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User Agreement | Terms of Service | Acceptable Use Policy | Resource Abuse Policy

New Accounts

All new web hosting accounts purchased on Great Big Onion are subject to these Terms of Service as well as the Acceptable Use Policy and the Resource Abuse Policy.

After purchasing a hosting package using PayPal, your credit/debit card, or your checking account you need to email your order number to ORDER_@_GreatBigOnion.com (Removing the underscores _ first) and one of our technictians will setup your account and then send you the information regarding uploading your files and nameserver/dns changes. A valid email address is required to set up an account.

Domain Names | Domain Transfers

In order for your domain name to point to the Great Big Onion Hosting server your new account is located on, you must change your DNS (Domain Name Servers) at your registrar.

That process is not known as a domain transfer. A domain transfer is if you want to physically transfer your domain to Great Big Onion Hosting and away from your original registrar. You must create an account and initiate a transfer. A domain transfer is $15.99 and that goes toward one year of registration added on to your current registration period with the previous registrar. Details on how a domain transfer works are located in our FAQ Center
Great Big Onion Hosting will take necessary steps to register domain names on behalf of the client when requested. However, clients are responsible for renewing their domain names. Great Big Onion Hosting does not take responsibility for failing to renew domain names. If your domain name was registered via our company, you must check and take appropriate actions to renew a domain that is about to expire. We do not handle renewals unless specifically asked for by sending a ticket to our helpdesk. If you have any questions at all about DNS changes or domain names in general, please email domains(@greatbigonion.com).

Payments

When you subscribe to our services, you are subscribing to a pre-paid service. All payments will be charged to an approved credit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express) or debit card that is approved. Renewal notices are sent via email 60, 45, 30, 15 and 0 days before the renewal date. Accounts 7 days past due will be disabled. Accounts 15 days past due will require a $15.00 USD fee to enable. We only accept credit cards, check (debit) cards or PayPal for payment of services. Yearly plans renew automatically and are charged to the most recently updated credit card on file. In the event that your yearly charge is denied and we are unable to contact you, then the aforementioned fees to enable your account shall apply. Please address any questions regarding payment to our billing department at billing(@greatbigonion.com).

Cancellations

Shared and Reseller Accounts - If you wish to cancel your services, you must complete this cancellation form located here:
Great Big Onion Hosting Cancellation Form

Dedicated servers - We require a 15-day cancellation notice prior to billing. Please email the dedicated server cancellations department at cancels(@surpasshosting.com).

If you cancel your account and your payments still continue for any reasons such as 1) by fault of Great Big Onion Hosting staff 2) by fault of the credit card processor 3) by fault of any other payment collection company we are not responsible for any overdraft fees that are issued by your financial institution.

Overage Charges

Our service plans are designed to accommodate the majority of usage scenarios given the needs of our customers. However, your usage may vary and require additional allocations, specifically in the areas of storage and traffic. We will never charge your card automatically if your account requires more resources. You must keep your email address updated within your cPanel, so that you may receive an email when your account reaches certain limits determined solely by our system, ie. bandwidth exceedment warning at 80% at which time you may contact us to purchase a higher transfer quota for your account. If you do not contact us, the system will suspend your site if your allotments exceed.

Refunds/Account Termination

If, for any reason, Great Big Onion Hosting fails to deliver said services, a prorated refund will be issued. No refunds will be issued if abuse of our stated policies forces Great Big Onion Hosting to suspend or terminate your services prematurely.
In the event you request account cancellation, once your service has been cancelled your account will be suspended from use. It will then be deleted within 30 days. If for any other reason your account becomes suspended and remains suspended it will be deleted after a 30-day period.

Content

Great Big Onion Hosting believes in freedom of speech; however, any content (written, visual, or implied) in the following areas will not be tolerated and is grounds for immediate suspension of service (in most cases customer will be allowed a zip file of their account): racism or prejudice due to color, creed, or belief; any violent/malicious/obscene content written, visual or implied. We will not tolerate any type of hate site including terrorist related websites on our network. If we receive notice that there is such a hate site hosted within our network, the customer hosting the material will be notified immediately. They are required to remove the content within a certain timeframe or will face account suspension and/or termination.

We prefer that you self-govern your content and remain responsible and all-knowing of your website publically provides. Even if other users have access to your account, you are responsible for their actions. The resources and time needed to govern our servers by checking each website individualy, which have growing and evolving content, is impossible. However, if Great Big Onion Hosting is made aware of any questionable content on a Great Big Onion Hosting-hosted site, we will address the concerns immediately and directly with you to seek an amiable resolution. If any person contacts us about content they have found on a Great Big Onion Hosting server that copyrights their own material or that they wish to be removed, we require legal documentation to take any further action.

Opt-in Email Marketing

If you choose to engage in marketing your site and/or services via email please heed the following. The only permitted form of email marketing is that in which the list is "opt-in". By definition, opt-in is where people provide you with their email address specifically requesting to be on your email list for information about your site and/or service. Even opt-in has its share of issues, so we cannot guarantee we will host this type of site on our network. If we find your account trasnmitting email to persons that did not authorize such activity, that is grounds to suspend and terminate your site.

Note: On the flip side, the joining of an opt-in email list does not guarantee the legitimacy of such a list. Please contact us before joining any such list so that you will not be a victim of spam from second and third parties of such lists. We would be happy to help you determine if a list looks legitimate.

UCE, UBE, Spam

Great Big Onion Hosting has a zero tolerance policy regarding unsolicited commercial email (UCE) and unsolicited bulk email (UBE) also known as "spam". The definition of spam:
An electronic message is "spam" IF: (1) the recipient's personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients; AND (2) the recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent; AND (3) the transmission and reception of the message appears to the recipient to give a disproportionate benefit to the sender.

You will be cited with "UCE/UBE Abuse" if you send any email to persons who have not specifically asked to receive email from you. The sending origin of such email is irrelevant. Upon confirmation of abuse, any Great Big Onion Hosting customer engaging in this practice will have their service suspended. Not only does spam place a strain on the server that can negatively effect that server's uptime record and performance record, you subject that server to the possibility of being blacklisted.

If your site will be sending mailings out to subscribers, this is a checklist of what you are required to do:

You must not try to hide, forge or misrepresent the sender of the e-mail and sending site of the e-mail.

Bulk mailings must specifically state how the persons' e-mail addresses were obtained and must indicate the frequency of the mailing.

Bulk mailings should contain simple and obvious unsubscribe mechanisms. We recommend that this be in the form of a working link to a one-click unsubscribe system; however, a valid "reply to:" address may be used instead.

All subscription based e-mail must have valid, non-electronic, contact information for the sending organization in the text of each e-mail including either a phone number or physical mailing address.

All bulk e-mail must be solicited, meaning that the sender has an existing and provable relationship with the e-mail recipient and the recipient has not requested not to receive future mailings from the sender. Documentation of the relationship between the sender and the recipient must be made available to AOL upon request.

Prohibited Uses of Great Big Onion Hosting Systems and Services Regarding Spam

Sending Unsolicited Bulk Email ("UBE", "spam"). The sending of any form of Unsolicited Bulk Email through Great Big Onion Hosting's servers is prohibited. Likewise, the sending of UBE from another service provider advertizing a web site, email address or utilizing any resource hosted on Great Big Onion Hosting's servers, is prohibited. Great Big Onion Hosting accounts or services may not be used to solicit customers from, or collect replies to, messages sent from another Internet Service Provider where those messages violate this Policy or that of the other provider.

Running Unconfirmed Mailing Lists. Subscribing email addresses to any mailing list without the express and verifiable permission of the email address owner is prohibited. All mailing lists run by Great Big Onion Hosting customers must be Closed-loop ("Confirmed Opt-in"). The subscription confirmation message received from each address owner must be kept on file for the duration of the existence of the mailing list. Purchasing lists of email addresses from 3rd parties for mailing to from any Great Big Onion Hosting-hosted domain, or referencing any Great Big Onion Hosting account, is prohibited.

Operating an account on behalf of, or in connection with, or reselling any service to, persons or firms listed in the Spamhaus Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database at www.spamhaus.org.

We receive automatic reports from Spamhaus, AOL and SpamCop for our IP ranges. If there are more than three complaints logged against your site in one day, the site will be suspended until a resolution/explanation is made.

Liabilities

Great Big Onion Hosting makes no endorsement, claims, or promises regarding the services offered by our customers and will not be held liable for any disputes or claims against said customers. In no event shall Great Big Onion Hosting be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special and exemplary damages, or any damages whatsoever, arising from the use or performance of a customer web site or from any information, services or products provided through a customer web site. If there is questionable content on any server in our network, we will not take any action against any material or action until the website is brought to our attention by emailing our abuse department at abuse(@greatbigonion.com).

Contacting the Web Site

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, the practices of this Web site, or your dealings with this Web site, you can contact:

ReRo Productions
DBA/Great Big Onion Design and Hosting
PO Box 553
Littleton, NH 03561
Voice (802) 748-4388
Fax (802) 318-4543