Your thoughts on abusive behavior terms on TOS

[SenseiSteve]

I recently read these excerpts from a provider's TOS.

*** reserves the right to suspend or cancel a client's account if the client engages in any abusive behaviour.

This is found on most providers Terms of Service, but how about this?

Abusive behavior also extends to public comment on forums as well as personal emails and tickets.

Maybe I don't look closely enough at Terms of Service, but I don't recall seeing verbage such as this before. Is this common in the industry?

 

[handsonhosting]

We've used it for a few years ourselves, and we enforce it.

14. REFUSAL OF SERVICE

Hands-on reserves the right to refuse or cancel service in its sole discretion with no refunds. If any of the Terms of Service are failed to be followed, it will result in grounds for immediate account deactivation.

Any abuse of our staff in any medium or format will result in the suspension or termination of your services.

When a user is mad that they deleted a file or they were blocked in a firewall etc and throw various insults at our staff via phone, live chat or emails, then we do warn them to tame the language down. Frustration is understandable, however just as you wouldn't go into a resturant and scream and curse at the person at the cash register, the same goes with online.

Many people have the odd understanding that just because they are behind a monitor they can say and do anything they want - including threats. I wouldn't stand for it in person, and I sure don't stand for it via the web. My staff and my clients are like my family and I protect them as if they were.

We implemented our changes a number of years ago, but it seems to be pretty common place these days.

I can't say I've ever suspended a user for something that they said in a public forum.

 

[SenseiSteve]

All of that is understandable - who needs the aggravation? This is the first time though that I've seen the mention of comments of forums.

 

[handsonhosting]

I guess abuse on their own forums might be what they're talking about? Some hosts use their own forums as a support medium - but definitely forums outside of their jurisdiction or unrelated to their domain would be subject to question by the other forum admins. Surely if I said that "bob's hosting support are awful" that they wouldn't take that to be grounds for suspension/termination... at least I'd hope not. If anything, it should open a public dialogue into what the issue was. At least one would hope so anyway!

 

[romes]

Well said Conor...Dang, got to the party to late lol Oh well, what Conor said

 

[Artashes]

We've used it for a few years ourselves, and we enforce it.

"Any abuse of our staff in any medium or format will result in the suspension or termination of your services."

Your terms are reasonable, but they are quite different from the line Steve found:

Abusive behavior also extends to public comment on forums as well as personal emails and tickets.

Clearly it mentions comments made on forums. Now, one thing is understandable if they go on and say: "Conor is such and such" which is abusive, and they get dropped for that. However, if they opt to leave a negative feedback, that's where the company doesn't really explain whether THAT kind of public commenting is within their policy to cancel your account. It is certainly a little concerning.

 

[mellow-h]

IMHO, adding such rules specifying the word "forum" would make the thing slightly confusing until you have a foot note explaining what do you mean by the abusive behavior. It is very much possible that a customer can interpret that line as imposing them not to post negative comments about the service. I would always expect my provider be more friendly and communicative before taking any sort of action. People learn from mistakes and there are many situation you would find users do not read the policies first to last. Hitting them at any situation can have adverse effect.

 

[handsonhosting]

Yeah, the forums mention definitely does throw me for a loop.

The sad thing with Terms of Services is that it's supposed to outline exactly what can/can't be done (with some things maybe not mentioned as they're obscure) - but the last thing a TOS should have is something that leaves you trying to GUESS the interpretation. That would definitely leave me questioning how things operate with them.

 

[energizedit]

I agree that if the TOS is not clear and concise then maybe that's not a company you want to be doing business with.

Mark

 

[hostingus]

By mentioning that, providers plays on safer side. Forums are becoming the most preferred platform for discussing these kind of services. It makes a little fear in mind of service provider.

 

[nightshadpro]

Certainly, it's reasonable to place a provision in the TOS/AUP that allows for termination for abusing staff members. Just as one can't abuse a clerk in real life, we simply can't tolerate abuse of staff members.

 

[SwarmHost]

It seems like I came across a post on some forum where the client was complaining that he had his services terminated for posting a negative review. It was probably on WHT, but I don't read there nearly as much as here, and I would have a hard time locating it. I can't see how they would think that would benefit their business on any level.