Knowledgebase

BASIC POLICY & SERVICE GUIDELINES

This Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) applies to all individuals, businesses, organizations, resellers, and end-clients (collectively, “users”) employing any Nexus Bytes LLC services, hardware, property or other products.

Use of Nexus Bytes LLC resources constitutes acceptance of all policies in effect at the time of use. Modification to this policy may be made at any time and will be immediately effective upon posted changes.
Nexus Bytes LLC reserves the right to protect its resources, users, and reputation from any activity deemed damaging, offensive or abusive. To this measure, Nexus Bytes LLC will act as sole arbiter in determining violations of this policy.

PROVISIONS:

Use of Nexus Bytes LLC services indicates the acknowledgment that:
Users are responsible for the security of accounts, systems, passwords, etc...and will not hold Nexus Bytes LLC liable for any loss or damages caused by exploitation or any other misuse of Nexus Bytes LLC resources.
Nexus Bytes LLC is not responsible for any damages, anticipated or otherwise, caused by viewing materials, links, or other content posted to systems on the local network or linked via this network. All users agree to indemnify Nexus Bytes LLC from any claims resulting from any use of its services.
Adult content is sanctioned by applicable local and federal governments/laws. Legal adult content is permitted on all Nexus Bytes LLC product lines. The viewing, downloading, or possession of legal adult content by Nexus Bytes LLC users and other Internet viewers, is not governed by Nexus Bytes LLC policy and is left to the discretion of individuals requesting this material.
Nexus Bytes LLC may monitor its network and audit systems for any data or activity indicating potential policy violations. Nexus Bytes LLC reserves the right to remove any account without prior notice. If Nexus Bytes LLC deactivates an account due to the direct or indirect participation of users engaging in illicit activities, any rights to a refund are forfeited by the client/reseller in control of the account at the time of the violation. Furthermore, no refunds for advance payments will be granted for deactivated accounts. Critical offenses and involvement in illegal activity will negate any perceived obligation of Nexus Bytes LLC to return data.

ABUSIVE CLIENTELE:

Nexus Bytes LLC may, at its discretion, suspend or terminate the service of any client/reseller who is financially delinquent, abusive/harassing to Nexus Bytes LLC personnel or causes general disruption to the operation of the company and service of its users. Examples of such activity include, but are not limited to:

• verbal or written abuse of Nexus Bytes LLC personnel (obscene language, threats, etc.)
• excessive complaints or persistent disregard for alerts, warnings, and/or notices
• repeated reactivation of abusive users
• consistent errors or administrative changes causing unnecessary workload
• spamming Nexus Bytes LLC email addresses, ticket systems, and/or servers
• frequent late or bounced payments
• issuing chargebacks
• public harassment or derogatory/false/exaggerated forum/discussion group postings

ABUSE OF NEXUS BYTES LLC SYSTEMS AND RESOURCES:

Any damaging or abusive activity, whether unlawful or considered to be detrimental to the operations of Nexus Bytes LLC resources, is a violation of this policy. Any attempt to harm equipment owned by Nexus Bytes LLC, or hosted in its facilities, is strictly prohibited. Violations will result in legal action, to the fullest allowable extent.

ILLEGAL USAGE RESTRICTIONS:

Resources provided by Nexus Bytes LLC may be used only for lawful purposes. Examples of unlawful content include, but are not limited to:

• unlicensed hosting of, linking to, or any involvement in the transmission of copyrighted media, applications, published works, or any data protected by trade secret, without sufficient rights to engage in this activity
• Bitcoin Minning
• child pornography and/or kidnapping material
• content deemed to be terroristic in nature
• material posted to incite violence
• violations of human and animal rights, including the display of acts of cruelty and other abuse
• pyramid/Ponzi schemes
• fraudulent sites and other forms of “phishing” (emails/forms/sites used to gather personal information from unsuspecting individuals)
• cracking programs and/or key generators
• violations of import/export restrictions
• Prohibited Usage Restrictions:

IN ADDITION TO ACTIVITIES GOVERNED BY LAW, NEXUS BYTES LLC STRICTLY PROHIBITS:

• IRC and associated applications (including bouncers, "bots", etc.)
• malware (malicious software) and/or botnets
• automation tools, auto typers, macros and bots used to circumvent restrictions on games or other applications (e.g. RuneScape bots)
• network and systems abuse scripts
• circumvention of and/or provision of instructions to circumvent security measures
• unnecessary port scans
• threatening, harassing, or obscene content
• anonymizers/proxies without password protection and sufficient logging (including open mail proxies, anonymous web surfing proxies)
• proxy detection scripts
• unsolicited and/or mass advertising via forums, blogs, comment forms, and newsgroups
• mail bombing, email address harvesting, and/or unsolicited email (including bulk mail sent to unconfirmed recipients and individual unsolicited advertisement or link exchange requests)
• HYIPs (high-yield investment programs)
• excessive overutilization of resource limits
• evasion of bans or blacklistings by changing domains/IPs
• Links to unacceptable content are also prohibited.

BULK EMAIL & BLACKLISTING:

Nexus Bytes LLC understands that bulk email is an important mechanism for keeping people informed. However, spamming from the Nexus Bytes LLC network, and spamvertising (unsolicited advertising of) sites hosted on the Nexus Bytes LLC network, is prohibited. Legitimate bulk email meets the following criteria:

• ALL recipients have confirmed willingness to be added to a distribution list by clicking on confirmation links or (preferably) by responding to verification emails.
• Distributed messages include valid headers, removal instructions, and information on the method by which the subscribed addresses were obtained.
• The usage of partially confirmed recipient lists is not allowed. All bulk email senders must post privacy policies and must be clearly identified to recipients during the subscription and confirmation process. The usage of third-party distribution lists is prohibited. If Nexus Bytes LLC approaches a client for evidence of confirmation, the request must be honored within 48 hours of the initial spam alert. Deactivation of an account or service may be required, until proof of confirmation is provided and approved. Nexus Bytes LLC reserves the right to require termination of any services involved in the transmission of unsolicited email. If any activities lead to blacklisting, the involved client/reseller may be charged an abuse fee of $100.00.

POLICY VIOLATIONS:

Storage, presentation, or transmission of any material in violation of any laws, or otherwise prohibited by Nexus Bytes LLC, is cause for temporary account deactivation, server/service termination, or complete cancellation of all account services. The Nexus Bytes LLC Abuse Dept will make an attempt to contact the involved client via email when the first sign of a possible violation is noted. This notification may occur before or after a service is disabled. Alerts are provided as a courtesy. Prompt responses to alerts are required. When an alert is sent, the designated abuse contact is responsible for acknowledging his/her understanding of the offense and providing an adequate response, to the satisfaction of Nexus Bytes LLC, within 24 hours of the notice. Failure to sufficiently respond to an abuse alert will lead to suspension of any active services involved in abusive activity and will result in a $50.00 fee. If reactivation is warranted, all abuse fees and any outstanding service fees must be paid prior to service being reactivated. Repeated abuse and/or failure to respond to abuse alerts will result in service termination.

Note: It is extremely important to ensure that the abuse email address on record is valid and monitored at all times. This is the address used for abuse notifications and warnings. The address may be set within the client management interface.

Direct clients/resellers are fully responsible for any activity found to originate from products and/or services under their care. In any case involving unauthorized parties utilizing a Nexus Bytes LLC service for abuse, the direct client/reseller is responsible for locating and stopping all affected applications, until the source of the problem, is found and removed. Nexus Bytes LLC may opt to disable all services until the client can perform such an investigation or the system can be secured or reinstalled. If the support of Nexus Bytes LLC is required for the investigation, the client agrees to compensate Nexus Bytes LLC at a rate of $65 USD/hour for such service. Reinstallations are performed at a flat-rate of $25 USD (which does not include any operating system changes or licensing costs). Direct clients/resellers are responsible for maintaining secure systems. This includes, but is not limited to:

• requesting kernel updates
• applying application patches

Nexus Bytes LLC will not be responsible for securing dedicated servers, virtual private servers, user accounts/web sites, or third-party applications. Direct clients/resellers with fully managed support services, may be entitled to a higher level of support than clientele with basic management. Further details may be found in the Nexus Bytes LLC Managed Services Definition and Backup Policy.

RESOURCE USAGE:

Resource usage should be maintained within levels outlined in product descriptions and/or service contracts. Abuse caused by users or unauthorized parties may increase resource usage and lead to overage fees. Overage fees apply to any service utilizing more than its assigned bandwidth allocation, except for services advertised/sold as "UNMETERED". Overages will be calculated based on the overall amount of GigaBytes (GB) transferred in a monthly period, unless a service is sold based on Megabits per Second (MBPS). Services sold by MBPS will be calculated via the industry-standard 95% method unless otherwise specified in the service agreement contract. MRTG or other bandwidth reports are available, upon request. Bandwidth is supplied from a shared pool and is not supplied as guaranteed/dedicated bandwidth, unless advertised as such specifically. Burstable usage of the UNMETERED service/port is permitted. However, a service that has heavy sustained usage may have its port capped and the client/reseller associated with the service may be required to upgrade to a dedicated service plan. UNMETERED service is supplied on a "best-effort" basis, which may result in some slowdowns during peak traffic periods. Should a client/reseller utilize or require large amounts of bandwidth, beyond the standard bandwidth allocation, Nexus Bytes LLC may require a deposit.

PORT USAGE:

Basic Dedicated & Co-Located servers are installed on 100MBPS unthrottled ports, unless service is sold with a specified port size (ie. 10MBPS UNMETERED) or specified/requested as a “capped” port. Nexus Bytes LLC reserves the right to monitor network usage and throttles the available speed (if a service significantly exceeds average usage) to conserve network resources and to prevent any large billing anomalies. This will generally not include short spikes in usage, but will include, and not be limited to, sustained transfers of significantly larger than average amounts of bandwidth. If, at any time, a client's or reseller's data transfer rate affects other Nexus Bytes LLC clientele, Nexus Bytes LLC reserves the right to throttle and/or disconnect the service at the source of the problem.

FILTERING:

Nexus Bytes LLC reserves the right to block, filter, or throttle ports and/or IP address ranges. For example, this may include blocking Port 6667 (IRC), denying access from a known spammer’s IP address range or limiting the speed of point-to-point file-sharing programs (Kazaa, Limewire, eDonkey, etc...). This may also include prioritization of certain traffic types, such as Voice-over-IP (VOIP) phone call transmissions.

VIRTUAL HOSTING:

Nexus Bytes LLC is pleased to offer unlimited traffic/hits and server usage to Virtual Hosting clientele. “Unlimited traffic/hits” refers to the number of visitors to a website and NOT the total amount of bandwidth/data transfer. Each Virtual Hosting account is still limited to the bandwidth/data transfer included with its associated service/package. To maintain the integrity of our service, the following usage may be limited/disallowed on Virtual Hosting service:

• banner, graphic, or CGI scripts running from the service and/or being utilized on other domains/websites
• large graphic or download archives/galleries
• large chat room gatherings

If you do not qualify for unlimited traffic/hits, your account may be required to be upgraded. To reduce the load on a server, Nexus Bytes LLC reserves the right to relocate any site to a different server and/or IP address.

VIRTUAL PRIVATE SERVERS (VPS):

To maintain the integrity of Nexus Bytes LLC services, any VPS (virtual private server) utilizing heavy amounts of system resources may be temporarily disabled. When necessary, clients/resellers may be required to upgrade the service package to accommodate actual usage. Additionally, to reduce the load on servers, Nexus Bytes LLC may relocate virtual private server containers to different nodes and/or IP addresses.

INTERNET ACCESS:

Nexus Bytes LLC does not allow multiple dial-in connections on a single dial-up access account. Multiple computers/networks are permitted to a single Nexus Bytes LLC Internet Access service. Internet Access clientele are responsible for maintaining/securing their computer systems. Should any system become infected with a virus and/or spyware which causes or threatens harm to the Nexus Bytes LLC network, Nexus Bytes LLC may suspend service until the source of the problem is found and corrected.

BACKUP SERVICE:

To maintain the integrity of backup services, Nexus Bytes LLC may relocate any backup service to a different server and/or IP address in an effort to reduce the load on the current hosting server. Download/FTP sites, web-serving (httpd), and/or any usage that results in heavy upstream/outgoing bandwidth consumption (beyond that of normal backup operations) is not permitted on the backup service machines. This service is meant for the backup/restore/sharing/storing of data and not for usage normally performed by web/database servers.

IDLE TIMEOUTS:

Nexus Bytes LLC may disconnect any idle connection to the network. Average timeouts are:

• FTP - 300 seconds
• Dial-Up - 10-15 minutes
• Telnet/SSH - 2 hours

FAIR USAGE POLICY:

The service is provided to the Client for normal, fair, and reasonable usage. Bandwidth usage is to be reasonably consistent throughout every month, without irregular bandwidth usage patterns/spikes. In the event Nexus Bytes LLC, in its sole discretion, determines that the Client is not using the service according to this Fair Use Policy, Nexus Bytes LLC will be entitled to:
(a) impose limits on the speed of the data the Client may transmit and/or receive with this service;
(b) adjust the pricing of service to regular/standard bandwidth rates; and/or
(c) suspend or terminate the service provided to the Client, at Nexus Bytes LLC's sole discretion.

CDN OR MEDIA STREAMING:

Client shall not be entitled to use the service for the purpose of operating a Content Distribution Network (CDN) and/or Streaming Media service, except with Nexus Bytes LLC's prior written consent, which consent may be approved or denied at Nexus Bytes LLC's sole discretion. Special requests to use the service to run such may be approved on a case-by-case basis and we do recommend you contact us to discuss.

NOTICE OF BREACH:

Whenever reasonably possible, in the event of a Client breach of any Special Terms and Conditions for this service, Nexus Bytes LLC will email the Client allowing 24 hours to cure the breach, before Nexus Bytes LLC takes any action. If the breach re-occurs within the 30 days following, Nexus Bytes LLC may take any action permitted in the Fair Usage Policy, without further notice to the Client. Failure to comply with this policy may result in termination of service, and a refund not granted.