Terms of Services
Revision date: January 7, 2014

All services provided by VIPNode ("VIPNode, a TeamRSS, LLC Company") 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 VIPNode from any claims resulting from the use of service which damages the subscriber or any other party.

This document remains in force for all services including all sections below unless otherwise specified in writing for managed services clients or special engagements signed and confirmed by an appropriate management agent of TeamRSS, LLC.

Prohibited are sites that promote any illegal activity or present content that may be damaging to VIPNode' servers, or any other server on the Internet. Links to such materials are also prohibited.

Examples of unacceptable content or links:

pirated software
hacker programs or archives
Warez sites

NOTICE: IF YOUR ACCOUNT IS FOUND TO CONTAIN ILLEGAL ACTIVITY, TUNNELING APPLICATIONS, HARMFUL PROGRAMS OR SCRIPTS, VPN SERVICES WITHOUT A VPN-SPECIFIC ACCOUNT, ILLEGAL MP3 FILES, PIRATED SOFTWARE, HACKER PROGRAMS, WAREZ PROGRAMS, OR ANY OTHER ILLEGAL FILES, YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE TERMINATED IMMEDIATELY, WITHOUT NOTICE, AND A $50.00 CANCELLATION FEE WILL APPLY. ADDITIONALLY, VIPNode WILL NOTIFY THE PROPER AUTHORITIES OF YOUR ACTIONS.

Traffic Usage
All account plans come with a predetermined amount of traffic allowance. We monitor all accounts and bill $1.00 for each gig of traffic exceeded. This amount is not prorated, meaning that 1 mb - 1 gig will be treated and billed as the same. Port speed is an indication of connectivity speed to our internal network and may not be indicative of connection speed outside of our network. Any abuse of unmetered connections (including high-bandwidth streaming, remote file hosting, content delivery, illegal activity, etc) is prohibited and subject to termination without refund of pre-payment and forfetuire of payment owed to VIPNode until completion of the account's agreement.

IRC
We currently do not allow IRC or IRC bots to be operated on our servers.

Server Abuse
Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server or customer of VIPNode is strictly prohibited. As our customer you are responsible for all your accounts. Should you or any file/process within your account or holdings violate the Terms of Services outlined within or security and stability of any servers internal or external Including but not limited to high load, memory utilization, security breaches, etc.), your account will be cancelled without chance of refund.

Refusal of Service
We reserve the right to refuse, cancel or suspend service, at our sole discretion. Shared hosting accounts used for resale purposes will be terminated without notice or refund.

All sub-networks, distributive hosting sites and dedicated servers of VIPNode must adhere to the above policies, with the exception of system resources in respect to dedicated servers.

Billing
By the Account Activation Date of each month, VIPNode shall either:

(1) debit the client's credit card (when such information has been provided by the client); or

(2) deliver, by e-mail or regular mail, an invoice in accordance with the applicable Service Fees for services rendered for the current month. When an invoice is delivered to the client, payment shall be remitted to VIPNode by no later than the specified payment due date. VIPNode shall be entitled to immediately terminate this agreement for client's failure to make timely payments. You will be provided with an invoice on a monthly basis. All credit cards are billed automatically on a monthly basis. It is the client's responsibility to ensure that they have sufficient credit to cover this transaction. In the event that there is insufficient credit, we will send an e-mail notification, at which point we will need to be provided with another credit card account number within 24 hours. If we do not receive a response within 24 hours, the account, and all accounts under that account plan, will be suspended.

Service Fees
Certain services carry a setup fee charged by VIPNode to client, which must be paid by client in order to have use of said services. If client terminates this agreement, client shall be responsible for any and all outstanding fees owed to VIPNode and agrees to pay any and all fees incurred by client. Because the services are provided on a monthly basis, the client will be responsible for service fees incurred each month, regardless of when client provides notice of termination. Thus, for example, if the client provides notice of termination on the 15th day of a particular month, the client will be responsible for service fees for the entire month, and such fees will not be pro-rated or refunded.

Money back guarantee & refund policy
We do not generally refund cancelled contracts. For example, if your contract is quarterly and you request a refund after two months, no refunds will be admitted. No refunds are issued for setup charges, add-on charges, domain-registrations, add-on purchases, SSL certificates or overage charges. In case of AUP violations, any and all refunds are forfeited. Any monthly-billed account may cancel within 30 days of the initial order and receive a full refund for hosting charges only, limited to $40 USD.

Account Deactivations
Any account or service deactivated due to non-payment will require a reactivation fee of $20.00 prior to reactivation.

Cancellation Refunds
We DO NOT refund partial monthly fees to accounts. We require 30 days notice for a cancellation.

Refusal of Service
We reserve the right to refuse, cancel or suspend service, at our sole discretion.

Limitation of Liability
VIPNode shall not be responsible for any claimed damages, including incidental and consequential damages, which may arise from VIPNode's servers going off-line or being unavailable for any reason whatsoever. Furthermore, VIPNode 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 VIPNode's servers. All damages shall be limited to the immediate termination of service.

Violations
Violations of these Acceptable Use Policies should be referred to noc@vipnode.net. All complaints will be investigated promptly. Failure to follow any term or condition will be grounds for immediate account deactivation.

Disclaimer
VIPNode cannot be held liable for system down time, crashes or data loss. We cannot be held liable for any predicated estimate of profits which a client would have gained if their site was functioning. Certain services provided by VIPNode are resold. Thus, certain equipment, routing, software and programming used by VIPNode are not directly owned or written by VIPNode. Moreover, VIPNode holds no responsibility for the use of our clients' accounts. Failure to comply with any terms or conditions will result in the automatic deactivation of the account in question. We reserve the right to remove any account, without advance notice for any reason without restitution, as VIPNode sees fit.

Account Activation
By activating your account with VIPNode, you agree to the above policies and disclaimer. Upon requesting activation of an account, you are required to accept these policies, guidelines and disclaimer, and a copy of your acceptance is forwarded along with your activation request to be maintained with your account information.

NOTICE: If you sign up for an account and fail to comply with these terms, no refunds will be given. We will, however, advise you by e-mail or phone prior to taking any action to provide you with an opportunity to correct the problem.

Server Uptime Guarantee
Although VIPNode has an excellent record for reliability, we do not offer an uptime guarantee. However, our network and servers are monitored continuously, and are rarely down except for scheduled maintenance and hardware and software upgrades.

VIPNode reserves the right to amend any or all of the above policies, guidelines and disclaimer without notification. We also retain the right to increase any pricing and make changes to our account plans without notification.

Privacy
Revision date: December 1, 2011

VIPNode has created this privacy statement in order to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy. The following discloses the information gathering and dissemination practices for this Web site.

Information Automatically Logged

We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server and to administer our Web site. We use this information for no other reason.

Order Forms

Our site uses an order form for customers to request services. (128 bit encryption). We collect sensitive information which is used only for our purpose, not third party receives any type of information from us.

Contact information from the order forms is used to get in touch with the customer when necessary.

Billing information that is collected is used to bill the user for services.

Unique identifiers are collected from Web site visitors to verify the user's identity.

Demographic and profile data is also collected at our site.

We use this data to tailor our visitor's experience at our site showing them content that we think they might be interested in, and displaying the content according to their preferences.

Security

This site has security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of the information under our control. We use strong SSL encryption to ensure your privacy.

Third Parties

Information collected on this site is strictly for our use, NO OTHER OUTSIDE PERSONS MAY VIEW YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION SUCH BILLING INFORMATION, ETC.

Contacting the Web Site

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this site, or your dealings with this Web site, you can contact: noc@vipnode.net

Acceptable Use Policy
Revision date: December 1, 2011

As a provider of web site hosting and other Internet-related services, VIPNode offers its customer (also known as "Subscribers") and their customers and users the means to acquire and disseminate a wealth of public, private, commercial and non-commercial information. VIPNode respects that the Internet provides a forum for free and open discussion and dissemination of information. However, when there are competing interests at issue, VIPNode reserves the right to take certain preventive or corrective actions. In order to protect these competing interests, VIPNode 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 using VIPNode's services. This AUP will be revised from time to time.

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 it, both in the information they acquire and in the information they disseminate to others. When subscribers obtain information through the Internet, they must keep in mind that VIPNode cannot monitor, verify, warrant or vouch for the accuracy and quality of the information they acquire. For this reason, the subscriber must exercise his or her best judgment in relying on information obtained from the Internet, and also should be aware that some material posted to the Internet may be sexually explicit or otherwise offensive. Because VIPNode cannot monitor or censor the Internet, and will not attempt to do so, VIPNode cannot accept any responsibility for injury to its subscribers resulting from inaccurate, unsuitable, offensive or illegal Internet communications.

When subscribers disseminate information from the Internet, they must keep in mind that VIPNode does not review, edit, censor or take responsibility for any information its subscribers 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 created is carried over VIPNode's network and may reach a large number of people, including both subscribers and non-subscribers of VIPNode, subscribers' postings to the Internet may affect other subscribers and may affect VIPNode's goodwill, business, reputation or operations. For these reasons, subscribers violate VIPNode policy and the Service Agreement when they, their customers, affiliates or subsidiaries engage in the following prohibited activities:

Spamming:
Sending unsolicited bulk and/or commercial information over the Internet. It is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward VIPNode, but also because it can overload VIPnode's network and disrupt service to VIPNode's subscribers. Also, maintaining an open SMTP relay is prohibited. When a complaint is received, VIPNode will investigate and shutdown the account that is SPAMing. A $250 charge for violating this policy will be charged to the person initiating the SPAM. Furthermore VIPNode reserves the right to prosecute for this violation. A $1.00 charge will be assessed PER EMAIL sent should VIPNode choose to pursue and prosecute.

Audio/Video Streaming:
Audio/Video Streaming is not hosting friendly. As such, VIPNode does not allow any streaming of audio or video content. Offending accounts will be suspended without noticed or terminated.

Adult-Oriented Content:
VIPNode does not allow adult content and will suspend/terminate any offending account.

Large File Policy:
VIPNode is not for file hosting and distribution - as such, customers may not host any files larger than 50MB in size that are observed to be available for the sole purpose of download. Such files include but are not limited to .ISO, audio/video files, .EXE files. If you are unsure whether your file is against this policy, please e-mail noc@vipnode.net.

Obscene Speech or Materials:
Using VIPNode's network to advertise, transmit, store, post, display, or otherwise make available child pornography or obscene speech or material is prohibited. VIPNode is required by law to notify law enforcement agencies when it becomes aware of the presence of child pornography on or being transmitted through its network.

Defamatory or Abusive Language:
Using VIPNode's network as a means to transmit or post negative, defamatory, harassing, abusive or threatening language.

Forging of Headers:
Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the originator of the message.

Illegal or Unauthorized Access to Other Computers or Networks:
Accessing, illegally or without authorization, computers, accounts or networks belonging to another party, or attempting to penetrate security measures of another individual's system (often known as "hacking"). Also, any activity that may be used as a precursor to an attempted system penetration (i.e., port scan, stealth scan or other information-gathering activity).

Distribution of Internet Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses or Other Destructive Activities:
Distributing information regarding the creation of and sending Internet viruses, worms, Trojan horses, pinging, flooding, mail bombing or denial of service attacks. Also, activities that disrupt the use of or interfere with the ability of others to effectively use the network or any connected network, system, service or equipment.

Facilitation a Violation of this AUP:
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.

Export Control Violations:
Exporting encryption software over the Internet or otherwise, to points outside the United States.

Usenet Groups:
VIPNode reserves the right not to accept postings from newsgroups where we have actual knowledge that the content of the newsgroup violates the AUP.

Other Illegal Activities:
Engaging in activities that are determined to be illegal, including, but not limited to, advertising, transmitting or otherwise making available ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, fraudulently charging credit cards and pirating software.

Other Activities:
Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that VIPNode determines to be harmful to its subscribers, operations, reputation, goodwill or customer relations.

As we have pointed out, the responsibility for avoiding harmful activities just described rests primarily with the subscriber. VIPNode will not, as an ordinary practice, monitor the communications of its subscribers to ensure that the comply with VIPNode's policy or applicable law. However, when VIPNode comes aware of harmful activities, it may take any action to stop the harmful activity, including, but not limited to, removal of information, shutting down a web site, implementing screening software designed to block offending transmissions, denying access to the Internet, or any other action deemed appropriate by VIPNode.

VIPNode is also aware that many of its subscribers are themselves providers of Internet services, and that information reaching VIPnode's facilities from those subscribers may have originated from a customer of the subscriber or from another third party. VIPnode does not require its subscribers who offer Internet services to monitor or censor transmissions or web sites created by customers of its subscribers. VIPNode reserves the right to directly take action against a customer of its subscribers. Also, VIPNode may take action against the VIPNode's subscriber because of activities of a customer of the subscriber, even though the action may affect other customers of the subscriber. Similarly, VIPNode anticipates that subscribers who offer Internet services will cooperate with VIPNode in any corrective or preventive action that VIPNode deems necessary. Failure to cooperate with such corrective or preventive measures is a violation of VIPNode policy.

VIPNode will not intentionally monitor private electronic mail messages sent or receive by its subscribers, unless required to do so by law, governmental authority or when public safety is at stake. VIPNode may, however, monitor its service electronically to determine that its facilities are operating satisfactorily. Also, VIPNode may disclose information, including, but not limited to, information concerning a subscriber, 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. VIPNode assumes no obligation to inform the subscriber that subscriber information has been provided and, in some cases, may be prohibited by law from giving such notice. Finally, VIPNode may disclose subscriber information or information transmitted over its network where necessary to protect VIPNode and others from harm, or where such disclosure is necessary to the proper operation of the system. However, VIPNode will never sell information to other services or outside companies.

VIPNode expects that its subscribers who provide Internet services to others will comply fully with all applicable laws concerning the privacy of online communications. A subscriber's failure to comply with those laws will violate VIPNode policy. Finally, VIPNode wishes to emphasize that, in signing the Service Agreement, subscribers indemnify VIPNode for any violation of the Service Agreement, law or VIPNode policy resulting in loss to VIPNode or the bringing of any claim against VIPNode by any third party. This means that, if VIPNode is sued because of a subscriber's or customer of a subscriber's activity, the subscriber will be responsible for payment of any damages awarded against VIPNode plus costs and reasonable attorney's fees.

We hope this AUP is helpful in clarifying the obligations of Internet users, including VIPNode and its subscribers, as responsible members of the Internet. Any complaints about a subscriber's violation of this AUP should be sent to noc@vipnode.net.