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LARRY FISHER WEB HOSTING TERMS OF SERVICE & ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (TOS/AUP)

The use of services from Larry Fisher Web Hosting constitutes agreement to these terms.

Please review the Sphere Web Hosting Privacy Policy.

This Agreement applies to all accounts, sub-accounts, and alternative account names associated with your principal account. The Account Holder is responsible for the use of each account, whether used under any name or by any person, and for ensuring full compliance with this Agreement by all users of that account.

In most cases, if an account holder is found in violation of this TOS/AUP, Larry Fisher Web Hosting will work along with them to correct the violations. In cases where the account holder does not cooperate or does not respond to notice in a timely fashion, is operating in violation of the law, spamming, infringing on copyrighted material or abusing Larry Fisher Web Hosting servers, network, customers or employees, the account may be suspended, or if appropriate to the violation, terminated with or without notice.

Contact Information / Account Creation
We will setup your account(s) after we have received payment and have screened the order(s) for fraud. All account billing information, including e-mail and phone, must be valid at all times for the account to remain active. You must provide an e-mail address which is not served by the domain(s) you are signing up under.

If the billing information provided is found to be false, notice may or may not be given before account suspension. In dedicated server purchases or high risk transactions, it will be necessary to provide a government issued photo identification and a scan of the front and back of the credit card used for the purchase. In some cases, we may require a secondary, non-free e-mail address if a free e-mail account is used when purchasing services. If you fail to meet these requirements the order may be considered fraudulent in nature and denied.

Transfer of Website(s)
To initiate a site transfer you must register at our Support Desk and create a support ticket listing the details to access your existing account and any special instructions we will need to make a successful transfer. Larry Fisher Web Hosting provides help in the transfer of your existing website to our servers as a courtesy service, however, we can not guarantee the transfer process, its availability or the amount of time it may take. Because every host/server is configured a little differently, we may be unable to assist you in a transfer of data from an existing host.

Content
All services provided by Larry Fisher Web Hosting may only be used for lawful purposes. The laws of the States of South Carolina, Michigan, Texas, Florida and the United States of America apply.

Account holders agree to and take full responsibility for the content of their account(s) and agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Larry Fisher Web Hosting from any claims resulting from the use of our services.

Use of our services to infringe upon any copyright or trademark is prohibited. This includes but is not limited to unauthorized copying of music, books, photographs, or any other copyrighted work. The offer of sale of any counterfeit merchandise of a trademark holder will result in the immediate termination of your account. If you believe that your copyright or trademark is being infringed upon, please e-mail our Abuse Department with the following information:

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.

Some examples of unacceptable material on all Shared, Reseller, Business and Dedicated Servers include:
IRC Bots, Proxy Scripts / Anonymizers, Pirated Software / Warez, image, filedump, or banner-ad services (similar to rapidshare, photobucket, or commercial banner ad rotation), topsites, commercial audio streaming (more than one or two streams), Escrow, High-Yield Interest Programs(HYIP) or related sites, Investment sites (FOREX, egold exchange), sale of any controlled substance without prior proof of appropriate permit(s), AutoSurf sites, Bank Debentures, Bank Debenture Trading Programs, Prime Banks Programs, lottery sites, muds / rpg's, hate sites, adult (pornographic) sites, sites that promote or show graphic violence or death, sites promoting racism or bigotry, hacker focused sites/archives/programs, or sites promoting illegal activities, IP Scanners, Brute Force Programs, Mail Bombers and Spam Scripts. Forums and or websites that distribute or link to warez content is prohibited. The provisions of this section are intended as guidelines and are not meant to be exhaustive. Generally, conduct that violates law, regulation, or the accepted norms of the Internet community, whether or not expressly mentioned here, are prohibited.

Acceptable material on Dedicated Servers:
Proxy Scripts / Anonymizers, Image Hosting sites and muds / rpg's

Potential harm to minors is strictly forbidden, including but not limited to child pornography or content perceived to be child pornography (Lolita). Any site found to host child pornography or linking to child pornography will be terminated without notice.

Larry Fisher Web Hosting will not knowingly provide services to persons serving or affiliated with terrorists groups or residing in countries listed as State Sponsors of Terrorism, as defined by the United States Government. Any account(s) found in violation of this policy, by containing actual content or linking to actual content, will be terminated without notice.

Any material that, in our judgment, is obscene or threatening or otherwise violates this Agreement is prohibited and will be removed from our servers with or without notice. We will be the sole arbiters as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. Larry Fisher Web Hosting reserves the right at all times to prohibit activities that damage its commercial reputation and goodwill.

If you are unsure about the acceptability of your website or service, please contact our Abuse Department and we will be happy to assist you.

Failure to respond to an e-mail notice from our Abuse Department within 48 hours may result in the suspension, and in some cases, if appropriate to the violation, termination of your services. It is your responsibility to have an active e-mail address on file with us at all times. All abuse issues are handled through our Support Desk.

For direct customers, your services will be suspended or terminated with or without notice.

When applicable, violations will be reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency.

Users are ultimately responsible for all actions taken under their account. It is the Account Holder's responsibility to ensure that all scripts and programs installed are secure and directory/file permissions are set properly, regardless of origin or installation method. The Account Holder agrees to use secure password(s) and is responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of his/her password(s). If we discover an insecure password, we reserve the right to ask you to change it to a secure password. In the event of a breach of security through the Account Holder's account, the Account Holder must notify our Abuse Department.

No Spam Policy
We do not tolerate sending of unsolicited e-mail, bulk e-mailing, and spam. "Safe lists" and "double opt-in" will be treated as spam. Any user who sends out spam will have their account terminated with or without notice.

Sites advertised via SPAM may not be hosted on our servers. This provision includes, but is not limited to SPAM sent via fax, e-mail, instant messaging, or usenet/newsgroups. No organization or entity listed in the ROKSO may be hosted on our servers. Any account which is advertised via spam or results in our IP space being blacklisted will be immediately suspended or terminated.

Larry Fisher Web Hosting reserves the right to require changes or disable as necessary any website, account, database, or other component that does not comply with its established policies, or to make any such modifications in an emergency, at its sole discretion. This includes, but not limited to, end users of reseller accounts.

Larry Fisher Web Hosting reserves the right to charge the holder of the account used to send any unsolicited e-mail a clean up fee if necessary. Reseller account holders are the responsible account holder for their customers. The cost of the clean up fee, and whether one is charged, is at the sole discretion of Larry Fisher Web Hosting. If a clean up fee is charged it will reflect the documented effort needed to execute the clean up.

E-Mail / Mailing List Limits
The following limits apply to all domains with the exception of dedicated server accounts. Failure to comply with this section will result in account suspension or termination.

  • All mailing lists MUST comply with all guidelines set forth by the United States.

  • Any mailing list larger than 5,000 will require a dedicated server. Dividing one large list into smaller list is not allowed.

  • You must throttle all sending of mailing lists to 1 e-mail every 6 seconds (or longer). If your mailing list program does not include this feature, you must change to one that does. Causing excessive server load by not throttling your mailing lists will result in account suspension or termination.

  • Large mailing lists (over 1000) can only be sent during off-peak hours. Contact Customer Support for these times.

  • Your mailing list cannot be one purchased or given to you. This will be considered spam because the recipients did not agree to receive e-mail from you. No second chances on this. We do not allow spam. Your account will be terminated without notice, no files located on your account will be retrievable, no refunds will be given, no exceptions will be made and you will be charged a clean up fee.

  • No Direct SMTP mailers are allowed. An example of this is DarkMailer. Any mail should be relayed through the mail server for further delivery and not done directly by scripts.

  • There is a 500 hourly e-mail limit per domain.

  • There is a 60 pop checks per hour limit on all e-mail accounts.

Payment Information
Account Holder acknowledges that the nature of the service furnished and the initial rates and charges have been communicated to the Account Holder. Account Holder is aware that Larry Fisher Web Hosting reserves the right to change the specified rates, resources and fees listed on LarryFisherHosting.com.

Unless you exceed the included resources, change or upgrade your plan, the amount you pay for your hosting plan will never increase from the date of purchase. We will never decrease the included resources for your hosting plan after the date of purchase, however, we reserve the right to increase resources for exiting account holders.

You agree to supply appropriate payment for the services received from Larry Fisher Hosting, in advance of the time period during which such services are provided. You agree that until and unless you notify LarryFisherHosting of your desire to cancel any or all services received, those services will be billed on a recurring basis.

Cancellations must be done in writing by following the instructions found on the Cancellation Request Form. If you do not receive an e-mail confirming this cancellation, please contact us immediately by creating a ticket via our Support Desk and directing it to our Billing Department. Do not submit a second cancellation request via the Cancellation Request Form unless instructed to do so. Phone cancellations will not be accepted. You can read more about our cancellation policy here.

As a client of Larry Fisher Hosting, it is your responsibility to ensure that your payment and contact information is up to date, and that all invoices are paid on time. Larry Fisher Hosting provides a 7 day grace period from the time the invoice is due and when it must be paid. Any invoice that is overdue for 7 days and not paid will result in a $10 late fee and an account suspension until account balance has been paid in full. If non-payment ultimately results in termination of your account, that termination will not relieve you, the Account Holder, of the responsibility for the payment of all accrued charges, late fees and collection fees.

Invoices that have been overcharged or charged more than once due to error will be refunded to your credit card on record. No interest will be paid on that amount and the amount refunded will reflect only the amount overcharged. If you have an invoice requiring attention, please create a ticket via our Support Desk and direct it to our Billing Department.

Backups and Data Loss
Your use of the service is at your sole risk. Larry Fisher Hosting is not responsible for files or data residing on your account. You agree to take full responsibility for files and data transferred and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on Larry Fisher Hosting servers. You agree that Larry Fisher Hosting has no responsibility or liability for the deletion, corruption or failure to store any e-mail messages, databases, files or other content maintained or transmitted by any Larry Fisher Hosting service.

Larry Fisher Hosting provides a method to easily backup your data. If you require assistance please create a ticket via our Support Desk and we will be happy to assist you.

Cancellations, Refunds and Guarantees
Violations of the Terms of Service will waive the refund policy.

Customers may cancel at any time, in writing, by following the instructions found on the Cancellation Request Form. Sphere Web Hosting gives you an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee on shared and business hosting solutions. Refund requests after the initial 30 days will be refunded on a prorated basis of any unused time except for the following: There are no refunds on dedicated servers, administrative fees, install fees for custom software, domain name purchases or any other service or add-on.

Only first-time accounts are eligible for the 30 Day Money Back Guarantee. For example, if you've had an account with us before, cancel and sign up again, you will not be eligible for the 30 Day Money Back Guarantee.

Money back Guarantee
For new first time accounts only, as outlined below, Larry Fisher Hosting offers an unconditional money back guarantee:

  • 30 Days from account sign up for the first Personal Shared Hosting plan.

  • 30 Days from account sign up for the first Business Hosting plan.

  • 0 Days from account sign up for any Dedicated Server Hosting plan.

  • 0 Days from account sign up for any other purchase(s), add-on(s) or service(s).

If you are not completely satisfied with our service(s) within the time frame outlined above, you will be given a full refund of your hosting plan's fee. This is only for the first monthly shared, reseller or business packages purchased and does not apply to dedicated servers, administrative fees, install fees for custom software, add-ons or any other service fee you may have incurred. Domain names purchase from Larry Fisher Hosting remain yours and are non-refundable.

To initiate the Money Back Guarantee, you must follow the directions found on the Money Back Guarantee Form.

Uptime Guarantee
Larry Fisher Hosting strives to maintain 99.9% service availability. We do not provide or guarantee your personal connection to the internet (i.e. Your internet service provider (ISP), such as Comcast, RoadRunner, AT&T, etc.) or your personal computer or computer hardware. Our guaranteed uptime coverage is as follows:

  • Personal Shared Hosting: If your web site isn't up 99.9% within any one month period due to hardware or datacenter network failures or due to operating system or system software issues not caused by you or scripts installed by you, we will issue a credit or refund for that month. The amount of the credit or refund will be equal to your hosting plan's monthly cost. Add-ons or other services are not covered by this guarantee.

  • Business Hosting: If your web site isn't up 99.9% within any one month period due to hardware or datacenter network failures or due to operating system or system software issues not caused by you or scripts installed by you, we will issue a credit or refund for that month. The amount of the credit or refund will be equal to your hosting plan's monthly cost. Add-ons or other services are not covered by this guarantee.

  • Dedicated Server Hosting: If your server isn't up 99.9% of the time within any one month period due to hardware or datacenter network failures, we will issue a pro-rated refund for that month. The amount of the credit will be based on the actual down time and the refund cannot be greater than the monthly cost of your hosting plan. Operating System Software, software, add-ons or other services are not covered by this guarantee.

Credits or refunds shall not be provided to you in the event that you have downtime resulting from scheduled maintenance, operating system updates, server software updates, control panel updates or issues resulting from these updates, account suspensions or downtimes resulting from you or your customers own coding or applications, or circumstances beyond Larry Fisher Hosting's control, including and without limitation, acts of any governmental body, acts of God, acts of terrorism, war, insurrection, embargo, sabotage, fire, flood, labor disturbance, interruption of or delay in transportation, unavailability of interruption or delay in telecommunications or third party services (including DNS propagation), failure of your own personal hardware or our inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provisioning of services. All credits or refunds issued are at the sole discretion of Sphere Web Hosting and will not exceed the monthly cost of your hosting plan.

To initiate a credit or refund for downtime, you must complete and submit the Credit Request Form within three (3) days of your experienced downtime. Failure to request downtime credit within three (3) days of the actual downtime may result in your request being denied. Information submitted must be detailed and accurate. Best guesses and information obtained from 3rd party monitoring services will not be considered accurate.

Resource Usage
Within a shared environment, account holders may not:

  • Use 25% or more of system resources for longer then 90 seconds. There are numerous activities that could cause such usage; these include but are not limited to poorly written scripts or bad page coding. If your resource usage regularly exceeds this you have out-grown the realm of a shared hosting environment and will need to consider moving to a dedicated server.

  • Run stand-alone, unattended server-side processes at any point in time on the server. This includes any and all daemons (like IRCd).

  • Run any type of web spider or indexer (including Google Cash / AdSpy) on shared servers.

  • Run any software that interfaces with an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network.

  • Run any bit torrent application, tracker, or client. Please note that you may link to torrents off server, but may not host or store them.

  • Participate in any file-sharing/peer-to-peer activities.

  • Run any gaming servers.

  • Execute cron entries with intervals of less than 15 minutes.

File Numbers
Simply exceeding the limit below does not constitute grounds for suspension, however, accounts that constantly create and delete large numbers of files on a regular basis, cause file system damage or cause the server to crash will flag your account for review and could potentially result in your account being suspended.

50,000 Files
If your hosting plan includes backups, accounts exceeding more than 50,000 inodes (Unix) or files (Windows) on any shared plan will automatically be removed from our backup system. For Unix accounts every file on your account uses up 1 inode. For Windows accounts every file counts as 1.

Bandwidth Usage
You are allocated a monthly bandwidth allowance. This allowance varies depending on the hosting package you purchase. Should your account pass the allocated amount we reserve the right to suspend the account until the start of the next allocation, suspend the account until more bandwidth is purchased at an additional fee, suspend the account until you upgrade to a higher level of package, or charge you an additional fee for the overages. Unused transfer in one month cannot be carried over to the next month.


Shared Accounts
Shared accounts may not resell web hosting to other people.

Dedicated Servers
Larry Fisher Hosting reserves the right to reset the password on a dedicated server if the password on file is not current. It is the responsibility of the customer to ensure that there is a valid e-mail address and current root password on file for their dedicated server. We are not responsible for downtime caused by forced password resets. Sphere Web Hosting reserves the right to audit servers as needed and to perform administrative actions at the request of our datacenter.

IP Addresses
Larry Fisher Hosting assigns the Account Holder an Internet Protocol address or addresses in connection with the Account Holder's use of the Larry Fisher Hosting services, the right to use that Internet Protocol address will remain with and belong only to Larry Fisher Hosting, and the Account Holder will have no right to use that Internet Protocol address except as allowed by Larry Fisher Hosting in its sole and absolute discretion. Larry Fisher Hosting reserves the right to change assigned IP address(es) or revoke assigned IP address(es) at anytime as Larry Fisher Hosting sees fit.

System and Network 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 e-mail or a newsgroup posting.

It is a violation for anyone who, including but not limited to, employs, posts, or uses programs which consume excessive CPU time or storage space, permits the use of mail services, mail forwarding capabilities, POP accounts, or auto responders other than for their own account; to resell or give access to others any CGI scripts or other software installed on our servers.

Violation of the section will result in immediate termination of your account without notice. No files located on the offending account will be retrievable, no refunds given, no exceptions will be made.

Indemnification
Customer agrees that it shall defend, indemnify, save and hold Larry Fisher Hosting harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims, including reasonable attorney's fees asserted against Larry Fisher Hosting, 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, its agents, employees or assigns. Customer agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Larry Fisher Hosting against liabilities arising out of; (1) any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with Larry Fisher Hosting; (2) any material supplied by customer infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party; (3) copyright infringement; (4) any defective products sold to customers from Larry Fisher Hosting's server and (5) any damage, corruption or loss related to or in connection with the content of the Account Holder's website. The terms of this Section will survive any termination of this Agreement.

Arbitration
Larry Fisher Hosting and you, the customer, shall attempt to resolve any and all disputes arising out of this Agreement in a spirit of cooperation and with a problem-solving mind set, without formal proceedings. Any dispute, which cannot be so resolved, shall be subject to binding arbitration and by using any Larry Fisher Hosting Services, you are agreeing to binding arbitration. If any disputes or claims arise against Larry Fisher Hosting or its subsidiaries, such disputes will be handled by an arbitrator of Larry Fisher Hosting's choice and all notices must be delivered by registered mail, return receipt requested, with all postage charges paid. All decisions rendered by that arbitrator will be binding and final. You are also responsible for any and all costs related to such arbitration. The terms of this Section will survive any termination of this Agreement.

Disclaimer
Larry Fisher Hosting services are provided on an as is, as available basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. This includes loss of data resulting from delays, no deliveries, wrong delivery, and any and all service interruptions caused by Larry Fisher Hosting and its employees. Larry Fisher Hosting expressly disclaims any representation or warranty that the Larry Fisher Hosting services will be error-free, secure or uninterrupted. No oral advice or written information given by Larry Fisher Hosting, its employees, licensors of the like, will create a warranty; nor may you rely on any such information or advice. The terms of this Section will survive any termination of this Agreement.

Larry Fisher Hosting shall not be responsible for any damages your business may suffer. In no event shall Larry Fisher Hosting be liable to the Account Holder for any damages resulting from or related to any failure or delay of services provided by Larry Fisher Hosting. In no event shall Larry Fisher Hosting be liable to the Account Holder for any indirect, special or consequential damages or lost profits arising out of or related to this Agreement or the performance or breach thereof. The aggregate, total liability of Larry Fisher Hosting under this Agreement, if any, shall in no event or circumstance exceed the total amount actually paid by the Account Holder for one month of hosting service(s) . The terms of this Section will survive any termination of this Agreement.

Disclosure to Law Enforcement
Larry Fisher Hosting may disclose any subscriber information to law enforcement agencies without further consent or notification to the subscriber upon lawful request from such agencies. We will cooperate fully with law enforcement agencies. The terms of this Section will survive any termination of this Agreement.

Changes to the TOS
Sphere Web Hosting reserves the right to revise its policies at any time without notice. Policies become effective upon posting to spherewebhosting.com.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: Termination of an account automatically deletes all files associated with that account and therefore no files located on the offending account will be retrievable. No exceptions will be made. A Larry Fisher Hosting account may not be transferred without prior written notice to Larry Fisher Hosting and Larry Fisher Hosting review and acceptance of the new account holder.