Acceptable Use Policies and Terms of Service

Availability Guarantee

    Our goal is to make the DGS Hosting Service available to Customer free of Network Outages for 100% of the time. A "Network Outage" is an instance in which no traffic can pass in or out of Selected POPs for more than 15 consecutive minutes.

Service Interruptions

    Certain services provided by DGS Web Hosting are resold. Thus, certain equipment, routing, software, and programming used by DGS Web Hosting are not directly owned or written by DGS Web Hosting. DGS Web Hosting cannot be held liable for system downtime, crashes, or data loss. Notwithstanding anything in the TOS to the contrary, DGS will not be responsible for interruptions of service caused by or associated with:

    1. Circumstances beyond DGS or their providers’ 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 or interruption or delay in telecommunications or third party services, failure of third party software or inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of the Service Level Agreement;
       
    2. Failure of access circuits to the DGS or their providers’ Network, unless such failure is caused solely by DGS or their providers;
       
    3. General telco failure;
       
    4. Scheduled maintenance and upgrades;
       
    5. DNS issues outside the direct control of DGS or their providers;
       
    6. Outage or error of any DGS measurement system;
       
    7. Customers’ acts or omissions, including without limitation, any negligence, willful misconduct, or use of the DGS system or DGS services in breach of DGS Terms and Conditions and Acceptable Use Policy, by Customers or others authorized by Customers.

Unacceptable Content

    All services provided by DGS Web Hosting may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data or material in violation of any United States Federal, State or City law is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: copyrighted material, material we judge to be threatening or obscene, or material protected by trade secret and other statute. The subscriber agrees to indemnify and hold harmless DGS Web Hosting and its employees from any claims resulting from the use of the service which damages the subscriber or any other party.

    Examples of unacceptable content or links:

    Spamming -- Sending unsolicited bulk and/or commercial messages over the Internet (known as "spamming"). It is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward DGS, but also because it can overload DGS’s servers and disrupt service to DGS subscribers. Spamming, or the sending of unsolicited e-mail including, without limitation, commercial advertising and informational announcements, from a DGS Web Hosting server or using an e-mail address or domain that is maintained on a DGS Web Hosting machine as reference is STRICTLY prohibited. DGS Web Hosting will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. A user shall not use another site’s mail server to relay mail without the express permission of the site. Also, maintaining an open SMTP relay is prohibited. When a complaint is received, DGS has the discretion to determine from all of the evidence whether the email recipients were from an "opt-in" email list.

    Intellectual Property Violations -- 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. DGS is required by law to remove or block access to customer content upon receipt of a proper notice of copyright infringement. It is also DGS’s policy to terminate the privileges of customers who commit repeat violations of copyright laws.

    Obscene Speech or Materials -- Using DGS’s servers to advertise, transmit, store, post, display, or otherwise make available child pornography or obscene speech or material. DGS is required by law to notify law enforcement agencies when it becomes aware of the presence of child pornography on or being transmitted through DGS’s servers.

    Defamatory or Abusive Language -- Using DGS’ servers as a means to transmit or post defamatory, harassing, abusive, or threatening language.

    Forging of Headers -- Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the originator of the message.

    Illegal or Unauthorized Access to Other Computers or servers -- Accessing illegally or without authorization computers, accounts, or serverss belonging to another party, or attempting to penetrate security measures of another individual’s system (often known as "hacking"). Also, any activity that might be used as a precursor to an attempted system penetration (i.e. port scan, stealth scan, or other information gathering activity).

    Distribution of Internet Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses, or Other Destructive Activities -- Distributing information regarding the creation of and sending Internet viruses, worms, Trojan horses, pinging, flooding, mailbombing, or denial of service attacks. Also, activities that disrupt the use of or interfere with the ability of others to effectively use the servers or any connected servers, system, service, or equipment.

    Facilitating a Violation of this TOS -- Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this TOS, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mailbombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software.

    Export Control Violations -- Exporting encryption software over the Internet or otherwise, to points outside the United States.

    Usenet Groups -- DGS reserves the right not to accept postings from newsgroups where we have actual knowledge that the content of the newsgroup violates the TOS.

    Other Illegal Activities -- Engaging in activities that are determined to be illegal, including advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, fraudulently charging credit cards, and pirating software.

    Other Activities -- Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that DGS determines to be harmful to its subscribers, operations, reputation, goodwill, or customer relations.

    As we have pointed out, the responsibility for avoiding the harmful activities just described rests primarily with the subscriber. DGS will not, as an ordinary practice, monitor the communications of its subscribers to ensure that they comply with DGS policy or applicable law. When DGS 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, implementing screening software designed to block offending transmissions, denying access to the Internet, or take any other action it deems appropriate.

    DGS also is aware that many of its subscribers are, themselves, providers of Internet services, and that information reaching DGS’s facilities from those subscribers may have originated from a customer of the subscriber or from another third-party. DGS does not require its subscribers who offer Internet services to monitor or censor transmissions or web sites created by customers of its subscribers. DGS has the right to directly take action against a customer of a subscriber. Also, DGS may take action against the DGS subscriber because of activities of a customer of the subscriber, even though the action may effect other customers of the subscriber. Similarly, DGS anticipates that subscribers who offer Internet services will cooperate with DGS in any corrective or preventive action that DGS deems necessary. Failure to cooperate with such corrective or preventive measures is a violation of DGS policy.

Sites with banners, graphics or cgi’s running from their domain used on other domains:

    When you employ services such as Link Exchange or a cgi host who lets 1000’s of others link to their site, it is important that you require any sites you exchange ads with to display your ad on their server. Not only will not abiding to this guideline cause your site to load slowly, you will be responsible for the data transfer used in this process.

Chat Rooms & IRC:

    We do not allow clients to install their own chat rooms. These tend to be a large drain on system resources and we cannot allow it as an account option. We currently do not allow IRC or IRC bots to be operated on our servers.

System and Network Abuse

    Server Abuse:

    Any attempt to undermine, compromise the security of, or otherwise cause harm to any DGS Web Hosting server or customer accounts is strictly prohibited and will result in the cancelation of the account.

    Background Running Programs:

    We may allow programs to run continually in the background. These are considered on a case-by-case basis and an extra charge will be incurred based on system resources used and operational maintenance needed.

    Refusal of Service:

    We reserve the right to refuse, cancel, or suspend service at our sole discretion.

Limitation of Liability

    We cannot be held liable for any predicted estimate of profits in which a client would have gained if their site was functioning. Moreover, DGS Web Hosting holds no responsibility for the use of our clients accounts. If any terms or conditions are failed to be followed, the account in question will be automatically deactivated. We reserve the right to remove any account without advanced notice for any reason without restitution as DGS Web Hosting sees fit.

    DGS Web Hosting shall not be responsible for any claimed damages, including incidental and consequential damages, which may arise from DGS Web Hosting servers going off-line or being unavailable for any reason whatsoever. Furthermore, DGS Web Hosting shall not be responsible for any claimed damages, including incidental or consequential damages, resulting from the corruption or deletion of any web site from one of DGS Web Hosting servers. All damages shall be limited to the immediate termination of service.

    Violations of these Terms of Service should be referred to .

    All complaints will be investigated promptly.

    Failure to follow any term or condition may be grounds for immediate account deactivation.

Account Activation

    By activating your account with DGS Web Hosting, you agree to the above policies and disclaimer. Upon requesting an account activation, you are required to accept these policies, guidelines, and disclaimer and a copy of your acceptance is forwarded along with your activation request to be maintained within your account information.

    NOTICE: If you sign up for an account and do not follow our terms, no refunds will be given. We will, however, let you know by email or phone before any action is taken so that you have the opportunity to resolve the matter.

    DGS Web Hosting retains the right to change any or all of the above Policies, Guidelines, and Disclaimer without notification.

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