Domain and Hosting Terms & Conditions

Introduction

OSD Digital Agency Ltd (OSD) agrees to provide the client web hosting for an annual fee. OSD will never require clients to advertise for OSD on their website in any way shape or form unless agreed upon, such as a non-profit organization receiving complimentary hosting. Clients are allowed to use the service for business/commercial or personal websites or content.

Ordering our services and accessing your account is deemed acceptance of these Terms & Conditions.

Please note that OSD may terminate your account without notice for any breach of these Terms.

OSD shall not be held liable for any loss or damages caused by the use or misuse, unavailability or removal of services howsoever caused.

When your account is closed, all files (including web pages, etc.) will be deleted.

OSD reserve the right to cancel your account at any time without notice.

OSD reserve the right to amend and update these Terms and Conditions at any time without notice.

To protect your privacy, we will not distribute your name, email address, domain name, unless required to do so under law, or where same is required in relation to the successful provision of services. The list of information which may be provided under this condition is not exhaustive.

You may not store more data in your account than your allotted server space. Should your storage approach 95% we will endeavour to e-mail a warning and you will have the option to upgrade.

Your server (inc FTP and Shell access) is for your personal use only. You must not divulge the password to any other person, and you should take reasonable precautions to ensure that it is not discovered by other people. If this is compromised you must take your own appropriate action.

Data stored on our servers is not guaranteed to be backed up. It is recommended that you keep an independent backup of all data stored on your virtual server or shared hosting account. OSD Ltd. accept no responsibility for any loss of data, however incurred.

It is the Users sole responsibility to keep all files, date, passwords, etc, secure at all times. Further to this, any security applications, or security details of the user, must be kept at the users own risk, and kept up to date, so that protection is afforded for both the User and the Company. The Company will not be held responsible for damage, loss or injury caused, due to insufficient or out of date security measures held by the User.

Domains

Your domain remains at all times your property as the registrant and can be transferred away from OSD Ltd. at any time at your sole discretion.

All amounts paid to OSD for domain name purchases are non-refundable.

Domain Orders paid by Cheque or Bank Transfer will NOT be processed or registered until payment is received. This can result in your chosen domain being registered by someone else while we await your payment. Your domain is not registered until you receive confirmation of registration.

Please note it is the clients responsibility to provide renewal/payment costs to OSD before the renewal date in order to ensure domain renewal.

Failure to provide payment before renewal may result in the loss of your domain name after which point OSD can look to retrieve the domain for renewal but cannot guarantee availability.

Additional third party charges may apply including OSD admin fee to try and retrieve domain names past their expiry date.

OSD’s credit terms do not provide extensions for renewals as domain names renewals need to be processed before their relevant expiry date.

Bandwidth / Resource Usage

If your resource usage reaches the points where it has an adverse affect on other clients we reserve the right to disable your site until you can reduce your bandwidth / resource usage.

Each server includes a nominated amount of bandwidth and other resources, if you use more than this amount then you agree to pay for this bandwidth / resource at the rates listed on OSDs’ site.

Email Hosting

OSD hosting accounts can be also used to provide email hosting to get you started with email on your own domain name, with each hosting account there is a complimentary* email service to get clients up and running.

Clients who rely heavily on email such as large traffic (both volume and size), mission critical email such as booking engines, extended support, etc – OSD advise clients talk with their IT provider where OSD can help liaise with your IT provider to integrate the likes of Office 365, Google Apps on your own domain name.

OSD recommends clients download email to their local device, releasing/leaving the space on their hosting account for their website. Leaving email on your account will decrease the space and resources to your website.

*Please note: this service is complimentary and as such email support is not included under the website support, where website hosting support is included in the hosting yearly cost.

Website Hosting Backup

OSD as a standard procedure complete a system wide monthly backup on the overall hosting server. This is a “full system backup to a previous date”.

OSD do not provide a backup of individual client files i.e. a single file or page uploaded previously, but unavailable now.

If a file has been lost, OSD may be able to provide a backup of this file. However an additional admin charge of €75 an hour would apply. This cost relates to the time involved in querying and searching the full system backup files for the individual client file.

As detailed above however the “system backup is to a previous date only” therefore there will be a period of time between last backup and issue time where certain content is not part of the backup.

OSD therefore cannot guarantee a backup of individual files for Clients.

Disaster Recovery

If a full recovery of data is required this recovery will have to be planned with the data centre as they may initiate the recovery if it is cloud based, if it is server based then OSD would initiate.

OSD will respond to any recovery support issues within 72 hours during OSD office hours, Monday to Friday 9.30am to 6:00pm.

OSD advises all clients who have a CMS not provided by OSD to create a backup of their content from the Control panel / Admin dashboard of their CMS.

Out of office hours support response times can be provided at additional costs, dependent on the project, website and services.

Infrastructure Updates – Security, General & Scheduled

OSD Ltd or its suppliers reserve the right update the underlying infrastructure (servers, network, systems, etc) as needed to provide an up to date service and deal with security updates, etc.

This includes updates to Content Management Systems such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, etc. When updated there may be conflicts between the main CMS system and its plugins. OSD cannot guarantee continuing compatibility as system and plugin providers may have compatibility issues themselves. This is outside general OSD support.

Where issues arise, OSD will look to resolve if there is an active Support, Maintenance or Professional Services Package on the client account, otherwise OSD can look to solve and time for this would be chargeable.

Please note – security has higher priority than compatibility of a client CMS setup and as such OSD cannot be held responsible for any issues that arise from an update performed by OSD as part of the security updates.

Any website that poses a security risk and where the client is not willing to get it updated, OSD reserve the right to disable the wesbite and or account for security reasons.

Server security is paramount.

Due to the nature of the updates, certain downtime may be inevitable for the period of these updates.

Additional backup/redundancy hosting can be provided by OSD to provide service on an additional server / system. This redundancy service would be independently charged from a main account. Clients should contact OSD if this additional service is required.

External / Third Party Access to your website and/or CMS

OSD can give access to your hosting account and/or CMS to external or third parties as authorised by the client.

Please note that as OSD would not have full visibility of any changes etc made by any third party OSD cannot continue to natively provide support on a website that has external / third party access.

OSD can look to update a clients site after third party access and will look to remove the third party access.

Any updates needed including troubleshooting any issues during a period for which the site has third party access OSD time on any tasks would be chargeable.

Credit / Payment

As per part of Project Terms & Conditions, Project start dates and timelines can only be confirmed on receipt of deposit and signed contracts.

Credit Terms are not provided.

The customer is responsible for all charges on the service account until a cancellation request is received.

If your account/service is activated before payment is made then payment must be sent in full by return.

If payment is not made in full within 14 days all technical support for the site may be revoked at the company’s discretion. If payment is still not made in the following 7-day period your account will be deleted from our servers and all DNS services will stop.

If your account is cancelled and is later re-activated, an administration fee of €200 is levied on your account.

30 days prior to the end of your contract, you will receive a renewal invoice.

Re Companies: Any orders received from company/s shall be deemed to be made by an authorised agent.

Returned payments, either via credit card, direct debit or cheque, will incur an administration charge. Failure to pay these fees within 30 days of the date of issue will mean your entire account will be put on hold and a collections agency will be handed over your details.

Fees as follows:

Returned Cheque: 10 euro

Returned Direct Debit: 10 euro

Charged back credit/debit card: 40 euro

A cancellation fee will apply if you cancel the service before the term is up. Additionally no credits will be given after early termination. This does not affect your statutory rights.

Refusal of Service

OSD reserves the right at its sole discretion to refuse or cancel service. Violation of any of OSD’s Rules and Regulations could result in a warning, suspension, or possible account termination. Accounts terminated due to policy violations will not be refunded. Free domains which have been granted for customers paying annually are released to the customer at the end of there hosting period. Domains terminated due to policy violations will not be released to the customer.

Indemnification

Customer agrees that it shall defend, indemnify, save and hold OSD (or it’s employee’s/owners) harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims, including reasonable legal fees asserted against OSD, 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 OSD against liabilities arising out of;

(1) Any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with OSD server;

(2) Any material supplied by customer infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party and

(3) Copyright infringement. Customer agrees to limit the liability of OSD to the amount paid for service.

Content

All services provided by OSD may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data or material in violation of any Irish (or any other country) law is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: copyrighted material, material that is threatening or obscene, material that is “adult only” content, or material protected by trade secrets and other statue. The subscriber agrees to indemnify and hold harmless OSD from any claims resulting from the use of the service, which damages the subscriber or any other party.

You will be responsible for the content of your pages, including obtaining the legal permission for any and all works which they include, and also ensuring that the contents of these pages does not violate Irish, European or International law. OSD shall not be responsible for any illegal or infringing material posted in served websites. Further to this, where a third party confirms illegal activity on a customers served site, OSD may at its sole discretion, contact the customer immediately, and begin an investigation into same. Any and all services may be suspended while this investigation takes place. OSD will make all efforts to conduct any investigation without delay, and will not be responsible or liable for any loss, damage, whether general or consequential caused by same. Where OSD considers material on the site as illegal, defamatory or abusive they shall, at their sole discretion terminate services. Where services are terminated on these grounds, the contract between the parties will be considered to be at an end until you receive confirmation of registration.

It is company policy not to allow any ‘hate sites’, or websites which incite hatred, prejudice or discrimination. Where a hosted website is found to be inciting hatred, or engaging in connected discriminatory activates, the offending website will be terminated without any further notice to the customer. Please note that where your service has been terminated, all information, data, etc stored on OSD’s servers will be deleted.

You may not run server processes (e.g.. talkers/IRC Bots) from your virtual server.

OSD Ltd reserve the right to remove any cgi or similar server-side program that interferes in any way with the normal running of a server. Scripts that are commonly known for causing server disruption include large CGI-based message forums, auctions, and banner exchanges. In the event a script affects normal server and/or administrative operations, OSD reserves the right to disable the account pending client cooperation and resolution.

Known dangerous scripts, such as Matt’s formmail are not allowed.

You will be held responsible for and accept responsibility for any defamatory, confidential, secret or other proprietary material available via your page(s).

We reserve the right to remove material deemed inappropriate from your web pages, without prior notice.

Spam Or Unsolicited E-Mail

Email Abuse and Email Misuse is a serious problem, and OSD Ltd. will not tolerate it.

You must not use the OSD Network, OSD equipment or any OSD email address in connection with the transmission of spam, flames, mail bombs, or substantially similar, unsolicited email messages. Your domain may not be referenced as originator, intermediary, or reply-to address in any of the above. This prohibition extends to the sending of unsolicited mass mailings from another service that in any way implicates the use of the OSD Network, OSD equipment or any OSD email address.

A message is considered unsolicited if it is posted in violation of a newsgroup charter or if it is sent to a recipient who has not requested or invited the message. For purposes of this provision, merely making one’s email address accessible to the public will not constitute a request or invitation to receive messages.

If you are found to have spammed, OSD reserves the right to disable your domain without warning. In addition, OSD may impose a €150 penalty for each spam policy violation. OSD solely reserves the right to refuse or cancel service to known spammers. Lastly, OSD reserves the right to determine what violates this policy. As such, any violation may result in cancellation of services without refund.

Usage of OSD Ltd. services constitutes acceptance and understanding of this policy.

Users must not participate in any form of un-solicited bulk e-mailing or Spam, or any form of illegal web site. Failure to observe this condition will result in immediate disconnection of service (see below).

Definition of UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email), or SPAM:

The bulk UCE, bulk promotional material, or other forms of solicitation sent via Email that advertise any IP address belonging to OSD Ltd. or any URL (domain) that is hosted by OSD Ltd.

Unsolicited postings to newsgroups advertising any IP or URL hosted by OSD Ltd.

The use of web pages set up on ISPs that allow SPAM-ing (also known as “ghost sites”) that directly or indirectly reference customers to domains or IP addresses hosted by OSD Ltd.

Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to facilitate a means to SPAM.

Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the true origin of the message.

For further information on mail abuse, please visit the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) website.

Repercussions of SPAM:

Across the Web, it is generally accepted that SPAM is an inconsiderate and improper business practice.

Repercussions to OSD Ltd.:

SPAM is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward OSD Ltd., but also because it can overload the OSD Ltd. network and resources, especially on our shared (virtual) server environments.

Repercussions to our Providers:

Since it is unsolicited, users who receive SPAM often become angry and send complaints to our upstream providers. This upsets our providers who abhor SPAM for the same reasons that OSD Ltd does – it causes negative consumer attitudes and drains resources. We strive to maintain favourable business relationships in the Web community and obviously will not allow any practice that threatens these relationships.

Basic Mailing List Management Principles for Preventing Abuse

Mailing lists are an excellent vehicle for distributing focused, targeted information to an interested, receptive audience. Consequently, mailing lists have been used successfully as a highly effective direct marketing tool.

Unfortunately, some marketers misuse mailing lists through a lack of understanding of Internet customs and rules of the forum pertaining to Email. Others fail to take adequate precautions to prevent the lists they manage from being used in an abusive manner.

The Email addresses of new subscribers must be confirmed or verified before mailings commence.

This is usually accomplished by means of an Email message sent to the subscriber to which s/he must reply, or containing a URL which s/he must visit, in order to complete the subscription. However it is implemented, a fundamental requirement of all lists is the verification of all new subscriptions.

Mailing list administrators must provide a simple method for subscribers to terminate their subscriptions, and administrators should provide clear and effective instructions for unsubscribing from a mailing list. Mailings from a list must cease promptly once a subscription is terminated.

Mailing list administrators should make an “out of band” procedure (e.g., a means of contact by which messages may be sent for further correspondence via Email or telephone) available for those who wish to terminate their mailing list subscriptions but are unable or unwilling to follow standard automated procedures.

Mailing list administrators must ensure that the impact of their mailings on the networks and hosts of others is minimized by proper list management procedures such as pruning of invalid or undeliverable addresses, or taking steps to ensure that mailings do not overwhelm less robust hosts or networks.

Mailing list administrators must take adequate steps to ensure that their lists are not used for abusive purposes. For example, administrators can maintain a “suppression list” of Email addresses from which all subscription requests are rejected. Addresses would be added to the suppression list upon request by the parties entitled to use the addresses at issue. The purpose of the suppression list would be to prevent subscription of addresses appearing on the suppression list by unauthorized third parties. Such suppression lists should also give properly authorized domain administrators the option to suppress all mailings to the domains for which they are responsible.

Mailing list administrators must make adequate disclosures about how subscriber addresses will be used, including whether or not addresses are subject to sale or trade with other parties. Once a mailing list is traded or sold, it may no longer be an opt-in mailing list. Therefore, those who are acquiring “opt-in” lists from others must examine the terms and conditions under which the addresses were originally compiled and determine that all recipients have in fact opted-in specifically to the mailing lists to which they are being traded or sold.

Mailing list administrators should make adequate disclosures about the nature of their mailing lists, including the subject matter of the lists and anticipated frequency of messages. A substantive change in either the subject matter or frequency of messages may constitute a new and separate mailing list requiring a separate subscription. List administrators should create a new mailing list when there is a substantive change in either the subject matter or frequency of messages. A notification about the new mailing list may be appropriate on the existing mailing list, but existing subscribers should never be subscribed automatically to the new list. For example, if Company A acquires Company B, and Company B has compiled opt-in mailing lists, Company A should not summarily incorporate Company B’s mailing lists into its own.

Intellectual Property Rights

Material accessible to you through OSD’s Services may be subject to protection under Irish (or any other country) 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 the OSD Service in a manner that would infringe, violate, dilute or misappropriate any such rights, with respect to any material, which you access or receive through the OSD Network. If you use a domain name in connection with the OSD Service 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

Customers may not use the OSD 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 the customer is not expressly authorized to access, password cracking, probing the security of other networks in search of weakness, or violation of any other organization’s security policy. Customers may not attempt to interfere or deny service to any user, host, or network. This includes, but is not limited to, flooding, mail bombing, or other deliberate attempts to overload or crash a host or network. OSD will co-operate fully with investigations of violations of systems or network security at other sites, including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations. Users who violate system or network security may incur criminal or civil liability.

Disclaimer

OSD will not be responsible for any damages your business may suffer. OSD makes no warranties of any kind, expressed or implied for services we provide. OSD 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 OSD and its employees. OSD makes no “uptime” guarantees.

OSD keeps backups of key server systems only and these backups are not available for customer use. OSD can accept no responsibility for any loss of data or consequences arising from this. OSD always advises clients to back up their site data regularly for their own protection.

OSD furthermore expects that its customers who provide hosting services (resellers) to others will ensure its customers fully comply with all applicable laws concerning the privacy of online communications and any other policy of OSD. A customer’s failure to comply with those laws will violate this policy.

If a customer provides hosting services (resellers) to others and decides to cancel their reseller hosting account with OSD then OSD will not be responsible for maintaining hosting for the resellers customers.

All communications (emails, verbal or written) are between OSD and the client. These communications are private and are therefore not to be shared with any other parties.

Finally, OSD wishes to emphasize that in accepting services, customers indemnify OSD for the violation of any law or OSD policy that results in loss to OSD or the bringing of any claim against OSD. This means that if OSD is sued because of activities of the customer that violate any law, or this policy, the customer will pay any damages awarded against OSD, plus costs and reasonable legal fees.

Failure to comply with any of our terms & conditions will result in grounds for immediate account deactivation.

OSD reserves the right to change, edit or update the policies contained in this document at any time for any reason without notice.