1. Service Agreement
- Defines the nature of services provided (shared hosting, VPS, dedicated servers, etc.).
- Specifies uptime guarantees (e.g., 99.9% uptime) and exclusions, such as maintenance windows.
2. Billing and Payment
- Details pricing, payment methods, and billing cycles (monthly, annually).
- Describes late fees, automatic renewal, and termination for non-payment.
- Refund policies (money-back guarantees, non-refundable services).
3. Use of Services
- Defines acceptable and prohibited activities (e.g., hosting illegal content, spamming, etc.).
- Limits on resource usage (bandwidth, storage, CPU usage).
- Restrictions on the type of content that can be hosted, often forbidding adult content or copyrighted material without proper licensing.
4. Intellectual Property Rights
- Ownership of content hosted on the servers.
- Responsibility for ensuring the customer has rights to use any content they host.
5. Limitation of Liability
- Limits the hosting provider's liability for damages caused by downtime, data loss, or security breaches.
- Hosting providers typically exclude themselves from responsibility for third-party damages.
6. Termination and Suspension
- Outlines conditions under which the provider can terminate or suspend services (e.g., non-payment, breach of acceptable use policy).
- Procedures for customer-initiated cancellation and what happens to data after termination.
7. Backup and Data Loss
- Specifies the customer’s responsibility for maintaining backups of their data.
- Hosting providers may or may not provide backups, but usually disclaim responsibility for data loss.
8. Security
- Customer's responsibility for securing their account, including password protection and unauthorized access.
- What security measures the hosting provider will implement (e.g., firewalls, DDoS protection).
9. Privacy Policy
- Details how customer data will be handled and protected.
- Describes data collection practices, sharing with third parties, and compliance with data protection laws (e.g., GDPR).
10. Support
- Describes the level of customer support provided (24/7, ticket-based, phone, etc.).
- Specifies which issues are covered under standard support and which may incur additional fees.
11. Modifications to Terms
- The hosting provider reserves the right to modify terms at any time.
- Usually includes a provision for notifying customers of significant changes.
12. Indemnification
- Customer agrees to indemnify and hold the hosting provider harmless from claims arising out of their use of the services.
13. Governing Law
- Specifies the jurisdiction and governing law for resolving disputes.