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Terms & Conditions of Service

These terms and conditions form the basis of your contract with Red Badge Web Design so please read them carefully.

Who this affects

If you order services from Red Badge Web Design you are bound by these terms and conditions. Note that the web servers hosting your site are maintained by Hostroute.com.

How to agree to these terms and conditons by the customer

During the ordering process you were asked to read and agree to these terms and conditions. By submitting your order to Red Badge Web Design, you signify your agreement to them.

If you do not agree to these Terms - then please don't submit an order.

Why we need terms and conditions

Red Badge Web Design provides services to many customers through Hostroute.com. We have a responsibility to protect the services from the adverse effects of other peoples' activites. We also have a responsibility to ensure that our customers web sites and email services are available for them to use. This means that we need to limit customers activities to those which are compatible with running a reliable and safe service.

The following terms and conditions were designed to ensure these obligations are met.

Arbitration

Hostroute.com will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of the provisions described in this document.

Length of contract

Your contract runs for 12 month from the date you first ordered. Details of how to cancel the contract can be found below.

Server abuse

Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server, or customer, of Hostroute.com is strictly prohibited. Offenders will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The content of your web site

All services may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data or material in violation of any United Kingdom, or any International laws is prohibited.

The following list is not exhaustive, but it will indicate the sort of material you are not permitted to host:

If you are unsure whether or not your site falls into these categories feel free to contact us with a description before you sign up for an account or publish material as an existing customer.

The content of your emails

Spam is "Unsolicited junk e-mail sent to large numbers of people to promote products or services".

We have a zero tolerance policy towards spam and we monitor our mail servers to ensure they are not being used for spamming. If we allowed customers to spam then our mail servers would be blacklisted and none of our customers would be able to send and receive mail reliably. It is in all customers interests that we stop spam.

We do not permit:

As delegated by our upstream providers, any sites using spam or selling of spam related software or bulk email content will be closed.

If you spam, we will see you doing it, your account will be terminated and you will not get a refund.

If you run a mailing list all the people you mail must have opted into the list. The list must not have been obtained from a third party. Your list server must use a system where an email is sent to the user when they sign up and they have to reply or click on a link to confirm their email address. This is known as "double opt in". The mailman program we provide with some hosting packages matches these requirements, as do many other mailing list systems. You must honour all unsubscribe requests within 24 hours.

If we receive a spam complaint about your account we will.

Protecting server resources

Each server has a limited amount of processing power and memory. We have found most our customers to stay within "reasonable limits", but sometimes people do cause problems for other users by using too many resources.

if you are a shared hosting customer you may not:

We do not allow clients to install their own cgi or php chat rooms. These tend to be a large drain on system resources and we cannot allow it as an account option. However, we provide chat systems with some hosting accounts which you may use free of charge.

Bulletin boards are permitted, provided they stay within the 10% server usage limit explained above.

We allow you (subject to a suitable hosting plan) to run programs to run continually in the background (cron jobs). However, these must not overload the server or affect other users sites.

If you go over any of the limits described above we will suspend your account and contact you to resolve the situation. We may offer dedicated server hosting for an additional charge. If you do not move to a dedicated server or reduce your system usage we will terminate your account to protect other customers.

Telnet / SSH / shell access

Hostroute.com provides SSH (secure telnet) access on some accounts on request. SSH access is provided for the purpose of testing scripts and carrying out site maintenace. It is not provided for any other purpose and there is no warranty of any kind should SSH fail to function for off server connections or activities. Hostroute.com reserve the right to withdraw SSH access at any time without notification. Customers are not permitted to run CGI or PHP shell emulation programs.

Bandwidth usage

Each hosting plan we provide has a set amount of bandwidth available per month. We monitor this usage and if your site goes over the limit it will be suspended until the second day of the next month. If you do not wish to wait until the next month you can upgrade your hosting plan to one with more bandwidth. If you are concerned about going over your limit you should check your bandwidth usage in the control panel in the middle of the month and contact us if you think you will go over.

30 day money back guarantee

Some of our hosting plans are supplied with a 30 day money back guarantee. The full wording of the guarantee (where applicable) is given below:

We are so confident you will be happy with our web hosting services that we offer a 30 day, no quibble money back guarantee.

If you are unhappy with any aspect of our service, and we are unable to put things right to your satisfaction, we will refund all web hosting charges paid by you (less 10% to cover credit card commission and associated charges).

To claim on this guarantee you must notify us of your wish to cancel an account within the first 30 days following activation and request a refund.

There are only four conditions:

  1. You must have been a technical problem of some sort with the account which is recorded in our helpdesk, we will not issue a refund just because you have found a cheaper offer.
  2. Because domain name registration fees are passed on by us to the registration authorities we cannot refund these.
  3. We reserve the right to pass on any excess bandwidth charges incurred by you in the first 30 days.
  4. Dedicated servers are not covered do to the amount of work required to set them up.

99.9% uptime guarantee

If your web site down time exceeds this level in any calendar month, we will offer a 5% credit to your account for every hour the site is down. In order to receive credit for your down time, you must submit a request on this form within 30 days of the occurance.

Conditions:

  1. Hostroute.com will issue a refund to the customers account in the event of a Service Outage due to the failure of one of the following pieces of equipment owned and operated by Hostroute.com or one of its suppliers; the ATM Network, the LAN or a web hosting server. For purposes of this guarantee, Service Outages shall be defined as 10 consecutive minutes of web site (HTTP) inaccessibility as measured by our independent monitoring services.
  2. Hostroute.com will not be held responsible for Service Outages resulting from equipment not owned or operated by Hostroute.com or its suppliers. This includes, but is not limited to, Internet NAP failures or congestion (Problems with one specific dial up ISP etc.) and non Hostroute.com backbone failures. Additionally, Hostroute.com will not be held responsible for delays in the registration or transfer of a domain due to registry related issues, for outages resulting from malfunctioning customer scripts or applications that are installed by the customer, nor for unusual traffic spikes or "denial of service" attacks on customer web sites.
  3. Refunds will be issued upon request by the customer and upon determination that a Service Outage, as defined by this guarantee, has occurred. Refund requests must be made within thirty (30) days of the time period during which the Service Outage took place. Regardless of the number of outages, all refunds are limited to a maximum of one month's hosting service fees and do not include excess usage fees, setup fees or other non-standard recurring charges. Additionally, Service Outages will not include downtime due to Acts of God, nor for outside security breaches. Finally, Hostroute.com will not be held liable for Service Outage damages resulting in the loss of prospective profits or anticipated sales or as a result of expenditures, investments, or commitments in connection with the business.

Please note that this is not an insurance scheme. We do not cover problems relating to the company that provides your internet connection and we do not cover you for attacks by hackers,denial of service attacks or other criminal activites. It is in your own interests to consider business continuity insurance if you rely on your web site for commercial purposes.

IP Addresses and DNS delegation

We provide IP address information in your welcome email. This is provided to allow access to the web site and control panel until the domain name has been transferred to our DNS servers. Customers are not permitted to link to their site or address via an IP address based link once the transfer is complete. This is for your own safety as it prevents links becoming out dated if we change your IP address.

All customers must change their domain names' DNS servers to those specified on their welcome email. We do not permit customers to use external DNS management tools because of the likelihood of failure if we change an IP address. If you decide to use an external DNS service then you agree to absolve Red Badge Web Design and Hostroute.com Ltd of all liability should your site fail due to DNS errors or the IP address changing at a later date.

All IP addresses remain the property of Hostroute.com Ltd or its upstream providers and are provided according to ARIN and RIPE rules and only when required for technical reasons.

DNS modifications

We do not provide DNS management services. If you require changes to DNS records (A, MX etc) we will do our best to carry them out but we cannot provide a warranty that the changes will continue to work in the future.

Billing

Annual Billing: We will send a renewal notice to the email address you provided us with when you signed up approximately one month before the renewal date. However, because 40% of our customers do not tell us when they change email addresses and because many ISP's spam filters remove emails which mention web hosting services we cannot guarantee delivery of these emails. We recommend that you make a note in your diary one year from the date you ordered the hosting originally. If we do not receive the renewal payment by the due date then we will suspend the account. If payment is still not received within 7 days we will assume the accout is no longer required and delete it.

Refunds

Regular Hosting Clients: Should you become unsatisfied with our services within the first 30 days of your account activation, we will refund your hosting fee subject to the money back guarantee terms listed above.

Cancellation Refunds: We DO NOT refund partial monthly or annual hosting fees for accounts cancelled after 30 days from the date of activation. For example, if you cancel an annual account after 6 months you will not get a refund of 6 months hosting fees.

Account Cancellations

By ordering services from us you agree to abide by these cancellation procedures. Before we cancel an account we need to make sure it really is the site owner requesting the cancellation.

To cancel an account please fill out this form: http://www.redbadge.co.uk/cancel.php

Accounts will be closed the same day, we do not schedule closures for the end of the current months hosting. Accounts are only be considered cancelled once we have conformed by e-mail that we have cancelled it for you. If you have not received conformation from us it means your account is still open and you will be billed for all services provided until we have given such confirmation.

We will not be held liable for the non arrival of your request to cancel an account. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have received confirmation of the account closure from us.

When an account is cancelled, all of its files are deleted and are not recoverable.

Data integrity and backups

Hostroute.com will endeavour to keep backups of your data in order to restore the server if we have a disk failure. However, we provide no guarantee that we will be able to do so. It is in your own interests to keep a copy of your web site backed up on your own computer. You can do this by simply uploading changes from a copy you hold or by using the backup tool provided with most of our web hosting accounts.

If you have an accident with your site we will do our best to help, but we may not be able to restore your files for you.

It is impossible to have too many backups. Keeping a local copy at your location is the best way to protect your data.

Passwords

We will provide you with a username and password for accessing your account. This will be sent to the email address you gave us when you ordered the hosting account. If you lose your password we can resend it to the same email address. If your email address has changed you will need to supply proof of your identity before we will provide the password. The reason for this is that a large percentage of password requests we receive are from people trying to gain unauthorised access to customers accounts. It is in your interests that we verify your identity before issuing a password.

Correspondence

In the event of written notification of account termination being sent by Red Badge Web Design or Hostroute.com Ltd to a customer, any such communication sent by normal post shall be considered received by the customer seven days after it was posted.

Threats & Blackmail

In the past some customers have attempted to leverage free services by making threats against Hostroute.com, its staff or networks.

For example: Hostroute.com do not provide support with building of web sites but have been threatened by customers that if they don't build their web site for them they will seek to harm our business.

We deplore this activity because of the negative effect it has on our staff and other customers who pay for the services the require.

We take these sort of threats very seriously. Making threats will result in your account being cancelled without notice.

Domain name registration

Where a domain name has been registered as part of the service provided by Red Badge Web Design the customer is bound by additional terms and conditions. Some of these are enforced by the different domain name registries and you should be aware that you may have a contract with them as well as with us. We register all domains with the customer as registrant. Red Badge Web Design may be listed as technical, admin (and sometimes billing) contact for some domain names but normally we enter the customers details into all of these fields as well. These contact details can be changed for most domains but some registries may restrict what fields can be changed. Please get in touch if changes require to be made.

Domain name registration fees are not refundable because the registries will not refund us. It is the customers responsibility to ensure that all names are spelled correctly prior to ordering domain names.

Change of domain names

Domain names cannot be changed once they are registered. This is because the domain registries will not refund us once a domain name is registered.

We can change the domain name associated with your hosting account but you will need to register the new domain name first. Changing the domain name may require your account to be deleted and it may cause disruption to your web site. The old domain name will stop working. We reserve the right not to allow domain changes.

Limits of support

Hostroute.com Ltd provides support with server side problems only. These include, non functioning of facilities provided with your hosting account and any faults which exist on the server your site is hosted on.

Customers are responsible for designing and maintaining their own web sites. We can not provide advice or support for any programming or web design issues like frontpage, cgi, php or asp

Support for your web design software should be provided by the company which supplied the software.

Refusal of Service

Red Badge Web Design and Hostroute.com Ltd reserve the right to refuse, cancel, or suspend services at our sole discretion.

Indemnification

By ordering services from us you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Red Badge web Design and Hostroute.com from any claims resulting from the use of the service which damages the subscriber or any other party.

Limitation of liability

Your use of Hostroute.com's services are at your sole risk.AllHostroute.com Ltd services are provided on an "AS IS" basis WITHOUTWARRANTIES OF ANYKIND, EITHER EXPRESS,IMPLIED, CONSTRUCTIVE, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING,WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,NON INFRINGEMENT OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so this exclusion may not apply to you in full.

Hostroute.com makes no guarantee of availability of service and reserves the right to change, withdraw, suspend, or discontinue any functionality or feature of the Hostroute.com service.

IN NO EVENT WILL HOSTROUTE.COMBE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITYTO USE HOSTROUTE.COM'sSERVICES OR ANY CONTENT THEREON. THIS DISCLAIMER APPLIES, WITHOUT LIMITATION, TO ANY DAMAGES OR INJURY, WHETHER FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT, TORT, OR OTHERWISE, CAUSED BY ANY FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE; ERROR; OMISSION; INTERRUPTION; DELETION; DEFECT; DELAY IN OPERATION OR TRANSMISSION; COMPUTER VIRUS; FILE CORRUPTION; COMMUNICATION-LINE FAILURE; NETWORK OR SYSTEM OUTAGE; OR THEFT, DESTRUCTION, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO,ALTERATION OF, OR USE OF ANY RECORD.

The formation, construction and interpretation of this agreement shall be controlled bythe laws of Scotland. The U.N. Convention of Contracts for the International Sale of Goods is expressly excluded from any interpretation of this Agreement.

Legal jurisdiction

These terms and conditions are exclusively governed by Scottish law and by ordering services from Hostroute.com Ltd you submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Scottish courts.

Legal disputes

If you intimate that you are entering into legal action against us we will suspend your account until the legal dispute has been resolved.

Explanation of the above

We will do our best to keep the service running reliably but we will not be held responsible for any losses you incur through your use of it. If you are in business you should ensure you have adequate business insurance and we recommend you contact an insurance broker.

Changes to these terms and conditions

Red Badge Web Design and Hostroute.com Ltd both reserve the right to change or amend these Terms of Service at any time without prior notice.

Enforcement

Violations of these Terms of Service should be referred by email to abuse [at] redbadge.co.uk. All complaints will be investigated promptly. Violations of these terms and conditions can be ground for immediate account deactivation without refund.

Data protection

Some files held by Hostroute.com Ltd are covered by the UK Data Protection Act. You can find out more about this here www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.

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