Terms of service

About these terms

These terms are the agreement between you and Hostinium for Information Technology LLC, a limited liability company registered in Wyoming, United States — "Hostinium", "we" or "us" below. They apply to every service we sell: Linux and Windows hosting (shared, reseller, VPS and dedicated); domains and SSL certificates; email, security and backup add-ons; website design, e-commerce and website transfers; SEO and marketing; accounting software; and related cloud services.

Ordering, paying for or using any of those services means you accept these terms in full. If you have signed a separate agreement with us, these terms form part of it and cover everything that agreement leaves open.

These policies form part of the agreement and are worth reading with it:

the acceptable use policy, which sets out what you may host and send;
the cancellation policy, which covers notice periods, refunds and fees;
the backup policy, which covers what is backed up and what is not;
the privacy policy and the GDPR page, which cover personal data.

Definitions

Services — every information technology service we provide, including the hosting, domain, certificate, security, design, marketing, software and cloud services named above.
Our intellectual property — the software, code, configurations, designs, trademarks and trade secrets that Hostinium owns or licenses from a third party.
Personal data — information that identifies a person, or that can be tied back to one, in the sense the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and US state privacy laws such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) use the term.
Applicable law — the federal law of the United States and the law of the State of Wyoming, together with any data protection, privacy or electronic commerce law of another country that applies to how you use the services.

Your account

You are responsible for everything that happens under your account, whether it was deliberate, accidental, or the work of someone who reached the account through your credentials. Keep passwords and API keys private, and give us contact and billing details that are accurate and current so that we can reach you when something goes wrong.

Tell us within 24 hours of discovering a security breach, an unauthorized login or any other misuse of your account. Keep an email address on file that does not depend on the hosting we would have to suspend to reach you.

Domain registration details must be accurate and kept up to date, in line with ICANN policy. An inaccurate registration can have the domain suspended by the registry.

If you host other people under your account — reseller accounts, client sites, sub-accounts — you are solely responsible for making sure they follow these terms and the acceptable use policy. We are not liable for what a sub-account does, and you must report a sub-account violation to us within 24 hours of discovering it.

Acceptable use and content

The services are for lawful purposes only. The full rules are in the acceptable use policy; this section states the obligations that sit in the contract itself.

Do not publish content that defames, deceives, abuses or threatens anyone, and keep within every law that binds you. Distributing content that breaks obscenity or indecency law can carry criminal penalties as well as termination. Prohibited content includes, and is not limited to:

pirated software and copyrighted material that is not freely distributable;
content that promotes illegal activity, hacking, viruses, or harm to internet infrastructure;
sites that sell or promote bulk email services.

Linking to prohibited material is treated the same way as hosting it.

You are solely responsible for the content you make available through the services. We are not obliged to monitor it, but we may edit, remove or block anything we consider unacceptable, offensive or objectionable, and we may disclose content or account records where a legal, regulatory or government request requires it. Excessive resource use, illegal or harmful content, and interference with another customer's service can each lead to immediate suspension or termination; we tell you when we take that step.

Servers, scripts and resources

Do not try to defeat the authentication or security of any host, network or account. That includes reading data you are not authorized to see, cracking passwords, and probing other networks for weaknesses. Do not degrade or block anyone else's access to a host or a network, whether by flooding it, mail bombing it or deliberately overloading it. We cooperate fully with investigations into network security violations, including with law enforcement, and an attack can carry civil or criminal liability.

An account that consumes an unfair share of CPU, memory, disk or bandwidth must move to a larger plan or reduce its usage. We judge what is fair by what the plan costs against what it consumes, and we may suspend an account that does neither.

A script that puts server performance or network integrity at risk can be switched off without notice. Where your plan includes a cgi-bin you may run your own CGI scripts in it, but you may not share them with domains hosted elsewhere.
Background daemons are not allowed by default. Ask us and we will review the request case by case; an approved exception carries an additional fee based on the resources it needs.
You may not install third-party chat room software on a shared server, because of the resources it consumes.
IRC servers and IRC bots may not run on our servers.

Email and anti-spam

Our services, servers and email addresses may not be used to send spam, mail bombs or any other unsolicited bulk email. Your domains must not be named as the sender or as an intermediary for that traffic, even when it is sent through another provider.

A message is unsolicited if the recipient did not explicitly ask for it. An email address being publicly available is not consent.

Sending unsolicited bulk email can lead to immediate suspension or termination, a penalty of $100 per incident, and cancellation of your services without a refund. We decide what counts as a violation. Mail filtering, sending limits and the conditions under which we block SMTP traffic are described in the acceptable use policy.

Support and performance

We provide technical support 24/7/365 to our direct customers and to resellers. We do not support a reseller's end users or sub-resellers — those are your customers, and you support them.

Support covers the platform we run: servers, control panels, networking, mail delivery, certificates and account issues. It stops at your own code. Programming, HTML, custom software and third-party applications are outside it, including applications that arrived pre-installed.

Service performance depends on things we do not control, such as your own hardware, your code and the visitor's connection. The specifications on a plan describe the maximum expected performance, not a guaranteed result. Send us your technical requirements before you order and we will tell you whether a plan meets them.

Fees, billing and renewals

Services are billed in advance in US dollars for the term you choose, and they renew automatically at the end of each term until you cancel. Invoices, receipts and renewal dates are in the client area.

Report a billing dispute to us within 60 days of the charge. If you raise a chargeback or a payment dispute with your card issuer instead of contacting us, we may cancel the account, and an administrative fee of $125 per incident applies. Late-payment and reactivation fees are set out in the cancellation policy.

An overpayment becomes service credit on your billing account rather than a refund. The cancellation policy explains how that credit can be spent.

We may adjust our fees in response to a significant economic change, such as inflation or a shift in supplier costs, with 60 days' written notice. If you do not accept the new price you may end the agreement inside that notice period, once everything owed is paid. We will put the reason for a fee change in writing if you ask. Fees you have already paid in advance are not affected by it.

Cancellation and refunds

The full rules are in the cancellation policy. In short:

Services keep renewing until you cancel, and a cancellation is a ticket to the billing department. It has to reach us at least 15 business days before the current service period ends; a later one takes effect at the end of the following period.
All pending invoices must be cleared before a cancellation takes effect.
A suspended service is not a cancelled service: charges keep accruing until you cancel formally.
Web hosting plans carry a 30-day money-back guarantee. It covers credit card payments only, and a list of exclusions applies — domains, dedicated IP addresses and SSL certificates, VPS and dedicated servers, web design, renewals, setup fees and overages among them. The cancellation policy carries the full list and the conditions.
After the first 30 days, payments are non-refundable. An account we terminate for a policy violation is not eligible for a refund.

Domain names

When we register a domain on your behalf, any discount or promotional price applies only while you host with us. If you cancel your hosting or move the domain to another registrar, that discount has to be repaid before we release it: you owe the gap between what you were charged and the domain's full price, counted from the registration date.

A domain you use with our services must not infringe someone else's trademark or similar rights, and its registration record must stay accurate under ICANN policy.

Backups and your data

Keeping your own backups is your responsibility. Back your data up off-server on a regular schedule, using the tools in your control panel or your own tooling. We do not guarantee that a server-side backup will be available, and we are not liable for lost data.

Where a plan or an add-on includes a backup service, the backup policy sets out what it covers, how long copies are kept and what a restore costs.

Cancelling an account takes its site files and mailboxes off our servers. Download whatever you want to keep before the cancellation date; the cancellation policy sets out what happens then.

Privacy and data protection

How we handle personal data is set out in the privacy policy and, for people in the EU and the UK, on the GDPR page. Payment details and other personal information are used only for the purpose you gave them for — processing an order, billing, support — are handled by authorized staff only, and are not shared with a third party without your consent unless the law requires it.

For personal data that you hold about other people and store on our systems, you are the controller and we are the processor. In that role we:

process personal data only on your documented instructions;
apply technical and organizational security measures, including TLS encryption, firewalls and access controls;
engage no sub-processor without your written consent;
help you respond to requests for access, correction, deletion or portability;
notify you within 72 hours of a personal data breach;
delete or return the data when the contract ends, unless the law requires us to keep it.

You can access, correct, delete or export your own data, and you can complain to a supervisory authority. Where personal data moves out of the EU we rely on Standard Contractual Clauses and carry out a transfer impact assessment; you consent to those transfers on that basis.

You must give us personal data that is lawful and accurate, tell your own users how you handle their data, and — if you provide internet services to other people on our platform — meet the privacy laws that apply to them. We keep personal data only as long as we need it, then delete it securely.

Security incidents

After a significant security breach or service disruption on our side, we:

notify affected customers within 2 hours;
send a preliminary report within 24 hours;
send a final report within 7 days, explaining the cause and what we did about it.

Both sides name a contact for crisis handling and cooperate to limit the damage. Report an incident on your side — a compromised account, a breach, an unauthorized login — within 24 hours of discovering it.

Confidentiality

Each side keeps the other's information confidential and does not disclose it without prior written consent. That covers customer data, service details, pricing and sensitive business information. The obligation lasts for 5 years after the agreement ends.

It does not apply to information that:

became public without fault of the party that received it;
was already held by that party before signing;
must be disclosed under a court order or another legal mandate.

Intellectual property

Hostinium keeps all intellectual property rights in the services, including software, code, designs, trademarks and trade secrets. You get a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license to use them for the purpose of using the services. You may not copy, modify or distribute them without written permission, reverse-engineer or decompile any software, or use them in any other unauthorized way. A violation can carry legal liability, including compensation of at least twice the annual service fees. Protect our intellectual property, and tell us promptly if you suspect an infringement.

Custom work — a website, an application, a configuration we build for you — stays our property until all fees for it are paid in full. If an invoice goes unpaid we may suspend access or revoke the license without liability. Ownership, or a permanent license where the agreement says so, passes to you on full payment, and you must not sell or transfer the work before it does.

Material you can reach through the services usually belongs to someone: copyright, trademark and trade secret law all apply to it. Do not use our services to take, copy or misuse rights that are not yours.

Monitoring and audits

We may monitor how the services are used to check compliance with these terms, without infringing privacy law or reading personal data we have no reason to read.

We may audit systems you connect to the services, after 7 days' notice, to verify security and lawful use. If the audit finds a significant breach you pay its cost; otherwise we do. You must give the access an audit needs, and we may suspend the service temporarily until you do.

Suspension and termination

We may refuse or end a service where providing it would create a legal, financial or reputational risk, including where we suspect illegal activity. We tell you in writing why, and we give you 14 days to put the problem right where that is practical. We may also suspend or terminate immediately for a policy violation, with notice to you.

Fees refunded for an unused period are adjusted for administrative costs. An account terminated for a violation is not eligible for a refund. We are not liable for damage caused by a refusal or a termination under this section.

You confirm that you are not named on a US or international sanctions list, including OFAC and EU lists, and that you will not use the services for a prohibited activity. If that turns out not to be true, we may end the services immediately and without liability.

We have no tolerance for abusive behavior toward our staff, and abuse can end an account. If something about the service is wrong, tell us instead — support can only fix a problem it knows about.

Our services are not designed for mission-critical applications. Use them where an interruption can be tolerated, and build your own redundancy where it cannot.

Disclaimers

The services are provided "as is" and "as available", with no warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

We are not liable for business losses, or for data lost through a delay, a non-delivery, a failed backup, a hardware failure or an interruption of service — including an interruption caused by us, our staff, our data centers or our contractors — nor for interruptions caused by events beyond our control or by something you did.

Limitation of liability

Neither side is liable to the other for indirect, consequential, punitive or special damages, including lost profits and lost data, whatever the legal basis of the claim.

Our total liability for any claim arising out of the services is limited to the total fees you paid us for the affected service in the 12 months before the event that caused the claim. That limit does not apply to gross negligence or willful misconduct, or to anything that cannot be limited under applicable law.

Indemnification

You cover us against claims, damages, fines and costs that arise from:

unlawful use of the services;
a breach of these terms or the acceptable use policy;
infringement of a third party's rights, including intellectual property and privacy rights;
injury or property damage caused by a product sold through the services;
content you publish, and misuse of your account, including any regulatory fine that follows.

That indemnity is capped at twice the annual fees for the service in question, unless we agree otherwise in writing. If a claim you bring against us is found to be frivolous or brought in bad faith, you cover our legal defense costs, including attorney fees; we may ask for a security deposit toward those costs, refundable if the claim is not upheld. Both sides agree to disclose relevant facts early, so that unnecessary proceedings can be avoided.

Force majeure

Neither side is liable for a delay or failure caused by an event beyond its reasonable control, such as a natural disaster, a war or a government regulation. The affected side tells the other as soon as it can and resumes performance once the cause is resolved. If the event lasts more than 60 days, either side may end the agreement without additional liability.

Changes to these terms

We may revise these terms, or the acceptable use policy, when the law, the technology we run or the market moves. You get 30 days' written notice before a revision takes effect.

Continuing to use the services after that date means you accept the revised terms. If you do not accept them you may end the agreement inside the notice period at no additional cost, once everything owed is paid. An update does not change rights or obligations that had already accrued before it took effect.

Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Wyoming and the federal laws of the United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute we cannot settle between us goes to the state or federal courts located in Wyoming, and both sides consent to that jurisdiction and venue.

Where a mandatory data protection law such as the GDPR or the CCPA applies to a claim, it applies whatever this section says.

Before either side files anything, raise it with us and give us the chance to put it right. Open a ticket in the client area or call +1 202 505 2888.

General

Waiver. If we do not enforce a term on one occasion, that does not stop us enforcing it later.

Severability. If a term is found unenforceable it is narrowed or removed only as far as necessary; the rest stays in full effect.

Entire agreement. These terms, together with the policies named at the top of this page and the order you placed, are the whole agreement between us. They replace earlier representations and understandings, and they take priority over terms printed on a purchase order.

Notices. Send legal notices, claims of infringement, court orders, subpoenas and other legal process to info@hostinium.com. Support, billing and cancellation requests go through the client area, so that they are tracked and answered.

Questions

Questions about this policy? Message us on WhatsApp at +1 202 505 2888 or open a ticket in the client area.