GPL.Host:>_ GPLHost legal documents, selling conditions and rules when hosting with us

Legal documents and internet rules

Rules applying to all internet companies and GPLHost policy :

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Here, you will find all the commercial technical and legal notes that we follow at GPLHost. Most of the rules are told by legaly recognised organisation like ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), and some are specific to our offer..

Selling condition :

The GPLHost offer & special selling conditions

Rules applying for .com/.net/.org registration :

ICAN Uniform Dispute Resolution Policy

Selling conditions

Rulles applying for your benefits

The following rules apply to all our customers. Anny abuse or non-respect of the following can lead to your account being closed without further notification. This is YOUR guaranty that the service will run smoothly. Keep in mind the meaning of the word "share" if you are using one of our shared hosting servers, and do not hesitate to ask info at gplhost dot com if you have any (technical) questions. A technical solution is always possible for heavy loads.

Shared web-hosting

1. Using FTP

We provide a storage area for you to fill up with web-page, either static or dynamic content. FTP area is not for exchanging data, it's provided only for transfering files to/from your web site.

2. Using MAIL

We provide mail support for both recieving (pop) and sending (using pop before smtp auth). It's designed for your personal mail, and not at all for spaming. Spaming is completly forbidden. Commercial prospect is tolerated under certain conditions, like known and limited amount of recipient.

GPLHost is not responsible for any content in the mail you recieve (it can be viruses, spam or others, it's up to you to check and know if an email content is secure).

Because POP access is not secured, beware of using it because passwords are sent in clear text and can be listened over the network. If you want to use a secure solution, we provide an HTTPS webmail.

If you want to send for more than 1000 users, and for each sending, we need:

A representative sample of the email database
An example email that is sent through your server with us

This is valid also for any message sending related to a website hosted by us: even if you are sending using another mail server, not hosted by us, but anything related to this message is hosted by us, then these rules also apply, you have to ask for our approval, or you are riskin the closing of your account without any charge back.

3. Using shared-hosting facility

Remember that other people are using the server at the same time as you. This means that you cannot use up all the resources for yourself if that would limit the use for others (for example, intensive SQL requests on shared-hosting is not a good idea, and for sure, if one of your scripts eats up all the CPU we will contact you soon). You are requested to limit your load of the shared servers to a reasonable use.

4. Reliability of the software plateform

GPLHost gives access to it's the customers a set of tools written in open source. We do not guarantee the reliability or fitness for any purpose and we deny all the responsability in case of failure, including the problems on the software we provide, configure, modify, or even write and give usage to the customer (and / or release in open source).

5. Licensing

All the software we provide access are open source as of writting. In the case a customer uses a program with a commercial license, the customer declares that he hows the license of this software if using on our servers with it.

6. Backup your files.

GPLHost cannot be held as responsible for any loss of datas. Each customer is responsible of his own files and data and can download them using the facilities and tools provided by our services.

We do provide backup areas for free, but each customer has to reclaim it in order to have it installed, and even so, we are still not responsable if we loose datas, it's just another protection.

Selling conditions

1. Denial of service

GPLHost is not responsible for any attacks to our services that would lead to a denial of service, or the slowing down of a server. More generally we cannot be charged for any loss if a service is down. But of course, we do our best to have an up-and-running platform, and we react as fast as we can to any server-attack.

Our servers are kept up-to-date as fastly as possible concerning all security issues, but remember a completly secured server is never possible as soon as it is connected to the internet. It's always inevitably a matter of time to have it patched and secured against a specific attack, but it's also just a mater of time that a new security breach is discovered. Our customers are responsible for checking against any security patch, or any bugfix that would be needed on the hosting services.

Any backup service that we provide are delivered as-is, with the customer knowing that a backup service may as well fail due to security problems and hardware failure. There is no guarantee of the integrity of the customer's data not even with a backup system in place. The customer is supposed to have a local copy on his own personal computer of all of his important data, and agree that we cannot be charged for a loss of data.

Non-scheduled down-time due to hardware failure is reduced to it's minimum by using efficient technologies (like raid and backups). But we cannot be taken as responsible in the case of failure due to major hardware failure (including, but not limited to: broken motherboard, hard drive(s) failure, and more generally inconsistent hardware reaction, etc.). In this case, the customer agrees that we cannot be taken as responsible for the down time.

More over, any denial of service due to any of our upstream (hardware, facility or network) provider cannot be charged against us at anytime. GPLHost is only responsible for the service offered: software service management on top of our partner's hardware support.

Any gross security holes may be patched in the interests of securing the service for all. All our customer that didn't ask us to take care of security updates are strongly encouraged to use our standard software setup without any modification, to register the debian security mailing list, and to do the software updates accordingly to what has been installed.

Last but not east, our hosting contracts do not include any SLA (Service Level Agreement), no server management, and the customer takes the service as-is, aware of our past uptime history. All management that we do on the servers or accounts we setup for you are to be considered as free help that we do not have to provide.

2. Service abuse

Running a pornography server or something that is morally inappropriate or not admited in the country where the service is issued/targeted will not be tolerated. Website that conforms to what is admited by laws and if the customer owns the license and the rights of publication of the site content is accepted.
People using GPLHost service actively to originate spam WILL be shut down without any refund, and and all records will be willingly forwarded to local and international law enforcement as appropriate.
Services may be monitored by system administrators and authorised personnel without any prior warning. Giving the root password in any case can be mandatory, and refusal can be a reason for shutting down your server. Of course, privacy of any of our server content is one of our priority.

3. Disclaimer

We will not be responsible for any damages your business may suffer. We make no warranties of any kind, expressed or implied for services we provide. We disclaim 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 us and our employees. We are not responsible for downtime due to matters "beyond our control"; this includes, but is not limited to: earthquake, fire, hacking, or computer viruses. Finally, we wish to emphasize that in accepting services, customers indemnify us for the violation of any law or our policy, which results in loss to us or the bringing of any claim against us. This means that if we are sued because of activities of the customer that violate any law, or this policy, the customer will pay any damages awarded against us, plus costs and reasonable legal fees.

4. Hardware or software failure

GPLHost cannot ascertain downtime length due to hardware failure. If hardware fails, the customer accepts that he must wait the needed time for replacement hardware to be shipped by our supplier, which can be an extended delay because of week-ends, holidays, etc. In case of extended delays, we can arrange for a separate location to hold your operating system and data, where you can move until the problem is fixed. Naturally, software failures cannot be guaranteed against either, since all software contains defects. This clause includes software and firmware failures as well.

5. Paiement

GPLHost will NOT refund any account. In case you want to leave our services at the begining of an already paid period, that period cannot be paid back.

6. Cancelation of paiment

We DO NOT accept charge back for an account that the customer wants to cancel. In no way, an account can be canceled after the payment done by the customer.

7. Closing of accounts

GPLHost has the rights to close any accounts that has expired at any time. Also, GPLHost cannot be taken as responsable if an account is closed by mistake and data are lost. Again, the customer is supposed to have a backup of all his data, and in no way we can be responsible of any data loss. In such case, the account would be reopened and the customer would reupload it's software and/or data.

8. Renewals

Renewals has to be done by our customers on time. An email shall be sent to your registered address in our system, but in no way GPLHost can be taken as responsable for this email not be read by the customer for any reason, including but not limited to, delays, non-deliveries or wrong delivery of that reminder message. It's up to the customer to check in his account if his account is paid. Note that all our services have to be paid in advance.
In the case the customer doesn't renew the account or services he has registered for, GPLHost can delete the account at any time after the expiry date without prior warning to the customer.

9. Use of your personal and company (hosted) data

We will not use the any of your data, entered on your system or hosted on our server, for any other purpose than maintenance of the service. No data will be used for commercial purpose appart for renewal of your services, and customer relationship management. In no way we will give your personal details to anyone that is not part of the GPLHost organization, it's subsdinaries and partners, and also the regulation authorities (including associations managing the IP address assignations like RIPE, APNIC, etc., and legal authorities).

For the interest of everyone, and to protect us against illegal activities and service abuse (including but not limited to: spamming, pishing, hacking, flooding, etc.), the customer understand that he has to provide accurate personal information and provide us with updates in case of any change of address, phone number, or contact email address. Also, it's the customer's responsability to check and maintain his contact email address. Failure to do any of the above can be a reason of closing an account without prior warning, and no refund. Also, the customer agrees to provide us with any proof of identity we might require.

10. Access of your hosted data

GPLHost, it's employee and partners have the rights to access your data at anytime, without the need of having your authorization.

11. Software liability, and warranty

As all of the software we provide are under the GPL, GPL v2, LGPL license (and others), you should reffer to the GPL license located in /usr/share/common-licenses in the Debian file system. This includes the no-warranty closes of these licenses:

THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

This limitation of warranty also apply to the software that GPLHost might release and give access to it's customers, which are also provided as is.
We offer for free our advices and expertise on top of our hosting services. We would deny any obligation of results in any case, as this is a free service that we give on best effort basis, when we have enough time to spare.