All perspective customers are required to read and agree with this policy before ordering your account.  Each order form has a disclaimer that requires that you read this policy before submitting your order.  Submission of your order is your explicit and complete agreement that you have read and agree with this policy.  If you have questions about our policy, contact us at contact@hostsonic.com or 888.368.7873.

As a professional web hosting provider, HostSonic is committed to providing high quality service. Accordingly, it is important to us that our customers use our services and the Internet in general, responsibly and courteously. Breaking our rules can result in degradation of server performance and can cause harm to other customer's web sites.  The great majority of our customers follow our AUP and we appreciate their willingness to abide by the rules outlined in our AUP.  These customers are treated with respect by our company and we value their patronage.  The following constitute examples of unacceptable uses of HostSonic' services, which may, at our discretion, result in suspension, termination of the customer’s account and/or legal action. Additional policy concerning billing, cancellation of accounts, and domain name registration are also included below.

Hosting Term/Committment -- Your hosting term is decided upon you during your initial order. Your choices are monthly, quarterly (3 months), semi-annually (6 months) or annually. You can cancel an account during a current hosting term. However, in certain circumstances, such as for special offers such as free domain registration for a 12 month committment term, or reduced fees for longer monthly commitments, then no pro-rated refund is provided for cancellation. Refunds are provided if cancellation is requested within 30 days adherent to our 30 day money back guarantee. A customer can change their hosting term for an upcoming renewal up to 10 days before their next renewal (Example, change from a yearly comittment to a quarterly committment).


Affronts to Etiquette--- Unacceptable activities include spamming (sending unsolicited advertising to those with which the customer has no existing business relationship, posting off-topic advertising in newsgroups); spoofing (using a return email address which is not the valid reply address of the sender or sending an email message which does not contain enough information to enable the recipient to identify the party who is really sending the message; passive spamming (promoting a web site hosted by HostSonic by spamming from some other source), trolling (posting controversial messages in newsgroups to generate responses), mail bombing (inundating a user with email without any serious intent to correspond), and subscribing someone else to an electronic mailing list without that person's permission.   It is a violation of our policy to possess on our servers any such software or program that is or may be used for such purposes.  Furthermore, if an attempt is made to cause harm to another person's or organization's server, using our servers, your account will be terminated immediately.   In addition, any and all information regarding the violation, and your account in general, will be turned over to the proper authorities for prosecution.  In order to detect spammers, all email and sendmail activity on our servers is logged (amount of email traffic, etc.). Because of the serious consequences of spamming, we adhere to a 'zero tolerance' rule concerning the aforementioned affronts to etiquette. If any IP on our network is blacklisted with ANY isp, hosting company, data network or spam policing database because of activities of a client on our network, which may be considered spamming, we reserve our right to terminate the offending account and any and all accounts owned by the offending client without prior notice. This is done to protect the integrity of our network.

Mailing List Policy- Mailing lists are very popular and can provide a great service to the Internet community.  However, they can be used improperly and cause the user to get reported as a spammer.  It is our policy that you must maintain only opt-in/opt-out mailing lists.  Further, when a customer opts in, you must keep a record of their request to opt-in.  This record will be your proof that you run a genuine opt-in/opt-out mailing list. In any case of reported spam, the burden of guilt or innocence shall lie on the owner of the account which was responsible for sending the mailing or was reported as involved in the mailing.  If you cannot provide proof that the person who reported you as a spammer had opted-in to your mailing list, then you may be held responsible for spamming. We reserve the right to cancel your account if we suspect you have abused our mailing list policy. We reserve the right to adjust your account features if we feel you have abused our mailing list policy (IE., remove your mailing list software, remove cgi privileges and other adjustments as deemed necessary).   Click here to view details about our mailing list policy.

Abuse of the legal rights of others--- Examples of unacceptable activities in this regard includes but is not limited to; posting private information about a person without their consent, infringing intellectual property rights, defaming a person or business, and knowingly making available code which will have a deleterious effect on third party computers or programs. HostSonic supports free speech on the Internet, and will not suspend or cancel a customer’s account simply because it disagrees with the views expressed by the customer. Hacking and support of such activity is NOT free speech. It is illegal! Where there are allegations from a third party that a customer’s on-line activity has violated the legal rights of a third party, HostSonic will not substitute itself for a court of law in deciding tort claims raised by the third party. However, we reserve our right to remove any suspected site and files from our web servers and to cancel any suspect site. It is to be understood that HostSonic will continuously seek to remove itself from the middle of all such disputes as they can be expensive and time consuming to this company and do not serve the interests of this company.

Abuse of The Law--- HostSonic’s services may be used for lawful purposes only. Illegality includes but is not limited to drug dealing, attempting without authorization to access a computer system (Hacking), pirating (distributing copyrighted material in violation of copyright law), gambling, schemes to defraud, trafficking in obscene material, violating U.S. export restrictions, stalking, making terroristic threats or violating other state or federal law such as the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or the Economic Espionage Act. Furthermore, hacking is an offense taken very seriously by our company.  If you intend to practice such activities, and you use our services in anyway to support these activities, you can be assured that we will go to every extent of the law to make sure you are prosecuted to the furthest degree.

Credit Card Fraud--- We are the victim of credit card fraud several times during the course of our fiscal year.  While HostSonic uses several fraud preventative measures, credit card fraud can and still does occur.  If you use a fraudulent credit card to obtain services from our company, we will turn over any and all information about you to the proper authorities and we will be vigilant in seeking your prosecution.  Furthermore, we will seek recovery of monies owed to us as well as pressing charges for 'theft of services' when appropriate.  Credit card fraud costs US consumers billions of dollars every year.  We take this offense very seriously.  Considering the great technical reach of law enforcement agencies, aided by the information about you that we will provide to such agencies, credit card fraud is a risky endeavor to say the least. 

Content--- HostSonic supports your first amendment right to free speech. Freedom of speech is an important freedom enjoyed by citizens of the United States of America and many other countries.  It is never our intention to impede this right.  However, we do have some basic content limitations that we feel are necessary and prudent in order for our company to operate efficiently.  
1.) Pornography and sex-related merchandising, even if legal, is not an acceptable use of HostSonic’ servers. Furthermore, linking to pornographic sites, or using re-direction software or other medium to redirect a user to a pornographic site is not acceptable and can result in immediate account termination.  
2.) Sites used to promote or sale items or services that are illegal are not allowed on our servers.  
3.) Sites that are used to send unsolicited email (spam) or sites that support unsolicited email (spam) by offering resources that may be used to send unsolicited email (spam) are not allowed on our servers.  
4.) Sites that are used to defame or slander a person or organization are not allowed on our servers. 
5.) Sites that may be deemed racist or 'hate sites' are not allowed on our servers. 
6.) Sites that are used to promote the practice known as 'computer hacking' are not allowed on our servers.  
7.) Sites which use material that is under copyright without the permission of the party or parties who hold said copyright, are not allowed on our servers. 
8.) Sites which are used to sponsor or spread terrorist messages, either overtly or covertly, are not allowed on our servers (Terrorism as defined by the government of the United States of America).

Computer hacking/cracking is not free speech. It is illegal. We prosecute.

Copyright Infringement --- HostSonic supports all copyright laws.  Accordingly, we reserve the right to immediately suspend or cancel your account if your site is found to be violating United States or international copyright laws.  Further, in order to stay out of the middle of legal entanglements, we reserve the right to suspend or cancel your account if we receive a complaint, verified or un-verified, about copyright infringement in regard to your account hosted with our company.  If you find a potential copyright violation, please use our contact page to notify us immediately.

Abuse of HostSonic’s Server Resources--- Running programs in the background on a HostSonic’ server without HostSonic prior written authorization, or running chat rooms, Internet Relay Chat, IRC bots, (Unless provided by HostSonic as part of a hosting package) and the like are not acceptable uses of HostSonic’ servers. Also unacceptable is using a domain pointer to refer to a portion of a web site to use one site for several domain names. Further, any usage of twenty-five percent (25%) or more of our system resources is an undue burden on our system and is unacceptable. If your usage ever exceeds twenty-five percent (25%) of system resources, we will contact you immediately and ask you to reduce the load on our servers.  If you do not, or are unable to resolve the problem within 24 hours after we contact you, we reserve the right to terminate your account immediately. Additionally, if a customer's program or activity(ies) are found to have caused damage to HostSonic servers or to any of its customers data, a monetary charge will be levied against the responsible party to cover any hardware or software replacement and to cover the labor necessary to correct or reverse such damage.  Labor costs will be charged at the rate of $150.00 per hour.  Furthermore, if it is believed that the customer was intending to cause such harm, legal redress will be immediately sought to hold the responsible party accountable for their actions.

Seeking Support, Asking Questions --- In order to provide a high level of customer service, we request that you seek support through our online help desk located at http://www.hostsonic.com/hd/loginc.php .  The online help desk helps us to organize our customer requests in an efficient manner.  Alternatively, you may send an email to support@hostsonic.com to seek support.  If you choose to use telephone support, we ask that you first open a support ticket to seek support.  You may then seek telephone support, referring to your ticket number.  If you seek support by sending an email to any other email address, we cannot guarantee a timely response.

Bandwidth/Traffic--- As the word "unlimited" as pertains to bandwidth is not a legal possibility as there are ALWAYS limits that a company will endure, it has been frowned upon by the industry to advertise "Unlimited Bandwidth". It is misleading and possibly even illegal for a hosting company to advertise "Unlimited badwidth". Therefore, each of our hosting plans has a traffic/bandwidth limit.  The limit depends on the hosting plan you choose. If you think you will exceed your limit in any month, you can purchase additional blocks of 5 GB of bandwidth for $10 per month. 

Security --- It is expected that each customer will take sensible precautions in regard to the security of their web site.  This includes changing your password at least once per month.  Your password should NOT be the same as your username at anytime.  Additionally, if you place any scripts within your site such as CGI, PHP, SSI, etc., you must make sure the script is free of security flaws and exploits by keeping your script updated. If our web servers are attacked because of a poorly written script you put in your web site, you can be held liable for any damage we incur.

Expected Level of Professionalism During Communication --- Our customers are our business.  Without our customers, HostSonic would not exist.  We will be courteous and fair when we deal with each of our customers.  In addition, our manner of behavior will be professional, ethical, and with an intent to communicate effectively.  Accordingly, we request that our customers also communicate with us in a courteous and professional manner.  Making threats, legal or otherwise, against our employees, officers, or company in general will be grounds for immediate account termination.  Additionally, any customer who uses profanity, derogatory name calling, is verbally abusive, or deemed to be harassing our employees will have their account(s) terminated immediately and without advance notice.  Rude behavior is frowned upon at all times.   If you have a problem or complaint that is frustrating you, we will do everything in our power to help you.  But please refrain from letting frustration turn into rude behavior.  If a customer's behavior (rudeness) during communication becomes a burden on our staff, we reserve the right to cancel said customer's account.

Limitation of Liability---HostSonic shall not be responsible for any claimed damages, including incidental and consequential damages, which may arise from HostSonic' servers going off-line or being unavailable for any reason whatsoever.  Further, HostSonic shall not be responsible for any claimed damages, including incidental or consequential damages, resulting from the corruption or deletion of any web site from one of HostSonic' servers or the loss of data due to any reason.   While we provide weekly backups as a courtesy, it is each customer's responsibility to keep a working copy of all your files on your hard drive in the unlikely event that your account is deleted or lost. 

Domain Registration --- If you order a new domain through HostSonic, we will setup the domain through BulkRegister.com or other registrar of our choice.  We offer a low yearly price for domain registrations by subsidizing the costs associated with domain name agency maintenance for our hosting customers.  Your domain will be owned by you and you can make changes to it at any time, including transferring your domain to a different web host if you wish or transferring your domain to a different registrar of your choice.  However, we do not subsidize the price of domains which are not hosted by HostSonic.  Domains registered through us but not hosted by us will incur the price of $17.50 per year.  If you transfer your domain to another web host within 180 days of your signup date, you may be charged the difference between the non-hosted account price, and the price you paid for your domain. The price for a domain that is not hosted by us is $35.00 per year. 

Yearly domain fee if you host with us = $17.50  
Yearly domain fee if you do not host with us = $35.00

If you transfer your site to another host after 180 days of your sign up, your price for your domain shall remain the same for the duration of your current registration term.  Renewal fees for domain names that are hosted by our company are $17.50 per year.  Renewal fees for domains that are not hosted by our company are $35.00 per year.  Domain registration fees are non-refundable. If you wish to make changes to your domain, you can visit http://www.hostsonic.com/hd/ to open a request to alter your domain name.  Read your Domain Registration Agreement for full details.

Domain Name Renewals --- If your domain name is registered with BulkRegister.com, and we are your agent, then you can renew a domain by going to https://www.hostsonic.com/renewadomainviapaypal.html . If your domain name is registered with BulkRegister.com and we are your agent, then the following applies.

1. BulkRegister.com will contact you 3-4 weeks in advance notifying you of pending domain name expiration.  You will receive subsequent notices until your domain either expires or is renewed.
2. The notice will be sent via email to the email address on file with the registrar.
3. If the domain name is not renewed, it will expire and be turned off by the registrar.
4. If the domain name is not renewed 3 weeks after expiration, the domain name will go into REDEMPTION status.  At this point, if you choose to renew the domain, it will cost you the normal registration fee of $17.50 per year PLUS a fee of $149.99 which is paid to the registrar.  This is called the redemption fee.  The redemption fee is charged to you by the registrar, NOT our company.  We do not get any of the redemption fee.
5.  If you choose not to renew the domain name after it has gone into redemption, the registrar will hold it for 90 days during which no-one else can purchase the domain.  After the 90 days, the domain will be released to the public and will be up for registration by anyone.

Billing --- Payment is accepted in the following forms; Online checks drawn in the USA, Canada, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands.  We also accept payment by  Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover/Novus and PayPal.  You may also mail your payment to us.  Payment is due for accounts on the day of setup and on the renewal date.  

Hosting Account Renewals - You were asked about renewal payments when you signed up.  If you pay by credit card and you chose to have us automatically bill your credit card for renewals, then we will bill your credit card up to 7 days before the next due date.  The reason why we charge for renewals 7 days in advance is because 15-25% of automatic renewals are declined by a customer's credit card each month.  The 7 days gives us time to inform the customer of the decline and gives the customer time to correct the situation before their due date.  If a billing problem is not corrected by the due date, and payment is not received, a late fee is added to the account. If payment is not received by the 14th day of overdue status, the account is turned off and an additional $10 re-activation fee is added. Accounts which are 28 days overdue or more are deleted from our servers. Thus, this helps save the customer potential late fee charges.  Once we successfully charge your card,  you will receive an automatic email receipt sent to your email address on file with us.

If you choose to be invoiced by email prior to your renewal date, you will receive an email invoice up to 14 days prior to your renewal date.  It is then up to you to make payment on your account before or on your due date.  To make a manual renewal payment, login to the billing center at https://www.hostsonic.com/cdb/index.php .  Successful payment will update your next due date automatically.

All accounts that are 1 or more days past due will incur a $2.00 late fee.  

Accounts which are 14 days past due will be suspended.  

Suspended accounts will incur a $10.00 re-activation fee plus the $2.00 late fee.

Accounts which are 28 days or more past due may be cancelled and deleted from our servers.  No backup is made of deleted accounts.  Cancelled accounts will be re-activated at our discretion.

30 Day Guarantee --- You can receive a refund of your hosting fees and setup fee if you cancel your account within 30 days of signup.  You must fill out our cancellation form within 30 days of sign up in order to receive a refund. The date of your initiation of your account will be determined by the date and time of your original order.  It is not required to give a reason for your cancellation.  If you purchased a domain name from BulkRegister.com, through our company, then the domain fee is non-refundable and not part of this 30 day guarantee.  If we cancel your account for violations of our Acceptable Usage Policy within 30 days of your sign up date, our 30 Day Guarantee is null and void.

Account Cancellation --- If you wish to cancel your account, you must fill out our cancellation request form located at https://www.hostsonic.com/cdb/index.php . If you do not fill out the cancellation request form, you may be unable to take advantage of our moneyback guarantee or any unused hosting fees that may be due to you.  The cancellation request form is there for YOUR PROTECTION.  There are questions on the form that only you, the web site owner, will be able to answer.  This helps us to ensure that your cancellation request is genuine.  WE DO NOT TAKE CANCELLATION REQUESTS VIA TELEPHONE OR EMAIL.  Additionally, the cancellation request form will provide you with a UNIQUE CANCELLATION ID.  This ID will be your proof of your intent to cancel.  You may not 'pre-date' your cancellation request.  The date of cancellation shall be the date of your request, or any date in the future that you so choose.  Domain registration fees are non-refundable.

Seeking Support For Hosting Accounts, Domains & Billing Issues --- The following are the only accepted ways to seek support for any issue you may have in regard to your web hosting account.