Echoservers Legal Agreement: By signing up for any services delieved or provided by Echoservers.com (The Company) you here-by agree to all terms listed below:
Customer agrees to the following terms of service:
1. Term: Customer agrees to a month to month contract term for services unless otherwise agreed to in writing. The month to month contract for services is automatically renewed each month in perpetuity subject to written cancellation by the Customer.
2. Monthly Service Fees: Fees for service(s) ordered by the Customer shall begin on the date of the initial order and that date shall serve as the monthly anniversary date for all future billings including one time fees, upgrades, additional services, cancellations and service credits. Fees are due in advance of the monthly service cycle and will be billed on the anniversary date of each month.
3. Upgrade Fees: Upgrades ordered on the billing anniversary date will be billed for a full month service and will continue each month on the anniversary date. Upgrades ordered after the normal anniversary billing date will be pro-rated to the next anniversary date and billed as a one time pro-rata charge. Future charges will appear as full monthly fees added to your existing anniversary billing date.
4. Additional Service Fees: Additional services ordered on the billing anniversary date will be billed for the full month service and will continue each month on the anniversary date. Additional services ordered after the normal anniversary billing date will be pro-rated to the next anniversary date and billed as a one time pro-rata charge. Future charges will appear as full monthly fees added to your existing anniversary billing date.
5. One Time Fees: One time fees, such as setup fees, administrative fees, bandwidth overages and late fees are due and payable at the time they are incurred, and agreed upon in writing or via ticket with approval.
6. Service Credits: Service credits will be issued to your Customer account and shall be used to offset future billable services. Service credits shall not be issued as cash back to the Customer nor are service credits transferable to other account holders.
7. Cancellation: The Company requires a three (3) week written cancellation notice prior to the anniversary billing date for discontinuance or downgrades of month to month services. Failure to supply the requisite three (3) weeks written notice of cancellation will result in a full billable monthly cycle prior to cancellation. Notice of written cancellation is preferred through e-mail (sales@echoservers.com). All customer data remaining after the cancellation date will be destroyed for security and privacy reasons.
8. Refunds & Disputes: All services rendered by The Company are non-refundable. This includes, but is not limited to: setup fees, one time fees, monthly service fees, upgrade fees, additional service fees, administrative fees, and late fees. Customers seeking to resolve billing errors are instructed to e-mail support@echoservers.com . Customer agrees not to chargeback any credit card payments for services rendered. A charge-back of payment for services rendered will result in an additional charge of $150 and will be subject to collection by an authorized collection agency.
9. Non-Payment: All payments are due in full on the monthly anniversary date. Failure to remit payment for services on the monthly anniversary date is a violation of the TOS. Failure to remit payment for five (5) consecutive days, including the anniversary date, shall result in a termination of public access to Customer services. Customer shall maintain access to data and services through the service network. Failure to remit payment for services within seven (7) consecutive days, including the anniversary date, shall result in termination of access to the service network and all services shall be reclaimed. A late fee of $20 will be incurred for failure to remit payment for services on or before the monthly anniversary date. A $50 reconnect fee will be incurred for failure to remit payment for services after public access has been disconnected. All Customer data remaining after seven (7) days of non-payment will be destroyed for security and privacy reasons.
10. Data: The Company agrees to use best efforts and commercially reasonable best practices when deploying services related to data integrity, backup, security, and retention. These services include, but are not limited to: hard drive storage, raid hard drive arrays, network attached storage, storage area networks, operating system installs, operating system reloads, customer portal information, and other situations involving customer data. Customer assumes ultimate responsibility for data integrity, retention, security, backup, and ownership.
11. Identity Use: Customer agrees to use The Company logo, Company information, and related services in accordance to the approved marketing guidelines. Company agrees not to use Customer name, logos, or information without prior written consent of Customer.
12. Laws: Customer agrees to abide by all local, state, and federal laws pursuant to services delivered in Dallas, Texas, United States of America. Proper venue for legal remedies shall be Dallas County, Dallas Texas. All contact terms found herein shall be bound by Texas State Law or the Uniform Commercial Code whichever may be applicable.
13. Mutual Indemnification: Each party agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the other party, the other party's affiliates, and each of their respective officers, directors, attorneys, agents, and employees from and against any and all claims, demands, liabilities, obligations, losses, damages, penalties, fines, punitive damages, amounts in interest, expenses and disbursements of any kind and nature whatsoever (including reasonable attorneys' fees) brought by a third party under any theory of legal liability arising out of or related to the indemnifying party's actual or alleged infringement or misappropriation of a third party's copyright, trade secret, patent, trademark, or other proprietary right.
14. Limitation of Liability: Except as described in the SLA, The Company shall not be liable to Customer for harm caused by or related to Customer's services or inability to utilize the services unless caused by gross negligence or willful misconduct. Neither Party shall be liable to the other for lost profits, direct or indirect, special or incidental, consequential or punitive, or damages of any kind whether or not they were known or should have been known. Notwithstanding anything else in this agreement, the maximum aggregate liability of The Company and any of its employees, agents or affiliates, under any theory of law shall not exceed a payment of money not to exceed the amount paid by the customer for hosting services for the six moths prior to the occurrence of the event(s) giving rise to the claim.
15. Arbitration: Any controversy or claim arising from service or related to this contract or breach therein in excess of $500.00 shall be settled by arbitration in accordance with the commercial arbitration rules of the American Arbitration Association. The resulting judgment rendered by a licensed arbitrator may be entered in any court having valid jurisdiction.
16. Electronic Signature: Acceptance of the Master Service Agreement incorporating the Terms of Service, Acceptable Use Policy, Service Level Agreement and Privacy Agreement hereby initiates billable services and is deemed complete by agreement to the terms as described on the online signup form(s) and completion of the ordering process.
General Statement: Echoservers is dedicated to the unrestricted free transmission of information via the Internet and its many resources. Our goal is to deliver enterprise quality on-demand IT services to all of our customers while serving as the medium of exchange for transmission of all information. The storage, distribution, and exchange of information (content) is the Internet's single most valuable feature. Echoservers is dedicated to protecting the source and distribu- tion of information and protecting the rights and privileges of those utilizing it. Echoservers does not purport to be the content police; our duty in the process of information dissemination is simply to act as conduit between interested parties. Not withstanding anything found herein, Echoservers follows all local, state and federal laws pursuant to the services delivered over the internet and directly related to our network and internal systems. The purpose of the acceptable use policy is to inform all Customers of anticipated customer use. Due to the myriad of possibilities in maintaining a network comprised of thousands of servers, this document is intended to act as a guideline to service and not to be all encompassing.
Public Network: The primary purpose of the Echoservers public network is to transmit information (packets) to and from Customer servers and data storage services. Proper use of the public network is to utilize the network in any way so long as you do not violate any local, state, or federal laws or generate harm to the network or interfere with the use of services of other users utilizing the same network. All Customers are granted equal access to the public network. Violation, misuse, or interference of the public network will result in a violation of the AUP and shall result in methods of resolution under the acceptable use policy.
Private Network: The primary purpose of the Echoservers private network is to allow secure private network connectivity to the private backend network directly connecting Customer servers and Company delivered services. Proper use of the private network is the upload/download of content, server administration, transmission of information between servers, transmission of information between servers and Company servers, secure private administration of services, data retrieval, console access, and true out of band management of their entire IT environment. The private network can also be utilized for service access during periods of non-payment, copyright infringement, spam abuse, service interruption or other instances requiring server administration. All Customers are granted equal access to the private secure network to securely manage their services. Connectivity to the private network is granted on an unrestricted basis in eight (8) hour increments. Dedicated connections to the private network are available through the sales team. Violation, misuse, or interference of the private network will result in a violation of the AUP and shall result in methods of resolution under the acceptable use policy.
Security Services: The primary purpose of the Echoservers standard security services is to assist the Customer in the protection, management, update, and overall stability of the outsourced IT environment. All Echoservers services include network intrusion detection systems and denial of service mitigation via technology from 3Com (Tipping Point). These services are free of charge and are intended to mitigate or remove security risks associated with their perspective technologies. Echoservers also monitors all aggregate network traffic via Arbor networks and router netflow statistics for traffic analysis. Echoservers also supplies Microsoft update servers and Redhat update servers located on the private network for private secure update services. These services are included free of charge and are intended to assist Customers in the OS management of their servers. Other security services offered for a fee are covered via the terms of the individual services. These services include, but are not limited to: firewalls, host IDS, service monitors and similar type products and services. Outside of the global network security services described above, Customers are required and obligated to maintain security related to Customer managed servers. The management of dedicated servers requires basic security management including password management, port management, OS updates, application updates, security policy settings and more. The Customer is ultimately responsible for individual server security unless contracted security services are purchased. Any violation of the security services included in basic services will be addressed pursuant to the methods of resolution under the acceptable use policy.
Server Content: Echoservers does not actively monitor dedicated server content for review. Echoservers believes in the free dissemination of information via our services. Dedicated server content will only be reviewed upon complaint by verified third parties. Content that does not violate local, state and federal law or the acceptable use policy is deemed in compliance and shall remain intact. Legal adult content is allowed on Echoservers dedicated servers. Content deemed in violation will be addressed pursuant to the methods of resolution under the acceptable use policy.
IP Addresses: All Internet Protocol (IP) Addresses are owned and managed by Softlayer. IP Addresses are non-transferable from Echoservers and Customer retains no ownership or transfer rights to IP Addresses. All IP Addresses are assigned by the Echoservers engineering team on a per VLAN, per server basis. Attempted use of IP addresses not originally allocated for use or IP addresses use on non-assigned VLANs or servers is a violation of the acceptable use policy. Violation of the IP Address policy will result in methods of resolution under the acceptable use policy. All IP Addresses are currently registered to Softlayer Technologies Inc. via Arin.net assignments. Private IP assignments are available to qualified Customers.
IRC: Echoservers allows the use of private internet relay chat servers for communication among private parties. Echoservers absolutely prohibits the use of IRC servers connected to public IRC networks or servers. IRC servers that result in interference of service, malicious network activity or increased demand on network security services are in direct violation of the acceptable use policy. Violation of the IRC policy will result in methods of resolution under the acceptable use policy.
Peer to Peer: Echoservers allows the use of internet peer to peer software for file sharing purposes. Echoservers highly recommends strict oversight and manage- ment of peer to peer software environments due to the propensity to violate copyright law by sharing commercial software or copyright protected material. The sharing of copyright protected software and material is NOT allowed and is in direct violation of federal law and the acceptable use policy. Violation of the Peer to Peer policy will result in methods of resolution under the policy.
Bit Torrent: Echoservers allows the use of bit torrent protocols on the public network. Echoservers highly recommends strict oversight and management of Bit Torrent software environments due to the propensity to violate copyright law by sharing commercial software or copyright protected material. The sharing of copyright protected software and material is NOT allowed and is in direct violation of federal law and the acceptable use policy. Violation of the Bit Torrent policy will result in methods of resolution under the policy.
Disclosure to Law Enforcement: Occasionally, Echoservers is required by law to submit customer information to law enforcement officials when presented with a valid subpoena from a court with proper jurisdiction. Information requested is disclosed as directed pursuant to the subpoena. Echoservers utilizes great care in keeping customer information safe and private and will only release information described in the subpoena. Echoservers will notify customer of the information request as allowed by the subpoena.
Reporting Violation of the Acceptable Use Policy: Echoservers accepts reports of alleged violations of the acceptable use policy via email sent to abuse@Echoservers.com. Reports of alleged violations must be verified and include name, contact information, IP address, and description of the violation. Echoservers owes no duty to third parties reporting alleged violations due to lack of privity in contract law. Echoservers will review all verified third party reports and will take appropriate actions as described within the acceptable use policies.
Methods of Resolution for Violations under the Acceptable Use Policy: The ultimate goal of Echoservers is to balance the rights and interest of our customers in the highly evolving internet world. Echoservers understands the challenges of hosting companies, resellers, businesses, organizations and other customers who may have third party violations occur due to the nature of their business. The goal to our methods of resolution is to mitigate any service interruptions while resolving any potential violations under the policy. Our sales, support and abuse staff are dedicated to working with you in resolving potential violations and are available via phone or email. The methods of resolution below form the framework for a resolving all potential violations. Timing for resolution differs according to the degree of the violation, the nature of the violation, involvement of law enforcement, involvement of third party litigation, or other related factors. Overall, Echoservers is dedicated to working with the Customer in resolving all potential violations prior to any service interruptions.
Disclaimer: Echoservers retains the right, at its sole discretion, to refuse new service to any individual, group, or business. Echoservers also retains the right to discontinue service with notice for repeated violation of the acceptable use policy over time.