Sinister Visions Hosting Terms, Conditions & Disclaimer

SinisterVisions.com (estabished in 1997, referred to hereafter as "Sinister Visions") provides low-cost and reliable internet site hosting and other services. Sinister Visions has certain legal and ethical responsibilities consisting with the use of its server and equipment involved in these services.

Sinister Visions general policy is to act as a provider of Internet presence. Sinister Visions reserves the right to suspend or cancel a customer's access to any or all services provided by Sinister Visions if and when we decide that the account has been inappropriately used, or payment is not received as outlined below.

Server Abuse

Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server, or customer, of Sinister Visions is strictly prohibited.

Unauthorized use of other people's accounts or computers

Sinister Visions 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 Sinister Visions customer, whether or not the attacked account or computer belongs to Sinister Visions , 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.

IMPORTANT NOTE - Sinister Visions has the right to discontinue service, or deny access to anyone who violates our Policies or the terms and conditions shown below WITHOUT WARNING OR PRIOR NOTICE. No refunds of fees paid will be made if account termination is due to violation of the terms outlined below.

Customers may not run IRC, bots or clients on servers. Unacceptable uses also include, but are NOT limited to: Bulk emailing, unsolicited emailings, newsgroup spamming, illegal content, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, warez, cracks, software serial numbers, and/or anything else determined by Sinister Visions to be unacceptable use of Sinister Visions 's services including abuse of server resources.

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 including 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 sexual material of a non-consensual nature (i.e., rape, "snuff", etc.)
• Displaying material that exploits anyone under 18 years of age
• Acts of copyright infringement including offering pirated computer programs or links to such programs, information used to circumvent manufacturer-installed copy-protect devices, including serial or registration numbers for software programs, or any type of cracker utilities.
• Acts of artistic copyright infringement related to art, music, film and/or other media.

Abuse of Traffic Parameters

Sinister Visions' customers receive an extremely high traffic quota for their web sites (15 Gb/month). The intention of Sinister Visions is to provide a large space to serve web documents, not an off site storage area for electronic files. All (90%) of your web pages (html) must be 'linked' with files (.GIF, .JPEG, etc.) stored on Sinister Visions' server. Web sites that are found to contain either/or no html documents, a large number of unlinked files are subject to warning, suspension or cancellation at the discretion of Sinister Visions management. Any customer who violates Sinister Visions' Policies in abusing either space/site transfer will be notified and given 2 days to remedy the problem. If the problem is not resolved within the allotted period, the client will be billed for the overages.

To maintain the integrity of our hosting service the following limitations apply:

• Sites with banners, graphics or cgi scripts running from their domain used on other domains.
• Sites with picture galleries (This is any site where 50% of the files transferred is graphics)
• Sites offering download files or archives. (This is any site where 50% or more of there monthly traffic is from file downloads).
• Sites using more than 30% of system resources for longer than 60 seconds. Sites running multimedia files (QuickTime, Real Audio, Real Video, MP3).

Sites that exceed monthly transfer quota may be charged an additional fee.

Unsolicited Email (Spam)

Unsolicited commercial advertisements (spam) are not allowed in e-mail, and will likely result in account cancellation.

Sinister Visions takes a zero-tolerance approach to 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 mailing 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 ("mail bombing").
• Spamming Newsgroups: 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 for 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.
• Mail may not be used to harass or intimidate others. Harassment, whether through language, frequency of messages, or size of messages, is 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.

Note: If you use the services of another provider to promote a web site hosted by or through Sinister Visions (spamvertising), then the provisions of the above Policy shall apply as if the spam were sent through our servers.

CGI Scripts

Each web hosting account comes with its own cgi-bin. You are free to use any CGI scripts you wish, however we reserve the right to disable any CGI script that affects normal server operation without prior warning.

Chat Rooms

We do not allow clients to install their own chat rooms within a shared hosting account, without approving it with the Sinister Visions 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 machine for others. Note: Parachat chat rooms do not apply to this rule. They are perfectly fine to install.

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 based on system resources used and operational maintenance needed.

IRC

We currently do not allow 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.

Disk Overages

All Sinister Visions accounts come with metered disk space. Should you use more than your alloted disk space you will be charged $.25 per megabyte per month.

Payment Policies

All accounts are set up on a pre-pay basis. Setup fees and first month's service are charged for all new accounts and major account changes and are non-refundable.

All pricing is guaranteed for the term of pre-payment. Sinister Visions reserves the right to change prices at any time, unless other terms have been agreed upon. Customer will be notified before charging any price changes.

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 suspension. The customer is responsible for all money owed on the account from the time it was established to the time that the customer notifies Sinister Visions at cancel@sinistervisions.com to request for termination of services. All payment is in U.S. currency.. Please contact the billing department at billing@sinistervisions.com should you have any billing questions.

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.

Reconciliation will still be allowed for up to 15 days after the original date of the invoice in question. In other words, you do not forfeit the right to question an invoice once it has been paid. If payment is received on time, and afterwards (within the 15-day time frame) you discover an error on our part please notify us of this error so that it can then be corrected. Please allow us sufficient time (before the expiration of the 15 days) to review the account(s) in question. Please remember that if you are responsible for the error (i.e. typo in domain name), you must contact our Billing Department immediately (within 5 days of the error) to receive a credit for the error.

Cancellation

Sinister Visions reserves the right to cancel service at any time. All fees paid in advance of cancellation will be pro-rated and paid by Sinister Visions if Sinister Visions institutes its right of cancellation. Any violation of policies which results in extra costs will be billed to the customer (i.e. transfer, space etc.)

All of Sinister Visions' 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 contract, you will be given a full refund of the contract amount excluding setup fees, domain registration fees, add-on/upgrade fees and overages. Setup fees are refundable only if the account order is canceled prior to account activation.

Intellectual Property Rights

Material accessible to you through Sinister Visions' 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 Sinister Visions or its server and network 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 Sinister Visions network. If you use a domain name in connection with Sinister Visions 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 Sinister Visions 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. Sinister Visions will cooperate 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.

Electronic Commerce

You will be solely responsible for the development, operation and maintenance of your online store and products and all contents and materials appearing online or on your products, including without limitation (a) the accuracy and appropriateness of content and materials appearing within the store or related to your products, (b) 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 (c) 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 customer orders, and for handling any customer inquiries or complaints arising therefrom.

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 transactions 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

You expressly (i) grant to Sinister Visions a license to cache the entirety of your Web Site, including content supplied by third parties, hosted by Sinister Visions under this Agreement and (ii) agree that such caching is not an infringement of any of your intellectual property rights or any third party's intellectual property rights.

IP Address Ownership

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

Domain Name Registration

Customer agrees to pay Sinister Visions prior to the effectiveness of the desired domain name registration, the then-current amounts set forth in the Sinister Visions price schedule for the initial registration of the domain name and, should Customer choose to renew the registration, subsequent renewals of the registration. All fees are non-refundable, in whole or in part, even if Customer's domain name registration is suspended, cancelled or transferred prior to the end of Customer's then current registration term. Sinister Visions reserves the right to change fees, surcharges, renewal fees or to institute new fees at any time, for any reason, at its sole discretion. Customer's requested domain name will not be registered unless and until we receive actual payment of the registration fee, and have confirmed Customer's registration in an email from Sinister Visions to the email address indicated in Customer's registration application. In the event of a chargeback by a credit card company (or similar action by another payment provider allowed by Sinister Visions ) in connection with the payments of the registration fee for Customer's domain name registration, Customer agrees and acknowledges that the domain name registration shall be transferred to Sinister Visions as the paying entity for that registration to the registry and that we reserve all rights regarding such domain name including, without limitation, the right to make the domain name available to other parties for purchase. Sinister Visions will reinstate Customer's domain name registration solely at Sinister Visions' discretion, and subject to our receipt of the initial registration or renewal fee and our then-current reinstatement fee.

Lawful Purpose

Sinister Visions reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. Customers may only use Sinister Visions server 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 or obscene, and material protected by trade secrets. The designation of any materials as such described above is left entirely to the discretion of Sinister Visions management. Regardless of the place of signing this agreement, the client agrees that for purposes of venue and jurisdiciton this contract was entered into and performed in Cook County, Illinois, and any dispute will be litigated or arbitrated in Cook County, Illinois. Customer further waives all objections to venue or jurisdiction and acknowledges that venue and jurisdiction in any such litigation will be held in Cook County Courts. IN NO EVENT SHALL Sinister Visions 'S MAXIMUM LIABILITY EXCEED FIVE HUNDRED ($500.00) DOLLARS.

Indemnification

CUSTOMER AGREES THAT IT SHALL DEFEND, INDEMNIFY, SAVE AND HOLD SINISTER VISIONS HARMLESS FROM ANY AND ALL DEMANDS, LIABILITIES, LOSSES, COSTS AND CLAIMS, INCLUDING REASONABLE ATTORNEY'S FEES ASSERTED AGAINST SINISTER VISIONS , 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, ITS AGENTS, EMPLOYEES OR ASSIGNS. CUSTOMER AGREES TO DEFEND, INDEMNIFY AND HOLD HARMLESS SINISTER VISIONS AGAINST LIABILITIES ARISING OUT OF; (1) ANY INJURY TO PERSON OR PROPERTY CAUSED BY ANY PRODUCTS SOLD OR OTHERWISE DISTRIBUTED IN CONNECTION WITH SINISTER VISIONS' SERVER; (2) ANY MATERIAL SUPPLIED BY CUSTOMER INFRINGING OR ALLEGEDLY INFRINGING ON THE PROPRIETARY RIGHTS OF A THIRD PARTY; ( 3) COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AND (4) ANY DEFECTIVE PRODUCTS SOLD TO CUSTOMER FROM SINISTER VISIONS' SERVER.

Disclaimer

SINISTER VISIONS WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES YOUR BUSINESS MAY SUFFER. SINISTER VISIONS MAKES NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED FOR SERVICES WE PROVIDE. SINISTER VISIONS 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 SINISTER VISIONS AND ITS EMPLOYEES. SINISTER VISIONS RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REVISE ITS POLICIES AT ANY TIME.

ALL SUB-NETWORKS, RESELLERS AND DEDICATED SERVERS OF SINISTER VISIONS MUST ADHERE TO THE ABOVE POLICIES. FAILURE TO FOLLOW ANY TERM OR CONDITION WILL BE GROUNDS FOR IMMEDIATE ACCOUNT DEACTIVATION.