Our Terms of Service have been written in order to protect our clients and ourselves to ensure we deliver a stable, reliable product and quality network. We ask that you read our policies so that you can assist us in keeping our servers and network free of abuse, which will ensure quality performance for everyone. 

When you sign up for any of our services, you are agreeing to our terms of service.  Although we will do our best to work with our customers in the event of a breech of policy, we will also take a firm line when necessary to protect our other customers and network.

Clients of Door County Networking, including but not limited to Virtual Account Clients, Virtual Private Account Clients, Resellers, Dedicated Server Clients, Colocation clients, and Domain Registration Clients, are required to agree and conform to the following terms of service (TOS) and acceptable use policies. Violations of these policies may result in loss of service and/or other disciplinary action.

Our TOS includes the following categories. You can click on each individual area to be taken to the individual pages or review and click on the next button to progress through the complete TOS.

Terms and Conditions of Use

This Services Agreement (the "Agreement") contains the complete terms and conditions which govern your subscription of Web hosting, Dedicated Servers, e-commerce, Domain Registrations, Colocation and other Internet-related services provided by Door County Networking (the "Services"). As used in this Agreement, "Door County Networking" means Door County Networking and "Client", "you", or "your" means you. By clicking on the "Submit Order" button, you acknowledge that you have read the Agreement, and you agree to its terms and conditions and all policies posted on the Door County Networking site. As referred to in this Agreement, "Site" refers to a World Wide Web site and "Door County Networking Site" refers to the Site located at the URL http://www.door-county.net, or any other successor Sites owned or maintained by Door County Networking.

In addition to the following, the Acceptable Use Policies provide more detailed information regarding what is acceptable use of our products and services.

Appropriate Use of the Services
       Client Content
       Disk Space
       Bandwidth
       Licensed Software
       Back-up Files and Processing
       Termination
Payment Obligations
      Service Fees
       Late Payments
     Returned Items Fees
       Taxes
       Domain Names
Client Liability and Indemnification
Term, Termination and Reinstatement
Taxes
Disclaimer of Warranty
Limitation of Liability
Miscellaneous

Appropriate Use of the Services

Door County Networking provides the Services exclusively and makes no effort to edit, control, monitor or restrict the content of data other than as necessary to provide such services.

Client Content

Client agrees that it will not distribute, electronically transmit or display any materials supplied by Client - or through Client by a third party - to any Door County Networking server in connection with Client's use of the Services which:

• violate any state, federal or foreign laws or regulations;
• infringe on any intellectual property rights (e.g. copyright, trademark, patent or other proprietary rights) of Door County Networking or any third party;
• are defamatory, slanderous or trade libelous;
• are threatening or harassing;
• are discriminatory based on gender, race, age or promotes hate violate any Door County Networking policy posted on the Door County Networking site including but not limited to those listed in our Terms of Service (TOS).
• contain viruses or other computer programming defects which result in damage to Door County Networking or any third party.

Disk Space

Virtual, Reseller, and Bulk Reseller Accounts: Client may occupy only the amount of disk space on the Door County Networking Server that is allotted by Door County Networking. Additional fees, specified in the hosting plans, will be charged for exceeding the disk space. Disk space measurement includes all customer content and generated content from their web site and includes but is not limited to MySQL data, Mailing List data and data in /home/user directories for virtual accounts. Door County Networking is not responsible for measurements provided by individual control panel software, which is 3rd party software not controlled by Door County Networking, which may or may not include all of the customer data in their measurements.

Dedicated Servers: The Disk Drive and/or Disk Space Quota for these accounts is hard quota based and clients have full access and rights to the disk space. Available disk space for the Client excludes the space required for the Operating System, Control Panel and other Services that come with the server set up which is selected by the client. Client has full control of all disk space for these accounts and may remove, delete and/or alter the installed files and configurations. However, removing, altering or deleting the files and base configurations installed by Door County Networking and/or in the case of the Control Panels, is not part of the 3rd party software released packages, patches, fixes and or upgrades, places all software support for that account/server into a fee based category. Refer to each plan's Additional Feature Pricing page for details regarding free versus fee based support.

Bandwidth

We do not, by default, limit the amount of bandwidth to the account/server quota unless required by the control panel software. If a Virtual/Shared Server Client wishes to have their bandwidth capped, we will do so upon request, software permitting. Virtual Private Server (VPS), Dedicated and Colocation Accounts are limited only to port speed. Default port setting is 10 Meg. Additional fees, specified in the account plan will be charged for exceeding the network bandwidth allowance of your selected plan/server.

Licensed Software Only

Client agrees to use only properly licensed third party software in connection with Client's use of the services.

Back-up Files and Processing

Virtual/Shared Hosting Clients will have the ability to reinstate files which are automatically archived by Door County Networking upon request for a minimal fee; however, Door County Networking does not guarantee the existence, accuracy, or regularity of its backup services, and therefore, Client is responsible for making back-up files in connection with its use of the services. The accuracy and quality of backup processes provided by 3rd party software, such as the individual 3rd party control panels, is not guaranteed by Door County Networking.

For Clients using 'paid for' Back up processing services, Door County Networking will disclose their guarantee within the products page for that service. On Dedicated Servers with the on-board backup option, they are paying for the additional disk drive only. Door County Networking will provide and install the backup script for our clients upon request, but the running of cron jobs and services is the responsibility of the server owner. The backup script can be set up to generate a daily email with results to assist Client in monitoring. For mission critical data, Door County Networking highly recommends higher quality off-server backup services than what an on-board backup drive can provide. Doing periodic local backups is also highly recommended and prudent business practice.

Termination

Door County Networking reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. Door County Networking, in its sole discretion, may immediately terminate this Agreement if Client engages in any of the foregoing. To report any unacceptable behavior by a third party using the services, please contact abuse@door-county.net.

Payment Obligations

Service Fees. By the Tenth (10th) of each month, Door County Networking shall either (i) debit Client's credit card (where such information is provided by Client) or (ii) deliver by e-mail an invoice to Client in accordance with the applicable Services fees for services rendered for the current month. Where an invoice is delivered to Client, Client shall remit payment to Door County Networking by no later than 10 days after the specified payment due date. Door County Networking shall be entitled to immediately terminate this Agreement for Client's failure to make timely payments to Door County Networking. Certain services carry a set-up fee charged by Door County Networking to Client that must be paid by Client in order to have use of the Services. If Client terminates this Agreement in accordance with Section 4 hereunder, Client shall be responsible for any outstanding fees owed to Door County Networking and agrees to pay any and all fees incurred by Client. Because the Services are provided on a monthly basis, unless a contract is in place, Client will be responsible for Service fees incurred each month regardless of when Client provides notice of termination. Thus, for example, if Client provides notice to terminate on the 15th of a particular month, Client will still owe fees for the entire month and such fees will not be pro-rated or refunded. If Client has retained the Services for one (1) year and has pre-paid Door County Networking for such Services, refunds will be issued for any unused full month month portions less one month of the Services upon Clients request. Therefore, if Client's account is canceled at any point during the one (1) year term, Client will be entitled to a refund for all but one of the full months remaining after notice given by the 25th of the preceding month.

Late Payments. Any payment not received within twenty (20) days of the invoice date, will be assessed a late fee of one and one-half percent (1 1/2%) per month or the highest rate allowed by applicable law, whichever is lower, with minimum of a $5.00 fee. Customer also shall pay to Door County Networking all expenses incurred by Door County Networking in exercising any of its rights under this Agreement or applicable law with respect to a Payment Default or other breach by Customer, including, but not limited to, reasonable attorneys' fees and the fees of any collection agency retained by Door County Networking. Late Fees will continue to accrue as long as there is an outstanding balance.

Returned Item Fee. Accounts with returned checks and/or e-checks will be assessed a $25.00 returned item fee.

Taxes. Customer will be responsible for and will pay in full, any taxes and similar fees now in force or enacted in the future imposed on the transaction and/or the delivery of Services.

Domain Names. If Client chooses to register a domain name(s) through Door County Networking, Client acknowledges and agrees that Client will pay a registration fee(s) to register the domain name(s) with the applicable domain name registrar. Door County Networking does not offer refunds for domain name registrations for any reason, including misspelling of the domain name.

Client Liability and Indemnification

The parties agree that in no event shall Door County Networking be liable to any third party for Client's breach or alleged breach of any of the terms and conditions set forth in this Agreement. Client agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Door County Networking from any and all expenses, losses, liabilities, damages or third party claims resulting from Client's breach or alleged breach of any Client obligations set forth hereunder.

Term, Termination & Reinstatement

• Subject to the terms and conditions hereof, this Agreement shall be effective on the date you register for the Services, and shall continue in effect on a month-to-month basis unless otherwise specified by separate agreement (the "Term") unless terminated earlier pursuant to the provisions of this Section 4. Either party will have the right to terminate this Agreement upon notice to the other party. If Client is terminating this Agreement, Client must follow instructions for cancellation provided on the Server Cancellation Information page. All cancellation requests must be received by the 25th of the respective month of cancellation. Any other attempt by Client to cancel this Agreement by written or e-mail notice shall be DCNid. Sections 3 - 8 shall survive termination or expiration of this Agreement.
• If Door County Networking suspends a virtual account for non-payment, Client shall be allowed to re-instate Client's use of the Services within Five (5) business days of cancellation upon approval from Door County Networking and full payment of balances due. A reinstatement fee of $15.00 will be applied.
• If Door County Networking disconnects a Dedicated Server or Colocation server for non-payment, the Client shall pay a fee of Fifty Dollars ($50) prior to any re-instatement of Client's server. Once payment has been received, Client's account will be activated within Forty-eight (48) business hours. Door County Networking will maintain an archival copy of Client's data files for (5) days after Door County Networking disconnects the server.
• If a Client terminates their account, Door County Networking will disable the server/account the day the client specifies the account is canceled. Door County Networking will not maintain an archival copy of the Clients Web site or files. It is the responsibility of the Client to remove any data off the server prior to the date provided in their cancellation notice.

Taxes

Client will pay and indemnify and hold Door County Networking harmless from any and all taxes associated with or arising from Client's use of the Services, including any penalties and interest and any costs associated with the collection or withholding thereof.

Disclaimer of Warranty

THE SERVICES, THE Door County Networking SITE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ALL PRODUCTS AND SERVICES DISPLAYED OR OFFERED ON THE Door County Networking SITE, AND ALL TEXT, GRAPHICS, LINKS AND APPLICATIONS ARE PROVIDED TO CLIENT ON AN 'AS IS' BASIS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. Door County Networking DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH RESPECT TO EACH OF THE FOREGOING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT OR ARISING FROM A COURSE OF DEALING. WITHOUT LIMITING THE GENERALITY OF THE FOREGOING, Door County Networking SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTY THAT (1)THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE; (2) DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED; (3) THERE ARE NO VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS; AND (4) THE SECURITY METHODS EMPLOYED WILL BE SUFFICIENT.

Limitation of Liability

IN NO EVENT SHALL Door County Networking BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES RESULTING FROM LOSS OF DATA, PROFITS, USE OF THE Door County Networking SITE OR ANY Door County Networking PRODUCTS OR SERVICES, OR FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT OR IN CONNECTION WITH ANY PRODUCTS OR SERVICES PROVIDED HEREUNDER. IN NO EVENT SHALL Door County Networking CUMULATIVE LIABILITY EXCEED AN AMOUNT GREATER THAN FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($500 US).

Miscellaneous

Notices. Any notices or communication under this Agreement shall be in writing and shall be deemed delivered to the party receiving such communication at the address specified below (1) on the delivery date if delivered personally to the party, or a representative of the party; (2) one business day after deposit with a commercial overnight carrier, with written verification of receipt; (3) five business days after the mailing date, whether or not received, if sent by postal mail, return receipt requested; (4) on the delivery date if transmitted by confirmed facsimile.

If to Door County Networking:

Door County Networking
260C Koessl Ln
Sister Bay WI 54234

If to Client:

Name and address provided for account setup.

If any of the provisions, or portions thereof, of this Agreement are found to be invalid under any applicable statute or rule of law, then, that provision notwithstanding, this Agreement shall remain in full force and effect and such provision or portion thereof shall be deemed omitted. This Agreement (including the Exhibits, attachments and/or addenda, if any,) represents the entire agreement of the parties with respect of the subject matter hereof and supersedes all prior and/or contemporaneous agreements or understandings, written or oral between the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof. This Agreement and the rights granted and obligations undertaken hereunder may not be transferred, assigned or delegated in any manner by Client, but may be so transferred, assigned or delegated by Door County Networking. Any waiver or any provision of this Agreement, or a delay by any party in the enforcement of any right hereunder, shall neither be construed as a continuing waiver nor create an expectation of non-enforcement of that or any other provision or right. In any legal proceeding between the parties under this Agreement, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover its costs, expenses and reasonable attorneys' fees. This Agreement is made under and shall be governed by the laws of the United States of America, except with regard to it's conflict of law rules. This Agreement and Door County Networkings policies are subject to change by Door County Networking without notice. Continued usage of the Services after a change to this Agreement by Door County Networking or after a new policy is implemented and posted on the Door County Networking Site constitutes your acceptance of such change or policy. We encourage you to regularly check the Door County Networking Site for any changes or additions.

Acceptable Use Policies

As a provider of web site hosting, and other Internet-related services, Door County Networking offers its clients, and their customers and users, the means to disseminate a wealth of public, private, commercial, and non-commercial information. Door County Networking respects that the Internet provides a forum for free and open discussion and dissemination of information, however, when there are competing interests at issue, Door County Networking reserves the right to take certain preventative or corrective actions. In order to protect these competing interests, Door County Networking has developed an Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP"), which supplements and explains certain terms of each customer's respective service agreement and is intended as a guide to the customer's rights and obligations when utilizing Door County Networkings services. This AUP will be revised from time to time. A customer's use of Door County Networkings after changes to the AUP are posted on Door County Networkings web site, http://www.door-county.net, will constitute the customer's acceptance of any new or additional terms of the AUP that result from those changes.

One important aspect of the Internet is that no one party owns or controls it. This fact accounts for much of the Internet's openness and value, but it also places a high premium on the judgment and responsibility of those who use the Internet to disseminate information to others.

When information is disseminated through the Internet, they also must keep in mind that Door County Networking does not review, edit, censor, or take responsibility for any information its clients may create. When users place information on the Internet, they have the same liability as other authors for copyright infringement, defamation, and other harmful speech. Also, because the information they create is carried over Door County Networkings network and may reach a large number of people, including both clients and non-clients of Door County Networking, clients' postings to the Internet may affect other clients and may harm Door County Networkings goodwill, business reputation, and operations. For these reasons, clients violate Door County Networking policy and the service agreement when they, their customers, affiliates, or subsidiaries engage in the following prohibited activities:

• UCE / Spam
• Adult Content
• Resource Usage Abuse
• Illegal Activities
• Exploitable Scripts
• Copyright Infringement / intellectual Property
• Miscellaneous and Other Activities
• Defamatory or Abusive Language
• Forging of Headers
• Facilitating a Violation of our TOS.
• Usenet Group postings that violates our TOS.
• Other activities Door County Networking determines to be harmful
   

UCE / Spam

The abuse and misuse of e-mail is a serious problem, and Door County Networking cannot and will not tolerate it. This policy covers all servers and domains on our network, including but not limited to Virtual Shared, Bulk Reseller, Dedicated and Colocation.

Definition of UCE
Repercussions of spam
Impacts to Door County Networking
Our Providers
Consequences/Penalties for Spamming
Basic Mailing List Management Principles

Definition of UCE (Unsolicited Commercial E-mail), or spam:

• The bulk UCE, promotional material, or other forms of solicitation sent via e-mail that advertise any IP address belonging to Door County Networking or any URL (domain) that is hosted by Door County Networking.
• Unsolicited postings to newsgroups advertising any IP or URL hosted by Door County Networking.
• The use of web pages set up on ISPs that allow spamming (also known as "ghost sites") that directly or indirectly reference customers to domains or IP addresses hosted by Door County Networking.
• Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to facilitate a means to spam.
• Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the true origin of the message.

For further information on mail abuse, please visit the Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS) web site.

Spam, mailing lists and other  email restrictions:

Due to the increased problems and risk to our network, Door County Networking also prohibits the use of 3rd party mailing lists and FFA's. See our mailing list management principals for managing your own lists.  Examples that we do not allow include but are not limited to:

• Safelist
• Purchased / Sold mailing lists
• FFA's

Repercussions of spam:

Across the Web, it is generally accepted that spam is an inconsiderate and improper business practice.

Impacts to Door County Networking:

Spam is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward Door County Networking, but also because it can overload Door County Networkings network and resources.

There are many groups that report and block the networks that spam is sent from.  In the event spam is generated off of ours or our customers servers, our network can be blocked and this impacts other users putting our network at risk.

Our Providers:

Since it is unsolicited, users who receive spam often become angry and send complaints to our upstream providers. This upsets our providers who abhor spam for the same reasons that Door County Networking does - it causes negative consumer attitudes and drains resources. We strive to maintain favorable business relationships in the Web community and obviously will not allow any practice that threatens these relationships.

Consequences/ Penalties for Spamming:

Door County Networking reserves the right to terminate, without warning, any account that violates this policy. Usage of Door County Networking services constitutes acceptance and understanding of this policy.

Door County Networking may, at its option, charge $25.00 per spam complaint we receive for any domain on our network and will be charged to the owner of the domain or the owner of the server the domain resides on or the reseller of the domain. Resellers, dedicated server owners and colocation clients may choose to pass this charge down to their client, when/if appropriate. These are non-refundable charges and will be invoiced at the time of complaint notification.

It is the responsibility of dedicated server owners, resellers and colocation clients to manage the email from their server/accounts and to keep in compliance of our policies.

Door County Networking reserves the right to decide what it considers "spam", "UCE", "mail bombing", or "bulk e-mail", and to determine from all of the evidence whether or not the e-mail recipients were from an "opt-in" e-mail list.

Should you choose to e-mail from Door County Networking servers, especially if you use mailing lists, you must read and adhere to the following guidelines, which are offered as a statement of Internet standards and best current practices for proper mailing list management and preventing e-mail abuse.

Basic Mailing List Management Principles for Preventing Abuse

Mailing lists are a vehicle for distributing focused, targeted information to an interested, receptive audience. Consequently, mailing lists have been used successfully as a highly effective direct marketing tool.

Unfortunately, some marketers misuse mailing lists through a lack of understanding of Internet customs and rules of the forum pertaining to e-mail. Others fail to take adequate precautions to prevent the lists they manage from being used in an abusive manner.

1. The e-mail addresses of new subscribers must be confirmed or verified before mailings commence. This is usually accomplished by means of an e-mail message sent to the subscriber to which s/he must reply, or containing a URL which s/he must visit, in order to complete the subscription. However it is implemented, a fundamental requirement of all lists is the verification of all new subscriptions.
2. Mailing list administrators must provide a simple method for subscribers to terminate their subscriptions, and administrators should provide clear and effective instructions for unsubscribing from a mailing list. Mailings from a list must cease promptly once a subscription is terminated.
3. Mailing list administrators should make an "out of band" procedure (e.g., a means of contact by which messages may be sent for further correspondence via e-mail or telephone) available for those who wish to terminate their mailing list subscriptions but are unable or unwilling to follow standard automated procedures.
4. Mailing list administrators must ensure that the impact of their mailings on the networks and hosts of others is minimized by proper list management procedures such as pruning of invalid or undeliverable addresses, or taking steps to ensure that mailings do not overwhelm less robust hosts or networks.
5. Mailing list administrators must take adequate steps to ensure that their lists are not used for abusive purposes. For example, administrators can maintain a "suppression list" of e-mail addresses from which all subscription requests are rejected. Addresses would be added to the suppression list upon request by the parties entitled to use the addresses at issue. The purpose of the suppression list would be to prevent subscription of addresses appearing on the suppression list by unauthorized third parties. Such suppression lists should also give properly authorized domain administrators the option to suppress all mailings to the domains for which they are responsible.
6. Mailing list administrators must make adequate disclosures about how subscriber addresses will be used, including whether or not addresses are subject to sale or trade with other parties. Once a mailing list is traded or sold, it may no longer be an opt-in mailing list. Therefore, those who are acquiring "opt-in" lists from others must examine the terms and conditions under which the addresses were originally compiled and determine that all recipients have in fact opted-in specifically to the mailing lists to which they are being traded or sold.
7. Mailing list administrators should make adequate disclosures about the nature of their mailing lists, including the subject matter of the lists and anticipated frequency of messages. A substantive change in either the subject matter or frequency of messages may constitute a new and separate mailing list requiring a separate subscription. List administrators should create a new mailing list when there is a substantive change in either the subject matter or frequency of messages. A notification about the new mailing list may be appropriate on the existing mailing list, but existing subscribers should never be subscribed automatically to the new list. For example, if Company A acquires Company B, and Company B has compiled opt-in mailing lists, Company A should not summarily incorporate Company B's mailing lists into its own.

*This spam (UCE) Accepted Use Policy and all other Door County Networking policies are subject to change by Door County Networking without notice. Continued usage of the services after a change to this policy is implemented and posted on the Door County Networking site constitutes your acceptance of such change or policy. We encourage you to regularly check the Door County Networking site for any changes or additions. Review our Terms of Service (TOS) for further information regarding our policies.

Virtual Shared Servers

Because the Internet is a global communication tool, and we have clients from nearly every country in the world it is difficult to dictate what is considered "adult material." However, it is not our function to discriminate against those who choose to utilize adult content or adult related material. This being said, there are still several reasons why Door County Networking has been forced to create its no adult sites policy for its virtual and bulk reseller server users, including but not limited to direct customers, resellers and resold accounts.

What does Door County Networking consider "Adult Material"?

• Any site whose revenue is gained in part or whole from its adult content.
• Photos or videos showing frontal nudity on either men or women for non-scientific or non-artistic purposes.
• Hyperlinks to adult sites, including but not limited to sites who violate these policies.
• Sites that have discussion boards and share information that is 'adult' in nature.
• Sites that sell or promote 'adult' material, including but not limited to adult toys.

Door County Networking reserves the right to decide what it considers "adult content", "adult material", "sexually explicit", or "sexually related". Let us know if you are unsure of the approval of your site before placing an order. Please email sales@door-county.net for review of your content and/or site.

Why does Door County Networking have this policy?

Bandwidth and Resources
A virtual server is a shared environment where many servers reside on each particular machine. This being said, consider that an average "adult site" gets more hits than 100 standard web sites. Some of the smaller adult sites get around 5 GB of transfer per day. With these types of resources being utilized, our servers would be severely slowed if we allowed these high traffic sites to also reside on our servers. On top of that, we would be forced to raise our prices to pay for the additional bandwidth. We strive to keep our servers fast and inexpensive, and our bandwidth clear; therefore, adult sites are not an option.

Banned IPs
Adult sites tend to get blocked. Since many of our shared accounts also share IP addresses and/or the range of IPs are blocked, all other users on that server or network range are impacted.

Association
Many people do not want to be associated with adult content, based on personal opinions and beliefs. IPs are assigned to a server in ranges and IP address are in many cases shared IPs.  Consequently, we want our shared servers to be 'adult content' free.

Dedicated and Colocation servers

Because we can swip the IPs and assign them to the owners of these accounts, we do allow our dedicated and colocation customers to have adult content on their servers.  All of our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use policies do apply, including, but not limited to:

• UCE / Spam: Adult sites tend to use UCE/spam as a source of marketing.  Before considering using our services for Adult material, please review our spam policy. We have zero tolerance for spam.
• Illegal Content: We do not allow any illegal activities on our network, including, but not limited exploitation of minors.

Our Shared Server Resource Abuse

Door County Networking allows CGI, PHP, Perl and many other normal processes used for hosting to be used on all Virtual Servers. These processes can be resource intensive however, and because a Virtual Server must be shared with other users, we must limit how much of the CPU, memory, disk I/O, disk space and database use can be used by any one account on a shared server. Therefore any program (application, script, etc.) or usage that consumes too many resources that impacts other customers in either performance or reliability is considered resource abuse. Shared servers are 'shared' and we all need to play fair. In the event a user requires more resources than is acceptable on a shared server environment, a dedicated solution, such as our dedicated or colocation services are recommended.

• What does Door County Networking consider "System Resource ABUSE"?
• Background Running Processes
• Flat File database driven forums
• Cron Job discretion
• Mailing Lists
• Banned Scripts
• Other
• Why does Door County Networking have this policy?
• What happens if I violate this policy?

What does Door County Networking consider "System Resource ABUSE"?

Any site whose traffic, programs and/or processes are using excessive amounts of system resources. Excessive amounts is defined as any amount that results in substantial degradation of server performance. Door County Networking is the sole determinant of what constitutes degraded server performance.

Although our Bulk Reseller plans have larger disk space and bandwidth availability, these accounts are intended for small to medium sized web sites and traffic loads. The BR Accounts are not intended for large, busy, resource intensive web sites and they will be suspended if found impacting server performance. Large busy sites, especially those using databases, usually require a dedicated solution due to resource usage.  Our Dedicated Servers options are better suited for these type of sites since they do not impact other users.

Examples include, but are not limited to:

Flat File Database Driven Forums
Due to their use of flat files instead of databases, Door County Networking does not allow the use of UBB or YABB bulletin boards. Use of these boards for large or very active forums, results in system performance degradation, and cannot be allowed in our shared server environment. Door County Networking suggests using VBulletin or phpBB as a more efficient, database-driven alternative to these bulletin boards. Busy sites with large forums and data bases are not suited to a shared server environment.

Background Running Processes
Background Daemons in general are prohibited on Door County Networking servers, including, but not limited to, IRC bots, eggdrop, BitchX, XiRCON, warez sites and any other program that interferes with normal server operation.

Cron Jobs
We allow customers to set up cron jobs to perform routine functions automatically. Due to the impact on the server, running some automated processes can take up considerable server resources and in those cases, our technicians may disable the cron job. 

Mailing Lists
We have a strict policy regarding use/spam on our network, but we do allow use of mailing lists within the constraints of our spam policy.  However, sending thousands of e-mails off of a given server can impact the performance of the server. Therefore we limit the amount of e-mail allowed on our Shared Virtual Servers (including the Bulk Reseller servers) to no more than 1000 e-mails per day and 30 emails in 10 seconds.

Exploitable Scripts
Unfortunately, many commonly used scripts can be exploited to allow unauthorized users into our systems. Consequently we may on occasion need to ban and consequently disable these scripts. You can view the most current exploits on our banned-scripts page.

Other
Other resource intensive scripts (depending on traffic) include but not limited to:
- adcycle

Other applications that are prohibited on our virtual servers include but are not limited to:
- offsite search engines

Why does Door County Networking have this policy?

Server Speed and Fairness to others. A Virtual Server is shared. As such, there are many accounts per machine. In all fairness, Door County Networking cannot allow one or two clients to use all of the System resources on a shared machine and have all other clients on the machine suffer because of it. Excessive usage by one or more clients causes extreme slowness in all areas: FTP, SSH, Web Sites and more. If the CPU, disk I/O and/or memory usage gets too far out of hand, all sites hosted on the machine will return Errors and not be accessible in any way.

What happens if I violate this policy?

All accounts that are found to be using excessive amounts of system resources will receive an e-mail warning from Door County Networking. This warning will inform you that the site is using excessive system resources. Door County Networking will provide options for reducing the usage and/or upgrading your account. If the situation is severe, we may suspend the account or process immediately to bring performance of the server back to an acceptable level. 24 hours notice will be given if at all possible.

Banned Scripts

Target Audience: Dedicated, VPS, Colocation, Bulk Resellers and Shared Hosting customers.

Unfortunately, many good things are turned on us to be used for nefarious activities. Commonly used scripts are frequently exploited to allow unauthorized access to the systems they are running on. Others just require more resources than is allocated on a shared server environment.

Consequently, in order to keep Door County Networking network and servers safe, we may need to take actions that inconvenience our good customers. Any time we find scripts or other commonly used tools that can become easily compromised or impact other users by using too many server resources, we may need to disable scripts or other tools installed and used by our customers.

Whenever possible, we will notify our customers in advance.  We will also attempt to keep this page updated with current scripts which will require removal from our shared servers and/or our network.

This list includes script/program names, reason for ban, who/what servers they are banned on (e.g. our Shared or Network wide) and provide alternative options for our customers whenever possible.

Banned scripts and alternatives:
 

Script or Program Version/Type Not Allowed On Reason Alternate Options Matt Wright's formmail 1.91 and previous Network wide Exploitable to send UCE/spam nms-cgi formmail replacement YABB (Yet Another Bulletin Board) all text versions DCN shared servers Resource intensive YaBBSE UBB (Ultimate Bulletin Board) all versions DCN shared servers Resource intensive vBulletin phpBB IRC bots and clients all versions DCN shared servers Often abused None Proxy servers (stone, etc.) all versions DCN shared servers Often used to hide identity None If you have any questions, email sales@door-county.net or open a Help Desk ticket

Copyright Infringement / Intellectual Property

Engaging in any activity that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, software piracy, and patents held by individuals, corporations, or other entities. Also, engaging in activity that violates privacy, publicity, or other personal rights of others. Door County Networking is required by law to remove or block access to customer content upon receipt of a proper notice of copyright infringement. It is also Door County Networkings policy to terminate the privileges of customers who commit repeat violations of copyright laws.

Defamatory or Abusive Language

Using Door County Networkings network as a means to transmit or post defamatory, harassing, abusive, or threatening language.

Any content that is discriminatory based on gender, race, age and/or promotes hate or violence is prohibited.

Usenet Group postings that violates our TOS

Door County Networking reserves the right not to accept postings from newsgroups where we have actual knowledge that the content of the newsgroup violates the AUP.

Facilitating a Violation of our TOS

Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mail bombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software.

Other activities Door County Networking determines to be harmful

Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that Door County Networking determines to be harmful to its clients, operations, reputation, goodwill, or customer relations.

As we have pointed out, the responsibility for avoiding the harmful activities just described rests primarily with the client. Door County Networking will not, as an ordinary practice, monitor the communications of its client to ensure that they comply with Door County Networking policy or applicable law. When Door County Networking becomes aware of harmful activities, however, it may take any action to stop the harmful activity, including but not limited to, removing information, shutting down a web site, implementing screening software designed to block offending transmissions, denying access to the Internet, or take any other action it deems appropriate.

Door County Networking also is concerned with the privacy of on-line communications and web sites. In general, the Internet is neither more nor less secure than other means of communication, including mail, facsimile, and voice telephone service, all of which can be intercepted and otherwise compromised. As a matter of prudence, however, Door County Networking urges its clients to assume that all of their on-line communications are insecure. Door County Networking cannot take any responsibility for the security of information transmitted over Door County Networkings facilities.

Door County Networking will not intentionally monitor private electronic mail messages sent or received by its clients unless required to do so by law, governmental authority, or when public safety is at stake. Door County Networking may, however, monitor its service electronically to determine that its facilities are operating satisfactorily. Also, Door County Networking may disclose information, including but not limited to, information concerning a client, a transmission made using our network, or a web site, in order to comply with a court order, subpoena, summons, discovery request, warrant, statute, regulation, or governmental request. Door County Networking assumes no obligation to inform the client that client information has been provided and in some cases may be prohibited by law from giving such notice. Finally, Door County Networking may disclose client information or information transmitted over its network where necessary to protect Door County Networking and others from harm, or where such disclosure is necessary to the proper operation of the system.

We hope this AUP is helpful in clarifying the obligations of Internet users, including Door County Networking and its clients, as responsible members of the Internet. Any complaints about a client's violation of this AUP should be sent to abuse@door-county.net.