Terms & Acceptable Use Policy

This BestHost Terms & Acceptable Use Policy ("TAUP") document describe the permitted and prohibited uses of BestHost's hosting services (the "Services"). This TAUP is not exhaustive and BestHost reserves the right to modify this TAUP at any time, effective upon posting of the modified TAUP at besthost.uk. By registering for and using the Services, and thereby accepting the terms and conditions of this TAUP, you agree to abide by these conditions as modified from time to time. Any violation of the TAUP may result in the suspension or termination of your account or such other action as BestHost deems appropriate.

BestHost reserves the right to suspend or cancel a customer's access to any or all services provided by BestHost when BestHost decides that the account has been inappropriately used or otherwise. 

Payment Policy

All accounts are set up on a prepay basis. Although BestHost reserves the right to change prices of accounts or services at any time all pricing is guaranteed for the period of prepayment. Payment is due each anniversary year, quarter or month following the date the account was established. Customers will automatically be sent an invoice 30 days before the end of their prepay period unless closure notification has already been given in advance (before the due date) via a support ticket.

In situations where payment in full has not been received by the due date, BestHost may immediately suspend the facility to purchase services on-line until the outstanding charge is processed successfully. In addition, BestHost reserves the right to suspend other services until the outstanding debt is cleared. The customer is responsible for all money owed on the account from the time it was established to the time that the customer sends a written cancellation request via the support desk.

All invoices will be sent directly to customers via email after the online purchase has been made.

All prices shown are in UK sterling.

Domain names are registered for the period specified at the time of ordering, and are renewable on or before the end of the initial paid-for period, at the then current renewal rates.

Website hosting period is either monthly, quarterly or yearly, based upon your initial order and payment, at the rate specified on this website. Website hosting is automatically renewed and payable monthly, quarterly or yearly on termination of the initial contract period and any subsequently renewed contract period, unless you give one month written notice to BestHost to cease the Service. An invoice will be sent 30 days before the expiration period.

Payment Options

All payments must be in UK Pounds Sterling. In order to streamline our accounting procedures and keep costs down BestHost runs a limited number of payment options.

Credit / Debit Cards:
BestHost accepts various credit card as posted on our checkout screen. All card payment are process by either SagePay or PayPal via their secure servers.

Cheque Payment:
BestHost cannot guarantee that a service will be provided until after any received cheques have been cleared. If your cheque is returned by the bank as unpaid for any reason, you will be liable for a "returned cheque" charge of £25

Cancellation and Refunds

Customers have a right to cancel an order within 7 days of us accepting payment. In that case, a refund will be given within 30 days of receiving a cancellation notice. A refund will not be made for domain names registration and hosting services as it is agreed that the service is provided within 24 hours of the payment being made.

Additionally, no refunds can be given for Site Builder packages as a 7 day free trial is offered before purchase. It is the responsibility of customers to fully assess this product during that period.

Customers may also cancel their account at the end of a period of service as long as it is done before the due date on the renewal invoice. Cancellation must be made by way of a support ticket on the helpdesk or in writing by fax or post.  Any incentives offered to customers when opening the account will also be cancelled. Customers may be given the option to purchase services which were offered as start-up incentives in the result of a cancellation.

BestHost reserves the right to cancel the service at any time. In this event customers will be entitled to a pro rata refund based upon the remaining period of service. If a customer contravenes BestHost's terms of service a refund will not be issued in the event of a cancellation.

Domain names cannot be transferred away from us until 60 days have passed from the registration date.

Delivery & Provision of Service

We shall use our reasonable endeavours to make available to you at all times the server and the services but we shall not, in any event, be liable for interruptions of service caused by technical faults, server downtime, upgrades and maintenance work.

Unless otherwise stated or agreed, we aim to complete all orders within 24 hours of payment being received and cleared through our bank, with the exception of web design where work will be completed within a reasonable time.

Complaints

We endeavour to respond to all complaints within five working days. Complaints should be made in writing by way of a support ticket or by email to admin@besthost.uk. You can also send a letter to: BestHost, Office 8104, PO Box 4336, Manchester M61 0BW

Server Abuse

Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server, or customer, of BestHost is strictly prohibited.

BestHost will strongly react to any use or attempted use of an Internet account or computer without the owner's authorization. Such attempts include "Internet scamming" (tricking other people into releasing their passwords), password robbery, security hole scanning etc.

Any unauthorized use of accounts or computers by a BestHost customer, whether or not the attacked account or computer belongs to BestHost, will result in action against the attacker. Possible actions include warnings, account suspension or cancellation, and civil or criminal legal action, depending on the seriousness of the attack.

IMPORTANT NOTE - BestHost has the right to discontinue service, or deny access to anyone who violates our Policies or the terms and conditions shown below WITHOUT WARNING OR PRIOR NOTICE. No refunds of fees paid will be made if account termination is due to violation of the terms outlined below. No files located on the offending account will be retrievable

Customers may not run IRC, bots or clients on shared servers. Unacceptable uses also include, but are NOT limited to: Bulk emailing, unsolicited emailing's, newsgroup spamming, illegal content, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, warez, cracks, software serial numbers, and/or anything else determined by BestHost to be unacceptable use of BestHost's services including abuse of server resources.

All hosting accounts may be terminated that include the following content or which have links to the following content:

• Providing material that is grossly offensive to the Web community including blatant expressions of bigotry, racism or hatred.
• Displaying material that contains anything obscene, libelous or threatening
• Promoting or providing instructional information about illegal activities, or promoting physical harm or injury against any group or individual.
• Displaying material that exploits children under 18 years of age.
• Acts of copyright infringement including offering pirated computer programs or links to such programs, information used to circumvent manufacturer-installed copy-protect devices, including serial or registration numbers for software programs, or any type of cracker utilities.

Bandwidth Traffic

Each plan with BestHost comes with a pre determined bandwidth usage amount. In the event that your account exceeds the bandwidth limitations included with your account, you will be asked to upgrade to a larger package.

You will receive a notice detailing your bandwidth usage.

You will have 7 days to upgrade. If you do not upgrade your site will be disabled within 7 days of your first notice.

 

Chat Rooms

We do not allow clients to install their own chat rooms within a shared hosting account, without approving it with the BestHost Support Team. Most chat rooms tend to be large system hogs and we cannot allow it as an account option. However, we do provide a choice of Java chat rooms for a small extra charge that will more than fill your needs and run without hindering the performance of the machine for others. Note: Parachat chat rooms do not apply to this rule. They are perfectly fine to install.

Abuse of Mail Server

Spamming is NOT allowed. It is illegal in the UK to send any amounts of unsolicited marketing emails and we will immediately terminate accounts that are used for spamming.

Background Running Programs

We do not generally allow programs to run continually in the background. There may be exceptions and these are considered on a one-to-one basis. An extra charge will be incurred based on system resources used and operational maintenance needed.

IRC

We currently do not allow IRC, IRC clients or IRC bots to be operated on any of our servers. In addition, IRC servers are not permitted on our network. Anyone found to be in violation of this policy risks immediate account termination.

Excessive Use/Overages

You may not exceed the bandwidth, storage and E-mail usage limits outlined by your particular web hosting package. If you use any bandwidth or storage space in excess of the agreed upon number of megabytes per month or if you exceed E-Mail storage and attachment size limitations, BestHost may, in its sole discretion, assess you with additional charges. If BestHost elects to take any corrective action, BestHost will not refund any unused pre-paid fees. Your use of your account and access to it is your responsibility. You are responsible for any unauthorized access to your account resulting in bandwidth, storage and/or E-mail usage exceeding the limits outlined in your particular web hosting package specifications and resultant charges. Bandwidth overages are currently billed at £3.00/GB/month. Disk space overages are currently billed at £0.10/MB/month disk space. Email attachments overages are currently billed at £0.10 per email over 10MB.

General usage rules

Users are also required to abide by the following:

• Databases are only to be used for BestHost hosted web sites, and no outside access will be granted.
• Mailing lists may not be used for the purpose of sending messages to anyone who has not requested to be on the list. A limit is imposed on how many email can be sent per hour and per day.

CGI based message forums which use flat file databases are often found to use excessive system resources, to avoid disappointment please use a PHP/ASP message forum with an SQL database.

The following scripts and categories of scripts are most definitely banned from our servers:

UltimateBBS (all versions)
Ikonboard (all versions)
IRC Egg Drops
Proxy Servers
nph-proxy
The Anonymizer
any bulletin board using a flat file database
any version of Matt's FormMail script.

Intellectual Property Rights

Material accessible to you through BestHost's services may be subject to protection under the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, or other copyright laws, or laws protecting trademarks, trade secrets or proprietary information. Except when expressly permitted by the owner of such rights, you must not use BestHost or its servers and network in a manner that would infringe, violate, dilute or misappropriate any such rights, with respect to any material, which you access or receive through the BestHost network. If you use a domain name in connection with BestHost or similar service, you must not use that domain name in violation of any trademark, service mark, or similar rights of any third party.

Network Security

Customers may not use the BestHost network with an attempt to circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network, or account. This includes, but is not limited to, accessing data not intended for the customer, logging into a server or account the customer is not expressly authorized to access, password cracking, probing the security of other networks in search of weakness, or violation of any other organization's security policy. Customers may not attempt to interfere or deny service to any user, host, or network. This includes, but is not limited to, flooding, mail bombing, or other deliberate attempts to overload or crash a host or network. BestHost will cooperate fully with investigations of violations of systems or network security at other sites, including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations. Users who violate system or network security may incur criminal or civil liability. You are solely responsible for any security breaches affecting servers or accounts under your control. If your server or website is responsible for or involved in an attack on or unauthorized access into another server or system, BestHost will shut it down immediately. You will pay any charges resulting from the cost to correct security breaches affecting BestHost or any of its other customers.

Electronic Commerce

You will be solely responsible for the development, operation and maintenance of your online store and products and all contents and materials appearing online or on your products, including without limitation (a) the accuracy and appropriateness of content and materials appearing within the store or related to your products, (b) 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 (c) 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 customer orders, and for handling any customer inquiries or complaints arising there from.

You are also responsible for the security of any customer credit card numbers and related customer 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.

Static / Dynamic Content Caching

You expressly (i) grant to BestHost a license to cache the entirety of your Web Site, including content supplied by third parties, hosted by BestHost under this Agreement and (ii) agree that such caching is not an infringement of any of your intellectual property rights or any third party's intellectual property rights.

IP Address Ownership and Usage

BestHost shall maintain and control ownership of all IP numbers and addresses that may be assigned to you by BestHost and BestHost reserves, in its sole discretion, the right to change or remove any and all such IP numbers and addresses.

IP Address usage must be justifiable, as per ARIN guidelines. Justifiable uses are listed below
SSL Encryption - Service Domain - Virtual FTP server - Anonymous FTP server.

Lawful Purpose

BestHost reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. Customers may only use BestHost servers for lawful purpose. Transmission of any material in violation of any National or regional regulation is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to copyrighted material, material legally judged to be threatening or obscene, and material protected by trade secrets. The designation of any materials as such described above is left entirely to the discretion of BestHost management. Regardless of the place of signing this agreement, the client agrees that for purposes of venue and jurisdiction this contract was entered into and performed in the UK, and any dispute will be litigated or arbitrated in the UK. Customer further waives all objections to venue or jurisdiction.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless BestHost from any and all liability, penalties, losses, damages, costs, expenses, attorneys' fees, causes of action or claims caused by or resulting indirectly from your use of the service which damages either you, BestHost, or any other party or parties without limitation or exception. This indemnification and hold harmless agreement extends to all issues associated with your account, including but not limited to domain name selection and Web site content.

Customer agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless BestHost against liabilities arising out of; (1) any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with BestHost's server; (2) any material supplied by customer infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party; (3) copyright infringement and (4) any defective products sold to customer from BestHost's server.

No warranties

BestHost makes no warranties or representations of any kind for the services being offered. The service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of title, non-infringement, or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No advice or information given by BestHost or its agents or employees shall create a warranty. BestHost provides no warranty that the service will be uninterrupted or error free or that any information, software or other material accessible on the service is free from viruses or other harmful components.

Under no circumstances shall BestHost be liable for any direct, indirect, special, punitive, or consequential damages that result in any way from your use of or inability to use the service, or for third parties' use of the service to access your Web space, or to access the Internet or any part thereof, or your or any third parties' reliance on or use of information, services, or merchandise provided on or through the service, or that result from mistakes, omissions, interruptions, deletion of files, errors, defects, delays in operation or transmission, or any failure of performance.

If you are dissatisfied with BestHost service or any of its terms, conditions, rules, policies, guidelines, or practices, your sole and exclusive remedy is to discontinue using the service.

You understand that by placing information on BestHost' servers that such information becomes available to all Internet users and that BestHost has no way of limiting or restricting access to such information or protecting such information from copyright infringement. You assume total responsibility and risk for your use of BestHost' servers and the Internet. It is solely your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness, and usefulness of all opinions, advice, services and other information, and the quality and merchantability of all merchandise provided through BestHost or on the Internet generally.

Your use of the service is at your sole risk. BestHost is not responsible for files and data residing on your account. You agree to take full responsibility for files and data transferred and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on BestHost servers.

BestHost reserves the right to delete any of your files after one or both parties terminates the service agreement between BestHost and the Yourself.

You agree not to interfere with the operation of the system. You further agree not to interfere with the proper operation of other systems reachable through the Internet, including any attempt at unauthorized access. You agree to adhere to system policies as published by BestHost, including restrictions on services available with each service type, restrictions on certain features, and all other policies. You agree to abide by any and all future BestHost policy decisions.

BestHost reserves the right to monitor any and all communications through or with our facilities. You agree that BestHost is not considered a "secure communications medium", and that no expectation of privacy is afforded.

Account-Holder Identification Information

You agree that you as the person legally responsible for all use of this account, are at least 18 years of age. If you are under 18 years of age, you need to have parental consent in order to sign up, and the account must be ordered by a parent or guardian, in their own name.

You agree to supply BestHost with a current and truthful name, postal address and telephone number for our records, and you have a continued obligation to keep this information current. You also agree that you are an authorized user of any credit card that you supply to us, and you understand and agree that we have an obligation to fully investigate any possible fraudulent credit card use.

Sharing of account space & resale restrictions

You agree and understand that the account you purchase is purchased for yourself. You understand that as the purchaser, you are the individual solely responsible for all use of the account.

Agreement Acknowledgement

This agreement supersedes any written, electronic, or oral communication you may have had with BestHost or any agent or representative thereof, and constitutes the complete and total agreement between the parties. Should any provision of this agreement is determined to be invalid or unenforceable, all other provisions shall remain in full force and effect and said provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable.

By placing and continuing to maintain or place information on BestHost' servers you are stating and acknowledging that you have read the aforementioned terms and conditions and that you understand such terms and conditions and agree to be bound by them.