Hosting
Visual Edge Design's statement of 99.9% service uptime allows for 45 non-consecutive minutes of (HTTP) service outage per month as defined here. For purposes of this statement, only downtime lasting at least 10 consecutive minutes is considered a service outage.
Visual Edge Design, Inc. will not be held responsible for Service Outages resulting from non-Visual Edge Design, Inc. operated equipment including, but not limited to, Internet NAP failures or congestion and backbone failures. Additionally, Visual Edge Design, Inc. will not be held responsible for delays in the registration or transfer of a domain due to InterNIC 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.
Visual Edge Design, Inc. will credit the customer's account with 10% of the monthly hosting fee for every 60 minutes of service outage (as defined above) in any given calendar month, up to a maximum of 100% of the customer's total monthly hosting fee for that month.
Additionally, service outages will not include downtime due to acts of God, nor for outside security breaches. Finally, Visual Edge Design 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.
Hosting services include: changes and updates at no additional charge. This applies to basic changes or updates and not to full redesigns or complicated additions such as adding Flash Animation designs, adding additional pages as part of the main navigation structure of the website, adding multiple pages, full graphic designs, shopping carts, or interactive scripts created, added or modified. It does include adding or removing photos, images, adding specials, schedules, calendar changes, adding new products or services, modifying text or address and information changes. We will always consult with you on changes and inform you of any costs prior to making any changes.
Payment of Services
Design and setup fees must be paid in full prior to uploading website for permanent placement. Monthly hosting fees are billed automatically by major credit card on your scheduled billing cycle. To keep costs and employee resources down, we bill your credit card automatically on the same billing schedule each month. If billing is declined, we try it again three times over the next week and we will notify you of decline. If it is not corrected and payment is not made within seven business days, we reserve the right to suspend services until payment is received. As an alternative to automatic credit card billing of hosting services, clients may pay for hosting services six months to one year in advance. Any exceptions to this payment policy must be approved in writing by an authorized member of Visual Edge Design's Executive Board.
Cancellations
Hosting clients may cancel their service at any time by submitting their cancellation in writing (either by email, snail mail or fax) at least 30 days prior to their next billing cycle. Visual Edge Design, Inc. will keep the assigned hosting space and/or website active for the remainder of that billing cycle so that client has time to retrieve all needed content from their site, or to migrate their site to a new provider.
Search Engine Submissions
Visual Edge Design, Inc. will submit client websites to major search engines. This does not guarantee top search engine placement. Due to the competitive nature of the Internet, we cannot guarantee that a website will rank in the top ten of the major search engines. It could take as little as two weeks or as long as several months to get a good ranking on the search engines.
E-mail and Anti-Spamming Policy
Clients may not (i) send unsolicited bulk messages over the Internet (i.e., “spamming”), (ii) create fake weblog or weblogs which are intended or reasonably likely to promote the author’s affiliated websites or to increase the search engine rankings of associated sites (i.e., “splogs”) or (iii) send spam to weblog sites or automatically post random comments or promotions for commercial services to weblogs (i.e., “spamming blogs”). clients must comply with all relevant legislation and regulations on bulk and commercial e-mail, including the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003.
Mass Mailings – clients may not send mass unsolicited e-mail, which is email that is sent to recipients who have not Opted-In in to mailings from the client. Clients who send mass mailings must maintain complete and accurate records of all consents and opt-ins and provide such records to Visual Edge Design upon its request. If a client cannot provide positive and verifiable proof of such consents and opt-ins, Visual Edge Design will consider the mass mailing to be unsolicited.
Mailing Lists – clients are prohibited from operating mailing lists, listservs, or mailing services that do not target an audience that has voluntarily signed up for e-mail information using a valid Opt-In process or that has made their e-mail addresses available to a client for distribution of information. Clients who operate mailing lists must maintain complete and accurate records of all consents and Opt-In elections and provide such records to Visual Edge Design upon its request. If a client cannot provide positive and verifiable proof of such consents and Opt-In elections, Visual Edge Design will consider the list mailing to be unsolicited. Any client-maintained mailing list must also allow any party on the list to remove itself automatically and permanently. Removal requests from client mailing lists must be executed within five (5) business days of receipt.
Other prohibited activities include, without limitation, the following:
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Use of Visual Edge Design servers for the receipt of replies to unsolicited mass e-mail.
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Forgery of e-mail headers (“spoofing”).
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Spamming via third-party proxy, aggregation of proxy lists, or installation of proxy mailing software.
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Configuration of a mail server to accept and process third-party messages for sending without user identification and authentication.
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Hosting web pages advertised within “spam e-mail” sent from another network (“spamvertising”).
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Hosting web pages or providing services that support spam.
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Any other unsolicited bulk messages, postings, or transmissions through media such as weblog posts, IRC/chat room messages, guestbook entries, HTTP referrer log entries, usenet posts, pop-up messages, instant messages, or SMS messages.
If any client or any Third Party User that is a customer of our client uses Visual Edge Design services, Visual Edge Design servers or its physical infrastructure in a manner that causes Visual Edge Design to be “blacklisted” or blocked, Visual Edge Design reserves the right to (i) suspend permanently or terminate Visual Edge Design services of such client and/or (ii) suspend permanently or terminate the access to Visual Edge Design services, servers or its physical infrastructure by such Third Party User. Using Visual Edge Design services on behalf of, or in connection with, or reselling any service to persons or firms listed in the Spamhaus Register of Known Spam Operations database at www.spamhaus.org shall constitute a violation of these Terms of Service.
Block Removal – If, as a result of a client’s actions, Visual Edge Design’s mail servers or IP address ranges are placed on black hole lists or other mail filtering software systems, Visual Edge Design shall charge client $250 upfront and $225 per hour thereafter for any necessary remedial actions.
Liability
While we will make every effort to design a site to client specifications with the intention of assisting clients to succeed with their Internet website, we cannot guarantee success. Visual Edge Design, Inc. nor any of it's officers , employees, subsidiary companies, or owners can be held liable for the failure of a website as a venture.
Additionally, Visual Edge Design, Inc. cannot be held responsible or liable for any upsets or damages caused by a website that we have designed, or a client that we have created an online presence for.
Right of Refusal of Services
We reserve the right to refuse search engine submission services if we have not designed your site and we feel that your website is not optimized for search engine placement. We will not take any accounts that we feel we cannot assist in search engine rankings.
We reserve the right to refuse search engine submission service if a website contains content that is deemed inappropriate or contains information that would be a conflict of interest for any of our existing clients.
We reserve the right to refuse our services if a website is deemed inappropriate by our executive board. This includes sexually explicit, violent, unethical, fraudulent or questionable content.
We reserve the right to refuse service if a website's content is found to be in conflict of interest with any of our existing clients, subsidiary companies, executives or companies formed by our executive or advisory board.
We reserve the right to refuse or cancel existing service if deemed appropriate for the overall benefit of our company. Where an existing client's account is canceled by Visual Edge Design, if the client owns all content, we will give the client 10 days notice to retrieve all site content and relocate their site. Where Visual Edge Design owns site design and content, we reserve the right to cancel service at any time with refund to client for unused services. Visual Edge Design, Inc. can not be held liable for any loss of business or upset created by canceling a client's service.
This policy is subject to change without notice and it is the responsibility of each client to ensure that he or she is kept informed of the most recent policy changes.
