Acceptable Use Policy – World Visions Internet Services, LLC

WVIS Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

This World Visions Internet Services Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) describe the proper kinds of conduct and prohibited uses of World Visions Internet Services’ hosting services (the “Services”). This AUP is not exhaustive and World Visions Internet Services reserves the right to modify this AUP at any time, effective upon posting of the modified AUP at www.wvis.net. By registering for and using the Services, and thereby accepting the terms and conditions of this AUP, you agree to abide by these conditions as modified from time to time. Any violation of the AUP may result in the suspension or termination of your account or such other action as World Visions Internet Services deems appropriate.

Server Abuse

Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server, or customer of World Visions Internet Services is strictly prohibited.

Unauthorized use of other people’s accounts or computers. World Visions Internet Services will strongly react to any use or attempted use of an Internet account or computer without the owner’s authorization. Such attempts include “Internet scamming” (tricking other people into releasing their passwords), password robbery, security hole scanning etc.

Any unauthorized use of accounts or computers by a World Visions Internet Services customer, whether or not the attacked account or computer belongs to World Visions Internet Services, will result in action against the attacker. Possible actions include warnings, account suspension or cancellation, and civil or criminal legal action, depending on the seriousness of the attack.

IMPORTANT NOTE – World Visions Internet Services has the right to discontinue service, or deny access to anyone who violates our Acceptable Use Policies or the terms and conditions shown below WITHOUT WARNING OR PRIOR NOTICE. No refunds or fees paid will be made if account termination is due to violation of the terms outlined below.

Unacceptable uses also include, but are NOT limited to: Bulk emailing, unsolicited emailings, newsgroup spamming, pornographic content, illegal content, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, warez, cracks, software serial numbers, and/or anything else determined by World Visions Internet Services to be unacceptable use of World Visions Internet Services’ services including abuse of server resources.

All hosting accounts may be terminated that include the following content or which have links to the following content:

Providing material that is grossly offensive to the Web community including blatant expressions of bigotry, racism or hatred.
Promoting or providing instructional information about illegal activities, or promoting physical harm or injury against any group or individual.
Displaying material that exploits children under 18 years of age.
Acts of copyright infringement including offering pirated computer programs or links to such programs, information used to circumvent manufacturer-installed copy-protect devices, including serial or registration numbers for software programs, or any type of cracker utilities.
Exporting encryption software over the Internet or otherwise, to points outside the United States.
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.
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. Any account that is deactivated by the abuse team will be charged the following reactivation fees:
1st offense – $25.00
2nd offense – $100.00
3rd offense – $500.00 + Account termination

This fee will only be waived if it is determined by the abuse team that the account was disabled without cause.

Abuse of Unlimited Traffic

World Visions Internet Services’ customers are privileged to be offered unlimited traffic for their web sites. The intention of World Visions Internet Services is to provide a large space to serve web documents, not an off site storage area for electronic files. All (90%) of your web pages (html) must be ‘linked’ with files (.GIF, .JPEG, etc.) stored on World Visions Internet Services’ server. Web sites that are found to contain either/or no html documents, a large number of unlinked files are subject to warning, suspension or cancellation at the discretion of World Visions Internet Services management. Any customer who violates World Visions Internet Services’ Policies in abusing either space/site transfer will be notified and given 2 days to remedy the problem. If the problem is not resolved within the allotted period, the client will be billed for the overages.

To maintain the integrity of our shared hosting service the following limitations apply:

Sites with banners, graphics or cgi scripts running from their domain used on other domains. Sites with picture galleries (This is any site where 50% of the files transferred is graphics) Sites offering download files or archives. (This is any site where 50% or more of there monthly traffic is from file downloads). Sites using more than 30% of system resources for longer than 60 seconds. Sites running multimedia files (QuickTime, Real Audio, Real Video, MP3).

For those that do not qualify for the unlimited service, traffic will go unmonitored until you reach 20 GB per month. Thereafter, normal data transfer cost of $10.00/1GB/month will be billed to your account. If you want to pre-pay for bandwidth overages, you will be billed $5.00/1GB/month.

You will receive an e-mail notice detailing your bandwidth usage if abuse is suspected.

You will have 7 days to visit http://www.wvis.net to pay for your overages. If you do not pay for your overages your site will be disabled within 7 days of your first notice.

World Visions Internet Services will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.

Unsolicited Email (Spam)

Unsolicited commercial advertisement (spamming) is not allowed in e-mail, and will result in account cancellation.

World Visions Internet Services takes a zero-tolerance approach to spam originating from our servers or for spam advertising of domains hosted on our servers.

The following activities are not allowed:

Unsolicited bulk or commercial messages (“spam”). This includes, but is not limited to, bulk mailing of commercial advertising, informational announcements, charity requests, petitions for signatures, and political or religious tracts. Such messages may only be sent to those who have explicitly requested it from your domain.
Forging, altering or removing electronic mail headers is prohibited. Any domain sending stealth spam will be terminated without warning and without refund.
Sending numerous copies of the same or substantially similar message with the intent to disrupt a server or account (“mail bombing”).
Spamming Newsgroups: Commercial advertisements are unwelcome in most Usenet discussion groups and on most e-mail mailing lists. Inappropriate posting may result in account cancellation. See the newsgroup or mailing list’s charter for whether advertising is allowed or not. “Spamming,” or sending a message to many different off-topic newsgroups, is particularly unethical and will be treated as such.
Mail may not be used to harass or intimidate others. Harassment, whether through language, frequency of messages, or size of messages, is prohibited. Sending a single unwelcome message may be considered harassment. If a recipient asks to stop receiving e-mail, you must not send that person any further messages.
Providing spamware (software used to send bulk email or software used to harvest email addresses) or links to sites providing spamware is strictly prohibited and subject to demand for removal or account cancellation.

Note: If you use the services of another provider (including but not limited to the use of address lists obtained from a third party vendor or provider) to promote a web site hosted by or through World Visions Internet Services (spamvertising), then the provisions of the above Policy shall apply as if the spam were sent through our servers.

Penalty: Depending on the severity of your SPAMMING, World Visions Internet Services reserves the right to charge you between $1.00 – $100.00 PER SPAM sent through our network. Your web site content will also be confiscated and it will be NEVER returned to you.

CGI Scripts

Our managed hosting sites come with its own cgi-bin, in which you are free to use almost any CGI scripts you wish. All CGI scripts (Perl scripts with a .pl or .cgi extension) are subject to approval by our server Administrators.

Server Resource Abuse

All our accounts are limited in use of the amount of server resources. Server resource abuse includes any process or service usage that affects normal server operation, resources or connectivity, and which causes a server to become overloaded. Server resources include CPU and memory usage, number of concurrent processes, number of concurrent port or database connections and total bandwidth. Possible causes of server resource abuse include, but are not limited to, the use of: CGI, Perl, Sendmail, mySQL, MSSQL, PHP, ASP, COLDFUSION, HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and FTP. If server resource abuse is detected, possible actions include, but are not limited to: disabling of the offending script or scripts, disabling of the specific service, disabling of the entire account or account cancellation. If server overload is a result of server resource abuse, these actions will be taken without prior notice or warning.

Child Pornography

Our policy on child pornography is zero tolerance. World Visions Internet Services will cooperate fully with any criminal investigation into a Customer’s violation of the Child Protection Act of 1984 concerning child pornography. Customers are ultimately responsible for the actions of their clients over the World Visions Internet Services network, and will be liable for illegal material posted by their clients.

According to the Child Protection Act, child pornography includes photographs, films, video or any other type of visual presentation that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years or any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years.

Violations of the Child Protection Act may be reported to the U.S. Customs Agency at 1-800-BEALERT

Chat Rooms

We do not allow clients to install their own chat rooms within a hosting account, without approving it with the World Visions Internet Services Support Team. Most chat rooms tend to be large system hogs and we cannot allow it as an account option. However, we do provide a choice of Java chat rooms for a small extra charge that will more than fill your needs and run without hindering the performance of the machine for others. Note: Parachat chat rooms do not apply to this rule. They are perfectly fine to install.

Abuse of SMTP Mail Server

We do not allow clients to send more than 2000 pieces of e-mail per day from a shared hosting account. If you do send more than 2000 pieces of e-mail per day, your account will be placed on hold for Network Abuse. If you are sending legitimate e-mails and they total more than 2000 per day your account will be charged $50.00/month in addition to your regular hosting charges. Please contact admin@wvis.net if your needs are at this level.

Background Running Programs

We may allow programs to run continually in the background. These are considered on a one-to-one basis and an extra charge will be incurred based on system resources used and operational maintenance needed. (this section does not apply to managed dedicated servers)

IRC

We currently do not allow IRC IRC clients or IRC bots to be operated on any of our servers. In addition, IRC servers are not permitted on our network. Anyone found to be in violation of this policy risks immediate account termination.

Excessive Use/Overages

You will not exceed the bandwidth, storage and E-mail usage limits outlined by your particular web hosting package. If you use any bandwidth or storage space in excess of the agreed upon number of megabytes per month or if you exceed E-Mail storage and attachment size limitations, World Visions Internet Services may, in its sole discretion, assess you with additional charges. If World Visions Internet Services elects to take any corrective action, World Visions Internet Services will not refund any unused pre-paid fees. Your use of your account and access to it is your responsibility. You are responsible for any unauthorized access to your account resulting in bandwidth, storage and/or E-mail usage exceeding the limits outlined in your particular web hosting package specifications and resultant charges. Bandwidth overages are currently billed at $10/GB/month. Disk space overages are currently billed at $.25/MB/month. Email attachments overages are currently billed at $.10 per email over 10MB.

Payment Policies

All accounts are set up on a pre-pay basis. Setup fees are charged for all new accounts and major account changes and are non-refundable. All pricing is guaranteed for the term of pre-payment. World Visions Internet Services reserves the right to change prices at any time, unless other terms have been agreed upon. Credit card accounts are subject to login deactivation upon the card declining for charges within 48 hours of email notification. Any account not brought current within a week (7 days) of e-mail notice or exceeding this time frame in any way is subject to complete account deactivation. The customer is responsible for all money owed on the account from the time it was established to the time that the customer notifies World Visions Internet Services at office@wvis.net to request for termination of services. All payment is in U.S. currency. World Visions Internet Services will bill each client $50.00 per returned check, per wire transfer received and per credit card chargeback received. All World Visions Internet Services accounts are setup on anniversary billing cycles. Your particular billing cycle corresponds to the contract length that was initially chosen at setup. Your account will automatically renew at this length. There is no fee to change to a shorter billing cycle at the end of the current cycle. However, if you wish to change to a shorter billing cycle, during a current cycle, there will be a $50.00 fee. Please contact the billing department at office@wvis.net should you wish to change your anniversary billing cycle. Any account that is not brought current prior to deactivation will be charged a $25.00 reactivation fee as well as a $15.00 late charge, per domain deactivated. In addition, if your credit card declines for any reason World Visions Internet Services will charge your account an additional $1.00 service charge every time your card is declined. World Visions Internet Services may impose a debt service charge equal to one and one-half percent (1.5%) of the overdue balance (or such lesser amount as may be required by law) for each month or fraction thereof the overdue amount remains unpaid. All taxes, fees and governmental charges relating to the Services provided hereunder (other than income taxes of World Visions Internet Services) shall be paid by Customer. World Visions Internet Services accepts paper checks from customers for payment of web hosting services and fees associated with your account. However, there will be a $5.00/month processing fee for each customer paying by check. Additionally, if you decide to switch your payment method of billing cycle you will be charged a $10 processing fee for that change.

Cancellation

World Visions Internet Services reserves the right to cancel service at any time. All fees paid in advance of cancellation will be pro-rated and paid by World Visions Internet Services if World Visions Internet Services institutes its right of cancellation. Any violation of policies which results in extra costs will be billed to the customer (i.e. transfer, space etc.)

Liability and Obligations on Cancellation

If the Agreement expires or is cancelled for any reason, World Visions Internet Services is not liable to you because of the expiration or cancellation for compensation, reimbursement or damages on account of the loss of prospective profits, anticipated sales, goodwill or on account of expenditures, investments, leases or commitments in connection with your business, or for any other reason whatsoever flowing from the termination or expiration. If you terminate this Agreement, World Visions Internet Services will not relieve you of any obligations to pay fees and costs accrued before the termination date or any other amounts you owe to World Visions Internet Services under this Agreement.

IP Address Overlap

World Visions Internet Services administers the network on which customer servers reside. The customer cannot use IP addresses which were not assigned to them by World Visions Internet Services staff. Any server found using IPs which were not officially assigned will be suspended from network access until such time as the IP addresses overlap can be corrected.

Material and Product Requirements

You must ensure that all material and data placed on World Visions Internet Services’ equipment is in a condition that is “server-ready,” which is in a form requiring no additional manipulation by World Visions Internet Services. World Visions Internet Services will make no effort to validate any of this information for content, correctness or usability. If your material is not “server-ready”, World Visions Internet Services may reject this material. World Visions Internet Services will notify you of its refusal of the material and afford you the opportunity to modify the material to satisfy World Visions Internet Services’ requirements. Use of the Services requires a certain level of knowledge in the use of Internet languages, protocols and software. This level of knowledge varies depending on the anticipated use and desired content of your Web site. You must have the necessary knowledge to create and maintain a Web site. World Visions Internet Services does not provide this knowledge or customer support outside of the Services.

Intellectual Property Rights

Material accessible to you through World Visions Internet Services’ services may be subject to protection under the United States or other copyright laws, or laws protecting trademarks, trade secrets or proprietary information. Except when expressly permitted by the owner of such rights, you must not use World Visions Internet Services or its servers and network in a manner that would infringe, violate, dilute or misappropriate any such rights, with respect to any material, which you access or receive through the World Visions Internet Services network. If you use a domain name in connection with World Visions Internet Services or similar service, you must not use that domain name in violation of any trademark, service mark, or similar rights of any third party.

Network Security

Customers may not use the World Visions Internet Services network with an attempt to circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network, or account. This includes, but is not limited to, accessing data not intended for the customer, logging into a server or account the customer is not expressly authorized to access, password cracking, probing the security of other networks in search of weakness, or violation of any other organization’s security policy. Customers may not attempt to interfere or deny service to any user, host, or network. This includes, but is not limited to, flooding, mail bombing, or other deliberate attempts to overload or crash a host or network. World Visions Internet Services will cooperate fully with investigations of violations of systems or network security at other sites, including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations. Users who violate system or network security may incur criminal or civil liability. You are solely responsible for any security breaches affecting servers or accounts under your control. If your server or website is responsible for or involved in an attack on or unauthorized access into another server or system, World Visions Internet Services will shut it down immediately. You will pay any charges resulting from the cost to correct security breaches affecting World Visions Internet Services or any of its other customers.

Electronic Commerce

You will be solely responsible for the development, operation and maintenance of your online store and products and all contents and materials appearing online or on your products, including without limitation (a) the accuracy and appropriateness of content and materials appearing within the store or related to your products, (b) ensuring that the content and materials appearing within the store or related to your products do not violate or infringe upon the rights of any third party, and (c) ensuring that the content and materials appearing within the store or related to your products are not libelous or otherwise illegal. You will be solely responsible for the final calculation and application of shipping and sales tax. You will also be solely responsible for accepting, processing, and filling any customer orders, and for handling any customer inquiries or complaints arising there from.

You are also responsible for the security of any customer credit card numbers and related customer information you may access as a result of conducting electronic commerce transactions through your Web Site. You will keep all such information confidential and will use the same degree of care and security as you use with your confidential information.

Static / Dynamic Content Caching

You expressly grant to World Visions Internet Services a license to cache the entirety of your Web Site, including content supplied by third parties, hosted by World Visions Internet Services under this Agreement and (ii) agree that such caching is not an infringement of any of your intellectual property rights or any third party’s intellectual property rights.

IP Address Ownership

World Visions Internet Services shall maintain and control ownership of all IP numbers and addresses that may be assigned to you by World Visions Internet Services and World Visions Internet Services reserves, in its sole discretion, the right to change or remove any and all such IP numbers and addresses.

Domain Name Registration

Customer agrees to pay World Visions Internet Services prior to the effectiveness of the desired domain name registration, the then-current amounts set forth in the World Visions Internet Services price schedule for the initial registration of the domain name and, should Customer choose to renew the registration, subsequent renewals of the registration. All fees are non-refundable, in whole or in part, even if Customer’s domain name registration is suspended, cancelled or transferred prior to the end of Customer’s then current registration term. World Visions Internet Services reserves the right to change fees, surcharges, renewal fees or to institute new fees at any time, for any reason, at its sole discretion. Customer’s requested domain name will not be registered unless and until we receive actual payment of the registration fee, and have confirmed Customer’s registration in an email from World Visions Internet Services to the email address indicated in Customer’s registration application. In the event of a charge-back by a credit card company (or similar action by another payment provider allowed by World Visions Internet Services) in connection with the payments of the registration fee for Customer’s domain name registration, Customer agrees and acknowledges that the domain name registration shall be transferred to World Visions Internet Services as the paying entity for that registration to the registry and that we reserve all rights regarding such domain name including, without limitation, the right to make the domain name available to other parties for purchase. World Visions Internet Services will reinstate Customer’s domain name registration solely at World Visions Internet Services’ discretion, and subject to our receipt of the initial registration or renewal fee and our then-current reinstatement fee.

Copyright Infringement

DIGITAL MILLENNIUM COPYRIGHT ACT

Notice and Procedure for Making Claims of Copyright Infringement

Pursuant to Title 17, United States Code, Section 512(c)(2), all notifications of claimed copyright infringement on the World Visions Internet Services system or Web site should be sent ONLY to our Designated Agent.

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION IS PROVIDED SOLELY FOR NOTIFYING World Visions Internet Services THAT YOUR COPYRIGHTED MATERIAL MAY HAVE BEEN INFRINGED.

WE CAUTION YOU THAT UNDER FEDERAL LAW, IF YOU KNOWINGLY MISREPRESENT THAT ONLINE MATERIAL IS INFRINGING, YOU MAY BE SUBJECT TO HEAVY CIVIL PENALTIES. THESE INCLUDE MONETARY DAMAGES, COURT COSTS, AND ATTORNEYS FEES INCURRED BY US, BY ANY COPYRIGHT OWNER, OR BY ANY COPYRIGHT OWNER’S LICENSEE THAT IS INJURED AS A RESULT OF OUR RELYING UPON YOUR MISREPRESENTATION. YOU MAY ALSO BE SUBJECT TO CRIMINAL PROSECUTION FOR PERJURY.

DO NOT SEND ANY INQUIRIES UNRELATED TO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT (e.g. REQUESTS FOR TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE OR CUSTOMER SERVICE, REPORTS OF E-MAIL ABUSE, etc.) TO THE CONTACT LISTED BELOW. YOU WILL NOT RECEIVE A RESPONSE IF SENT TO THAT CONTACT.

Written notification must be submitted to the following Designated Agent:

World Visions Internet Services. LLC
6565 South C Highway

Harwood, MO 64772
928-502-2375 Office

Under Title 17, United States Code, Section 512(c)(3)(A), the Notification of Claimed Infringement must include the following:

1. Physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed or a representative list if multiple works are involved.
3. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing that should be removed or access to disabled and information reasonably sufficient to enable the online service provider to locate the material (usually a URL to the relevant page).
4. Information reasonably sufficient to allow the online service provider to contact the complaining party (address, phone number, e-mail address).
5. Statement that the complaining party has “a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law.”
6. Statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

Lawful Purpose

World Visions Internet Services reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. Customers may only use World Visions Internet Services server for lawful purpose. Transmission of any material in violation of any Federal, State or Local regulation is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to copyrighted material, material legally judged to be threatening or obscene, and material protected by trade secrets. The designation of any materials as such described above is left entirely to the discretion of World Visions Internet Services management. Regardless of the place of signing this agreement, the client agrees that for purposes of venue and jurisdiction this contract was entered into and performed in Tarrant County, Texas, and any dispute will be litigated or arbitrated in Tarrant County, Texas. Customer further waives all objections to venue or jurisdiction and acknowledges that venue and jurisdiction in any such litigation will be held in Tarrant County Courts. IN NO EVENT SHALL World Visions Internet Services’ MAXIMUM LIABILITY EXCEED FIVE HUNDRED ($500.00) DOLLARS.

Indemnification

CUSTOMER AGREES THAT IT SHALL DEFEND, INDEMNIFY, SAVE AND HOLD World Visions Internet Services HARMLESS FROM ANY AND ALL DEMANDS, LIABILITIES, LOSSES, COSTS AND CLAIMS, INCLUDING REASONABLE ATTORNEY’S FEES ASSERTED AGAINST World Visions Internet Services, 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 CUSTOMER, IT’S AGENTS, EMPLOYEES OR ASSIGNS. CUSTOMER AGREES TO DEFEND, INDEMNIFY AND HOLD HARMLESS World Visions Internet Services AGAINST LIABILITIES ARISING OUT OF; (1) ANY INJURY TO PERSON OR PROPERTY CAUSED BY ANY PRODUCTS SOLD OR OTHERWISE DISTRIBUTED IN CONNECTION WITH World Visions Internet Services’ SERVER; (2) ANY MATERIAL SUPPLIED BY CUSTOMER INFRINGING OR ALLEGEDLY INFRINGING ON THE PROPRIETARY RIGHTS OF A THIRD PARTY; ( 3) COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AND (4) ANY DEFECTIVE PRODUCTS SOLD TO CUSTOMER FROM World Visions Internet Services’ SERVER.

Disclaimer

World Visions Internet Services WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES YOUR BUSINESS MAY SUFFER. World Visions Internet Services MAKES NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED FOR SERVICES WE PROVIDE. World Visions Internet Services DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTY OR MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THIS INCLUDES LOSS OF DATA RESULTING FROM DELAYS, NON-DELIVERIES, WRONG DELIVERY, AND ANY AND ALL SERVICE INTERRUPTIONS CAUSED BY World Visions Internet Services AND ITS EMPLOYEES. World Visions Internet Services RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REVISE ITS POLICIES AT ANY TIME.

ALL SUB-NETWORKS, RESELLERS AND DEDICATED SERVERS OF World Visions Internet Services MUST ADHERE TO THE ABOVE POLICIES.

FAILURE TO FOLLOW ANY TERM OR CONDITION WILL BE GROUNDS FOR IMMEDIATE ACCOUNT DEACTIVATION.