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Hosting terms and conditions & acceptable use policy

Please read the following terms and conditions and acceptable user policy carefully. They are in place to ensure that everyone has fair access to our service, that you comply with the law, and so that you understand your rights and obligations.

This is a legal contract between you (either an individual or legal entity) ("you"/"your") and Multimedia Australia Pty. Ltd. Australian Company Number 096 830 394, ("Multimedia Australia"/"us") for the provision of a website hosting service ("hosting service").

By entering into a Multimedia Australia hosting agreement (ordering a hosting service), you agree that you have read and agree to this contract unmodified and in its entirety.

Accuracy of information

You warrant that all information you supply to Multimedia Australia about you is correct.

Billing

You agree to pay all costs associated with your hosting service, including any applicable taxes, as outlined at the time of purchase. You authorise Multimedia Australia or its appointed third party to automatically bill you for the hosting service using either the payment method chosen by you at the time of ordering or by another suitable method chosen by Multimedia Australia. If you fail to make a payment when it is due, Multimedia Australia may cancel your hosting service.

You must pay for your hosting service even if you have not pointed a domain name to your hosting account, your computer isn't working or you haven't uploaded/correctly uploaded your website.

If your payment by credit card is dishonoured, you must make your payment to Multimedia Australia by an alternative means, as chosen by us.

Billing period

A billing period commences at the time of ordering and will automatically renew towards the end of each billing period until you cancel the hosting service. For example, if you order a hosting service paid monthly on the 15th of a month, your billing period will commence on the 15th and end on the 14th of the next month. Billing periods are recurring until you cancel your hosting service.

Included free software

If your hosting plan includes free software, you will be sent an email containing download URLs and your registration code(s) shortly after ordering. The software is supplied as a bonus extra, and is not required to host your website. Each hosting account is entitled to one software license package. Use of each software program is subject to the license agreement that accompanies it. Software supplied is compatible on most computers running Windows 98 or higher – please contact Multimedia Australia for full system requirement information. Software is selected by Multimedia Australia from Multimedia Australia's product range. The value of the software quoted was valid at the time of publication, but is subject to change at any time. The software is not exchangeable or redeemable for cash.

You are permitted to keep the free software if you cancel your hosting service with us provided that you hosted your site with us for at least one month and you paid for the entire billing period in full. Upon cancellation, you will no longer be entitled to free software upgrades for those products.

Securing your site

You must take reasonable steps to ensure that any scripts or programs you run on your site are correctly set up/configured so that they do not make your site or other sites hosted by Multimedia Australia vulnerable to hacking. You agree that you will promptly rectify any security vulnerability upon being asked to do so by us, and understand that a failure to make such corrections may result in the cancellation of your hosting service.

Maintaining backups

Although backups of your site may be made on a regular basis, the availability of backup data can not be guaranteed, and we do not take responsibility for lost data. It is your obligation to ensure you keep your own regular backups of all data hosted with us (including but not limited to files, databases and email) so that you can restore it in the event of an unrecoverable server failure.

Domain name registrations

Web hosting costs exclude domain name registrations. If you do not already have a domain name, you will need to register one so that you can host your site. You can register a domain name from the Multimedia Australia website or by using a third party domain name registrar.

Pointing your domain name to Multimedia Australia

Whenever you organise website hosting, you will need to modify your domain name so that it "links" to your hosting account once it is set up. You will need to do this by following the instructions you receive upon the completion of your order. If you require assistance to link your domain name to Multimedia Australia, you can contact our free support service for assistance.

Bandwidth

You will not be charged excess bandwidth fees - upon reaching your allocated monthly bandwidth transfer limit, traffic to your site will be temporarily suspended until either the next month or if you upgrade your hosting account.

Bandwidth is measured on a per-month basis. Unused bandwidth does not transfer to the next month.

All bandwidth your hosting service uses will contribute to your allocated bandwidth limit, even if the bandwidth use arose from unauthorised use of your hosting service.

Server resources

The website/scripts etc. you host from your hosting service shall not use excessive server processing resources for prolonged periods of time.

Suitability of hosting service

It is your responsibility to ensure that the hosting service you choose is suitable for your requirements.

Receipt of notifications from us

You consent to us sending you occasional emails to notify you of important information regarding your hosting service.

To protect the security of your hosting service, you understand that we will never send you email requiring you to respond with your personal or login details unless we are responding directly to a request you made to contact us. If you need to supply/update your details with us, always visit our site by typing www.hostingreliance.com directly into your Web browser's address bar.

Outsourcing

Multimedia Australia might outsource one or more aspects of the hosting service either in part or in entirety to a third party. Multimedia Australia may not be liable for acts or omissions by such third parties.

Protecting your privacy

You acknowledge that you have read and agree to our privacy statement using the link located at the bottom of every page throughout the Multimedia Australia site. It contains important information about how we protect your privacy while you use our service. If your hosting service is transferred to a third party, your details may also be transferred subject to our privacy statement.

Use of the service

You are responsible for all content located on your hosting service, even if you provide access to your hosting service to one or more third parties.

It is your responsibility to ensure that your website does not violate the law and complies with copyright, trademarks, patents and other applicable intellectual property requirements.

You may not host or link to illegal content (including but not limited to pirated software and copyrighted material you do not hold legal title for), pornography, IRC bots, discriminatory/hate material, hacking/piracy information, or any other material reasonably deemed offensive or inappropriate. You may not host material that may mislead or deceive or use the hosting service to commit fraud or other illegal/unethical activities.

Multimedia Australia or its contractors may be required by law/directed by law enforcement agencies to remove/prevent access to prohibited content from your hosting service. Multimedia Australia shall take all necessary steps to comply with such requirements, which may involve the immediate termination of your hosting service. Multimedia Australia may also make access logs of your use of the hosting service available to law enforcement agencies/courts upon request.

You may not use your hosting service to send unsolicited email (spam).

You may not state that Multimedia Australia/Multimedia Australia Pty. Ltd. (or any of the brands we operate) endorse(s) or otherwise agrees to the content of your site.

The hosting service can be used for personal or business/corporate websites.

If you website makes software downloads available, you must own or have the owner's permission to do so.

You may not resell any or part of your hosting service to a third party without prior express written permission from Multimedia Australia.

You must take reasonable steps to choose a secure username and password to use with the hosting service and store it securely. You may not disclose your username and password to a third party. Multimedia Australia shall not be liable for unauthorised use of your hosting service arising from someone obtaining your login details.

Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Multimedia Australia Pty. Ltd., its staff, suppliers and contractors arising from any claim, actions, suits, demands, costs, liability or loss connected to/arising from your use or inability to use the hosting service and the materials you publish/transmit/email etc.

Hosting service features

Multimedia Australia shall make every effort to setup your hosting service and supply you with applicable login details within 2 hours where possible upon successful completion/verification of your order. Although we make every effort to ensure a fast setup, we can not take any responsibility in the event your hosting service takes longer to organise. All hosting features described on our website will be made available to you as soon as your hosting account is active, or where applicable, shortly after you request the stated feature to be activated. All hosting services are run off a shared Web server unless stated otherwise.

Availability of the service

Availability of the hosting service relies on factors outside the control of Multimedia Australia, including but not limited to power supply, telecommunications infrastructure, and the status of the Internet as a whole. While every reasonable effort is made to ensure the hosting service is available for the vast majority of the time, you acknowledge that Multimedia Australia is unable to guarantee that supply service will be completely interruption-free. You further agree that Multimedia Australia shall not be liable for a disruption to your service. It shall be your responsibility to ensure your website is running.

To ensure you receive the best quality hosting, your hosting service may occasionally be suspended for a few minutes to enable scheduled network/server maintenance and upgrades to take place.

Hosting services may also be suspended momentarily for security reasons or if you fail to comply with this contract or other requirements imposed on you.

Connecting to service

You must arrange your own method of uploading/downloading your files, accessing your email and otherwise using the hosting service, which may include obtaining your own Internet connection. Multimedia Australia is not responsible for these telecommunication/Internet access etc. costs.

99.9% uptime guarantee

Multimedia Australia will make every reasonable effort to ensure the hosting service is available for 99.9% of the time during the entire duration of the billing period that applies to you. In the event of an extended downtime (except where the downtime is the result of factors outside the control of Multimedia Australia), you may contact Multimedia Australia and at our discretion request either credit on your next billing period or a partial refund for the down time (an example calculation could be "price of billing period/((minutes of downtime - 0.1% downtime allowance minutes in billing period)/entire duration of billing period)"). In any event, the total refund/credit shall not exceed the total price paid by you for the billing period in which the downtime occurred.

Supply of support services

Support services, including support for free software that may be included with your hosting service, will only be provided to you as the account holder. Your use of free support shall be to a reasonable standard. Multimedia Australia reserves the right to limit free access to support for any customers considered to be using it excessively, unless the support issue(s) involve a hosting problem requiring our assistance.

Cancellation

You may cancel your hosting service at any time by contacting us using the contact form on our website. There are no additional fees for cancelling your hosting service.

Upon cancellation, the data you hosted with us (including but not limited to files, databases, email and configuration settings) will be permanently deleted from the server. It is therefore your responsibility to ensure you have backed up all data prior to cancellation.

Should you plan to move your hosting service to another Web hosting provider at the time of cancellation, it is your responsibility to edit your domain name record to ensure it points to your new hosting provider's servers. If you wish to minimise disruptions to your website traffic during a change of hosting providers, it is also your responsibility to ensure that your new hosting is set up and domain records updated correctly prior to cancelling your hosting service with us.

Any amount already paid for your hosting service within a current billing period (the duration of which will depend on the hosting package you choose) will not be refunded. However, your hosting account will be available for the remainder of the billing period unless your hosting account was cancelled by us as a result of illegal or unauthorised content being discovered on your hosting account or you breaching this contract.

If you contact us requesting your hosting account to be cancelled, we will endeavour to respond to cancellation requests within 24 hours during business days upon receiving your request. Please do not consider your hosting account cancelled until you have received a cancellation confirmation email from us.

We may cancel your hosting service immediately without prior notice to you if we discover or receive reports of illegal content being hosted or if we consider it necessary in order to protect the interests of Multimedia Australia (Multimedia Australia Pty. Ltd), its customers, suppliers or the public.

Choice of law and forum

This contract shall be governed and interpreted under the laws of the State of Queensland, Australia. Any dispute or claim arising out of this contract, use of the hosting service and/or any other related legal issue shall be brought exclusively in the courts located in the state of Queensland, Australia.

Modifications to this contract

We may occasionally modify this contract and notify you of the change. You will then be obliged to comply with the modified contract. We ask that you please refer to the most up-to-date contract on our website periodically.

Exclusion of liability

Subject to applicable law, Multimedia Australia Pty. Ltd. (including its staff, suppliers and contractors) shall not be liable to you or any other person/legal entity for any loss or damage suffered as a result of using or inability to use the hosting service (including but not loss of business or profits, interruption to business, loss of information/data, corruption of information/data, or for any other indirect or consequential loss), regardless of whether or not the loss or damage suffered was the result of the negligence of Multimedia Australia Pty. Ltd. and even if Multimedia Australia Pty. Ltd. was advised of the possibility of such problems.

You further acknowledge that due to the nature of Web hosting, Multimedia Australia Pty. Ltd. can not guarantee the supply of the hosting service will be continuous or fault free.

In any event, Multimedia Australia's liability shall not exceed the cost of the hosting service payed by you, subject to applicable law.