DEFINED.net RULES AND ACCEPTABLE USE GUIDELINES

These Defined.net Acceptable Use Guidelines ("Usage Guidelines") describe the proper kinds of conduct and prohibited uses of Defined.net hosting services (the "Services"), as described and subscribed to pursuant to the Hosting Agreement posted at http://www.defined.net (the "Hosting Agreement"). These Usage Guidelines are not exhaustive and Defined.net reserves the right to modify these Usage Guidelines at any time, effective upon posting of the modified Usage Guidelines to http://www.defined.net. By registering for and using the Services, and thereby accepting the terms and conditions of the Hosting Agreement, you agree to abide by these Usage Guidelines as modified from time to time. Any violation of these Usage Guidelines may result in the suspension or termination of your account or such other action as Defined.net deems appropriate which is described further in the Hosting Agreement and Terms of Service.



1. YOUR GENERAL RESPONSIBILITIES

The Services enable you to develop and display a Web site through which you can interact with users of the Internet and retrieve and send vast amounts of information. Generally, Defined.net will not actively monitor, censor, or directly control any content that is or will be displayed on your Web site(s) or information that you collect or use through your Web site(s). Defined.net, however, provides the Services with the goals of (a) ensuring security, reliability and privacy of the Services and the users of the Services, (b) maintaining an image and reputation of Defined.net as a responsible provider of the Services, (c) preserving the value of Internet resources as a conduit for free expression, (d) encouraging the responsible use of Internet resources and discouraging degrading, libelous or illegal uses of such resources. Consequently, Defined.net expects you, and all other users of the Services, to take responsibility in using the Internet with courtesy and responsibility, and be familiar with and to practice good Internet etiquette, in furtherance of the above stated goals.

VIOLATION OF ANY OF THESE GUIDELINES IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED AND MAY RESULT IN THE IMMEDIATE TERMINATION OR SUSPENSION OF THE SERVICES YOU RECEIVE FROM DEFINED SYSTEMS ACCORDING TO THE HOSTING AGREEMENT. YOU SHALL REMAIN SOLELY LIABLE AND RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES AND ANY AND ALL CONTENT THAT YOU DISPLAY, UPLOAD, DOWNLOAD OR TRANSMIT THROUGH THE USE OF THE SERVICES. "CONTENT" INCLUDES, WITHOUT LIMITATION, YOUR E-MAIL, WEB PAGES, PERSONAL HOME PAGES, AND DOMAIN NAMES. IT IS DEFINED SYSTEMS’ POLICY TO TERMINATE REPEAT INFRINGERS.



2. ILLEGAL OR HARMFUL USE

You may use the Services only for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution, sale, or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law, regulation, or these Usage Guidelines is prohibited. The following non-exhaustive list details the kinds of illegal or harmful conduct are prohibited. Defined.net reserves the rights to restrict or prohibit any and all uses of the Services or content on your Web site(s) and to remove such materials from its servers, that Defined Systems determines in its sole discretion is harmful to its servers, systems, network, reputation, good will, other Defined.net customers, or any third party.

Infringement. Infringement of intellectual property rights or other proprietary rights including, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization. Infringement may result from, among other activities, the unauthorized copying and posting of pictures, logos, software, articles, musical works, and videos.


Offensive Materials. Transmission, disseminating, sale, storage or hosting material that is unlawful, libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, harassing, threatening, harmful, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, inflammatory or otherwise objectionable.


Export Violations. Posting or sending of software or technical information in violation of U.S. export laws, including, without limitation, the Export Administration Act and the Export Administration Regulations maintained by the Department of Commerce.


Harmful Content. Disseminating or hosting harmful content including, without limitation, viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots or any other computer programming routines that may damage, interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, program, data or personal information.


Fraudulent Conduct. Offering or disseminating fraudulent goods, services, schemes, or promotions (i.e., make money fast schemes, chain letters, pyramid schemes), or furnishing false data on any signup form, contract or online application or registration, or the fraudulent use of any information obtained through the use of the Services, including without limitation use of credit card numbers.


3. SYSTEM AND NETWORK SECURITY AND INTEGRITY

Violations of Defined.net or any third party's server, system or network security through the use of the Services are prohibited, and may result in criminal and civil liability. Defined.net may investigate incidents involving such violations. Defined Systems may involve and cooperate with law enforcement if a criminal violation is suspected. Examples of server, system or network security violations include, without limitation, the following:

Hacking. Unauthorized access to or use of data, systems, server or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system, server or network or to breach security or authentication measures without express authorization of the owner of the system, server or network. 


Interception. Unauthorized monitoring of data or traffic on any network, server, or system without express authorization of the owner of the system, server, or network.


Intentional Interference. Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, news bombing, other flooding techniques, deliberate attempts to overload a system, broadcast attacks and any activity resulting in the crash of a host. Intentional interference also means the use of any kind of program/script/command, or send messages of any kind, designed to interfere with a user's terminal session, via any means, locally or by the Internet.


Falsification of Origin. Forging of any TCP-IP packet header, e-mail header or any part of a message header. This prohibition does not include the use of aliases or anonymous remailers.


Avoiding System Restrictions. Using manual or electronic means to avoid any use limitations placed on the Services such as timing out.


Failure to Safeguard Accounts. Failing to prevent unauthorized access to accounts, including any account passwords.


4. E-MAIL

You may not distribute, publish, or send any of the following types of e-mail:

Unsolicited promotions, advertising or solicitations (commonly referred to as "spam"), including, without limitation, commercial advertising and informational announcements, except to those who have explicitly requested such e-mails.


Commercial promotions, advertising, solicitations, or informational announcements that contain false or misleading information in any form.


Harassing e-mail, whether through language, frequency, or size of messages.


Chain letters.


Malicious e-mail, including without limitation "mailbombing" (flooding a user or Web site with very large or numerous pieces of mail) or "trolling" (posting outrageous messages to generate numerous responses).


E-mails containing forged or falsified information in the header (including sender name and routing information), or any other forged or falsified information.   In addition, you may not use Defined.net mail server or another Web site's mail server to relay mail without the express permission of the account holder or the Web site. Posting the same or similar message to one or more newsgroups (excessive cross-posting or multiple-posting) also is explicitly prohibited.


5. SUB-LEASING WEB SPACE AND COMPETITIVE ACTIVITY

Sub-leasing. Each hosting account is designated for use by one owner, and may not publish content for additional third parties without written permission from Defined.net.

Competitive Activity. You may not publish or advertise products or services that compete with the products and services of Defined.net, including but not limited to Shared Web Hosting and/or Dedicated Web Hosting.


6. 99% UPTIME GUARANTEE

(a) Coverage

These Defined Systems Acceptable Use And Service Guidelines apply to you if you have registered for Hosting Services (collectively, the "Service") and you are in good financial standing with Defined.net.

(b) Service Level

Defined.net endeavors to have the content of your Web site available for http access by third parties 99.0% of the time ("Web Site Availability").

(c) Credits

In the event that there is no Web Site Availability, Defined.net will credit the following month's service fee as follows. For Hosting services, 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 the monthly service charge for the affected month.

Customer Web Site Availability Credit
90-98% 10%
80-89% 25%
70-79% 50%
<70% 100%

In order for you to receive a credit on your account, you must request such credit within ten (10) business days after you experienced no Web Site Availability. You must request credit by sending an electronic mail message to support @ defined.net. For security, the body of this message must contain your account number, the dates and times of the unavailability of your Web site, and such other customer identification requested by Defined.net. 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 that there is no Web Site Availability.

(d) Restrictions

Credits shall not be provided to you in the event that you have no Web Site Availability resulting from (i) scheduled maintenance as posted from time to time at the Defined.net Website, (ii) your behavior or the performance or failure of your equipment, facilities or applications, or (iii) circumstances beyond Defined.net 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), 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.

Defined Systems is a small web host, and is not an appropriate place to host sites with exceptionally high bandwidth, availability or support requirements.

7. DOMAIN AND SSL CERTIFICATE REGISTRATIONS

Although we provide domain and SSL certificate registrations, it is your responsibility to monitor their expiration, and request renewals.  We will notify you if possible, however we will not be liable for losses incurred by expired domains or SSL certificates.

8. BACKUPS AND FILE PROTECTION

All web server files are mirrored nightly to a secondary drive, and downloaded monthly to an off-site backup location.  WE DO NOT PROVIDE REAL-TIME REDUNDANT FILE BACKUPS.  If you would suffer a substantial loss in the event of a primary hard drive failure or other catastrophic event, please implement your own data replication plan to preserve your important data.

Although reasonable efforts have been made to provide security for files and data residing on our servers, we cannot guarantee complete protection.  Files residing on internet servers are vulnerable to hacking attempts or unauthorized access by rogue customers or third parties.  IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO ENCRYPT AND/OR PROTECT ANY SENSITIVE FILES OR DATA KEPT ON OUR SERVERS.

9. PROBLEMATIC WEB SITES OR SUPPORT

Defined.net, at its discretion, may suspend or terminate without warning, any Web Site or Application causing unreasonable memory usage, CPU utilization, excessive hard drive access, excessive network activity, unhandled error messages, excessive support, or unreasonable uptime demand.  Support requests containing hostile, threatening or insulting remarks will be ignored and may also result in termination of your account.  Defined.net will not be liable for downtime incurred by such suspension or termination.

10. ADDITIONAL RULES AND REGULATIONS

The following rules always apply to maintain high standards on our servers.  We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone not observing these rules.


General

• No sites with adult, illegal or offensive content; no links to these types of sites
• No foreign content, unless it is translatable using babelfish
• No sites with products or services that compete with Defined Systems
• No sub-leasing of virtual web space without permission
• All sites are monitored for excessive storage, bandwidth or processor usage
• Your service may be suspended if your payment is more than 15 days late
• Free domain registration must be: .com .net .org .info .biz .cc .tv .us .ca .co.uk .org.uk
• Free domain registration is limited to one domain per account
• Free domain registration requires a minimum 3 month commitment
• Email and log files older than 3 months may be removed to conserve disk space
• Technical support is provided in English language only
• To deter fraud, new accounts must be signed up from an IP address local to the credit card address
• We cannot assure that your IP address will be permanent; use a domain instead of hard-coded IP
• Your site must remain portable or easily reconfigurable if we need to move it to a new server

Security

• Internet servers are not secure by default; encrypt your sensitive data
• Any attempt to compromise server security will result in immediate termination and prosecution
• Attempts to read or write files outside of your assigned subfolder is forbidden
• Files written outside of your directory folders will be deleted without warning
• We reserve the right to inspect and remove any file or application uploaded to our servers
• For security reasons, we only allow Frontpage publishing using FTP

Email

• Do not use our servers to send unsolicited mail (SPAM) or reference any site hosted by us in such mail
• Our SMTP servers should not be used for bulk email
• Mailing lists should have no more than 1000 recipients, send no more than once per week
• We reserve the right to filter and remove inbound email thought to contain SPAM or viruses
• Email attachments (inbound and outbound) are limited to 8MB
• Mailboxes are limited to 40MB -- no exceptions

Database

• MS-SQL can be accessed by server-side applications only.  Client access licenses are not provided.  If you need client access, please consider using Interbase
• A single hosting account cannot use both MS-SQL and Interbase (they run on different servers)

3rd Party Products

• We will consider installing 3rd party products, however we can not guarantee that we will be able to do so
• Uptime for 3rd party products can not be guaranteed, however we will make a reasonable uptime effort
• Clients must purchase their own license(s) for any 3rd party products used on our server
• Defined Systems does not provide 3rd party licenses; you must contact the 3rd party vendor

Web Applications

• All sites are monitored for excessive storage, bandwidth or processor usage
• Web applications receiving heavy usage should be ISAPI dll's 
• Any site may be suspended or removed if causing serious problems
• We do not debug applications or scripts; we only provide a working environment

Socket Applications

• One executable allowed per socket account
• Socket apps must be named "yourname_server.exe"
• Socket apps must not require NT adminstrator rights
• Socket apps must start automatically; no login or prompts
• Socket apps must terminate when asked to close
• Systray icon is optional
• Confirm your TCP port number prior to uploading your app

INDIRECT OR ATTEMPTED VIOLATIONS OF THE USAGE GUIDELINES, AND ACTUAL OR ATTEMPTED VIOLATIONS BY A THIRD PARTY ON YOUR BEHALF, SHALL BE CONSIDERED VIOLATIONS OF THE USAGE GUIDELINES BY YOU.

If you want to report any violations of these Usage Guidelines, please contact abuse @ defined.net