ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY

As a provider of web site hosting and other Internet-related services, we offer our customers (also known as “Subscribers”) and your customers and users the means to acquire and disseminate a wealth of public, private, commercial and non-commercial information. We respect that the Internet provides a forum for free and open discussion and dissemination of information. However, when there are competing interests at issue, we reserve the right to take certain preventive or corrective actions. In order to protect these competing interests, we have developed an Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”), which supplements and explains certain terms of each customer’s respective service agreement, and is intended as a guide to the customer’s rights and obligations when using our services. This AUP will be revised from time to time.
One important aspect of the Internet is that no one party owns or controls it. This fact accounts for much of the Internet’s openness and value, but it also places a high premium on the judgment and responsibility of those who use it, both in the information they acquire and in the information they disseminate to others. When subscribers obtain information through the Internet, they must keep in mind that we cannot monitor, verify, warrant or vouch for the accuracy and quality of the information they acquire. For this reason, the subscriber must exercise his or her best judgment in relying on information obtained from the Internet, and also should be aware that some material posted to the Internet may be sexually explicit or otherwise offensive. Because we cannot monitor or censor the Internet, and will not attempt to do so, we cannot accept any responsibility for injury to its subscribers resulting from inaccurate, unsuitable, offensive or illegal Internet communications.
When subscribers disseminate information from the Internet, they must keep in mind that we do not review, edit, censor or take responsibility for any information its subscribers may create. When users place information on the Internet, they have the same liability as other authors for copyright infringement, defamation and other harmful speech. Also, because the information created is carried over our network and may reach a large number of people, including both our subscribers and non-subscribers, subscribers’ postings to the Internet may affect other subscribers and may affect our goodwill, business, reputation or operations. For these reasons, subscribers violate our policy and these terms when they, their customers, affiliates or subsidiaries engage in the following prohibited activities:

RESOURCE USAGE

  • 1. Yellow Tie Hosting comprise the provision of web space on our servers to enable you to upload pages and files for the purpose of publishing websites.
  • 2. Yellow Tie Hosting allow you up to ‘unlimited’ server space for normal routine “non-file-distribution” web usage. For websites that allow downloading of video, audio or other files we reserve the right to impose a bandwidth limit of two hundred and fifty (250) gigabytes per calendar month.
  • 3. Non-file-distribution usage will remain unaffected by any limit imposed on downloading of video, audio or other files.
  • 4. In your use of Yellow Tie Hosting, you may not:
    • a. use more than 10% of our platform’s processing capacity. There are numerous activities that could cause such problems, including (but not limited to) CGI scripts and intensive FTP, PHP or HTTP operations
    • b. run stand-alone, unattended server-side processes or any daemons; including (but not limited to) IRCd
    • c. run any type of web spider or indexer
    • d. run any software that interfaces with an Internet Relay Chat network
    • e. run any bit torrent application, tracker, or client. You may link to legal torrent files off-site, but may not host or store them on our servers
    • f. participate in any file-sharing/peer-to-peer activities
    • g. run any gaming servers
    • h. run entries or other scheduled tasks other than by configuring them through our control panel
    • i. give away web space under a domain (including Resellers giving away free websites)
    • j. operate a proxy website or service
    • k. as a remote file host for other websites
    • l. operate self-hosted file sync or similar “cloud storage” based services including (but not limited to) OwnCloud, Pydio and Sparkleshare.
  • 5. You must not use Yellow Tie Hosting as an offsite backup facility. Therefore, all files uploaded to our servers as part of your usage of Yellow Tie Hosting must be visible and accessible to the outside world (web-visible) unless they are needed to operate the website of which they form part; We reserve the right to delete files or directories that are not web-visible without giving notice to you.
  • 6. All pages of website stored on our servers as part of the Hosting Services will be available to search engines unless you take action to prevent this. If you wish to optimise your web pages for search engines you agree to use coding and techniques which comply fully with the guidelines issued by Google, Bing, Yahoo and other large search engines.
  • 7. MySQL Databases are limited to 1024 megabytes in size, when they reach this size we will notify you.

PROHIBITED USES

  • 1. You may use Yellow Tie Hosting only for lawful purposes. You may not use Yellow Tie Hosting:
    • a. in any way that breaches any applicable local, national or international law or regulation
    • b. in any way that is unlawful or fraudulent, or has any unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect
    • c. for the purpose of harming or attempting to harm minors in any way
    • d. to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which does not comply with our content standards (see below)
    • e. to transmit, or procure the sending of, any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising or promotional material or any other form of similar solicitation (also known as SPAM – see below)
    • to knowingly transmit any data, send or upload any material that contains viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful programs or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware

CONTENT STANDARDS

  • 1. These content standards apply to any and all material that you allow to be hosted through our servers and to any interactive services associated with it.
  • 2. You must comply with the spirit of the following standards. The standards apply to each part of any Material as well as to its whole.
  • 3. Material must:
    • a. be accurate (where they state facts)
    • b. be genuinely held (where they state opinions)
    • c. comply with applicable law in the UK and in any country from which they are posted
  • 4. Material must not:
    • a. contain any material which is defamatory of any person
    • b. contain any material which is obscene, offensive, hateful or inflammatory
    • c. contain any material that is pornographic
    • d. promote violence
    • e. promote discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age
    • f. infringe any copyright, database right or trade mark of any other person
    • g. be likely to deceive any person
    • h. be made in breach of any legal duty owed to a third party, such as a contractual duty or a duty of confidence
    • i. promote any illegal activity
    • j. be threatening, abuse or invade another’s privacy, or cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety
    • k. be likely to harass, upset, embarrass, alarm or annoy any other person
    • l. be used to impersonate any person, or to misrepresent your identity or affiliation with any person
    • m. give the impression that they emanate from us, if this is not the case
    • n. advocate, promote or assist any unlawful act such as (by way of example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse

SPAMMING

We take a zero tolerance stance against the sending of unsolicited email, bulk emailing and spam. We may terminate the account of any user who send out spam with or without notice. Sending unsolicited bulk and/or commercial information over the Internet. It is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward Yellow Tie Hosting, but also because it can overload our network and disrupt service to our subscribers. Websites advertised as spam may not be hosted on our servers. This provision includes, but is not limited to, spam sent via fax, phone, postal mail, email, instant messaging or newsgroups. Any user account which results in our IP space being blacklisted will be immediately suspended and/or terminated. Also, maintaining an open SMTP relay is prohibited. When a complaint is received, we will investigate and suspend the account that is sending spam and reserve the right to keep the account suspended until such time that the account no longer sends spam.

DOMAIN NAME

You should be mindful of using trademarked names belonging to other parties. Many companies will use specialist consultants and lawyers to actively protect their client’s brand name. We cannot offer legal advice on your chosen domain name – however, please note, we can be liable for fines if allowing trademark infringements to be hosted on our servers. If you use a trademark name within your domain name, you should only do so with the express and written permission of the trademark holder. This is your responsibility to seek and obtain where necessary. If we are advised by a trademark holder that your domain infringes their trademark, the onus would be on you to prove you have relevant permission to use. Upon notice of any trademark infringement complaint, any offending domain must be removed from our servers – as we cannot be held liable for potential infringement. In such circumstances, you would not be entitled to a refund of any remaining registration period of domain nor any refund on any unused hosting period for the domain. We do not fight any infringement complaints on your behalf, any such matter would be between yourself and the complainant. Neither can we offer any legal advice, but recommend you seek specialist advice if you intend to contest complaint. You should also familiarise yourself with UK Dispute Resolution Service Policy.

AUDIO/VIDEO STREAMING

Audio/Video Streaming is not hosting friendly. As such, we do not allow any streaming of audio or video content where the core files are hosted on our platform. Offending accounts will be suspended without noticed or terminated.

FILE STORAGE / ONLINE BACK UPS

We do not permit the use of our shared hosting platforms for the storage of backup or archival data including large amounts of plugin cache data (we operate server-side caching as standard), mirror sites, storage of game data including flash games, personal multimedia content such as movies, music, photos or other media. Your account and any sub-accounts may be used for genuine web hosting purposes only. Any such content is not permitted and will be removed and any offending accounts suspended.
Services such as OwnCloud are not permitted on our shared hosting and accounts found to be utilising web space for such services will have their data removed and services suspended.
We don’t limit your disk space providing the majority of your space is used for web hosting. We do not permit the use of our shared hosting as an e-mail archival system and you may be asked to remove e-mail, archive e-mail to your computer or upgrade to a VPS solution if it is determined your account is being used as such.

FREE HOSTING

We do not permit the use of our platform to provide free hosting to your customers. Providing free hosting encourages spamming and other abuses of the platform and as such this is explicitly disallowed.

FILE SHARING WEBSITES OR PEER-TO-PEER MEDIA (INCLUDING FILES) SHARING OR STREAMING

We do not permit the use of our platform for file sharing of any kind. This includes but is not limited to peer-to-peer file or media sharing, BitTorrent, Tor or other such forms of data transmission.

OBSCENE SPEECH OR MATERIALS

Using our network to advertise, transmit, store, post, display, or otherwise make available child pornography or obscene speech or material is strictly prohibited. We are required by law to notify law enforcement agencies if we become aware of the presence of child pornography on or being transmitted through our network.

DEFAMATORY OR ABUSIVE LANGUAGE

Using our network as a means to transmit or post negative, defamatory, harassing, abusive or threatening language is strictly prohibited.

ILLEGAL MATERIAL

Using our services or network to advertise illegal material, illegal substances or illegal services, be this for payment or not, is strictly prohibited.

FORGING OF HEADERS

Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the originator of the message is strictly prohibited.

ILLEGAL OR UNAUTHORISED ACCESS TO OTHER COMPUTERS OR NETWORKS

Using our network to access, illegally or without authorisation, computers, accounts or networks belonging to another party, or attempting to penetrate security measures of another individual’s system (often known as “hacking”) is strictly prohibited. Also, any activity that may be used as a precursor to an attempted system penetration (i.e., port scan, stealth scan or other information-gathering activity) is strictly prohibited.

DISTRIBUTION OF INTERNET VIRUSES, WORMS, TROJAN HORSES OR ENGAGING IN OTHER DESTRUCTIVE ACTIVITIES

Distributing information regarding the creation of and sending Internet viruses, worms, Trojan horses, pinging, flooding, mail bombing or denial of service (DDOS) attacks is strictly prohibited. Also, activities that disrupt the use of or interfere with the ability of others to effectively use the network or any connected network, system, service or equipment is strictly prohibited.
Destructive activities include inviting, either directly or indirectly, an attack (such as a DDOS) against our platform is strictly prohibited. Such invitations include inviting third parties to attempt to compromise the security of our platform or knowingly participating in an external attack (such as a DDOS) which results in retaliatory action from a third-party.

FACILITATION A VIOLATION OF THIS AUP

Advertising, transmitting or otherwise making available any software, program, product or service that is designed to violate this AUP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mail bombing, denial of service attacks and piracy of software is strictly prohibited.

USENET GROUPS

We reserve the right not to accept postings from newsgroups where we have actual knowledge that the content of the newsgroup violates the AUP.

PHISING

We do not permit the hosting of any sites engaging in phishing, impersonating public institutions or private companies in an attempt to defraud members of the public. Any sites found in breach of this will be suspended or terminated without notice or refund.

OTHER ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES

Engaging in activities that are determined to be illegal, including, but not limited to, advertising, transmitting or otherwise making available ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, fraudulently charging credit cards, publishing or threatening to publish private data and pirating software is strictly prohibited.

OTHER ACTIVITIES

Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that we determine to be harmful to our subscribers, operations, reputation, goodwill or customer relations is strictly prohibited.
As we have pointed out, the responsibility for avoiding harmful activities just described rests primarily with the subscriber. We will not, as an ordinary practice, monitor the communications of our subscribers to ensure that they comply with our policy or applicable law. However, when we become aware of harmful activities, we may take any action to stop the harmful activity, including, but not limited to, suspension or termination of hosting services (without refund), removal of information, shutting down a web site, implementing screening software designed to block offending transmissions, denying access to the Internet, or any other action we deem appropriate.
We are also aware that many of our subscribers are themselves providers of Internet services, and that information reaching our facilities from those subscribers may have originated from a customer of the subscriber or from another third party. We do not require our subscribers who offer Internet services to monitor or censor transmissions or web sites created by customers of our subscribers. We reserve the right to directly take action against a customer of our subscribers. Also, we may take action against the our subscriber because of activities of a customer of the subscriber, even though the action may affect other customers of the subscriber. Similarly, we anticipate that subscribers who offer Internet services will cooperate with us in any corrective or preventive action that we deem necessary. Failure to cooperate with such corrective or preventive measures is a violation of our policy.
We will not intentionally monitor private electronic mail messages sent or received by our subscribers, unless required to do so by law, governmental authority or when public safety is at stake. We may, however, monitor its service electronically to determine that its facilities are operating satisfactorily. Also, we may disclose information, including, but not limited to, information concerning a subscriber, a transmission made using our network, or a web site, in order to comply with a court order, subpoena, summons, discovery request, warrant, statute, regulation or governmental request subject to Data Protection and other UK legislation. We assume no obligation to inform the subscriber that subscriber information has been provided and, in some cases, may be prohibited by law from giving such notice. Finally, we may disclose subscriber information or information transmitted over our network where necessary to protect us and others from harm, or where such disclosure is necessary to the proper operation of the system. However, we will never sell information to other services or outside companies.
We expect that our subscribers who provide Internet services to others will comply fully with all applicable laws concerning the privacy of online communications. A subscriber’s failure to comply with those laws will violate our policy. Finally, we wish to emphasise that, in accepting these terms and placing an order, subscribers indemnify Yellow Tie Hosting for any violation of the Service Agreement, law or Yellow Tie Hosting policy resulting in loss to Yellow Tie or the bringing of any claim against Yellow Tie Hosting by any third party. This means that, if we are sued because of a subscriber’s or customer of a subscriber’s activity, the subscriber will be responsible for payment of any damages awarded against us, plus costs and reasonable legal and solicitors’ fees.
We hope this AUP is helpful in clarifying the obligations of Internet users, including Yellow Tie Hosting and its subscribers, as responsible members of the Internet. Any complaints about a subscriber’s violation of this AUP should be sent to info@yellowtiehosting.co.uk.