Hosting with Growing Foundations
Service Terms & Conditions

Growing Foundations provides Internet World Wide Web (WWW) page hosting, development, and design services. Growing Foundations has certain legal responsibilities pertaining to the use of server and equipment involved in these service offerings.

Growing Foundations general policy is to act as a provider of Internet presence. Growing Foundations reserves the right to notify, suspend and or cancel a customer's access to any or all services provided by Growing Foundations when it has been decided that an account or services have been inappropriately used.

Acceptable Use Policies

Pursuant to this Agreement, there are several areas constituting acceptable use policies. These are:

I. Server abuse

Any attempt to undermine or cause harm to a server or customer of Growing Foundations is strictly prohibited.

The purpose of Growing Foundations is to provide space to serve web documents and content. This requires that 80% of a user's web pages (html) must be 'linked' with files (.GIF, .JPEG, forms, documents, etc.) stored on Growing Foundations servers. Web sites that are found to be in violation of this 80% rule are subject to warning, suspension, or cancellation at the sole discretion of Growing Foundations management.

In order to maintain the integrity of service, the following limitations apply:

• Non Growing Foundations-hosted sites that are using more than 5% of Growing Foundations-server resources due to the use of, but not limited to, banners ads, graphics, programs, streaming media, CGI, PHP or code compiling will be subject to warning, suspension, termination of item utilizing resources or account cancellation at the sole discretion of Growing Foundations management.
• Websites or website programs using more than 10% of the server's CPU or memory resources are subject to warning, suspension, termination of item utilizing resources or account cancellation at the sole discretion of Growing Foundations management.

II. Security and Unauthorized use of Accounts

Growing Foundations prohibits any use or attempted use of an Internet account or computer without the owner's authorization. Such attempts include, but are not limited to, "Internet scamming", password robbery, e-mail spoofing, port probing, security exploits and security hole scanning.

Customers may not use the Growing Foundations network in an attempt to circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network, or account. This includes, but is not limited to, accessing data not intended for the customer, logging into a server or account the customer is not expressly authorized to access, password cracking, probing the security of other networks in search of weakness, or violation of any other organization's security policy. Customers may not attempt to interfere or deny service to any user, host, or network.

Any unauthorized use of accounts or computers by a Growing Foundations' customer, whether or not the attacked account or computer belongs to Growing Foundations, will result in immediate actions being taken against the attacker. Possible actions include warnings, account suspension or cancellation, and civil or criminal legal action, depending on the seriousness of the attack.
Growing Foundations will cooperate fully with any governmental investigation for violations of systems or network security at other sites, including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations. Users who violate system or network security may incur warnings, account suspension or cancellation, and civil or criminal legal action.

III. Unsolicited Email (spam)

Unsolicited commercial advertisements (spam) are not allowed in e-mail, and will likely result in account suspension and or cancellation. E-mail is a person-to-person medium, not a broadcast medium unless it falls within the limits stated within this document or applicable state or county laws.

The following activities are not allowed:

• Unsolicited bulk or commercial messages ("spam"). Sending a message, especially an advertisement, to more than five recipients, is spamming unless the individuals have specifically requested to be added to a mailing list on that topic. Such messages may only be sent to those who have explicitly requested it from a users domain.
• Forging, altering, falsifying or removing electronic mail headers is prohibited. Any domain sending stealth spam will be terminated.
• Sending numerous copies of the same or substantially similar message with the intent to disrupt a server or account, effectively creating a denial of service attack. Any domain that employs this strategy will be terminated.
• Spamming Newsgroups is prohibited. Commercial advertisements are unwelcome in most USENET discussion groups and on most e-mail mailing lists. Inappropriate posting may result in account cancellation or suspension. Users shall consult the newsgroup or mailing list's charter to determine whether or not advertising is allowed.
• Mail may not be used to harass or intimidate others. If a recipient requests removal from a user's e-mail list, a user must abide by that request.

IV. Uptime Guarantee

Coverage
The 99% uptime guarantee applies to any Growing Foundations' client in good financial standing with Growing Foundations at the time of a service outage.

Service Level Agreement & Specifications
Growing Foundations shall have the content of a user's web site available for http access by any party in the world 99% of the time. Network downtime (unavailability) is defined as 100% packet loss from Growing Foundations servers to its backbone providers. Downtime is measured past 10 minutes after notification of network failure to Growing Foundations via e-mail, telephone or fax. Growing Foundations administrators will determine the end of the downtime by a trace-route to the customer's server from outside the Growing Foundations network.

Hosting Credit
In the event that a user's web site is not available more than 99% of the time, Growing Foundations will credit the following month's service fee as follows. Credit shall be calculated and measured 24 hours a day in a calendar month, with the maximum credit not to exceed fifty percent of the monthly service charge for the affected month.