Web Hosting by 1st Choice International

Policy

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We regard a completed order form as understanding and acceptance of our policies.

Policy Index

Acceptable Use	Account Upgrade	Account Usage, Reseller and Performance
Adult Site	Bandwidth Utilization	ASP/CGI/Email Scripts
Collection	Domain Name Updates	Help
Indemnity	Liability	Payment Information
Refunds	Registering your own Domain Name	Site Security
Technical Support	Virtual Domain Contacts	Service Level Agreement

1st Choice makes its WWW servers available to subscribers of its Web presence services (henceforth call "This Service"), but does not necessarily endorse any of the items published through its servers.

We reserve the right to refuse to serve the web presence materials of any existing user making inappropriate or unreasonable use of This Service or an applicant whose planned web presence activities are deemed to have the potential of creating negative impact on 1st Choice's abilities to serve its customers. The appropriateness and reasonableness of use and the potential of creating negative impact are to be determined by 1st Choice. The term "web presence materials" is defined as data of any form that can be delivered by 1st Choice internet presence software and hardware resources.

Examples of inappropriate or unreasonable use:

	Any user attempting to telnet to root, trying to FTP files which are not owned by the user, or otherwise triggering a security alert, will have their account suspended immediately without notice.
	providing copyrighted materials without authorization.
	providing materials whose nature or volume compromises the ability of 1st Choice servers to serve other users' web presence materials, instances including but not limited to:

	unreasonable consumption of disk space, Internet link bandwidth, CPU, and memory usage, as determined by 1st Choice web server maintenance staff. See bandwidth utilization policy.
	providing materials that violate the commonly accepted etiquette of the Internet.
	providing materials that are deemed by the government authorities as inappropriate or illegal. Any such government determinations will be binding on the user, not 1st Choice.
	reselling any space originally intended and paid for by those listed on the original order form without the specific permission of 1st Choice. See Reseller policies.

Sending of unsolicited email for advertising or other promotional activities (email spamming) is against the law and a violation of internet culture. Email spamming is strictly prohibited. Email spamming can result in immediate account suspension of the offending site. We charge a $25 service fee for the infraction. It's like speeding; it's illegal, everybody does it, but if you get caught, you pay the ticket!

Abuse should be reported to abuse@1stChoiceInternational.com with full details of abuse. Email abuse reported should include full email header information.

Should an investigation be requested by a user whose account has been suspended, or initiated by 1st Choice, and it is found that the user is responsible, then an investigation and re-activation fee will apply and must be received before the account is re-activated. Any further charges resulting from investigation of infractions will be billed at standard rates.

Users notified of suspension, inappropriate or unreasonable usage who fail to request an investigation or correct the situation within 7 days will lose their web service. This service is not actively monitored for content, however, so please send reports of inappropriate use to abuse@1stChoiceInternational.com. We do numerous random audits of all sites.

When you request any one of our services, we regard the completed order form as an offer to contract our services, according to our policies, and the receipt by you of a valid user id and passwords shall constitute acceptance.

We check the content of the submitted form(s) and will discuss any questionable entries with you. However, we are not responsible for any mistakes, oversights, or missing information.

If we have taken actions based on the information provided in the form and later on you request us to repeat the process based on some new information from you, we will charge you the same amount of service fee for commercial business.

We have the right to suspend, delete, cancel or remove services at our discretion without warning for any reason whatsoever at any time.

Account Upgrade Policies

To upgrade any service, fill out an account order and in the "special instructions" type in the date you need your new account and that it is an upgrade of an existing account. You will be billed the "difference" in setup fees and monthly fees to what you have existing.

Account Usage, Reseller and Performance Policies

Once you have opened a web presence account at 1st Choice, as long as the above service policies are followed, the client is free to structure and name their web pages in any way they wish. Updates may be performed at any time.

1st Choice provides the opportunity for all resident web designers and web developers (in any language) to resell web sites. All account holders can resell space that 1st Choice provides. We only charge for account services if we need to get involved or account space or traffic limits are exceeded. We do not bind you to anything and there is no additional fee or exclusive arrangement involved in becoming a Reseller. For example, if you have a virtual domain such as (www.accountid.com) that we setup and you wish to sell your purchased space to your clients as (www.accountid.com/yourclient) then all you have to do is create a sub-directory under your domain.

1st Choice Reseller Incentive Program:

1st. Scenario: (100% Reseller profit)

Reseller purchases a virtual account per pricelist. (www.accountid.com)
Reseller advertises to sell space on the net, and creates own pricelist.
Reseller sells (www.accountid.com/yourclient) sites.

You can recommend, sell, and markup our prices accordingly. We suggest you add our pricing plus a markup and include it as your package offering or maintenance offering.

2nd. Scenario: (Shared profit)

Reseller requires our services to setup separate password ACCOUNTS (non-virtual/virtual sites) and other paid services.
1st Choice bills the account CONTACT (you) not ACCOUNT ID (your client).
Reseller receives discount on CONTACT statement as outlined in our Resellers web page.
Account CONTACT (you) bills ACCOUNT ID (client) at whatever you want per your pricelist.

In order to have maximum benefit, total control, maintain security and price protection, resellers should purchase or already have a virtual account, the optional e-mail POP server and a set of aliases.

Directory structure is such that the opening page name default must be "default.htm" or "default.asp" and any reference to the directory name will start the default.htm or default.asp by default. Pages such as welcome, index are also set as secondary defaults.

If you would like to setup Virtual Host accounts for your clients, we can set up their accounts such that their disk spaces and yours are shared. In other words, each 1st Choice Virtual Host account is an independent identity, in the sense that it has its own domain name, virtual web server, email account FTP login ID/password, but shares disk space and bandwidth with the reseller. NT-00 accounts are setup for this case.

Data transfer and additional space is metered independently for each account even though you may have more than one account with 1st Choice and surcharges, if any, will be independently computed and applied to each contact account, at the discretion of 1st Choice.

1st Choice shall try its best to maintain a reserve of Virtual Host accounts to meet its users' demand. However, owing to many technical reasons and various other unforeseeable factors, such a goal may not be always possible. 1st Choice shall not be held obligatory to provide such accounts at any time and disclaims any liabilities in case it can not provide such accounts to any parties.

Users of 1st Choice web presence resources understand that 1st Choice does not own or control any network other than its own internal network, nor is responsible for performance (or non-performance) within such networks. However, 1st Choice will work with its Internet connectivity provider to maximize its Internet link's performance for its customers.

Any request for problem resolution which, after investigation, turns out to be caused by another network provider or the client site, and not caused by 1st Choice will incur support charges at the posted rates for such investigation. Server related issues are our responsibility, not client site or code issues.

Adult Site Policies

We will consider adult or gaming sites on a case by case basis and have strict guidelines to prevent interference with standard sites. Please contact customer service with your adult site plans as there may be some special setup and/or requirements. Minimum package type for adult sites due to high bandwidth usage is NT Platinum, payable on quarterly basis via wire payment only. If required, only SQL databases are allowed, NO MSaccess databases for high usage. Any text, image, video, audio, or graphic material which is publicly accessible must conform to the laws of United States of America and Canada. Any material found to be illegal in either Canada or the United States will be removed. Hate or spam sites are strictly prohibited. Any site causing interference with server performance and effects other clients will be removed.

Any material which may be considered adult oriented must provide adequate warnings about the nature of the subject matter and provide strict access controls, such as Adult Check or Validate, to restrict minors' access to the material. Minors cannot be allowed into the site.

Bandwidth Utilization Policies

Client bandwidth utilization includes the transmission or reception of all files to or from their HTTP services. FTP and email is not metered. Total transfers per month shall be measured and reported to the client as required. Clients will be billed according to the price list in effect at the time of their account creation or as may be adjusted from time to time by 1st Choice. Any free transfer allowance shall be deducted from the total transfers before billing. Transfer allowance is limited to 200% burst bandwidth allowance, (ie. your package provides for 40gig per month, however you can spike to 80gig per month rate before peaking) any requirement higher may require upgrade of package or service. See our colocation pricelist for further bandwidth details, definitions, and limitations. Unused free transfer allowance on one billing period may not be carried over to subsequent billing periods. Exceeding limits for the package ordered will trigger review and possible upgrade to next level package for the following month and/or retroactive charges for overages.

ASP/CGI/Email Script Policy

You have full access to your own virtual site's cgi-bin (unix) and rootweb (nt server). We simply reserve the right to audit your scripts to ensure no hacking is occurring on our site or scripts can adversely affect the operation of the servers. Any ASP/CGI script that adversely affects the server operation will have the site suspended immediately and support time to determine the exact cause and repair will have support charges applied accordingly. We expect asp code to work correctly and not affect the server operation. Please declare your asp code to support if you are not sure of how its operation will affect the server. Please see Microsoft regarding access database usage in a production environment. ie. Access databases are prohibited on high bandwidth sites, where SQL should be used.

ASP code used to extract email and/or data from databases and be used to send multiple mailings, is "strictly" limited to 25 recipients. ASPMail has inherent mail limitations. We have ASPQMail which queues the mail to prevent load on the mail system. Please use ASPQMail or the listserv feature if possible for larger mailings or change your code accordingly. Contact support for outbound smtp server information or for further information on ASPMail or ASPQMail..

Databases resident on the server require different permissions than standard files and should be placed in a directory specially set for databases. Databases require setup of the ODBC connection by us and we will provide a DSN as required or you can request the file directory from support. Please use a global.asa to place the DSN or file information in. We reserve the right to move site's physical directories.

1st Choice International will install custom components (ie. dll's) from well-recognized third-party vendors only. To have a third-party component installed, extra charges may apply per options price list. No custom DLL's are allowed.

We assume that your script has been tested and requires no setup on our end. If setup is required (ie. special addons or plug-ins) we will be required to charge as per the pricelist and policy. Since we are running 2 different operating systems, we recommend using Perl 5 or GCC (GNU C) for cgi scripts only (Unix). This requires the client to compile his C cgi-script offsite.

For Unix servers, we do not yet support server side application due to the fact that java can be a CPU hog. The server is provided as a web and ftp server only. You may not run CPU intensive applications such as IRC servers and some chat scripts. If you need those applications, you should run them on the end of a leased line or from a dedicated server or choose a package that applies to your needs. SSI is available on the NT servers.

We recommend that cgi or asp development is performed off site, since the web server is a production server and not a development machine. We recommend people installing Linux or NT as a development platform on their PC (or a partition).

We currently can not stop people from developing on our servers, but should such development affect server performance (ie. crash the server, etc.) we will charge support charges to find the problem, reboot the server or otherwise determine the cause of server failure.

Collection Policies

Should 1st Choice require collection assistance for outstanding bills arising from non-payment, the client will be held responsible for all collection and legal charges resulting from the collection of outstanding bills.

Support services are not provided for accounts that are in arrears.

Domain Name Update Policies

After your new domain name registration has been completed, you are entitled to submit modification request(s) to the registrar for updating your domain record in the registrar's whois database. The one time service application fee that you have paid to 1st Choice for registering your new domain name does not cover such update request(s). 1st Choice will prepare and submit such update request(s) for you if you so desire. However, we may charge you a fee for such registration modification services. See current pricing details.

Initial domain modification transfer applications to our servers is at no charge and is provided as a courtesy, but subsequent changes due to difficulties beyond our control are chargeable at $25 per incident.

Responsibility for domain name transfers in/out of our servers rests solely on the "administrator" listed in the registration records at the registrar. Only the administrator (or owner) of the domain can approve transfer requests. We are not responsible for transfer request difficulties you may have with the registrar or administrator of the domain. Please contact the registrar or administrator should you have difficulties in transferring your domain in/out of our servers.

Registrations or registration modifications that do not contain our DNS information (eg. transfer out) will be considered as no longer on our servers and will result in immediate termination of all services unless otherwise notified to accounting of a change/cancellation in service. Reactivation or recovery of data is at current prepaid support rates.

Help

If you have questions about our features and services, please use our client administration site.

Indemnity

1st Choice user agrees to indemnify and hold 1st Choice harmless against any claim, actions or demands arising out of content disseminated from the user's web presence materials which are delivered via 1st Choice web presence resources.

Liability

Neither 1st Choice nor its agents or customers shall be liable to the other for any loss, damage, liability, claim or expense arising out of or in relation to the policies presented herein, other than for payment of fees and refunds and for indemnification discussed in this statement, however caused.

IN NO EVENT SHALL 1st Choice International Holdings Inc. OR ANY OF ITS AGENTS OR ASSOCIATES BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE OR OTHER CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOST PROFITS) ARISING OUT OF OR IN RELATION TO THESE POLICY STATEMENTS. 1st Choice's ENTIRE LIABILITY AND THE CUSTOMER'S EXCLUSIVE REMEDY SHALL BE AT 1st Choice's OPTION, PER POLICIES LISTED SO FAR.

Payment Information Policies

Payment is accepted in U.S. dollars primarily but can be accepted in foreign currency as well, ie. Canadian dollars. The amount owed is listed at the bottom of the account statement in U.S. dollars. U.S. checks and checks drawn on an internationally recognized bank are accepted. International money orders are accepted, however, U.S. Postal money orders are not accepted. Also, payment may be made by credit card through our secured online payment form. This information is strictly confidential.

For first time clients, payment must be received and cleared before services are provided. For first time credit card customers, services will be activated when payment clears. It can take up to two weeks before checks can be received and cleared. For faster service, please use your credit card through our secured online order form, or make a direct wire transfer to our bank. Services can usually be activated within 1-2 days using credit card or direct wire transfer.

Billing:

We require current information for the account statements, so if you have an address, phone or fax change, please let us know via email to accounting.

All Payments for services are due in advance.
If paying by check, money order or bank wire, an invoice will be sent to you on or around the middle of each month prior to the renewal date of your web hosting account. Payment is due on the 1st. or the due date indicated on the invoice. If payment is not received, your account is in arrears and a suspension notice will be provided. There will be a $25 reactivation fee applied to your account for reinstating services once the site is suspended.

Support is not provided to accounts that are in arrears.

If paying by Credit Card, your credit card will AUTOMATICALLY be charged in advance - prior to the 1st. of each month for your monthly hosting fees. To change your billing method from credit card to another form of payment, accounting must be notified in advance. No exceptions.

Final Payment:

When an account is transferred or deleted from our servers, final payment, if in arrears, must be made via certified check, international money order, direct wire deposit or online credit card before it can be moved. We have the right to suspend, delete, cancel or remove services at our discretion without warning for any reason whatsoever at any time.

Refund Policies

	Domain Name Registration application fees are not refundable.
	Set Up fees are not refundable.
	No refunds for early cancellations - prior to the current expiration date.
	We must receive written notice of cancellation, no later than 5 days before the end of the month prior to the expiration date, in order to avoid charges for the next billing period.
	Our 30 day money back guarantee applies to the first 30 days of service and is fully refundable if service is cancelled within that time period. Setup fees, if applicable are non-refundable.
	Service start date is considered the date the setup information is sent to the client or date of client online order, whichever is later. All applicable services are prorated to the 1st of the month.

Registering your own Domain Name

All registrations and parking of domains must receive approval PRIOR to registration. Any domain name found to be registered without prior approval will be removed from our servers and the registrar will receive instructions to delete the name. No questions asked. We will provide registration assistance and modifications as a courtesy to our clients. We can provide assistance for no charge or a small fee depending on your registration requirements.

Registrations or registration modifications that do not contain our DNS information (ie. transfer out) will be considered as no longer on our servers and will result in immediate termination of service unless otherwise notified to accounting of a change/cancellation in service. Reactivation or recovery of data is at current prepaid support rates.

Site Security Policies

To keep our server delivery performance high, no dial-in services or news groups are offered. Login ID's and passwords are provided during the term of the subscription.

Technical Support

If you have a question regarding a technical or web design problem, please go to our online support call system.

Virtual Domain Contact Policy

All virtual domains resident on servers operated by 1st Choice International must use the following registration technical contact handles for registering domain names:

Internic Contact: SF232-ORG
WorldNic Contact: CA6959
RIPE Contact: FS1844-RIPE

Please contact us for further registration information or assistance.

It is understood and accepted that companies that subscribe to or use our services have read our policies and accept them fully.

1st Choice reserves the right to revise and to make changes to the above policies from time to time and will post such changes to this web site. The posting of changes in this policy shall be considered as providing notice of such changes to our clients.

This agreement shall be governed by the laws of British Columbia, Canada.

Revised 10/10/2008