The following policies apply to every client at all times and every invoice you receive from Distant Horizon indicates that your payment implies acceptance of these policies.

Claims Made on Web Sites and Misprints

You are responsible for the ownership of all content, photos and claims made on your live web site. You need to pay particular attention to photos, music, text and other content "borrowed" from manufacturer or partner materials. When in doubt, contact the source of the material for permission or your attorney for advice. Distant Horizon specifically does not recommend that you copy product photos from competitor sites or random sites out on the web. Stock photos must all be purchased and licensed according to their use. Stock photo licensing fees are passed through at cost when purchased by Distant Horizon on your behalf.

Support and Consulting

All new client projects come with a specified amount of free support. Beyond this, all Distant Horizon staff time spent on client accounts is billable. Estimates on customization, new functionality additions or new services are considered consulting, as there are no "quick" estimates on modifications to e-commerce or custom web database applications. Defects in workmanship will always be addressed and fixed free of charge.

Credit Card Numbers and Security

Distant Horizon uses industry standard 128-bit encryption and SSL certificates for security of private data such as credit card numbers. As a further precaution, clients whose sites use real-time credit card processing will note that we do not save their customer's credit card numbers on our servers at all. For clients that opt not to use real-time credit card processing we use an encryption algorithm to store the credit card data in our SQL database and only transfer this data to our clients via SSL web admin or SSL-secured e-mail. All credit card data is deleted automatically after agreed storage duration.

Downtime and Lost Sales

Distant Horizon is not responsible for lost sales or lost opportunities resulting from human error, equipment, software, facility or connectivity downtime. Our maximum liability for any web site that we have created or that we host is limited to the development and hosting fees paid for our services.

Search Engine Rankings

Although it is the goal of every web developer to obtain coveted search engine rankings for their customers, Distant Horizon cannot guarantee the results of any coding or techniques aimed at improving search engine rankings. Furthermore, any good rankings that exist before a redesign, or that are attained through SEO efforts are not guaranteed to remain for any length of time. Even for a web site that remains unchanged, search engine rankings can shift any time at the whim of the search engine companies. No claim by any employee of Distant Horizon, and no request by any client should be misinterpreted as an agreement or promise to attain rankings.

Payment Terms

At any time Distant Horizon can turn off web site or e-mail due to a past due balance. At any time, a delay in receipt of payment can delay flat fee, retainer or hourly work.

Exclusivity

Distant Horizon does not offer industry or geographic exclusivity to clients unless expressly offered in writing as part of a strategic agreement.

Primary Account Contact

During a project, you must specify a contact person who will be responsible for decisions regarding design, functionality and approval of any "out of scope" expenses.

Web Site Hosting

Your site will be hosted on a Distant Horizon-owned server with high bandwidth connectivity to an Internet Backbone. Our servers are monitored 24/7 and have generator backup in case of power outages. Although server downtime is extremely rare, Distant Horizon does not guarantee or warrant that web server will have 100% up-time and is not liable to you for any actual or consequential damages or lost profits resulting from any downtime. In the unlikely event of server downtime, clients are entitled to request a pro-rated, per-minute refund of their hosting fees for that month and that month only. Hosting and Connectivity Fees are billed quarterly or monthly as agreed.

Data Backup Liability Limits

Distant Horizon has gone to great expense to ensure the integrity of web site data, however, the most certain way to protect your own data is to request a portable data storage device with your full web site code on it. In the event of malicious activity such as a virus or worm, catastrophic hardware failure, fire, natural disaster, terrorist event or time of war Distant Horizon cannot ensure preservation of any data.

Proprietary Software Licensing

Distant Horizon web-based applications are the result of millions of dollars worth of research and development over several years. Until the proposed license fees are paid in full, a client has no claim to any source code, software license, ftp account, domain name registrar username or web site files. After the license fee is paid, the client will possess a one-domain license for use of the source code which is fully portable. You cannot sell, run multiple versions of, reproduce or license use to any other party without express written permission of Distant Horizon, Inc.

E-Mail & Networking Assistance

As part of any hosting contract our clients can request the setup of e-mail addresses and passwords. POP3 settings are provided for each hosted domain. Technical support for Outlook, Outlook Express, e-mail and any assistance with business networking or systems outside of Distant Horizon's control are billed hourly at standard hourly rates. It is not uncommon for clients to use a portion of their free support time on these tasks over the first year with their new site.

Early Project Termination

If the client company terminates the project prior to its completion, all fees accrued and deposits paid prior to cancellation will be forfeited by client, but all in-progress and further work will be discontinued. If a project includes multiple web sites, source code licenses will be provided for completed sites only, other licenses will be forfeited.

Content Policy

• Distant Horizon does not host, design or code web sites containing adult/pornographic material, gambling, alcohol or tobacco products.


• Distant Horizon also does not create adware or spyware on behalf of any of our clients. We are committed to following the guidelines of the CAN-SPAM Act.


• Distant Horizon's search engine optimization techniques (SEO) are intended to help search engines properly index relevant content, not to "fool" the search engine into indexing pages where they do not belong.