Acceptable Use Policy

Legal: Acceptable Use Policy

This "Acceptable Use Policy" or "AUP" of Serverminds, Inc., a West Virginia corporation, applies to Serverminds and all other divisions and identities used by Serverminds, Inc. and references hereinafter to Serverminds includes reference to the foregoing terms.
This AUP is designed to provide a clear understanding of the rules, regulations, and restrictions on the use of the Services, Network, Servers, and IP Addresses of Serverminds. Serverminds may, from time to time at the sole discretion of Serverminds, impose rules, regulations, or restrictions not expressly stated in this AUP on the use of the Services, Network, Servers, and IP Addresses of Serverminds. Serverminds may, from time to time at the sole discretion of Serverminds, modify this AUP and such modification shall become immediately effective upon posting of the modified AUP to www.serverminds.com or by notification to you of the modified AUP. This AUP is not exhaustive.

Hereinafter, "Services" is defined as any offering of Serverminds including, without limitation, those managed, in whole or in part, for you by Serverminds, "Servers" is defined as any CPU based hardware platform of Serverminds including, without limitation, those managed, in whole or in part, for you by Serverminds, "IP Addresses" is defined as any publicly routable IPv4 32-bit or IPv6 128-bit Internet Protocol address assigned by Serverminds to you as part of the Services or Servers provided to you by Serverminds, and "Network" is defined as the connection provided by Serverminds to routing and/or switching equipment.

By registering for or using the Services, Network, Servers, or IP Addresses provided to you by Serverminds, you accept and agree to abide by the terms and conditions of the "Terms of Service" or "TOS" of Serverminds, the rules, regulations, and restrictions of the "Acceptable Use Policy" or "AUP" of Serverminds and the laws of the cities, states, and countries wherein the Services, Network, Servers, or IP Addresses of Serverminds are located which are hereby incorporated into this AUP. Solicitation of any illegal act on, to, from, or through the Services, Servers, or IP addresses provided to you by Serverminds, whether performed or not, is a violation of this AUP.

Activity which results in the suspension or deactivation of an account will result in a forfeiture of all fees paid. Complaints made regarding abuses of an account will be investigated and if found guilty will be grounds for immediate suspension.

To report suspected abuses or any violations of these policies, please contact our abuse department at abuse@serverminds.com

Right of Refusal

Serverminds reserves the right to refuse service to anyone at any time, at the sole discretion of Serverminds.

Illegal Use

Services provided by Serverminds may be used for lawful purposes only. Use of these services is governed by the laws of West Virginia as well as any applicable United States federal laws. Transmission, storage, or distribution of any information, data or material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: copyrighted material, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property used or distributed without proper authorization by the owner of said content, prescription drug sales, depictions of child abuse or molestation, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat. The subscriber to Services provided by Serverminds agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Serverminds from any claims resulting from the use of the service that damages the subscriber or any other party.

 

Other prohibited use

In addition to that which is explicitly prohibited by the laws governing your use of this service, ServerMinds also explicitly prohibits the use of its systems or networks to disseminate content depicting simulated child abuse or molestation of any sort, or any content which could be construed to promote or induce child abuse. Any violations of the prohibited use policy or violations of applicable laws will result in immediate account termination and in some cases referral to law enforcement. Sending bulk email is also expressly prohibited and will lead to account termination. Furthermore, any conduct which does or may lead to disruptions in service to ServerMinds systems or networks may result in immediate termination. This includes, but is not limited to, activities which are likely to cause denial of service attacks to target ServerMinds systems or networks.

Security

Violations of system or network security are prohibited, and may result in criminal and civil liability. Examples include, but are not limited to the following: Unauthorized access, use, probe, or scan of a systems security or authentication measures, data or traffic. Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks. Forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting. Any attempt to circumvent security measures in place on ServerMinds systems or networks will result in immediate account termination.

 

Resource Limits

Each client is allocated resources based upon the plan for which they have signed up and paid.

• Clients are to make a good faith effort to stay within those resource limits.
• Client accounts may be disabled should those limits be exceeded.
• Any client wishing to increase their assigned limits may upgrade to a higher plan at any time and receive a pro-rate towards their upgraded level of service based upon their current remaining service balance.
• Clients found to be attempting to circumvent resource limits will be immediately terminated.
• Clients are responsible for any overages or additional fees that may be incurred as a direct or indirect result of exceeding their resource limits.

 

Policy enforcement and resolution

Violations of this AUP are, at the sole discretion of Serverminds, enforced by issuance of a Policy Enforcement notice to the registered contact email addresses of the Services, Network, Servers, or IP Addresses and, additionally, may be issued to the registered abuse contact email addresses of the Services, Network, Servers, or IP Addresses. It is your responsibility to be able to receive e-mail messages from abuse@serverminds.com abuse contact email addresses. Failure to receive a Policy Enforcement notice does not limit the right of enforcement by Serverminds of this AUP or your responsibility to resolve violations of this AUP in a manner acceptable to Serverminds.

You must remove all domains, sites, users, or exploits causing a violation of this AUP from the Services, Network, Servers, and IP Addresses of Serverminds. You must reconfigure, harden, or remove any improperly configured or insecure software causing a violation of this AUP. However, Serverminds may, at the sole discretion of Serverminds, access any managed Server or Service of Serverminds or require and/or force root access to any self-managed Server or Service of Serverminds to remove the cause of an abuse or reconfigure, harden, or remove any improperly configured or insecure software. You must reply to the Policy Enforcement notice within the time frame given in the notice with appropriate comments, questions, or actions to resolve the violations cited in the notice. Depending on the violation type, severity, history, quantity of complaints, upstream provider requirements, and other factors, your Services, Network, Servers, or IP Addresses may be:

 

• Monitored for further Violations of this policy.
• Disconnected, Null-Routed after the number of hours as indicated in this policy, or within the Policy Enforcement notice.
• Required to Submit a Reload ticket with or without Data Recovery.
• Required to remove current end-user-client from all Services.
• Placed on a 14 Day Probation.
• Reviewed for Probation Violation
• Cancellation of all services with or without prior notification

Client Responsibility

You are solely responsible, without limitation, for the management, administration, and security of the Services, Netowrk, Servers, and IP Addresses provided to you by Serverminds, for any and all data stored or transmitted on, to, from, or through the Services, Network, Servers, and IP Addresses provided to you by Serverminds, and for all passwords provided to you by Serverminds.
If you have an active subscription to "Managed Servers", Serverminds is responsible for the management, administration and security of software and/or hardware installed and/or provided by Serverminds while you are responsible for the management, administration and security of software installed by you and/or your clients.

Should it become necessary for Serverminds to perform, at your request, any management, administration, or security work on the Services, Network, Servers, or IP Addresses provided to you by Serverminds to resolve a violation of this AUP in a manner acceptable to Serverminds, you agree to pay Serverminds $125.00 USD per hour one-hour minimum for any management, administration, or security work performed.

Definition of SPAM

Uploading, posting, emailing, transmitting or otherwise making available any UNSOLICITED or unauthorized advertising, or promotional materials where examples of these include but are not limited to "junk mail," "instant messaging," "chain letters," "pyramid schemes," or any other form of unauthorized solicitation from or through Serverminds Services, Network, Servers, and IP Addresses or using an email address or system that is maintained by Serverminds is STRICTLY prohibited.
Serverminds will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. If you engage in any of the foregoing activities using the service of another ISP or IPP, but channeling activities through Serverminds Services, Network, Servers, and IP Addresses as a mail drop for responses, you are in violation.
Violators will be assessed a minimum of $200.00 fine and will face an immediate suspension and/or termination.

Contact Information

You are responsible for maintaining your contact information Client Control Panel (InQontrol) such that your registered contact email address is always reachable even in the event of disconnection of the Services, Servers, or IP Addresses provided to you by Serverminds.

Network Performance

Serverminds services operate on shared resources. Excessive use or abuse of these shared network resources by one customer may have a negative impact on all other customers. Misuse of network resources in a manner which impairs network performance is prohibited by this policy and may result in termination of your account.

You are prohibited from excessive consumption of resources, including CPU time, memory, disk space and session time. You may not use resource-intensive programs which negatively impact other customers or the performances of Serverminds systems or networks. Serverminds reserves the right to terminate or limit such activities.

Billing

You are responsible for paying for any network resources used to connect the Services, Network, Servers, and IP Addresses provided to you by Serverminds to the Internet. Pursuant to the Terms of Service of Serverminds, you may request that the Services, Network, Servers, and IP Addresses provided to you by Serverminds be disconnected from the Internet. However, you remain responsible for paying for any network resources used up to the time of disconnection.

Data liability and responsibility

You are solely liable and responsible for any and all data stored or transmitted on, to, from or through the services provided to you by Serverminds.

Prosecution and Fines

Serverminds cooperates fully with Law Enforcement agencies in the investigation and prosecution of criminal activity and operates a zero tolerance policy for violations of this Acceptable Use Policy. We reserve the right to levy fines of $500 to $10.000 USD per incident for any violation of this Acceptable Use Policy.

Actions taken by Serverminds

The failure by a customer to meet or follow any of the above policies/terms is grounds for account deactivation. Serverminds will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of the AUP. Serverminds reserves the right to remove any account without prior notice.

When Serverminds becomes aware of an alleged violation of its AUP, Serverminds will initiate an investigation. During the investigation, Serverminds may restrict customer's access in order to prevent further potentially unauthorized activity. Depending on the severity of the violation, Serverminds may, at its sole discretion, restrict, suspend, or terminate customer's service and/or pursue other civil remedies. If such violation is a criminal offense, Serverminds will notify the appropriate law enforcement authorities of such violation.

Serverminds does not issue credits for outages incurred through service disablement resulting from AUP violations.
Serverminds customers agree to indemnify and hold harmless Serverminds from any claims resulting from the use of our services that damages them or any other party. The Serverminds service is provided on an as is, as available basis without warranties of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not limited to, warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. Serverminds expressly disclaims any representation or warranty that the Serverminds service will be error-free, secure or uninterrupted. No oral advice or written information given by Serverminds, its employees, licensors or the like, will create a warranty; nor may you rely on any such information or advice. Serverminds and its partners and suppliers will not be liable for any cost or damage arising either directly or indirectly from any transaction or use of the service.