Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

Terms of Service (TOS)

As a provider of web site hosting, and other Internet services, Design Hosting, Inc. offers its clients, and their customers and users, the means to disseminate a wealth of public, private, commercial, and noncommercial information. Design Hosting, Inc. respects that the Internet provides a forum for free and open discussion and dissemination of information, however, when there are competing interests at issue, Design Hosting, Inc. reserves the right to take certain preventative or corrective actions. In order to protect these competing interests, Design Hosting, Inc. has developed an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), which supplements and explains certain terms of each customer's respective service agreement and is intended as a guide to the customer's rights and obligations when utilizing the Design Hosting, Inc. services. This AUP will be revised from time to time. A customer's use of the Design Hosting, Inc. web site, www.designhosting.biz, after changes to the AUP are posted will constitute the customer's acceptance of any new or additional terms of the AUP that result from those changes.

Your privacy is very important to us!

Design Hosting, Inc. values your privacy.  We will not share personal information on clients or visitors to our web site nor place cookies on your computer. We have log files that do contain statistics on the number of page views and referring sites. This allows us to concentrate our efforts on advertising and search engine listings.  This information is not shared with outside parties. Design Hosting, Inc. will send out notices of server upgrades or updates.  Other than this emailing, we do not send out bulk email, and will NOT make your name or email address available to others. Please contact us if you have any questions.

One important aspect of the Internet is that no one party owns or controls it. This fact accounts for much of the Internet's openness and value, but it also places a high premium on the judgment and responsibility of those who use the Internet to disseminate information to others. When information is disseminated through the Internet, they also must keep in mind that Design Hosting, Inc. does not review, edit, censor, or take responsibility for any information its clients may create. When users place information on the Internet, they have the same liability as other authors for copyright infringement, defamation, and other harmful speech. Also, because the information they create is carried over the Design Hosting, Inc. network and may reach a large number of people, including both clients and non-clients of Design Hosting, Inc., clients' postings to the Internet may affect other clients and may harm goodwill, business reputation, and operations of Design Hosting, Inc.

For these reasons, clients and their customers, affiliates, or subsidiaries engage in the following prohibited activities constitutes a violation of the Design Hosting, Inc. Acceptable Use Policy (AUP).

UCE / Spam Banned Scripts

Harmful Community Content Copyright Infringement

Resource Usage Abuse Misc. & Other Activities

UCE/Spam

The abuse and misuse of email is a serious problem, and Design Hosting, Inc. will not tolerate it.

Definition of UCE
Repercussions of spam
Consequences/Penalties for Spamming
Basic Mailing List Management Principles

Definition of UCE (Unsolicited Commercial email), or SPAM

1. The bulk UCE, promotional material, or other forms of solicitation sent via email that advertise any IP address belonging to designhosting.biz or any URL (domain) that is hosted by designhosting.biz.
2. Unsolicited postings to newsgroups advertising any IP or URL hosted by designhosting.biz.
3. The use of web pages set up on ISP's that allow SPAM-ing (also known as ghost sites) that directly or indirectly reference customers to domains or IP addresses hosted by designhosting.biz.
4. Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to facilitate a means to SPAM.
5. Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the true origin of the message.

For further information on mail abuse, please visit the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) web site

Repercussions of SPAM

Across the Web, it is generally accepted that SPAM is an inconsiderate and improper business practice.

SPAM is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward Design Hosting, Inc., but also because it can overload our server resources.

Consequences/ Penalties for Spamming

Design Hosting, Inc. reserves the right to terminate, without warning, any account that violates this policy. Usage of designhosting.biz services constitutes acceptance and understanding of this policy.

Design Hosting, Inc. may, at its option, charge $100.00 per SPAM complaint we receive from our servers. These are non-refundable charges and will be invoiced at the time of complaint notification.

Design Hosting, Inc. reserves the right to decide what it considers SPAM, UCE, mail bombing, or bulk email, and to determine from all of the evidence whether or not the email recipients were from an opt-in email list.

Should you choose to email from the Design Hosting, Inc. servers, especially if you use mailing lists, you must read and adhere to the following guidelines, which are offered as a statement of Internet standards and best current practices for proper mailing list management and preventing email abuse.

Basic Mailing List Management Principles for Preventing Abuse

Mailing lists are an excellent vehicle for distributing focused, targeted information to an interested, receptive audience. Consequently, mailing lists have been used successfully as a highly effective direct marketing tool.

Unfortunately, some marketers misuse mailing lists through a lack of understanding of Internet customs and rules of the forum pertaining to email. Others fail to take adequate precautions to prevent the lists they manage from being used in an abusive manner.

1. The email addresses of new subscribers must be confirmed or verified before mailings commence. This is usually accomplished by means of an email message sent to the subscriber to which s/he must reply, or containing a URL which s/he must visit, in order to complete the subscription. However it is implemented, a fundamental requirement of all lists is the verification of all new subscriptions.
2. Mailing list administrators must provide a simple method for subscribers to terminate their subscriptions, and administrators should provide clear and effective instructions for unsubscribing from a mailing list. Mailings from a list must cease promptly once a subscription is terminated.
3. Mailing list administrators should make an out of band procedure (e.g., a means of contact by which messages may be sent for further correspondence via email or telephone) available for those who wish to terminate their mailing list subscriptions but are unable or unwilling to follow standard automated procedures.
4. Mailing list administrators must ensure that the impact of their mailings on the networks and hosts of others is minimized by proper list management procedures such as pruning of invalid or undeliverable addresses, or taking steps to ensure that mailings do not overwhelm less robust hosts or networks.
5. Mailing list administrators must take adequate steps to ensure that their lists are not used for abusive purposes. For example, administrators can maintain a suppression list of email addresses from which all subscription requests are rejected. Addresses would be added to the suppression list upon request by the parties entitled to use the addresses at issue. The purpose of the suppression list would be to prevent subscription of addresses appearing on the suppression list by unauthorized third parties. Such suppression lists should also give properly authorized domain administrators the option to suppress all mailings to the domains for which they are responsible.
6. Mailing list administrators must make adequate disclosures about how subscriber addresses will be used, including whether or not addresses are subject to sale or trade with other parties. Once a mailing list is traded or sold, it may no longer be an opt-in mailing list. Therefore, those who are acquiring opt-in lists from others must examine the terms and conditions under which the addresses were originally compiled and determine that all recipients have in fact opted-in specifically to the mailing lists to which they are being traded or sold.
7. Mailing list administrators should make adequate disclosures about the nature of their mailing lists, including the subject matter of the lists and anticipated frequency of messages. A substantive change in either the subject matter or frequency of messages may constitute a new and separate mailing list requiring a separate subscription. List administrators should create a new mailing list when there is a substantive change in either the subject matter or frequency of messages. A notification about the new mailing list may be appropriate on the existing mailing list, but existing subscribers should never be subscribed automatically to the new list. For example, if Company A acquires Company B, and Company B has compiled opt-in mailing lists, Company A should not summarily incorporate Company B's mailing lists into its own.

*This SPAM (UCE) Accepted Use Policy and all other Design Hosting, Inc. Terms & Conditions are subject to change by Design Hosting, Inc. without notice. Continued usage of the services after a change to this policy is implemented and posted on the Design Hosting, Inc., www.designhosting.biz, web site constitutes your acceptance of such change or policy. We encourage you to regularly check our Terms & Conditions for further information.

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Harmful Community Content

What does Design Hosting, Inc. considers "Harmful Community Content"?

Any and all adult content

1. Any adult site whose revenue is gained in part or whole from its adult content.
2. Photos or videos showing nudity on either men or women.
3. Hyperlinks to adult sites, including but not limited to sites who violate these policies.
4. Sites that sell or promote 'adult' material, including but not limited to adult toys.
5. Sites that advertise, promote, or have discussion boards that share any information promoting information that is 'adult' in nature.
6. Sites that promote hate against the United States of America in any form whatsoever.
7. Any and all sites or ecommerce stores advertising or selling any witchcraft objects, necromancy objects, or sites that have to do with any and all occult practices.
8. Any sites promoting hate speech or hate crimes.

Design Hosting, Inc. reserves the right to decide what it considers Harmful Community Content before we will allow hosting on our servers. Any sites wanting to transfer over to Design Hosting, Inc. servers for hosting will be reviewed for content before accepting as a hosting customer.

Please email info@designhosting.biz for review of your content and/or site.

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Resource Usage Abuse

What does Design Hosting, Inc. consider "System Resource ABUSE"?

Any site whose traffic, programs and/or processes are using excessive amounts of system resources. Excessive amounts is defined as any amount that results in substantial degradation of server performance. Design Hosting is the sole determinant of what constitutes degraded server performance.

Why does Design Hosting, Inc. have this policy?
What happens if I violate this policy?

Server Speed and Fairness to others. Each client is sharing space on our dedicated server. As such, there are many accounts per machine. In all fairness, Design Hosting, Inc. cannot allow one or two clients to use all of the System resources and have all other clients on the machine suffer because of it. Excessive usage by one or more clients causes extreme slowness in all areas: FTP, SSH, web sites and more. If the CPU, disk I/O and/or memory usage gets too far out of hand, all sites hosted on the machine will return Errors and not be accessible in any way.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

1. Flat File Database Driven Forums
2. Background Running Processes
3. Mailing Lists
4. Exploitable Scripts

Flat File Database Driven Forums

Due to their use of flat files instead of databases, Design Hosting does not allow the use of UBB or YABB bulletin boards. Use of these boards for large or very active forums, results in system performance degradation, and cannot be allowed in our shared server environment. Design Hosting suggests using VBulletin or phpBB as a more efficient, database-driven alternative to these bulletin boards.

Background Running Processes

Background Daemons in general are prohibited on Design Hosting servers, including, but not limited to, IRC bots, eggdrop, BitchX, XiRCON, warez sites and any other program that interferes with normal server operation.

Mailing Lists

We have a strict policy regarding use/spam on our network, but we do allow use of mailing lists within the constraints of our spam policy. However, sending thousands of emails off of a given server at any one time can impact the performance of the server.

Exploitable Scripts

Unfortunately, many commonly used scripts can be exploited to allow unauthorized users into our systems. Consequently we may on occasion need to ban and consequently disable these scripts. You can view the most current exploits on our banned-scripts page.

What happens if I violate this policy?

All accounts that are found to be using excessive amounts of system resources will receive an email warning from Design Hosting, Inc. This warning will inform you that the site is using excessive system resources. Design Hosting, Inc. will provide options for reducing the usage and/or upgrading your account. If the situation is severe, we may have no other option but to suspend the account immediately to bring performance of the server back to an acceptable level. However, advance notice will be given if at all possible.

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Banned Scripts

Commonly used scripts are frequently exploited to allow unauthorized access to the systems they are running on. Others just require more resources than is allocated on a shared server environment.

Consequently, in order to keep our servers safe, we may need to take actions that inconvenience our good customers. Any time we find scripts or other commonly used tools that can become easily compromised or impact other users by using too many server resources, we may need to disable scripts or other tools installed and used by our customers. Whenever possible, we will notify our customers in advance.  We will also attempt to keep this page updated with current scripts which will require removal from our servers.

This list includes script/program names, reason for ban, and provide alternative options for our customers whenever possible.

Banned Scripts and Alternatives

Script or Program	Version/Type	Reason	Alternate Options
Matt Wright's	formmail 1.91 and previous	Exploitable to send UCE/spam	nms-cgi formmail replacement
YABB (Yet Another Bulletin Board)	all text versions	Resource intensive	YaBBSE
yappa-ng (Album Board)	all versions	Exploitable to send UCE/spam	phpBB
UBB (Ultimate Bulletin Board)	all versions	Resource intensive	vBulletin phpBB
"Jack's" formmail.php	all versions	Exploitable to send UCE/spam	Phorm
phpformmail classic	v1.03.0 and previous	Exploitable to send UCE/spam	Phorm

Copyright Infringement / Intellectual Property

Engaging in any activity that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, software piracy, and patents held by individuals, corporations, or other entities. Also, engaging in activity that violates privacy, publicity, or other personal rights of others. Design Hosting, Inc. is required by law to remove or block access to customer content upon receipt of a proper notice of copyright infringement. It is also the policy of Design Hosting, Inc. to terminate the privileges of customers who commit repeat violations of copyright laws.

Reference: Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) :
http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/hr2281.pdf

DMCA Notices can be sent to:

DCMA Notices
Design Hosting, Inc.
1605 Dechard Street
Van Buren, Arkansas 72956
email: abuse@designhosting.biz

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Miscellaneous and Other Activities

Other specific activities that are against our Acceptable Use Policy include the following:

1. Defamatory or Abusive Language
2. Facilitating a Violation of our TOS
3. Other activities Design Hosting, Inc. determines to be harmful

Defamatory or Abusive Language

Using Design Hosting, Inc. servers as a means to transmit or post defamatory, harassing, abusive, or threatening language is prohibited.

Any content that is discriminatory based on gender, race, age and/or promotes hate or violence is prohibited.

Facilitating a Violation of our TOS

Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mail bombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software.

Other activities Design Hosting, Inc. determines to be Harmful

Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that Design Hosting, Inc. determines to be harmful to its clients, operations, reputation, goodwill, or customer relations.

As we have pointed out, the responsibility for avoiding the harmful activities just described rests primarily with the client. Design Hosting, Inc. will not, as an ordinary practice, monitor the communications of its client to ensure that they comply with Design Hosting, Inc. policy or applicable law. When Design Hosting, Inc. becomes aware of harmful activities, however, it may take any action to stop the harmful activity, including but not limited to, removing information, shutting down a web site, denying access to the Internet, or take any other action it deems appropriate.

Design Hosting, Inc. also is concerned with the privacy of on-line communications and web sites. In general, the Internet is neither more nor less secure than other means of communication, including mail, facsimile, and voice telephone service, all of which can be intercepted and otherwise compromised. As a matter of prudence, however, Design Hosting, Inc. urges its clients to assume that all of their on-line communications are insecure. Design Hosting, Inc. cannot take any responsibility for the security of information transmitted over Design Hosting, Inc. facilities.

Design Hosting, Inc. will not intentionally monitor private electronic mail messages sent or received by its clients unless required to do so by law, governmental authority, or when public safety is at stake. Design Hosting, Inc. may disclose information, including but not limited to, information concerning a client, a transmission made using our servers, or a web site, in order to comply with a court order, subpoena, summons, discovery request, warrant, statute, regulation, or governmental request. Design Hosting, Inc. assumes no obligation to inform the client that client information has been provided and in some cases may be prohibited by law from giving such notice.

Finally, Design Hosting, Inc. may disclose client information or information transmitted over its network where necessary to protect Design Hosting, Inc. and others from harm, or where such disclosure is necessary to the proper operation of the system.

Any complaints about a client's violation of this AUP should be sent to:
abuse@designhosting.biz