Privacy Policy

 What you can expect while using StarrHost’s website

Welcome to StarrHost! StarrHost provides web hosting to clients worldwide, and we have a responsibility to protect each client and to provide the best services available. We pride ourselves on customer service and availability as well as leader in the hosting industry. All clients of StarrHost are subject to the following terms of service.

All we ask is that you follow a few simple rules so everyone can enjoy the greatest hosting around! So please be sure you have read, and understood, our Privacy Policy & Terms and Conditions. Members who do not follow these terms and conditions will find their entire web site removed and/or possibly deleted, without prior notice. The interpretation of these guidelines is at the sole discretion of the personnel of StarrHost and their officers and partners.

Terms & Conditions

While using our website, what is expected and required from you. Billing, Acceptable Use, Limitations of Liability and other important information.

 

Indemnification Policy

You agree to use all StarrHost services and facilities at your own risk. StarrHost specifically disclaims all warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose.

In no event shall StarrHost be liable for any loss, or loss of data, or other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages. Customer agrees that it shall defend, indemnify, save and hold StarrHost harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims, including reasonable attorney’s fees asserted against StarrHost, its agents, its customers, partners, officers and employees, that may arise or result from any service provided or performed or agreed to be performed or any product sold by customer, it’s agents, employees or assigns. Customer agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless StarrHost against liabilities arising out of any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with StarrHost ‘s server.

StarrHost is not responsible for the content of any personal home page, nor do the opinions or ideas expressed in user-generated web pages necessarily reflect those of StarrHost. The contents of user-generated web pages are neither reviewed nor censored in any way before they appear on StarrHost servers.

StarrHost reserves the right to intervene with any of the sites hosted on its servers in the interest of its customers. Any material supplied by customer infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party copyright infringement any defective products sold to customer from StarrHost’s server. StarrHost shall be the sole judge of what violates this Policy.

Billing:

At this time we bill monthly, quarterly, semi-annually and annually, depending upon the plan or service chosen. If you are not satisfied within your first 30 days we would be happy to provide you with a full refund (For some special offers the money-back-guaranteed day will be varied; and Domain Name registration fees are nonrefundable). The StarrHost ’30 Day Money Back Guarantee’ applies ONLY to 1 month (month-to-month) subscriptions or payment terms. Refunds are ONLY granted within the first 30 days of account activation. StarrHost DOES NOT refund on any other payment terms, such as quarterly or annually, etc. as this puts undue financial stress on StarrHost. For this reason, if you are unsure whether or not you wish to continue with our services, we strongly recommend starting out with the one month term to start.

We accept Visa, Master Card, American Express, Discover Card via PayPal or Stripe. We will do local processing through either Stripe or Square (manual processing). Clients are encouraged to pay by PayPal or Square as it is the easiest way to render payment. Additionally, you may wish to set up recurring billing via PayPal during checkout or on your billing anniversary date. Their are no contract periods but for each successive period, your contract is automatically renewed unless we are notified through our Cancellation Request form within your client/members area. In order to process or cancel service this form must be completed by the account owner.

Both verbal and written contractual agreements that are made by and between parties are upheld to the fullest extent of the law. It is considered to be a breach of contract when a customer of StarrHost either fails to abide to the contract or transfers/leaves StarrHost hosting and servers/network. At that time, all monies due, must be paid in full within 30 days from that activity. Suitable payment arrangements may be considered or made, however StarrHost will make the final decision whether to accept such arrangement or whether payment in full must be made within 30 days. If a payment arrangement is made, any future breach of agreement may result in a civil suit being filed against you/your company, to recoup any monies for services rendered.

Refunds of virtual private servers, virtual machines or dedicated servers are not authorized or granted because equipment is physically purchased by StarrHost for use and is locked into an agreement of at least one month with the datacenter. REFUNDS WILL NOT BE PROVIDED FOR THESE SERVICES REGARDLESS OF PAYMENT TERM!

StarrHost and/or its operators will not and can not be held liable for any loss or gain either financial or personal to the fullest extent permissible by law. All sites hosted by StarrHost are fully and completely the responsibility of the customer paying for the hosting. StarrHost will make a full faith effort to fulfill the agreed hosting plan to the best of its ability and must state, even though downtime is very rare, it may happen. If server downtime exceeds more than 6 hours, we will pro-rate all subscriptions and credit users accounts at the users request to make up for lost hosting time.

Late Payments:

All accounts are billed according to the dates they were first activated on. StarrHost bills 7 days in advance of due dates and allows 3 days grace period (to allow for non-suspension, however, late fees apply) to provide for late payments in which time you will receive a daily notice informing you of your service suspension date. If payment is not made within this time or by the 3rd and final late notice, your account will be automatically suspended for non-payment. If payment is later made, your account will automatically restore to an active state, which is immediate.

Late fees will be assessed at 10% of the invoice amount due if not paid by the due date. “Grace period” is for account suspension only. Any payments made after the due date, will incur a 10% late fee in addition to the normal invoiced amount.

Acceptable Use Policy:

All services provided by StarrHost may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data or material in violation of any United States Federal, State or City law is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: copyrighted material, material we judge to be threatening or obscene, or material protected by trade secret and other statute. The subscriber agrees to indemnify and hold harmless StarrHost and its employees from any claims resulting from the use of the service which damages the subscriber or any other party. Our acceptable use policy is actively and strictly enforced. Offending content or users are suspended from our network, usually as soon as they are discovered, although we will always inform you when and why any action has been taken. Pornography is prohibited on all StarrHost servers. This includes sites that include sexually explicit or hardcore images and/or advertising.

The term ‘Unmetered’ and/or ‘Unlimited’ applies to files and items that are needed to host and run your website and/or business. This means we will not monitor and put a number on the amount you use. You do not have unmetered or unlimited ram or cpu usage unless you are on your own virtual private server or dedicated server with resources allocated directly to your account(s). Use of StarrHost servers prohibits the storage of home computer files (aka backups) / mp3,4 / Mass storage of software / movies / your account can host files pertaining to running your website and or clients as long as they are not movie files or mp3s. Streaming media is allowed for SHOUTcast customers only. Other forms of streaming media should be embedded into your page and not hosted directly on StarrHost servers to allow the fastest connection and load times possible for all persons that are hosted on the servers.

It is strictly prohibited to use StarrHost servers or your hosting account space for “data warehousing.” This means using server space as storage for large files which are only linked from other sites or backup of hard drives either personal or business or other types of backup media, etc.

You may not use StarrHost servers to send OR relay unsolicited email (SPAM) to promote your site. This is a ZERO tolerance policy and violators will have their account immediately suspended without notice and possibly deleted by StarrHost personnel. Mass Email of ANY kind is strictly prohibited and any account found doing it will be deleted and charged $100/hour for cleanup, blacklisting and server reputation repair services if our investigation reveals that the server IP has been placed on any world wide IP blacklists because of your violations of this agreement. Accounts found violating this, will be charged $10 per email sent after a demand to stop email has been sent to the account owner by email by StarrHost.

You must provide a VALID Email address or account suspension and/or deletion may occur at the time we become aware of this. A valid email address is needed to receive important updates and service notifications. All marketing emails from StarrHost are opt-out at anytime.

The ONLY way to keep your account active is through the selected payment method of the plan you purchased. Failure to pay on the date due will result in account suspension after 3 days and full account deletion in 21 days. If payment comes back grossly fraudulent from one of our payment processors the account will be deleted without question.

Your site needs to remain in an *ACTIVE* status – that is, it is either receiving ‘hits’ or is being updated/posted to. Sites that either receive no hits or are not updated for a period of more than 30 days will be considered ‘inactive’ and may be removed by StarrHost to make room for other users and keep the efficiency of the server at the maximum allowed. Sites that are installed with default content such as WordPress or Lorem Ipsum text content are included in this, as are sites that are suspended for a period of more than 30 days. Suspended accounts may be automatically terminated without advance notice. It is the account holders responsibility to ensure a current backup of the site exists, StarrHost is not responsible for creating or maintaining a backup of individual accounts. Only a backup as stated in these terms of service. StarrHost takes precautionary measures to backup all items on the server for security and hardware failure only, twice daily. Backups are available to customers via their cPanel account. For further instructions on how to retrieve a backup, please reference the knowledgebase.

If your account is hosted on a shared server (unless you have purchased a vps or dedicated server, you are subject to this provision), each cpanel account is subject to a 20% server resource use policy. No single account can maintain a server cpu usage that last longer than 1 1/2 minutes that exceeds 20% of the server available power and/or more than the allocated memory set by server administrators.

StarrHost offers an included online backup service, using the R1Soft Backup Service that you can find within your cPanel area. You have unfettered access to this at any time. Within your hosting account, you are limited to a TOTAL of 2 backups allowed within your cpanel account at any one time due to server space. Please understand that your use of this service is voluntary and at your own risk. It is very easy to use and administer. Please see our knowledgebase for instructions on its proper use. Failure to remain within the backup guidelines will result in StarrHost personnel deleting all but your most 2 recent backups within your cPanel account. Please download and store your backups if you need more than this. You must NOT keep more than 2 backup files at any one time on the server for any cPanel account, this helps in minimizing backup times and other important server jobs. Failure to comply with this, may result in your accounts being suspended until this requirement is met.

Subscriber acknowledges that the service provided is of such a nature that service can be interrupted for many reasons other than the negligence of the company and that damages resulting from any interruption of service are difficult to ascertain. Therefore, subscriber agrees that the company shall not be liable for any damages arising from such causes beyond the direct and exclusive control of the company.

Subscriber further acknowledges that the company’s liability for its own negligence may not in any event exceed an amount equivalent to charges payable by subscriber for services during the period damages occurred. In no event shall the company be liable for any special or consequential damages, loss or injury.

Illegality In any form, including but not limited to the unauthorized distribution or copying of copyrighted software or other data, harassment, fraud, trafficking in obscene material. Undesirable Content Certain types of content are not allowed on our network. We do not host adult content of any description. Content relating to Hacking, Cracking, Warez, Torrents and IRC is not allowed under any circumstance. Software, audio and video downloads may only be hosted if you are the writer and copyright owner of the resources or you have a right to distribute the materials. Accounts suspended due to content or AUP violation are not refunded under any circumstances. This is a zero tolerance policy. Violations of this nature will result in immediate account suspension and possible termination pending review by StarrHost staff.

Abuse towards any StarrHost staff, officers, partners or other 3rd parties or clients on our network is not tolerated and will authorize StarrHost personnel to suspend all hosting accounts, pending termination after StarrHost review. Slanderous remarks of or about StarrHost or StarrHost.com on the internet is grounds for immediate account termination. This does not include valid and warranted reviews of StarrHost and StarrHost reserves the right to block any site, in its opinion, due to inappropriate behavior, conduct or content by the webmaster towards StarrHost, its staff or its users, which has been validated on public or private forums.

Resellers NOTE!! ALL level of resellers (including your own sub-resellers) are responsible for maintaining accuracy and accountability of their cPanel accounts. Any cPanel account considered not active MUST BE terminated and removed from the server to ensure reliability, efficiency and security of the server. Failure to do so, will result in the cPanel account being removed by StarrHost personnel after a full backup has been taken and provided to the reseller. The term active is defined as the cPanel/domain must be pointing to a resource that is within StarrHost control. If the domain is not hosted on or pointed to StarrHost servers, it is considered to be inactive and therefore needs to be removed.

ALL levels of resellers are to provide tier 1 support to their clients and sub-resellers. StarrHost will not directly support your clients directly unless a purchase of one of our support plans has been made. As a reseller, you may open a support ticket and a member of the support staff will be glad to assist you and point you in the right direction if you cannot provide the support needed.

Banned Scripts:

The following scripts are banned from use on our servers and may not be uploaded or run. Reasons for banning them include adverse effects on server load, invitations to hackers/spammers/criminal activity, etc. This includes but is not limited to:

  • IRC egg drops
  • Proxy servers
  • Mail bombers
  • Anonymous mailers
  • IP spoofers
  • Port scanners
  • Hivemail
  • HyIP and ForEx (Foreign Exchange) sites are prohibited.
  • Paid-to-Click (PTC) sites are not allowed. If discovered, the account will be immediately suspended and deleted.
  • Telnet or SSH Access Scripts
  • nph-proxy (and other scripts what operates like proxy)
  • UBB (Ultimate Bulletin Board, all versions)
  • lstmrge.cgi
  • phpShell
  • FormMail.cgi, FormMail.pl from Matt’s Script Archive are not allowed.

You may not set up a ‘gateway’ site on any of the StarrHost servers. A ‘gateway’ site is one which serves only as an entrance to the actual site located on a non-StarrHost
server.

Any type of account script or control that interferes with root control of any account will be viewed as a hack attempt or threat and the complete account will be immediately suspended when found. An email will be sent to the account owner and the site suspension will not be lifted until the account has been completely cleaned and verified by StarrHost personnel.

Rapid Leech and other forms of leeching products as well as continuously streaming media is prohibited unless you have purchased one of StarrHost’s streaming media plans.

Any CGI based message forums which use flat file databases are often found to use excessive system resources, to avoid disappointment in advance, please use a PHP/ASP message forum. The use of web cam applications which maintain a constant FTP connection uploading an image at regular intervals is also forbidden as this is considered to be ‘streaming content.’

Furthermore, users shall not include content, or internet links to content on the site that contain, promote, or involve any of the following. Violation will authorize StarrHost
personnel to automatically suspend, delete, retain and submit all illegal content to local and/or federal authorities. If any of the below content is discovered, StarrHost reserves the right to refuse the original owner the content. Examples include but are not limited to:

  • Child Pornography
  • Hate content
  • Threatening, racial, or otherwise abusive content
  • Any and all content inciting, instructing, or promoting illegal activities
  • Fraud, MLM (Multi-Level Marketing), Pyramid/Ponzi schemes or any other activities deemed to be fraudulent
  • Hacking/Cracking, cracks, SPAM software or any material that contains a virus or any other harmful code

LIMITATION OF LIABILITY:

StarrHost shall not be responsible for any claimed damages, including incidental and consequential damages, which may arise from StarrHost servers going off-line or being unavailable for any reason whatsoever. Furthermore, StarrHost 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 StarrHost servers. All damages shall be limited to the immediate termination of service. You do not have permission to copy or reproduce any page, image, content, verbiage or other StarrHost website content without the express prior written consent of the original copyright owner of that content.

Persons under age 18 may not become a member of StarrHost without a parents written consent, signed and emailed to StarrHost. The company takes the protection of child online privacy very important and will not jeopardize the safety of those minors. For that reason, it is our policy not to collect or maintain information at our web sites from those we actually know are under 18 and no part of our web sites is structured to attract anyone under 18.

In the event that an account is questionable in StarrHost opinion, we retain the right to acquire a valid and current form of government or officially procured photo identification for verification purposes only. StarrHost employes MaxMind software and phone verification services to ensure the highest possible level of security for our clients. Placing a fraudulent order enables StarrHost the right to pursue any entity attempting to defraud us, which may include all legal and court costs and recovery fees to offset any suffered damages.

Furthermore, it is agreed that any person(s) or entity(ies) found to be in violation of these terms of service shall forfeit all funds collected by StarrHost and will be denied a refund, in part or in full.

DISCLAIMER:

StarrHost cannot be held liable for system downtime, crashes, or data loss. We cannot be held liable for any predicted estimate of profits in which a client would have gained if their site was functioning. Certain services provided by StarrHost are resold. Thus, certain equipment, routing, software, and programming used by StarrHost are not directly owned or written by StarrHost. Moreover, StarrHost holds no responsibility for the use of our clients accounts. If any terms or conditions are failed to be followed, the account in question will be automatically deactivated. We reserve the right to remove any account without advanced notice for any reason without restitution as StarrHost sees fit.

FURTHERMORE, StarrHost retains the right to change any or all of the above Policies, Guidelines, and Disclaimer without notification.

 

Updated February 16, 2020
Reviewed March 3, 2023