Acceptable Use Policy
This AUP governs the use of HostChain’s web hosting service. Violation of this AUP may result in suspension or termination of your service. In the event of a dispute between you and HostChain regarding the interpretation of this AUP, HostChain’s interpretation, in its reasonable commercial judgment, shall govern.
Offensive Content
You may not publish or transmit via HostChain’s service any content that HostChain reasonably believes:
• constitutes child pornography;
Company will cooperate fully with any criminal investigation into a Customer's violation of the Child Protection Act of 1984 concerning child pornography. Customers are ultimately responsible for the actions of their clients over Company network, and will be liable for illegal material posted by their clients.
According to the Child Protection Act, child pornography includes photographs, films, video or any other type of visual presentation that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years or any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years.
Violations of the Child Protection Act should be reported to the U.S. Customs Agency at 1-800-BEALERT.
• constitutes pornography;
Adult content of any kind is not allowed, including any content that:
• is excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence, or contains harassing content or hate speech;
• promotes or advertises adult pornography in anyway.
• is unfair or deceptive under the consumer protection laws of any jurisdiction, including chain letters and pyramid schemes;
• is defamatory or violates a person’s privacy;
• 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;
• improperly exposes trade secrets or other confidential or proprietary information of another person;
• is intended to assist others in defeating technical copyright protections;
• clearly infringes on another person’s trade or service mark, patent, or other property right;
• promotes illegal drugs, violates export control laws, relates to illegal gambling, or illegal arms trafficking;
• is otherwise illegal or solicits conduct that is illegal under laws applicable to you or to HostChain; or
• is otherwise malicious, fraudulent, or may result in retaliation against HostChain by offended viewers.
Content “published or transmitted” via HostChain’s service includes Web content, e-mail, bulletin board postings, chat, and any other type of posting or transmission that relies on any Internet service provided by HostChain.
Security
You must take reasonable security precautions. You must protect the confidentiality of your password, and you should change your password periodically.
Bulk Commercial E-Mail
You must obtain HostChain’s advance approval for any bulk commercial e-mail, which will not be given unless you are able to demonstrate all of the following to HostChain’s reasonable satisfaction:
Email Hosting
HostChain does not allow any of our resold services to be used as large email commercial service. Accounts that exist simply to send out large amounts of bulk email are not allowed. All email sent using HostChain services must comply with the following:
• Your intended recipients have given their consent to receive e-mail via some affirmative means, such as an opt-in procedure;
• 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;
• You retain evidence of the recipient’s consent in a form that may be promptly produced on request, and you honor recipient’s and HostChain’s requests to produce consent evidence within 72 hours of receipt of the request.
• The body of the e-mail must describe how the e-mail address was obtained, for example, “You opted in to receive this e-mail promotion from our Web site or from one of our partner sites”, and information on how to request evidence of the consent, for example, “If you would like to learn more about how we received your e-mail address please contact us at abuse@(yourdomain).com.
• You have procedures in place that allow a recipient to easily revoke their consent – such as a link in the body of the e-mail, or instructions to reply with the word “Remove” in the subject line. Revocations of consent are honored within 72 hours,and you notify recipients that their revocation of their consent will be honored in 72 hours;
• You must post an abuse@(yourdoman).com e-mail address on the first page of any Web site associated with the e-mail, you must register that address at abuse.net, and you must promptly respond to messages sent to that address;
• You must have a Privacy Policy posted for each domain associated with the mailing;
• You have the means to track anonymous complaints;
• You may not obscure the source of your e-mail in any manner.
• Your e-mail must include the recipients e-mail address in the body of the message or in the “TO” line of the e-mail
• You otherwise comply with the CAN SPAM Act and other applicable law.
These policies apply to messages sent using your HostChain service, or to messages sent from any network by you or any person on your behalf that directly or indirectly refer the recipient to a site hosted via your HostChain service. In addition, you may not use a third party e-mail service that does not practice similar procedures for all its customers. HostChain may test and otherwise monitor your compliance with its requirements, including requesting opt-in information from a random sample of your list at any time.
UCE (Unsolicited Commerce Email) - SPAM
You may not send any unsolicited e-mail, either in bulk or individually, to any person who has indicated that they do not wish to receive it.
You must comply with the rules of any other network you access or participate in using your HostChain’s services.
Spamming, or the sending of mass unsolicited email, from or through a HostChain server or using an email address that is maintained on a HostChain machine is STRICTLY prohibited. HostChain 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 HostChain server as a mail drop for responses, you are in violation. Violators will be assessed a minimum of $200.00 fine and will face an immediate suspension.
Any email sent through our servers for a domain that is not hosted on our servers will be considered SPAM and you account will be suspended immediately no exceptions. We do not run an email service.
If an account has been compromised, passwords stolen, personal computers compromised and or compromised scripts that the domain (client) has failed to keep secure or updated and Spam is being sent or being forwarded through the compromised domain or personal computer using a HostChain web mail server the domain (client) is held one hundred percent responsible. The account will be suspended and a $75.00 reinstatement fee will be imposed. HostChain retains the right to hold all account information including all web content until the said fine is paid. Failure to pay the fine with in thirty days will result in the complete removal of the account and files. HostChain will not be held responsible for any lost information.
Spamvertising
HostChain prohibits SPAMVERTISING. Spamvertising is sending the offending e-mail from a different server, hosting the website that is being spamvertised on a HostChain server. If we get a complaint and proof that client is spamvertising a web site their account will be suspended and then removed.
Hosting Email Only Not Allowed
HostChain does not allow any clients to use our email servers for hosting their email only. In short if your web site is not hosted on our server you are not allowed to point your email use only to our server. Your web site must be hosted with HostChain.
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:
• you have been expressly authorized by the owner of the copyright for the work to copy the work in that manner;
• you are otherwise permitted by established United States copyright law to copy the work in that manner.
HostChain will terminate the service of repeat copyright infringers. If you believe your copyright is being infringed by a person
using the HostChain network, please send your written notice of copyright infringement to HostChain at [email protected]. Include Name and Address as registered with the U.S. copyright office . Your notice must include the following:
• A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
• Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or if multiple copyrighted words at a single 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 that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit HostChain to locate the material;
• Information reasonably sufficient to permit HostChain to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an 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, the copyright owner’s agent, or the law;
• A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
Server Resources
Any website that uses a high amount of server resources (such as, but not limited to, CPU time, memory usage, and network resources) and or reduces the resources available to an unacceptable level for other clients, HostChain shall be the sole arbiter of what is considered to be a high server usage level. HostChain also reserves the right to cancel any account that may interfere with normal operations of other clients being served.
Internet Abuse
You may not engage in illegal, abusive, or irresponsible behavior, including:
• 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 HostChain and its customers) without express authorization of the owner of the system or network;
• monitoring data or traffic on any network or system without the authorization of the owner of the system or network;
• Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks;
• 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;
• Forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in an e-mail or a newsgroup posting; or
• Any conduct that is likely to result in retaliation against the HostChain’s network.
• Use of HostChain’s network in a way that unreasonably interferes with HostChain’s other customers use of the network
Background Running Programs
HostChain does not allow background Daemons such as IRC bots; eggdrop; BitchX; XiRCON; and any other program that interferes with normal server operation.
Gambling Sites
Due to the vast differences of laws covering gambling in the US, we do not allow any type of gambling sites what so ever. If you choose to sign up gambling domain your account will be
canceled and any money paid to HostChain will be collected as a fee for the cancellation.
Examples of Sites and scripts we do not allow and unacceptable material on all Shared and Reseller servers include:
• Topsites Listings/Ranking Sites/Web Site Directories
• Open Ads http://www.openads.org/ Do to high resource usage, memory and CPU mainly
• Bruteforce Programs/Scripts/Applications
• Mail Bombers/Spam Scripts
• Proxy Scripts/Anonymizers, servers
• Warez/Pirated Software
• Forums and/or websites that distribute or link to warez/pirated/illegal content
• Hacker focused sites/archives/programs
• Sites that promote illegal activities
• Image Hosting Scripts like Tinypic or Photobucket (Specific to unlimited shared hosting plans)
• Adoptable sites - such as myadopts scripts
• AutoSurf/PTC/PTS/PPC sites
• High-Yield Interest Programs (HYIP) or Related Sites
• Investment Sites FOREX, E-Gold Exchange, Second Life/Linden Exchange, Ponzi, MLM/Pyramid Scheme
• Hateful/Racist/Harassment oriented sites
• Banner-Ad services no commercial banner ad rotation
• File Dump/Mirror Scripts such or like rapidshare and others
• Commercial Audio Streaming (more than one or two streams)
• IP Scanners
• Escrow/Bank Debentures
• Fraudulent Sites (Including, but not limited to sites listed at aa419.org & escrow-fraud.com)
• Sale of any controlled substance without prior proof of appropriate permit(s)
• Prime Banks Programs
• Loan Sites Collecting SS#'s, Bank Account Information
• Game Servers (Specific to unlimited shared hosting plans)
• Shoutcast Servers (Specific to unlimited shared hosting plans)
• Lottery Sites
• MUDs/RPGs/PBBGs (Specific to unlimited shared hosting plans)
• Bank Debentures/Bank Debenture Trading Programs
• Mailer Pro
• Free Email Sites no site my offer free email accounts to the public
• Music Sharing Sites (Specific to unlimited shared hosting plans)
• Gambling Sites
Top 100 and Ranking Sites
Ranking sites and or Top 100 sites are not allowed on HostChain servers.
Image Hosting Sites
Image Hosting Sites (public) are not allowed.
Resellers
Resellers are one hundred percent responsible for their clients. If any of the resellers clients violate any of the above the reseller is responsible for all fines and legal obligations.
Shared Hosting (non-reseller accounts)
Shared accounts may not resell web hosting to other people, or may not host any other business accounts using a HostChain shared account. If you wish to resell hosting you must use a reseller account. If HostChain finds that you are using shared account to sell or host other web sites other than your own you may move to a reseller account (HostChain will not convert add on domains to cPanel accounts for clients) or we will cancel your account.
Warez Sites
HostChain does not allow any type of Warez sites. This included sites that provide downloads, links of any kind to copyrighted material. This includes any type of software, music, movies or files of any kind. Any site found to be in violation, your account will be terminated, files seized and your information will be turned over to the proper U.S. Authorities.
Modification
HostChain reserves the right to add, delete, or modify any provision of this Policy at any time without notice.