<p>This is version 1.0.7 of the Terms and Conditions of Service, last
updated on May 3, 2021.
A history of changes
can be found after the end of the Terms and Conditions of Service.
The
Terms and Conditions of Service can be briefly summarized as follows:</p>
<p>"We promise to always try to do the right thing.
If you do too, it'll
all be cool."</p>
<p>Please report any violations of our Terms and Conditions of Service to
abuse@nearlyfreespeech.net.
Due to our privacy policy, we will probably
not be able to give you much information about any action we take in
response to your report, but we will
give it full consideration, and we strive to make sure every member knows
and follows our Terms and Conditions of Service at all times.</p> Terms and Conditions of Service
<p>
</p>INGREDIENTS
<ul>
<li>INGREDIENTS</li>
<li>AWARENESS OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS</li>
<li>REGISTRATION</li>
<li>REFUNDS</li>
<li>TRANSFERS</li>
<li>DONATION</li>
<li>PAYMENT PRACTICES</li>
<li>CONTENT</li>
<li>CONDUCT</li>
<li>INTERNATIONAL USE</li>
<li>INDEMNITY</li>
<li>MODIFICATIONS TO SERVICES</li>
<li>SECURITY AND AVAILABILITY OF CONTENT</li>
<li>TERMINATION</li>
<li>DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES</li>
<li>LIMITATION OF LIABILITY</li>
<li>EXCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS</li>
<li>NOTICE</li>
<li>GENERAL INFORMATION</li>
<li>THE END</li>
</ul>
AWARENESS OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS <p>
NFSN, Inc.
("NearlyFreeSpeech.NET" or we/us) provides certain content-
hosting services ("Services") to you, subject to these Terms and Conditions of
Service ("TACOS").
The TACOS apply to your use of our service whether or not you like TACOS, and whether or not you take the time to fully digest them.</p>
<p>We may change these TACOS or make new TACOS at any time.
Although
we will attempt to notify you through reasonable means when
the TACOS change, we are under no obligation to do so.</p>
<p>The freshest TACOS will always be available at
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/terms.
</p> REGISTRATION
<p>
</p>
<p>NearlyFreeSpeech.NET memberships are held by individuals.
This has three
important consequences:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<strong>You may only have one membership.</strong>
</li>
<li>
<strong>You may not create a membership for anyone other than yourself.</strong>
</li>
<li>
<strong>No one but you may access your membership.</strong> (It may not be shared, delegated or transferred.)</li>
</ul>
<p>You must provide accurate, complete, and current information about
yourself as needed for registration and payment ("Registration Information").
In the event of a change, you must promptly update the Registration Information
to ensure that it remains accurate, complete, and current.</p>
<p>NearlyFreeSpeech.NET will handle Registration Information in
accordance with a published privacy policy ("Privacy Policy") available at
https://www.nearlyfreespeech.net/about/privacy.php.</p>
<p>To provide anonymous hosting, we may, at our sole discretion, waive
in advance in writing part or all of the requirement to provide or
maintain Registration Information.</p> REFUNDS <p>We want you to be happy with our service.
However, we understand that it
is not for everyone.
We offer a very flexible refund policy in keeping
with our belief that you should be able to try things out without taking
a big risk.</p>
<p>We will refund the unused balance of your account(s) and close your
membership at any time upon request.
However, if you have registered
domains through us, you must transfer them elsewhere or abandon them
prior to requesting cancellation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>We typically issue refunds through the same method that you used to pay.
If this is not possible (e.g., due to time limits on refunds imposed by
our payment processors), we will try
to offer you a variety of refund options, some of which may carry a fee
based on the cost.</p>
<p>If issuing a refund would cost more than the amount of the
refund, your remaining balance will be considered a non-refundable
credit.</p> NON-REFUNDABLE CREDIT <p>There are certain actions you can take, such as transferring an account
(see TRANSFERS below) to another member,
that will convert your balance into a non-refundable credit.
Also, we
may offer incentives or bonuses in the form of non-refundable credits.</p>
<p>Non-refundable credits cannot be refunded (hence the name).
If you have
a nonrefundable credit in your account when you close it, you may designate
a website hosted by our service belonging to another member.
We will
transfer the nonrefundable credit to the account funding that website.</p>
<p>We will not ordinarily convert any balance to a nonrefundable credit
except as needed to fulfill your requests.
Before we do so, we will
prominently notify you that your request will affect your eligibility
for a refund and we will obtain your consent.</p>
<p>Under no circumstances (except as required by law) will we ever
accept money from one party and pay it out to another party.</p> TRANSFERS <p>You and another member may jointly request that we transfer an
account from your membership to theirs.
We will be happy
to do so, however the balance becomes a non-refundable credit
(see NON-REFUNDABLE CREDIT above).</p>
<p>You and another member may jointly request that we transfer some
or all Services (sites, domain names, MySQL servers) from an
account under your membership to another account under the
recipient's membership.
The recipient's account must be funded.
We generally require that related items stay together (such as a site
and its domain name, if applicable).</p>
<p>You may, under some circumstances, transfer funds to another member's
account.
Funds transferred in this way become nonrefundable.</p> DONATION DEPOSITS <p>Under certain circumstances, we may allow you to accept deposits
into your account from third parties through our
service.
Such deposits are non-refundable.
We call these payments
"donations" in keeping with the spirit behind offering the feature, but
they are not considered charitable givings, nor are they tax deductible.
If you choose to accept transfers or donations from third parties,
additional terms and conditions apply.</p> PAYMENT PRACTICES <p>We charge your payment method only at your request and only with your
authorization.
If you submit a payment method as payment, you warrant
to us that you have provided true and accurate information and
that you are fully authorized to use that payment method.</p>
<p>As described under REFUNDS,
we have a very flexible refund policy.
Therefore, there should be no reason to ever file a chargeback or dispute.
We investigate all such requests as potential fraud, and are required
to freeze all affected accounts while the
investigation is in progress.
Because of the time and expense incurred
in responding to a chargeback request, we charge a fee of up to $25.00 per
occurrence.
This fee will be waived if we find the chargeback is
legitimate or due to an error on our part.</p>
<p>We do not keep credit card information above and beyond the minimum
amount necessary (your name, billing address, and the last four digits of
the card number) to identify transactions.
This means we can never charge you
for other transactions unless you explicitly log in and provide your card
information.</p>
<p>Should you commit payment fraud of any kind in conjunction with
our service, we will wreak dreadful vengeance upon you to the fullest
extent of the law.</p> CONTENT <p>You are solely responsible for any and all information, literature,
software, works of art, or any other materials ("Content") you
make available using the Services.</p>
<p>You may not upload, publish, or otherwise use the Services to make
available any Content that: </p>
<ul>
<li>violates the laws of the United States of America.
or</li>
<li>you are contractually prohibited from distributing.
or</li>
<li>is tortious under the laws of the United States of America.
or</li>
<li>your distribution of which infringes upon the intellectual property rights of others.
or</li>
<li>you otherwise do not have the legal right to distribute.</li>
</ul> CONDUCT <p>You may not:</p>
<ul>
<li>impersonate or falsely represent affiliation with NearlyFreeSpeech.NET,
its employees, owners, or contractors.
or</li>
<li>engage in any activity that would cause NearlyFreeSpeech.NET to be
in violation of the terms of service it obtains from other parties.
or</li>
<li>interfere with or disrupt the operation of the Services, or equipment
used in providing the Services.
or</li>
<li>allow any other individual to use your NearlyFreeSpeech.NET username
and password to access our systems.
or</li>
<li>verbally abuse, harass, or threaten NearlyFreeSpeech.NET, its
employees, owners, or contractors.</li>
</ul>
<p>We may provide a variety of ancillary services from time to time for
the express purpose of facilitating your ability to upload and manage
your Content.
You may not use said ancillary services (including but
not limited to ssh access) for any other purpose.</p> INTERNATIONAL USE <p>It is your sole responsibility to ensure your compliance with any
and all applicable local laws regarding online conduct and
acceptable Content.</p>
<p>NearlyFreeSpeech.NET will generally cooperate
with foreign authorities in the investigation or prosecution of
alleged criminal activities.
There is one important exception to
this policy.
We will generally not help authorities of any repressive
foreign government to investigate or prosecute alleged criminal
activities if (and only if) the scope of those activities is limited
to the operation of a website on our service that is critical of
that government in a manner that would be Constitutionally protected
speech in the United States.</p>
<p>This exception is granted on a case-by-case basis.
You should not
assume you have this protection unless we have told you in writing
that you do, in conjunction with an anonymous hosting arrangement.
You should not bet your life or your family's life on our ability
to protect you.
Under no circumstances will this protection extend
to non-speech-related criminal activity.</p> INDEMNITY <p>You indemnify and hold harmless NearlyFreeSpeech.NET and its
subsidiaries, affiliates, owners, officers, directors, agents,
partners, employees, and contractors from any and all claims, demands, losses,
causes of action, damages, lawsuits, and judgments, including attorneys' fees
and costs, arising out of or relating to your Content, your use of the
Services, or your activities in conjunction with the Services.</p> MODIFICATIONS TO SERVICES <p>NearlyFreeSpeech.NET reserves the right at any time to modify or
discontinue, temporarily or permanently, the Services or any portion
thereof with or without notice.</p> SECURITY AND AVAILABILITY OF CONTENT <p>NearlyFreeSpeech.NET makes a good faith effort to provide the Services
in a reliable and consistent fashion.
No guarantee is made as to the
availability of Content at a particular time or the persistence of
Content.
Similarly, NearlyFreeSpeech.NET makes a good faith effort to
ensure the security of your Content but cannot guarantee it will
remain secure.
It is your sole responsibility to secure your Content
and to restore it in the event of a system failure.</p> TERMINATION <p>NearlyFreeSpeech.NET reserves the right at any time and for any reason,
including but not limited to your violation of these TACOS, to
limit, suspend, or terminate your use of the Services and to discard
any of your Content.
Such termination of your use of the Services may
be performed without prior notice, and NearlyFreeSpeech.NET may
immediately deactivate or delete your Content and all related files
relating to the Services and/or bar all access to the same.
NearlyFreeSpeech.NET will not be liable to you or to any third
party for any termination of your access to Services.</p>
<p>If NearlyFreeSpeech.NET terminates your service because you
violated our TACOS, we may retain some or all of any balance
remaining in your account as liquidated
damages.
You will remain liable for any additional damages you
cause NearlyFreeSpeech.NET by your violation of these TACOS.
Please respect our TACOS.
</p>
<p>
</p>DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES
<p>
</p>
<ul>
<li>
<b>Your use of the Services is at your sole risk.
The Services are
provided on an "as is, as available" basis.</b>
</li>
<li>
<b>NearlyFreeSpeech.NET expressly disclaims all warranties of any
kind, whether express or implied, including but not limited to the
implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular
purpose, and non-infringement.</b>
</li>
<li>
<b>NearlyFreeSpeech.NET makes no warranty that the Services will
meet your requirements.
that the Services will be uninterrupted,
timely, secure, or error-free.
that the results that are obtained
from your use of the Services will be accurate or reliable.
and that
any errors in the Services will be corrected.</b>
</li>
<li>
<b>No information or statement, whether oral or written, obtained by
you from NearlyFreeSpeech.NET or its officers, owners, directors, employees,
or contractors shall create any warranty not expressly stated in the
TACOS.</b>
</li>
</ul>
<p>
</p>LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
<p>
<b>NearlyFreeSpeech.NET, including but not limited to its officers,
directors, owners, employees, and contractors, shall not under any
circumstances be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special,
consequential, exemplary, or any other type of damages, including but
not limited to damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data or
other intangible losses even if NearlyFreeSpeech.NET has been specifically
advised of the possibility of such damages.
Your sole
remedy <i>regardless of the circumstances</i> shall be the return of
funds contained in your account(s) that have not been disbursed or
allocated to pay for Services provided or liquidated damages.</b>
</p>
<p>
</p>EXCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS <p>Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties
or the limitation or exclusion of liability for incidental or
consequential damages.
Accordingly, some of the above may not apply
to you.</p>
<p>You are solely responsible for any and all fees associated with
obtaining access to NearlyFreeSpeech.NET and associated Services.</p> NOTICE <p>Notices to you may be made through regular mail, electronic mail, via
the NearlyFreeSpeech.NET website, or during the normal course of
providing the Services.</p> GENERAL INFORMATION <p>These TACOS constitute the entire agreement between you and
NearlyFreeSpeech.NET.
The TACOS govern your use of the Services, superseding
any prior agreements between you and NearlyFreeSpeech.NET including but not
limited to any prior versions of the TACOS.
The TACOS and the relationship
between you and NearlyFreeSpeech.NET shall be governed by the laws of the
State of Delaware without regard to its conflict of law provisions.
The
failure of NearlyFreeSpeech.NET to exercise or enforce any right or provision
of the TACOS shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.
If
any provision of the TACOS is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to
be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor
to give effect to the parties' intentions as reflected in the provision,
and the other provisions of the TACOS remain in full force and effect.
Regardless of any statute or law to the contrary, any claim or cause of
action you have arising out of or related to your use of the Services
must be filed within one (1) year after such claim or cause of action
first arose or be forever barred.
The section titles in the TACOS are for
clarity only and have no legal or contractual effect.</p> THE END <p>Be excellent to each other.</p>
<p>
</p>History of Changes: <p>2021-05-03</p>1.0.7
<p>We have updated our Terms and Conditions of Service to make them shorter
and easier to understand and to reflect how our business has evolved over
the 9+ years since our last update.</p>
<p>We're not changing any policies at this time.
We're just updating
the TACOS to reflect how we operate as clearly and accurately as possible.</p>
<p>The changes are:</p>
<ul>
<li>We replaced the first paragraph of the REGISTRATION section with the
equivalent text from the signup page, as it was the clearer of the two.
Now they don't just mean the same thing, they say the same thing, which
(we hope) reduces opportunities for "creative misinterpretation."</li>
<li>We removed a section that said we <em>might</em> do something in the
case of an invalid transfer that we don't actually do and that doesn't
really make sense in the context.
(In the event we detect such a transfer,
our actual practice is to reverse it.)</li>
<li>We renamed CREDIT CARD BILLING PRACTICES to PAYMENT PRACTICES, changed
several occurrences of "credit card" to "payment method" and removed some
unnecessarily specific (and outdated) info about how transactions appear
on statements.
(This isn't where people look for that information.)</li>
<li>We changed references to "Personal Bandwidth Accounts" to "accounts"
because our service has evolved to the point where these days our members
typically pay for everything <em>but</em> bandwidth from their accounts.</li>
<li>We removed the requirement that PayPal payments have to be from the
email address on your membership to be refundable.
we have not enforced that
requirement in years.
(PayPal refunds, however, go back to the address
they came from.)</li>
<li>Changed date format in the History of Changes to the ISO 8601 standard
YYYY-MM-DD.
Death to MM/DD/YYYY! (And DD/MM/YYYY.)</li>
<li>We removed some extra whitespace (invisible in HTML) from the text.</li>
<li>Small edits here and there for clarity and/or tonal consistency* that do
not change the meaning of anything.</li>
<li>Text of the TACOS validates as HTML 5.</li>
</ul>
<p>*Tonal consistency is a euphemism for our sense of humor, which you
may or may not find funny.</p>
<p>2012-02-10</p>1.0.6
<p>We made a few minor tweaks:</p>
<p>First, one bit of the REGISTRATION section blatantly contradicted the entire
rest of our service (including the preceding and following sentences in the
same section), stating that under certain circumstances we allowed
organizational <em>memberships</em> rather than organizational
<em>accounts</em>.
(Documented proof that at least once in our history,
even we have
confused
the two.)</p>
<p>We removed that because it was inaccurate and updated what was left to
make sure we are saying the same thing in the same way throughout our site
and service.
Nothing about how we actually operate is affected by this
change, it's just shorter, more consistent, and less wrong now.</p>
<p>Note: We did at one point in the past allow "role memberships" to be
created, but only if a person neither had nor wanted an individual
membership and got prior approval from us.
That proved to be a really
bad idea with a complex set of rules and restrictions nobody wanted to
follow, and was discontinued.
Despite superficial similarity, this change
is not related to that, so if you're one of the few that still has a
preapproved "role membership" this change does not affect you.</p>
<p>Second, we hacked up the REFUNDS section to be shorter and to better
reflect what happens when e.g.
a credit card payment is too old to be
directly refunded.</p>
<p>Third, in the CREDIT CARD BILLING PRACTICES section, we removed a reference to "NFSN, LLC" which has not appeared on credit card statements in many years.
We also changed our chargeback amount from "$25.00" to "up to $25.00"
to leave open the possibility for us to charge less.
For reasons we do not
understand, sometimes we are charged less by processors, and we have zero
interest in chargebacks as a revenue source.</p>
<p>Fourth, the INDEMNITY section has been somewhat broadened.
Unlike
the other changes, <strong>this does change the meaning.</strong>
The previous language limited our ability to recover
some types of legal costs that weren't related to lawsuits against us.
(E.g.
fighting a subpoena in a lawsuit against you.) There have been
several cases where we have spent thousands of dollars fighting on behalf
of members who subsequently stiffed us or turned out to be lying to
us all along.</p>
<p>Our intent hasn't changed: to give ourselves as much flexibility as possible
to fight alongside our members when appropriate, without turning into a
legal aid clinic (which we cannot afford to be) or being left holding the bag
while someone with bad intentions makes a hasty getaway.
However, this is
not a "to be clearer" or "reorganized" change.</p>
<p>All of our money comes from our members, so when someone else doesn't pay
the costs they incur, you do.
That's not fair, so regrettably we need
stronger language in this area.
As a result, if someone tells us they want us
to fight and lies about their willingness to cover the costs of doing so, it
will now be harder than it was yesterday for them to get away with it.
The
other 99.99% of our members will not be affected.</p>
<p>2011-09-21</p>1.0.5c
<p>Fix a duplicate HTML tag ID preventing jumping to the CONTENT section.
The text, intent, and meaning was not changed.</p>
<p>2009-08-01</p>1.0.5b
<p>Fix a couple of longstanding typos.
The intent and meaning was
not changed.</p>
<p>2009-08-01</p>1.0.5a
<p>Updated some of the HTML markup to clean up display errors with our new
site layout.
The content was not changed.</p>
<p>2007-06-26</p>1.0.5
<ul>
<li>Split the CONDUCT AND CONTENT section into CONDUCT and CONTENT sections
since they really have nothing to do with each other.</li>
<li>Renamed the CONTENTS section to INGREDIENTS so it would not be
confused with the new CONTENT section.</li>
<li>Reword the thou-shalt-nots in the CONTENT section.
Nothing about our
implementation of this section or our views on what content is or is not
acceptable is changing.
this is just our annual effort to
stay ahead of would-be-evildoers looking for loopholes in the wording.</li>
<li>Add to the CONDUCT section a couple of things from the
should-have-been-obvious department.
(Don't give out your login info
and do not taunt happy fun tech!)
</li>
<li>Still chasing XHTML compliance.</li>
<li>A couple of minor spelling and grammar fixes.</li>
</ul>
<p>2006-06-06</p>1.0.4a
<ul>
<li>Updated TACOS to reflect that we don't call our DNS service "Basic DNS"
anymore.</li>
</ul>
<p>Neither our intentions nor the underlying meaning of the terms and
conditions were changed by this update.</p>
<p>2006-01-04</p>1.0.4
<ul>
<li>Changed the name from "Terms of Service" to "Terms and Conditions
of Service" because we like the resulting acronym better.</li>
<li>Made some changes in the general direction of XHTML compliance.</li>
<li>Reorganized some sections and moved some things around to make it easier
to understand.</li>
<li>Tried to make a few spots less wordy.</li>
</ul>
<p>Neither our intentions nor the underlying meaning of the terms and
conditions were changed by this update.</p>
<p>2005-10-08</p>1.0.3
<p>The name of the page was changed from terms.shtml to terms.php.
Some
style and link changes were made to fit with our new site design.
The
content was not changed.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>2005-09-20</p>1.0.3
<p>A number of changes were made:</p>
<ul>
<li>The CONTENTS section was added.
</li>
<li>To pave the way for fully anonymous hosting, we added the
possibility of waiving our requirements related to providing your
personal information in the REGISTRATION section.
</li>
<li>Repetitious language in the CONDUCT section was consolidated without
changing its intent.
</li>
<li>Language has been added to the CONDUCT section
indicating that you may not use other services we provide (like ssh)
for purposes other than what we provide them for (maintaining your
site).
This should have been obvious.
</li>
<li>In response to legal advice on the DMCA, a change was made to
the TERMINATION clause specifically clarifying that violating the
TOS may result in termination, and that termination for violating
the TOS may mean that you don't get a refund.
</li>
<li>The INTERNATIONAL USE section was expanded to clarify that
compliance with your local laws is your responsibility, and
that we may choose not to help thuggish foreign countries track down
the operators of critical/opposition websites.
</li>
<li>The VIOLATIONS section was removed, as it was primarily directed
at people who are not subject to the TOS.
</li>
<li>The THE END section was added to clarify that the history of changes
is not itself part of the TOS, leading to a mental recursion problem
when recording changes.
</li>
</ul>
<p>We also underlined the section headings.
Woo hoo, we're exciting people.</p>
<p>2005-01-04</p>1.0.2
<p>The HTML markup was changed to make the document
W3C
HTML 4.01 Transitional compliant.
The content was
not changed.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>2004-11-06</p>1.0.2
<p>Added credit card,
transfer, and refund sections, which document our existing policies in these areas.
These policies have not actually changed, except that we now charge
a $25.00 fee for handling spurious credit card chargebacks.</p>
<p>2004-05-27</p>1.01
<p>Changed the CONDUCT section to indicate
that only the laws of the United States will be used to determine whether
a violation of that section has occurred.</p>
<p>2002-02-04</p>1.0<p>First version.</p>