Definition of Service

The term service is used to describe the various services and privileges that IHQ Inc. clients are offered. This includes, but is not limited to : emails, databases, Web hosting, name servers, and any other privilege provided by IHQ Inc. and identified as such.

The term resources defines the quantity or level of availability of the services offered by IHQ Inc.

The term client identify any individual or moral entity who use services provided by IHQ Inc.

The registration day is defined by the day on which a client register an account with IHQ Inc.

IHQ Inc. services are based on a one month contract agreement that begins on the billing day of a client, and that is either ended or renewed on the next billing day. This contract is identified as the IHQ Inc. main contract agreement. Other rules may apply depending on the situation.

This agreement ends when the account is terminated and the content is permanently removed by IHQ Inc.

IHQ Inc. trial services are based on a 7 days contract agreement that begins on the registration day and ends either 7 days later, on account termination, or on the first billing day. This contract is identified as the IHQ Inc. trial contract agreement.

A billing day occurs one day for each of the twelve months in a year. It is first defined by the day on which a client purchase IHQ credits. The next billing day is normally defined by adding one month to the last billing day. For example, a client who purchases IHQ credits for the first time on January 27th will have his first billing day on January 27th, and his second billing day on February 27th, and so on. When the billing day doesn't have a valid representation in the calendar, for a month, it is reported to the first day of the next month. For example, a billing day that would be February 31st 2007 would occur on March 1st, and the next billing day would be set for March 31st. On each billing day, a client agrees to enters or renew a contract agreement defined by the current IHQ Inc. terms of service (TOS).

IHQ credits are virtual tokens that can be purchased from IHQ Inc. Those credits can be traded for services, according to the IHQ Inc. terms of service (TOS).

Upon registration, a client agrees to be legally tied to the trial offer contract agreement until either IHQ Inc. terminate his account, or he enters a new contract agreement with IHQ Inc.

Account termination or cancellation represents the act of ending all services that IHQ Inc. was providing to a client.

Accounts registered with IHQ Inc. are always assigned a status that represents the current state of the account. Here is the list of each status, as well as the description and contract agreement that is in effect for any status.

Trial : The account operates on limited resources and services, in the sole purpose of demonstrating the various features of IHQ Inc. services. The client associated with an account labeled with the Trial status is tied to the trial contract agreement.

Active : The account operates with normal resources and can access the full features of the IHQ Inc. services, as described in the service plan chosen by the client. The client associated with this account is tied to the main contract agreement.

Limited : The account operates with minimal resources because IHQ Inc. has monitored an over usage and the account has been disabled. If the client still have IHQ credits available, the account will be restored to the Active status on the next billing day. If the client has enabled the auto billing option, the account is restored immediately, without interruption. Restoring an account prior to the billing day though, will debit credits immediately and thus, change the billing day. The client associated with an account labeled with the Limited status is tied to the main contract agreement.

Expired : The account operates with very limited resources and services. An account will be labeled with this status when there aren't enough credits available on a billing day, or when the client has failed to respect the IHQ Inc. terms of service. An account that remains under the Expired status for more than 30 days is automatically terminated. An account with this status will be restored to the Active status when the required amount of IHQ credits is purchased. The client associated with this account is tied to the main contract agreement.

Blocked : The account has no resources and no services are provided by IHQ Inc. An account will be labeled with this status when a client has failed to respect the IHQ Inc. terms of services (TOS). The client associated with an account labeled with the Blocked status is required to justify his actions before IHQ Inc. choose whether to terminate his account or to restore it to an other status. In every case, the client holds full responsibilities for any implication resulting from the use of his account and could be subject to legal actions. The client associated with an account labeled with the Blocked status is tied to the main contract agreement.

IHQ Inc. reserves the right to change the status of any account at any time without notice.

IHQ Inc. reserves the right to refuse a client.

Upon status change, the billing day of an account may be subject to change.

Terms of Service

The following terms applies to every contract agreement with IHQ Inc. :

• The client holds full responsibilities over any damage, loss of data, service interruption or legal implication occuring from the use of his account.
• The client cannot transfer any of his responsibilities regarding the use of his account.
• The client will not publicly reveals his account password, or provide means to gain access to IHQ Inc. servers.
• The client is responsible to make regular backups of his data, and will not hold IHQ Inc. accountable for any damage occured from the use of his account.
• The client will not take any action that could cause harm or damage to IHQ Inc., IHQ Inc. partners, or other clients.
• The client will not run any server or daemon program from his account such as IRC, game servers, and trackers. The only servers or daemons which users are granted to use, are those explicitly provided by IHQ Inc., and described in the user guide.
• The client will not attempt to use his account as a large scale file distribution system.
• The client will not use his account to send unsolicited email, SPAM, or unwanted advertising messages of any kind.
• The client will not use his account to gather informations such as emails, and any other personal information that is intented to be used for sending unsolicited email, SPAM, or unwanted advertising messages of any kind.
• The client will not distribute, or provide means, in order to gain access to pirated software, illegal material, or copyrighted material on which he has no rights.
• The client will take no action that could be interpreted as illegal in regards to the Canadian or American Laws.
• The client will not use his account as an evasive way regarding laws that applies in his country, even when respecting Canadian and American laws.
• The client will not hold IHQ Inc. responsible for any financial loss.
• The client will not hold IHQ Inc. responsible for any potential business loss.
• IHQ Inc. provides no warranty of any kind regarding the provided services.
• The client will not hold IHQ Inc. responsible for a loss of data.
• The client will not hold IHQ Inc. responsible for any damage caused by technical problems.
• The client acknowledges that IHQ Inc. hold absolutely no responsibility regarding the use of his account.
• The client acknowledges that IHQ Inc. provides no warranty of any kind regarding the provided services.
• The client acknowledges that IHQ Inc. has full rights over his account and can modify, block, or delete it, at any time without prior notice.
• The client acknowledge that IHQ Inc. has the autority to provide a modification or interpretation to the terms in this document in case of a disagreement.
  

 

The IHQ Inc. trial contract agreement requires the client to respect the main contract agreement as well as the following rules :

• The trial account can't be used for commercial purpose.
• The client agrees to keep his trial account private and not to render public any information regarding his account, its resources, and the provided services.
• The only authorized usage of the trial account is for testing IHQ Inc. services.
• The trial account has strong resources limitations and is bound to expire after a short time.
• The trial account will be automatically terminated after 7 days if the client fails to purchase the required amount of IHQ credits during that period.
• When the required amount of IHQ credits is purchased, the IHQ account is automatically debited with that amount of credits, and the account status is changed to Active. The billing day is then set to the day of this purchase.
• Once an account has been changed from the trial status to a different status, the account cannot regain the trial status a second time.

 

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

The Service Level Agreement is an optional legal agreement that grants the client some privileges. The privileges of this agreement applies only to a client with an Active account with IHQ Inc. who hasn't failed to any terms of the main contract agreement.

Uptime Guarantee:
A downtime is defined by a period where no service can be provided to a client because of a problem related to IHQ Inc. External events are not covered by this agreement. For example, power outage, localized or global internet failure, and natural disasters aren't covered by this agreement. In some occasions, IHQ Inc. will schedule an offline period for system maintenance and will send a notice by email prior to the event. Those scheduled events aren't covered by this agreement as downtime periods.

For each single day on which occurs at least one downtime period lasting one hour or more, IHQ Inc. will give the equivalent of one free day to each affected client. The free day given in such situations is applied by pushing the billing day one day in the future from his current value. For example, a client with his next billing day scheduled for september 5th, and suffering 2 hours of downtime in a single day, would see his billing day changed to september 6th.

Data Integrity Assurance:
Although IHQ Inc. provides absolutely no warranty of any kind regarding the preservation of data, IHQ Inc. gives the assurance that every server is configured to enforce RAID 1 or RAID 5 data integrity. This insurance should provide basic data security to all clients, but it should in no way stop anyone from taking regular security backups of their data.

• RAID 1 uses 2 hard drives (HDD) and writes data to both. In the case where one HDD fails, the remaining HDD still contains all the data. RAID 1 offers no protection in the case where both HDD fails or if one of them has a surface problem and is writing invalid data.
• RAID 5 uses a minimum of 3 hard drives and writes data with parity across all HDD. RAID 5 offers protection if any one HDD fails or contains invalid written data.
  

Email Preservation:
Under many occasions a client account may be in a status different from active. In some of those status, many services provided by IHQ Inc. can be revoked to a user. This situation however will not prevent the emails addresses created in this account from receiving mail. Access to those emails may be temporarily blocked, but the content is preserved until the account is restored or deleted. If IHQ Inc. decides to delete an account for particular reasons, all content including emails will be removed regardless of this agreement.

Account backup tool:
IHQ Inc. provides a backup tool that allows a client to create an archive that contains all the data of his account. The archive content can then be restored into the client account at any moment, using the restore tool.

 

Liability

• A client who has entered a contract agreement with IHQ Inc. can't transfer his responsibility regarding any part of the agreement to a third party.
• A client agrees to be responsible toward laws for any action or situation resulting from the use of his account.
• A client agrees to defend IHQ Inc. in court for any legal action taken because of an action or situation resulting from the use of his account.
  

 

Copyright and Intellectual Property

The IHQ name, logos, product descriptions, documentation, and artworks are the ownership of IHQ Inc. and can't be distributed or reproduced without written permission from IHQ Inc. Under many occasions IHQ Inc. may release source code or software under a variety of licenses, ranging from public licenses GNU/GPL to custom private licenses. Each piece of software or source code distributed by IHQ Inc. comes with a license and all users are required to respect those licenses, and their guidelines.

Websites from IHQ use icons and buttons from the "NUVOLA ICON THEME for KDE 3.x", created by David Vignoni | ICON KING, and distributed under the LGPL license (http://www.icon-king.com).

 

Privacy Policy 

• IHQ Inc. will in no occasion sell or exchange the personal informations about a client and his account to a third party.
• IHQ Inc. reserves the right to use informations acquired from clients for the advertising and marketing of its own services and products.
• IHQ Inc. will reveal any revelant information about a client to a legal authority or law enforcer making such request.
• IHQ Inc. will never ask for a user's password, nor give back a password for an account.
• IHQ Inc. will never request a credit card number, a bank account number, or a social security number from a client.
• IHQ Inc. will take good care and make all efforts to keep secure the data acquired from clients, but provides absolutely no guarantee against piracy, and other illegal actions that may affect an account or a server.
• Upon deletion of an account, all registration informations such as username and email are also deleted from the clients database.
• IHQ Inc. reserves the right to keep a copy of any already acquired information for either legal reason, or any event that we see fit.