The use of services from SternHost.ng, SternHost.com and SternHost.net (SternRock Global Business Ventures), constitutes agreement to these terms.
1. Account Setup / Email on file
We will set up your account after we have received payment and we and/or our payment partner(s) have screened the order(s) incase of fraud. It is your responsibility to provide us with an email address that is not @ the domain(s) you are signing up under. If there is ever an abuse issue or we need to contact you, the primary email address on file will be used for this purpose. It is your responsibility to ensure the email address on file is current or up to date at all times. Providing false contact information of any kind may result in the termination of your account. In dedicated server purchases or high-risk transactions, it will be necessary to provide government-issued identification and possibly a scan of the credit card used for the purchase. If you fail to meet these requirements, the order may be considered fraudulent in nature and be denied.
2. Transfers
Our transfers team will make every effort to help you move your site to us. However, transfers are provided as a courtesy service, and we can not make guarantees regarding the availability, possibility, or time required to complete an account transfer. Each hosting company is configured differently, and some hosting platforms save data in an incompatible or proprietary format, which may make it extremely difficult if not impossible to migrate some or all account data. We will try our best, but in some cases we may be unable to assist you in a transfer of data from an old host.
The free transfer services are available for 30 days from your signup date. Transfers outside of the 30 day free period will incur a charge; please contact a member of the support department with specific details to receive a price quote.
3. Content
All services provided by SternHost.com may only be used for lawful purposes. The laws of the Lagos State Government and the Federal Republic of Nigeria apply.
The customer agrees to indemnify and hold harmless SternHost.com from any claims resulting from the use of our services.
Use of our services to infringe upon any copyright or trademark is prohibited. This includes but is not limited to unauthorized copying of music, books, photographs, or any other copyrighted work. The offer of sale of any counterfeit merchandise of a trademark holder will result in the immediate termination of your account. If you believe that your copyright or trademark is being infringed upon, please email support@SternHost.com with the information required. A list of required information may be found here. If the request is of a licensing issue, we may require further documentation.
Examples of unacceptable material on all Shared, WordPress, Radio and Reseller Hosting Servers
include:IRC Bots, Proxy Scripts, crypto & forex investment, / Anonymizers, Pirated Software / Warez, image, filedump, mirror, or banner-ad services (similar to rapidshare, photobucket, or commercial banner ad rotation), affiliate servers, topsites, commercial audio streaming (more than one or two streams), Escrow, High-Yield Interest Programs (HYIP) or related sites, Investment sites (FOREX, egold exchange), sale of any controlled substance without prior proof of appropriate permit(s), AutoSurf sites, Bank Debentures, Bank Debenture Trading Programs, Prime Banks Programs, lottery sites, muds / rpg’s, hate sites, hacker focused sites/archives/programs, or sites promoting illegal activities, IP Scanners, Brute Force Programs, Mail Bombers and Spam Scripts. Forums and or websites that distribute or link to warez content are prohibited.
Using a shared account as a backup/storage device is not permitted, with the exception of one cPanel backup of the same account.
Examples of unacceptable material on Dedicated servers include:
Pirated Software / Warez, Escrow, Crypto Investment, High-Yield Interest Programs (HYIP) or related sites, Investment sites (FOREX, Ponzi), sale of any controlled substance without prior proof of appropriate permit(s), AutoSurf sites, Bank Debentures, Bank Debenture Trading Programs, Prime Banks Programs, lottery sites, hate sites, hacker focused sites/archives/programs, or sites promoting illegal activities, IP Scanners, Brute Force Programs, Mail Bombers and Spam Scripts. Forums and or websites that distribute or link to warez content are prohibited.
SternHost.com services, including all related equipment, networks, and network devices are provided only for authorized customer use. SternHost.com systems may be monitored for all lawful purposes, including to ensure that use is authorized, for management of the system, to facilitate protection against unauthorized access, and to verify security procedures, survivability, and operational security. During monitoring, information may be examined, recorded, copied, and used for authorized purposes. Use of SternHost.com system(s) constitutes consent to monitoring for these purposes.
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Any material that, in our judgment, is obscene, threatening, illegal, or violates our terms of service in any manner may be removed from our servers (or otherwise disabled), with or without notice.
Failure to respond to an email from our abuse department within 6 hours may result in the suspension or termination of your services. All abuse issues must be dealt with via trouble ticket/email and will have a response within 6 hours.
If in doubt regarding the acceptability of your site or service, please contact us at support@SternHost.com and we will be happy to assist you.
Potential harm to minors is strictly forbidden, including but not limited to child pornography or content perceived to be child pornography (Lolita):
Any site found to host child pornography or linking to child pornography will be suspended immediately without notice.
Resellers: we will suspend the site in question and will notify you so you may terminate the account. We will further monitor your activity; more than one infraction of this type may result in the immediate termination of your account.
Direct customers: Your services will be terminated with or without notice.
Violations will be reported to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
It is your responsibility to ensure that scripts/programs installed under your account are secure and permissions of directories are set properly, regardless of installation method. When at all possible, set permissions on most directories to 755 or as restrictive as possible. Users are ultimately responsible for all actions taken under their account. This includes the compromise of credentials such as username and password. It is required that you use a secure password. If a weak password is used, your account may be suspended until you agree to use a more secure password. Audits may be done to prevent weak passwords from being used. If an audit is performed, and your password is found to be weak, we will notify you and allow time for you to change/update your password.
4. Zero Tolerance Spam Policy
We take a zero-tolerance stance against sending unsolicited e-mail, bulk emailing, and spam. “Safe lists” and “double opt-in” will be treated as spam. Any user who sends out spam will have their account terminated with or without notice.
Please click on the link below to read our Anti Spam Policy & e-mail policy –
Sites advertised via SPAM (Spamvertised) may not be hosted on our servers. This provision includes, but is not limited to SPAM sent via fax, email, instant messaging, or usenet/newsgroups. No organization or entity listed in the ROKSO may be hosted on our servers. Any account which results in our IP space being blacklisted will be immediately suspended and/or terminated.
SternHost.com reserves the right to require changes or disable as necessary any website, account, database, or other components that do not comply with its established policies or to make any such modifications in an emergency at its sole discretion.
SternHost.com reserves the right to charge the holder of the account used to send any unsolicited e-mail a clean-up fee. This cost of the clean-up fee is entirely at the discretion of SternHost.com.
5. Domain Name Abuse
You the registrant agree to provide, maintain and update, current, complete, and accurate information of the Whois Record and all the data elements about the domain name during the term of the domain name/order/service. You the registrant agrees that provision of inaccurate or unreliable information, and/or Registrant’s failure to promptly update information, or non-receipt of a response for over five (5) calendar days to inquiries sent to the email address of the Registrant or any other contact listed for the domain name concerning the accuracy of contact information associated with the domain name shall be constituted as a breach of this Agreement and a basis for freezing, suspending, or deleting that domain name/service.
6. Payment Information
You agree to supply appropriate payment for the services received from SternHost.com, in advance of the time period during which such services are provided. You agree that until and unless you notify SternHost.com of your desire to cancel any or all services received, those services will be billed on a recurring basis.
Cancellations must be done in writing via the cancellation form provided in your client area on our website. To cancel a VPS/Dedicated server service, the client must submit a cancellation request 10 days before the invoice due date, else the cancellation request will be void and the client will be billed for the next subscription month. Once we receive your cancellation and have confirmed all necessary information with you via e-mail, we will inform you in writing (typically email) that your account has been canceled. Your cancellation confirmation will contain a ticket/tracking number in the subject for your reference, and for verification purposes. You should immediately receive an automatic “Your request has been received…” email with a tracking number. An employee will confirm your request (and process your cancellation) shortly thereafter. If you do not hear back from us or do not receive the automatic confirmation email within a few minutes after submitting your cancellation, please contact us immediately via phone. We require that cancellations of service are done through the online form to (a) confirm your identity, (b) confirm in writing you are prepared for all files/emails to be removed, and (c) document the request. This process reduces the likelihood of mistakes, fraudulent/malicious requests, and ensures you are aware that the files, emails, and account may be removed immediately after a cancellation request is processed.
As a client of SternHost.com, it is your responsibility to ensure that your payment information is up to date and that all invoices are paid on time. SSD Web Hosting/WordPress SSD Hosting invoice that is overdue for 7 days and not paid will result in account suspension and termination. Similarly, Managed Hosting, cPanel Hosting and Dedicated Hosting invoice that is overdue for 5 days and not paid will result in account suspension and termination.
Invoices that have been paid more than once can only be added as credit towards the account and cannot be refunded. If you require assistance with this provision, please contact support@SternHost.com
It is the client’s responsibility to confirm that the domain name/hosting/services paid for during activation or renewal is successful by checking that your CPanel area is loading without any issues or checking your domains whois record to confirm domain registration or renewal within 24hrs after payment confirmation or a service renewal confirmation, especially when using automated online payment options Bank Transfers, to avoid loss of data from the termination of the hosting package/service or loss of the domain name due to expiration.
SternHost.com reserves the right to change the yearly payment amount and any other charges at any time.
7. Backups and Data Loss
Your use of the service is at your sole risk. SternHost.com is not responsible for files and/or data residing on your account. You agree to take full responsibility for files and data transferred and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on SternHost.com servers.
8. Cancellations and Refunds
SternHost.com reserves the right to cancel the account at any time with or without notice.
Any abuse of our staff in any medium or format will result in the suspension or termination of your services.
Cancellations must be done in writing via the cancellation form provided in your client area on our website. To cancel a VPS/Dedicated server service, the client must submit a cancellation request 10 days before the invoice due date, else the cancellation request will be void and the client will be billed for the next subscription month. Once we receive your cancellation and have confirmed all necessary information with you via e-mail, we will inform you in writing (typically email) that your account has been canceled. Your cancellation confirmation will contain a ticket/tracking number in the subject for your reference, and for verification purposes. You should immediately receive an automatic “Your request has been received…” email with a tracking number. An employee will confirm your request (and process your cancellation) shortly thereafter. If you do not hear back from us or do not receive the automatic confirmation email within a few minutes after submitting your cancellation, please contact us immediately via phone. We require that cancellations of service are done through the online form to (a) confirm your identity, (b) confirm in writing you are prepared for all files/emails to be removed, and (c) document the request. This process reduces the likelihood of mistakes, fraudulent/malicious requests, and ensures you are aware that the files, emails, and account may be removed immediately after a cancellation request is processed.
None payment of due invoices when due would lead to service termination after 30 days for shared hosting. VPS/Dedicated servers hosting will be terminated 7 days after the due date and the client’s account would be suspended until the overdue recurring subscription invoice is paid as server charges have already been made on such services to the data centers.
The following methods of payments are non-refundable, and refunds will be posted as credit to the hosting account: Paystack, Flutterwave and Paypal
There are no refunds on dedicated servers, administrative fees, install fees for custom software, or domain name purchases.
Violations of the Terms of Service will waive the refund policy (if any).
9. Resource Usage
User may not:
a) Run stand-alone, unattended server-side processes at any point in time on the server. This includes any and all daemons, such as IRCD.
b) Run any type of web spider or indexer (including Google Cash / AdSpy) on shared servers.
c) Run any software that interfaces with an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network.
f) Run any bit torrent application, tracker, or client. You may link to legal torrents off-site but may not host or store them on our shared servers.
e) Participate in any file-sharing/peer-to-peer activities
f) Run any gaming servers such as counter-strike, half-life, battlefield1942, etc
g) Run cron entries with intervals of less than 15 minutes
When using PHP include functions for including a local file, include the local file rather than the URL. Instead of include(“http://yourdomain.com/include.php”) use include(“include.php”)
10. INODES
The use of more than 150,000 inodes on any shared account may potentially result in suspension. Accounts found to be exceeding the 150,000 inode limit will automatically be removed from our backup system to avoid over-usage. Every file (a webpage, image file, email, etc) on your account uses up to 1 inode.
Sites that slightly exceed our inode limits are unlikely to be suspended; however, accounts that constantly create and delete large numbers of files on a regular basis, have hundreds of thousands of files, or cause file system damage may be flagged for review and/or suspension.
The primary cause of excessive inodes seems to be due to users leaving their catchall address enabled, but never checking their primary account mailbox. Over time, tens of thousands of messages (or more) build up, eventually pushing the account past our inode limit. To disable your default mailbox, login to cPanel and choose “Mail”, then “Default Address”, “Set Default Address”, and then type in: :fail: No such user here
11. Bandwidth Usage
You are allocated a monthly bandwidth allowance. This allowance varies depending on the hosting package you purchase. Should your account pass the allocated amount we reserve the right to suspend the account until the start of the next allocation, suspend the account until more bandwidth is purchased at an additional fee, suspend the account until you upgrade to a higher level of package, terminate the account and/or charge you an additional fee for the overages. Unused transfer in one month cannot be carried over to the next month.
12. Money-back Guarantee
We reserve the right to refund a prorated amount or no refund at all.
13. Uptime Guarantee
If your shared / reseller server has a physical downtime that is not within the 99.9% uptime you may receive one month of credit on your account. Approval of the credit is at the discretion of SternHost.com dependent upon justification provided. Third-party monitoring service reports may not be used for justification due to a variety of factors including the monitor’s network capacity/transit availability. The uptime of the server is defined as the reported uptime from the operating system and the Apache Web Server which may differ from the uptime reported by other individual services. To request a credit, please contact support@SternHost.com with justification. All requests must be made in writing via email. Uptime guarantees only apply to shared / reseller solutions. Dedicated servers are covered by a network guarantee in which the credit is prorated for the amount of time the server is down which is not related to our uptime guarantee.
14. Reseller: Client Responsibility
Resellers are responsible for supporting their clients. SternHost.com does not provide support to our Reseller’s Clients. If a reseller’s client contacts us, we reserve the right to place the client account on hold until the reseller can assume their responsibility for their client. All support requests must be made by the reseller on their clients’ behalf for security purposes. Resellers are also responsible for all content stored or transmitted under their reseller account and the actions of their clients. SternHost.com will hold any reseller responsible for any of their client’s actions that violate the law or the terms of service.
15. Shared (non-reseller accounts)
Shared accounts may not resell web hosting to other people, if you wish to resell hosting you must use a reseller account.
16. Dedicated Servers
SternHost.com reserves the right to reset the password on a dedicated server if the password on file is not current so that we may do security audits as required by our data center. It is the responsibility of the client to ensure that there is a valid email address and current root password on file for their dedicated server on file to prevent downtime from forced password resets. SternHost.com reserves the right to audit servers as needed and to perform administrative actions at the request of our data center. Dedicated servers are NOT backed up by us and it is the responsibility of the client to maintain backups or have a solution for this. You may purchase an additional hard drive and maintain backups to it as the most simple solution. Please contact support@SternHost.com if you wish to obtain a secondary hard drive. It is your responsibility to maintain backups.
17. Unlimited & Fair use
We offer an ‘unlimited’ service for some of our packages, which means that we don’t actively limit your account on either disk space or bandwidth (or both). However, to ensure that our systems remain stable, we do limit resource usage to ensure that no one client can affect the service of others on shared or reseller servers. If you’re using a dedicated server, your resources are defined by the package you purchase.
Please note that any ‘unlimited’ allowances are subject to fair use. If we notice that you’re using an excessive amount of monthly bandwidth or disk space compared to the average usage by other customers on our platform, we may advise you to improve your website’s efficiency and/or configure a CDN. Alternatively, you may choose to upgrade to a bespoke solution, and we’ll bill you accordingly.
18. Affiliate Terms & Conditions
For clients who would like to be part of our affiliate system. These Policies apply:
– You cannot refer yourself.
– Commissions are one time.
– Opening of multiple accounts by the same client is not allowed and can lead to suspension of your account.
– The affiliate is credited an initial sum of N600.
– The affiliate can get up to 25% on every paid product/service (i.e. hosting only) and 5% on every paid reseller account after 35 maturation days.
– The affiliate can only withdraw after the N3000 mark is reached. The affiliate may decide to add these funds to his client account.
– Money withdrawn by the affiliate would be paid into any bank account in Nigeria within 5 working days.
– Money withdrawn would be paid to an account with the name of the affiliate.
– Two or more affiliate accounts cannot be combined.
19. Price Change
We reserve the right to change prices listed on SternHost.com, and the right to increase the amount of resources given to plans at any time.
20. Indemnification
Customer agrees that it shall defend, indemnify, save and hold SternHost.com harmless from any and all demands, liabilities, losses, costs, and claims, including reasonable attorney’s fees, asserted against SternHost.com, its agents, its customers, officers, and employees, that may arise or result from any service provided or performed or agreed to be performed or any product sold by customer, its agents, employees or assigns. Customer agrees to defend, indemnify and hold harmless SternHost.com against liabilities arising out of; (1) any injury to person or property caused by any products sold or otherwise distributed in connection with SternHost.com; (2) any material supplied by customer infringing or allegedly infringing on the proprietary rights of a third party; (3) copyright infringement and (4) any defective products sold to customers from SternHost.com’s server.
21. Arbitration
By using any SternHost.com services, you agree to submit to binding arbitration. If any disputes or claims arise against SternHost.com or its subsidiaries, such disputes will be handled by an arbitrator of SternHost.com’s choice. An arbitrator from the Nigerian Arbitration Association. Arbitrators shall be attorneys or retired judges and shall be selected pursuant to the applicable rules. All decisions rendered by the arbitrator will be binding and final. The arbitrator’s award is final and binding on all parties. The Federal Arbitration Act, and not any state arbitration law, governs all arbitration under this Arbitration Clause. You are also responsible for any and all costs related to such arbitration.
22. Disclaimer
SternHost.com shall not be responsible for any damages your business may suffer. SternHost.com makes no warranties of any kind, expressed or implied for the services we provide. SternHost.com disclaims any warranty or merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. This includes loss of data resulting from delays, no deliveries, wrong delivery, and any and all service interruptions caused by SternHost.com and its employees. SternHost.com will not be held responsible for any damages, events that may occur resulting from the use of our services, downtimes, failure or refusal to register or renew your services with us
23. Disclosure to law enforcement
SternHost.com may disclose any subscriber information to law enforcement agencies without further consent or notification to the subscriber upon lawful request from such agencies.
We will cooperate fully with law enforcement agencies.
24. Changes to the TOS
SternHost.com reserves the right to revise its policies at any time without notice.