Eclectic Tech HostingServices

How Eclectic Hosting Works

I've decided to run my hosting service as a co-op. Only my clients will be signed up to the service. Currently the cost of the server I'm borrowing from GoDaddy is $29.99 per month: I will split this price by the number of people on the service, spreading the cost of hosting amongst the people on the service. See the current prices of this service with all the current people sharing the co-op. You may pay for up to 12 months at a time, and each payment is accompanied by a $10 service fee. The maximum annual (12 month) fee will be $60: this is the price for annual hosting formerly promised through Archutech Consulting, so I will always divide the hosting cost by a minimum of 7 to keep the number within reason.

Here are some sample payments

If there are 7 clients current hosting on the service: $14.28 monthly, $22.85 quarterly, $35.71 6 months, $60 annual. Thus if you pay monthly you're paying an extra $110/year. Don't send a check if you have the rest of your first year free! Let's look at lowering this cost before you have to make your first payment:

What happens if each of the 7 people on the service bring in 2 website referrals to Eclectic Tech who also use the Eclectic Hosting service? Now there are 21 clients on the service: $11.43 monthly, $14.28 quarterly, $18.57 6 months, $27.14 annual. You're saving over half on an annual payment, and that annual fee beats just about any service's prices! This is a good way to spend a little time before your first payment is due: bring me more clients. Everyone would love to save $30. This is the great news.

The mediocre news is that the more clients on the server, the more we all share the resources of the server between our websites. If anyone suddenly lucks out and has a million people visiting their website a day, I may have to pay penalties to GoDaddy for overages. I may have to have a stern talking to you or ask you to pay for the overage. I wouldn't worry about this too much: most increases like that would probably be good news for your company.

Overall GoDaddy hosting prices may go up if Eclectic Hosting needs to increase the server's resources, but if I have to increase to more than the $29.99/month account to support the clients on the service, I will warn everyone and you can pay up to the next 12 months at the pre-increase price, so if you had 4 months of hosting left, and want to purchase the remaining 8 months at pre-increase prices, you will be allowed to do so. Once there's enough clients on the service, small fluctuations in the base cost won't have a large effect on your hosting fees anyway.

$10/payment service fee

This covers the cost of me handling your payment (the PayPal 3+% hit, gas to go to the bank, & my time). If you pay 1/year, it's $10. If you pay 1/month, it's $10 per payment. I'm doing this so I don't lose money, and to give people incentives to pay in bulk. At all times you pay in advance at the current ( ($ service fee / # current clients) * # months you're paying at a time + $10 per payment) cost. There may be 10 people on the service at the time you pay for the next 12 months. If the number of people on the server goes up to 20 the next month, you will not get refunded the difference. You will see the benefit of those extra clients next year. Paying for 12 months saves you around $110 in service fees over paying monthly. It may not save you in the base price, but it's a much better bargain than trying to play a waiting game to see how many clients join the service, or leave the service, next month. I won't charge you more if people leave the service, you don't get a refund if more people join or if you leave the service. I will only refund if I need to cancel the service.

Base monthly service fee

The base fee is according to GoDaddy's monthly undiscounted virtual dedicated server package. If Eclectic Tech chooses to pay on discount days, or pre-pay for the server package in bulk at a discount, that does not affect the base monthly service fee for Eclectic Hosting. If I'm paying attention to sales, coupons, or special offers, and taking risks on pre-paying for the services, I'd like to take the bonus to defer the cost of offering 1 year free hosting to all new clients. Likewise, if I pay on a high-interest credit card, that's not your problem.

Terms of Service

Most of the following is dictated by GoDaddy. You'll be able to sign the terms of service shortly.

WEB HOSTING & EMAIL AGREEMENT

This website hosting and email hosting agreement ("Agreement") is by and between Eclectic Tech, LLC ("The Consultant"), a New York business entity, and ____ and their representatives (collectively, "The Client"). This agreement sets the terms and conditions of The Client's use of The Consultant's website hosting and email hosting services (collectively, "The Service"). The Client is responsible for transactions to The Service by anyone acting as The Client's Agent, and transactions entered by anyone who uses The Service under The Client's account, whether or not the transactions were in The Client's behalf.

1. DESCRIPTION OF SERVICE

The Consultant provides The Service to customers for a monthly fee. The Consultant will host The Client's web site on The Service servers, provided, however, The Client abide by the terms and conditions set forth herein.

License of The Client's website content

The Consultant grants to The Client a non-exclusive license to display, use and transmit on and via the Internet The Client's website content. In return, The Client must ensure that they have the legal right to display, use, and transmit their content on the Internet, and that display, use or transmission of content will not bring harm or liability to The Consultant.

Availability of Services

The Consultant shall attempt to provide The Service for twenty-four (24) hours a day, seven (7) days a week throughout the term of this Agreement. The Client agrees that from time to time The Service may be inaccessible or inoperable for any reason, including, without limitation: (i) equipment malfunctions; (ii) periodic maintenance procedures or repairs that The Consultant may undertake from time to time; or (iii) causes beyond the control of The Consultant or that are not reasonably foreseeable by The Consultant, including, without limitation, interruption or failure of telecommunication or digital transmission links, hostile network attacks network congestion or other failures. You agree that The Consultant has no control of availability of The Service on a continuous or uninterrupted basis.

Backup

The Consultant may offer additional features and add on services such as a Backup option. At the time of this signing, no specific backup service is available.

Web Site Content

The Client shall be solely responsible for providing, updating, uploading and maintaining The Client's website and any and all files, pages, data, works, information and/or materials on, within, displayed, linked or transmitted to, from or through The Client's web site, including, without limitation, trade or service marks, images, photographs, illustrations, graphics, audio clips, video clips, email or other messages, meta tags, domain names, software and text. The Client's web site content shall also include any registered domain names provided by The Client or registered on behalf of The Client in connection with The Service. Pages that contain any of the following types of content are prohibited: pornographic, obscene or excessively profane content or content intended to advocate or advance computer hacking or cracking, gambling, illegal activity, drug paraphernalia, hate, violence or racial or ethnic intolerance. If The Client allows content of this type on The Client's website, The Consultant may, at their option, terminate The Service immediately.

The first year of The Service is free of charge

The first year in which The Client uses The Service is without a fee. Term of The Service begins when The Client's The Service is available to the public and begins to receive public access traffic, at The Consultant's discretion. The initial hosting term is 1 year from the date the Term of The Service begins.

2. YOUR OBLIGATIONS

Before the expiration of The Service term, The Client must choose whether to continue The Service and what length of The Service to renew at. The Client agrees that it is The Client's responsibility and obligation to make payment arrangements before expiration of The Service term.

The Client represent and warrant to The Consultant that: Your Content does not and shall not contain any content, materials, data, work, trade or service mark, trade name, link, advertising or services that actually or potentially violate any applicable law or regulation or infringe or misappropriate any proprietary, intellectual property, contract or tort right of any person and that The Client owns The Client's website content and all proprietary or intellectual property rights therein, or have express written authorization from the owner to copy, use and display the content on and within Your web site. You also warrant that the web site being hosted by The Consultant will not be used in connection with any illegal activity.

The Client is responsible for ensuring that there is no excessive overloading on The Client's DNS or servers. In the event that The Client exceed The Client allotted bandwidth or disk space and thereby overload The Consultant's DNS or servers, The Client shall be assessed any and all fees, costs and penalties associated with such overloading. The Client may not use The Consultant's servers and Your web site as a source, intermediary, reply to address, or destination address for mail bombs, Internet packet flooding, packet corruption, denial of service, or other abusive activities. Server hacking or other perpetration of security breaches is prohibited and The Consultant reserves the right to remove sites that contain information about hacking or links to such information. Use of your web site as an anonymous gateway is prohibited. The Consultant prohibits the use of software or scripts run on its servers that cause the server to load beyond a reasonable level, as determined by The Consultant. You agree that The Consultant reserves the right to remove The Client's The Service temporarily or permanently if The Client is the recipient of activities that threaten the stability of its network. You agree not to engage in unacceptable use of The Service, which includes, without limitation, use of the Services to: (i) disseminate or transmit unsolicited messages, chain letters, unsolicited commercial email, or unreasonably large volumes of email on a daily basis; (ii) disseminate or transmit any material that, to a reasonable person may be abusive, obscene, pornographic, defamatory, harassing, grossly offensive, vulgar, threatening or malicious; (iii) disseminate or transmit files, graphics, software or other material, data or work that actually or potentially infringes the copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret or other intellectual property right of any person; (iv) create a false identity or to otherwise attempt to mislead any person as to the identity, source or origin of any communication; (v) export, re-export or permit downloading of any message or content in violation of any export or import law, regulation or restriction of the United States and its agencies or authorities, or without all required approvals, licenses and/or exemptions; (vi) interfere, disrupt or attempt to gain unauthorized access to any computer system, server, network or account for which You do not have authorization to access or at a level exceeding Your authorization; (vii) disseminate or transmit any virus, trojan horse or other malicious, harmful or disabling data, work, code or program; (viii) engage in any other activity deemed by The Consultant to be in conflict with the spirit or intent of this Agreement or any The Consultant policy; or (ix) use The Service as an "open relay" or similar purposes.

The Consultant prohibits the running of a public recursive DNS service on any The Consultant server. All recursive DNS servers must be secured to allow only internet network access or a limited set of IP addresses. The Consultant reserves the right to remove The Client from the network if The Client violates this restriction.

Storage and Security

At all times, The Client shall bear full risk of loss and damage to The Service. The Client is entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of Your password and account information. The Client agree that you are solely responsible for all acts, omissions and use under and charges incurred with The Client's account or password or in connection with the Site or any of The Client's The Service content displayed, linked, transmitted through or stored on the Server. The Client shall be solely responsible for undertaking measures to: (i) prevent any loss or damage to The Service content; (ii) maintain independent archival and backup copies of The Service content; (iii) ensure the security, confidentiality and integrity of all The Service content transmitted through or stored on The Consultant's servers; and (iv) ensure the confidentiality of The Client's password. The Services are not an archive and The Consultant shall have no liability to The Client or any other person for loss, damage or destruction of any of The Service content. The Client shall at all times use The Service as a conventional and/or traditional web site & email service. The Client shall not use the Service in any way, in The Consultant's sole discretion, that shall impair the functioning or operation of The Consultant's Services or equipment. Specifically by way of example and not as a limitation, The Client shall not use the Services as a repository or instrument for placing or storing archived files and/or material that can be downloaded through other web sites. The Client acknowledges and agrees that The Consultant has the right to carry out a forensics examination in the event of a compromise to The Client's The Service and account.

In the event The Client terminates the term of The Service, moving your web site off of The Service is The Client's responsibility. The Consultant, given sufficient notice, may make content from The Client's The Service available in archival format to The Client. In the event The Client's use of The Service is terminated for violation of terms, The Consultant will not transfer or manage The Client's The Services or The Client's website content.

Effective ____________ (date)

___________________________________ (sign)

The bulk of this agreement comes from GoDaddy's terms of service, under their copyright. Eclectic Tech, LLC is reselling GoDaddy's virtual server space, which is maintained only by Eclectic Tech, LLC, not by GoDaddy.