Web Hosting Terms and Conditions

Introduction and Purpose

This document sets forth the principles, guidelines and requirements of the Acceptable Use Policy of Maine Hosting Solutions governing the use by the Customer (“Customer”) of Maine Hosting Solutions’s services and products (“Services and Products”). The Purpose of Maine Hosting Solutions’s Acceptable Use Policy, hereinafter referred to as the AUP, is to comply with all Federal, State, Provincial, and local laws coupled with protecting the server security, server availability, physical security, Customer privacy, and other factors affecting the services provided by Maine Hosting Solutions.
Maine Hosting Solutions reserves the right to impose reasonable rules and regulations regarding the use of its services provided to all Customers and such rules and regulations are subject to change. The AUP is not an all inclusive list and Maine Hosting Solutions reserves the right to modify the AUP at any time as needed. Acceptance and execution of the Master Services Agreement binds all parties to Maine Hosting Solutions’s stated AUP at the time the contract is executed and as modified from time to time. Any violation of the AUP may result in the suspension or termination of Customer account(s) or such other action as Maine Hosting Solutions deems appropriate. No credits will be issued for any interruption in service resulting from policy violations.
VIOLATION OF ANY SECTION OF THE AUP IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED AND MAY RESULT IN THE IMMEDIATE TERMINATION OR SUSPENSION OF THE SERVICES CUSTOMER RECEIVES FROM Maine Hosting Solutions.
Any questions or comments regarding the AUP should be directed to: MHS Abuse Dept.

1. Compliance with Law

Customer shall not post, transmit, re-transmit or store material on or through any of Services or Products which, in the sole judgment of Maine Hosting Solutions is (i) in violation of any local, provincial, state or federal law or regulation, (ii) threatening, obscene, indecent, defamatory or that otherwise could adversely affect any individual, group or entity (collectively, “Persons”) or (iii) violates the rights of any person, including rights protected by copyright, trade secret, patent or other intellectual property or similar laws or regulations including, but not limited to, the installation or distribution of “pirated” or other software products that are not appropriately licensed for use by Customer. Customer shall be responsible for determining what laws or regulations are applicable to its use of the Services and Products.

2. System and Network Security

Violations of system or network security are strictly prohibited, and may result in criminal and civil liability. Maine Hosting Solutions investigates all incidents involving such violations and will cooperate with law enforcement if a criminal violation is suspected.

Examples of system or network security violations include, without limitation, the following:

1. Introduction of malicious programs into the network or server (example: viruses, worms, Trojan Horses, key loggers, and other executables intended to inflict harm).
2. Effecting security breaches or disruptions of Internet communication and/or connectivity. Security breaches include, but are not limited to, accessing data of which the Customer is not an intended recipient or logging into a server or account that the Customer is not expressly authorized to access. For purposes of this section, “disruption” includes, but is not limited to port scans, flood pings, email-bombing, packet spoofing, IP spoofing and forged routing information.
3. Executing any form of network activity that will intercept data not intended for the Customer’s hosting space.
4. Circumventing user authentication or security of any host, network or account, including cracking.
5. Interfering with or denying service to any user, host, or network other than the Customer’s host (example: denial of service attack or distributed denial of service attack).
6. Conduct designed to avoid restrictions or access limits to specific services, hosts, or networks, including but not limited to the forging of packet headers (spoofing) or other identification information.
7. Using any program script/command, or sending messages of any kind, designed to interfere with or to disable, a user’s terminal session, via any means, locally or via the Internet.
8. Failing to comply with Maine Hosting Solutions’s procedure relating to the activities of Customers on the Maine Hosting Solutions premises. Violators of the policy are responsible, without limitations, for the cost of labor to correct all damage done to the operation of the network and business operations supported by the network. Such labor is categorized as emergency security breach recovery and is currently charged at $100.00 USD per hour required. Network interference by any Customers that may cause or is currently causing network interference with another Customer will be disconnected immediately. No service credits will be issued to Customers disconnected for network violations.

3. Internet Etiquette

Each Customer is expected to execute reasonable Internet Etiquette (Netiquette), the accepted behavior and expectations of the Internet community. The Customer will comply with the rules appropriate to any network to which Maine Hosting Solutions may provide access. The Customer should not post, transmit, or permit Internet access to information the Customer desires to keep confidential. The Customer is not permitted to post any material that is illegal, libelous, indecently depicts children or is likely to result in retaliation against Maine Hosting Solutions by offended users. Maine Hosting Solutions reserves the right to refuse or terminate service at any time for violation of this section. This includes advertising services or sites via IRC or USENET in clear violation of the policies of the IRC channel or USENET group.

4. Child Pornography

Maine Hosting Solutions 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 their actions over the Maine Hosting Solutions 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.

5. Copyright Infringement

Maine Hosting Solutions space may only be used for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution, or storage of any information, data or material in violation of laws, or by the common law, is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret, or other intellectual property rights; including creating, utilizing, distributing unauthorized copies of software, or the use of BitTorrent or other types of technologies utilized in the distribution of illegally copied materials. If Customer copies, distributes or installs software in defiance of the license agreement, Customer is violating federal copyright law. Maine Hosting Solutions will cooperate with all law enforcement agencies in relation to alleged copyright infringement housed on our servers.

6. Hosting Policy

Data Unlawful (see above) or Against the AUP (Acceptable Use Policy): Promoting violation of the law or the AUP by hosting data that facilitates the violation is prohibited, including but not limited to:
1. Hosting web pages that detail the methodology of committing unlawful acts, or acts violating this AUP.
2. Hosting software, scripts, or other resources intended to facilitate committing unlawful acts, or acts violating this AUP.
3. Advertising, transmitting, storing, or using any software, script, program, product, or service designed to violate this AUP.
4. Harvesting. The collection of email addresses, credit card information, or other personal information for fraudulent use or sale is prohibited.
5. Phishing. Hosting web pages with forwards to, containing scripts or executables for, or any other component of an operation designed to fraudulently collect authentication, credit card, names, addresses, or any other personal data is not permitted.
6. Spamvertised Sites. Hosting web pages advertised by spam sent from another network (spamvertised) is not permitted.
7. Users are responsible for any scripts that are uploaded into your hosting space and the security of such scripts. Any disruption to the function of the web servers or breaches of security due to insecure scripts will be cause for immediate suspension or termination of your account.
8. Domain names must be live on our servers. Your hosting space cannot be used for storage, downloads and/or bandwidth usage via IP address from outside the live site.
Acceptable Use Policy Guidelines pertaining to Website Development and Bandwidth Overages
1. Websites must be built using design best practices
2. Use of a Caching Plugin is required on all CMS Sites (ie: WP Rocket for WordPress)
3. Images must be properly sized as to not use excessive bandwidth
4. Images must be properly compressed as to not use excessive bandwidth
5. Video files must be less than 50MB, otherwise should be served off a third party like YouTube or Vimeo – This is best practice
6. Avoid Bandwidth overages, overages are charged at $1/GB Overage on any given month.
7. Overages are invoiced at the beginning of each month.

7. Website Software

Software Hacks and Exploits: Exposed security vulnerabilities and website hacks are caused by malicious end users. Fixing a website that has been hacked and/or upgrading software to prevent known security vulnerabilities is your responsibility. If a site has been hacked or found to contain malicious code it will be immediately suspended until such vulnerability has been dealt with. Websites that have been hacked CANNOT be rolled back to a backup UNTIL the vulnerability has been identified and preventive measures put in place.
Online Stores: You will be solely responsible for the operation and maintenance of your online store and products and all contents and materials appearing online or on your products, including without limitation (a) update of the store software including all third party security updates and installations, (b) the accuracy and appropriateness of content and materials appearing within the store or related to your products, (c) 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 (d) 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 client orders, and for handling any client inquiries or complaints arising there from.
You are also responsible for the security of any client credit card numbers and related client 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.
Third Party Backup Software: MHS provides full account backups for 90 days. In cPanel users can retrieve any file, or an entire site directory for any of the past 90 days. If you wish to save backups beyond that we ask that you use the cPanel Backup Tool and download it locally. Website space is not to be used to store backups. Any backup software or large backup files found on sites may be removed without notice. We don’t need to be wasting resources backing up large backup files.
MHS Installed Software: When Maine Hosting Solutions is commissioned to provide design and/or implement third party software for your site it is Customer’s responsibility to keep the site up to date. Exposed security vulnerabilities and website hacks are caused by malicious end users. Fixing a website that has been hacked and/or upgrading software to prevent known security vulnerabilities can be time consuming and therefore is billable time for which Customer is responsible for. Maine Hosting Solutions will warrantee installed software stability for a period of 90 days from installation.

8. Email Policy

Email Spam. Maine Hosting Solutions has a zero tolerance policy on SPAM, Junk E-mail or UCE. Spam, Junk-mail and UCE are defined as: the sending of the same, or substantially similar, unsolicited electronic mail messages, whether commercial or not, to more than one recipient. A message is considered unsolicited if it is posted in violation of a newsgroup charter or if it is sent to a recipient who has not requested or invited the message. UCE also includes e-mail with forged headers, compromised mail server relays, and false contact information. This prohibition extends to the sending of unsolicited mass mailings from another service, which in any way implicates the use of Maine Hosting Solutions whether or not the message actually originated from our network.
Block Removal. If Customer actions have caused Maine Hosting Solutions mail servers or Maine Hosting Solutions IP address ranges to be placed on black hole lists and other mail filtering software systems used by companies on the internet, Customer will be assessed a $100 charge to Customer account and $100 per hour for administrative charges incurred to remove and protect mail servers and IP ranges.

1. Drop-Box Accounts. Using our servers for the receipt of replies to unsolicited mass email (spam) sent from a third-party network is prohibited.
2. Header Forgery: Forgery of email headers (spoofing) is prohibited.
3. Proxy Spamming: Spamming via third-party proxy, aggregation of proxy lists, or installation of proxy mailing software is prohibited.
4. Relaying. Configuration of a mail server to accept and process third-party messages for sending without user identification and authentication is prohibited.
5. No ISP, Wireless or similar companies are to use the Maine Hosting Solutions mail servers for customer mail servers.

Report Abuse

9. Mass Mailings

Sending mass unsolicited email is considered spam. Unsolicited email is defined as email sent to a recipient who has not double-opted in to mailings from the Customer. Senders of mass mailings must maintain complete and accurate records of all opt-ins, including the email and its headers if applicable, and provide such records to Maine Hosting Solutions upon request. If positive and verifiable proof of opt-in cannot be provided, complaints from recipients of the mailing are considered proof they did not subscribe and the mailing is unsolicited.

10. Mailing Lists

Maine Hosting Solutions’s mass mailing rules also apply to mailing lists, list servs, or mailing services contracted for by Customer. The policy is stated as follows: An acceptable mailing list will be focused at a targeted audience that has voluntarily signed up for e-mail information using a double opt-in process or that has made their e-mail address available to Customer for distribution of information. The list must also allow for automatic removal by all end Customers with non-distribution in the future.

11. Fraud Policy

By agreeing to this AUP, Customer affirms that the contact and payment information provided to Maine Hosting Solutions identifies Customer and that Customer is authorized to use the payment method. Commitment of fraud, obtaining services, or attempting to obtain services by any means or device with intent to avoid payment is prohibited.

12. IRC Policy

Maine Hosting Solutions does not allow IRC plug-ins, scripts, add-ons, clones or other software that has the intent or effect of disrupting or denying service to other users. Harassing, disrupting or denying service to other users is expressly prohibited, and will result in the cancellation of Customer account(s).

13. Reseller Policy

Resellers are responsible for the conduct of their Customers and by agreeing with this AUP, agree that their Customers will adhere to the AUP. Resellers should make their prospective Customers aware of the AUP and the consequences for violation.

14. Suspension and Termination

Maine Hosting Solutions will use reasonable care in notifying the Customer and in resolving the problem in a method resulting in the least amount of service interference as reasonably possible. Maine Hosting Solutions reserves the sole right to suspend service to any Customer for violation of the AUP without notice. Maine Hosting Solutions reserves the right to terminate service without notice for any account that impacts the availability of our servers to others in a shared hosting environment.

1. Suspension for non payment: Any account, service or product Past Due its renewal date may be suspended and/or terminated for non payment. When an account is suspended all web hosting, promotion, design, updates, and email services are put into suspension until payment is brought current. Upon suspension, notices may be emailed every 5 days for 60 days prior to termination.
2. Termination for non payment: Any account Past Due may be terminated for non payment of services. In the case of an account being terminated all files and email will be removed from the server and may not be retrievable from backup.

Maine Hosting Solutions sends out 60, 30, 15, 5, and 1 day payment due notices to ensure Customer is notified of any payments due.

15. Domain Registration Policies

Domains will be registered for clients at a minimum registration period of one year. Unless otherwise notified, renewal of domain names is done automatically for Maine Hosting Solutions clients within 30 days of the domain expiration date. Cancellation of a domain name registration MUST be received a minimum of thirty days prior to renewal. The registrant will be responsible for payment of an additional year registration fee if the domain has already been renewed.
MHS will maintain the domain name registration for as long as the account is paid in full. MHS will perform changes to the domain name record at the clients request. Upon either 1) cancellation or 2) non payment by the registrant, ownership of the domain is transferred to MHS. Domain name registration and dispute resolution is bound by the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (“UDRP”) https://www.icann.org/resources/pages/policy-2012-02-25-en as set forth by ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. If you at any time choose to transfer your domain registrar from MHS to another registrar a $25 unlock and EPP Code issuance fee will apply.
Redemption: If a domain goes into redemption after not being renewed there may be a $150 fee by the domain registrar (Enom, GoDaddy, Network Solutions, Register.com, Dodster) to remove the domain from redemption. This is a fee that passes stright through MHS to the registrar.

Domain Registration Policies Continued…

16. Cancellations

All cancellations MUST be submitted online at least 30 days prior to your next billing cycle.
Cancellation Form
ALL Dedicated Servers require a 30 day notice of cancellation.

17. Violations of the AUP will result in the following:

Immediate disconnection of service with no re-activation.
Upon termination of an account, your right to use the account and the Service immediately ceases. Maine Hosting Solutions shall have no obligation to maintain any Data stored in your account or to forward any Data to you or any third party.

18. Code of Conduct

Our Terms of Service supports our guaranteed Code of Conduct on behalf of our entire staff.
We promise to provide customer service with a smile, no matter what!
In return, we request that all customers adhere to the same Code of Conduct. Technology can be very frustrating to many of us, but be assured, the person you speak with is here to help you, so please try your absolute best to adhere to our Code of Conduct. No swearing and no being mean, period. We care what your problem is, trust us, being mean will not get your issue solved.
If anyone breaks our Code of Conduct clause in our Terms of Service, all hosting accounts, agreements, products or services may be terminated effective immediately.

19. Notifications Policy

Maine Hosting Solutions periodically notifies its clients of certain security warnings and updates.
If a notification requests client action it is the clients responsibility to heed these warnings and act accordingly to prevent any impact on their account.
In many cases we request that the client update software that is installed on their account, IE: WordPress and plugins, Drupal, Joomla etc…
If a security notification is ignored and results in support time to correct an issue there may be billable time associated with this support request.
In some instances a notification will NOT be sent if the impact affects less than 1% of the client base. These security updates are typically patches to server software and require no client action

20. Web Design Services Policies

Design service fees are due upon completion of services, unless otherwise specified. Failure to pay for design services may result in suspension or termination of your account; including all services.
All Inclusive Design Plans are billed monthly.
Cancellation of All Inclusive Plans may result in billing of design services if cancelled within 6 months of service initiation.

Agreeing to our Terms & Conditions constitutes agreement to our Limitation of Liability

* These terms and conditions may change without prior notice