This Web Hosting Agreement is between SpruceHost and the person/persons who use our website hosting and domain service. Please read carefully to ensure you understand our terms before purchasing any of our products or services.

SERVICES

SpruceHost agrees to provide the services stated for the price agreed at any given time.

USE

All customers are responsible for monitoring their storage space and bandwidth transfer each month. Excessive use and over-use may result in additional fees or costs.

SERVER ABUSE

Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server, agent, product, service, system, or customer of SpruceHost is strictly prohibited.

SpruceHost 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 theft, security hole scanning, etc.

Any unauthorized use of accounts or computers by YOU, whether or not the attacked account or computer belongs to SpruceHost, will result in action against YOU. Possible actions include warnings, account suspension or cancelation, as well as civil or criminal legal action, depending on the seriousness of the attack.

IMPORTANT NOTE – SpruceHost 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.

YOU may not run IRC, bots or clients on shared servers. Unacceptable uses also include, but are NOT limited to: Bulk emailing, unsolicited emailing, newsgroup spamming, upload scripts (Rappidleach), pornographic content, illegal content, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, warez sites (including links to/from), cracks, software serial numbers, proxy-relaying, link farming (the act of or by use of scripts), link grinding, link-only sites, spamdexing, FFA (Free-For-All) and/or anything else determined by SpruceHost to be unacceptable use of our services including abuse of server resources.

WEB APPLICATIONS and WEB ACCESSIBLE SCRIPTS – All web applications that are out-of-date and actively being exploited will be shut down immediately without prior notice. YOU are responsible for and should evaluate YOUR web-based applications and scripts on a regular basis to ensure their security and orderliness.

Shared hosting accounts may also be terminated if it includes the following content or have links to the following content: Providing material that is grossly offensive to the Web community; promoting or providing instructional information about illegal activities; promoting physical harm or injury against any group or individual; displaying material containing obscene nudity or pornographic material; displaying material that exploits children; 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.

DISK SPACE ABUSE

SpruceHost will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. You are reponsable for monitoring your disk space usage. If you need extra disk space contact one of our staff and they will be happy to help out. You can also upgrade your hosting plan from inside your SpruceHost client account. Disk space should not be used for backups, media storage, or other non-web based use.

BANDWIDTH ABUSE

The intention of SpruceHost is to provide enough bandwidth for legitimate website services and traffic. Bandwidth is not to be used for file sharing or other non-traditional use.

AUP

Customers agree to use our services under the Acceptable Usage Policy which is here by incorporated with this agreement. Customers agree that SpruceHost hold the right to change their AUP at any time to meet web hosting standards and laws. Amendments to the AUP are effective on the earlier of SpruceHost notice to Customer that an amendment has been made, or the first day of any Renewal Term that begins subsequent to the amendment. Customer agrees to cooperate with SpruceHost reasonable investigation of any suspected violation of the AUP. In the event of a dispute between SpruceHost and Customer regarding the interpretation of the AUP, SpruceHost commercially reasonable interpretation of the AUP shall govern.

CUSTOMER INFORMATION

Customer represents and warrants to SpruceHost that the information he, she or it has provided and will provide to SpruceHost for purposes of establishing and maintaining the service is accurate. If Customer is an individual, Customer represents and warrants to SpruceHost that he or she is at least 18 years of age. SpruceHost may rely on the instructions of the person listed as the Primary Customer Contact on the Order with regard to Customer’s account until Customer has provided a written notice changing the Primary Customer Contract.

UNSOLICITED EMAIL & SPAMMING

Unsolicited commercial advertisements (‘SPAM’) are not allowed in e-mail, and will likely result in account cancelation. SpruceHost takes a zero-tolerance approach to SPAM originating from its servers or for spam advertising of domains hosted within our network. If found, YOUR account may be deleted.

The following activities are not allowed: SPAM, which includes, but is not limited to, bulk mailing of commercial advertising, informational announcements, charity requests, petitions for signatures, and political or religious tracts (such messages may only be sent to those who have explicitly requested it from your domain); Forging, altering or removing electronic mail headers – any domain sending stealth spam will be terminated without warning and without refund. Sending numerous copies of the same or substantially similar message with the intent to disrupt a server or account (‘mail bombing’); Spamming Newsgroups: Commercial advertisements are unwelcome in most Usenet discussion groups and on most e-mail mailing lists. Inappropriate posting may result in account cancelation. See the newsgroup or mailing list’s charter for whether advertising is allowed or not. Sending a message to many different off-topic newsgroups, is particularly unethical and will be treated as such; Mail may not be used to harass or intimidate others. Harassment, whether through language, frequency of messages, or size of messages, is prohibited. Sending a single unwelcome message may be considered harassment. If a recipient asks to stop receiving e-mail, YOU must not send that person any further messages.

NOTE – If YOU use the services of another provider to promote a website hosted by or through SpruceHost (‘spamvertising’), then the provisions of the above policy shall apply as if the SPAM were sent through our servers.

99.9% UPTIME GUARANTEE

1. Overview: This Service Level Agreement (SLA) outlines the terms and conditions for the 99.9% uptime guarantee provided by SpruceHost.

2. Uptime Calculation: The uptime percentage is calculated by subtracting the total downtime in minutes from the total available time in a given month in minutes and then multiplying by 100. Uptime is calculated over a calendar month.

Uptime Percentage = ((Total Available Time – Total Downtime) / Total Available Time) x 100

The traditional understanding of 99.9% availability is a measurement of 45 minutes of downtime. SpruceHost abides by this industry standard.

3. Covered Services: The 99.9% uptime guarantee applies to http server access provided by SpruceHost, downtime (‘unavailability’) is defined as 100% packet loss from SpruceHost to our uptime monitoring service, which is publicly available on the footer of our website.

4. Exclusions: The following events are excluded from the uptime calculation and do not contribute to downtime:

a. Scheduled maintenance announced at least 48 hours in advance.
b. Force majeure events, circumstances beyond SpruceHost’s reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, fire, flood, strike or other labor disturbance, interruption of or delay in transportation, unavailability of interruption or delay in telecommunications or third party services, including DNS propagation, domain name registration/transfer, failure of third party software or hardware or inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of your web site.
c. Customer-caused outages or issues, including misuse of resources or violation of the terms of service.
d. Third-party service provider failures or issues.

5. Downtime Definition: Downtime is defined as the period during which the services are inaccessible or experience a 100% degradation in performance, as determined by SpruceHost.

6. Compensation for Downtime: In the event that SpruceHost fails to meet the 99.9% uptime guarantee in a given calendar month, customers may be eligible for compensation as follows:

a. 99.0% to 99.8% uptime: 1/30th of the prior monthly hosting fee as service credit. This is to be measured as 1 day of hosting credit as an account credit on the next invoice. Account credit cannot be used to extend an invoice due-date.
b. 98.0% to 98.9% uptime: 1/15th of the prior monthly hosting fee as service credit. This is to be measured as 2 days of hosting credit as an account credit on the next invoice. Account credit cannot be used to extend an invoice due-date.
c. Below 98.0% uptime: 1/10th of the prior monthly hosting fee as service credit. This is to be measured as 3 days of hosting credit as an account credit on the next invoice. Account credit cannot be used to extend an invoice due-date.

Service credits will be applied to the customer’s account upon request. The customer must request credits by the last date of the calendar month that the downtime occurred.

7. Monitoring and Auditing: SpruceHost employs monitoring tools to track uptime and regularly audits its systems to ensure compliance with the 99.9% uptime guarantee.

TECHNICAL SUPPORT BOUNDARIES

SpruceHost provides technical support for YOU that encompasses within our area of expertise only. Such expertise includes assistance, troubleshooting, and debugging of our cPanel control panel interface, servers within our immediate responsibility and any other hosting related issues.

Unlike many hosting companies, we do our best to help with common and popular scripts and applications. However, under no circumstances is SpruceHost obligated or required to help YOU in the installation, maintenance, updates, or use of applications, templates, scripts, tools, design, and/or programming languages, nor in providing assistance for any errors caused by third-party tools. Third party applications, scripts, and programs are outside of our area of expertise and we would strongly suggest that you contact the creator of such third party programs.

INDEMNIFICATION

Customer agrees to indemnify and hold harmless SpruceHost, SpruceHost’s affiliates, and each of their respective officers, directors, agents, and employees from and against any and all claims, demands, liabilities, obligations, losses, damages, penalties, fines, punitive damages, amounts in interest, expenses and disbursements of any kind and nature whatsoever (including reasonable attorneys fees) brought by a third party under any theory of legal liability arising out of or related to the actual or alleged use of Customer’s services in violation of applicable law or the AUP by Customer or any person using Customer’s log on information, regardless of whether such person has been authorized to use the services by Customer.

YOU AGREE TO DEFEND,INDEMNIFY AND HOLD HARMLESS SpruceHost AGAINST LIABILITIES ARISING OF:

(1) ANY INJURY TO PERSON OR PROPERTY CAUSED BY ANY PRODUCTS SOLD OR OTHERWISE DISTRIBUTED IN CONNECTION WITH SPRUCEHOST’S SERVER.
(2) ANY MATERIAL SUPPLIED BY THE 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 SPRUCEHOST’S SERVER.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES

SpruceHost does not warrant or represent that the services will be uninterrupted, error free, or completely secure. To the extent permitted by applicable law SpruceHost disclaims any and all warranties including the implied warranties or merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. To the extent permitted by applicable law all services are provided on an “As Is” basis.

LIMITATION OF DAMAGES

Neither party shall be liable to the other for any lost profits or any indirect, special incidental, consequential or punitive loss or damage of any kind, or for damages that could have been avoided by the use of reasonable diligence, arising in connection with the agreement, even if the party has been advised or should be aware of the possibility of such damages.

Notwithstanding anything else in the agreement to the contrary, the maximum aggregate liability of SpruceHost and any of its employees, agents or affiliates, under any theory of the law (including breach of contract, tort, strict liability and infringement) shall be a payment of money not to exceed the amount payable by customer for the three months service.

SUSPENSION OF SERVICES/TERMINATION

Customer Accountability: Customer acknowledges and agrees that SpruceHost maintains the authority to swiftly suspend or terminate services without prior notice or liability under the following circumstances:

Suspension Conditions:

1. Breach of Terms: SpruceHost may suspend services if there is a reasonable belief that the services are being used in violation of our terms.
2. Non-Cooperation: Customer’s failure to cooperate with a reasonable investigation of suspected terms violation.
3. Network Protection: If SpruceHost reasonably believes that service suspension is essential to safeguard its network or other customers.
4. Legal Compliance: As directed by law enforcement or regulatory agencies.

Termination Conditions:

1. Payment Default: SpruceHost reserves the right to terminate services upon five (5) days notice if Customer is overdue on any payment.
2. Material Violation: Immediate termination may occur if Customer materially violates any agreement provision, with a ten (10) day cure period following a written notice from SpruceHost.
3. Repeated Violations: Termination with one (1) day notice may be initiated if Customer’s Service is used in violation of terms more than once.

Enforcement Measures: In the event of a terms of service/acceptable usage policy breach, SpruceHost reserves the unequivocal right to cancel services promptly. While every effort will be made to resolve issues collaboratively, extreme cases, such as the presence of child pornography, may warrant immediate service cancellation without prior warning.

Refund Policy: SpruceHost does not issue refunds for accounts violating our terms of service/acceptable usage policy. This stringent approach is in place to deter individuals from subscribing to our services with the intent of breaching our terms. We prioritize a secure and compliant online environment for all our customers.

BACK UP COPY

Customer agrees to maintain a current copy of all content hosted by SpruceHost not withstanding any agreement by SpruceHost to provide back up services. The customer is solely responsible for maintaining backups of their data and websites.

REQUEST FOR RESTORE OF HOSTING PACKAGE

Website backup restoration is a manual procedure. Customers may incur a $10 fee per backup restored if a backup must be manually restored by SpruceHost.

CHANGES TO SPRUCEHOST’S NETWORK

Upgrades and other changes in SpruceHost’s network, including, but not limited to changes in its software, hardware, and service providers, may affect the display or operation of Customer’s hosted content and/or applications. SpruceHost reserves the right to change its network in its commercially reasonable discretion, and SpruceHost shall not be liable for any resulting harm to Customer.

NOTICES

Notices to SpruceHost under the Agreement shall be given via electronic mail to the e-mail address posted for customer support. Notices to Customer shall be given via electronic mail to the individual listed as the Primary Customer Contact on the Order. Notices are deemed received on the day transmitted, or if that day is not a business day, on the first business day following the day delivered. Customer may change his, her or its notice address by a notice given in accordance with this Section.

FORCE MAJORED

SpruceHost shall not be in default of any obligation under the Agreement if the failure to perform the obligation is due to any event beyond SpruceHost’s control, including, without limitation, significant failure of a portion of the power grid, significant failure of the Internet, natural disaster, war, riot, insurrection, epidemic, strikes or other organized labour action, terrorist activity, or other events of a magnitude or type for which precautions are not generally taken in the industry.

GOVERNING/LAW DISPUTES

The Agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of California, exclusive of its choice of law principles, and the laws of the United States of America, as applicable. The Agreement shall not be governed by the United Nations Convention on the International Sale of Goods. FTB.

MISCELLANEOUS

1. Intellectual Property: Each party acknowledges and agrees that the exclusive ownership and rights in trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, inventions, copyrights, and other intellectual property remain with the respective party. Without prior written consent, neither party may use the other party’s name or trademark.

2. Independent Contractor Relationship: The parties affirm their relationship as independent contractors, expressly disclaiming any partnership, joint venture, or employer/employee association. Neither party has the authority to bind the other, and they will not represent themselves as agents of the other.

3. Agreement Amendments: Any amendments to this Agreement must be formalized in writing and signed by both parties. Terms on Customer’s purchase orders or other business forms are not binding unless expressly incorporated into a formal written agreement signed by both parties.

4. Waiver and Enforcement: Failure or delay in enforcing any provision of the Agreement does not waive a party’s rights regarding that provision or any other. Waiver of any right is not a waiver of other rights, whether similar or not.

5. Survival of Provisions: Certain provisions will survive expiration or termination of the Agreement, including fees, indemnity obligations, limitations of liability, warranty disclaimers, intellectual property ownership, and other provisions intended to endure termination.

6. No Third-Party Beneficiaries: No third parties, including insurers or customers of resellers, are beneficiaries to this Agreement.

7. Transfer and Assignment: Customer may not transfer the Agreement without prior written consent from SpruceHost. SpruceHost’s approval for assignment is contingent upon the assignee meeting credit approval criteria. SpruceHost reserves the right to assign the Agreement in whole or in part.

8. Entire Agreement: This Agreement, along with the Order and Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), constitutes the comprehensive and exclusive agreement between the parties, superseding any prior understandings or communications, whether written or oral.

COPYRIGHT FILES

All files stored on SpruceHost’s servers must be legally-owned and be accompanied with a valid license and/or copyright. This include and is not limiting to MP3, AVI, MID, MIDI, MPG, MPEG, MOV, EXE, ISO. Should we discover any unlicensed and/or illegal files within YOUR account, the files will be subjected to deletion.

CANCELATION OF SERVICE

SpruceHost reserves the right to cancel a service at any time. All fees paid in advance of cancellation will be pro-rated and paid by SpruceHost if we institutes our right of cancelation. Any violation of policies which results in extra costs billed to YOU.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

Material accessible to you through SpruceHost’s services may be subject to protection under the United States or other copyright laws, or laws protecting trademarks, trade secrets and proprietary information. Except when expressly permitted by the owner of such rights, YOU must not use SpruceHost or its servers and network in a manner that would infringe, violate, dilute or misappropriate any such rights, with respect to any material that you access or receive through the SpruceHost network. If YOU use a domain name in connection with SpruceHost 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 SpruceHost 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 YOU, logging into a server or account YOU are 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. YOU 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. SpruceHost will cooperate fully with investigations for 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.

ELECTRONIC COMMERCE

YOU will be solely responsible for the development, operation and maintenance of YOUR online store and products along with all content 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 website. 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 AND DYNAMIC CONTENT CACHING

YOU expressly

(i) grant to SpruceHost a license to cache the entirety of YOUR website, including content supplied by third parties, hosted by SpruceHost 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

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

DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION AGREEMENT

This Domain Name Registration Agreement (“Agreement”) is entered into by and between you (“YOU” or “Registrant”) and SpruceHost. By registering or transferring a domain name through SpruceHost, YOU agree to be bound by the terms and conditions outlined below.

1. Payment and Registration:

1.1. YOU agree to pay SpruceHost the applicable fees for the initial registration and any subsequent renewals of the domain name as per the SpruceHost price schedule.

1.2. All fees are non-refundable, even if YOUR domain name registration is suspended, canceled, or transferred before the end of the current registration term.

1.3. SpruceHost reserves the right to change fees, surcharges, renewal fees, or institute new fees at its sole discretion.

1.4. YOUR domain name will only be registered upon receipt of actual payment and confirmation in an email from SpruceHost to the provided email address.

1.5. In the event of a chargeback or similar action by a payment provider, YOU acknowledge that the domain name registration may be transferred to SpruceHost, and SpruceHost reserves the right to make the domain name available to other parties for purchase.

1.6. SpruceHost may reinstate YOUR domain name registration at its discretion, subject to receipt of the initial or renewal fee and applicable reinstatement fee.

2. Transfer Domain Registrar to SpruceHost:

2.1. YOU agree to pay SpruceHost the current transfer fee for the desired domain name transfer request.

2.2. The domain name transfer may fail for reasons including, but not limited to, no response from the Registered Name Holder or Administrative Contact, Registrar Lock Status, or expiration of the registration period.

2.3. All fees for domain name transfers are non-refundable.

2.4. SpruceHost reserves the right to change transfer fees at its sole discretion.

3. Transfer Domain Away from SpruceHost:

3.1. SpruceHost reserves the right to reject domain name transfer requests for reasons including, but not limited to, no response from the Registered Name Holder or Administrative Contact, Registrar Lock Status without a request for status change, or domain name registration period expiring in less than 60 days.

3.2. The success or failure of a domain name transfer is YOUR sole responsibility, and SpruceHost will not be held liable for transfer failures.

4. General:

4.1. Domain registrations are non-refundable. Ensure you are certain about your purchase before completing the transaction.

4.2. This Agreement is subject to change at any time, and it is YOUR responsibility to review it periodically.

By proceeding with the domain registration or transfer, YOU acknowledge and agree to abide by the terms and conditions outlined in this Agreement.

SECURITY

It is the user’s responsibility to take regular backups of each hosting account. SpruceHost maintains data backups for disaster recovery purposes, however these are not readily available for users to restore. SpruceHost can manually restore these backups upon request for a $10 fee. We highly encourage all users to take regular backups of their own hosting account, or to purchase our automatic backup service.

SpruceHost conducts daily and weekly security scans of our server. If Malware or security holes are detected on your account, we may automatically patch them or upgrade your scripts. If we are unable to do so, we may contact you to urge that you do so yourself immediately. If a security hole or malware issue is posing a threat to the data of our customers or to your end users, we may suspend your website until you resolve the issue and secure your account.

You are responsible for the security of your website. It is critical that you use secure passwords which are not reused elsewhere, and that you change them frequently. You should regularly update your website to the latest version, so that outdated scripts and security holes are not left running on your website.

BULK COMMERCIAL EMAIL

For any emails sent from your SpruceHost account you must adhere to the following rules:

a) Your intended recipients have given their consent to receive e-mail via some affirmative means, such as an opt-in procedure;
b) Your procedures for soliciting consent include reasonable means to ensure that the person giving consent is the owner of the e-mail address for which the consent is given;
c) You may not obscure the source of your e-mail in any manner.
d) You otherwise comply with the CAN SPAM Act and other applicable law.

These policies apply to messages sent using your SpruceHost service, or to messages sent from any network by you or any person on your behalf that directly or indirectly refer the recipient to a site hosted via your SpruceHost service..

UNSOLICITED E-MAIL

You may not send any unsolicited e-mail, either in bulk or individually, to any person who has indicated that they do not wish to receive it. You must comply with the rules of any other network you access or participate in using your SpruceHost’s services.

MATERIAL PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

You may not publish, distribute, or otherwise copy in any manner any music, software, art, or other work protected by copyright law unless:
a) you have been expressly authorized by the owner of the copyright for the work to copy the work in that manner.
b) you are otherwise permitted by established United States copyright law to copy the work in that manner.

SpruceHost will terminate the service of repeat copyright infringers.

OTHER

You must have valid and current information on file with your domain name registrar for any domain hosted on the SpruceHost network.

DISCLAIMER

SpruceHost is under no duty, and does not by this AUP undertake a duty, to monitor or police our customers’ activities and disclaims any responsibility for any misuse of the SpruceHost network.

INTERNET ABUSE

You may not engage in illegal, abusive, or irresponsible behavior, including:

a) Unauthorized access to or use of data, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network or to breach security or authentication measures (including those belonging to SpruceHost and its customers) without express authorization of the owner of the system or network;
b) monitoring data or traffic on any network or system without the authorization of the owner of the system or network;
c) Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks;
d) Use of an Internet account or computer without the owner’s authorization, including, but not limited to Internet scanning (tricking other people into releasing their passwords), password robbery, security hole scanning, and port scanning;
e) Forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in an e-mail or a newsgroup posting; or
f) Any conduct that is likely to result in retaliation against the SpruceHost network.
g) Use of SpruceHost’s network in a way that unreasonably interferes with SpruceHost’s other customers use of the network

WHAT IS APPROPRIATE USAGE?

SpruceHost is designed to serve the web hosting needs of small, independently owned and operated businesses, and the needs of small, personal websites. Our hosting is not designed to support large enterprises or websites with high sustained demand. Our hosting is not designed for websites with a sustained demand that places undue burden on our systems or negatively impacts use by small, independently owned and operated businesses.

SpruceHost is a shared web hosting service, which means that a number of customers’ web sites and other email or storage services are hosted from the same server. Our services are affordable for small business users and small website operators because we divide up the cost and resources of the server among all of the users. SpruceHost uses abuse controls to help ensure that use of our services does not adversely affect the performance of our system or other customers’ sites.

DISK SPACE

It is not appropriate to use an account primarily as an online storage space or for archiving electronic files. Our services are not designed for this use and are intended to support the media storage of a typical website, not for mass file storage.

Each hosting account has a cap of 300,000 inodes, or unique files.

RESOURCES

SpruceHost uses the CloudLinux system to monitor resource use. Accounts which use an extreme level of resources, at our discretion, may be subject to suspension or require an upgrade to a new plan. Please refer to our Resource Limits Policy for full details.

BANDWIDTH

In most cases, your use of our service in compliance with these terms will result in visitors being able to access your website to download and view content as much as they like. However, in the event that any one website exceeds its’ fair share resource limits, access to that account may be temporarily throttled or restricted.

SpruceHost bills for bandwidth on a pay-per-use basis. Extreme spikes in traffic, known as the “digg effect” or “going viral” may cause your bandwidth use to unexpectedly increase. Our servers are designed to scale up your website as traffic increases, however you are ultimately responsible for monitoring your bandwidth use and related costs. SpruceHost strongly encourages the use of best-practice software, such as caching software and image offloading, to reduce your bandwidth costs.

EMAIL STORAGE

Webhosting customers may create personal email addresses @theirdomain for use in conjunction with their websites. Please note that we reserve the right to limit the storage of email, and your use of our services should not be primarily for hosting email. The primary function of your account should be a working website, not for hosting an undue amount of email accounts.

UNLIMITED

Many of our accounts contain “unlimited” resources in that we do not place artificial caps on. However, customers should understand that there are physical limits to what can be stored by a server, what can be transmitted over a connection, and what can be run simultaneously. While the term “unlimited” means that we do not place artificial limits, customers should still understand there are physical limits to what can realistically be done on our hosting platform. Customers who exceed the capability of our hosting may need to find more advanced hosting resources for their needs.

OFFENSIVE CONTENT

You may not publish or transmit via SpruceHost’s service any content that SpruceHost reasonably believes:
a) constitutes child pornography;
b) constitutes pornography;
c) is excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence, or contains harassing content or hate speech;
d) is unfair or deceptive under the consumer protection laws of any jurisdiction, including chain letters and pyramid schemes;
e) is defamatory or violates a person’s privacy;
f) creates a risk to a person’s safety or health, creates a risk to public safety or health, compromises national security, or interferes with a investigation by law enforcement;
g) improperly exposes trade secrets or other confidential or proprietary information of another person;
h) is intended to assist others in defeating technical copyright protections;
i) clearly infringes on another person’s trade or service mark, patent, or other property right;
j) promotes illegal drugs, violates export control laws, relates to illegal gambling, or illegal arms trafficking;
k) is otherwise illegal or solicits conduct that is illegal under laws applicable to you or to SpruceHost;
l) is otherwise malicious, fraudulent, or may result in retaliation against SpruceHost by offended viewers;

SpruceHost does not accept material such as:
a) Proxy, Warez, Escrow, High Yield Investment Programs (HYIP), illegal Gambling and Lottery sites.
b )Content ‘published or transmitted’ via SpruceHost’s service includes Web content, e-mail, bulletin board postings, chat, and any other type of posting or transmission that relies on any Internet service provided by SpruceHost.

LAWFUL PURPOSE

SpruceHost reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. YOU may only use SpruceHost server for lawful purposes and our services may not be used for illegal purposes or in support of illegal activities. We reserve the right to cooperate with legal authorities and/or injured third parties in the investigation of any suspected crime or civil wrongdoing. If anything is not legal in the United States of America, it is not permitted to reside on our servers. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes but not limiting material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws. Examples of non-acceptable content or links: ‘Pirated Warez’, OGG, AVI, MPEG, ISO, ‘Hacker programs or archives’, ‘Copyrighted Digital Movie Copies (DIVX)’ and ‘Unlicensed MP3’. The designation of any materials as such described above is left entirely to the discretion of SpruceHost management.

If illegal content or usage is found, the account will be suspended and/or terminated. YOU agree that SpruceHost may disclose any and all YOUR information including assigned IP numbers, account history, account use, etc. to any law enforcement agent who makes a written request without further consent or notification.

Regardless of the place of signing this agreement, YOU agree that for purposes of venue this contract is entered in Los Angeles, California, and any dispute will be litigated or arbitrated in Los Angeles, California. Defendants further waive all objections to venue and acknowledge that venue in any such litigation will be held in Los Angeles courts. IN NO EVENT SHALL SPRUCEHOST’S MAXIMUM LIABILITY EXCEED FIVE HUNDRED ($500.00) DOLLARS.

YOUR INFORMATION

When you sign up for any of our services we will ask you to provide contact information for your convenience as well as legal reasons. This will include name, home address, e-mail addresses and payment details (credit or debit card and PayPal). If you need support our staff may need to know information to solve the problem such as operating system, browser software and editing software. When you visit this website we do record certain information using Google Analytics such as your location, browser version, ip address, screen resolution, operating system and flash support. This is so we can continue to provide the most convenient web site for all our visitors. Our website is protected by a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and verified by Equifax. This helps prevent eavesdropping on our website, just look for the padlock.

HOW YOUR INFORMATION IS USED

We will use your personal identifiable information in the following ways.

– For payment purposes and to provide convenient and targeted support.
– To contact you and announce special offers, general announcements and news. Please note you can opt out of receiving these emails at anytime by following the instructions at the bottom of the e-mail.
– To improve our service and the marketing of our service. This could include using your demographic location to improve targeting of our website and customise your visit.

We will NEVER provide your personally identifiable information to any persons other than A law enforcement or regulatory agency at their request, third parties who provide services on our behalf such as payment processing, only if they agree not to misuse this information.

We do not under any circumstances apart from the above give away or sell your information to any third parties.

Your personal information is safe with us, your information is safely encrypted using SSL. Our service is not available to anyone under the age of 13, never will we intentionally maintain information about anyone under the age of 13.

COOKIES

A cookie is a small text file that is stored on a users computer for record-keeping purposes. We use cookies on this site. We do not link the information we store in cookies to any personally identifiable information you submit while on our site. We use both session ID cookies and persistent cookies. We use session cookies to make it easier for you to navigate our site. A session ID cookie expires when you close you browser. A persistent cookie remains on your hard drive for an extended period of time much like the cookie used for our affiliate program. You can remove persistent cookies by following directions provided in your Internet browsers ‘help’ file. We set a persistent cookie to store your passwords, so you do not have to enter it more than once. Persistent cookies also enable us to track and target the interests of our users to enhance the experience on our site. If you reject cookies, you may still use our site, but you will be asked to enter your username and password again every time you closed your browser or your session has timed out.

LOG FILES

As is true of most Web sites, we gather certain information automatically and store it in log files. This information includes Internet protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, operating system, date/time stamp, and clickstream data. We use this information, which does not identify individual users, to analyze trends, to administer the site, to track users movements around the site and to gather demographic information about our user base as a whole. We do not link this automatically-collected data to personally identifiable information. IP addresses are tied to personally identifiable information to prevent and block abusers to keep using our services such as members who violates our terms of service. We use a third-party tracking service that uses cookies and log files to track non-personally identifiable information about visitors to our site in the aggregate of usage and volume statistics to determine how our users navigate through our website and to know how many users are using our services demographically. We use the information you provide about yourself or others to complete the transaction for which it is intended. This may include administering a service such as registration, email, forum, etc., or contacting you if you have indicated your permission to do so by agreeing to accept further notification and service announcement from us on your member profile page. You can choose to opt-out from receiving any further notification from your member profile page. We do not share this information with outside parties.

SURVEYS

Upon using our free services, you may be requested to participate in our periodic internal surveys that are conducted by SpruceHost to determine your personal interests. These surveys are strictly voluntary. The data collected through these surveys will only be used to improve our products and services and will never be sold to any third parties.

COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE SITE

When we receive email, we use return email addresses to reply with the information requested. Such addresses are not used for any other purpose and are not shared with outside parties. When supplying contact information to SpruceHost you can indicate your preference if you would like to be contacted to receive information and updates about our services by logging in to your SpruceHost account, going to your member profile page and choose not to receive any further notification emails from us or other information pertaining to SpruceHost. Information you submit to us will not be used for this purpose unless you indicate this as your preference. When supplying contact information to SpruceHost you can indicate your preference on your members profile page to participate in the SpruceHost newsletter. You will receive a confirmation email from us when placing an order on our site and paying through PayPal.

NEWSLETTER

We provide you the opportunity to ‘opt-in’ and ‘opt-out’ of our newsletter at any time. Our newsletter is sent every month so it will certainly contain allot of useful information and any offers we may have. If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications, you may opt-out of receiving them at any time.

INFORMATION SHARING AND DISCLOSURE

We collect information from our website visitors using Google Analytics. We use this information to better design our Web site and services. This information is never shared with any third party. We do not link aggregate user data with personally identifiable information.

PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

SpruceHost does not share, sell, rent, or trade personally identifiable information with third parties. We never use or share the personally identifiable information provided to us online in ways unrelated to the ones described within this privacy policy without also providing you an opportunity to opt-out or otherwise prohibit such unrelated uses.

HOW YOU CAN ACCESS /CORRECT YOUR INFORMATION

You can access all your personally identifiable information that we collect by logging into your password-protected SpruceHost account and selecting to update your ‘My Details’ We use this procedure to better safeguard your information. You can also correct factual errors in your personally identifiable information by sending us a request that credibly shows error. To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections.

SPECIFIC TERMS AND CONDITIONS

SpruceHost considers email transmitted via our service to be the private correspondence between the sender and recipient. We will not monitor, edit or disclose the contents of a user`s private communications, except as required by law, to comply with legal process, if necessary to enforce the Service Agreement, to respond to claims that such contents violate the rights of third-parties, or to protect the rights or property of SpruceHost. By using the service you agree that technical processing of email communications is and may be required to send and receive messages, to conform to the technical requirements of connecting networks, to conform to the limitations of the Service, or to conform to other, similar technical requirements. By using the service you acknowledge and agree that SpruceHost do not endorse the content of any user communications and are not responsible or liable for any unlawful, harassing, libelous, privacy invading, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene, tortuous, or otherwise objectionable content, or content that infringes or may infringe the intellectual property or other rights of another.

LEGAL DISCLAIMER

We reserve the right to disclose your personally identifiable information as required by law and when we believe that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights and/or to comply with a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process served on our Web site.

SECURITY

The security of your personal information is important to us. We follow generally accepted industry standards to protect the personal information submitted to us, both during transmission and once we receive it. No method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure, however we have taken every step possible to make your information safe. This website is protected by Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to protect your information. Therefore, while we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

LINKS TO OTHER SITES

This Web site contains links to other sites that are not owned or controlled by SpruceHost. Please be aware that we, SpruceHost are not responsible for the privacy practices of such other sites. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and to read the privacy statements of each and every Web site that collects personally identifiable information. This privacy statement applies only to information collected by this Web site.

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY STATEMENT

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this privacy statement, the home page, and other places we deem appropriate so that you are aware of what information we collect, how we use it, and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it. We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time, so please review it frequently. If we make material changes to this policy, we will notify you here, by email, or by means of a notice on our home page. For more information please do not hesitate to send your questions via our contact form.