Terms of Service

Shared Server Abuse

Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server, or customer, of Write A Thanks is strictly prohibited.

Unauthorized use of other people's accounts or computers violates this terms of service agreement. Write A Thanks 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 robbery, security hole scanning etc.

Any unauthorized use of accounts or computers by a Write A Thanks customer, whether or not the attacked account or computer belongs to Write A Thanks, will result in action against the attacker. Possible actions include warnings, account suspension or cancellation, and civil or criminal legal action, depending on the seriousness of the attack.

Customers may not run IRC, bots or clients on shared servers. Unacceptable uses also include, but are not limited to: bulk e-mailing, unsolicited e-mailings, newsgroup spamming, pornographic content, illegal content, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, illegal software downloads, software cracks, software serial numbers, abuse of server resources, or anything else determined by Write A Thanks to be unacceptable use of Write A Thanks's services.

All hosting accounts may be terminated that include the following content or which have links to the following content:

Providing material that is grossly offensive to the web community such as blatant expressions of bigotry, racism or hatred.
Promoting or providing instructional information about illegal activities, or promoting physical harm or injury against any group or individual.
Displaying material that exploits children less than 18 years of age is strongly prohibited.
Any acts of copyright infringement including offering pirated computer programs or links to such programs, information used to circumvent manufacturer-installed copy-protect devices such as serial or registration numbers for software programs, or any type of cracker utilities.
Distributing information regarding the creation of and/or sending of internet viruses, worms, Trojan horses, pinging, flooding, e-mail bombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software.

Any account that is deactivated by the abuse team will be charged the following reactivation fees. These fees will only be waived if it is determined by the abuse team that the account was disabled without cause.

1st offense - $25.00
2nd offense - $100.00
3rd offense - $500.00 + account termination.

Unsolicited E-Mail ("spam")

Unsolicited advertisements ("spam") are not allowed in e-mail and will result in account termination.

Write A Thanks has zero-tolerance for spam originating from our servers or for spam advertising of domains hosted on our servers.

The following activities are not allowed:

Unsolicited bulk or commercial messages ("spam"). This includes, but is not limited to, bulk e-mailings 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 is prohibited. 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 ("e-mail bombing").
Spamming in newsgroups is prohibited. Commercial advertisements are unwelcome in most Usenet discussion groups and on most e-mail mailing lists. Inappropriate posting may result in account cancellation. See the newsgroup or mailing list's charter to see whether advertising is allowed or not. "Spamming" or sending a message to many different off-topic newsgroups is particularly unethical and will be treated as such.
E-mail may not be used to harass or intimidate others. Harassment, whether through language, frequency of messages, or size of messages, are all 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.
Providing spam-ware (software used to send bulk e-mail or software used to harvest e-mail addresses) or links to sites providing spam-ware is strictly prohibited and subject to account termination.

If you use the services of another provider (including but not limited to the use of address lists obtained from third party vendors or provider) to promote a web site hosted by or through Write A Thanks, then the provisions of the above policy shall apply as if the spam were sent through our servers.

The penalty for "spamming" depends on the severity; Write A Thanks reserves the right to charge you between: $1.00 - $100.00 per "spam" e-mail sent through our networks. Your web site content will also be confiscated and it will never be returned to you.

CGI Scripts

Each shared web hosting account comes with its own "cgi-bin", in which you are free to use any* CGI scripts you wish. All CGI scripts (Perl scripts with a .pl or .cgi extension) intended for use on shared Windows web hosting accounts are subject to approval by our server administrators. *See the Server Resource Abuse section.

Server Resource Abuse

Shared server accounts are limited in use of the amount of server resources. Shared server resource abuse includes any process or service usage that affects normal shared server operation, resource or connectivity, and which causes a server to become overloaded. Shared server resources include CPU and memory usage, number of concurrent processes, number of concurrent port or database connections and total bandwidth consumption. Possible causes of server resource abuse include, but are not limited to, the use of: CGI, Perl, SendMail, mySQL, MSSQL, PHP, ASP, ColdFusion, HTTP, SMTP, POP3 and FTP. If server resource abuse is detected, possible actions include, but are not limited to: disabling of the offending script or scripts, disabling of the specific service, disabling of the entire account or account cancellation. If the server overload is a result of server resource abuse, these actions will be taken without prior notice or warning.

Child Pornography

We have a zero-tolerance on child pornography. Write A Thanks will cooperate fully with any criminal investigation into a customer's violation of the Child Protection Act of 1984 concerning child pornography. Customers are ultimately responsible for the actions of their clients over the Write A Thanks network and will be liable for illegal materials posted by their clients.

According to the Child Protection Act, child pornography includes photographs, films, video or any other type of visual presentation that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or the dominant characteristics of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years or any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years.

Violations of the Child Protection Act may be reported to the U.S. Customs Agency at 1-800-BEALERT.

Chat Rooms

We do not allow clients to install their own chat rooms within a shared hosting account, without approving it with the Write A Thanks support team. Most chat rooms tend to be large system hogs and we cannot allow it as an account option. However, we do provide a choice of Java chat rooms for a small extra charge that will more than fill your needs and run without hindering the performance of the machines of others. Parachat chat rooms do not apply to this rule. They are perfectly fine to install.

SMTP Mail Server Abuse

We do not allow clients to send more than 2000 pieces of e-mail per day from a shared hosting account. If you do send more than 2000 pieces of e-mail per day, your account will be placed on hold for network abuse. If you are sending legitimate e-mails and they total more than 2000 per day, then your account will be moved to a special server that is specifically designed to handle high volumes of e-mail. You will be charged $50.00/month in addition to your regular hosting charges if your account is moved to this server. Please click here to contact our network operations coordinator to have your domain moved.

Background Running Programs

We may allow programs to run continually in the background. These are considered on a one-to-one basis and an extra charge will be incurred on system resource used and operation maintenance needed.

IRC

We currently do not allow IRC, IRC clients, or IRC bots to be operated on any of our servers. In addition, IRC servers are not permitted on our network. Anyone found to be in violation of this policy risks immediate account termination.

Current Contact Information

Current customers must provide Write A Thanks with, and keep current and up to date, good contact information including first name, last name, street address, city, state/province, zip/postal code, country, e-mail address, phone number and organization name. Write A Thanks uses the contact information to reach customers during network emergencies, server downtime, maintenance windows and billing issues with your account. Failure to keep contact information up to date could lead to temporary account suspension until the information is updated.

Excessive Use/Overages

You will not exceed the bandwidth, storage and e-mail usage limits outlined by your particular web hosting package. If you use any bandwidth or storage space in excess of the agreed upon number of megabytes per month, or if you exceed e-mail storage and attachment size limitations, Write A Thanks may in sole discretion, assess you with additional charges. If Write A Thanks elects to take any corrective action, Write A Thanks will not refund any unused pre-paid fees. Your use of your account and access to it is your responsibility. You are responsible for any unauthorized access to your account result in bandwidth, storage and/or e-mail usage exceeding the limits outlined in your particular web hosting package specifications and resultant charges. Bandwidth overages are currently billed at $20/GB/month. Disk space overages are currently billed at $0.25/MB/month. E-mail attachments overages are currently billed at $0.10 per e-mail over 10MB.

Payment Policies

All accounts are set up on a pre-pay basis. Setup fees are charged for all new accounts and major account changes are non-refundable. All pricing is guaranteed for the term of the pre-payment. Write A Thanks reserves the right to change prices at any time, unless other terms have been agreed upon. Credit card accounts are subject to login deactivation upon the card declining for charges within 48 hours of e-mail notification. Any account not brought current within a week (7 days) of e-mail notice or exceeding this time frame in any way is subject to complete account deactivation. The customer is responsible for all money owed on the account from the time it was established to the time that the customer notifies Write A Thanks via member services to request for termination of services; e-mail cancellations will not be accepted. All payments must be made in U.S. currency.

Write A Thanks will bill each client $50.00 per credit card chargeback received. All Write A Thanks accounts are setup on anniversary billing cycles. Your particular billing cycle corresponds to your contract length initially outlined or in some circumstances chosen by the customer. Your account will automatically renew at this length.

Any account that is not brought current prior to deactivation will be charged a $25.00 reactivation fee as well as a $15.00 late charge, per domain deactivated. All taxes, fees and government charges relating to the services provided hereunder (other than income taxes of Write A Thanks) shall be paid by the customer.

Your first month's payment will be a pro-rated charge for the amount of days left in the calendar. If the amount of days left in the calendar is less than 5 days, then you will be charged for next months billing cycle as well as the days left in the current calendar month, at Write A Thanks's sole discretion. This pro-rated charge in turn will move your billing cycle to the 1st of each calendar month. All setup fees will be charged in full and will not be pro-rated.

Cancellation

Write A Thanks reserves the right to cancel service at any time. All fees paid in advance of cancellation will be pro-rated and paid by Write A Thanks if Write A Thanks institutes its right of cancellation. Any violation of policies which results in extra costs will be billed to the customer.

All of Write A Thanks's web hosting plans are backed by a 30 day money back guarantee. If you are not completely satisfied with our services or support within the first 30 days of your order, you will be given a full refund of the order amount excluding setup fees, domain registration fees, add-on/upgrade fees, overages, etc. Setup fees are refundable only if the account order is cancelled prior to account activation. No refund will be available after the 30th day. This policy does not apply to any additional services such as overages, setup fees, additional space, etc. Cancellations via e-mail requests will not constitute acceptance of any cancellation. You may only cancel your services via e-mail when your services have not been setup yet. You will need to contact our billing department and include details such as your order number, last 4 digits of your credit card number; this e-mail must also originate from the e-mail address used to place the initial order. All other cancellation requests should be made via member services. Cancellations are processed only during business hours Monday-Friday. No cancellations are processed on holidays and weekends.

Liability and Obligations of Cancellation

If the agreement expires or is cancelled for any reason, Write A Thanks is not liable to you because of the expiration or cancellation for compensation, reimbursement or damages on account of the loss of prospective profits, anticipated sales, goodwill or on account of expenditures, investments, leases of commitments in connection with your business, or for any other reason whatsoever flowing from the termination or expiration. If you terminate this agreement, Write A Thanks will not relieve you of any obligation to pay fees and costs accrued before the termination date or any other amounts you owe to Write A Thanks under this agreement.

IP Address Overlap

Write A Thanks administers the network on which customer servers reside. The customer cannot use IP addresses which were not assigned to them by Write A Thanks staff. Any server found using IPs which were not officially assigned will be suspended from network access until such time as the IP addresses overlap can be corrected.

Material and Product Requirements

You must ensure that all material and data placed on Write A Thanks's equipment is in a condition that is "server-ready," which is in a form requiring no additional manipulation by Write A Thanks. Write A Thanks will make no effort to validate any of this information for content, correctness or usability. If your material is not "server-ready," Write A Thanks may reject this material. Write A Thanks will notify you of its refusal of the material and afford you the opportunity to modify the material to satisfy Write A Thanks's requirements. Use of the services requires a certain level of knowledge in the use of internet languages, protocols and software. This level of knowledge varies depending on the anticipated use and desired content of your web site. You must have the necessary knowledge to create and maintain a web site. Write A Thanks does not provide this knowledge or customer support outside of the services.

Intellectual Property Rights

Materials accessible to your through Write A Thanks's services may be subject to protection under the United States or other copyright laws, or laws protecting trademarks, trade secrets or proprietary information. Except when expressly permitted by the owner of such rights, you must not use Write A Thanks or its server and network in a manner that would infringe, violate, dilute or misappropriate such rights, with respect to any material, which you access or receive through the Write A Thanks network. If you use a domain name connection with Write A Thanks 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

Customer may not use the Write A Thanks 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 the customer logging into a server or account.
Password cracking.
Forging any TCP/IP packet header or any part of the header of information in any e-mail or newsgroup posting.
Attempting to probe, scan/test the vulnerability of a system or network, or to breach security or authentication measures without proper authorization.
Probing the security of other networks in search of weakness.
Violation of any other organization's security policy.

Customer may not attempt to interfere or deny service to any user, host, or network. This includes but is not limited to: flooding, e-mail bombing or other deliberate attempts to overload or crash a host or network.

Shared Hosting Account

You are responsible for any misuse of your account, even if the inappropriate activity was committed by a friend, family member, guest or employee. Therefore, you must take steps to ensure that others do not gain unauthorized access to your account. In addition, you may not use your account to breach security of another account or attempt to gain unauthorized access to another network or server.

Your password provides access to your account. It is your responsibility to keep your password secure.
Sharing your password and account access with unauthorized users is prohibited. You should take care to prevent others from using your account since you will be held responsible for such use.
Attempting to obtain another user's account password is strictly prohibited and may result in service termination.
You must adopt adequate security measures to prevent or minimize unauthorized use of your account.
You may not 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 or making use of a server or account you are not expressly authorized to access or probing the security of other networks. Use or distribution of tools designed for compromising security is prohibited. Examples of these tools include, but are not limited to: password guessing programs, cracking tools or network probing tools.
You may not attempt to interfere with service of any user, host or network. This includes but is not limited to: "flooding" of networks, deliberate attempts to overload a service and attempts to "crash" a host.

Customers who violate systems or network security may incur criminal or civil liability. Write A Thanks will cooperate fully with investigations of violations of system or network security at other sites, including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations.

Electronic Commerce

You will be solely responsible for the development, operation and maintenance of your online store, products, all contents and materials appearing online or on your products, including but not limited to: the accuracy and appropriateness of content and materials appearing with the store or related to your products, 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 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 custom 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 through your web site. 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/Dynamic Content Caching

Write A Thanks shall maintain and control ownership of all IP Numbers and addresses that may be assigned to you by Write A Thanks. Write A Thanks reserves the rights, in its sole discretion, the right to change or remove any and all such IP numbers and addresses.

Domain Name Registration

Write A Thanks reserves the right to change fees, surcharges, renewal fees or to institute new fees at any time, for any reason, at its sole discretion. Customers requested domain name will not be registered unless and until we receive actual payment of the registration fee, and have confirmed customers domain name registration via e-mail to the address indicated in the customer's registration application. In the event that a credit card charge back occurs, customer agrees and acknowledges that the domain name registration shall be transferred to Write A Thanks as the paying entity for the registration to the registry. Write A Thanks reserves all rights regarding such domain names including but not limited to: the right to make the domain name available to other third parties for purchase or the usage of the domain name for its best interest. Write A Thanks will reinstate customer's domain name registration solely at Write A Thanks's discretion. The customer will be subject to the original registration fees as well as any reinstatement fees.

Digital Millennium Copyright Act

Notice and Procedure for Making Claims of Copyright Infringement

Pursuant to Title 17, United States Code, Section 512(c)(2), all notifications of claimed copyright infringement on the Write A Thanks system or web site should be sent only to our designated agent.

The following information is providing solely for notifying Write A Thanks that your copyrighted material may have been infringed.

We caution you that under federal law, if you knowingly misrepresent that online material is infringing, you may be subject to heavy civil penalties. These include monetary damages, court costs, and attorney fees incurred by us, by any copyright owner, or by any copyright owner's licensee that is injured as a result of our relying upon your misrepresentation. You may also be subject to criminal prosecution for perjury.

Do not send any inquiries unrelated to copyright infringement to the contact listed below. You will not receive a response if sent to that contact. Please click here to send all copyright infringement related inquiries.

Under Title 17, United States Code, Section 512(c)(3)(a), the notification of claimed infringement must include the following:

Physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.
Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed or a representative list if multiple works are involved.
Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing that should be removed or access to disabled and information reasonably sufficient to enable the online service provider to locate the material (usually a URL to the relevant page).
Information reasonably sufficient to allow the online service provider to contact the complaining party (address, phone number, e-mail address).
Statement that the complaining party has a "a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or law."
Statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.

Lawful Purpose

Write A Thanks reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. Customers may only use Write A Thanks servers and services for lawful purpose. Transmission of any material in violation of any Federal, State or Local regulation is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to copyrighted material, material legally judged to be threatening and obscene, and material protected by trade secrets. The designation of any materials as such described above is left entirely to the discretion of Write A Thanks management. Regardless of the place of signing contract was entered into and performed in Los Angeles, California, and any dispute will be litigated or arbitrated in Los Angeles County, California. Customer further waives all objections to venue or jurisdiction and acknowledges that venue and jurisdiction is any such litigation will be held in Los Angeles County Courts. In no even shall Write A Thanks's maximum liability exceed five hundred ($500.00) dollars for any reason.

Indemnification

Customer agrees that it shall defend, indemnify, save and hold Write A Thanks harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims, including reasonable attorney's asserted against Write A Thanks, its agents, its customers, officers and employees, that may arise or result from any service provided or performed or agreed to be performed or any product sold by customer, it's agents, employees or assigns. Customer agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Write A Thanks against liabilities arising out of; an injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with Write A Thanks's server; any material supplied by customer infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party; copyright infringement and any defective products sold to customer from Write A Thanks's server.

Disclaimer

Write A Thanks will not be responsible for any damages your business may suffer. Write A Thanks makes no warranties of any kind, expressed or implied for service we provide. Write A Thanks disclaims any warranty or merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This includes loss of data resulting from delays, non-deliveries, wrong delivery, and any and all service interruptions caused by Write A Thanks and its employees. Write A Thanks reserves the right to revise its policies at any time.

Customer shall not transfer or assign this agreement without the prior written consent of Write A Thanks. However, Write A Thanks may assign the customer's contract, in part or in whole, at anytime without consent from or notice to the customer. Write A Thanks reserves the right to cancel customer's rights under this contract at anytime without further obligation.

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

Write A Thanks reserves the right to revise, amend, or modify this terms of service and all of our other policies and agreements at any time and in any manner. Notice of any revision, amendment, or modification will be deemed when the new information is posted within this document or any other online agreement. Customers will not be necessarily notified in writing of these changes. Please check this and all other Write A Thanks agreements and documents frequently for changes.