Please read all policies very carefully before ordering and using your hosting account.
This Services Agreement (the "Agreement") contains the complete terms and conditions which govern your subscription of Web hosting and other Internet-related services provided by A Star Host (the "Services"). As used in this Agreement, "A Star Host" means the A Star Host.com company and "Client", "you", or "your" means you. By clicking on the "Submit Order" button, you acknowledge that you have read the Agreement, and you agree to its terms and conditions and all policies posted on the A Star Host site. As referred to in this Agreement, "Site" refers to a World Wide Web site and "A Star Host Site" refers to the Site located at the URL http://www.astarhost.com, or any other successor Sites owned or maintained by A Star Host.
1. APPROPRIATE USE OF THE SERVICES.
A Star Host provides the Services exclusively and makes no effort to edit, control, monitor or restrict the content of data other than as necessary to provide such Services.
2. PAYMENT OBLIGATIONS
3. CLIENT LIABILITY AND INDEMNIFICATION
4. TERM, TERMINATION & REINSTATEMENT
5. TAXES
6. PERSONAL INFORMATION
7. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY
8. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
If any of the provisions, or portions thereof, of this Agreement are found to be invalid under any applicable statute or rule of law, then, that provision notwithstanding, this Agreement shall remain in full force and effect and such provision or portion thereof shall be deemed omitted. This Agreement (including the Exhibits, attachments and/or addenda, if any,) represents the entire agreement of the parties with respect of the subject matter hereof and supersedes all prior and/or contemporaneous agreements or understandings, written or oral between the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof. This Agreement and the rights granted and obligations undertaken hereunder may not be transferred, assigned or delegated in any manner by Client, but may be so transferred, assigned or delegated by A Star Host. Any waiver or any provision of this Agreement, or a delay by any party in the enforcement of any right hereunder, shall neither be construed as a continuing waiver nor create an expectation of non-enforcement of that or any other provision or right. In any legal proceeding between the parties under this Agreement, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover its costs, expenses and reasonable attorneys' fees. This Agreement is made under and shall be governed by the laws of the United States of America, except with regard to it’s conflict of law rules. This Agreement and A Star Host’s policies are subject to change by A Star Host without notice. Continued usage of the Services after a change to this Agreement by A Star Host or after a new policy is implemented and posted on the A Star Host Site constitutes your acceptance of such change or policy. We encourage you to regularly check the A Star Host Site for any changes or additions.
As a provider of web site hosting, and other Internet-related services, A Star Host offers its clients, and their customers and users, the means to disseminate a wealth of public, private, commercial, and non-commercial information. A Star Host respects that the Internet provides a forum for free and open discussion and dissemination of information, however, when there are competing interests at issue, A Star Host reserves the right to take certain preventative or corrective actions. In order to protect these competing interests, A Star Host has developed an Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP"), which supplements and explains certain terms of each customer's respective service agreement and is intended as a guide to the customer's rights and obligations when utilizing A Star Host’s services. This AUP will be revised from time to time. A customer's use of A Star Host’s services after changes to the AUP are posted on A Star Host’s web site will constitute the customer's acceptance of any new or additional terms of the AUP that result from those changes.
One important aspect of the Internet is that no one party owns or controls it. This fact accounts for much of the Internet's openness and value, but it also places a high premium on the judgment and responsibility of those who use the Internet to disseminate information to others.
When information is disseminated through the Internet, they also must keep in mind that A Star Host does not review, edit, censor, or take responsibility for any information its clients may create. When users place information on the Internet, they have the same liability as other authors for copyright infringement, defamation, and other harmful speech. Also, because the information they create is carried over A Star Host’s network and may reach a large number of people, including both clients and non-clients of A Star Host, clients' postings to the Internet may affect other clients and may harm A Star Host’s goodwill, business reputation, and operations. For these reasons, clients violate A Star Host policy and the service agreement when they, their customers, affiliates, or subsidiaries engage in the following prohibited activities:
Spamming
Sending unsolicited bulk and/or commercial messages over the Internet (known as "spamming"). It is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward A Star Host, but also because it can overload A Star Host's network and disrupt service to A Star Host clients. Also, maintaining an open SMTP relay is prohibited. When a complaint is received, A Star Host has the discretion to determine from all of the evidence whether the e-mail recipients were from an "opt-in" e-mail list. Refer to our UCE/SPAM Policy for more informtion.
Intellectual Property Violations
Engaging in any activity that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, software piracy, and patents held by individuals, corporations, or other entities. Also, engaging in activity that violates privacy, publicity, or other personal rights of others. A Star Host is required by law to remove or block access to customer content upon receipt of a proper notice of copyright infringement. It is also A Star Host’s policy to terminate the privileges of customers who commit repeat violations of copyright laws.
Adult Material
Because the Internet is a global communication tool, and we have clients from nearly every country in the world it is difficult to dictate what is considered "adult material." However, it is not our function to discriminate against those who choose to utilize adult content or adult related material. This being said, there are still several reasons why A Star Host has been forced to create its no adult sites policy for its virtual server users.
What does A Star Host consider "Adult Material?"
Why does A Star Host have this policy?
Bandwidth and Resources
A virtual server is a shared environment where many servers reside on each particular machine. This being said, consider that an average "adult site" gets more hits than 100 standard websites. Some of the smaller adult sites get around 5 GB of transfer per day. With these types of resources being utilized, our servers would be severely slowed if we allowed these high traffic sites to also reside on our servers. On top of that, we would be forced to raise our prices to pay for the additional bandwidth. We strive to keep our servers fast and inexpensive, and our bandwidth clear; therefore, adult sites are not an option.
A Star Host reserves the right to decide what it considers "adult content", "adult material", "sexually explicit", or "sexually related". Let us know if you are unsure of the approval of your site before placing an order.
Defamatory or Abusive Language
Using A Star Host’s network as a means to transmit or post defamatory, harassing, abusive, or threatening language.
Forging of Headers
Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the originator of the message.
Illegal or Unauthorized Access to Other Computers or Networks
Accessing illegally or without authorization computers, accounts, or networks belonging to another party, or attempting to penetrate security measures of another individual's system (often known as "hacking"). Also, any activity that might be used as a precursor to an attempted system penetration (i.e. port scan, stealth scan, or other information gathering activity).
Background Running Programs
Background Daemons in general are prohibited on A Star Host servers, including, but not limited to, IRC bots, eggdrop, BitchX, XiRCON, warez sites and any other program that interferes with normal server operation.
A Star Host will be the sole arbitor of what consitutes a violation of the above policy.
Distribution of Internet Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses, or Other Destructive Activities
Distributing information regarding the creation of and sending Internet viruses, worms, Trojan horses, pinging, flooding, mailbombing, or denial of service attacks. Also, activities that disrupt the use of or interfere with the ability of others to effectively use the network or any connected network, system, service, or equipment.
Facilitating a Violation of this AUP
Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mailbombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software.
Export Control Violations
Exporting encryption software over the Internet or otherwise, to points outside the United States.
Usenet Groups
A Star Host reserves the right not to accept postings from newsgroups where we have actual knowledge that the content of the newsgroup violates the AUP.
Other Illegal Activities
Engaging in activities that are determined to be illegal, including advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, fraudulently charging credit cards, and pirating software.
Other Activities
Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that A Star Host determines to be harmful to its clients, operations, reputation, goodwill, or customer relations.
As we have pointed out, the responsibility for avoiding the harmful activities just described rests primarily with the client. A Star Host will not, as an ordinary practice, monitor the communications of its client to ensure that they comply with A Star Host policy or applicable law. When A Star Host becomes aware of harmful activities, however, it may take any action to stop the harmful activity, including but not limited to, removing information, shutting down a web site, implementing screening software designed to block offending transmissions, denying access to the Internet, or take any other action it deems appropriate.
A Star Host also is concerned with the privacy of on-line communications and web sites. In general, the Internet is neither more nor less secure than other means of communication, including mail, facsimile, and voice telephone service, all of which can be intercepted and otherwise compromised. As a matter of prudence, however, A Star Host urges its clients to assume that all of their on-line communications are insecure. A Star Host cannot take any responsibility for the security of information transmitted over A Star Host’s facilities.
A Star Host will not intentionally monitor private electronic mail messages sent or received by its clients unless required to do so by law, governmental authority, or when public safety is at stake. A Star Host may, however, monitor its service electronically to determine that its facilities are operating satisfactorily. Also, A Star Host may disclose information, including but not limited to, information concerning a client, a transmission made using our network, or a web site, in order to comply with a court order, subpoena, summons, discovery request, warrant, statute, regulation, or governmental request. A Star Host assumes no obligation to inform the client that client information has been provided and in some cases may be prohibited by law from giving such notice. Finally, A Star Host may disclose client information or information transmitted over its network where necessary to protect A Star Host and others from harm, or where such disclosure is necessary to the proper operation of the system.
We hope this AUP is helpful in clarifying the obligations of Internet users, including A Star Host and its clients, as responsible members of the Internet. Any complaints about a client's violation of this AUP should be sent to abuse@astarhost.com.
A Star Host allows CGI to be used on all Virtual Servers. CGI can be resource intensive however, and because a Virtual Server must be shared with other users, we must limit how much of the CPU can be used by any one account on a shared server. There are several reasons why A Star Host has created its CGI Abuse policy for its virtual server users.
What does A Star Host consider "CGI ABUSE"?
Any site whose CGI programs are using excessive amounts of system resources. Excessive amounts is defined as any amount that results in substantial degradation of server performance. A Star Host is the sole determinant of what consititues degraded server performance.
Due to their use of flat files instead of databases, A Star Host does not allow the use of UBB or YABB bulletin boards. Use of these boards for large or very active forums, results in system performance degradation, and cannot be allowed in our shared server environment. A Star Host suggests using VBulletin or phpBB as a more efficient, database-driven alternative to these bulletin boards.
Why does A Star Host have this policy?
Server Speed and Fairness to others
A Virtual Server is shared. As such, there are many accounts per machine. In all fairness, A Star Host 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 A Star Host. 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 CGI scripts will be disabled.
The abuse and misuse of e-mail is a serious problem, and A Star Host will not tolerate it.
Definition of UCE (Unsolicited Commercial E-mail), or SPAM:
For further information on mail abuse, please visit the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) website.
Repercussions of SPAM:
Across the Web, it is generally accepted that SPAM is an inconsiderate and improper business practice.
A Star Host:
SPAM is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward A Star Host, but also because it can overload A Star Host’s network and resources, especially on our shared (virtual) server environments.
Our Providers:
Since it is unsolicited, users who receive SPAM often become angry and send complaints to our upstream providers. This upsets our providers who abhor SPAM for the same reasons that A Star Host does - it causes negative consumer attitudes and drains resources. We strive to maintain favorable business relationships in the Web community and obviously will not allow any practice that threatens these relationships.
Punishment For SPAM:
A Star Host reserves the right to terminate, without warning, any account that violates this policy. Usage of A Star Host services constitutes acceptance and understanding of this policy.
A Star Host may, at its option, charge $25.00 per SPAM complaint we receive for customers. These are non-refundable charges and will be invoiced at the time of complaint notification.
A Star Host reserves the right to decide what it considers "SPAM", "UCE", "mail bombing", or "bulk e-mail", and to determine from all of the evidence whether or not the e-mail recipients were from an "opt-in" e-mail list.
Should you choose to e-mail from A Star Host servers, especially if you use mailing lists, you must read and adhere to the following guidelines, which are offered as a statement of Internet standards and best current practices for proper mailing list management and preventing e-mail abuse.
Basic Mailing List Management Principles for Preventing Abuse
Mailing lists are an excellent vehicle for distributing focused, targeted information to an interested, receptive audience. Consequently, mailing lists have been used successfully as a highly effective direct marketing tool.
Unfortunately, some marketers misuse mailing lists through a lack of understanding of Internet customs and rules of the forum pertaining to e-mail. Others fail to take adequate precautions to prevent the lists they manage from being used in an abusive manner.
*This SPAM (UCE) Accepted Use Policy and all other A Star Host policies are subject to change by A Star Host without notice. Continued usage of the services after a change to this policy is implemented and posted on the A Star Host site constitutes your acceptance of such change or policy. We encourage you to regularly check the A Star Host site for any changes or additions. Visit our Terms & Conditions for further information regarding our policies.
Because protecting your privacy is very important to A Star Host, we operate our website under the following guidelines to safeguard your personally identifiable information:
A Star Host’s policies and procedures for handling customer information have been created with the understanding that Internet technologies are still evolving and that Internet business methods are continuing to evolve to meet the needs and opportunities of the changing technologies. As a result, A Star Host’s policies and procedures are subject to change.
What Personal Information does A Star Host collect?
In the course of serving its customers, A Star Host acquires, stores and transmits customer communications and information that customers may regard as private or sensitive. Some of this information - such as the customer's name, address, telephone number, and credit card data - is provided to A Star Host by its customers in order to establish service. Other information - such as the customer's account status, choice of services, and customer logs - is created and maintained by A Star Host in the normal course of providing service. A Star Host also uses cookies, which are small pieces of information that a web site can store in a designated file on a user's computer for various reasons. In addition, A Star Host may store customers' electronic mail and other communications as a necessary incident to the transmission and delivery of those communications.
Data Security
A Star Host will protect the confidentiality of its customers' information, account information and personal communications to the fullest extent possible and consistent with the law and the legitimate interests of A Star Host, its partners, its employees and other customers of A Star Host’s services. To protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of information that is collected from customers, A Star Host has appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures in place.
How is customer information used?
A Star Host may share customer information with selected partners, for example, to provide customers with information about products which might be of interest to the customer or to enable the customer to take advantage of special partner programs. A Star Host may also use customer information to provide its customers with system information or information about new or upgraded products.
Modification of customer information.
Customers may modify their personal information by emailing datachange@astarhost.com to make the request.
Will A Star Host ever send me direct mailings?
From time to time, A Star Host may send its customers information about various products and services that may be of interest. We will not send you information of this type without specifically allowing you to "opt out" of such mailings. You can opt out by sending an e-mail to optoutmailing@astarhost.com.
How do I protect my Personal Information in public forums?
A Star Host may offer interactive forums, such as message boards and chat. A Star Host users should be aware that when they voluntarily disclose Personal Information to other users or to third parties on the A Star Host system, through e-mail, or outside of the A Star Host system, that information can be collected and used by others and may result in unsolicited messages from other members or third parties. While A Star Host strives to protect your Personal Information, A Star Host cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to A Star Host, and you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account information.
What about privacy on sites that A Star Host links to?
A Star Host may provide links to its partners and other Internet sites. These sites have separate data and privacy practices independent of A Star Host, and A Star Host disclaims any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions.
Disclosure of customer information and communications
A Star Host will not otherwise disclose its customers' personal and account information unless A Star Host has reason to believe that disclosing such information is necessary to identify, make contact with, or bring legal action against someone who may be causing harm or interfering with the rights or property of A Star Host, A Star Host’s customers, or others, or where A Star Host has a good faith belief that the law requires such disclosure.
A Star Host also will not, except for reasons stated below, disclose to third parties the contents of any electronic mail or other electronic communications that A Star Host stores or transmits for its customers. The circumstances under which A Star Host will disclose such electronic customer communications are when:
A Star Host disclaims any intention to censor, edit or engage in ongoing review or surveillance of communications stored on or transmitted through its facilities by customers or others. A Star Host will, however, review, delete or block access to communications that may harm A Star Host, its customers or third parties. The grounds on which A Star Host may take such action include, but are not limited to, actual or potential violations of A Star Host’s Acceptable Use Policy.