NiceNIC Hosting Terms & Conditions

The Services We Provide

In exchange for the fees you pay in advance, we will host your website on one or more of our servers, so long as you abide by the terms and conditions that are set out on this page, and in any other agreements that relate to the services we may provide to you. We will provide the services according to the specifications listed for the hosting package you select during the signup process. For clarity, on this page, the term "services" refers to the web hosting services that we will provide to you and the term "NiceNIC" or "us" or "we" refers to NiceNIC.

Permission to Host Your Content
For us to host your website, it is necessary for you to upload your content to our servers. When you do this uploading, you are creating one or more copies of your content on our system. By purchasing hosting services from us, you acknowledge that these copies are being made, and give us the permission (a license) to maintain these copies and make them available to users of the Internet. You are solely responsible for providing all of the content and other data that make up your website.

Personal Information
When you place an order for our services, your personal information, including your credit card information, is transmitted via the use of Secure Socket Layer technology, the industry standard for encrypting sensitive information. We take your privacy very seriously, and as such, will not sell your personal information to third party (other than a company that may purchase NiceNIC ), and will take reasonable steps to keep it from being disclosed to any third party. Read more in our Privacy Policy, below. You consent to be called by a representative of NiceNIC at the telephone number above and/or emailed important information about NiceNIC products and services.

Backups
We will make every attempt to retain nightly backups. However, as with any data storage systems, backups can fail. We encourage you to perform your own backups on a periodic basis or sign up for our daily backup service. Because the Services permit Users to electronically transmit or upload content directly to the User Web site, User shall be fully responsible for uploading all content to the User Web site and supplementing, modifying and updating the User Web site, including all back-ups. Any file over 40MB in size will not be backed up onto our backup servers and in the event of server failure, will not be recoverable. 

NiceNIC shall not be responsible for any damages to the User Content, the User Web site or other damages or any malfunctions or service interruptions caused by any failure of the User Content or any aspect of the User Web site. User is solely responsible for making back-up copies of the User Web site and User Content. 

NiceNIC does not maintain backup copies of User Web sites or e-mail. NiceNIC cannot guarantee that the contents of a Web site will never be deleted or corrupted, or that a back-up of a Web site will always be available. Users should always copy all content of a Web site to a local computer and NiceNIC strongly suggest that Users make an additional copy (on tape, CD, multiple floppies, another desktop, or elsewhere) to ensure the availability of the files. Unacceptable Use/Illegal Activity NiceNIC strives to maintain a high-level of service, and a lot of customers depend on our high standards of quality. As such, we will not provide services to those that are using our services for: Hacking, which includes, for example penetrating or attempting to access, without authorization, another computer or network. Port scans, stealth scans, and fraudulent credit card "phishing" techniques are also prohibited. 

Hosting of files or other data that infringes on another's copyright or other intellectual property rights. 

Spamming, or sending of bulk unsolicited email. We maintain a strict policy on spamming, which includes the sending of unauthorized commercial messages by use of our services, or by maintaining an open SMTP connection. We reserve the right to refuse or terminate service based on reasonable indications that you are engaged in spamming of any sort. Uploading or linking to any content that violates another's right of publicity or privacy. 

Distributing hate speech, or any other content that is obscene, abusing, which could be considered libelous and defamatory.

Hosting, storing, or distributing child pornography. If any such content is found and brought to our attention, the proper law enforcement agencies will be notified. Hosting large amounts of data not specifically tied ("linked") to your hosting account. NiceNIC encourages users looking for file storage/backup solutions to seek other services that specialize in this.

Content
All services provided by NiceNIC may only be used for lawful purposes. The customer agrees to indemnify and hold harmless NiceNIC 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 email support [at] nicenic.net with the information required. Examples of unacceptable material on all Shared servers include: IRC Bots, Proxy Scripts / Anonymizers, Pirated Software / Warez, image, filedump, mirror, or banner-ad services (similar to rapidshare, photobucket, or commercial banner ad rotation), affiliate servers, 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, 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 are prohibited. Offering video and/or audio streaming or downloads, MP3 Files, Games and shareware is also not permitted on any NiceNIC server. Using a shared account as a backup/storage device is not permitted, with the exception of one cPanel backup of the same account. Examples of unacceptable material on Dedicated servers include: Pirated Software / Warez, 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, hate sites, 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 are prohibited. NiceNIC services, including all related equipment, networks and network devices are provided only for authorized customer use. NiceNIC systems may be monitored for all lawful purposes, including ensuring that use is authorized, for management of the system, to facilitate protection against unauthorized access, and to verify security procedures, survivability and operational security. During monitoring, information may be examined, recorded, copied and used for authorized purposes. Use of NiceNIC system(s) constitutes consent to monitoring for these purposes. We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Any material that, in our judgment, is obscene, threatening, illegal, or violates our terms of service in any manner may be removed from our servers (or otherwise disabled), with or without notice. Failure to respond to email from our abuse department within 48 hours may result in the suspension or termination of your services. All abuse issues must be dealt with via support ticket/email and will have a response within 48 hours. If in doubt regarding the acceptability of your site or service, please contact us at support [at] nicenic.net and we will be happy to assist you. 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 suspended immediately without notice. Resellers: we will suspend the site in question and will notify you so you may terminate the account. We will further monitor your activity; more than one infraction of this type may result in the immediate termination of your account. Direct customers: Your services will be terminated with or without notice. Violations will be reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency. It is your responsibility to ensure that scripts/programs installed under your account are secure and permissions of directories are set properly, regardless of installation method. When at all possible, set permissions on most directories to 644 or as restrictive as possible. Users are ultimately responsible for all actions taken under their account. This includes the compromise of credentials such as username and password. It is required that you use a secure password. If a weak password is used, your account may be suspended until you agree to use a more secure password. Audits may be done to prevent weak passwords from being used. If an audit is performed, and your password is found to be weak, we will notify you and allow time for you to change/update your password. All files over 10MB must be linked from files within the same account and also publically available through any domain name attached to your account. Large files (files over 10MB) should not take up more than 40% of the data on your hosting account.

Zero Tolerance Spam Policy
We take a zero tolerance stance against sending of unsolicited e-mail, bulk emailing, 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. Please read NiceNIC Mail Policy for our generalized mail policy. Sites advertised via SPAM (Spamvertised) may not be hosted on our servers. This provision includes, but is not limited to SPAM sent via fax, email, instant messaging, or usenet/newsgroups. No organization or entity listed in the ROKSO may be hosted on our servers. Any account which results in our IP space being blacklisted will be immediately suspended and/or terminated. NiceNIC reserves the right to require changes or disable as necessary any web site, 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. NiceNIC reserves the right to charge the holder of the account used to send any unsolicited e-mail a clean up fee. This cost of the clean up fee is entirely at the discretion of NiceNIC.

Resource Usage
User may not:
Use 25% or more of system resources for longer than 90 seconds. There are numerous activities that could cause such problems; these include: CGI scripts, FTP, PHP, HTTP, etc. Run stand-alone, unattended server-side processes at any point in time on the server. This includes any and all daemons, such as 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. You may link to legal torrents off-site, but may not host or store them on our shared servers. Participate in any file-sharing/peer-to-peer activities Run any gaming servers such as counter-strike, half-life, battlefield1942, etc Run cron entries with intervals of less than 15 minutes When using PHP include functions for including a local file, include the local file rather than the URL. Instead of include("http://yourdomain.com/include.php") use include("include.php") While our shared services are suitable for the bulk of our customers, there comes a time for some websites when they are better suited for a larger plan, which allows for more dedicated CPU and memory resources. We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to discontinue service to any customer with a website or other hosted data that takes up more than 10% of the server resources and/or 10% of the server's CPU. This means that if your website is found to be utilizing more than 10% of the CPU and memory of the service, we reserve the right to take your site offline. If this becomes necessary, you can either upgrade your hosting package, or request a pro-rated refund of the amounts you have paid in advance for the services. Due to the severity of this, and our ability to act quickly to correct these situations to avoid server issues, we will do everything reasonably feasible to provide you with a warning prior to taking your site offline, but we accept no obligation to do so.

INODES
The use of more than 50,000 inodes on any shared account may potentially result in suspension. Accounts found to be exceeding the 50,000 inode limit will automatically be removed from our backup system to avoid overusage. Every file (a webpage, image file, email, etc) on your account uses up 1 inode. Sites that slightly exceed our inode limits are unlikely to be suspended; however, accounts that constantly create and delete large numbers of files on a regular basis, have hundreds of thousands of files, or cause file system damage may be flagged for review and/or suspension. Over time, tens of thousands of messages (or more) build up, eventually pushing the account past our inode limit. To disable your default mailbox, login to cPanel and choose "Mail", then "Default Address", "Set Default Address", and then type in: :fail: No such user here.

When the Services Will be Available
We will attempt to provide the services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for as long as you have paid for them. Sometimes, however, for a number of reasons, the services may be unavailable to you. You must recognize and acknowledge that due to the nature of web hosting technology, occasional unavailability of the services cannot be avoided. Sometimes there are equipment malfunctions. At other times we undertake periodic maintenance procedures or repairs. Still other times, there are causes beyond our control like power failures, interruption or failure of telecommunication or digital transmission links, hostile network attacks, network traffic and other occurrences. We have not promised to provide you with uninterrupted service.

Guarantee
As we explain in this paragraph, we offer you an Anytime Money-Back Guarantee on all shared hosting plans. And here is how our cancellation policy works. It is very simple. If you cancel your account we will provide you with a full refund for the remainder of your term, excluding any setup fees that were charged when you signed up, and excluding domain registration fees. (Even if you received your domain for free through one of our promotional plans) Please note: Any account upgrades to hosting services such as additional domain registration, Priority Support, NiceNIC Directory, Daily Backup, Dedicated IP, Domain Privacy, Private SSL certificates, Search Engine Submission, Platinum Upgrade, Visitors 2 You and Shell Access are non-refundable. In addition, we do not offer refunds on dedicated server plans as they are month to month and there are no contracts involved. NiceNIC also reserves the right to cancel your account with 72 hours notice should an event occur in which proper evidence exists that a customer was exceptionally rude or vulgar in communications with our staff.

Joining NiceNIC
When you sign up, your NiceNIC account will be enabled with autorenewal, which means that when your renewal date arrives, your hosting plan and domain will be renewed. When it is time for renewal, the credit card you have on file with us will also be charged. If you wish to not have this happen, and you would not like to renew your account, you must cancel 14 days prior to your renewal date. If you have any questions as to when your renewal date is, simply login to our website with your UserID/FtpID and password., or give us a call. If you fail to cancel 14 days prior to renewal, your account will be renewed for a new term, so please be sure to fill out the cancellation form located above if you do not want to renew. Your account renew dates are always listed in our website with your UserID/FtpID and password.. If more than 30 days pass from the date on which any invoice for the hosting services is issued to you and we have not received payment in full, we will suspend your account, which means that your data, files and website will become in-active and cannot be accessed. If in the following 30 days you pay all amounts due, bringing your account up to date, we will take your account out of suspension and the data will be available again immediately. You must have an active method of payment upon you account for your autorenewal at all times, failure to do so can result in you account being suspended or cancelled automatically. If, however, 30 days pass from the date on which your account is suspended and you have not made payment in full, NiceNIC shall have the right to delete all data you have uploaded to the servers. To summarize, if you get 60 days behind in making payments, your data will be deleted. You hereby acknowledge that this is NiceNIC's policy when it comes to data retention, and waive all rights in and to your data in these situations.

These Terms of Service May Change
Due to our evolving business, and the changing nature of the web hosting industry, these terms of service may change. We will post the changes here, and your continued use of the service means you accept the changes we have made.

Indemnification
If NiceNIC is sued or threatened with a lawsuit from a third party because of something you do with the services, or as an affiliate you agree to pick up the tab if NiceNIC is found liable or pays to settle the dispute. In legal terms, this is called "indemnification." Not only do you agree to reimburse NiceNIC for what it pays to satisfy a judgment or settle a case, you also agree to pay NiceNIC's reasonable attorney's fees and all other costs NiceNIC incurs in defending itself.

Disclaimer of Warranties
You may have noticed that up to this point these terms of service have been kind of easy to read and understand. But our lawyers tell us that this section, dealing in the disclaimer of warranties, has to retain its legalese style. Sorry about that. NiceNIC EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. SERVICES ARE PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. NICENIC MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT ITS SERVICES WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, OR THAT THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR FREE, OR THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED. NICENIC DOES NOT WARRANT, NOR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE, OR RESULTS OF, ANY OF THE SERVICES IT PROVIDES, IN TERMS OF THEIR CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, OR OTHERWISE. Some jurisdictions do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties, in which event that foregoing disclaimer may not apply to you.

Limitation of Liability
Here is another section that has to retain its legalese. Simply stated, what this section is saying is that if something goes wrong, NiceNIC cannot be held liable for it. IN NO EVENT SHALL NiceNIC BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY OTHER PERSON FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOSS OF PROFIT OR GOODWILL, FOR ANY MATTER, WHETHER SUCH LIABILITY IS ASSERTED ON THE BASIS OF CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), BREACH OF WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ANY BREACH OF THIS AGREEMENT OR ITS INCORPORATED AGREEMENTS AND POLICIES, YOUR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE OR SERVICES, YOUR LOSS OF DATA OR FILES OR OTHERWISE, EVEN IF NICENIC HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. Some states may not allow such a broad exclusion or limitation on liability for damages as contained in these terms of services. In those states, our liability is limited to the full extent permitted by law. You agree that in no event shall our maximum aggregate liability exceed the total amount paid by you for the services in dispute purchased from us, or, in the event of liability of NiceNIC due to your enrollment in the affiliate program.

Governing Law and Choice of Form
The laws of China, Hong Kong Special Administrative Region will govern this Agreement, without reference to rules governing choice of laws. Any action relating to this Agreement must be brought in Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. When These Terms Take Effect. This agreement becomes effective once you submit your order with us or open an account with us for web hosting services of any kind (dedicated, vps, shared, etc.) If you are an existing customer, and you do not agree with the terms herein, please cancel your account. Otherwise, if you sign up for or continue to use the services, you agree to what is written here. If you have any questions regarding these terms of service, feel free to call us for clarification. By using NiceNIC you agree to the above terms of service.