This document establishes operating principles and acceptable use policies as they relate to use of this site and any of our other web publications. It also addresses the domain reservation/web hosting services provided by Westward Connections Inc. (hereinafter referred to as “WCI”) to the user (hereinafter defined as Customer). By accessing this web site, Customer web space and/or services of Westward.Com, Customer is exercising agreement to these terms. These terms are subject to change at any time and upon change will be posted in this document available publicly through the World Wide Web. It is the Customer’s responsibility to review this document from time to time to stay abreast of any changes.
GENERAL
The Internet is a voluntary association of users interested in and willing to exchange information and data with other Internet users. At present there is no oversight group providing governance over the principles, policies or procedures for use of the Internet or the information and data accessed via the Internet.
In order to facilitate their contractual relationship the Customer and WCI wish to define a working protocol of principles and policies and establish operating guidelines and acceptable standards of use of the Internet.
PRINCIPLES GOVERNING ACCEPTABLE USE
The Internet is a network intended for use by mature, adult users. The Customer recognizes this principle and undertakes at all times to act with respect, courtesy and responsibility, giving due regard to the interests and rights of other Internet user groups. This general guideline carries with it the following specific responsibilities:
Knowledge of the Internet – Customer agrees to obtain a basic knowledge of the Internet and its operating principles and procedures.
Improper Uses –
Customer will avoid violation of certain generally accepted guidelines on Internet usage such as restrictions on mass mailings and mass advertisements (often referred to as spamming), pirating or copying of software, mail bombing or other methods of attempting to deny service or access to other users, and attempts to violate security. Any such violations brought to the attention of WCI will be cause for immediate service termination.
Compliance with Laws – The Customer will ensure that its use of the Internet complies with all applicable federal, state and local law and regulation, including but not limited to those principles of law which protect against compromise of copyrights, trade secrets, proprietary information and other intellectual property rights, libel or defamation of character, invasion of privacy, tortious interference, and export of technical or military data to prohibited countries.
Validation of Information – The Customer is responsible for validating the integrity of the information and data received or transmitted by e-mail account holders and web space users of its domain over the Internet.
Security – The Customer is required to protect the security of its Internet account and usage. The Customer’s password will be treated as private and confidential and not disclosed to or shared with any third parties without prior notification to WCI and approval thereof. The Customer is solely responsible for managing his/her e-mail and web server space against harmful computer worms and viruses.
Discretion and Judgment – The Customer is expected to use discretion in the treatment and handling of Internet information and data and to take particular care to insure that adult information is not transmitted to juvenile users of the Internet.
Pornography – Customer agrees to adhere to U.S. laws and regulations regarding adult-related material of any nature and abide by our policy not to allow any files containing text and graphical formats that may be considered obscene or harmful in any way to be displayed from, transmitted over or stored on our web servers.
Excessive CPU usages – Customers using excessive amounts of CPU processing on any of our servers without our prior written permission will face immediate suspension of service and access to hosted web server space.
Resale of services – Customers may resell web space within their own account, but are responsible for the entire domain site content and server space activities. Customers may not resell mail services including, but not limited to mail forwarding capabilities, POP accounts and auto responders. The Customer may not at any time resell access to, or use of, preinstalled scripts including, but not limited to newcount, imagemap, htimage, cgie-mail as well as any custom or personally owned scripts for use by a third party while installed on the web server.
Third-party access to server space via FTP and password protected areas from web browsers — WCI will not provide customer account access information to third parties (.i.e. web developers, programmers, Internet marketing representatives) without prior written permission from the customer contact on record with WCI. An authorized Customer representative must complete a Third Party Web Space Access Permission Request. WCI reserves the final right to grant access to third parties based on security or operational concerns for all customers being served from the same server as the Customer. Customer is liable for all activities of third parties given access to master password protected areas of customer’s web space. Unless otherwise agreed to in writing, WCI is under no obligation to correspond directly with third parties about Customer’s account. Any training of third parties on the use of WCI server services must be authorized by Customer and will be billed at the rate of $2.00 per minute with a 5 minute minimum per incident.
Upgrading or downgrading services – Customers may elect to upgrade or downgrade web hosting services at any time provided they agree to pay all associated charges. The server set up fee ($100.00) must be paid each time the Customer upgrades or downgrades from one service plan to another. Set-up fees are non-refundable.
Suspension of service – Domains for which payment is not received from Customer by the due date will be blocked from access to the general public as well as the Customer until payment is received or up to 10 days after the due date at which time the account will be closed. Customers may retrieve files from closed accounts for up to six months for an additional fee.
Cancellation of service – Customers can cancel service at any time. Provided there are no outstanding balances, they may expect full cooperation in the transfer of their domain. Only accounts making annual payments in advance will be entitled to a pro-rated refund for portion of time unused up to the current billing quarter. Cancellation notice must be submitted in writing by Customer and received by WCI no less than 30 days prior to the next billing period or the account will be subject to all fees associated with the following billing period. Cancellation notice must be e-mailed by the primary customer contact with NON-RENEW in the subject header, or sent via surface mail to Westward Connections Inc., P.O. Box 23428, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87192-1428.
Payment Discrepancies – Overpayments or payments for any instance requiring customer reimbursement will first be applied to any outstanding account balance. Any remaining portion will be promptly refunded via crediting the customer charge card on file or via WCI company check, as determined by WCI billing department. Services for which an underpayment has been received are subject to suspension and reactivation fees may apply. WCI must be notified of any billing disputes within 60 days of receipt of billing disputed. Customer waives any rights to dispute billings by failure to notify WCI within this 60 day period.