Last Updated: May 21, 2007
The Hosting Factory strives to provide the best possible service to all our customers, but we will not tolerate any unlawful activity or abuse on our servers. We respect freedom of speech and expression unless it is harmful to others. These brief guidelines are imposed to protect you, other The Hosting Factory customers and us against such harm.
Due to rules set in place by the government of the United States of America we cannot host clients from the following countries: Burma, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Liberia, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, or Zimbabwe.
Payment Policies, Fees, Refunds and Terms of Agreement
Full payment is required before any hosting service is rendered, which includes renewals. All payment-due notices will be sent by electronic mail. No bills or invoices will be sent by postal mail or fax, unless requested and agreed upon before service is rendered. Prepayment is due each anniversary (one month, one year, or other agreed upon period) following the date the account was established. Billing will continue until you cancel your hosting account. As a policy, we do not offer credits or refunds for hosting time already expended or on any promotional credit, such as a free month of hosting. Credit cards may be billed up to seven days in advance of the due date to assure that service will not be affected if there is a problem with the credit card. The Hosting Factory considers all credit card or PayPal chargebacks for services rendered, or partially rendered, to be fraudulent. Such accounts will be assessed a $100 fee, per incident, and have their balance sent to a third-party collections agency.
Each of The Hosting Factory hosting plans carries a 30-day unconditional money back guarantee. If you are not completely satisfied with our services or support within the first 30 days, you will be given a full refund of the fees paid in advance (excluding setup fees and domain name registration costs) upon plan cancellation. The following services do not qualify for the 30 Day Money Back Guarantee: additional items and services; domain name registration; dedicated servers. Refunds are only available in accordance with the 30 Day Money Back Guarantee, there are no refunds offered or promised after 30 days. Refunds will be provided in the same payment method of the original payment. Accounts cancelled/terminated by The Hosting Factory for violating our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) do not qualify for the 30-day money back guarantee. For example, if your account is cancelled due to spamming, you will not be given any refund. The Hosting Factory reserves the right to change prices at any time, but will notify all clients before such changes take place. Refunds are also issued according to our Service Level Agreement and Money Back Guarantee.
All dedicated server and colocation customers will receive invoices 7 days before the due date and any credit card on file will be charged 3 days before the due date. After the due date, there is a 2 day grace period in which to fully pay the invoice, with an overdue notice being emailed daily. If payment is not made, or other adequate arrangement put in place, the system(s) will be promptly shutdown after the 2nd day. The system will be maintained in full working order, with the original data, for a period of at least one additional week. The customer is fully responsible for making sure payment is made in a timely manner and is fully responsible for keeping accurate billing information on file.
In regards to colocation customers, The Hosting Factory reserves the right to take ownership of the colocated equipment as compensation after a period of 30 days of non-payment. If the equipment is sold, the selling price, minus a 15% processing charge, will be deducted from the amount of the bill which is forwarded to collections.
Account Cancellation
Hosting plans will automatically renew until a plan is cancelled. In order to cancel service, you must contact The Hosting Factory's Accounting Department at billing@thehostingfactory.com. The Hosting Factory’s Accounting Department will assist you with the cancellation process. Please be aware that there are no pro-rated refunds after the first 30 days of service.
Cancellation requests must be received by The Hosting Factory a minimum of thirty (30) days prior to the end of your Billing Cycle for dedicated server plans and a minimum of ten (10) days prior to the end of your Billing Cycle for all other plans. Cancellations submitted later than this time may result in automatic renewal of your hosting plan. Cancellations become effective on the day processed by The Hosting Factory. The Hosting Factory is unable to cancel your account effective for a future date. The Hosting Factory will confirm the cancellation request when it is processed. If you do not receive a confirmation, please contact The Hosting Factory as soon as possible.
The Hosting Factory does not monitor, and will not automatically cancel, plans for problems related to domain name transfers, non-usage, Internic, your ISP, or any other secondary issues not directly related to The Hosting Factory's services. Cancellation of services does not relieve the customer from paying any outstanding balance owed on the account. The Hosting Factory reserves the right to cancel any account, at any time, without notice, for any reason The Hosting Factory considers appropriate.
Indemnification Policy
You agree to use all The Hosting Factory services and facilities at your own risk. The Hosting Factory specifically disclaims all warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. In no event shall The Hosting Factory be liable for any loss, or loss of data, or other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages. The client agrees that it shall defend, indemnify, save and hold The Hosting Factory harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims, including reasonable attorney's fees asserted against The Hosting Factory, its agents, its customers, officers and employees, that may arise or result from any service provided or performed or agreed to be performed or any product sold by the client, it's agents, employees or assigns. The client agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless The Hosting Factory against liabilities arising out of:
- Any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with a The Hosting Factory server;
- Any material supplied by the client infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party;
- Copyright infringement and
- Any defective products sold to the client from a The Hosting Factory server.
The Hosting Factory shall be the sole arbitrator of what violates this policy.
SPAM Policy
The Hosting Factory is committed to a strict anti-spamming policy. Under this policy, we prohibit spam, or any unsolicited commercial email, from being sent either: Over the The Hosting Factory network, by clients or any other users of the The Hosting Factory network (including the client's customers); AND/OR over ANY network - if the message sent advertises or mentions a site hosted on the The Hosting Factory network.
We react quickly and seriously to violations, and we further reserve the right to terminate the services of any client disregarding this policy. Notice of at least 6 hours is given to all dedicated hosting and colocation clients. Shared hosting and VPS customers may have their accounts suspended without notice, depending on the severity of the incident. Sending unsolicited commercial email (a.k.a. "spam"), cross-posting messages to a large number of usenet groups, posting obscene or threatening messages while using or referring to an email address or web site URL on The Hosting Factory's network is prohibited. The use of The Hosting Factory's network as a mail drop for responses to activities described above is also prohibited. Accounts cancelled due to spam will be billed a "clean up" fee of $200 along with a potential fee of $100 per mailing/complaint if they are deemed to be unresponsive to our requests.
If you have any complaints or comments regarding spam on our network, please email abuse@thehostingfactory.com.
Note: We will generally not suspend an account due to a single violation. We will first attempt to work with you to resolve the situation. If problems persist or there is no cooperation the account may be suspended and have the above charges applied. As a web host we understand you may not have control of all your users/clients and we are more than happy to work with you as long as you are cooperative. We give all clients the right to defend themselves before accounts are permanently suspended or charged the specified clean-up fees.
Content Policy
All services provided by The Hosting Factory may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data or material in violation of any American law is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: copyrighted material, trademark, intellectual property, material that promotes any illegal activity, or material protected by trade secret and other statutes without proper authorization. The subscriber agrees to indemnify and hold harmless The Hosting Factory from any claims resulting from the use of the service which damages the subscriber or any other party
Examples of unacceptable content include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Pirated software, including warez or any other commercial software which you do not have the legal right to distribute;
- Serial numbers and cd keys for commercially available software which you do not have the legal right to distribute;
- Music (.mp3, .wma, .ogg, etc.), Movies and Television shows (.mpg, .avi, .wmv, etc.) or compressed files or archives containing such files (.zip, .rar, .tar, etc.) which you do not have the legal right to distribute;
- Child pornography, rape, or beastiality;
- Hacker programs or archives;
- Any content that facilitates in identity theft, credit card fraud, or any other type of fraud;
- Torrent files and trackers that facilitate the download of any materials included in this list;
- Any software that facilitates any activity prohibited in this policy.
Any illegal activity may result in your site being suspended immediately, without notification. Any sites breaking the above rules will be subject to a $200 clean-up fee if they are deemed to be unresponsive to our requests.
The Hosting Factory will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.
The Hosting Factory is a strong believer in everyone's right to practice free speech and we do not feel that it is our obligation to rid the Internet of any material which others feel may be inappropriate or offensive. We feel that the right of free speech trumps any other claims of content being inappropriate or offensive as those terms are objective, while the laws of the United States are quite clear. As long as the content is legal, we will not suspend your account without notice, though we do reserve the right to refuse hosting to any party for any reason with proper notice being given.
System and Network Security
Violations of system or network security are strictly prohibited, and may result in criminal and civil liability. The Hosting Factory investigates all incidents involving such violations and will cooperate with law enforcement if a criminal violation is suspected.
Examples of system or network security violations include, but are not limited to, the following:
- Introduction of malicious programs into the network or server (example: viruses, worms, Trojan Horses and other executables intended to inflict harm);
- Effecting security breaches or disruptions of Internet communication and/or connectivity. Security breaches include, but are not limited to, accessing data of which the client is not an intended recipient or logging into a server or account that the client is not expressly authorized to access. For purposes of this section, "disruption" includes, but is not limited to, port scans, ping flooding, email-bombing, packet spoofing, IP spoofing and forged routing information;
- Executing any form of network activity that will intercept data not intended for the client's server;
- Circumventing user authentication or security of any host, network or account;
- Interfering with or denying service to any user other than the client's host (example: denial of service attack or distributed denial of service attack);
- Using any program script/command, or sending messages of any kind, designed to interfere with or to disable a user's terminal session, via any means, locally or via the Internet.
Inadequate security, insecure/unpatched software, insecure passwords, etc. are not the responsibility of The Hosting Factory. The client is responsible for assuring that their account is as secure as possible and the account holder accepts all responsibility for actions taken using their allocated resources, whether they are authorized or not. The account holder on file agrees to be held responsible for all bandwidth overage fees, clean-up fees, and managed service fees.
Scripting/IRC Policy
Each shared hosting account includes support for running CGI scripts and programs. You are free to use any CGI software you wish, however we reserve the right to disable any CGI script or other software that affects normal server operation or service to other The Hosting Factory customers on shared hosting accounts. If an account uses scripts which prohibit normal use of the server the account can be suspended without notice. The client will then have an opportunity to repair the problem.
The Hosting Factory strictly prohibits the running of IRCd, eggdrop, or other IRC related scripts, programs, or bots from shared hosting, reseller, and VPS accounts. Such scripts, programs, or bots are allowed on dedicated servers and colocated systems as long as they are not connected to one of the major networks and are not targets for DDoS or similar attacks. If you are running such scripts, programs, or bots you take full responsibility for any and all costs that may be involved in resolving such an attack, with a minimum fee of $100 per incident.
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason not prohibited by law. Also we reserve the right to terminate service to any client for any reason not prohibited by law.
Any deliberate attempt to cause damage to The Hosting Factory or any other Internet servers will result in immediate account deactivation without prior notice. No refund will be issued in this case.
Backups
No guarantees are made of any kind, either expressed or implied, as to the integrity of our backups, which are made on a regular basis for all shared hosting and shared reseller accounts. It is the clients' responsibility to maintain local copies of their content and other stored information. If loss of data occurs due to a failure on The Hosting Factory's part, we take reasonable action to recover the data at no charge to the client. If data loss occurs due to negligence of client in securing their account, by an action of the client, or any actions not under the direct control of The Hosting Factory, The Hosting Factory will have no liability.
User Information
It is the responsibility of the client to assure that the complete contact and billing information on-hand is up-to-date and accurate, including full mailing address and a list of authorized contacts. The Hosting Factory will contact users via the email addresses and/or phone numbers entered by the user and will not be held responsible for the accuracy of this information. The Hosting Factory provides a direct way for all users to verify this information through the control panel. Support services for dedicated server and colocation clients is only rendered to those users whose information is on file as an authorized contact on the account.