Payment and Cancellation Policy

All payments are due yearly / monthly in advance on the anniversary of your account activation. For each successive period, your contract is renewed automatically unless we are notified otherwise. Billing is determined by the hosting package option you chose at the time of ordering. Your billing period also applies to any additional items and services ordered after the initial activation of you account. Fee for such items and services will be prorated so that the start date matches that of the first domain.

Current payment methods available on request.

Refunds will be given at the discretion of the Company Management

GVA invoices exclusively by e-mail or post.

Late Payments

Any account whose payment status is not current as of the start of the next billing period is deemed late. Generally, customers are given 5 day grace period after which the account is put on suspension. Reactivation of closed accounts due to delinquency incurs a £10 reactivation fee as well as payment of the balance due in full.

To cancel your account

You may use any of the following methods to deliver a written notice of cancellation:
Online: Please email hosting@gvaonline.co.uk  

Post: Write to GVA Online Hosting Services, 21 Lummaton Place, Torquay, TQ2 8EB, United Kingdom; please include your domain name, password and your reason for canceling on your cover letter for fastest processing of your request. Please include your contact information in case we need to get in touch with you.

When you cancel your account, you will receive a refund equal to any unused portion of your service for which you have pre-paid. You will not receive a refund for time that your account resided on our servers, unless your cancellation is made within the first 30 days of the account sign-up. Setup fees, when applicable, are non-refundable. You are obligated to pay for your account even if you do not use it. Because we have provided you with usernames, passwords, DNS entries, and an IP address, you have the ability to use your account. The fact that you do not do so is not relevant - you are still obligated to pay for the account. Even an unused account uses valuable system resources that could be used for other customers. If you have a past-due balance on your account at the time the account is closed (either by your request or due to non-payment), the remaining balance must be paid within 30 days of when the account is closed. If we do not receive payment on the remaining balance in that time, we will begin efforts to collect any fees owed. We apply a £20/$25.00 collection fee to cover our costs in attempting to collect your debt. If our internal collection efforts fail, we reserve the right to turn the account over to a 3rd-party (either collections agency or solicitor) for further action. We also reserve the right to report your unpaid balance to credit reference agencies as well as ISP/web host information services.

GVA is dedicated to providing an all-round top quality service. The terms and conditions which follow are necessary to ensure that we may continue to provide the best possible service to all of our customers whilst at the same time satisfying our legal and ethical responsibilities.

Failure to follow any term or condition will be grounds for immediate account deactivation without notice. GVA will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of any of these provisions.

Activity which results in the suspension or deactivation of an account will result in a forfeiture of all fees paid. Complaints made regarding abuses of an account will be investigated and if found guilty will be grounds for immediate suspension.

Acceptable Usage Policy
To report suspected abuses or any violations of these policies, 
please contact hosting@gvaonline.co.uk

Illegal Usage

Our Hosting servers may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or distribution of any information, data or material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to: copyrighted material, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorisation, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws. Examples of non-acceptable content or links: Pirated software, Hackers programs or archives, Warez sites, MP3, and IRC bots. The subscriber to GVA service agrees to indemnify and hold harmless NewHosts from any claims resulting from the use of the service that damages the subscriber or any other party.

GVA will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.

Adult Content

Due to special system and network requirements of adult oriented sites, pornography and sex-related merchandising are prohibited. This includes sites that may infer sexual content, or links to adult content elsewhere. This is also true for sites that promote any illegal activity or content that may be damaging to our servers or any other server on the Internet. Links to such materials are also prohibited.

Security

Violations of system or network security are prohibited, and may result in criminal and civil liability. Examples include, but are not limited to the following: Unauthorised access, use, probe, or scan of a systems security or authentication measures, data or traffic. Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks. Forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting.

Server Resource

Any website that uses a high amount of server resources (such as, but not limited to, CPU time, memory usage, and network resources) will be given an option of either paying extra (which depends on the resource needed) or reducing the resource used to an acceptable level. GVA shall be the sole arbiter of what is considered to be a high server usage level.

CGI/PHP/ASP Scripts

Cgi script sharing with domains not hosted by GVA is not allowed. Any cgi-scripts deemed to be adversely affecting the server performance or the network integrity will be shut down without prior notice.

Chat Rooms

GVA does not allow clients to install their own chat rooms. Chat rooms tend to be large system hogs and we cannot permit it as an account option. GVA does provide a choice of Java chatrooms which should meet most users' needs and run without hindering the performance of the machine of our servers.

Background Running Programs and Cron Jobs

GVA does not allow background Daemons such as IRC bots; eggdrop; BitchX; XiRCON; and any other program that interferes with normal server operation.

Backups

GVA performs daily backups on all servers to ensure critical files are never lost. However GVA is NOT responsible for lost data, time, income or any other resource due to faulty backups or non-existent backups.

Client Responsibility

The client is responsible for all activity originating from the account unless proven to be a victim of outside hacking or address forgery. The client is responsible for securing their username/password. The client assumes responsibility for all material on their site that may be put on by a third party (such as the usage of Free For All links pages). Use of GVA's service requires a certain level of knowledge in the use of Internet languages, protocols, and software. This level of knowledge varies depending on the anticipated use and desired content of the web space by the client. The following examples are offered: Web Publishing: requires knowledge of HTML, properly locating and linking documents, FTPing Web contents, Graphics, text, sound, image mapping, etc. FrontPage web publishing: knowledge of the FrontPage tools as well as Telnet and FTP understanding and capability. CGI-Scripts: requires knowledge of the UNIX environment, TAR & GUNZIP commands, Perl, CShell scripts, permissions, etc. Mail: a use of mail clients to receive and send mail, etc. The client agrees that he or she has the necessary knowledge to create and maintain their web space. Client agrees that it is not the responsibility of GVA to provide this knowledge or support outside matter specific to GVA servers.

UCE (Unsolicited Commerce Email) - SPAM

Spamming, or the sending of mass unsolicited email, from or through a GVA server or using an email address that is maintained on a GVA machine is STRICTLY prohibited. GVA will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. If you engage in any of the foregoing activities using the service of another ISP or IPP, but channelling activities through a GVA server as a maildrop for responses, you are in violation. Violators will be assessed a minimum of £200/$270.00 fine and will face an immediate suspension.

Server abuse

Any attempts to undermine or cause harm to a GVA server or customer of GVA is strictly prohibited.

Any sub-networks of GVA and dedicated servers must adhere to the above policies. The failures to meet or follow any of the above guidelines are grounds for account deactivation. We reserve the right to remove any account without prior notice.

Software Distribution

GVA's shared Web Hosting accounts are not to be used for the purposes of distributing software and multimedia products. If you wish to distribute software and/or multimedia files, please contact hosting@gvaonline.co.uk for special arrangement.

Multimedia Files

Multimedia files are defined as any graphics, audio, and video files. GVA Web Hosting accounts is not to be used for the purposes of distributing and storing unusual amount of multimedia files. Any Web site whose disk space usage for storing the multimedia files exceed 70% of its total usage, either in terms of total size or number of files, will be deemed to be using unusual amount of multimedia files.

Database

Any database stored on GVA servers shall be limited in size to 20% of the total disk space allotted for a particular domain.

Actions Taken by GVA

The failure by a customer to meet or follow any of the above policies/terms is grounds for account deactivation. GVA will be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of the AUP. GVA reserves the right to remove any account without prior notice.

When GVA becomes aware of an alleged violation of its AUP, GVA will initiate an investigation. During the investigation, GVA may restrict a customer's access in order to prevent further potentially unauthorised activity. Depending on the severity of the violation, GVA may, at its sole discretion, restrict, suspend, or terminate a customer's web hosting account and/or pursue other civil remedies. If such violation is a criminal offence, GVA will notify the appropriate law enforcement authorities of such violation.

GVA does not issue credits for outages incurred through service disablement resulting from AUP violations.

GVA customers agree to indemnify and hold harmless GVA from any claims resulting from the use of our services that damages them or any other party. The GVA service is provided on an as is, as available basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement. GVA expressly disclaims any representation or warranty that the GVA service will be error-free, secure or uninterrupted. No oral advice or written information given by GVA, its employees, licensors or the like, will create a warranty; nor may you rely on any such information or advice. GVA and its partners and suppliers will not be liable for any cost or damage arising either directly or indirectly from any transaction or use of the service.

Modification

GVA reserves the right to add, delete, or modify any provision of this Policy at any time without notice.

Refusal Of Service

We reserve the right to refuse, cancel, or suspend service at our sole discretion.