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Acceptable Usage Policy

Effective date: 28 January 2021

GIWS, the hosting brand of GIWS Company. provides cloud hosting and dedicated services to its clients to help them maintain online presence that is beneficial in their informational and commercial endeavors. The use of services from GIWS or submission of an online order form constitutes acknowledgement and agreement to the terms outlined in this Acceptable Usage Policy (AUP). GIWS is under no duty to monitor or control Clients’ activities and is not responsible for any misuse of the GIWS.


Contents

1. Introduction, Purpose, and General Terms
2. Content and Lawful Use
3. GIWS No-Spam Policy
4. Domain Registration and Renewals
5. Violations of Acceptable Usage Policy
6. Privacy of Data
7. Reporting of abuses and violation
8. Addressing of Complaints
9. Account Policies and Cancellation
10. Revisions to this Acceptable Usage Policy
11. Miscellaneous
12. Code of Conduct
13. Prohibited scripts, software, and misuse of system resources
14. Computing Resources
15. Bandwidth and Storage Use
16. Unlimited Cloud Packages
17. Internet Etiquettes

Introduction, Purpose, and General Terms

This section gives client an opportunity to learn about GIWS and the products and services it offers. By using this site, and any other sites or services owned, operated, or provided by GIWS, client signifies agreement to the terms, conditions and notices of this policy.

This Acceptable Usage Policy is used in conjunction with the Terms of Registration, Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and other legal documents, including signed contract and project document deemed relevant to providing hosting and/or domain registration services, presenting the principles, guidelines and requirements governing the use by the client of the services and products of GIWS.
Acceptable Use Policy adhere to local and international laws affecting the services offered by GIWS.

GIWS reserves the right to impose reasonable rules and regulations in connection with the use of the services it offers. Client also acknowledges the right of GIWS to make reasonable changes on the services it offers, including but shall not be limited to pricing, acceptable contents and use.

GIWS reserves the right to transfer accounts to another server without permission from the owner when it deems necessary to protect the interest of GIWS and its clientele.

Content and Lawful Use

GIWS will not exercise editing, monitoring and censorship of the contents hosted in any of its servers. Therefore, clients are responsible for whatever content they upload.

While GIWS cannot and will not censor all information and content from clients, all services provided by GIWS shall be used for lawful purposes only. GIWS will adhere to legal orders from government agencies and private entities with legal authority to impose sanctions on domain and hosting accounts. It shall abide by the legal orders coming from the government of the Republic of the Philippines and any other governments bound by international law, or any legal orders directed to private entities such as but not limited to Hivelocity Ventures Corp., SoftLayer Technologies, Inc. and eNom, Inc. GIWS shall likewise comply to requests from anti-cybercrime or anti-fraud agencies to suspend, terminate and collect data from suspicious accounts found to be participating in fraudulent and illegal activities.

Encrypted contents may be subjected to scrutiny to protect the interest of users in the system. GIWS reserves the right to remove encrypted files, move it to another server, suspend or terminate an account as it deems necessary to protect other users in the server.

GIWS will neither be held liable for any violation that may be committed by client nor for any damages, such as loss of profit or savings, or other incidental, consequential, punitive, or special damages arising out of the hosting services due to circumstances beyond reasonable control.

Examples of unacceptable material on all GIWS servers include:


-Topsites
-IRC Scripts/Bots
-Proxy Scripts/Anonymizers
-Downloadable media files, i.e. movies, music, animated content
-Video or audio streaming sites, download sites or sites that stores files that are not meant for web publication
-Pirated software/warez
-Image hosting scripts (similar to photobucket or tinypic)
-AutoSurf/PTC/PTS/PPC sites
-IP Scanners
-Bruteforce programs/scripts/applications
-Spam scripts
-Link farms
-Black Hat SEO related contents
-Banner-ad services (commercial banner ad rotation)
-File dump/mirror scripts (similar to rapidshare)
-Commercial audio streaming (more than one or two streams)
-Escrow/bank debentures
-High-yield interest programs (HYIP) or related sites
-Investment sites (FOREX, E-Gold exchange, second life/linden exchange, Ponzi, MLM/pyramid scheme)
-Sale of any controlled substance without prior proof of appropriate permit(s)
-Prime banks programs
-Lottery/gambling sites
-MUDs/RPGs/PBBGs
-Hacker focused sites/archives/programs
-Sites promoting illegal activities
-Forums and/or websites that distribute or link to warez/pirated/illegal content
-Fraudulent sites, (Including, but not limited to sites listed at aa419.org & escrow-fraud.com)
-Push button mail scripts
-Broadcast or streaming of live sporting events (UFC, NASCAR, FIFA, NFL, MLB, NBA, WWE, WWF, etc)
-Anonymous or bulk SMS gateways
-Defamatory contents, gender discriminatory contents, contents / URL / codes that contains words that is obscene, socially unacceptable, immorality, taboo, racial discriminatory, and other offensive launguages as deemed unsuitable for business web publication by GIWS.

GIWS reserves the right to determine if contents, domain name, URL, embedded codes, images and animation are in direct or indirect violation of these contents. GIWS further reserves the right to immediately and without notice, suspend any doubtful account specially when there are indications of possible abuse or attack. Moreover, GIWS further reserves the right to suspend accounts which contents are encrypted and where there are indication that accounts can be used as jumping board for an attack.


GIWS No-Spam Policy

Clients are expected to comply with the GIWS No-Spam Policy presented in this section.

While GIWS allows the use of mailing scripts and newsletters, GIWS does not encourage sending of unsolicited emails.

If another person happens to receive unsolicited commercial electronic mails, the client may report any violation of the No-Spam Policy by following the instructions presented at the section of Reporting of Abuses and Violation.

GIWS defines spam, also known as spam email, junk email, or mass email, as a message usually sent for business or commercial purposes, sent to one or more recipients with whom no pre-existing business or personal relationship has been established. These unsolicited messages are usually received on a daily basis.

GIWS reserves the right to notify client to remove the complaining party to its mailing list or to totally suspend or stop sending of unsolicited emails upon discretion of GIWS or receipt of orders from authority.

Sending of bulk e-mails may cause certain RBLs or mail provider to block dedicated IP address that may affect other clients in a shared hosting server. As such, mass mailing is only allowed in VPS packages where accounts are given their own dedicated IP address.

Sending of mass email consumes considerable amount of CPU power and memory, and as much as mass mail sending is limited to 100 mails per hour and maximum of 500 recipients in the mailing list unless one must hosted in a dedicated server. If client would need to send beyond these limits, please open a support ticket.

In order to protect other Clients hosted in shared hosting accounts, GIWS reserves the right to modify the password of an email account being used as relay to stop mass mail sending, suspend an account or do whatever is necessary to prevent a system overload if mass mail sending is consuming too much computing power.


Domain Registration and Renewals

By authorizing GIWS to register your domain name, client is bound by the terms of registration agreement.

Domain name registrations and/or renewals are completed only after payment has been received.

Client shall be responsible in monitoring the renewal date of domains registered through GIWS GIWS will not be held liable for domain expiries due to failure to pay registration or renewal fees or client not being able to receive notification.

Client acknowledges that failure to renew the domain name registration during a set period of time signifies abandonment of the domain name registration that may lead to making it available for sale and registration by a another party.

GIWS reserves all rights, without limitation, to reject the domain name transfer request away from GIWS for the following reasons, but not limited to:

* No response from the registered name holder or administrative contact;
* Domain name in registrar lock status and there is no request from registered name holder or administrative contact for the status change;
* Domain name registration period time will be expiring in less than 60 days or other constraints, other than during the first 60 days of initial registration or during the first 60 days after a registrar transfer.
* Client agree and acknowledges that the failure or success of a domain name transfer will be his/her sole responsibility, and GIWS will not be held liable for the failure of a domain name transfer for any reason.
* Moreover, domain registrations are non-refundable. Clients must purchase the domain name until you are certain that it is exactly what they would like to buy and that it is spelled out correctly.


Violations of Acceptable Usage Policy

The following are the violations resulting from improper use of services provided by GIWS.

Use of services to perform an act clearly violating laws of the state would constitute a criminal offense. This includes transmitting, posting, storing or presenting data or information that aids in the processing of illegal goods and services, terrorism, and the like.

Other violations including fraudulent financial activity, phishing or falsification of identity, copyright and trademark infringement, gambling, defamation, improper expose of trade secrets, nudity, pornography, child pornography, vulgarism, spamming, spreading of harmful viruses, and threats and harassments.

Use of domain and hosting services to transmit, store, and display illegal or obscene contents and publish materials protected by copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents and other related laws are grounds for suspension and termination without prior notice.

Other activities not above mentioned but are deemed injurious to fellow clients and network operations shall be addressed on a special basis.


Privacy of Data

GIWS assures privacy in relation to data and communications across and within its servers. All data are treated with confidentiality, pursuant to existing Philippine laws and legislation such as R.A. 10173 and/or R.A. 10175, where applicable, and shall not in any way be released to any third party unless sanctioned by the court of law.

Reporting of Abuses and Violation

GIWS advocates the positive use of our services to help entities achieve their goals.
However, GIWS requests for the vigilance of netizens and aid in reporting violations of this Acceptable Usage Policy
Reports of violation may be submitted here. Include in the report any evidence of violation committed to enable us to verify your complaints.


Addressing of Complaints

Upon receipt of reports, GIWS in its sole discretion may conduct an investigation.
Being the client's hosting provider, GIWS reserves the right to perform measures to correct any of the abovementioned abuses and violations.
Upon verifying complaints, GIWS may perform without notice one or more of the following actions depending on the weight of offense:
Issuance of written or verbal warning
Removal of content violating this AUP
Suspension of services
Termination of services


Account Policies and Cancellation

In order to cancel domain and/or hosting services, client must cancel the service inside the client area or send formal request here.
Cancellation made within the 30-day beginning period of hosting service is subject to the GIWS 30-day money back guarantee. Cancellation after the said period is no longer refundable.
Payments made for the domain registration are not refundable.


Revisions to this Acceptable Usage Policy


GIWS reserves the right to update, revise or amend this policy whenever it deems fit in, order to comply with registration to keep up with mandatory trends.
By continuing to use GIWS services after the updates, revisions, or amendments are effective, Client acknowledges and agrees to abide with them.


Miscellaneous

If any section of this Acceptable Usage Policy is deemed invalid or unenforceable, the remaining sections will remain in full force and effect. Client agrees to indemnify, defend and hold harmless GIWS, its management, officers, and employees against all claims and expenses resulting from any violation of this AUP.


Code of Conduct

GIWS is designed to serve the web hosting needs of most companies, especially small, independently owned and operated businesses.
Clients must take reasonable security precautions especially with the confidentiality of your passwords and other access credentials.
Periodic changing of password for GIWS hosting client account is encouraged, but storing the login details on a secure place is strongly recommended to prevent forgetting of credentials.
Actions taken with the help of GIWS hosting account must comply with CAN SPAM Act and Cybercrime Prevention Act.


Prohibited scripts, software, and misuse of system resources

Any activity that is intentionally or unintentionally causing harm to resources of any server in GIWS is prohibited. This includes but shall not be limited to use of high CPU time consuming software, improper use of server space, unauthorized reselling, and unauthorized access to remote systems, using shared hosting account's email for sending or receiving system notification to multiple recipients periodically or continously.
Internet Relay Chat (IRC), CGI or PHP-based shell scripts, web proxy scripts, and other script and software aimed at illegal accessing of a website, server or channel and other relative objectives are prohibited and therefore are grounds for suspension and termination of an account. Scripts such as online training, forum, advertisement boards, real-estate property listing maybe allowed provided that traffic is within reasonable degree for a shared resource and email notification to members do not exceed an average sending limit of 400 emails per hour and is not causing RBLs and popular mail providers to block shared or dedicated IP address. GIWS reserves the right to determine if an account is using up resource beyond the average business usecase for the package and may recommend an upgrade or transfer to another virtual machine or server.


Computing Resource

GIWS Clients may not imitate the following as this may result in termination of account with no refund.
Use of any kind of distributed computing software, including but not limited to SETI@home, Node Zero and Folding@home
Run any type of interactive real-time chat applications that require server resources. Remotely-hosted services however, are fully allowed.
Run stand-alone, unattended server-side processes at any point in time on the server. This includes any and all daemons.
Run any software that interfaces with an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network.
Run any file sharing, bit torrent or other P2P network services, client or server software including but not limited to gaming, inventory system, high volume transactional database, high volume file upload / download scripts and other non-conventional business website application.
Run any gaming servers such as counter-strike, half-life, battlefield 1492, and the line.
Using email service as a catch-all mail for forwarded emails coming from different server or using email to receive automated and high volume email notifications from a third party system or server.


Bandwidth and Storage Use

The intention of GIWS is to provide a considerable disk space and bandwidth for storage and transfer of web documents. If client violates this and uses GIWS hosting services as an offsite storage area for non-website related electronic files, backup storage, multimedia streaming, client-server application including P2P network services, gaming, or forums / portal and other non-conventional business website application that use up considerable server resource and bandwidth, client may be billed for overusage.

Client agrees to use the allowable bandwidth depending on the chosen package. Unused allocated bandwidth cannot be carried over to the next month. GIWS reserves the right to suspend and terminate an account violating this AUP or to move the account to another server operated by GIWS in order to protect other accounts. Storage is defined as the amount of data stored in an account including email and email attachments, web files, media files, program and script files and virtually anything uploaded in an account's home directory and its sub-directories. Each account, except for Unlimited Cloud Packages has a certain storage capacity in Gigabytes. Aside from these limits, GIWS imposes another limit based on the number of files that are allowed to be stored in an account. Otherwise known as iNode limit.

Unlimited Cloud Packages

GIWS does not set arbitrary limits on the amount of disk space a client can use for the client's website, nor does GIWS charge additional fees based on an increased amount of storage used, provided the client's use of storage complies with these terms. It must be noted, however, that the GIWS service is designed to host websites. GIWS does not provide unlimited space for online storage, backups, or archiving of electronic files, documents, log files, and the like, and any such prohibited use of the services will result in the termination of client's account, with or without notice. Accounts with a large number of files i.e., inode count in excess of 150,000 can have an adverse affect on server performance, therefore is not allowed in a shared hosting environment. Similarly, accounts with an excessive number of MySQL/PostgreSQL tables i.e., in excess of 1000 database tables or of database size i.e., in excess of 5GB total MySQL/PostgreSQL usage or 5GB MySQL/PostgreSQL usage in a single database negatively affect the performance of the server. GIWS may request that the number of files/inodes, database tables, or total database usage be reduced to ensure proper performance otherwise, GIWS will terminate the client's account, with or without notice.

Unlimited Cloud hosting packages have lower CPU and RAM usage to prevent website owners from abusing the Unlimited packages and exhausting server resource, making it less ideal for moderate to high traffic business websites. Packages under our unlimited cloud are also not designed for file, mass mailing, video and image storage/sharing, backup storage, chat server, video and audio streaming and similar application. Unlimited Cloud packages cannot be assigned a dedicated IP address, GIWS recommends either a VPS or Hibratium packages for regular business web and email hosting use.

GIWS reserves all rights in the determination of suitability of its service packages to client’s needs, and as such, shall undertake measures that would ensure client compliance to the foregoing.

Internet Etiquettes

Clients may not engage in illegal, abusive, or irresponsible behavior, including:

Unauthorized access to or use of data, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network or to breach security or authentication measures (including those belonging to GIWS and its Clients) without express authorization of the owner of the system or network;
monitoring data or traffic on any network or system without the authorization of the owner of the system or network;
Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks;
Use of an Internet account or computer without the owner's authorization, including, but not limited to Internet scanning (tricking other people into releasing their passwords), password robbery, security hole scanning, and port scanning;
Forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in an e-mail or a newsgroup posting or
Any conduct that is likely to result in retaliation against the GIWS network.
Use of GIWS's hosting network in a way that unreasonably interferes with GIWS's other clients use of the network.


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