Hosting Begins is a provider of internet related services including connectivity, shared server, website hosting and domain name services. These Conditions set out the terms under which Hosting Begins will provide Services to the Client (as such terms are defined below). These Conditions will be supplemented from time to time by order confirmation forms setting out specific details relating to services requested by the Client and, as so supplemented, will apply to the exclusion of any other terms and conditions including any which the Client may attempt to introduce.
To the extent that the Client is deemed to be a consumer (as defined by the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977) then these Conditions will not affect the rights of the Client as a consumer and will apply to the extent that applicable law allows.
By logging into your account or updating files you are deemed to have accepted these terms and conditions.
These Conditions are divided into two parts, however all parts may not apply in every case:
Part 1 applies in all cases.
Part 2 applies where the Services include domain name registration services.
Hosting Begins Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy
All Terms and Conditions of this TOS (Terms of Service) and AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) may be modified at our sole discretion without prior warning. A change to these TOS does not constitute grounds for early contract termination or non-payment. Please check back regularly for any updates.
Use of the Hosting Begins Service constitutes acceptance of and agreement to Hosting Begins 's AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) as well as Hosting Begins 's TOS (Terms of Service). From herewith in these TOS and AUP, the use of “us”, “we”, “our”, or “ours” shall constitute reference to Hosting Begins , whilst the use of “he”, “him”, “his”, “you”, “your”, “they”, “them” shall refer to the client/customer of Hosting Begins . The use of “he” is for convenience and ease of reading and shall be taken to mean the female gender where appropriate. All fees referenced are UK Pounds Sterling.
1. Acceptance of Contractual Agreement: The Client agrees that by logging into your account, changing or modifying server based files, placing an order, either by means of electronic ordering (web order form), submitting a written contract, and upon receipt of such order by Hosting Begins , that he is agreeing to our TOS and AUP. No modification by the customer of said contract is allowed.
2. Hosting Begins will provide: and the Customer will purchase and pay for, the Services at the appropriate service fees specified in the Order for the applicable Service Description. The Customer acknowledges that the service details and service fees have been communicated to him, and that he is aware of all applicable charges as per TOS and AUP. The Customer also understands that any promotional offers - unless specified and communicated in contractual terms - will not be applicable to his individual service.
3. In connection with any Hosting Services: if the Customer's actual bandwidth usage in any month exceeds the allocated amount specified in the Customer's contract, the Customer account will become blocked from the web unless the Customer has upgraded their hosting package. By simply placing a valid email address in the contact area of Cpanel you will receive a early usage warning at 80% off usage. This allows the Customer time to upgrade there package to avoid any outage of there account. Upgrades are available via the Customer login area http://clients.cukhosting.com 24hrs aday - 7 days a week and the cost of additional bandwidth maybe discounted by Hosting Begins Staff if paid for on a annual term.
3a. It is the Clients responsibility to ensure that they are contactable via the Clients Account Area 'Client Contact Email Address' and your hosting accounts Cpanel log-in area to ensure that the email address specified is kept valid, working and that the mailbox is able to recieve mail.
4. Payment: Establishment of the requested service is contingent upon receipt of payment by Hosting Begins . Subsequent payments are due 360 days after the first payment or every month if the Customer is on a monthly contract and will continue as per the Customer Contract until cancelled by either party. Additional services, added to a primary hosting account at the Customer's request will be charged for on a yearly or monthly rate at the Customers request.
5. Payments and Fees: Payment is due on the defined Monthly/Yearly recurring billing date each Month/Year. Bandwidth ‘overage' (use of more bandwidth than allocated to the Customer's hosting package) will be billed for at the current rate as specified in the Client Area per month per extra Gigabyte of bandwidth or part thereof. All upgrades will be at the Customer request.
5b. Customer using a Credit or Debit card in another name maybe asked for signed permission/authorisation from the card owner; Hosting Begins will email the necessary form that will need to be completed and faxed / Scanned Emailed / or sent by post.
5c. Hosting Begins reqiures full payment within 5 days of said due date, after this period late accounts will be suspended without further warning, after another 10 days the account will be removed from the server and no further warning will be given. Customers are asked to contact Hosting Begins if they need more time to pay for their Hosting Begins services
6. Delinquent Accounts: Hosting Begins may temporarily deny service or terminate this Agreement upon failure of the Customer to pay charges when due. Failure to pay for any Monthly / Yearly or Upgrade fees will result in your account being blocked, If payment is still unable to be collected after a period of 10 days the account will be closed without notice to the Customer, unless the Customer has contacted Hosting Begins and a new arrangement has been made (See Clause 3a).
7. Account Cancellation: All requests for cancellation of any service or services must be made to Hosting Begins 's Billing Department with a minimum of 7 days but not more than 14 days prior written notice. A ‘Confirmation Receipt' acknowledging your cancellation request will be sent by us within 48 hours, provided we receive your request within our normal working hours of 9 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. BST, Monday - Friday. If, within the first 30 days of this contract, you are not completely happy with the service provided by Hosting Begins , you may contact our Billing Department for a full refund (See Clause 8a). No refunds can be issued after this 30-day trial period.
8. Refunds and Disputes: All payments made to Hosting Begins are non-refundable. This includes any set-up fees and monthly fees for hosting space regardless of the use made of said space by the Customer. All billing disputes must be reported within 14 days of the time the dispute occurred. Disputed charges, also known as 'chargebacks', reported directly to your credit card issuer and without notice to us will result in service interruption and will result in reconnection fees of £10.00. In all cases where Customers feel they have grounds for a dispute about charges they should speak first to Hosting Begins to see if the dispute can be resolved without incurring unnecessary chargebacks fees. We also reserve the right to suspend the Services and/or terminate this Agreement at any time. In the event of this you will be entitled to a pro rata refund based upon the remaining period of prepayment. In the case of a chargeback the customer will be billed for the hosting they have been provided with, and a charge of £25 for charges paid by Hosting Begins for any dispute.
8a From time to time, Hosting Begins may provide special or 'other' services to fulfill a specific client request. In these circumstances extra Terms and Conditions of sale may apply including the disolution of references to refunds within Clauses 7 and 8. Hosting Begins will make you aware in writing of any modifications to our TOS at the time of sales.
9. You shall indemnify us and keep us indemnified and hold us harmless from and against any breach by you of these terms of business and any claim brought against us by a third party resulting from the provision of Services by us to You and your use of the Services and the Server including, without limitation, all claims, actions, proceedings, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, expenses (including reasonable legal costs and expenses), howsoever suffered or incurred by us in consequences of your breach or non-observance of any of the terms of this Agreement.
10. Interruption of Service: Hosting Begins will use its best efforts to maintain a full-time Internet presence for our customers. The customer hereby acknowledges that the network may, at various times, be down or service may be interrupted due to, but not restricted to, utility interruption, equipment failure, natural disaster, acts of God, or human error. In no event shall Hosting Begins be liable to the customer for any damages resulting from or related to any failure or delay by Hosting Begins to provide access to the Internet under this Agreement. In no event shall Hosting Begins be liable to the customer for any direct, 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 Hosting Begins under this Agreement, if any, shall in no event or circumstance exceed the total amount actually paid by the customer. The terms of this Section will survive any termination of this Agreement.
11. System backups: Backups of all customer data is solely the responsibility of the client. Hosting Begins does full backups nightly but these are used for system restoration only and are not tested for individual account backup. Any other questions on this policy should be directed to our Support service at www.support.hostingbegins.com. If you lose your data and request us to replace your files from our backups, then there will be an admin charge of £10 for us to make the attempt. However, still we cannot guarantee that we can recover your files from our backup. We recommend that you keep you own backup by using the one-click backup system in your Control Panel (Cpanel) or by downloading a backup of data.
12. Moving Space and Bandwidth: It is not possible to move Webspace and Bandwidth from one hosting account to another, if you require more Webspace and Bandwidth you can upgrade your hosting package anytime by contacting customer support, www.support.hostingbegins.com
13. Support Boundaries: HostingBegins, provides 24 x 7 technical support to our subscribers (except for few holidays and short company meetings when we close our center.) We limit our technical support to our area of expertise. The following is our guidelines when providing support: HostingBegins provides support related to your server or virtual site physical functioning. HostingBegins does not offer tech support for application specific issues such as cgi programming, html or any other such issue. HostingBegins does not provide technical support for YOUR customers. If you can email, we encourage you to email support@HostingBegins.net for assistance. If you are able to get online and have other questions, the answers may be on our home page at http://helpdesk.hosting-begins.com - we encourage you to check there first. Lastly, the Help files in the program you are using may have the answer to your question so please do investigate these resources before calling on tech support.
Acceptable Use Policy
All Terms and Conditions of this TOS (Terms of Service) and AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) may be modified at our sole discretion without prior warning. A change to these TOS does not constitute grounds for early contract termination or non-payment. Please check back regularly for any updates.
Use of the Hosting Begins Service constitutes acceptance of and agreement to Hosting Begins 's AUP (Acceptable Use Policy) as well as Hosting Begins 's TOS (Terms of Service). From herewith in these TOS and AUP, the use of “us”, “we”, “our”, or “ours” shall constitute reference to Hosting Begins , whilst the use of “he”, “him”, “his”, “you”, “your”, “they”, “them” shall refer to the client/customer of Hosting Begins . The use of “he” is for convenience and ease of reading and shall be taken to mean the female gender where appropriate. All fees referenced are UK Pounds. All users of Hosting Begins Internet services, and their clients, must comply with this AUP and our TOS.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: *All Payments To Hosting Begins Are Non-Refundable*
We support the uncensored flow of information and ideas over the Internet and do not actively monitor subscriber activity under normal circumstances. Similarly, we do not exercise editorial control over the content of any web site, e-mail transmission, newsgroups, or other material created or accessible over or through the services, except for certain proprietary Web sites. However, in accordance with our TOS we may remove any materials that, at our sole discretion, we consider may be illegal, may subject us to liability, or which may violate this AUP. Hosting Begins may cooperate with legal authorities and/or third parties in the investigation of any suspected or alleged crime or civil wrongdoing. Your violation of this AUP may result in the suspension or immediate termination of either your Hosting Begins account or other actions as detailed below without notice, based upon the nature of the violation.
This document is intended to provide a basic understanding of Hosting Begins 's Acceptable Use Policy. The following are guidelines for the establishment and enforcement of Hosting Begins 's AUP. If a Hosting Begins account violates this AUP or our TOS, we reserve the right to terminate your service without notice and without refund. We prefer to advise customers of inappropriate behavior and any necessary corrective action, however any violation of this AUP, based on the nature of the violation, could result in immediate termination of service without refund.
The following constitute violations of this AUP:
• Scripts and security Any script installed on your web space must be kept updated and secure. This includes any script that are installed using Fantastico, Cpanel, Web Host Manager.
Fantastico, Cpanel and Web Host Manager may not have the most up to date files and it is your responsibility to visit the script vendors website to check and download any updates available.
Website scripts that are not updated, or found to be insecure will be suspended without warning.
• Illegal Activities: Hosting Begins 's services may not be used for illegal purposes, or in support of illegal activities, or other content that Hosting Begins deems inappropriate. Hosting Begins reserves the right to cooperate with legal authorities and/or injured third parties in the investigation of any suspected crime or civil wrongdoing.
• Harm or Endangerment to other people: You may not use Hosting Begins 's service to harm, or attempt to harm others in any way, including, but not limited to child pornography, or use Hosting Begins service to transmit any material (by e-mail, uploading, posting, links to such materials or otherwise) that threatens or encourages bodily harm or destruction of property.
• Forgery or impersonation: Adding, removing or modifying identifying network header information in an effort to deceive or mislead is prohibited. Attempting to impersonate any person by using forged headers or other identifying information is prohibited. The use of anonymous re-mailers or nicknames does not constitute impersonation.
• No Adult Material - This includes any link to such sites- including (Sex, Porn, Bondage, nude sites)
* Strictly no Adult Material allowed on our servers of any kind.
• Shell access is not permitted on our servers. Any script or application that is used to attempt to bypass this restriction is considered a violation of or AUP and will be grounds for immediate termination of your account with no refund.
• Resource Usage is monitored as a part of our regular activities: Any website the we determine is using inappropriate amounts of resources will be suspended. We will contact the owner to allow him to attempt to correct the problem. If the problem cannot be corrected we can terminate his account.
• Unsolicited E-mail, News/Mail Bombing.
Spamming, or the sending of mass unsolicited e-mail, from or through a Hosting Begins server and / or using outside e-mail services, in order to advertise a product or service of a web site hosted on a Hosting Begins server, is considered a violation of Hosting Begins policy. Forging e-mail headers (also known as "spoofing") and using a return e-mail address which is not the valid reply address of the sender, or sending an e-mail message which does not contain enough information to enable the recipient to identify the party who is really sending the message, is a violation of Hosting Begins policy. The following practices are also strictly prohibited:
Inundating a user with frivolous e-mail without any serious attempt to correspond (also known as "mail bombing").
Subscribing someone else to an electronic mailing list without that person's permission. -Advertising a web site hosted by Hosting Begins by spamming from another source (also known as "passive spamming").
Posting inflammatory or derogatory messages in news groups or bulletin boards to generate responses (also known as "trolling").
We have a " zero tolerance " policy on spam. Violation of any of the above is grounds for immediate termination without refund. Additionally you will be charged £200.00 for processing your termination and damages to our business reputation.
• Abuse of the legal rights of others:
Unacceptable activities in this regard include:
Posting private information about a person without that person's consent.
Violating trademarks, trade secrets or other intellectual property protected by copyright law.
Defaming a person or business.
Distribution of code which will have an adverse effect on third party computers.
Free speech is an integral part of the Internet, thus Hosting Begins will not suspend or delete a customer's account simply because it disagrees with the ideas and views expressed by the customer. In the case of allegations that a customer's online activity has violated the legal rights of a third party, Hosting Begins will not take the place of a court of law in deciding tort claims raised by the third party.
• Mailing scripts Email limits
To protect our servers from Spam abuse we have had to apply the following.
If you are using a mailing script such as phplist please note our policy below.
Anyone distributing newsletters or other email communication which a third party has requested to recieve must use a 'double opt-in' method and provide a link in all communication to 'un-subscribe'
Email limits are set to the following and are part of our policy
No more than 50 pieces of email per minute and no more than 400 email per hour are allowed. Contact Hosting Begins first if you need to send more emails.
Hosting Begins runs software that check the servers for any account sending more than the above allowed amount.
If your mailing lists would exceed these then http://mojo.skazat.com may be appropriate as it allows you to throttle your mail to go out in separate batches or to use your own smtp account provided by your ISP.
The reason for this is the continued abuse of mail that caused server load issues, along with spam complaints. Opt in lists still receive spam complaints.
• Formmail Scripts
All formmail type of scripts must be named using a random name. This includes formmail and FormMail along with extensions that would include .cgi, .pl, and .php or any other extension.
We are suggesting something similar to kt33zd5l.php
Please make your own random 8 character string.
This is being done to be another level in the protection from automated bots that are scanning systems daily looking for formmail scripts that are likely vulnerable to spam.
Hosting Begins does not take any responsibility for not following this term.
• Client Responsibility: Responsibility rests with the client for all activity originating from the account unless the client is proven to be a victim of outside hacking or address forgery. Clients should take all necessary steps to secure their username/password. Client assumes responsibility for all material on their site that may be added by a third party (such as the usage of Free For All links pages). Use of Hosting Begins service requires the client to possess a working knowledge of Internet protocols, languages, and software. The level of knowledge and degree of skill varies depending on the anticipated use and desired content of the web space by the client. The following examples are offered:
Web Publishing: requires at least a basic knowledge of HTML (hypertext markup language), how to properly locate and link documents, how to FTP (file transfer protocol) Web contents to a remote server, how to create/edit graphics, text, sound, image mapping, etc.
Front Page Web publishing: knowledge of Front Page tools such as creating and managing FrontPage Webs, the use of Image Composer for graphic work, plus Front Page extensions, Telnet and FTP understanding and capability.
CGI Scripts: requires a knowledge of the UNIX language and landscape, including TAR & GUNZIP commands, Perl, CShell scripts, setting permissions, etc.
Mail: knowledge of mail clients (such as Microsoft Outlook Express) to receive and send mail, etc.
The client agrees that he or she has the necessary knowledge to create and maintain their web space. Client agrees that it is not the responsibility of Hosting Begins to provide this knowledge or support outside matter specific to Hosting Begins servers.
• Copyright or trademark infringement: Use of the Hosting Begins service to transmit any material (by e-mail, uploading, posting or otherwise) that infringes any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret or other proprietary rights of any third party, including, but not limited to, the unauthorized copying of copyrighted material, the digitisation and distribution of photographs from magazines, books, or other copyrighted sources, and the unauthorized transmission of copyrighted software. Use of the Hosting Begins service to collect, or attempt to collect, personal information about third parties without their knowledge or consent will not be tolerated. Distribution and/or posting of copyrighted or the aforementioned infringements will not be tolerated.
• Network disruptions : Use of the Hosting Begins service for any activity which affects the ability of other people, or computer systems, to use Hosting Begins 's Services or the Internet is expressly forbidden. This includes "denial of service" (DOS) attacks against another network host or individual user. Interference with or disruption of other network users, services or equipment is prohibited. Hosting Begins does not allow the hosting of IRC, IRC Bots, or ‘eggdrops' on our network. Servers found hosting this material will be subject to immediate cancellation without refund. Use of the Hosting Begins service to access, or to attempt to access, the accounts of others, or to penetrate, or attempt to penetrate, security measures of Hosting Begins or another entity's computer software or hardware, electronic communications system, or telecommunications system, whether or not the intrusion results in the corruption or loss of data, is expressly prohibited and the offending Hosting Begins account is subject to immediate termination.
• Resellers/Multihosts Terms: The terms set out here in these TOS are also applied to all Resellers and there clients.
• Resellers/Multihosts: We expressly forbid our resellers from setting up Free Trial accounts. We also forbid the use of our resources to supply free hosting or free email services. These Free Trials and free accounts [subdomain or otherwise] open up the servers to severe abuse from hackers and spammers. If we find a reseller who is offering Free Trial accounts, or free hosting, we will suspend that WHM account. There are no exceptions to this rule.
• Overselling: We do allow overselling of your whm account. This is something that we do closely monitor. We expect overselling to be done within a reasonable manner and will suggest that an account be upgraded to a higher plan to reduce the amount oversold if we feel it is necessary.
• Resellers/multihosts should ensure that they incorporate the Hosting Begins TOS and AUP into the agreement between themsleves and their clients
• Restricted File Types: Executable files are not permitted. This includes: .exe, bat, wav-streaming files
Also the following programs are not permitted.
THE FOLLOWING SCRIPTS ARE NOT PERMITTED ON OUR SERVERS !
YABB (Yet Another Bulletin Board)/Resource intensive
UBB (Ultimate Bulletin Board)/Resource intensive
Hackers programs or archives
Pirated software
Warez Sites
IRC Bots, bnc, psybnc, psy e.t.c
Teamspeak and any other voice software is not allowed, if found your account will be terminated without notice.
Proxy Servers (stone, etc.) /Often used to hide identity
nph-proxy
The Anonymizer
UltimateBB
Ikonboard
Bulk.php
Greymatter (all versions)
IRC Egg Drops & IRC related programs.(chat software)
Un secure versions of Formmail .cgi .pl .php Including matt-scripts
X-Mailer: PHPBulkEmailer
lstmrge.cgi
Shell, SSH, Telnet Scripts and Shell, SSH, Telnet Alternatives (cgitelnet.pl)
PHPShell /Often abused
Any script that uses & processes a massive number of flat files or large flat file databases.
3rd - thirdparty phpmyadmin script ( this is not needed as it is given in Cpanel MY Sql) and has the correct settings.
We cannot and will not support any thirdparty scripting including 3rd party scripts included with Cpanel or Fantastico. Please see vendors websites for support.
• Network Security: Hosting Begins accounts operate on shared network resources. Excessive use or abuse of these resources by one customer may have a negative impact on all other customers. Misuse of network resources in a manner that impairs network performance is prohibited by this policy and may result in termination of your account.
• REPORTING VIOLATIONS OF Hosting Begins 's AUP
Hosting Begins requests that anyone who believes that there is a violation of this AUP direct the information to the Abuse Department at support@hosting-begins.com
If possible, please provide the IP address used to commit the violation, the date and time of the violation, and evidence of the violation.
Spam Policy!!
Hosting Begins strictly prohibits site partners and/or end-users from engaging in illegal emailing activities, such as transmission of unsolicited or unauthorized advertisements, promotional materials, "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," or other forms of solicitation. Failure to comply with the Hosting Begins Spam Policy will result in the termination of your Hosting Begins hosting account without warning "No exceptions given"
“Sending a message, especially an advertisement, to more than five recipients, is by itself spamming unless the individuals have specifically requested to be added to a mailing list on that topic. This includes both commercial advertisements and informational messages sent to recipients via electronic mail (email) as well as off-topic messages posted in Usenet discussion groups where the recipient has not requested or invited the message. Mailing lists must be true opt-in mailing lists. Before sending any email to a listed user, a confirmation email, with a tracking number, must be sent to the new subscriber, to which they must respond with a confirmation that they wish to be added to the list. You must keep these confirmations on file, so that in the case that a spam complaint is made against you, you have proof that the user did indeed opt-in. In addition, you must provide at least one easy way to opt out; see the MAPS guidelines (http://mail-abuse.org/rbl/manage.html) for details. Opt-out requests must be honored immediately.”
To report spam please send us a copy of the full email and include all headers. Please send one email only to,
support -at- myhostingbegins.com
