Terms of Service

Terms of Service

This Terms of Service Agreement ("Agreement") is entered into by and between SiteCountry, a sole-proprietorship business having its address at 1, Sri Jwala Prasad, Gursarai, Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India ("Company"), and you, and is made effective on the date you create a customer account through https://dash.sitecountry.com or otherwise electronically accept this Agreement.

Customer Agreement

The TOS apply to all Services provided by SiteCountry to you throughout the entire Term or Renewal Term. All customers should agree on all terms and conditions stated prior to their signing up for any of the hosting plans and services mentioned on SiteCountry. You shall agree to use only licensed and legal third party softwares in connection with your use of our services. SiteCountry reserves the right to suspend or cancel a customer's access to any or all services provided, at any time, or when SiteCountry decides that the account has been inappropriately used or otherwise.

SiteCountry may revise these Terms from time to time. Unless a later date is stated, revisions take effect when published and apply prospectively to Services used, ordered or renewed after publication. Customers are responsible for reviewing the current Terms. SiteCountry may provide notice of material changes, but the absence of notice does not delay a revision except where applicable law requires notice or consent.

Content

Sitecountry reserves the right to refuse service and/or access to its server to anyone. The services provided by us must be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data or material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited.

The activities listed below are meant to provide you with examples of activities and content that are strictly prohibited.

Topsites, ponzi or pyramid schemes, prime banks programs, bank debentures/bank debenture trading programs, cryptocurrency/bitcoin miners, forex, e-gold, proxy, bots, spam bots, mail bombers, SMS bombers, or any type of bombing/spamming application, port scanners, IP scanners, mail harvesting scripts, brute force scripts, chat rooms, banner rotators, file dumps, using disk space as secondary storage or for storing archived files, backups, vidoes, sales of illegal pharma, drugs, explosives, anonymous or bulk sms gateways, malware, warez, phishing materials, lottery, gambling, illegal downloads, pirated software distributions, escrow, high yield investment programs, adult thumbnail galleries/banner exchanges, streaming or broadcasting of live copyrighted events. Websites promoting illegal activities or linking to other websites that promote illegal activities.

Website content that promotes or advocates human trafficking in any way shape or form as determined by SiteCountry's sole discretion, sites that promote prostitution, or escort services.

Websites that promote/represent/accept religiously extremist groups/sayings as determined by SiteCountry's sole discretion, sites that promote/support terrorist activites and/or sites made with similar intention.

Any website found to host illegal/child pornography, link to child pornography or exploitative content will be suspended immediately without notice or warning.

Embedding or uploading audio/video/high resolution images on website or linking to other websites that promotes audio/video/high resolution images.

Illegal Material – This includes copyrighted works, commercial audio, video, or music files, and any material in violation of any regulation or material that is perceived to be misleading.

Warez – This includes, but is not limited to, pirated software, ROMS, emulators, phreaking, hacking, password cracking, IP spoofing and encrypting of any of the above. It also includes any sites which provide "links to" or "how to" information about such material.

Games – We strictly do not allow to host any kind of games on our servers. Your hosting account would be immediately terminated if we found any games hosted on your hosting account. This does not include blogs related to gaming or news websites related to gaming, We only prohibit using the account as a game server.

IRC Hosts – Hosting an IRC server that is part of or connected to another IRC network or server or have a connection to an IRC network. Servers or Virtual hosting accounts, found to be connecting to or part of these networks will be immediately removed from our network without notice. The server would not be reconnected to the network until such time that you agree to completely remove any and all traces of the irc server, and agree to let us have access to your server to confirm that the content has been completely removed. Any server guilty of a second violation would result in immediate account termination.

SiteCountry reserves the right to deem any other content or literature as "prohibited" if found to be indecent, rude, hate content & generally unacceptable.

Refer General Acceptable Use Policy for complete details on prohibited content and activities.

In compliance with DMCA act, Sitecountry has adopted procedures for parties who believe that a hosted site on our service is infringing their copyrights. All copyright complaints must be submitted to we@sitecountry.com

Abuse Of Resources

Any attempts to compromise or actual compromise of a network device belonging to SiteCountry or any other company, individual, or other entity is strictly prohibited. This offense also includes port scanning, IP range scanners and vulnerability scanning. All infractions and or suspected infractions will be vigorously investigated and may result in immediate termination of service.

Denial of Service (DOS) attacks directed at SiteCountry, or any attempts to launch a Denial of Service attack from our servers are strictly prohibited. All infractions and or suspected infractions will be vigorously investigated and may result in immediate termination of service.

Hosting any software, source code or any other material that is illegal or could be used to commit an illegal act is strictly prohibited. This includes but is not limited to software exploits; exploit source code, hacking tutorials, hacking tools, viruses and Trojans, bomb making and similar device tutorials. All infractions and or suspected infractions will be vigorously investigated and may result in immediate termination of service.

The hosting of material that infringes on any copyright, trademark and or service mark is strictly prohibited. This also includes the storage and transmission of pirated movies, music, software, ring tones or anything else considered "Warez". Any authentic complaint received will be investigated and may result in termination of service.

The hosting of defamatory, scandalous, or private information about a person without their consent, intentionally inflicting emotional distress, or violating trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights.

Any attempts to undermine or cause harm to any of our servers is strictly prohibited. We hold no responsibility for the use of our clients' accounts. Any account that abuses the resources and actions are not taken to desist the activity, calls for immediate deactivation without any refund. Any site using what we deem to be using excessive CPU cycles or any resources that cause strain to other sites may also be offered new terms ( i.e.,. upgrade). Our hosting uptime promise is 99.9%, subject to the exclusions in the Uptime Guarantee section, and uninterrupted service is not guaranteed.

If any client is in any way disrespectful towards any member of the Sitecountry staff we have full right to remove them from our services without any refund.

Domain Registration, Renewal and Transfer

SiteCountry is a reseller of domain services supplied through independent registrars and registries. A domain search, order, invoice or payment does not reserve a domain or guarantee that a registration, renewal or transfer has been completed. A domain transaction is complete only when it has been successfully processed and confirmed by the applicable registrar or registry.

The customer is responsible for checking the domain name, requested transaction and term, and for independently verifying the resulting status and expiry date through the customer account, the applicable registrar record, WHOIS or RDAP. Continued operation of a website, DNS, email, nameserver or SSL certificate does not prove that a domain has been renewed. Customers should report any apparent mismatch promptly and should not rely only on an invoice, payment receipt or renewal reminder.

Registration, renewal and transfer requests may fail or be delayed because of domain availability or status, registry or registrar rules, payment clearance, technical errors, third-party outages, validation requirements, grace or redemption status, or other circumstances outside SiteCountry's reasonable control. SiteCountry cannot guarantee registration, renewal, transfer, redemption, restoration or recovery of a domain.

If a paid domain transaction cannot be completed, SiteCountry may, as appropriate and subject to applicable law, retry the transaction, return the unperformed domain-service amount as SiteCountry account credit, or provide another required remedy. Account credit is not confirmation that the domain transaction was completed and is not a cash refund. Nothing in this section excludes any liability or customer remedy that applicable law does not permit SiteCountry to exclude.

Unsolicited commercial e-mail/Unsolicited bulk e-mail (SPAM)

Use of our service to transmit any unsolicited commercial or unsolicited bulk e-mail is expressly prohibited. Violation of this SPAM policy will result in severe penalties.

Upon notification of an alleged violation, we will initiate a full scale investigation during which, we may restrict customer's access to the network to prevent further violations. If a customer is found to have violated our policy, we may, at our sole discretion, restrict, suspend or terminate the guilty hosting account. Further more, we reserve the right to pursue civil remedies for any costs associated with the investigation of a substantiated policy violation. We will notify law enforcement officials if the violation is believed to be a criminal offense. Anyone using our service to host websites or services that support spammers or cause any of our IP space to be listed in any of the various Spam Databases will have their account(s) immediately suspended and an administrative fee of $200.00 will be charged to your account. The account will not be unsuspended until such time that you agree to remove any and all traces of the offending material immediately upon reconnection. First violations of this policy will result in a warning and your account will be reviewed for possible immediate termination. A second violation may result in an immediate termination of your account and the administrative fees will be $450. Severe violations may result in immediate and permanent removal of the account(s) from our network without notice to the customer.

We have a zero tolerance policy for the use of our service towards posting of messages or commercial advertisements which violate the rules, regulations, or charter of any newsgroups or mailing list. Commercial messages that are appropriate under the rules of a newsgroup or mailing list or that are solicited by the recipients are permitted.

We also prohibit hosting of publicly-accessible "open relay" SMTP or anonymous remailer service for any purpose, cause, or reason what-so-ever.

Bandwidth

If the customers account exceeds the bandwidth limit, we would inform the customer. If the customer does not wish to purchase extra bandwidth or upgrade his account and continues to exceed their limit, the account shall be suspended until the customer takes measures to ensure that the limit wouldn't exceed again or when the account is upgraded, which ever is earlier. The account would be reactivated in the following month.

Account Verification

If the customer fails to complete the account verification process then no refund would be provided to such customers, except where applicable law requires otherwise.

VPS Rules

We generally recommend a control panel to manage and operate the VPS. All customers who have a plain VPS would have to configure the DNS, user accounts, mail accounts and other such activities pertaining to the configuration of such VPS' themselves. The support team will not be responsible for this.

Commercial Advertising- Email (SPAM)/UNSOLICITED COMMERCIAL EMAIL (UCE)

Spamming, sending unsolicited emails from our servers or using email addresses that are maintained by us is STRICTLY prohibited and will qualify your site for immediate deactivation with no refund. SiteCountry would be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision. Standard email limit of 150 emails is set for all plans. [Please consider a third-party service if you are looking for extra emails.]

In order to ensure that our shared servers, cloud & vps nodes as well as dedicated server hardware node give us optimum performance we have set limits on the number of outgoing mails which can be sent per hour. Accordingly, shared & reseller customers would be allowed to send 500 outgoing mails per hour, our VPS customers would be able to send 15000 outgoing mails every hour. Customers having dedicated servers may send one email every second i.e. 36000 mails per hour.

We do not guarantee Inbox email delivery with any of our hosting plans.

We currently do not provide/offer support related to development/setup of NodeJS/Python applications, users are required to have the necessary knowledge to operate their applications.

Backup Policy

You are responsible for maintaining current, independently tested copies of all files, databases, email and other User Content outside SiteCountry's infrastructure. SiteCountry hosting must not be used as the only copy of business-critical data. Any backup feature or copy maintained by SiteCountry is a supplementary recovery measure and is not a guarantee that data can be recovered.

The client is responsible to inform SiteCountry of any discontinuation of service beforehand so that we can de-provision it accordingly.

Hardware and software can fail without warning. Data loss, corruption or interruption may result from HDD, SSD or NVMe failure; RAID or storage-controller failure; filesystem or database corruption; CPU, memory, motherboard, power-supply or network-equipment failure; hypervisor, operating-system, control-panel or backup failure; data-centre, network, power or cooling events; malware, ransomware, unauthorised access, credential compromise, third-party software defects or zero-day vulnerabilities; customer configuration; or other events outside SiteCountry's reasonable control.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, SiteCountry does not guarantee that any backup will run at a particular time, contain every item, remain available or uncorrupted, or restore successfully. SiteCountry may make commercially reasonable recovery efforts, but recovery cannot be guaranteed where no complete and usable backup exists. Redundant systems reduce some risks but do not eliminate the possibility of interruption or data loss.

Backup retention: Premium Cloud 30 days; Elite Cloud 30 days; Reseller Hosting 7 days; Basic Hosting 5 days. Keep independent, tested backups. Retention does not guarantee backup frequency, completeness, availability or successful restoration; it does not promise free restores. Applicable legal remedies remain unaffected.

VPS, email, n8n and other SiteCountry services: No backups are included by default. Configure and maintain your own backups, or contact SiteCountry for available managed backup options. Products hosted by an external provider are governed by that provider's backup terms; a handoff link does not establish a SiteCountry backup commitment.

Clients using cPanel Backup Manager tool for backups should download the backup from the server and delete it. On every Sunday, all the backup files may be removed from the server without any notification. You are not allowed to use the hosting space to store backups.

Unlimited Hosting

"Unlimited" usage policies and definitions apply only to shared and reseller hosting accounts. Click here to read the unlimited hosting policy.

The size of each mail box should not exceed 5GB and combined mail box size per domain should not exceed 50GB. This is applicable for Web Hosting & Reseller hosting plans.

Uptime Guarantee

SiteCountry's hosting uptime promise is 99.9% for the applicable service and measurement period. This is a service commitment, not a measured uptime statistic or a promise of uninterrupted or error-free service. Unless an applicable written SLA states otherwise, downtime resulting from scheduled or emergency maintenance, third-party provider failures, customer actions or configuration, DNS propagation, DDoS or other attacks, suspension under these Terms, or events beyond SiteCountry's reasonable control is excluded from uptime calculations.

SiteCountry will not be liable for failure or delay in performing its obligations if such failure or delay is due to circumstances beyond its reasonable control, including acts of a governmental body, war, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, fire, flood, labour disturbance, interruption or delay in transportation, utility or telecommunications failure, data-centre or network outage, widespread cyberattack, third-party software or hardware failure, or inability to obtain supplies or power required for the Services.

Third-Party Infrastructure and Dependencies

SiteCountry services may depend on independent data centres, network and transit providers, cloud or colocation providers, domain registrars and registries, DNS and CDN providers, control-panel vendors, software licensors, certificate authorities, payment processors, anti-spam services, backup providers and external APIs.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, SiteCountry is not responsible for interruption, delay, loss or failure caused exclusively by a third party and outside SiteCountry's reasonable control. This does not exclude SiteCountry's expressly undertaken obligations, its own avoidable operational errors, or liability that applicable law does not permit SiteCountry to exclude.

Security

You are responsible for any misuse of your account therefore, you must take steps to ensure that others do not gain unauthorized access to your account. In addition, you may not use your account to breach the security of another account or attempt to gain unauthorized access to another network or server.

Your password provides access to your account. It is your responsibility to keep your password secure.

Sharing your password and account access with unauthorized users is not recommended. You should take care and prevent others from using your account since you will be responsible for the consequences.

Attempting to obtain another user's account password is strictly prohibited, and will result in termination of service.

You must adopt adequate security measures to prevent or minimize unauthorized use of your account.

You may not 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 you, logging into or making use of a server or account you are not expressly authorized to access, or probing the security of other networks. Use or distribution of tools designed for compromising security is prohibited. Examples of these tools include, but are not limited to, password guessing programs, cracking tools or network probing tools.

You may not attempt to interfere with service to any user, host or network ("denial of service attacks"). This includes, but is not limited to, "flooding" of networks, deliberate attempts to overload a service, and attempts to "crash" a host. Users who violate systems or network security may incur criminal or civil liability. SiteCountry will cooperate fully with investigations of violations of systems or network security at other sites, including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations.

Customer-Caused Security Incidents

Customers are responsible for using strong and unique passwords, enabling two-factor authentication where available, protecting credentials and API keys, controlling access given to employees and contractors, keeping recovery details current, and maintaining secure and updated applications, content-management systems, plugins, themes, scripts and configurations.

No hosting environment can be guaranteed immune from hacking, malware, ransomware, credential theft, compromised plugins, customer configuration errors or zero-day vulnerabilities. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the customer is responsible for loss, compromise or disruption caused by customer-controlled credentials, software, content, access or configuration.

Emergency Suspension and Infrastructure Protection

SiteCountry may immediately suspend, isolate, limit or disable a Service, with or without advance notice, where reasonably necessary to respond to a suspected compromise, malware, phishing, spam, DDoS attack, resource abuse, unlawful activity, non-payment, chargeback, legal direction, binding third-party requirement, or a risk to SiteCountry's infrastructure, customers or the public.

Access may remain restricted while the risk is investigated or remediated. Suspension does not guarantee preservation or availability of data, and the customer must maintain independent backups. SiteCountry may restore access when it reasonably determines that the relevant risk has been resolved, subject to these Terms and applicable law.

Billing Policy

The client is responsible to inform SiteCountry of any discontinuation of service beforehand so that we can de-provision it accordingly.

If paying via credit card, debit card, net banking, Paytm/UPI, Skrill or PayPal the account will be setup immediately once the payment is verified.

For first-time purchases, Premium Cloud and Elite Cloud hosting have a 30-day voluntary refund period, subject to the Refund Policy. VPS hosting and all other plans, products and services have no voluntary refund period under that policy unless SiteCountry expressly agrees otherwise in writing, and renewals, upgrades and subsequent purchases are not eligible under it. Refund terms that applied to an order when it was placed continue to apply to that order. Nothing in these Terms limits a refund or remedy that applicable law requires.

Payments made using cryptocurrency are not eligible for refunds under our voluntary refund policy, except where a refund or other remedy is required by applicable law.

Transition. This voluntary refund policy applies to orders placed on or after the publication of this updated policy. An order placed before that publication remains governed by the refund terms that applied when the order was placed. This section does not remove any right, refund period or remedy that had already arisen under those terms, or any refund or remedy that applicable law requires.

Completed domain registrations, transfers and renewals and other irreversible third-party transactions are normally non-refundable. If a paid domain transaction cannot be completed, SiteCountry may retry it, return the unperformed amount as SiteCountry account credit, or provide another remedy required by applicable law.

The modifications done in pricing pattern or policy by the software license company will take effect immediately on SiteCountry clients.

Where no contractual or legally required refund is due, SiteCountry may approve or deny a discretionary account credit. Account credit is not cash and may be used only against eligible future SiteCountry charges.

The free domain name registered with the Premium Cloud, Elite Cloud Hosting Service is valid for 1 year for free, after which it would renew on the regular renewal fees. Upon cancellation of Premium Cloud/Elite Cloud Service, if the client has registered the domain name within the free domian offer, then the domain name shall become chargeable, whose charge shall be equal to the ongoing domain name registration fees at the time when the cancelltaion is requested.

Voluntary refunds may be denied if your Service(s) are suspended or terminated for cause, subject to prior-purchase terms and any remedy required by applicable law.

There is limitation of every hosting platform. On an OpenVZ VPS, GUI is not supported and it won't be possible to upgrade the kernel or change BIOS setting. Kernel upgrade is possible on KVM Cloud instances but you cannot change the BIOS settings. You won't be eligible for refund in such cases.

The refund will not cover any kind of taxes, setup fees, refund processing fee, postal charges or any kind of payment processing charges or bank fee(s). There will be no refunds issued in case the web hosting account was involved in violation of our terms of service or any kind of illegal or system resources over-usages or after the 30-day refund period or beyond coverage of our refund policy as noted here.

If the web hosting service includes free domain name, and you cancel the web hosting service, the domain charges (standard rate as per website) would be deducted from the refund amount. Free domain must be registered under 7 days of the payment of your hosting package.(20) If the refund amount is less than the domain name price, you will have to pay the difference or forfeit the domain. The ownership of the domain will remain with SiteCountry if you fail to pay the difference amount.

Transfer fees would be applicable, if you wish to transfer the free domain name to some other provider. Without transfer fees the domain will not be released.

A voluntary refund request placed after the 30-day period in the Refund Policy will not be processed under that policy. This does not affect any refund or remedy that applicable law requires.

The cancellation request should be sent through client area.

After sending the cancellation request, it would take 7 – 14 working days to complete the refund process.

Account Termination

Your hosting account at SiteCountry can get terminated due to following reasons:

You decide to discontinue: If you request immediate cancellation, your hosting account may be suspended immediately and permanently terminated and deleted beginning 24 hours after the cancellation becomes effective.

Cancellation upon expiration: If you request cancellation at expiry, your hosting account may be suspended when the subscription expires and permanently terminated and deleted beginning 24 hours after the expiry date.

You did not renew: If payment is not received by the due date, your hosting account may be suspended on the due date and permanently terminated and deleted beginning 24 hours after expiry.

You violate our Terms of service : If you violate our terms of service during your subscription period at SiteCountry it will result in immediate account suspension and termination. As soon as we've been notified about the violation of service, we would usually take instant action.

Potential fraud : We have an anti-fraud system that monitors all the orders as soon as they are placed. During such an occurrence, we will carry out a verification process manually. In this process, if we ask for certain information and it is not provided the account suspension and termination will be done immediately.

A Dispute or ChargeBack : During the violation of our Terms of Service, we would initially suspend and give a 7 days timeframe to resolve the concern with SiteCountry before the termination occurs. If still, it remains unsolved termination of your hosting account will take place.

Note : It is advised to maintain a back-up copy of your hosting account to avoid losing your data because of the termination. All your files will be deleted from the server, once your hosting account is terminated and SiteCountry shall not be liable for the same.

Indemnification

Customer agrees that they will protect, indemnify, save and hold SiteCountry harmless from any and all stipulations, liabilities, losses, expenses and claims, as well as reasonable attorney's fees assessed against SiteCountry, its agents, customers, officers, employees and administration that may arise or result from any service provided or performed or agreed to be performed or any product sold by it's customers, agents, employees or assigns.

Customer agrees to defend, indemnify and hold SiteCountry harmless against liabilities arising out of –

• Any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or distributed in association with SiteCountry's Services;
• The loss of any electronic files furnished by customer (Or customer's customer);
• Copyright violation and any defective products sold to a customer from SiteCountry's Services

Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, SiteCountry shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, punitive or exemplary loss or damage, or for loss of profit, revenue, business, contract, opportunity, goodwill, reputation, anticipated savings, website traffic, search-engine ranking, enquiries or business continuity, arising from or relating to the Services.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, SiteCountry is not liable for loss caused exclusively by third-party infrastructure or services outside its reasonable control, or for data loss subject to the Backup Policy and customer backup responsibilities. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for fraud, wilful misconduct, or any liability that applicable law does not permit SiteCountry to exclude or limit.

Website Migration Terms

1. Migration Timeline:

When initiating the migration of your website from a previous hosting provider to our platform, please note that the duration of this process may vary between 6 to 24 hours. The precise duration is contingent upon several factors:

• Ticket Load: The influx of ongoing migration requests being handled simultaneously. Higher request volumes may necessitate additional time allocation.
• Website Data Size: The scale of data associated with your website, including multimedia content such as images and videos, can influence the duration of the migration process.
• Server Speed: The processing capability and performance of our servers will contribute to the overall swiftness of the migration.

2. Sequential Queue Processing:

Migration requests, along with all corresponding support tickets, are managed through a sequential queue-based mechanism. The sequence of ticket submission dictates the order in which migrations are attended to. This methodology ensures an equitable and organized processing of all requests and inquiries.

3. Operational Clarification:

• Ticket Issuance: Upon submission of a migration request, a unique ticket number will be assigned to facilitate streamlined communication and tracking.
• Patience and Understanding: We acknowledge the anticipation that surrounds the migration of your website. Your understanding and patience during the migration process are greatly appreciated.
• Ongoing Communication: We encourage you to maintain an open line of communication with us. Should you require additional information, wish to furnish supplementary details, or seek updates on the progress of your migration, we are readily available to provide assistance and updates.

In essence, we strive to orchestrate the migration of your website in a meticulous manner, ensuring that all facets of your online presence are seamlessly transposed. We value your trust in our services and extend our gratitude for selecting us as your digital transition partner.

Migration quota valid for 14 days from the date of order unless noted otherwise.

Governing Law and Jurisdiction

This Agreement is governed by the laws of India. Subject to applicable law and any jurisdictional rights that cannot lawfully be excluded or restricted, the courts of competent jurisdiction at Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India shall have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes arising out of or relating to this Agreement or the Services.

Change of TOS

SiteCountry may modify these TOS at any time. Unless a later date is stated, changes take effect when published and apply to Services used, ordered or renewed after publication. SiteCountry may make changes without prior notice, except where notice or consent is required by applicable law.

No clarification or explanation of the Terms provided by the Parties will have the power to modify the provisions of these TOS.