Terms of Service (TOS) and Use Agreement

Last Updated on 08/22/2019

Herein, the client shall be referenced as "The Client" and Granite Web Design Inc. (DBA: Granite Web) shall be referenced as "Service Provider".

The use of Service Provider and its hosting, ecommerce, backup, design, development and any other services provided are subject to the following terms and conditions.

  1. Acceptance of Terms
    The Client's use of any/all of the Service Provider's services indicates
    their acceptance of the any all applicable terms of service described below.
  2. Legal Use Only
    Service Provider's services may not be used for illegal purposes, or in support of illegal activities.
  3. Legal Authorities/Investigations
    Service Provider reserves the right to cooperate with legal authorities and/or injured third parties in the investigation of any suspected crime or civil wrong. Activities which are prohibited as potentially illegal include, but are not limited to:Unauthorized copying of copyrighted material including, but not limited to, digitization and distribution of photographs from magazines, books, or other copyrighted sources, and copyrighted software; posting or emailing of scams such as 'make-money-fast' schemes or 'pyramid/chain' letters; threatening bodily harm or property damage to individuals or groups; making fraudulent offers of products, items, or services originating from The Client's account; attempting to access the accounts of others; purposefully editing or deleting an accounts' bash_history file, attempting to penetrate beyond security measures of our or other systems (referred to as hacking) whether or not the intrusion results in corruption or loss of data; or harassing others by 'mail-bombing'. 'Mail-bombing' constitutes sending more than ten (10) similar mail messages to the same email address; forging any message header, in part or whole, of any electronic transmission, originating or passing through Service Provider services; distributing viruses to or from Service Provider systems.
  4. Anti-SPAM Policy
    SPAM is unsolicited broadcast or commercial email that is sent to addresses that do not affirmatively and verifiably request such material from that specific sender, including but not limited to advertising, surveys, information pieces, third party spam'ing, web site addresses, sales, and auctions.

    • Service Provider fully supports the CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act) Act of 2003, which essentially states that recipients must give 'affirmative consent' before receiving commercial email; recipients of commercial email have a right to decline, or opt-out, of receiving further commercial email; senders of commercial email cannot mislead recipients concerning the origin of the email or its content (i.e., the commercial nature of the email must also be obvious and clear); and senders must use approved methods to obtain recipients' email addresses. "Commercial email messages must include senders valid physical postal address. This can be the Client's current street address, a post office box the Client has registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a private mailbox the Client has registered with a commercial mail receiving agency established under Postal Service regulations." For more details see The CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business
    • Upon receipt of an unsolicited email complaint, web site owner will be contacted and asked to discontinue all unsolicited email broadcasts.
    • If a response is not received from web site owner within 24 hours, or unsolicited email continues to be sent from account, the account may be closed.
    • Opt-in mailing lists. The verified opt-in mailing list is the industry standard method for sending legitimate email broadcasts. Definition:An opt-in mailing list "must receive confirmation" from the email address respectively before the address can be added to a broadcast list. For example, email confirmation, or confirmation via a web page before the address is added to the mailing list is a common form of confirmation. Mailing lists without confirmation are in violation of these policies.
  1. Online Content & Ownership
    Service Provider abides by the same editorial and advertising standards followed by major U.S. magazines and general publications.

    • Service Provider fully supports the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement in a timely manner, and take reasonable action in respect to the guidelines specified in the DMCA. Trademark disputes are not covered within the DMCA; and complaints related to U. S. trademark law will be emailed to the owner of the website account respectively.
    • Pictures depicted nudity and/or content unacceptable for viewing or reading by minors is not allowed. Pornographic pictures, text or domain names will be cause for immediate account termination or suspension without prior notification.
    • Service Provider may not be used to host the following related web sites: Alcohol or Tobacco; illegal Drugs; hate groups; or web sites inappropriate for viewing by minors.
    • The Client hereby assumes sole responsibility for all of their online content hosted or provided by the service provider as part of a project.
    • The Client hereby agrees to abide by any and/all applicable US and international laws pertaining to any of their online content including and not limited to: content, accessibility, data privacy and disclosure.
    • The Service Provider reserves the right to remove any materials Service Provider does become aware of that are, in Service Provider's sole discretion, potentially illegal, could subject Service Provider to liability, or violate this policy.
  2. Fair Use and Limitations
    • Shared servers
      Use of shared server accounts for process heavy jobs, such as MUD, IRC or IRC Bots, or bulk emailing scripts are not allowed. Cron processes should not be scheduled to run more than once per 10 minutes without express permission from Service Provider staff. Scripts which have a perceivable affect on the stability or reliability of a shared web server will be disabled and notice will be sent to the manager of the account accordingly. As a general rule, individual processes may not consistently use over 20% of available server processes. In order to prevent the abuse of shared server email accounts the sending of email may be limited to 500 messages per hour as well as rate limiting due to bounce rates.
    • Dedicated or VPS servers
      Use is not limited in regard to the number of email messages which may be sent per hour, though opt-in requirements still apply (see above for details). Service Provider does not restrict rate limits beyond the physical limitations of the computer hardware associated with the account.
    • The above fair use and limitations also apply to all services/products that utilize our servers including but not limited to ecommerce and informational websites/pages and or any other content built and/or hosted for the client by Service Provider.
  3. Guarantees/Warranties
    • Shared Servers
      If the Client's shared hosting service has physical downtime that is not within 99.9% uptime for a given month, the Client may receive a pro-rated credit for each day that the services were affected and that the issue was reported by the Client.
    • Dedicated or VPS Servers
      If the Client's dedicated or VPS hosting service has physical downtime, the Client is covered by a network guarantee in which credit is prorated for the amount of time the server is down due to issues within our control. Examples of issues outside our control may include denial of service attacks, domain name registry errors, or network connection issues outside of our network.
    • To request a credit, the Client must contact the Service Provider and report the incident within 7 business days of the date of occurrence.
  4. Money Back Guarantees/Refunds
    • Shared Servers
      If the Client cancels within the first month, Service Provider will refund the hosting fee paid for the hosting plan. For all months thereafter, fees are not refundable after the start of the service period (the date when the Client's service is due).
      If the Client chooses to cancel, Service Provider will return any unused monthly hosting fees paid, less any other fees remaining due for services respectively.
    • Dedicated/VPS servers
      Due to the separate hardware and/or software costs associated with the setup of a dedicated or VPS server our money back guaranteed does not apply. Service Provider reserves the right to refund a prorated amount or no refund at all based on the circumstances of the Client's order. However, Service Provider will offer a pro-rated refund for any days remaining in the service period for which the Client paid, starting the day after the date of cancellation that the Client requested.
    • Other Services by Service Provider
      The above policies also apply to all services including but not limited to ecommerce and informational websites/pages or any other content built and hosted for the client by Service Provider.
    • Custom or third party services
      If the Client chooses to cancel, Service Provider will attempt to refund any unused monthly fees paid, though a refund may not be possible in all cases. Some services require prepayment through third party vendors and cannot be refunded.
    • For clients continuing their service with the Service Provider, any refunds will be issued as a credit to their account. For all others, refunds will be issued within 30 days of the cancellation and will be issued in the same form in which the original payment was received whenever possible.
  5. Limitation of liability for services
    The Client agrees that the Service Provider's entire liability, and the Client's exclusive remedy, with respect to any Services(s) provided under this Agreement and any breach of this Agreement is solely limited to the amount the Client paid for such Service(s).

    • The Service Provider, its officers, directors, employees, agents and subcontractors shall be NOT liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages resulting from the use or inability to use any of the Services or for the cost of procurement of substitute services.
    • The Client agrees to take full responsibility for files and data transferred, and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on our servers. Service Provider will not be responsible for any data loss from the Client's account, and under no circumstance will Service Provider be liable for damages of any kind for loss of account files or data on any Service Provider server or server associated with the services Service Provider provides to the Client.
    • The Client agrees to indemnify, defend and hold harmless Service Provider, its officers, directors, employees, agents and subcontractors from and against any and all claims, losses, liabilities, recoveries, judgments, penalties, fines, investigations, settlements, damages, expenses and costs (including without limitation reasonable attorneys’ fees) directly or indirectly resulting from third party claims or causes of action arising out of 1) any negligence or misconduct by the Client; 2) any failure by Client to comply with its representations and obligations under this agreement, including, but not limited to, infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party and injury to person or property caused by products or services sold or distributed over Client's Website, to the extent not caused by Service Provider’s negligence or misconduct; 4) Website violation of any and/all applicable US and international laws including and not limited to: content, accessibility, data privacy and disclosure.
  1. Indemnity
    The Client agrees to protect, defend, indemnify and hold harmless Service Provider and its officers, directors, employees, agents and subcontractors, from and against any and all claims, demands, costs, expenses, losses, liabilities and damages of every kind and nature (including, without limitation, reasonable attorneys' fees) imposed upon or incurred by Service Provider directly or indirectly arising from (i) The Client's use of and access to this Site or the Services found at this Site; (ii) The Client's violation of any provision of these Terms of Use or the policies or agreements which are incorporated herein; and/or (iii) The Client's violation of any third-party right, including without limitation any intellectual property or other proprietary right. The indemnification obligations under this section shall survive any termination or expiration of these Terms of Use or the Client's use of this Site or the Services through the Service Provider.
  2. Miscellaneous
    (i) The laws of the State of New York shall govern the validity and construction of this Agreement and any dispute arising out of or relating to this Agreement, without regard to the principles of conflict of laws; (ii) THE PARTIES SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE COURTS OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, AND AGREE TO VENUE IN SUFFOLK COUNTY, NEW YORK; (iii) a ruling by any court that one or more of the provisions contained in this Agreement is invalid, illegal or unenforceable in any respect shall not affect any other provision of this Agreement. Thereafter, this Agreement shall be construed as if the invalid, illegal, or unenforceable provision had been amended to the extent necessary to be enforceable within the jurisdiction of the court making the ruling and to preserve the transactions originally contemplated by this Agreement to the greatest extent possible; (iv) the section and subsection headings have been included for convenience only, are not part of this Agreement and shall not be taken as an interpretation of any provision of this Agreement.; (v) this Agreement may be amended, waived, changed, modified or discharged only by an agreement in writing signed by all of the parties; (vi) this Agreement represents the entire understanding of the parties with respect to the subject matter hereof, and there are no representations, promises, warranties, covenants or understandings with respect thereto other than those contained in this Agreement. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, it is expressly agreed that the terms of any purchase order issued by Customer with respect to the Hosting Services provided under this Agreement shall not be applicable and that any acceptance of such purchase order by Service Provider shall be for acknowledgment purposes only; (vii) failure to insist upon strict compliance with any of the terms, covenants or conditions of this Agreement shall not be deemed a waiver of that term, covenant or condition or of any other term, covenant or condition of this Agreement. Any waiver or relinquishment of any right or power hereunder at any one or more times shall not be deemed a waiver or relinquishment of that right or power at any other time; (viii) the remedies set forth in this Agreement are cumulative and are in addition to any other remedies allowed by law. Resort to one form of remedy shall not constitute a waiver of alternate remedies; (ix) wherever used in this Agreement, the singular shall include the plural, and the plural shall include the singular. The use of any gender, tense or conjugation shall include all genders, tenses and conjugations; (x) the Parties are independent contractors and nothing contained herein shall constitute this arrangement to be employment, a joint venture, or a partnership; and (xi) this Agreement is only between Service Provider and Customer, and does not make any third-party a beneficiary of this Agreement, whether known or contemplated by either party. Further, this Agreement does not make Customer a third party beneficiary of any agreement that Service Provider may have with third parties, nor does this Agreement make Service Provider a third-party beneficiary of any agreement that Customer may have with third parties.
  3. Arbitration
    Any disputes in excess of $1,000 (or the maximum limit for small claims court) arising out of this Contract shall be submitted to binding arbitration before the Joint Ethics Committee or a mutually agreed upon Arbitrator suitor pursuant to the rules of the American Arbitration Association. The Arbitrator's award shall be final, and judgment may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof. The non-prevailing party shall pay all arbitration and court costs, reasonable attorney's fees and legal interest on any award or judgment in favor of the other party.
  4. Revisions
    Service Provider reserves the right to revise its terms, conditions and acceptable use policy at any time.

For further explanation of any portion this document, and the terms set herein, or to determine whether the Client's intended activities are permissible under the terms of this document, please contact us, or call 631.580.1632.