Acceptable Use Policy

  1. Introduction 
    This Acceptable Use Policy applies to all customers of FeatherHill IT, and is intended to provide a general understanding of FeatherHill’s policy on the Acceptable Use of FeatherHill IT services. It is designed to help protect our service, our customers and the Internet community from irresponsible or illegal activities. FeatherHill expects that common sense and good judgment will guide all of our subscriber’s activities on the Internet.
    FeatherHill provides data transport and storage services. Information available on FeatherHill’s network is the property of FeatherHill, its information providers or other customers.
    FeatherHill does not accept responsibility for the content of the materials and information published by others which are accessible through the FeatherHill servers and does not accept responsibility for the violation of any laws resulting from such publication.
    All users of FeatherHill’s services are expected to abide by the laws of the state and country in which they reside, including all copyright laws and regulations, tariff regulations, export controls, treaties and international law.
    Use of FeatherHill’s services constitutes on the part of such user acceptance of and agreement to abide by all of the policies of FeatherHill, including this AUP, as such policies may be modified by FeatherHill at any time and from time to time, and to use such services for lawful purposes in compliance with all applicable laws. Use of FeatherHill’s services is at the risk of the subscriber.
    Electronic Communications Privacy Act Notice (18 USC 2701-2711) FeatherHill MAKES NO GUARANTEE OF CONFIDENTIALITY OR PRIVACY OF ANY COMMUNICATION OR INFORMATIONTRANSMITTED ON ITS NETWORK OR ANY NETWORK ATTACHED TO ITS NETWORK. FeatherHill SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR THE PRIVACY OF E-MAIL ADDRESSES, REGISTRATION AND IDENTIFICATION, DISK SPACE, COMMUNICATIONS, CONFIDENTIAL OR TRADE-SECRET INFORMATION, OR ANY OTHER CONTENT STORED ON FeatherHill’s EQUIPMENT, TRANSMITTED OVER NETWORKS ACCESSED BY FeatherHill, OR OTHERWISE CONNECTED WITH USE OF THE FeatherHill’s services. Should you violate any part of FeatherHill’s acceptable usage policy, we reserve the ultimate right in the decision to suspend your service and launch a thorough investigation. Customers may be billed for additional charges should our investigation find that you have indeed violated our acceptable usage policies. Current investigation rate is billed at $100 / hour. Sending SPAM either intentionally or due to insecure scripting; modules, widgets or other plugins is considered a violation of our terms and conditions. SPAM sent by a third party from client’s server or website will also be invoiced at investigation rate of $100.00/ hour. In the event SPAM is sent out and an IP on our network is blocked, blacklisted or rate limited, customer will be invoiced a minimum of one (1) hour support/investigation at one hundred dollars per hour ($100) and $25.00 for each verified SPAM complaint received
  2. Policies
    2.1.FeatherHill accounts may be used only by the authorized owners of the accounts, except where specifically authorized by FeatherHill system administrators. Revealing your account username or password to others or allowing use of your account by others is prohibited. At no time can there be simultaneous use of the same account username and password combination.
    2.2. Resale, trade of transfer any account without express written consent from FeatherHill is prohibited. Attempting to obtain access beyond that for which a customer is authorized will be grounds for immediate termination of such customer’s account.
    2.3. Attempting to defeat identification procedures, gain passwords or encryption codes, penetrate security measures, circumvent user authentication or use of the FeatherHill network to gain unlawful or unauthorized entry to another machine on the Internet; use of a FeatherHill account to or attempt to alter or destroy data belonging to FeatherHill IT or another user on any computer network; and use of the FeatherHill system as a staging ground to “crack” other systems will be grounds for immediate termination of such customer’s account.
    2.4. Transmission, redistribution, reproduction or commercial exploitation of information available on, (or provided by FeatherHill), FeatherHill’s network without the permission of its owner or in violation of applicable copyright laws or patents will be grounds for immediate termination of such customer’s account.
    2.5. Abusive or inappropriate use of any FeatherHill service, including any behavior which disrupts the normal use of the system or Internet services of others, inhibits any user form accessing the Internet, interferes with the proper operation of FeatherHill’s network or impairs the availability, reliability or quality of FeatherHill service for other customers will be subject to immediate suspension of services and/or termination of services.
    2.6. FeatherHill IT does not censor the content of any newsgroups. We believe such choices should be left to the individual.
    2.7. General It is also contrary to the specific policies of FeatherHill for any user to effect or participate in any of the following activities:
    2.7.1. using an account to offer any public information service, such as running a web server or FTP server, without the written consent of FeatherHill;
    2.7.2.exporting software or technical information in violation of U.S. export control laws;
    2.7.3. making fraudulent offers of items, products, or services originating from a customer’s account;
    2.7.4. using non-authorized relays through any third party systems;
    2.7.5. “flooding” or overburdening recipient computer systems by sending a high volume of spurious data which impedes functionality or disables the recipient system, or any other methods of denial of service of another;
    2.7.6. storing or distributing on FeatherHill servers illegally-acquired information, programs containing malicious code, including viruses, trojans or worms or tools to comprise the security of other sites;
    2.7.7. using programs such as packet sniffers, host and/or service monitoring or other similar programs; and
    2.7.8. engaging in any of the above activities using the service of another provider but channeling such activities through a FeatherHill account or re-mailer or using FeatherHill account as a mail drop for responses.
    2.9. Email, Newsgroups and Internet Relay Chat.
    2.9.1. Email is a person-to-person medium and not a broadcast medium. Harassing others by “mail-bombing” or “spamming”, which constitutes sending the same or substantially similar unsolicited electronic mail messages to a large number of recipients, or more than ten (10) similar mail messages to the same email address, or 10Mb of data to a newsgroup is grounds for termination of a customer’s account. Threatening bodily harm or property damage to individuals or groups, for example, making terrorist threats, is also strictly prohibited and is grounds for termination.
    2.9.2. The following activities are specifically prohibited by FeatherHill in connection with the use of email, newsgroup or IRC services FeatherHill provides:
    2.9.2.1. distributing malicious software which contributes to or assists in “mail-bombing” or “spamming”;
    2.9.2.2. sending unsolicited, junk or chain letter email for the purpose of advertising or soliciting, or using FeatherHill IT’s email address to collect responses from unsolicited email;
    2.9.2.3. attempting to impersonate any person, using forged email or Usenet headers or other identifying information;
    2.9.2.4. using an email box exclusively as a storage space for data, which includes a mailbox exceeding 10MB or which has not been accessed for more than one (1) month;
    2.9.2.5. using a news server for software distribution, cross-posting messages to more than 10 newsgroups and posting off-topic messages and advertising to newsgroups;
    2.9.2.6. posting frivolous, excessively vulgar or repetitious messages to newsgroups;
    2.9.2.7. posting binary or excessively large unrelated text files to non-binary newsgroups that have specifically requested such material not to be posted in the group’s FAQ;
    2.9.4.8. installing “auto-responders,” “cancel-bots” or similar automated or manual routines which generate excessive amounts of net traffic, or disrupt newsgroups or email use by others;
    2.9.4.9. transmitting blanket postings to all or large numbers of newsgroups simultaneously without regard to the newsgroups’ topics; and
    2.9.4.10. using IRC bots in violation of any accepted policies on IRC servers.
    2.10. Hosting
    2.10.1. Users of FeatherHill’s hosting services, not FeatherHill under any circumstances whatsoever, are responsible for the content of their sites and obtaining all required legal permissions for the use of such content. Each such user must accept responsibility for the publication of any defamatory, pornographic, confidential, secret or proprietary material. FeatherHill reserves the right to remove any material from any site without notice.
    3. Subscribers’ Responsibilities
    3.1. All FeatherHill customers and advertisers who publish materials and information which are accessible through the FeatherHill servers are solely responsible for the content of such materials and information and are solely responsible for compliance with all laws applicable to the publication of such materials and information.
    4. Actions by FeatherHill for Noncompliance or Violation
    4.1. Certain of the activities set forth above cause alarms that could require FeatherHill to take action. Account holders should be aware, however, that normal use and software will not set off such alarms.
    4.2. Use of a FeatherHill account or service in an illegal manner is grounds for immediate termination of such account. Users should be aware that FeatherHill views such activities very seriously and may disclose prohibited activities to law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with whom FeatherHill will fully cooperate. FeatherHill will cooperate with appropriate law enforcement agencies involved in investigating instances that may be reported to such authorities by subscribers or other users who believe they are being subjected to potentially unlawful harassment.
    4.3. FeatherHill reserves the right to conduct its own investigation of suspected violations of this AUP.
    4.4. In addition to the other actions described herein, FeatherHill may take one or more of the following specific actions:
    4.4.1. delete files if the storage fee is due and unpaid, if such files have not been accessed for more than one (1) month or if such files exceed the permitted size;
    4.4.2. disable a customer’s account if irresponsible newsgroup postings by such use result in large numbers of complaints to an FeatherHill Internet News Administrator;
    4.4.3. for each day upon which a user transmits the same or substantially similar messages to 50 or more recipients or 15 or more newsgroups, charge $10 per day for intentional violations, which may be waived if accidental, and $200 per day for willful violations;
    4.4.4. charge any account holder who uses such account to transmit unsolicited, commercial email, $150 per violation or aggregate of violations:
    4.4.5. log instances of abuse;
    4.4.7. change an account holder’s password to maintain integrity of the network; and
    4.4.8. terminate the account of an offending customer If FeatherHill is banned from any server.
    4.5. Untimely payment of any and all amounts due may result in account cancellation and the incurrence of additional charges. In the event that an account is temporarily inactivated as a result of any prohibited activities, the account may be subject to reactivation charges and/or deposit requirements to be determined by FeatherHill.
    4.6. Each account holder understands and acknowledges that FeatherHill has the right to terminate any account for any reason that FeatherHill interprets as an abuse of the account and such account holder will be liable for any and all costs incurred by FeatherHill as result of such abuse. FeatherHill is not responsible for customer lost profits, real or otherwise, for any reason including but not limited to: suspension, termination or interruption of services. Customer recognizes that backups of web sites and failover email systems are the sole responsibility of the customer. FeatherHill provides backup website services and failover email services on a contracted basis only.
    4.7. FeatherHill will review alleged violations of this AUP on a case-by-case basis. Violations which are not promptly remedied may result in disciplinary action, including referral to appropriate authorities for civil or criminal prosecution. FeatherHill’s decisions in all such matters are final. FeatherHill does not assume any liability to any account holders, users or others for its failure to enforce this AUP.
    4.8. Nothing herein is to be construed to limit FeatherHill’s remedies in any way, to recover costs, identify and remove offenders, levy cancellation charges or pursue any other remedies at law or in equity.
    5. Contacts
    5.1. Also, each account holder must immediately notify FeatherHill at any of the foregoing addresses of any unauthorized use of such account holder’s account, of any breach or attempted breach of security, if it is believed that such account holder’s password has been compromised or of any other violations of this AUP.
    5.2. If you have any questions please contact FeatherHill Internet Services.
    FeatherHill RESERVES THE RIGHT TO MODIFY THIS POLICY AT ANY TIME AND FROM TIME TO TIME.