Is this the new fad? My webhost recently changed their TOS (oddly enough they didn't TELL any of their customers but put a note stating: USE OF YOUR ACCOUNT [sic] shall constitute your approval.)

Well anyway, so I'm reading their loverly policies to make sure that we wouldn't be fighting with each other anymore (i.e., me chewing them out for not giving me my services that I paid for and them finding every little thing wrong with my site so that they could cancel me for being an obnoxious and angry customer)

Then I see what I happen to be seeing pop up on everyone's TOSs and AUPs...

CQhost reserves the right to cancel service for any reason without prior notice. In case of cancellation, unused fees may be returned to the subscriber on a pro-rata basis. Fees for setup are not refundable.

any reason? *any* reason? ANY REASON?!


So what does this mean, webhosters? Please enlighten this ignorant webhost client, because to *me* it looks like you are saying, buy our services and don't piss us off or else well delete all your hard work and shoot this policy back at you with a pro-rated return and a big fat middle finger in your face.

::growls::

I just want you guys to know that I think this policy sucks. How would you guys like it if Qwest, ATT, and other IXCs started putting in their legal contracts... we reserve the right to kick you off our sonet backbones for *any* reason without prior notice?! Sure they'll give you a *pro-rated* refund, but will that matter after you were to lose everything you invested?

Sorry about the rant, but I see so many people here in this forum getting screwed out of their money and now these TOSs and AUPs have just made it easier.

Since there are a lot of webhosts who post here, please let me know why you guys are putting these policies in your AUPs/TOSs, maybe if I understood the reason I'd be less critical/wary of your services.

ochiba the grumbly

If the hosting company is reputable, you don't have to worry about them cancelling you "just because". It is not in hosts' best interest to cancel ANY good, paying customer.

The reason for the "we may cancel you for any reason" is basically because people are finding new ways, everyday, to screw up a server and run programs they shouldn't. We can't possibly keep on top of all of them before they come out. Sometimes we don't even find out something exists until we get complaints about it or we notice someone's account acting suspicious. We certainly don't need a lawsuit, from a guy who's installed software that allows his account to be used for something it shouldn't...just because we shut him down and this particular software wasn't listed in our TOS.

Then there's the guy who constantly paged our emergency services - for non-emergency issues. He couldn't figure out how to setup a mailing list, he couldn't connect to the internet (we provide his hosting services only), etc. After about 3 weeks of telling him that he could not use the emergency pager for non-emergency issues...we cancelled his account and gave him a refund.

Basically, we're (hosts in general) covering our asses against things that we didn't even know existed and ways we might not have thought of to abuse our service. The last thing we want to do is cancel a customer's account.

Honestly, if we listed all the various reasons why we "could" need to terminate an account...the TOS would be 10 pages long and NO ONE would even read it. :)

--Tina

[i]I just want you guys to know that I think this policy sucks. How would you guys like it if Qwest, ATT, and other IXCs started putting in their legal contracts... we reserve the right to kick you off our sonet backbones for *any* reason without prior notice?! Sure they'll give you a *pro-rated* refund, but will that matter after you were to lose everything you invested?
[/B]


They have that in the contract :)_

So what does this mean, webhosters? Please enlighten this ignorant webhost client, because to *me* it looks like you are saying, buy our services and don't piss us off or else well delete all your hard work and shoot this policy back at you with a pro-rated return and a big fat middle finger in your face.

"delete all your hard work"? "lose everything you invested"?

I hardly see can't see why moving to a new host amounts to more than a few hours effort at most to move your files and perhaps adjust some scripts. Hardly a loss, in any sense of the word. Perhaps a loss of a little time. But to be honest, if you are at the point where a host is going to invoke this clause, you're probably costing him (if not each other) lots of time already.

::growls::

I just want you guys to know that I think this policy sucks. How would you guys like it if Qwest, ATT, and other IXCs started putting in their legal contracts... we reserve the right to kick you off our sonet backbones for *any* reason without prior notice?! Sure they'll give you a *pro-rated* refund, but will that matter after you were to lose everything you invested?

Standard terms. Everybody has to have an out. If you behave, seems like you've got nothing to worry about.

Just my $0.02,

Brandon

as a web host, I don't agree with most AUP & TOS out there. Given I have the same as everyone else. and have not changed it yet but I will. and it will be harsher. It's a legal contract.

Where the problem lies is,in the exersising of those right's within the TOS. ONce a rule has been applied then it must be applied accross the board. One thing most people don't understand about these TOS & AUP that once it's called into action it has to apply to everyone otherwise in a court of law (USA) it can be shown that certain people were given special treatment. and unless there is a documented reason for the special treatment, the courts will go against the web hosting company. The great catchall clause "what ever we deem unsuitable" is the best. gives us some protection but again everythig we do has to be documents.

I myself have looked at it (TOS) . Only exersised it once, since I've taken over ADEHOST. that was because a client refused to switch off of phpnuke to go to another package call postnuke ( post nuke is safer and less resource intensive and has no know current security risks ). it is the same package. But now I must make sure that I never host phpnuke again. I must apply the same rules otherwise some lawyer will sign up start using it and try to get my business.

But again I was pushed into a corner, with these choices :

1) the servers long term usability
2) the 1 client's income

I took 1 as the proper choice.

now we also monitor server usage. Will I toss anybody abusing the servers, dependnig on the charges brought accross.

Spam is shut down and client consulted, list asked to be looked at and confirmed )
porn is shut down and client consulted for request of removal from system Up to 5 days for them to find a new hosting company.

I don't think I would ever shut a client entirely down (ie: wipe them from the system). I would like to talk with them first.


Good luck and I hope you'll understand our side of it.

Mike from Adehost

ADEhost.com

My problem is I've been asking my host to fix the same problem over and over for weeks now. It's not so hard, I ask, please give me my SSH shell access (which I finally got) And I've been asking for them to honor their 99.whatever uptime guarantee for over a month now. My site was down for 19 hours and it was *their* fault instead of checking the problem they said it was a problem with my ISP and that my site was visible to everyone else... after numerous emails and asking my visitors to post whether they could see my site on my off-site forum, which I sent CQHost the links to, they just started to ignore my trouble tickets. Finally almost 20 hours later, I'm told that one of *their* clients was messing up the server and that my site would be up in 5 minutes and that client's account terminated (like I'm supposed to care after they practically told me I was to blame) So I asked for my money back, especially since the month before when my site kept going down for two weeks, as soon as the problem stopped, they answered my tickets saying nothing was wrong and I should have sent them my tracert x_O;; Everytime I ask them about it, suddenly all my email requests stop being answered. And I was corresponding with sales, and while he replied to part of my email, he did not reply to my refund request. So when I asked him again... no word.

I am cheap and impatient, blame it on growing up with a McDonalds in my neighborhood, but that is why I ask a gazillion questions before ordering a webhosting service, one of them being 'how is your support?' CQHost sales told me I'd get replies within 15 minutes, and in an emergency most likely an hour two hours. I don't hear back from them at all half of the time. My site is run by several folks and only now have I started forcing them to back up all of their stuff. You can't replace newly contributed artwork or fanfiction if your site is suddenly shut down.

I would leave but I'm stuck in a contract until March. And call me an idiot, but I don't want to hop from host to host testing out their services *while* my site is down. If I hadn't found this board, I'd be all bitter apples right now stressing over who to go to.

Now I honestly don't think that CQHost would shut me down if I just shut up about last month's refund, but is that fair or decent business practice? Is that what 'behaving' means?

As for the other hosts who replied here, your reasoning makes sense. I guess it's unfair for you guys when clients spout "that's not in the AUP or TOS so I'm gonna do it anyway" But before I rag on those folks, I'll shush cuz I might likely say something like that too ^_^;

Thank you for reply to my post!

ochiba the notsogrumblyanymore

It sounds as if your gripe isn't so much with their TOS/AUP as it is with their customer service.

Just to be fair, when you report that your site is down...you should always submit a tracert with it. Especially if it happens more than once...and your host can find nothing wrong. It would serve as proof that your site really is down and that it really is their fault. Without that information...the host can tell you "its not our fault - your site is not down" and you really have no justifiable reason to doubt them.

However, most hosts will work out some sort of a refund if you want to move before your contract is up. Sometimes you will end up paying some sort of a penalty - but you should be able to get most of your unused credit back.

--Tina

In 1 line, it's to help the hosts in the long run. ;)
With the legal things these days, they need it.
-Kyle

as far as im concerned the main point of an aup is to preserve the quality of service for all customers. to use it otherwise isnt correct. its for when your sat there looking at top -s and you see submitted.cgi running at full tilt or the imfamous grey matter trying to repair itself and using up a whole load of memory and cpu time. it isnt fair on anyone else on the server. its to prevent people taking advantage of loopholes or extracting the micky. they do exist for a good reason :) they are just abused at times. its one thing a host having terms like we can kick ya at any time for any reason, its how and when they use this privlidge that determines its acceptability.

I can see both sides of this ever-developing issue. For instance, Rackshack just received a lot of criticism and some support on their forum when they reiterated their new, more aggressive policy toward shutting offending hosts down. However, when you see the specific situation involved you realize that their reaction this time was warranted.

For the most part, sites are only shut down by a host for two reasons, regardless of the TOS or AUP.

First is the reason used most by "unlimited bandwidth" providers and that is usage of the CPU. In this case the offender is generally told they need to go to a dedicated server. This happens much less frequently with hosts who post an included bandwidth, because for the most part if you stay within the bandwidth and within the TOS as to what is on your site, you will not burden the server inappropriately.

Second sites are shut down for violating specific sections of the TOS such as IRC, Warez, downloads of copyrighted material, etc. These are generally very clear violations of an agreement.

Now as to the less specific clause or the "any reason" clause, this is no different than any business. A restaurant can refuse to serve you for any reason other than those protected by law. For instance, they cannot refuse based on Race, Religion, National Origin, Sex, etc., but they can because you are being unruly or for any other reason they deem. Do they exercise this unreasonably...not in my experience. However, they have used this legal right to ask patrons who were drunk and disorderly or otherwise disturbing other guests to leave.

Now, if a host decides to discontinue your service, generally if it is for specifically outlined violations of the TOS your remedy is also defined within the TOS as is the amount of any refund, if any. If he discontinues under the any reason clause, he generally would be required to refund any unearned monies and make himself and you as near whole as possible. Most hosts act quite honorably in these situations and try everything possible to avoid them. However, they must maintain the right to terminate customers who are either damaging their servers or impeding the service provided to other customers.

Last, understand that this is a tight community. And, if a host was unreasonably exercising his right, then the word would get around quickly.