These terms and conditions form the basis of your contract with
Almat-Computers.co.uk so please read them carefully.
Who this affects
If you order services from almat-computers.co.uk or any of its brands you
are bound by these terms and conditions. If you are reselling our services then
these terms and conditions also apply to your customers so you should make them
aware of them.
How to agree to these terms and conditions by the customer
During the ordering process you were asked to read and agree to these terms
and conditions. By submitting your order to Almat-Computers.co.uk or
its associated brands, you signify your agreement to them.
If you do not agree to these Terms
Then please don't submit an order.
Why we need terms and conditions
Almat-Computers.co.uk provides services to many customers. We have a
responsibility to protect our services from the adverse effects of other peoples
activities. We also have a responsibility to ensure that our customers web sites
and email services are available for them to use. This means that we need to
limit customers activities to those which are compatible with running a reliable
and safe service.
The following terms and conditions were designed to ensure these obligations
are met.
Arbitration
Almat-Computers.co.uk will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a
violation of the provisions described in this document.
Length of contract
If you pay annually then your contract runs for 12 month from the date you
first ordered. The year runs and ends from the time you ordered (e.g. if you
order annual hosting at 2pm on the 1st of January it will expire at 2pm on 1st
of January the following year). Details of how to cancel the contract can be
found below.
Server abuse
Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server, or customer, of
Almat-Computers.co.uk is strictly prohibited. Offenders will be prosecuted
to the fullest extent of the law.
The content of your web site
All services provided by Almat-Computers.co.uk may be used for lawful
purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data
or material in violation of any United Kingdom, or any International laws is
prohibited.
The following list is not exhaustive, but it will indicate the sort of
material you are not permitted to host:
- copyright material.
- MP3 files containing copyright music, unless you created the music
yourself and own the copyright.
- material we judge to be threatening or obscene.
- material protected by trade secret and other statute.
- pornography, including sites that links to such content.
- sex-related merchandising, including sex toys and sites that links to such
content.
- escort services or anything related to prostitution.
- pirated software, also known as warez.
- hacker programs or archives, including sites that links to such content.
- hate propaganda.
- products designed to defraud others, e.g. satellite hacking equipment.
- promotion of illegal activities.
- content that may be damaging to our servers or any other server on the
internet.
- Web sites promoted by spam or involved in spamming or selling spam related
software or bulk email lists.
- IRC or IRC bots.
If you are unsure whether or not your site falls into these categories feel
free to contact
us with a description before you sign up for an account or publish material
as an existing customer.
The content of your emails
Spam is "Unsolicited junk e-mail sent to large numbers of people to
promote products or services". We have a zero tolerance policy towards spam
and we monitor our mail servers to ensure they are not being used for spamming.
If we allowed customers to spam then our mail servers would be blacklisted and
none of our customers would be able to send and receive mail reliably. It is in
all customers interests that we stop spam.
We do not permit:
- The sending of spam through our servers.
- Sending out spam through another providers mail server which includes
links to web pages or email addresses hosted on our servers.
- Web sites promoted by spam or involved in spamming or selling spam related
software or bulk email lists.
As delegated by our upstream providers, any sites using spam or selling of
spam related software or bulk email content will be closed.
If you spam, we will see you doing it, your account will be
terminated and you will not get a refund. If you run a mailing list all
the people you mail must have opted into the list. The list must not have been
obtained from a third party. Your list server must use a system where an email
is sent to the user when they sign up and they have to reply or click on a link
to confirm their email address. This is known as "double opt in". The
mailman program we provide with some hosting packages matches these
requirements, as do many other mailing list systems. You must honour all
unsubscribe requests within 24 hours.
If we receive a spam complaint about your account we will.
- Suspend your account to prevent any further violations.
- Contact you to inform you of our reinstatement policy (see below).
- Either reactivate the account or terminate it depending on your response.
Bulk email
We understand that bulk email is an important mechanism for keeping people
informed. However, spamming (unsolicited advertising), from the
Almat-Computers.co.uk network, or spamvertising (unsolicited advertising of)
sites hosted on the Almat-Computers.co.uk network is STRICTLY prohibited.
Legitimate bulk email meets the following criteria:
- The recipient has confirmed his willingness to be added to the
distribution list of the mailing, by responding to a verification email, or,
otherwise, verifiably confirming permission. (Evidence of such must be
retained and available by request.)
- Messages include: Valid headers, removal instructions, and information on
the method by which the subscribed address was obtained.
All bulk email senders must post privacy policies, in association with the
sending domains. Co-registration or list sharing is prohibited. If
Almat-Computers.co.uk approaches a client for evidence of confirmation, this
request must be honoured within 48 hours. Please read the Spamhaus mailing list
guidelines which give more detail on verification - Click
Here. Failure to meet the acceptable criteria for bulk mail may lead to
immediate termination. Additionally, if such actions have caused mail servers or
IP address ranges on the Almat-Computers.co.uk network to be blacklisted,
Almat-Computers.co.uk reserves the right to assess a £100 charge to the
customer account. This fee is set to cover administrative costs associated with
removal from such lists.
Please make an effort to limit outgoing mail on your account to no more than
1000 pieces per hour. Large mailings are preferred to be sent from the hours of
12AM - 8AM.
Email SPAM / abuse reinstatement policy
If an account has been suspended for spam or abuse it will only be
reinstated if the customer sends a "reinstatement request" to us by
helpdesk ticket or email.
The reinstatement request must, in the customers own words, explain:
- Why the SPAM incident or other abuse incident occurred.
- If applicable, display understanding of why mass mailing is forbidden.
- Commit to the incident not occurring again.
Almat-Computers.co.uk will be the sole arbiter in making a decision as to
whether or not the account should be reinstated. In making a decision we shall
take into consideration:
- The authenticity of the reinstatement request (is it really from the owner
of the account which it purports to be).
- The nature of the response and the understanding and commitment exhibited
therein.
- The history of abuse on that domain.
- To the extent known, the history of abuse by that customer across
different domains.
Communication of the decision will be sent to the email from which the
customers reinstatement request was sent.
Protecting server resources
Each server has a limited amount of processing power and memory. We have
found most our customers to stay within "reasonable limits", but
sometimes people do cause problems for other users by using too many resources.
If you are a shared hosting customer you may not:
- Provide hosting for third parties, unless you have a proper reseller
account.
- Link to cgi scripts running on your account from other domains (e.g.
banner exchanges).
- Use more than 10% of system resources on the server.
- Send more than 1000 emails in any hour.
We do not allow clients to install their own cgi or php chat rooms. These
tend to be a large drain on system resources and we cannot allow it as an
account option. However, we provide chat systems with some hosting accounts
which you may use free of charge. Bulletin boards are permitted, provided they
stay within the 10% server usage limit explained above.
We allow you (subject to a suitable hosting plan) to run programs to run
continually in the background (cron jobs). However, these must not overload the
server or affect other users sites.
If you go over any of the limits described above we will suspend your account
and contact you to resolve the situation. We may offer dedicated server hosting
for an additional charge. If you do not move to a dedicated server or reduce
your system usage we will terminate your account to protect other customers.
Specific programs/scripts not permitted.
We do not permit the use of :
- The webmail part of PHP nuke or any of its derivatives as this allows
anyone to send out email and will be abused by spammers.
- Formmail.pl from Matts Script archive. We have a secure version already
installed on our servers, use it instead.
- Formmail.php. Use the secure formmail.cgi which we have already installed
on the server
Telnet / SSH / shell access
Almat-Computers.co.uk provides SSH (secure telnet) access on some accounts
on request. SSH access is provided for the purpose of testing scripts and
carrying out site maintenance. It is not provided for any other purpose and
there is no warranty of any kind should SSH fail to function for off server
connections or activities. We reserve the right to withdraw SSH access at any
time without notification. Customers are not permitted to run CGI or PHP shell
emulation programs.
Bandwidth usage
Each hosting plan we provide has a set amount of bandwidth available per
month. We monitor this usage and if your site goes over the limit it will be
suspended until the second day of the next month. If you do not wish to wait
until the next month you can upgrade your hosting plan to one with more
bandwidth. If you are concerned about going over your limit you should check
your bandwidth usage in the control panel in the middle of the month and contact
us if you think you will go over.
30 day money back guarantee
Some of our hosting plans are supplied with a 30 day money back guarantee.
This includes all the plans sold under the almat-Computers.co.uk and
almatcomputers.co.uk. The full wording of the guarantee (where applicable) is
given below:
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We are so confident you will be happy with our web hosting services
that we offer a 30 day, no quibble money back guarantee.
If you are unhappy with any aspect of our service, and we are unable
to put things right to your satisfaction, we will refund all web hosting
charges paid by you (less 10% to cover credit card commission and
associated charges).
To claim on this guarantee you must notify us of your wish to cancel
an account within the first 30 days following activation and request a
refund.
There are only four conditions:
- You must have been a technical problem of some sort with the
account which is recorded in our helpdesk, we will not issue a
refund just because you have found a cheaper offer.
- Because domain name registration fees are passed on by us to the
registration authorities we cannot refund these.
- We reserve the right to pass on any excess bandwidth charges
incurred by you in the first 30 days.
- Dedicated servers are not covered do to the amount of work
required to set them up.
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99.9% uptime guarantee
If your web site down time exceeds this level in any calendar month, we will
offer a 5% credit to your account for every hour the site is down. In order to
receive credit for your down time, you must submit a request within 30 days of
the occurrence.
Conditions:
- Almat-Computers.co.uk will issue a refund to the customers account in the
event of a Service Outage due to the failure of one of the following pieces
of equipment owned and operated by Almat-Computers.co.uk or one of its
suppliers; the ATM Network, the LAN or a web hosting server. For purposes of
this guarantee, Service Outages shall be defined as 10 consecutive minutes
of web site (HTTP) inaccessibility as measured by our independent monitoring
services.
- Almat-Computers.co.uk will not be held responsible for Service Outages
resulting from equipment not owned or operated by Almat-Computers.co.uk or
its suppliers. This includes, but is not limited to, Internet NAP failures
or congestion (Problems with one specific dial up ISP etc.) and non
Almat-Computers.co.uk backbone failures. Additionally, Almat-Computers.co.uk
will not be held responsible for delays in the registration or transfer of a
domain due to registry related issues, for outages resulting from
malfunctioning customer scripts or applications that are installed by the
customer, nor for unusual traffic spikes or "denial of service"
attacks on customer web sites.
- Refunds will be issued upon request by the customer and upon determination
that a Service Outage, as defined by this guarantee, has occurred. Refund
requests must be made within thirty (30) days of the time period during
which the Service Outage took place. Regardless of the number of outages,
all refunds are limited to a maximum of one month's hosting service fees and
do not include excess usage fees, setup fees or other non-standard recurring
charges. Additionally, Service Outages will not include downtime due to Acts
of God, nor for outside security breaches. Finally, Almat-Computers.co.uk
will not be held liable for Service Outage damages resulting in the loss of
prospective profits or anticipated sales or as a result of expenditures,
investments, or commitments in connection with the business.
Please note that this is not an insurance scheme. We do not cover
problems relating to the company that provides your internet connection and we
do not cover you for attacks by hackers, denial of service attacks or other
criminal activities. It is in your own interests to consider business continuity
insurance if you rely on your web site for commercial purposes.
IP Addresses and DNS delegation
We provide IP address information in your welcome email. This is provided to
allow access to the web site and control panel until the domain name has been
transferred to our DNS servers. Customers are not permitted to link to their
site or address via an IP address based link once the transfer is complete. This
is for your own safety as it prevents links becoming out dated if we change your
IP address.
All customers must change their domain names' DNS servers to those specified
on their welcome email. We do not permit customers to use external DNS
management tools because of the likelihood of failure if we change an IP
address. If you decide to use an external DNS service then you agree to absolve
Almat-Computers.co.uk of all liability should your site fail due to DNS errors
or the IP address changing at a later date.
All IP addresses remain the property of Almat-Computers.co.uk or its upstream
providers and are provided according to ARIN and RIPE rules and only when
required for technical reasons.
DNS modifications
We do not provide DNS management services. If you require changes to DNS
records (A, MX etc) we will do our best to carry them out but we cannot provide
a warranty that the changes will continue to work in the future.
Annual Billing: If you pay annually we will not bill your card
automatically. We will send a renewal notice to the email address you provided
us with when you signed up approximately one month before the renewal date.
However, because 40% of our customers do not tell us when they change email
addresses and because many ISP's spam filters remove emails which mention web
hosting services we cannot guarantee delivery of these emails. We recommend that
you make a note in your diary one year from the date you ordered the hosting
originally. If we do not receive the renewal payment by the due date then we
will suspend the account. If payment is still not received within 7 days we will
assume the account is no longer required and delete it.
Refunds
Regular Hosting Clients: Should you become unsatisfied with our
services within the first 30 days of your account activation,
Almat-Computers.co.uk will
refund your hosting fee subject to the money back guarantee terms listed above.
Cancellation Refunds: We DO NOT refund partial monthly or annual
hosting fees for accounts cancelled after 30 days from the date of activation.
For example, if you cancel an annual account after 6 months you will not
get a refund of 6 months hosting fees.
Account Cancellations
By ordering services from us you agree to abide by these cancellation
procedures. Before we cancel an account we need to make sure it really is the
site owner requesting the cancellation. Accounts will be closed the same day, we do not schedule closures for the end
of the current months hosting. Accounts are only be considered cancelled once we
have conformed by e-mail that we have cancelled it for you. If you have not
received conformation from us it means your account is still open and you will
be billed for all services provided until we have given such confirmation.
Almat-Computers.co.uk will not be held liable for the non arrival of your request to
cancel an account. It is your responsibility to ensure that you have received
confirmation of the account closure from us. When an account is cancelled, all of its files are deleted and are not
recoverable.
Extent of service
The service provided under this contract is the one listed on our web site on
the day you ordered the service. For description purposes terms like PHP, Perl
and MySQL refer to the versions of PHP, Perl and MySQL installed at the time you
ordered. Although we regularly update these with security patches no commitment
to upgrading to newer versions is intended or implied. The reasons for this are
that some customers sites would not work with newer versions therefore upgrading
to suit another customer's requirements could stop their site from working, and
it may cause problems with some of our preinstalled scripts and software.
Limitations of support
We want your web site to be a success, because that way you will want to
renew your account and continue using our service. We will do our best to help
you so please contact technical support if you have any difficulties. However,
customers sometimes get confused about what constitutes a realistic level of
technical support so we need to explain this in detail.
Our technical support is limited to the service as originally provided (web
hosting and email).
We will not provide support with:
- Any adaptations you have made to our service to take it away from its
original specification.
- Scripts you have installed or written (cgi, perl, php etc).
- Web design issues or the content of your web site.
- Problems with software not provided by us (e.g. FTP programs, web design
programs or email software).
- Modifications you have made to scripts installed using our control panel
(e.g. the "cgi center").
Support is provided via an online support manuals and our technical support
department (via our helpdesk). We provide support in the English language only and we strongly recommend you
have good conversational English before you sign up for any services with us.
Almat-Computers.co.uk will not be held liable for any loss or damage caused by
your inability to use the services (just as a car manufacturer could not be held
liable for you being unable to drive).
Data integrity and backups
We will endeavour to keep backups of your data in order to restore the server
if we have a disk failure. However, we provide no guarantee that we will be able
to do so. It is in your own interests to keep a copy of your web site backed up
on your own computer. You can do this by simply uploading changes from a copy
you hold or by using the backup tool provided with most of our web hosting
accounts. If you have an accident with your site we will do our best to help, but we
may not be able to restore your files for you. It is impossible to have too many backups. Keeping a local copy at your
location is the best way to protect your data.
Virus Scanning
Some of our hosting plans include virus scanning. If you have ordered a
service that includes this feature we will scan your incoming mail for viruses
and reject any email which appears to contain one. We will update our virus
definitions on a daily basis. However, we cannot guarantee to remove all viruses all of the time. For
example, viruses hidden within certain types of attachment may not be detected.
Viruses in emails forwarded from other domains may not trigger the virus scan as
it goes through our mail transport agent. You should still have an anti virus
program running on your own computer because it can check your whole system, not
just your emails. Almat-Computers.co.uk will not be held liable for any damage caused by viruses received
through emails received via our servers.
Controlling Incoming Spam
We provide tools to help you control spam on some of our accounts. These
include Spam Assassin and Box Trapper. Customers using Box Trapper should be
aware that it will stop them receiving renewal notices from us so they should
add automailer [at] Almat-Computers.co.uk to their whitelist.
Almat-Computers.co.uk can not be held liable for spam received in your account
but there are a number of things you can do to prevent it being received.
The main reasons for people receiving spam are:
- They have published their email address on a web site or signed a guest
book where it has been harvested (if this happens to you then try and remove
the email address from the web to prevent it being harvested again).
- They are using the default (catch all) email account and spammers are
sending to things like webmaster@ and postmaster@ (if this is happening then set
up a separate email account and set the default account to forward
to :fail: which will reduce your level of incoming spam.
If you are receiving a lot of spam using spam assassin (where provided) will
help reduce the level. Instructions for this can be found in our support manuals (accessible from our support page).
In some cases the level of incoming spam for one domain can be so high that
we have to take special steps to protect our network. This is normally done by
blocking incoming mail from servers listed in blacklists which track known
commercial spam operations (e.g. Spamhaus). However, we do not use blanket or
known inaccurate blacklists as that could cause you to lose real mail. In some
cases we will also block known sources of viruses. In extreme cases we may block
all mail for a given domain or suggest other alternatives for mail delivery to
protect our networks.
Passwords
We will provide you with a username and password for accessing your account.
This will be sent to the email address you entered into our order form. If you
lose your password we can resend it to the same email address. If your email
address has changed you will need to supply proof of your identity before we
will provide the password. The reason for this is that a large percentage of
password requests we receive are from people trying to gain unauthorised access
to customers accounts. It is in your interests that we verify your identity
before issuing a password.
Correspondence
In the event of written notification of account termination being sent by
Almat-Computers.co.uk to a customer, any such communication sent by normal post
shall be considered received by the customer seven days after it was posted.
Threats & Blackmail
In the past some customers have attempted to leverage free services by making
threats against Almat-Computers.co.uk, its staff or networks. For example: we do not provide support with building of web sites but we have
been threatened by customers that if we don't build their web site for them they
will seek to harm our business. We deplore this activity because of the negative effect it has on our staff
and other customers who pay for the services the require. We take these sort of threats very seriously.
Making threats will result in your account being cancelled without notice.
Domain name registration
Domain name registration fees are not refundable because the registries will
not refund us. It is the customers responsibility to ensure that all names are
spelled correctly prior to ordering domain names.
Change of domain names
Domain names cannot be changed once they are registered. This is because the
domain registries will not refund us once a domain name is registered. We can change the domain name associated with your hosting account but you
will need to register the new domain name first. Changing the domain name may
require your account to be deleted and it may cause disruption to your web site.
The old domain name will stop working. We reserve the right not to allow domain
changes.
Limits of support
Almat-Computers.co.uk provides support with server side problems only. These
include, non functioning of facilities provided with your hosting account and
any faults which exist on the server your site is hosted on. Customers are responsible for designing and maintaining their own web sites.
We can not provide advice or support for any programming or web design issues
like frontpage, cgi, php or asp Support for your web design software should be provided by the company which
supplied the software.
Refusal of Service
Almat-Computers.co.uk reserves the right to refuse, cancel, or suspend services
at our sole discretion.
Sub domains
If you have a web site without a domain name of your own which has a
subdomain based on a domain name we own, you have no rights to transfer that
domain name to another provider. Almat-Computers.co.uk reserves the right to transfer
any sub domain in domains of its possession to an alternative domain.
Indemnification
By ordering services from us you agree to indemnify and hold harmless
Almat-Computers.co.uk from any claims resulting from the use of the
service which damages the subscriber or any other party.
Limitation of liability
Your use of Almat-Computers.co.uk services are at your sole risk. All Almat-Computers.co.uk
services are provided on an "AS IS" basis WITHOUT
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, CONSTRUCTIVE, OR
STATUTORY, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
NON INFRINGEMENT OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. Some jurisdictions do
not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so this exclusion may not apply
to you in full.
Almat-Computers.co.uk makes no guarantee of availability of service and reserves
the right to change, withdraw, suspend, or discontinue any functionality or
feature of the Almat-Computers.co.uk service. IN NO EVENT WILL ALMAT-COMPUTERS.CO.UK BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE ALMAT-COMPUTERS.CO.UK's SERVICES OR ANY CONTENT THEREON. THIS DISCLAIMER APPLIES, WITHOUT LIMITATION, TO ANY DAMAGES OR INJURY, WHETHER FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT, TORT, OR OTHERWISE, CAUSED BY ANY FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE; ERROR; OMISSION; INTERRUPTION; DELETION; DEFECT; DELAY IN OPERATION OR TRANSMISSION; COMPUTER VIRUS; FILE CORRUPTION; COMMUNICATION-LINE FAILURE; NETWORK OR SYSTEM OUTAGE; OR THEFT, DESTRUCTION, UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO, ALTERATION OF, OR USE OF ANY RECORD.
The formation, construction and interpretation of this agreement shall be
controlled by the laws of Scotland. The U.N. Convention of Contracts for
the International Sale of Goods is expressly excluded from any
interpretation of this Agreement.
Legal jurisdiction
These terms and conditions are exclusively governed by Scottish law and by
ordering services from Almat-Computers.co.uk you submit to the exclusive
jurisdiction of the Scottish courts.
Legal disputes
If you intimate that you are entering into legal action against us we will
suspend your account until the legal dispute has been resolved.
Explanation of the above
We will do our best to keep the service running reliably but we will not be
held responsible for any losses you incur through your use of it. If you are in
business you should ensure you have adequate business insurance and we recommend
you contact an insurance broker.
Changes to these terms and conditions
Almat-Computers.co.uk reserves the right to change or amend these Terms of
Service at any time without prior notice.
Enforcement
Violations of these Terms of Service should be referred by email.
(abuse @ almat - computers . co . uk ) All complaints will be investigated promptly.
Violations of these terms and conditions can be ground for immediate account
deactivation without refund.
Data protection
Some files held by Almat-Computers.co.uk are covered by the UK Data Protection
Act. You can find out more about your rights in relation to these files here www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk.
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