[cs_content][cs_section parallax=”false” style=”margin: 0px;padding: 45px 0px;”][cs_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”false” style=”margin: 0px auto;padding: 0px;”][cs_column fade=”false” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px;”][x_custom_headline level=”h1″ accent=”false”]Hosting Terms & Conditions[/x_custom_headline][cs_text class=”cs-ta-left”]Paper Tower hosting is designed to serve the web hosting needs of small-to-medium businesses and non-profit organizations. It is not appropriate to use our basic hosting services to support large enterprises or internationally based businesses with a sustained demand that places undue burden on our systems or negatively impacts use by small, independently owned and operated businesses. If you intend to do more traffic for a larger site, please ask us for a more robust hosting package.
Disk space:
Each website hosted is allotted 1 GB of local storage. This may not sound like much, but it is strongly recommended, for performance reasons, to use the Amazon S3 storage option if further storage is needed. It costs $20/month per 1 GB after the limit. Paper Tower may choose to waive any fees beyond this limit at their discretion. If you choose to switch to Amazon S3, please let us know so we can help with the transition. You are responsible for all Amazon S3 payments.
Data transfer:
In most cases, if you use our services consistently with the Terms of Service and these paragraphs, visitors to your web site will be able to download and view as much content from your site as they like. However, in certain circumstances, our server processing power, server memory, or abuse controls could limit downloads from your site. You can also upload as much as content as you like each month, subject only to the Terms of Service and the rules that control how fast your site can grow (see above).
BASE SERVICES
The following are services Paper Tower promises to provide for every website we host.
Website Speed
Paper Tower does everything it can to keep the server running as quickly as possible. On average speeds keep page loads under 1 second, however Paper Tower has no control over the efficiency of the website being loaded given code quality, the size and quantity of assets, etc.. As such we cannot guarantee any load time, but do everything we can to minimize it. If improved speeds are desired, please contact us at [email protected] and we can come to a deal outside the scope of hosting.
Security
Paper Tower takes security extremely seriously. While Paper Tower takes no responsibility for attacks and successful hacks on your website, we are here to help get you back in working order. Paper Tower is in no way responsible for downtime or, in the case of an e-commerce website, complications with product sales. Paper Tower reserves the right to declare a particular amount of hack recovery to be beyond our free hacking recovery, and will notify you if a further contract needs to be made. This is the exception, not the rule.
Backups
Everyday Paper Tower will completely backup your website and corresponding database. Paper Tower may choose to include further backups during maintenance. These backups only include what is on our server, and not files stored elsewhere and referenced on your website.
Content Delivery Network (CDN)
Complimentary with every website comes the option to use a CDN. This is not enabled by default but may be requested. Paper Tower is not responsible for the CDN provider and can only relay issues related to the CDN. Upon request, it is also possible to change the domain used for CDN urls upon request, but this change may incur additional fees.
WordPress Security Updates
In an effort to keep top security practices your site will be automatically updated to new WordPress security releases. Paper Tower does not take responsibility for any potential breakages from these updates as we do not control what is in each release, but clearly the broken functionality relied on unsecure code. In any case, this is extremely rare.
Rainy Day Support
A website isn’t worth much of it’s down, and Paper Tower understand this. That’s why we commit to do our very best to get the server back up if it goes down. In matters of the CDN, SSL issues (if we’re handling it), and issues at our discretion, we will do what it takes to get your website back up. We reserve the authority to determine whether or not, on a case by case basis, an issue lands within the scope of our support. A broken plugin or bugs in code, for example, are not our responsibility to maintain. This service does not mean open, general support, but is exclusively for matters of the website being down due to an issue that falls under our jurisdiction.
FULLY MANAGED SERVICES
The following are services that only apply to websites within our Fully Managed Hosting plan. For the monthly services we do not guarantee a time of month, unless otherwise agreed, but that they will happen on a monthly basis.
Monthly WordPress & Plugin Updates
In an effort to keep your website up to security standards, Paper Tower will update WordPress to the latest released version as well as the plugins used, if available. If the plugin was purchased from a 3rd party that does not support auto-updates, we will not upgrade it. If given access to where the files may be downloaded, we may decide on a per website basis with an increased fee, to retrieve and update the files manually. While we do our best to make sure the updates do not break your website, we cannot 100% ensure no complications as we have no control over how the plugins are updated or how well documented the update is. We may also elect not to upgrade a plugin if it is a major upgrade and will notify you. If the upgrade is significant enough it may cost an additional fee to make the appropriate changes for the upgrade to work correctly.
Uptime Monitoring
Paper Tower will check, every 5 minutes, to see whether or not your website is still loading correctly. This check is only capable of checking that the server is still able to be reached, not whether the website is having issues after loading. We will be notified if the server is having issues and will respond accordingly. This will also give you an idea of what your uptime was for the previous month in the report.
Monthly Performance Scans
Each month Paper Tower will run performance scans on your website. With this we will identify your Page Speed Grade and YSlow Grade. Both of these are standard maintained by a 3rd party, as such we are not responsible for it’s consistency or accuracy. They are, however, sources we consider very reliable. In addition, we only perform the scans and offer the results; unless otherwise contracted, we do not take lengths to improve your grades. You are responsible for improving your website’s speed as these reflect on the website itself in addition to the server — for which we always strive to make sure it’s running optimally.
Monthly Security Scans
Each month Paper Tower will run security scans on your website. We use 3rd party services such as Google Safe Browsing to check and make sure your website is considered clean and safe. We also check all the links and JavaScript files on your website to make sure everything appears clean. This is not an exhaustive check and it is therefore possible that security vulnerabilities may remain. This is not the only line of defense, however, as much security takes place on the server itself. If your site is hacked, please quickly reach out to us and we will resolve the issue.
Monthly Status Reports
Once Paper Tower has performed all the monthly services, we will send you an email that contains a detailed report of what we’ve done. It is your responsibility to read this in the case that we include important information. Some sections may appear some months and not others, which simply means that section (e.g. plugin updates) was not necessary that month.
ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY & TERMS OF SERVICE
The following is the entire Acceptable User Policy (AUP) agreement between Paper Tower and the personal or corporate account holder (YOU/YOUR Customer). Paper Tower provides World Wide Web Hosting, Marketing, and Development. Paper Tower has certain legal and ethical responsibilities consisting with the use of its servers and equipment involved in these services. Paper Tower general policy is to act as a provider of Internet presence. Paper Tower reserves the rights to suspend or cancel a customer’s access to any or all services provided by Paper Tower when we decide that the account has been inappropriately used.
SERVER ABUSE
Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server or customer of Paper Tower hosting is strictly prohibited. Paper Tower will strongly react to any use or attempted use of an Internet account or computer without the owners authorization. Such attempts include Internet scamming (tricking other people into releasing their passwords), password theft, security hole scanning, etc. Any unauthorized use of accounts or computers by YOU, whether or not the attacked account or computer belongs to Paper Tower, will result in action against YOU. Possible actions include warnings, account suspension or cancelation, as well as civil or criminal legal action, depending on the seriousness of the attack.
IMPORTANT NOTE – Paper Tower 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. Unacceptable uses include, but are NOT limited to: Bulk emailing, unsolicited emailing, newsgroup spamming, pornographic content, illegal content, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, warez sites (including links to/from), cracks, software serial numbers, proxy-relaying, link farming (the act of or by use of scripts), link grinding, link-only sites, spamdexing, FFA (Free-For-All) and/or anything else determined by Paper Tower to be unacceptable use of our services including abuse of server resources.
WEB APPLICATIONS and WEB ACCESSIBLE SCRIPTS
All web applications that are out-of-date and actively being exploited will be shut down immediately without prior notice. YOU are responsible for and should evaluate YOUR web-based applications and scripts on a regular basis to ensure their security and orderliness. Shared hosting accounts may also be terminated if it includes the following content or have links to the following content: Providing material that is grossly offensive to the Web community including blatant expressions of bigotry, racism, hatred, or profanity; promoting or providing instructional information about illegal activities; promoting physical harm or injury against any group or individual; displaying material containing obscene nudity or pornographic material; displaying material that exploits children 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.
BANDWIDTH ABUSE
The intention of Paper Tower is to provide a large bandwidth to transfer web documents, and not an offsite storage area for electronic files. If you violate this condition, you will be notified and given 48 hours to remedy the problem. Failure to do so will result in you being billed for the overages. If you do not qualify for the free service, traffic will go unmonitored until you reach the amount of quota allocated to your specific PLAN. Thereafter, normal data transfer cost of $10.00/1GB/month will be billed to your account. If you want to pre-pay for bandwidth overages, you will be billed $5.00/1GB/month. You will have 3 days to pay for your overages. Failure to do so will result in your website being disabled within 3 days of your first notice. Paper Tower will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.
TECHNICAL SUPPORT BOUNDARIES
Paper Tower provides technical support for YOU that encompasses within our area of expertise only. Such expertise includes assistance, troubleshooting, servers within our immediate responsibility and any other hosting related issues. In under no circumstances is Paper Tower neither obligated to help YOU in the installations of new application modules, templates and/or programming languages, nor in providing assistance for any errors produced by any applications that have been modified by YOU previously.
FILE OWNERSHIP
All electronic files stored within Paper Tower servers must be legally owned and be accompanied with a valid license and/or copyright. This includes and is not limiting to MP3, AVI, MID, MIDI, MPG, MPEG, MOV, EXE, ISO. Should we discover any unlicensed and/or illegal files within YOUR account, the files will be subjected to deletion without any further notifications.
PAYMENT POLICIES
All accounts are set up on a pre-pay basis. All pricing is guaranteed for the term of prepayment. Paper Tower reserves the right to change prices at any time, unless other terms have been agreed upon. Any account not brought current within 14 days of e-mail notice or exceeding this time frame in any way is subject to suspension. You are responsible for all fees owed on the account from the time it was established to the time that you notify Paper Tower to request for termination of services. All payment is in U.S. currency.
Paper Tower will bill each client $50 per returned check and per credit card chargeback received.
CANCELLATION OF SERVICE
Paper Tower reserves the right to cancel a service at any time. All fees paid in advance of cancellation will be pro-rated and paid by Paper Tower if we institutes our right of cancelation. Any violation of policies which results in extra costs billed to you (i.e. transfer, space etc.). All of Paper Tower 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. If you cancel, the full contract amount less any setup fees and overages will be refunded if Paper Tower is notified within the first 30 days following activation. This policy does not apply to any additional services such as overages, referrer logs, real audio/video, additional disk space, additional pop accounts, domain registration fees, etc. For credit card payment, refunds will be made to made available by the Customer after the 120th day.
You have the right to cancel service at any time. Upon cancellation we will give you complete access to your files and database. If you have an SSL certificate with us it is not transferrable, so you’ll need to acquire a new one elsewhere. If you require help transferring the site to a new host we are happy to do so at an additional cost agreed upon at that time, however Paper Tower is in no way obligated to help with the transfer otherwise.
PROMOTIONAL RATES & SPECIAL OFFERS
Paper Tower may offer subsequent promotional rates or special offers, the terms of which may or may not be more favorable than the terms and conditions for YOUR Services. Any such promotions or modifications shall not affect YOUR obligations under this Agreement. Promotional fees may be subject to additional terms and conditions which, to the extent they conflict with the terms of this Agreement, shall govern. Different promotional fees and special offers may not be combined together.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
Material accessible to you through Paper Tower hosting services may be subject to protection under the United States or other copyright laws, or laws protecting trademarks, trade secrets and proprietary information. Except when expressly permitted by the owner of such rights, you must not use Paper Tower hosting or its servers and network in a manner that would infringe, violate, dilute or misappropriate any such rights, with respect to any material that you access or receive through the Paper Tower hosting network. If you use a domain name in connection with Paper Tower hosting or similar service, you must not use that domain name in violation of any trademark, service mark, or similar rights of any third party.
ELECTRONIC COMMERCE
You will be solely responsible for the development, operation and maintenance of your online store and products along with all content 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 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 transactions through your website. 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 Paper Tower a license to cache the entirety of your website, including content supplied by third parties, hosted by Paper Tower 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.
ACCOUNT ACCESS
Upon request, you have the right to have access to the server for any of the sites you own that Paper Tower is hosting. Any issues that occur due to changes you make from the server dashboard are fully your responsibility and not Paper Tower’s. While we’re happy to help resolve the issue, there will likely be a service fee at Paper Tower’s discretion for the time required.
PAPER TOWER CONTINGENCY PLAN
Should the worse happen and Paper Tower is no longer able to perform its services for any reason, you have a few options for how you’d like to proceed:
(a.) Paper Tower will set you up an account with access to all of your sites. We will then contact WP Engine and transfer your accounts fully to your ownership. This may require a change of IP.
(b.) Paper Tower will send you the most recent backup of your website(s) which contains all the files and database.
(c.) Paper Tower will transfer your account to another agency who we trust and have an existing relationship with, confident they will provide comparable services.
Since WP Engine manages the physical servers and mainframe, your website(s) are not contingent upon Paper Tower. WP Engine will work with us to make sure your property is not lost and gets to you. This is our commitment to you.
IP ADDRESS OWNERSHIP
Paper Tower shall maintain and control ownership of all IP numbers and addresses that may be assigned to you by Paper Tower. Paper Tower reserves, in its sole discretion, the right to change or remove any and all such IP numbers and addresses.
LAWFUL PURPOSE
Paper Tower reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. You may only use the Paper Tower server for lawful purposes and our services may not be used for illegal purposes or in support of illegal activities. We reserve the right to cooperate with legal authorities and/or injured third parties in the investigation of any suspected crime or civil wrongdoing. If anything is not legal in the United States of America, it is not permitted to reside on our servers. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes but not limiting material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws. Examples of non-acceptable content or links: Pirated Warez, OGG, AVI, MPEG, ISO, Hacker programs or archives, Copyrighted Digital Movie Copies (DIVX) and Unlicensed MP3. The designation of any materials as such described above is left entirely to the discretion of Paper Tower management. If illegal content or usage is found, the account will be suspended and/or terminated. You agree that Paper Tower may disclose any and all your information including assigned IP numbers, account history, account use, etc. to any law enforcement agent who makes a written request without further consent or notification.
Regardless of the place of signing this agreement, you agree that for purposes of venue this contract is entered in Rochester Hills, Michigan, and any dispute will be litigated or arbitrated in Rochester Hills, Michigan. Defendants further waive all objections to venue and acknowledge that venue in any such litigation will be held in Fremont courts.
IN NO EVENT SHALL Paper Tower MAXIMUM LIABILITY EXCEED FIVE HUNDRED ($500.00) DOLLARS.
INDEMNIFICATION
YOU AGREE THAT IT SHALL DEFEND, INDEMNIFY, SAVE AND HOLD Paper Tower HARMLESS FROM ANY AND ALL DEMANDS, LIABILITIES, LOSSES, COSTS AND CLAIMS, INCLUDING REASONABLE ATTORNEYS FEES ASSERTED AGAINST Paper Tower, 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 YOU, YOUR AGENTS, EMPLOYEES OR ASSIGNS. YOU AGREE TO DEFEND, INDEMNIFY AND HOLD HARMLESS Paper Tower AGAINST LIABILITIES ARISING OUT OF:
(1) ANY INJURY TO PERSON OR PROPERTY CAUSED BY ANY PRODUCTS SOLD OR OTHERWISE DISTRIBUTED IN CONNECTION WITH Paper Tower SERVERS.
(2) ANY MATERIAL SUPPLIED BY THE 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 Paper Tower SERVERS.
DISCLAIMER
Paper Tower WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGES YOUR BUSINESS MAY SUFFER. Paper Tower MAKES NO WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED FOR SERVICES WE PROVIDE. Paper Tower 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 Paper Tower AND ITS EMPLOYEES. Paper Tower RESERVES THE RIGHT TO REVISE ITS POLICIES AT ANY TIME. ALL SUB-NETWORKS, RESELLERS AND DEDICATED SERVERS OF Paper Tower MUST ADHERE TO THE ABOVE POLICIES.FAILURE TO FOLLOW ANY TERM OR CONDITION WILL BE GROUNDS FOR IMMEDIATE ACCOUNT CANCELATION.[/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section][/cs_content]