Welcome to Genius Host Terms & conditions

Effective date: 16 October 2022

This Web Hosting Agreement ("Agreement") is between Genius Host ("Genius Host"), and the person (individual or legal person) who signs Genius Host's service order and set up form (the "Order") incorporating this Agreement by reference ("Customer"). This Agreement governs Customer's use of Genius Host’s Web hosting service.

Please read this agreement carefully. By agreeing to our terms of service and acceptable use policy on the account signup form, signing up, communicating with us, paying for and/or using our services, you are agreeing to be bound by the conditions and terms of this agreement, our acceptable use policy, and our privacy policy.

Account Setup

We will setup your account after we have received payment and we and/or our payment partner(s) have screened the order(s) in case of fraud. It is your responsibility to provide us with an email address which is not @ the domain(s) you are signing up under. If there is ever an abuse issue or we need to contact you, the primary email address on file will be used for this purpose. It is your responsibility to ensure the email address on file is current or up to date at all times. Providing false contact information of any kind may result in the termination of your account. In high risk transactions, it will be necessary to provide government issued identification and possibly a scan of the credit card used for the purchase. If you fail to meet these requirements, the order may be considered fraudulent in nature and be denied.

Transfers

Our transfers team will make every effort to help you move your site to us, however, we cannot make guarantees of the transfer process. We provide this as a courtesy service and cannot make guarantees regarding its availability or the amount of time it may take as each host is configured a little differently. We will try our best, however, in some cases we may be unable to assist you in a transfer of data from an old host.

Abuse & Prohibited Use

Genius Host reserves the right to decide as to what constitutes as abuse and any material not mentioned below is left entirely up to the discretion of the Genius Host staff.

Abuse can include, but is not limited to the following offenses:

• Any attempts to compromise or actual compromise of a network device belonging to Genius Host or any other company, individual, or other entity is strictly prohibited. This offense also includes port scanning, IP range scanners and vulnerability scanning. All infractions and or suspected infractions will be vigorously investigated and may result in immediate termination of service.
• Denial of Service attacks directed at us, or any attempts to launch a Denial of Service attack from our servers are strictly prohibited. All infractions and or suspected infractions will be vigorously investigated and may result in immediate termination of service.
• Sending unsolicited email, newsgroup postings, chain letters or anything else that could be considered as "spam", is strictly prohibited. The gathering of email addresses to be used for sending unsolicited email on a 3rd party service "harvesting" is also prohibited and may result in termination of service.
• The hosting of material that infringes on any copyright, trademark and or service mark is strictly prohibited. This also includes the storage and transmission of pirated movies, music, software, ring tones or anything else considered "warez". Any complaint received will be investigated and may result in termination of service.
• Child pornography, bestiality, hate speech, scam sites, phishing sites and any other material which is considered to be illegal in Canada is strictly prohibited. All infractions and or suspected infractions will be vigorously investigated and may result in immediate termination of service.
• Hosting any software, source code or any other material that is illegal or could be used to commit an illegal act is strictly prohibited. This includes but is not limited to software exploits, exploit source code, hacking tutorials, hacking tools, viruses and trojans, bomb making and similar device tutorials. All infractions and or suspected infractions will be vigorously investigated and may result in immediate termination of service.
• The use of IRC software, Bit Torrent software, Proxy software, and automated "bots" is strictly prohibited. The use of some forums and any other multiuser chat software which could create a high load on our servers, disrupt other users, and/or attract Denial of Service attacks is also prohibited. Genius Host will deal with any of these issues on a case by case basis, and will attempt to work with client to resolve the issue to both parties satisfaction.
• Offering image, file, document or data storage and free hosting or email services are strictly prohibited.

Please note that any violation(s) could lead to a simple warning, temporary suspension of service, and or termination of clients account(s) without warning and without refund. In the event that an illegal act has been performed, local and/or federal authorities may be notified.

Payment Information

You agree to supply appropriate payment for the services received from Genius Host, in advance of the time period during which such services are provided. You agree that until and unless you notify Genius Host of your desire to cancel any or all services received, those services will be billed on a recurring basis. As a client of Genius Host, it is your responsibility to ensure that your payment information is up to date, and that all invoices are paid on time. Any invoice that is overdue will result in a 15% late fee and/or an account suspension until account balance has been paid in full. Invoices that have been paid more than once with multiple Paypal Subscriptions can only be added as credit towards the account and cannot be refunded via Paypal. If you require assistance with this provision, please contact our Billing Team. Genius Host reserves the right to change the monthly payment amount and any other charges at anytime.

Discount & Coupon Codes

Discount and coupon codes are applicable only to the Service to which they are validly applied. Discount and coupon codes are valid only towards the initial purchase and shall not affect the renewal or recurring price of any Service, unless a recurring discount is specifically referenced in the coupon or promotion and only to the extent set forth in that coupon or promotion. Discounts offered after you have purchased, or agreed to purchase, the Service are not applicable. Upon any downgrade, upgrade or closure of the Service to which the discount or coupon code was applied, the discount offered in connection with said discount or coupon code is considered null and void. Discount and coupon codes have no cash value and may not be transferred or used towards later purchases, downgrades, upgrades or modifications to any Service. Discount or coupon code abuse will not be tolerated under any circumstances, and may result in the suspension of the account, closure of the account or retroactive adjustment of related charges. Genius Host reserves the right to discontinue any discount code or promotion at any time, for any reason or no reason, without notice.

Cancellations

Customer is free to cancel their account at any time by contacting our Billing Team, with their account information. Similarly, Genius Host reserves the right to cancel any account at any time, for any reason, including, but not limited to, a breach of this Agreement or the AUP.

Money Back Guarantee

If an account with a thirty (30) day money-back guarantee is purchased and cancelled within thirty (30) days of sign up, the Customer will, upon request, receive a full refund of all hosting fees. Requests for these refunds should be made through our Billing Team. Refunds made for a thirty (30) day money-back guarantee will not include domain registration fees, setup fees, or any fees for additional services that are purchased in the first thirty (30) days. Money-back guarantee is only applicable to those products and services that are specified with this offer. Any other products or services with no specification of money-back guarantee are not entitled to a refund. Under the money-back guarantee, only first-time accounts are eligible for a refund. For example, if you've had an account with us before, cancelled and signed up again, you will not be eligible for a refund. This is to protect our money-back guarantee from being abused. Genius Host reserves the right to determine the definition of first-time account. Violations of the Terms of Service will waive the refund policy.

Bandwidth & Storage Usage

You are allocated a monthly bandwidth and storage allowance. This allowance varies depending on the hosting package you purchase. Should your account pass the allocated amount we reserve the right to suspend the account until more bandwidth or storage is purchased at an additional fee, suspend the account until you upgrade to a higher level of package, terminate the account and/or charge you an additional fee for the overages. Unused transfer in one month cannot be carried over to the next month.

Backups & Data Loss

Your use of this service is at your sole risk. Our backup service runs once a day and only 30 days of backups are kept. This service is provided to you as a courtesy. Genius Host is not responsible for files and/or data residing on your account. Accounts using more than 100 GB quota and/or 500,000 inodes are excluded from the backup process to ensure tasks are completed in a timely manner without hindering performance. Customer agrees to maintain a current copy of all content hosted by Genius Host notwithstanding any agreement by Genius Host to provide backup services.

You agree that we may remove impermissible data from our servers at any time in our sole discretion without notice. We may also delete the following types of files if we find them to be using excessive amounts of disk space, especially if affecting other users:

• cPanel or other backups stored locally.
• Softaculous backups stored locally.
• Softaculous backup temp files.
• Common CMS backups stored locally.
• Common CMS backup temp files.
• Common CMS backup logs.
• Excessively sized error logs.
• Any other large files deemed unnecessary for core website functionality or not containing any valuable data.

Shared (Non-Reseller Accounts)

Shared accounts may not be used to resell web hosting to others. If you wish to resell hosting you must use a reseller account.

Reseller Terms and Client Responsibility

A. Resellers shall ensure that each of their clients complies with this Agreement.

B. Resellers are responsible for supporting their clients. Genius Host does not provide support to clients of Genius Host's resellers. If a reseller's client contacts Genius Host, Genius Host reserves the right to place a reseller client account on hold until the reseller can assume responsibility for the reseller's client. All support requests must be made by the reseller on its client's behalf for security purposes.

C. Resellers are also responsible for all content stored or transmitted under their reseller account and the actions of their clients. Genius Host will hold any reseller responsible for any of their client's actions that violate the law or this Agreement.

D. Genius Host is not responsible for the acts or omissions of our resellers. The reseller hereby agrees to indemnify Genius Host from and against any and all claims made by any User arising from the reseller's acts or omissions.

E. Genius Host reserves the right to revise our Reseller Program at any time. Changes shall take effect when posted online or on any subsequent date as may be set forth by Genius Host.

F. Resellers in the Genius Host Reseller Program assume all responsibility for billing and technical support for each of the Users signed up by the reseller.

Uptime Guarantee

Genius Host strives to maintain a 99.9% network and server uptime service level. This uptime percentage is a monthly figure, and is calculated solely by Genius Host monitoring systems or Genius Host authorized/contracted outside monitoring services. If Genius Host fails to meet its 99.9% uptime guarantee, and it is not due to one of the exceptions below, credits will be made available to each client, upon request, on a case by case basis. Genius Host does not credit a full month's service for minor downtime. This would not be financially healthy for Genius Host, and in turn would only negatively affect the service level Genius Host provides to you. "Partial refunds for partial downtime" is our standard policy. In extreme circumstances, Genius Host may distribute full month credits, but this is dealt with on a case by case basis. Credits are issued for one month’s service only, never more.

Exceptions:

Customer shall not receive any credits under this SLA in connection with any failure or deficiency of the Genius Host network caused by or associated with:

• Circumstances beyond reasonable control, including, without limitation, acts of any governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, "Acts of God" (i.e. fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, etc.), strike or other labor disturbance, interruption of or delay in transportation, unavailability of or interruption or delay in telecommunications or third party services, failure of third party software or inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed for provision of the Service Level Agreement
• Telco Failure (i.e. Verizon™ cutting a fiber line somewhere)
• Backbone peering point issues (i.e. UUNet™ having a router go down in Virginia that wipes out internet service for the entire East Coast)
• Scheduled maintenance for hardware/software upgrades
• Hardware failure (faulty hardware is rare, but cannot be predicted nor avoided). Genius Host utilizes only name brand hardware of the highest quality and performance.
• Software bugs/flaws (Exploits and bugs may develop that cause security issues or downtime)
• DNS issues not within the direct control of Genius Host
• Network floods, hacks, attacks from outside parties or individuals
• Failure or error of any Genius Host monitoring or measurement system
• Client's acts or omissions, including without limitation, any negligence, willful misconduct, or use of Genius Host service(s) in breach of Genius Host Policy and Service Guidelines (AUP), by Client or others authorized by Client.

Support Scope

You are fully responsible for the installation and operation of any and all scripts or applications. We will not troubleshoot or provide any support relating to malfunctioning scripts or applications. You are responsible for maintaining the latest version of any and all scripts and applications.

Fair Usage

Unlimited & unmetered claims have software and hardware limitations, and are subject to a discretionary fair use policy by our team. Our hosting plans are intended only to be used for content relevant to a hosted website, any form of backup storage, file locker services, personal media (e.g. photos, movies, music or any other form of media) is not permitted. If you are using more of any resource than is considered realistic or reasonable for the relevant platform then you will be notified via ticket to reduce your usage. If any user usage of a resource imposes a risk to the integrity of the platform, they may have their service(s) suspended to prevent any disruptions.

Right To Refusal Without Cause

Genius Host may refuse to accept any customer or any website for participation in the Genius Host network as determined by Genius Host at its sole discretion.

Indemnification

Customer agrees that it shall defend, indemnify, save and hold Genius Host harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs and claims, including reasonable attorney's fees asserted against Genius Host, its agents, its customers, 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, its agents, employees or assigns.

Customer agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Genius Host against liabilities arising out of

• any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with Genius Host
• any material supplied by customer infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party copyright infringement
• any defective products sold to customers from Genius Host's server.

Arbitration

By using any Genius Host services, you agree to binding arbitration. If any disputes or claims arise against Genius Host or its subsidiaries, such disputes will be handled by an arbitrator of Genius Host's choice. All decisions rendered by that arbitrator will be binding and final. You are also responsible for any and all costs related to such arbitration.

Disclosure To Law Enforcement

Genius Host may disclose any subscriber information to law enforcement agencies without further consent or notification to the subscriber upon lawful request from such agencies. We will cooperate fully with law enforcement agencies.

Disclaimer

Genius Host will not be responsible for any damages your business may suffer. Genius Host makes no warranties of any kind, expressed or implied for services we provide. Genius Host disclaims any warranty or merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This includes loss of data resulting from delays, no deliveries, wrong delivery, and any and all service interruptions caused by Genius Host and its employees.

Copyright Policy

All content on this website is Copyright © Genius Host and may not be reproduced without express written consent. All logos, trademarks and/or service marks are the property of Genius Host.

Changes To The TOS

Genius Host reserves the right to revise its policies at any time without notice.