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What do you think of my T.O.S?

T

TechDudeDan

New Member
I am going to start a free hosting company and wanted to know what you think of my T.O.S and what I could change to make it better:

Terms of Service (TOS) And Acceptable use Policy (AUP)

Use of LambHost Service constitutes acceptance and agreement to LambHost's policies are subject to the terms above and as follows:
Content:

At LambHost, we strongly prohibit the use of any our service for any illegal activities.
Although we are a global free web hosting service provider, all our subscribers must be in accordance with U.S. Federal, State and local laws. Ultimately you, the user, are solely responsible for the content stored on your LambHost account.
User shall not include content, or internet links to content on the Site that contain, promote or involve any of the following. Examples include but are not limited to:

1. Any copyright, patent, trademark, or other intellectual property right.
2. Pornographic Material
3. Hate content
4. Threatening, racial, or otherwise abusive content.
5. Any and all content inciting, instructing, or promoting illegal activities.
6. Fraud, MLM (Multi-Level Marketing), Pyramid schemes, or any other activities
deemed to be fraudulent.
7. Hacking/Phreaking, warez, cracks, spam software or any material that contains a virus or any other harmful code (This includes warez linking).
8. Any type of proxies.
9.Live video/audio streaming.
10. Any paid script such as and not limited to Invision Power Board and vBulletin.
11.IRC Networks
12. Non English content.


Account Cancellation:
We reserve the right to terminate any users hosting without prior warning and without giving justification for the termination, it all comes down to if you brake our rules your account will be terminated.

Backups:
It is you the users responsibility to backup your website on a regular basis and LambHost will not be responsible for any files lost.
 
bit short, thats like a blurb that I would normally post on the forum as a reminder, you still need a legal bonding one, that is professionally writtten.
 
Dynash said:
bit short, thats like a blurb that I would normally post on the forum as a reminder, you still need a legal bonding one, that is professionally writtten.
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Unfortunatly I can not afford a proffesional written one and don't have the skills to write one myself.
 
Hostlegal offer them for a few dollars, you don't need to spend a few thousand dollars for an lawyer.
 
Sain Cai said:
Just curious, but why would he need a legal bond for a free service?
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To shift the liability of illegal content off the host onto the customer.

Or, in other words, to shield the host from their customers' actions.
 
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Foreign Content

Richard said:
No way to regulate it - For all the host knows, it could be a terrorist site spreading hate.
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I'm not so sure... the world is moving multi-cultural, and there are business opportunities here with a little cleverness.

I am sad to say I think this kind of attitude is typical of the current US policies. For at least the classical languages, web translators can give at least a broken rendering of the site. If the material is so subtle that any nastiness completely escapes automated translation, then it probably is within the bounds of fair expression anyway.

Sample languages to allow are Spanish, German, French, Italian.
 
TOS feedback.

Dan, you get credit for asking for feedback on your terms, but I disagree with "right to shut down account with no justification". That comes across as provider arrogance.

Web accounts are still business relationships, and your TOS attempts to create a contract. If someone is abusing your service, give them a warning, and if they continue, then terminate them with a notice. I'm sure each of these steps can be reduced to "10 clicks".

There is a class of users out there who "like to test limits". It actually gains their respect when a provider calls the bluff with something like "This page violates our TOS. Remove it." (After all, you already know what the page is, right?) The joker will go "Gee, I guess they do care." The jerk won't care, and then when you nuke them with a notice, they've already had a warning.

Also, state if they are required to do certain things to keep their account live.
 
TaoPhoenix said:
Dan, you get credit for asking for feedback on your terms, but I disagree with "right to shut down account with no justification". That comes across as provider arrogance.

Web accounts are still business relationships, and your TOS attempts to create a contract. If someone is abusing your service, give them a warning, and if they continue, then terminate them with a notice. I'm sure each of these steps can be reduced to "10 clicks".

There is a class of users out there who "like to test limits". It actually gains their respect when a provider calls the bluff with something like "This page violates our TOS. Remove it." (After all, you already know what the page is, right?) The joker will go "Gee, I guess they do care." The jerk won't care, and then when you nuke them with a notice, they've already had a warning.

Also, state if they are required to do certain things to keep their account live.
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We now use a infraction system
You are given a max of 5 Infraction points for indirect breach's of Terms Of Services, On the 5th, your account will be suspended or expelled from iTexWeb, It will be the soul choice of the owner(s) of iTexWeb or any iTexWeb staff member that found you to be in violation of our Terms of Service.
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If client is abusing the crap outa account, or the owner of the account is spamming, they are removed by-passing the infraction system :wave:

We enforced this to allow resellers some chances with there users, but it also gives the reseller a reason to monitor his/her account (If they make it to 5 points in 12 months, they are gone)
Points tend to expire from 1-12 months depending on how bad it was!!
It works, Anyway just a idea that you may like to try.. Instead of just saying we will remove you for any reason, Although I think my TOS said that too :devious2:

I like short and sweet terms of services, the likely hood of being sued over it not saying a heap of bull---- is very low, well it is here in aus...
 
Its nice, i like it and that infraction system is a great idea.
I think i'll have to update my own soon... it has a few holes i've been meaning to patch. ...
Last modified: 05 August 2007
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lol
 
Are you non english propaganda??
You said
3. Hate content
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and you make yourself
12. Non English content.
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isn't that funny?

Too much oppressive instead of attract user rather chase away you know?
Using country laws[all illegal activities] and disallow heavy script usage that's already much enough. If you compare to other free web hosting TOS you'll even found your weakness on attract users. That's the easiest way to make your tos better.

Tip:
Make the rule fair not make it oppressive.
 
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I design quite often disclaimers and Terms of Service -statements for my stuff, and your version ( I assume it is a snippet of the final version) is pretty good. Consider adding the word 'adult' to the pornographic section, if your idea is to prohibit all sexually oriented content (for example, nudism can be adult but not necessarily pornographic).

My versions are quite excessive and due to the risks caused by U.S. visitors, I usually advise the U.S. visistors consult their lawyers, doctors, supervisors, parents and all conceivable professionals etc. before they even think using my services. Sometimes I prohibit U.S. users, I don't want to be sued because I did not warn that the world may not be flat, coffee is hot even if browsing my site and ice cubes can cause serious injuries and death, if dropped while browsing my site.

Blocking non- English content...If you want so, but you may lose a huge numbers of potential customers. BTW, if you plan to offer both free and paid plan, does the non-English content become magically allowed if the customer moves from a free plan to a paid plan?
 
I had a free webhost previously and we followed the basic structure:

a) A long, legally binding, no nonsense, clear terms of service (I did it myself but it's legally correct) followed by a simplified and short version.

It worked very, very well. We were able to put the end of the official TOS in the middle, because right below that there was a simplified, nice version. Most people skipped right to the simple and nice version which did restate the "We will delete your account if you break our TOS after being warned." but in a nicer way so it was more subtle.

Legally speaking, it still has the clear "We will delete your account." so you're golden. I can send you that TOS if you want.

This post is most likely ambiguous, though, so if you want it please PM me.
 
labyrinth said:
Are you non english propaganda??
You said and you make yourself isn't that funny?

Too much oppressive instead of attract user rather chase away you know?
Using country laws[all illegal activities] and disallow heavy script usage that's already much enough. If you compare to other free web hosting TOS you'll even found your weakness on attract users. That's the easiest way to make your tos better.

Tip:
Make the rule fair not make it oppressive.
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Hi Labyrinth.
Your post suggests you are from another country yourself. I would be interested in what language(s) you speak because I think there is value in people like you as "consultants".

Those were separate terms for a reason: "No foreign languages" is because admins simply don't always have the time to manually translate pages to check for bad things.

But mean nasty materials are usually forbidden, *in any language* including English.

Izzo said:
My versions are quite excessive and due to the risks caused by U.S. visitors, I usually advise the U.S. visistors consult their lawyers, doctors, supervisors, parents and all conceivable professionals etc. before they even think using my services. Sometimes I prohibit U.S. users, I don't want to be sued because I did not warn that the world may not be flat, coffee is hot even if browsing my site and ice cubes can cause serious injuries and death, if dropped while browsing my site.
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Dear Izzo,

Your posts greatly saddens me. We even joke about silly masses of users overe here too. But The US also holds mountains of up & coming users as well. I hope that one day you can find a nice filter method that screens out the twerps so that you can get additional business from quality users. I for one may not have the site traffic yet to interest you, but I would consider myself at least in the mid-range class of quality users.

Hello CnR.

"Points tend to expire from 1-12 months depending on how bad it was!!"
Good point - no one wants to have infractions from the dawn of time suddenly sneak up on them.

I still think we have a few years yet of "Eternal September" thrashing with more and more new users trying intermediate activities like signing up for hosts. SuperNewbies seem more prone to Netiquette mistakes. Once they settle down they tend to be much more reserved.

P.S. What's the story behind that Amply-Nourished cat? : )
 
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In fact I already know background reason of why some english web hosting can't accept non english of:
-can't handle.
-not ready.
-haters.

So here's the real question I want to ask back:
What about other english web hosting sites why do they accept non english even they can't understand all other non language same to you? [I bet that admin who done that already hold that answers.]

However if you already plan to do that after that's nice spirit to heard of that. Only left is to gain non english volunteer in your forums that can really help you for responsible their non english users. I don't think they brave enough to trait admin behind. Whoever brave to play with fire right?

However time not run away to decide later. It's your right to choose accept or not. At least thank for info. before I thought that type "non english allow" sites are "non english haters" but not till you confirm me here.
 
In fact I already know background reason of why some english web hosting can't accept non english of:
-can't handle.
-not ready.
-haters.
Click to expand...

Or it could be they have only English speaking staff? I know I'd like to know what's being hosted on my servers, and Google doesn't always translate it properly.
 
OP: I would ask your dedicated/vps/colo/etc provider if you could use their TOS/AUP and modify it to fit your needs *IF* you cannot afford to have one written specifically for your needs.
 
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