Acceptable Use Policy - Web Hosting

In order to maintain high quality services for our clients, we have adopted this Acceptable Use Policy. In this document, we outline what constitutes acceptable use of our systems, so that there are no misunderstandings with our valued clients, and so our clients can understand what they may and may not do on our systems. Much of this agreement is common sense, and will not be difficult for our clients to follow. Our ultimate goal for this document is to ensure that our clients get maximum benefit from our facilities, while reducing downtime and inconvenience. This is a winning combination which benefits everyone.

Mail Servers

Arlyle Consulting offers e-mail hosting services to clients. We permit reasonable use of these services to conduct business (if you are a business client) or for personal use (if you are an individual client).

Arlyle Consulting does not condone the use of it's e-mail hosting services for illegal purposes. We reserve the right to monitor e-mail usage in conjunction with reasonable complaints registered from outside parties. We will never disclose contents of any e-mail being sent to and from our e-mail system unless otherwise compelled to do so by law enforcement, having received a lawfull warrant through a court of law, or being served by subpoena by a court of law. In those circumstances, information will only be disclosed to law enforcement entities or the party which legally obtained the subpoena.

Web Servers

Arlyle Consulting believes in the First Amendment of the United States of America, and vows never to exercise editorial control over the content of the web sites hosted on Arlyle Consulting systems. This means, however, that each web site owner bears full responsibility for the content contained on their sites, and Arlyle Consulting accepts no responsibility whatsoever. The only time Arlyle Consulting will ever pull a web site is if it is ordered to do so by a court of law in the form of a "Cease And Desist" order.

Clients also agree that they will not use Arlyle Consulting systems to acquire software through illegal means or use any software acquired through illegal means on Arlyle Consulting systems. Clients running software on our systems must have a legal right to use the software. This is usually determined by a software license or an End User License Agreement. If it is suspected that there is use of illegal software on our systems, we will request proof of a "right to use" license for the software in question from the client. If client cannot produce adequate proof that the software is either the property of the client or the client is legally licensing the software, Arlyle Consulting will remove the software from our systems.

Software that adversely affects the performance of Arlyle Consulting systems is not permitted. This is generally defined as software which takes up all available CPU idle time for five minutes or more. If Arlyle Consulting discovers such software running on our systems, we will terminate the software, and inform the client of the termination. If Arlyle Consulting has to perform this termination more than three times over the course of a month, we will assess a penalty on the next monthly bill. If CPU-hogging software becomes a cronic problem (defined as 10 incidences or more), we will request that the software be fixed, or removed within three business days. If the problem is not corrected, we will remove the software, and ban the use of the software by the client. Violation of the ban will result in immediate termination of services, without advanced warning, and all service fees paid for the current period will be forfeit and non-refundable.

Domain Name Service (DNS)

Arlyle Consulting offers DNS services as part of it's Hosting services. We will gladly add any DNS record to your domain as long as the domain is hosted with our servers. You may also choose to host DNS for your domain on your own servers or with a third-party service provider.

We request, if you host your DNS with us, that your TTL (Time To Live) values be no less that 300 seconds (5 minutes). If you request your TTL values to be shorter than 300 seconds, we may ask you to pay an additional service fee. The actual amount of the service fee will depend on the number of DNS records you have and the number of DNS queries our servers answer for your domain.

If you wish to set up a secondary DNS server with our servers being primary, you must notify us that you are setting up the secondary server so we can tell our servers to respond to the zone transfer reqeusts. We request that there be no more than 6 zone transfers per day (one transfer every 4 hours), per domain. If there are more that 6 zone transfers per day, we may ask you to pay an additional service fee. The actual amount of the service fee will depend largely on the number of DNS records you have.

Domain hijacking is strictly forbidden. If it is discovered that you have somehow hijacked a domain using Arlyle Consulting systems, we will terminate your account without warning. Any fees paid for the current period will be forfeit and non-refundable.

Shell Access

Every hosting account, by default, receives a shell account on our systems. By using the shell account, you agree not to use it for illicit or illegal purposes such as hacking or stealing information.

The client is ultimately responsible for maintaining the privacy of the username and password provided by Arlyle Consulting. If your account has been accessed without your authorization, you should notify us immediately. We accept no responsibility for unauthorized access to your account stemming from no fault of our own.

When we create your account, we also create an environment and user space on our disks designed for ultimate privacy and security. While you are free to modify the security on your home directory, and we do not object to you doing so, we do not recommend you do so. We cannot accept responsibility for unathorized access to your home directory if you modify the security on your home directory. If you accidentally modify the security on your home directory, and need it restored to it's original state, we can do so. We will restore your account back to default settings for free up to three times. After that, we will charge you a nominal service fee.

Using your account for unauthorized access is forbidden. You should not try to access home directories of other users on our systems unless you have permission to do so. We reserve the right to monitor your activites while using your shell account in the event a security breach as been reported. If we determine, beyond doubt, that you have been using your account for unauthorized access, we will terminate your account without warning. Any fees paid for the current period will be forfeit and non-refundable.

Reasonable Use (Mail Servers)

Reasonable use of e-mail servers entails sending of up to 100 e-mails per day, per account. We will, however, permit up to 500 e-mails per day per account. We request that clients notify us in advance that you will be sending such volume through our servers, and supply information indicating whether the e-mails being sent are solicited or unsolicited. This will help us investigate spam complaints, if and when we receive them, and will reduce (but not eliminate) the chance that the client's account will be terminated if we find that Arlyle Consulting policies have been violated. If clients plan on sending more than 500 e-mails on a single day, you must send us the information, indicated above, ahead of time. If you do not, and we receive 50 complains or more, we will suspend your account until you send us the information. Failure to send the information within 5 business days of suspension will result in termination of account. Sending of 1,000 total unsolicited e-mails per day is unacceptable, and will result in termination of your account if we receive complaints. However, as long as you submit proof that the e-mails you sent are solicited, you may send as many e-mails as you wish, but the proof must be filed with us in advance.

Proof of sending solicited e-mail shall consist of a complete list of e-mail addresses to which you will send messages, along with a declaration that the listed recipients have requested that you send e-mail to them. If the mailing is a one-time event, it should be indicated in the declaration. Proof for one-time e-mailing events will be held on file for 30 days, and then destroyed. If you plan on sending regular e-mails to the recipients, indicate this in your declaration and it will be held indefinitely or until you declare that you no longer intend to send regular e-mails to the recipients listed in the declaration. Declarations recinded by clients will be held on file for 30 days, and will then be destroyed. Client may revise perpetual declarations at any time by simply indicating new recipients to which they will send e-mail, or by indicating which recipients will no longer receive emails. If a declaration has been modified, we request that the declaration be consolidated and resubmitted every year.

Clients should be aware that we define solicited email as the following:

• Recipients that have specifically requested e-mails be sent to them, and/or subscribe to a newsletter that gets sent out periodically.

E-mail addresses purchased from marketing or other organizations do not qualify as solicited e-mail, even if the people on the list have stipulated to their information being sold and, consequently, agree to receive e-mails. In order for such an e-mail address to be considered solicited, the Client must get direct permission from the recipient in order for them to be able to count them as a solicited recipient.

If Arlyle Consulting receives complaints about receiving unsolicited e-mail, and the Client has indicated the recipient as being a solicited recipient, the following will occur:

1. Arlyle Consulting will request further proof from the Client that the recipient in question requested e-mails be sent. Such proof must consist of an e-mail or other permission form that clearly indicates that the recipient requested e-mail from the Client.
2. The Client MUST remove the complaining recipient from their solicited e-mail list, even if Client can produce proof that the recipient requested e-mail from the Client.