Acceptable Use Policy

Effective July 1, 2006

Idea Catchers Group, LLC provides managed Web site hosting, Internet marketing and Web development services. As such, we have certain legal and ethical responsibilities related to the use of our servers, equipment and networks involved in providing these services. This Acceptable Usage Policy ("Policy") is designed to help protect our customers, the Internet community, Idea Catchers Group, LLC and our partners from abusive or illegal activities.

This Policy applies to each company and individual who uses our services. By using any of the services offered by Idea Catchers Group, LLC you are responsible for following this Policy. We reserve the right to revise and update this Policy from time to time, without notice to you. For the most current version, go to http://ideacatchers.com/host/aup.asp.

If a violation of this Policy occurs, we may, in our sole discretion and without notice or warning, suspend or cancel your account or take any other action we deem appropriate to resolve the situation, including, without limitation, assessment of a penalty of up to $250.00 per incident based on the severity of the violation.

1. VIOLATIONS AND COMPLAINTS

All complaints of abuse, violation and misuse of services such as unsolicited commercial email (also known as "SPAM") will be investigated promptly. Any SPAM complaints against your account will result in the immediate termination of services without warning and without further investigation or recourse.

If you are not sure if your actions will be an abuse, violation or misuse of services, please ask first. Send inquiries and complaints to abuse@ideacatchers.com.

We reserve the right to remove any and all materials that infringe or that we reasonably believe infringe or potentially infringe on any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party and/or deny access to the challenged material. Idea Catchers Group, LLC will respond to all notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. To report suspected violations email abuse@ideacatchers.com.

2. USE AND MISUSE OF SERVICES

You are responsible for all uses of your Web site and email accounts. You agree to use our services only for lawful purposes, and in compliance with all applicable U.S. and international laws and treaties. The transmission, distribution or storage of any information, data or material that violates any U.S. federal or state regulation or law or any international law or treaty is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, material protected by copyright, trade secret or any other statute, and threatening or obscene material.

3. SYSTEM ABUSE

System abuse includes any use of Idea Catchers' resources that disrupts the normal use of our servers or services for others. Examples of system abuse include running excessive numbers of processes or consuming excessive amounts of CPU time, memory or disk space beyond that allowed by your specific account plan.

Running chat rooms or mailing lists that send excessive emails and the like are not acceptable uses of our servers. We do not permit IRC, bots or clients to run on shared servers. Please contact us for authorization prior to sending any mailing to more than 2,000 addresses in a 24-hour period.

If your account causes our servers to become overloaded due to high CPU or disk usage (over 10% of available system resources), we reserve the right to suspend or cancel your account without warning.

4. SYSTEM AND NETWORK SECURITY

You may not tamper with system resources or accounts on our servers or network connections, nor devise ways to circumvent our security. This includes, but is not limited to, scanning or probing our network or other networks with the intent to breach and/or evaluate security. You may not commit an unauthorized intrusion into any part of our system, nor use any of our machines, files, accounts or networks to intrude without authorization into any other system, regardless of whether or not any actual intrusion results in the corruption or loss of data.

We will react strongly to the use or attempted use of Internet services or systems without the owner's authorization. This includes, but is not limited to, server broadcast messages or any message sent on an intrusive basis to any directly or indirectly attached network, denial-of-service attacks, password cracking, spoofing, forging router information, or the use or distribution of tools designed for compromising security or disseminating viruses, worms or trojans. Additionally, you may not use programs, scripts, commands or send messages with the intent to interfere with a user's session.

If you are involved in violations of system security, we reserve the right to suspend or cancel your account without warning. We also reserve the right to release all usernames of users involved in such violations to system administrators at other sites in order to assist them in resolving security incidents. Idea Catchers Group, LLC will also fully cooperate with law enforcement authorities in investigating suspected criminal activity.

5. EMAIL USE

All users must comply with all U.S. federal laws, including guidelines under the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, as well as state regulations or laws or any international laws or treaties. We maintain a zero tolerance policy against SPAM and will react swiftly and strongly to complaints. Any SPAM complaints we receive involving your account or related to any domain name associated with your account will result in the immediate termination of your services without warning and without future investigation or recourse.

Additionally, we expect you to use good netiquette and respect the rights of others when using our services to send email or post to Usenet newsgroups or Internet discussion boards and forums.

Using mail services, mail forwarding capabilities, POP accounts, or autoresponders other than for your own account is not allowed.

You may not use our services to send SPAM or unsolicited bulk mail, whether or not it is commercial in nature.

If you maintain an email mailing list, all recipients must have personally subscribed and if requested you must be able to provide subscriber documentation to this effect. Any emails sent to your mailing list must also include an "opt-out" link and your complete contact information including phone number and physical mailing address.

You may not use our services to forward or distribute chain letters of any type, including charity requests or petitions for signatures.

You may not forge network header information. Idea Catchers Group, LLC may disclose the usernames of accounts responsible for forged email messages to system administrators or users requesting the information.

Flooding another account, user, or site with large or numerous email messages ("mailbombing") is strictly prohibited and will result in the immediate cancellation of your account.

If you generate a higher volume of outgoing mail than a normal user (over 10% of available system resources), we may suspend or cancel your account without warning.

Idea Catchers Group, LLC prohibits the transmission of email that is unlawful, harassing, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar or pornographic, threatening, abusive, harmful, hateful, invasive of another's privacy, or otherwise objectionable.

You may not use your account to collect replies of messages sent from another provider that violates the rules of this Policy or those of the originating provider.

Violations of this Policy can sometimes result in massive numbers of email responses. If you are repeatedly mailbombed or attract such behavior, or if you receive so much email that system resources are affected, we may shut down your mailbox and/or cancel your account without warning.

6. DISCLAIMER

Certain Internet services may contain language, pictures or other content which some individuals may find offensive, inflammatory, or of an adult nature. We do not endorse such materials and disclaim any and all liability for such content. Access to such materials is at your own risk.

When we become aware of possible violations of this Policy, we may initiate an investigation that may include gathering information from you and the complaining party, if any, and examination of material on Idea Catchers' servers. By using the Services, you agree to timely and fully cooperate with Idea Catchers' requests for information relating to any alleged violation. We will determine, in our sole discretion, what action will be taken in response to a violation on a case-by-case basis. Violations of this Policy could subject you to criminal or civil liability.

YOU AGREE TO DEFEND, HOLD HARMLESS AND INDEMNIFY IDEA CATCHERS GROUP, LLC AND ITS OFFICERS, AGENTS AND EMPLOYEES FROM ANY LIABILITY, CLAIM, LOSS, DAMAGE OR EXPENSE ARISING OUT OF YOUR BREACH OR VIOLATION OF THIS POLICY AND/OR RESULTING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, YOUR CONNECTION TO THE SERVICE OR YOUR VIOLATION OF ANY RIGHTS OF ANOTHER.

© 2010 Idea Catchers Group, LLC. All rights reserved.
Home | Acceptable Use Policy | Contact Us