Terms of Service

v. 1.1, Updated Aug 30th, 2016

Hosterium's primary objective is to value and support our subscribers wherever, whenever and however possible. Our management and staff will provide the highest level of attention and dedication to all of our subscribers.

In pursuit of our primary objective, Hosterium agrees to deliver the agreed upon services, as declared in the "New Account" confirmation, to our customers at the time of purchase, subject to the following Terms of Service (hereafter referred to as TOS).

In addition, the use of Hosterium's service(s) by a subscriber constitutes an unconditional acceptance of and agreement to Hosterium's TOS and also to Tucows Master Services Agreement attached hereto as Exhibit A and incorporated herein by reference. Hosterium reserves the right to change or modify the TOS at any time without notice by posting the new agreement or policies. These modifications will become effective immediately. Your continued use of the site and or services indicates your agreement with our terms; therefore, it is your responsibility to review the TOS regularly.

100% Money-Back Guarantees

A. 30-Day Money Back Guarantee

Hosterium proudly offers its subscribers a "30-Day Money Back Guarantee." This guarantee allows subscriber to purchase Hosterium's services with full confidence and zero-risk. Consequently, subscriber may request a full refund within 30 days of initial sign-up and be refunded all fees paid to-date, including setup fees, less any additional over-usage and free domain registration costs (see section I.D below). Terminated accounts are not eligible for this guarantee if the termination occurred due to a violation of this TOS.

This guarantee can be requested at anytime within the 30 days of the commencement of service if subscriber is not satisfied with Hosterium's services. If the 30-day service of the subscription has been exceeded, subscriber is not eligible for this guarantee. A request for this guarantee must be submitted via Hosterium's "Contact Us" form. If requesting a refund, we ask that subscriber briefly explains the reasons for doing so, as well as any suggestions on how Hosterium could improve service.

B. Domain Registrations

Hosterium utilizes an industry standard third party Registrar for domain name registration services. Once an order is placed for a new domain name through Hosterium, we register the domain for the customer through the Registrar. Domains registered in this manner are not eligible for a refund and the cost for such domains will be subtracted from any service refund from Hosterium. New domains may be cancelled and receive a full refund only within the first 24 hours after placing an order. This grace period only applies to new domain name registrations and is not applicable for domain renewals. If you cancel your Hosterium service, you will retain ownership of your domain name for as long as you continue to renew the domain. You may renew the domain through Hosterium or through the Registrar. Domain names are only registered for a finite period of time.

Upon becoming a domain customer of Hosterium, you will receive reminders immediately prior to the expiration of your registration inviting you to renew your domain name and specifying the amount of time you have to renew your domain name. In the event that you fail to renew your domain name in a timely fashion within that amount of time, your registration will expire and we may, at our sole discretion, elect to assume the registration and hold it for our own account, delete it, or sell it to a third party. You acknowledge and agree that your right and interest in a domain name ceases upon its expiration and that any expired domain name may be available for registration by a third party.

If you fail to renew your registration, your domain name may cease to resolve and visitors to your site may be redirected to a default page informing them that the site is no longer in service. This default page may also feature advertisements posted by us for our own account.

If we, in our sole discretion, have elected to renew the registration, you will be entitled to a grace period of forty (40) days during which you may re-register the domain name from us. Additional costs for the redemption and re-registration will apply. During this grace period, we may elect to post a parked page and/or revise the "Whois" registration records to include our information. The domain name may also be listed for auction and promoted as being available for auction. If the name is sold during any such auction, it will be acquired by a third party and will not remain available for re-registration by you after our stated grace period. If you do not re-register the domain name during the grace period, the auction sale will be concluded and ownership of the domain will be transferred to a third party. If you fail to renew your domain name registration during the grace period, you acknowledge that you have abandoned the domain name and that it is available for sale and registration by any third party.

ICANN's Registrant's Benefits and Responsibilities

ICANN's site for registrant education

E. Renewal Procedure

We strive to prevent service interruptions or loss of service for you and so all service renewal settings are set to be automatically renewed to prevent these occurrences. This automatic renewal option is triggered upon expiration of the current applicable service and automatically renews the applicable service for a period equal to the initial period. Payment for the renewal period is taken from the payment method currently on file with us at our then current rates, which you acknowledge and agree may be higher or lower than the original rate for the applicable service (multiple attempts to collect from the payment method on file will be attempted in order to prevent service interruptions or loss of service, and may also be attempted in order to reactivate after expiration). The automatic renewal is the default setting for all renewals so if you do not wish your current service to be extended, you must manually disable the automatic renewal setting. If you wish to view the account renewal settings applicable to you, simply log into your control panel to review your products. You may choose to disable the automatic renewal option and if you also fail to manually renew your service before it expires, you may experience a service interruption or a complete loss of service and you acknowledge and agree that we will not be liable for any losses to you or any third party arising out of such service interruption or loss.

F. Ancillary Products

Hosterium may, from time to time, offer customers the option to add services to their account (e.g. SiteLock) and shall pass along, to its customers, the terms under which the product is sold or subscribed. For example, if the terms of sale include no refund on an early termination, the customer shall receive no refund from either Hosterium or the product vendor in the event of an early termination by customer.

G. Trial Hosting on Hosterium

Hosterium is offering to new customers, for a limited time, the opportunity to experience Hosterium services on a trial basis--free of charge--for a period of 3 days. After this 3 day period, the free trial ends and the customer has the option to remain with Hosterium and select a hosting plan that meets his needs or terminate the hosting services completely.

If the customer chooses to remain with Hosterium, he can accomplish this in two ways:

the customer can do nothing and the plan will automatically renew prior to the end of the free trial period; or
the customer can affirmatively upgrade to a paid plan and indicate his acceptance of the plan and his agreement to becoming a customer.

If the customer decides to cancel the free trial period and not become a paying customer of Hosterium, he can cancel the trial period at any time. He can also reinstate at any time prior to the free trial expiration date.

Cancellation will automatically occur if the customer violates the Terms of Service at any time during the free trial period.
Cancellation will also automatically occur if the customer billing information is no longer valid at the end of the free trial period.

II. 99.9% Uptime Guarantee

Hosterium guarantees that your website will be up and running at least 99.9% of the time during any 12-month period.This guarantee includes network uptime, server uptime, web server and service uptime. It does not cover any areas where Hosterium has no direct influence, such as backbone provider failures, fibre-optic main line cuts, DNS or Registrar issues with subscriber's domain name, routing issues between subscriber location and Hosterium data center. The uptime guarantee is also not applicable if the service interruption was caused by external issues such as Acts of God, Wars or any other natural or unnatural events that Hosterium cannot directly influence.

To request a service credit due to an uptime concern, please submit a request for this guarantee via Hosterium's "Contact Us"

If requesting a "service credit" we ask that subscriber briefly explains the reasons for doing so.

III. Use of Website

A. Prohibition of Adult Content

Subscribers of Hosterium's services are prohibited from storing or posting adult content, or links to adult content, through the subscribed service. All material of pornographic nature is considered adult content. Online image galleries whose primary purpose is the public display of fine art or artistic mediums are not considered to be adult content.

B. Prohibition of Protected Healthcare Information

Subscribers of Hosterium's services are prohibited from creating, receiving, maintaining, transmitting and/or having access, custody or control of any Protected Healthcare Information as defined under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability of 1996 Act ("HIPAA").

C. Prohibition of Offensive Behavior

Racist, intolerant, "hate", defamatory, "stalking", invitations to fight, threatening or any communication of any nature that we decide, in our sole discretion, as being improper, will result in service termination without prior notice.

D. Age Requirements on Purchases

All subscribers must be of adult age in the subscribers' jurisdiction to make purchases on this site. Parents or guardians of minors may make purchases on behalf of their minor children/wards but are solely responsible for the direct supervision of their children/wards while their minors visit the site or use any of the tools or services that the site provides.

E. Intellectual Property Provisions

Subscribers of Hosterium's services are prohibited from storing or posting content or links to content that infringe, or otherwise violate the intellectual property rights of third parties (e.g. trademark, patent or copyright infringements).

All content provided within or via this site is protected by US, EU and international copyright laws, patent laws, trademark regulations and laws, and various intellectual property laws and international treaties and agreements. No intellectual property of any nature contained within or via this Site may be copied, published, reverse engineered, decompiled, exchanged, traded, or broadcast in any way without the written permission of the content owner.

V. SPAM and Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE)

Hosterium takes a zero tolerance approach to the sending of Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) or SPAM through our network and services. Customers of Hosterium may not use, or permit others to use, our network to partake in UCE distribution. Customers of Hosterium may not host or permit hosting of sites or information that is advertised by UCE from other networks.

Upon notification of an alleged violation of our SPAM policy, Hosterium will initiate an immediate investigation. During the investigation, Hosterium may restrict customer access to the network to prevent further violations. Subscriber will thereafter be advised of the situation. If a subscriber is found to be in violation of this TOS, Hosterium may, at its sole discretion, unilaterally restrict, suspend or terminate the violating customer's account. Further, Hosterium reserves the right to pursue civil remedies for any costs associated with the investigation of a substantiated policy violation. Hosterium will notify law enforcement officials if the violation is believed to be a criminal offense.

VI. Prohibited Scripts and Applications

Hosterium strictly prohibits the use of certain scripts which may overwhelm server resources due to the inherent nature of the script itself or by defect in the coding of the script. If a user script is found to be in violation of this clause, the user may be requested to remove the script and/or the user account may be suspended for further review.

VII. Payment

Establishment of this service is dependent upon receipt of payment of stated charges by Hosterium. Subsequent payments are due on the anniversary date of the month for that month's service or whichever is the selected billing cycle.

If non-refundable credits are applied to you hosting product, they will only be applied after the order is validated and processed.

VIII. One-Click Purchases

Hosterium may, from time to time, offer customers the option to add services to their account that can be purchased with one click. Any services purchased this way will be charged to the billing profile that has most recently been charged.

IX. Failure to Pay

Hosterium may temporarily deny or terminate service upon the failure of the subscriber to pay the charges when due. Such termination or denial will not relieve the subscriber of responsibility for the payment of all accrued charges and any collection fees.

X. Account Cancellation

A subscriber may cancel his account at any time online via his account control panel's "Billing Options". If requesting a cancellation, we ask that subscriber briefly explains the reasons for doing so, as well as any suggestions on how Hosterium could improve service. The cancellation will take effect immediately and the subscriber's account will remain active until the end of the subscription.

XI. Subscriber Acknowledgement

Subscriber acknowledges that in the event of a merger, acquisition or sale of all or a portion of Hosterium assets, your account, products and services may be transferred as part of the transaction and no consent of such transfer is required.

Subscriber acknowledges that the service provided is of such a nature that the service can be interrupted for many reasons other than the negligence of Hosterium and that damages resulting from any interruption of service are impossible to ascertain. Therefore, subscriber agrees that Hosterium shall not be liable for any damages arising from such causes beyond the direct and exclusive control of Hosterium.

Subscriber further acknowledges that the Hosterium's liability for its own negligence may not in any event exceed an amount equivalent to charges payable by subscriber for services during the period damages occurred. In no event shall Hosterium be liable for any special or consequential damages, loss or injury.

XII. Change of Nameservers

In cases of new hosting accounts or additions / modifications to hosted domain names or any other cases which involve the change of nameservers of a domain from other DNS servers to Hosterium's DNS servers, there may occasionally be a delay of several days, weeks or longer depending on the accessibility of control options at the respective registrar of the domain name registration. It is possible that if the registrar (or the entity having control over the domain registration) is not cooperative, the domain nameservers can not be changed at all. Due to the unpredictable nature of the nameserver change process, no guarantees are made regarding the amount of time a specific change may take. On customer request, nameserver change of domain names is done by Hosterium on behalf of the account holder. In such cases, a successful change of nameservers cannot be guaranteed in any way or fashion as it solely depends on the accessibility or cooperation by the domain name registration's registrar.

XIII. Support Boundaries

Some of Hosterium services may require a certain level of knowledge in the use of Internet languages, protocols, and software, while other services may be handled for you. This level of knowledge varies depending on the anticipated use and desired content of subscriber's website or the services to which you subscribe.

XIV. Network

A. IP Address Ownership

If Hosterium assigns a subscriber an IP address for use with the subscription, the right to use that IP address shall belong only to Hosterium and the subscriber shall have no right to use that IP address except as permitted by Hosterium. Hosterium shall maintain and control ownership of all IP numbers and addresses, in accordance with ARIN rules and guidelines, which may be sub-assigned or allocated to subscribers by Hosterium. Hosterium reserves the right to change or remove all such IP numbers and addresses in its sole and absolute discretion, at any time.

B. Data Transfer

Subscriber agrees that bandwidth shall not exceed the maximum number of megabytes per month for the service plan subscribed by the customer ("Agreed Usage"). Hosterium will monitor subscriber's bandwidth. Hosterium shall have the right to take corrective action if subscriber's bandwidth exceeds the Agreed Usage. Such corrective action may include the assessment of additional charges, disconnection or discontinuance of any and all services, or termination of this Agreement, which actions may be taken is in Hosterium's sole and absolute discretion, at any time deemed necessary by Hosterium. If Hosterium takes any corrective action under this section, subscriber shall be entitled to a pro-rated refund of any fees paid in advance prior to such action. In any case, subscriber will be warned of approaching or exceeded resource limits via email by Hosterium's automated notification system.

C. System and Network Security

Subscribers or any network users are prohibited from violating or attempting to violate the security of Hosterium's network or any and all components there in. Violations of system or network security may result in civil or criminal liability. Hosterium will investigate occurrences which may involve such violations and may involve and cooperate with law enforcement authorities in prosecuting subscribers who are involved in such violations. These violations include, but are not limited to:

Accessing data not intended for such subscriber or logging into a server or account, which such subscriber is not authorized to access.
Attempting to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network or to breach security or authentication measures without proper authorization.
Attempting to interfere with service to any subscriber, host or network, including, without limitation, via means of overloading, "flooding", "mail bombing" or "crashing".
Forging any TCP/IP packet header or any part of the header information in any e-mail or newsgroup posting.
Taking any action in order to obtain services to which subscriber is not entitled.

D. Use of Dedicated IPs

Subscriber agrees to only use a dedicated IP address for hosting domain names that are registered. Additionally, the domain must either point to Hosterium's nameservers, or the A record must point to the dedicated IP address assigned to that domain in the control panel.

E. Network Access - SPAM or Denial of Service Complaints

Hosterium reserves the right to drop, suspend or terminate services for the section of IP space involved in SPAM or Denial-of-Service complaints if it is clear that the offending activity is causing great harm to parties on the Internet, or for which such IP space has become blacklisted. In particular, if open relays are on your network or a customer's network or if denial of service attacks are originating from your network. In certain rare cases, we may have to do this before attempting to contact the subscriber. Hosterium will contact the subscriber as soon as it is feasible.

XV. Suspension of Service or Cancellation

Hosterium reserves the right to suspend network access to any subscriber if in the judgment of Hosterium, the subscriber's account is the source or target of a violation of any of the terms of the TOS, or for any other reason which Hosterium deems necessary.

If inappropriate or illegal activity is detected or brought to our attention by a third party, all accounts of the subscriber in question will be deactivated until our investigation is complete. Multiple violations of the TOS will result in permanent suspension of the account without refund of any fee. With complaints of infringing or illegal content, a single complaint may be deemed sufficient for permanent suspension of the alleged infringing product. If multiple complaints of infringing or illegal content are received involving two or more products, all products under that customer's ownership and/or control are subject to permanent suspension. Prior notification to the subscriber is not assured. In extreme cases, law enforcement will be contacted regarding the activity. The subscriber may not be credited for the time the subscriber's machines were suspended if the subscriber is found to be at fault. The subscriber is also responsible for maintaining a backup of his current data at all times and no backups will be provided.

XVI. Miscellaneous Provisions

Subscriber must provide Hosterium real and current contact information at all times. E-mail address, telephone and fax contacts are used, and in that order of preference.

Hosterium takes no responsibility for any material placed on its network by others. Hosterium is not responsible for the content of any other websites linked to. Links to other sites are provided as Internet navigation tools only. Hosterium disclaims any responsibility for any inappropriate use and any liability to any person or party for any other person or party's violation of this policy.
Hosterium's subscribers are not permitted to run IRC servers.
Furthermore, Hosterium reserves the right (but is not obligated) to, review the content posted via the service and may refuse or remove any such content in its sole discretion, without notice at any time.

XVII. Disclosure to Law Enforcement

The TOS specifically prohibits the use of our service for illegal activities. Therefore, subscriber agrees that Hosterium may disclose any and all subscriber information including assigned IP numbers, account history, account use, etc. to any court or law enforcement agency that requests such information, upon receipt of a subpoena, warrant or other legally binding order, without consent or notification to the subscriber.

XVIII. Indemnification

Each party (the "Indemnifying Party") hereby indemnifies the other party (the "Indemnified Party"), its officers, directors, employees and agents, and agrees to defend and hold them harmless from and against any and all liability, damage, loss or expense (including reasonable attorneys fees) arising from any claim, demand, action or proceeding based upon the alleged breach or untruthfulness of any of the Indemnifying Party's representations or warranties, or incurred in the settlement or avoidance of any such claim, provided, however, that the Indemnified Party shall give prompt notice to the Indemnifying Party of the assertion of any such claims and provided further that Indemnifying Party shall have the right to select counsel and control the defense thereof, subject to right of the Indemnified Party to participate therein.

XIX. Severability

If any provision of this TOS shall be held to be invalid or unenforceable for any reason, the remaining provisions shall continue to be valid and enforceable. If a court finds that any provision of this TOS is invalid or unenforceable, but that by limiting such provision it would become valid and enforceable, then such provision shall be deemed to be written, construed, and enforced as so limited.

XXI. Prohibited Persons (Countries, Regions, Entities, and Individuals)

Certain entities and individuals are prohibited from registering for and using our services pursuant to export and control laws and trade and economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. or other governments, as applicable. By using our services you represent and warrant that you are not located in a Sanctioned Country/Region or listed as an SDN. Unless otherwise provided with explicit written permission, Hosterium also does not register, and prohibits the use of any of our services in connection with, any Country-Code Top Level Domain Name ("ccTLD") for any Sanctioned Country/Region.

XXII. Data Integrity

The subscriber is responsible for keeping a complete and current copy of their website files as a backup on a remote system (not solely on Hosterium servers).

Hosterium is NOT RESPONSIBLE for any lost files, information or data.

Hosterium makes regular internal backups of internal system configurations and databases. These backups are NOT intended for keeping backups of subscriber systems.

Although Hosterium backups may include subscriber sites and information for disaster recovery purposes, these backups are not to be relied on by the subscriber. Hosterium does not guarantee to possess the most current copy of a subscriber's website in its own backups.

XXVI. Hosterium - Additional Services

Hosterium has partnered with third-party vendors to bring you special products and/or special deals. If you have purchased or subscribed to any of the products listed below, please visit the product's website to view their respective terms and conditions.