the background. These are considered on a one-to-one basis and an extra charge will be incurred based on system resources used and operational maintenance needed. (this section does not apply to managed dedicated servers) 

IRC

We currently do not allow IRC or IRC bots to be operated on our servers. You can however, install IRC clients on managed dedicated servers. IRC servers are not permitted on our network.

Disk Overages

All BiCoastal accounts come with metered disk space. Should you use more than your alloted disk space you will be charged $.50 per megabyte per month.

Payment Policies

All accounts are set up on a pre-pay basis. Setup fees are charged for all new accounts and major account changes and are non-refundable. All pricing is guaranteed for the term of pre-payment. BiCoastal reserves the right to change prices at any time, unless other terms have been agreed upon. Any account not brought current within a week (7 days) of e-mail notice or exceeding this time frame in any way is subject to suspension. The customer is responsible for all money owed on the account from the time it was established to the time that the customer notifies BiCoastal at billing@bicoastalhosting.com to request for termination of services. All payment is in U.S. currency. BiCoastal will bill each client $150.00 per returned check, per wire transfer received and per credit card charge-back received. All BiCoastal accounts are setup on anniversary billing cycles. All billing cycles are at month's end with payment due prior to the start of the next month.  Your account will automatically renew at this length.  Any account that is not brought current prior to deactivation will be charged a $125.00 reactivation fee as well as a $50.00 late charge, per domain deactivated. In addition, if your credit card declines for any reason BiCoastal will charge your account an additional $10.00 service charge every time your card is declined. 

Cancellation

BiCoastal reserves the right to cancel service at any time. All fees paid in advance of cancellation will be pro-rated and paid by BiCoastal if BiCoastal institutes it's right of cancellation. Any violation of policies which results in extra costs will be billed to the customer (i.e. transfer, space etc.)

You MUST Cancel your account prior to the 20th of the month to avoid charges for the next month.  As always BiCoastal Bills one month in advance. 

Refunds will be made by company check or issued back to your credit card within 30 days of receipt of cancellation.

Network Security

Customers may not use the BiCoastal network with an attempt to circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network, or account. This includes, but is not limited to, accessing data not intended for the customer, logging into a server or account the customer is not expressly authorized to access, password cracking, probing the security of other networks in search of weakness, or violation of any other organization's security policy. Customers may not attempt to interfere or deny service to any user, host, or network. This includes, but is not limited to, flooding, mail bombing, or other deliberate attempts to overload or crash a host or network. BiCoastal will cooperate fully with investigations of violations of systems or network security at other sites, including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations. Users who violate system or network security may incur criminal or civil liability. 

Electronic Commerce

You will be solely responsible for the development, operation and maintenance of your online store and products and all contents and materials appearing online or on your products, including without limitation (a) the accuracy and appropriateness of content and materials appearing within the store or related to your products, (b) ensuring that the content and materials appearing within the store or related to your products do not violate or infringe upon the rights of any third party, and (c) ensuring that the content and materials appearing within the store or related to your products are not libelous or otherwise illegal. You will be solely responsible for the final calculation and application of shipping and sales tax. You will also be solely responsible for accepting, processing, and filling any customer orders, and for handling any customer inquiries or complaints arising therefrom. 

You are also responsible for the security of any customer credit card numbers and related customer information you may access as a result of conducting electronic commerce transactions through your Web Site. You will keep all such information confidential and will use the same degree of care and security as you use with your confidential information.

Static / Dynamic Content Caching You expressly (i) grant to BiCoastal a license to cache the entirety of your Web Site, including content supplied by third parties, hosted by BiCoastal under this Agreement and (ii) agree such caching is not an infringement of any of your intellectual property rights or any third party's intellectual property rights.

IP Address Ownership

BiCoastal shall maintain and control ownership of all IP numbers and addresses that may be assigned to you by BiCoastal and BiCoastal reserves, in its sole discretion, the right to change or remove any and all such IP numbers and addresses.

Domain Name Registration

Customer agrees to pay BiCoastal prior to the effectiveness of the desired domain name registration, the then-current amounts set forth in the BiCoastal price schedule for the initial registration of the domain name and, should Customer choose to renew the registration, subsequent renewals of the registration. All fees are non-refundable, in whole or in part, even if Customer's domain name registration is suspended, cancelled or transferred prior to the end of Customer's then current registration term. BiCoastal reserves the right to change fees, surcharges, renewal fees or to institute new fees at any time, for any reason, at its sole discretion. Customer's requested domain name will not be registered unless and until we receive actual payment of the registration fee, and have confirmed Customer's registration in an email from BiCoastal to the email address indicated in Customer's registration application. In the event of a charge back by a credit card company (or similar action by another payment provider allowed by BiCoastal) in connection with the payments of the registration fee for Customer's domain name registration, Customer agrees and acknowledges that the domain name registration shall be transferred to BiCoastal as the paying entity for that registration to the registry and that we reserve all rights regarding such domain name including, without limitation, the right to make the domain name available to other parties for purchase. BiCoastal will reinstate Customer's domain name registration solely at BiCoastal's discretion, and subject to our receipt of the initial registration or renewal fee and our then-current reinstatement fee.

Lawful Purpose

BiCoastal reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. Customers may only use BiCoastal server for lawful purpose. Transmission of any material in violation of any Federal, State or Local regulation is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to copyrighted material, material legally judged to be threatening or obscene, and material protected by trade secrets. The designation of any materials as such described above is left entirely to the discretion of BiCoastal management. Regardless of the place of signing this agreement, the client agrees for purposes of venue this contract was entered into in Las Vegas, NV, and any dispute will be litigated or arbitrated in Las Vegas, NV. Defendants further waive all objections to venue and acknowledge that venue in any such litigation will be held in Nevada courts. IN NO EVENT SHALL BICOASTAL'S MAXIMUM LIABILITY EXCEED FIVE HUNDRED ($100.00) DOLLARS.

Indemnification

CUSTOMER AGREES THAT IT SHALL DEFEND, INDEMNIFY, SAVE AND HOLD BICOASTAL HARMLESS FROM ANY AND ALL DEMANDS, LIABILITIES, LOSSES, COSTS AND CLAIMS, INCLUDING REASONABLE ATTORNEY'S FEES ASSERTED AGAINST BICOASTAL, 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, IT'S AGENTS, EMPLOYEES OR ASSIGNS. CUSTOMER AGREES TO DEFEND, INDEMNIFY AND HOLD HARMLESS WEBAIR AGAINST LIABILITIES ARISING OUT OF; (1) ANY INJURY TO PERSON OR PROPERTY CAUSED BY ANY PRODUCTS SOLD OR OTHERWISE DISTRIBUTED IN CONNECTION WITH BICOASTAL'S SERVER; (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 BICOASTAL'S SERVER. 

Disclaimer

BiCoastal Hosting WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES YOUR BUSINESS MAY SUFFER. BICOASTAL MAKES NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED FOR SERVICES WE PROVIDE. BICOASTAL DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTY OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THIS INCLUDES LOSS OF DATA RESULTING FROM DELAYS, NON-DELIVERIES, WRONG DELIVERY, AND ANY AND ALL SERVICE INTERRUPTIONS CAUSED BY BICOASTAL AND ITS EMPLOYEES. BiCoastal RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REVISE ITS POLICIES AT ANY TIME. ALL SUB-NETWORKS, RESELLERS AND DEDICATED SERVERS OF BICOASTAL MUST ADHERE TO THE ABOVE POLICIES. FAILURE TO FOLLOW ANY TERM OR CONDITION WILL BE GROUNDS FOR IMMEDIATE ACCOUNT DEACTIVATION.