Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

AccessEON is dedicated to providing an all-round top quality service. The terms and conditions which follow are necessary to ensure that we may continue to provide the best possible service to all of our customers whilst at the same time satisfying our legal and ethical responsibilities.

Failure to follow any term or condition will be grounds for immediate account deactivation without notice. AccessEON will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of any of these provisions.

Activity which results in the suspension or deactivation of an account will result in a forfeiture of all fees paid. Complaints made regarding abuses of an account will be investigated and if found to be true will be grounds for immediate suspension.

To report suspected abuses or any violations of these policies, please contact abuse@accesseon.ca

Illegal Usage

AccessEON servers may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or distribution of any information, data or material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: copyrighted material, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws. Examples of non-acceptable content or links: Pirated software, Hackers programs or archives, Warez sites, MP3, and IRC bots. The subscriber to AccessEON service agrees to indemnify and hold harmless AccessEON from any claims resulting from the use of the service that damages the subscriber or any other party.

AccessEON will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.

Adult Content

Due to special system and network requirements of adult oriented sites, pornography and sex-related merchandising are prohibited. This includes sites that may infer sexual content, or links to adult content elsewhere. This is also true for sites that promote any illegal activity or content that may be damaging to our servers or any other server on the Internet. Links to such materials are also prohibited.

Security

Violations of system or network security are prohibited, and may result in criminal and civil liability. Examples include, but are not limited to the following: Unauthorized access, use, probe, or scan of a systems security or authentication measures, data or traffic. Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks. Forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting.

Server Resource

Any website that uses a high amount of server resources (such as, but not limited to, CPU time, memory usage, and network resources) will be given an option of either paying extra (which depends on the resource needed) or reducing the resource used to an acceptable level. AccessEON shall be the sole arbiter of what is considered to be a high server usage level.

CGI/PHP/ASP Scripts

Cgi script sharing with domains not hosted by AccessEON.com is not allowed. Any cgi-scripts deemed to be adversely affecting the server performance or the network integrity will be shut down without prior notice. See our Script usage policy for more details.

Chat Rooms

AccessEON does not allow clients to install their own chat rooms. Chat rooms tend to be large system hogs and we cannot permit it as an account option. AccessEON does provide a choice of Java chatrooms which should meet most users' needs and run without hindering the performance of the machine of our servers.

Background Running Programs and Cron Jobs

AccessEON does not allow background Daemons such as IRC bots; eggdrop; BitchX; XiRCON; and any other program that interferes with normal server operation.

IRC

AccessEON does not allow IRC or IRC bots to be operated on our servers.

Backups

AccessEON performs daily backups on all servers to ensure critical files are never lost. However AccessEON is NOT responsible for lost data, time, income or any other resource due to faulty backups or non-existent backups.

Client Responsibility

The client is responsible for all activity originating from the account unless proven to be a victim of outside hacking or address forgery. The client is responsible for securing their username/password. The client assumes responsibility for all material on their site that may be put on by a third party (such as the usage of Free For All links pages). Use of AccessEON's service requires a certain level of knowledge in the use of Internet languages, protocols, and software. This level of knowledge varies depending on the anticipated use and desired content of the web space by the client. The following examples are offered: Web Publishing: requires knowledge of HTML, properly locating and linking documents, FTPing Web contents, Graphics, text, sound, image mapping, etc. FrontPage web publishing: knowledge of the FrontPage tools as well as Telnet and FTP understanding and capability. CGI-Scripts: requires a knowledge of the UNIX environment, TAR & GUNZIP commands, Perl, CShell scripts, permissions, etc. Mail: a use of mail clients to receive and send mail, etc. The client agrees that he or she has the necessary knowledge to create and maintain their web space. Client agrees that it is not the responsibility of AccessEON to provide this knowledge or support outside matter specific to AccessEON servers.

UCE (Unsolicited Commerce Email) - SPAM

Spamming, or the sending of mass unsolicited email, from or through a AccessEON server or using an email address that is maintained on a AccessEON machine is STRICTLY prohibited. AccessEON will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. If you engage in any of the foregoing activities using the service of another ISP or IPP, but channeling activities through a AccessEON server as a maildrop for responses, you are in violation. Violators will be assessed a minimum of $200.00 fine and will face an immediate suspension. See our NO SPAM Policy for more details.

Server abuse

Any attempts to undermine or cause harm to a AccessEON server or customer of AccessEON is strictly prohibited.

Any sub-networks of AccessEON and dedicated servers must adhere to the above policies. The failure to meet or follow any of the above guidelines are grounds for account deactivation. We reserve the right to remove any account without prior notice.

Software Distribution

AccessEON's shared Web Hosting accounts are not to be used for the purposes of distributing software and multimedia products. If you wish to distribute software and/or multimedia files, please contact sales@accesseon.ca for special arrangement.

Multimedia Files

Multimedia files are defined as any graphics, audio, and video files. Accesseon.ca Web Hosting accounts are not to be used for the purposes of distributing and storing unusual amount of multimedia files. Any Web site whose disk space usage for storing the multimedia files exceed 70% of its total usage, either in terms of total size or number of files, will be deemed to be using unusual amount of multimedia files.

Database

Any database stored on AccessEON.ca servers shall be limited in size to 20% of the total disk space allotted for a particular domain.

Actions Taken by AccessEON

The failure by a customer to meet or follow any of the above policies/terms is grounds for account deactivation. AccessEON will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of the AUP. AccessEON reserves the right to remove any account without prior notice.

When AccessEON becomes aware of an alleged violation of its AUP, AccessEON will initiate an investigation. During the investigation, AccessEON may restrict a customer's access in order to prevent further potentially unauthorized activity. Depending on the severity of the violation, AccessEON may, at its sole discretion, restrict, suspend, or terminate a customer's web hosting account and/or pursue other civil remedies. If such violation is a criminal offense, AccessEON will notify the appropriate law enforcement authorities of such violation.

AccessEON does not issue credits for outages incurred through service disablement resulting from AUP violations.

AccessEON customers agree to indemnify and hold harmless AccessEON from any claims resulting from the use of our services that damages them or any other party. The AccessEON service is provided on an as is, as available basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. AccessEON expressly disclaims any representation or warranty that the AccessEON service will be error-free, secure or uninterrupted. No oral advice or written information given by AccessEON, its employees, licensors or the like, will create a warranty; nor may you rely on any such information or advice. AccessEON and its partners and suppliers will not be liable for any cost or damage arising either directly or indirectly from any transaction or use of the service.

Modification

AccessEON reserves the right to add, delete, or modify any provision of this Policy at any time without notice.

Refusal Of Service

We reserve the right to refuse, cancel, or suspend service at our sole discretion.

Bandwidth Usage Policy

AccessEON's bandwidth policy is simple! You are allotted a portion of bandwidth per month to do with as you please. You can use this bandwidth for anything you want besides things not permitted as outline in the Acceptable Usage Policy. If you go over your allotted amount of bandwidth in a given month, your account will not be suspended or terminated but you will be notified and if the bandwidth for your site is significantly excessive for a given month you will be expected to pay additional charges. A review of your bandwidth usage may require an increase in monthly/annual costs.

AccessEON provides a bandwidth estimate figure in your control panel. This is an estimate and is provided from the server level. Actual account bandwidth usage is measured for billing purposes at the port level. This policy exists because many users offer files for download via FTP which is not otherwise measured by the server directly at this time. Please note that because the bandwidth is monitored at the port, any and all traffic for your Web Site is tracked including, but not limited to: FTP uploads and downloads, mail sending and retrieval, normal Web traffic, etc. Everything that is pushed from our server to a third-party's machine is considered bandwidth and will be measured.

We have designed this policy because many users find that hosts offer "unlimited" bandwidth only to find out that it has a very real bandwidth limit. Further, they place restrictions on what you can use the bandwidth for (i.e. no image galleries because they are a large source of bandwidth consumption). We tell you up-front how much bandwidth you are allocated each month and you have the full amount to use.

It is important to note that many sites don't use more than 1 GB of bandwidth. Your site has to be very popular or very graphic intensive to use more than 1 GB. If you are unsure of your bandwidth usage prior to moving your site to AccessEON, contact us. We would be happy to review your current site statistics with you to help you choose the right package.

Copyright Violations

AccessEON servers may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or distribution of any information, data or material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: copyrighted material, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws.

How to report Copyright Violations:

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA") sets forth the requirements for valid copyright infringement notification. If you would like to notify AccessEON of an infringement of your copyright, the DMCA requires that you:

Send your notification to AccessEON CV email address: abuse@accesseon.ca Include in your notification the following information

1. A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf (the "Claimant")
2. Identification of the copyrighted work(s) claimed to have been infringed
3. Identification of the material claimed to infringe the copyright(s), and enough information for AccessEON to locate it
4. The Claimant's name, address, and telephone number(s)
5. A statement that the Claimant has a good faith belief that use of the disputed material is not authorized by the copyright owner or his agent
6. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification of copyright infringement is accurate and that the Claimant is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

Payment and Cancellation Policy

All payments are due prior to the beginning of the month. Generally your billing period starts on the 1st of each month. For each successive period, your contract is renewed automatically unless we are notified otherwise. Billing period is determined by the billing option you chose at the time of ordering. Your billing period also applies to any additional items and services ordered after the initial activation of you account. Fee for such items and services will be pro rated so that the start date matches that of the first domain. For payment, we accept HyperWallet.

AccessEON invoices exclusively via e-mail.

Late Payments

Any account whose payment status is not current as of the start of the next billing period is deemed late. Generally, customers are given 5 day grace period after which the account is put on suspension. Reactivation of closed accounts due to delinquency incurs a $9.95 reactivation fee as well as payment of the balance due in full. For late payments contact Late Payments to submit your payments.

To Cancel your account

Please send your Cancellation request to Cancel Account

You are obligated to pay for your account even if you do not use it. Because we have provided you with usernames, passwords, DNS entries, and an IP address, you have the ability to use your account. The fact that you do not do so is not relevant - you are still obligated to pay for the account. Even an unused account uses valuable system resources that could be used for other customers. If you have a past-due balance on your account at the time the account is closed (either by your request or due to non-payment), the remaining balance must be paid within 30 days of when the account is closed. If we do not receive payment on the remaining balance in that time, we will begin efforts to collect any fees owed. We apply a $20.00 collection fee to cover our costs in attempting to collect your debt. If our internal collection efforts fail, we reserve the right to turn the account over to a 3rd-party (either collections agency or attorney) for further action. We also reserve the right to report your unpaid balance to credit reporting agencies as well as ISP/web host information services.

Privacy Policy

Privacy for our customers is extremely important to AccessEON. We strongly believe in individual's rights to privacy and that personal information is not a commodity and should not be treated as one. At all times we will never share your personal information with any third parties without your permission.

This page summarizes our privacy policy and information practices for this Web site. It is intended to provide you with a complete and accurate basis for making informed decisions when choosing to communicate with our Office via this site.

During a visit to our Web site, your privacy is respected. We do not collect personal information about you unless you choose to send us an e-mail, in which you voluntarily provide your name and contact information. The nature of the Internet is such that it passively and automatically collects certain information about a user's traffic patterns, linked to their Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. These are unique Internet "addresses" assigned to all Web users by their Internet Service Providers (ISP). IP addresses are automatically logged by Web servers. While the IP address does not identify an individual on its face, it may with the cooperation of the ISP be used to locate and identify an individual using the Web. The IP address is considered personal information because it is an identifying number, and IP addresses are therefore protected by most privacy legislation. The privacy issues surrounding IP addresses are explained further below.

Visitors' personal information received via e-mail is provided only to our Office personnel, who require the information to respond to inquiries. We do not use this information for any other purpose. We protect all personal information in our custody with strong security safeguards, including strict access controls.

Your email addresses are not for sale or trade and are strictly guarded. Our Acceptable Usage Policy prohibits our customers from sending unsolicited bulk commercial email (aka "spam") using our services. If it is brought to our attention that one of our customers is violating this policy, we take steps to stop them and ensure it doesn't happen again. We also do everything within our power to keep non-customers from using our email servers for spam.

Server logs: Our servers automatically log information about visits to our Web site in the normal course of establishing and maintaining Web connections. Server logs record statistical information, such as visitors' IP addresses, type of operating systems, time and duration of visit, Web pages requested, and identify categories of visitors by items such as domains and browser types. These statistics are reported in aggregate form to our Web and communications staff, and are used to improve our Web site and ensure that it provides the optimal Web experience for visitors.

We do not link server log information to any other data in a way that would enable us to identify individual visitors. However, we may review server logs for security purposes, for example, to detect intrusions into our network. The possibility therefore exists that server log data, which contains visitors' IP addresses, could in instances of criminal malfeasance be used to trace and identify individuals. In such instances, raw data logs would be shared with appropriate investigative bodies authorized to investigate such breaches of security.

Cookies: Our site does not make use of "per-session" or other cookies. Cookies are small text files offered to your computer by Web servers in order to keep track of your browser as you navigate the site. Unlike "persistent" cookies, which are stored on your hard drive and can last for years, even decades, "per-session" cookies are stored only in your browser's temporary (cache) memory and are deleted when you shut down your browser.

Other sites to which we provide links may be governed by different policies. We do not assume responsibility for the information practices of these other Web sites, and we strongly encourage all Web visitors to review the privacy policies and statements of all externally-linked sites.

All client information such as email, phone numbers, addresses, etc is used only for internal purposes. This contact information is used to get in touch with you when necessary and for announcements and our monthly newsletter. Financial information that is collected is used to bill you for products and services.

Contact: Questions about this policy may be directed to our Chief Privacy Officer, Mr. John Grove. You can contact Mr. Grove by e-mail at Privacy.

Script Usage Policy

AccessEON provides our clients with Web Hosting accounts that permit the use of CGI files, PHP scripts, and other executable programs. Because these scripts use much more system resources than standard HTML pages, certain restrictions must be made governing the use of such "active content" systems. We regret that in many cases we are unable to determine what specific script or application is causing the system resource over-run. Under most circumstances, we are able to pin-point it to the offending account on the system. The following rules apply to all "active content" files as listed above:

• The script must use low system resources. Scripts that consume a large amount of our RAM or processor will be subject to immediate suspension until the owner can be notified and an alternative solution is reached.
• Each user account may not use more than 20% of system resources at any given time. If an account is consistently using 20% or greater system resources, the account holder will be warned and if no action is taken on behalf of the account holder the account may be suspended.
• The scripts may not interact with any server configuration or hardware. Accounts running these scripts are subject to immediate account termination without refund. The script can not be used or referenced from any other site not hosted by AccessEON.
• The script must execute in a timely fashion. Any script that uses the processor for more than a few milliseconds is subject to removal.
• Any script that appears to be designed specifically to attack or otherwise maliciously affect the server is completely unacceptable, and if such scripts are found in your account the account will be terminated immediately and your actions will be reported to the proper local, state, and federal authorities and legal action will be taken to prosecute the account holder to the fullest extent of the law by AccessEON.
• Perl-based chat room scripts are strictly prohibited.
• Scripts that require high-bandwidth usage, such as non-Perl chat room scripts or banner rotation scripts, will be allowed to run only on our high-end accounts.
• Scripts must be kept secure. Unnecessary chmoding scripts to 777 is a violation of this policy. Keeping scripts in a publicly viewable directory (one without a index.html file) is also in violation of this policy. NOTE: If a script will NOT execute with a permission other than 777 (rarely the case) you may contact customer care to get approval for the script which will be given under most circumstances.

Any accounts with scripts found in violation of these policies are subject to future scrutiny of all CGI, Perl, CFM, ASP, and PHP scripts by our System Administrators. If a script is found to be harmful to the system, it will be killed immediately and the account locked down until the account owners have been contacted. Malicious scripts are subject to immediate account termination without refund of any pre-paid monies.

Why do we have this policy?

A Virtual Server is shared. As such, there are many accounts per machine. In all fairness, AccessEON cannot allow one or two clients to use all of 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 not be accessible in any way.

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 AccessEON. This warning will inform you that there is too much CGI running and it will provide options for reducing the usage or upgrading your server. If you do not reduce the usage within 24 hours of the email being sent, your account will be cancelled.

No Spam Policy

To reach its goal of providing the best business class web hosting services to our users, AccessEON offers users a full range of commercial hosting services. Abuse of these services is considered a violation of our Terms of Service/AUP ("Contract Agreement" You have executed before the service was started.) One of the most serious abuses is using your account to send unsolicited commercial e-mail, otherwise known as "spam." The following are examples of spam and are blatantly contrary to our TOS/AUP.

Inappropriate E-Mail Activities:

Commercial e-mail: Defined as sending unsolicited commercial e-mails. This is prohibited. You are not permitted to use your AccessEON account or e-mail alias/account of your Virtual Server to send unsolicited commercial e-mail. Using an e-mail address hosted anywhere on AccessEON servers to collect responses from unsolicited commercial e-mail is prohibited. This includes using a throw-away, free e-mail account to promote your AccessEON account and redirectors for the same account.

Mail Bombing: Defined as sending large volumes of unsolicited e-mail to individuals from your AccessEON account. This is strictly prohibited. Harassment: Defined as sending threatening or harassing e-mail after being requested to stop, is prohibited. Extremely threatening or harassing e-mail never is allowed

.

Inappropriate Newsgroup Activities:

Newsgroup Spamming: Defined as excessive cross-posting, or posting the same article to several newsgroups. This is prohibited. Generally accepted standards allow no more than 15 newsgroups, or cross-postings, for a single article or substantially similar articles. Such articles may be canceled. You are not allowed to use your AccessEON based mail facilities to SPAM the newsgroups.

Off topic or inappropriate postings: There is no restriction on content, except as defined by each newsgroup. Continued posting of off-topic articles is prohibited. Please note that commercial advertisements are off-topic in the vast majority of newsgroups.

Fine/Penalties:

Should you violate AccessEON's SPAM Policies, you WILL be charged $200 per hour for the time it takes us to "clean-up" your SPAM. This shall include but not be limited to the time required to answer e-mail from angry recipients of your SPAM and/or repair of a damaged server due to the "Mail Bombing" or other actions of the angry recipients in retaliation of your SPAM. You will also be charged $20 per gigabyte of data transfer that your SPAM incurred, including bandwidth used by answers to or complaints about your SPAM. We will invoice this amount and should it not be paid, we will take legal action against you in court, and/or we will contact a collection agency to recover the funds. Please note also that it is now considered a crime to send UCE (unsolicited commercial e-mail) as it falls into the category of "junk faxes." AccessEON will turn over all names and personal information to the proper local, state, federal, and international officials of any person who violates this policy.

We take a very dim view of SPAM. It is one of the most annoying things encountered on the Internet. Any AccessEON client found to be spamming will have his/her account terminated immediately - no questions asked (we will investigate the report thoroughly before terminating any account). There is no warning or second chance. If we find that you have violated our Acceptable Usage Policy, we will report you and the incident to the proper local, state and federal authorities and will prosecute you to the full extent of the law.

We are not attempting to censor, nor are we attempting to curtail the business of our customers. But as a whole, spamming hurts our members and us more than it helps the one spammer. Do yourself, and us, a favor: PLEASE DON'T DO IT.

If you know of any AccessEON client that is or might be violating this policy, please send a message or, if possible, forward the SPAM or UCE in full (including headers) to abuse@accesseon.ca