This agreement was written in Italian: https://it.altervista.org/regolamento.php. In case of conflict between any translated versions of this Agreement and the Italian version, the latter will prevail.

PREAMBLE

Mondadori Media S.p.A. is a company with registered office at Via Gian Battista Vico 42, 20123 Milan, Italy (hereinafter referred to as “Altervista”), which provides, through its website at URL www.altervista.org (the “Site” or “Altervista”), a hosting service and some additional services (when activated by the users).

SPECIAL ADVICE FOR CONSUMERS: If the User is a physical person which requires the service for unrelated purposes to his or hers entrepreneurial or professional activity and is considered a “Consumer” according to the legislative decree n. 206 of 6.9.2005 (“Consumer Code”), User will be subject to the dispositions contained in the Consumer Code, in addition to those generally applicable to the service provided by Altervista according to the legislative decree n. 70 of 9.4.2003 on the services of the information society and electronic commerce, and by virtue of the EU Regulation n. 2022/2065 (“DSA”).

According to the articles 7 and 12 of the legislative decree n. 70 of 9.4.2003, Altervista communicates to users the following information: the services lender presented in the General Terms and Conditions is Mondadori Media S.p.A., with the registered office placed in Via Gian Battista Vico 42, 20123 Milano, Italy. VAT registration number: 08386600152.

The use of the services offered through the Site is exclusively limited to a registered User who has:

  • read the information concerning the processing of personal data and given the consent to the processing of data;
  • accepted these Terms and Conditions;
  • completed the registration process to Altervista and the creation of Hosted Site by choosing an identification term (username), which is also part of the web address of the Hosted Site (for example http://username.altervista.org, or https: //blog.giallozafferano.it/username/, or https://blog.pianetamamma.it/username/, etc.).

1. Definitions

The following terms have the meanings specified below:

  • Hosting Service: the advanced hosting service offered by the Site, concerning the provision of web space to the User only and exclusively in the purpose of creation of websites through Altervista;
  • Services: the entire set of all the services offered by Altervista, including additional services to the Hosting Service that Users can activate by their own decision, such as the Banner Service; Push Notifications, Domains Registration, and Accessory Services and other specific services.
  • Altervista: the Altervista website available at www.altervista.org;
  • Hosted Site: the website or blog created by the User and hosted in the web space made available by Altervista;
  • User: each person who has successfully completed the registration procedure to Altervista, and accepted these Terms and Conditions and assumed rights and obligations described therein;
  • The Owner of the Hosted Site: the User who created a Hosted Site;
  • Username (or nickname): the username chosen by the User while he registers to Altervista, and which also identifies the address of the Hosted Site, for example, https://username.altervista.org, https://blog.giallozafferano.it/username/, https://blog.pianetamamma.it/username/, etc.);
  • Altervista Login: the login form, available on the website www.altervista.org (or specific language localizations, e.g. it.altervista.org, en.altervista.org, etc.), which allows the Owner of the Hosted Site to access, with his/her Username and password, the tools made available by the Altervista Hosting Service to build and update the Hosted Site;
  • General Terms or Terms of Service: the present terms and conditions of the contract, which the User accepts when registering with Altervista;
  • Contract: the contract, governed by the General Terms, which will be concluded between Altervista and each User;
  • Content or Contents or Material: any content (by way of example only: texts, photos, images, videos, links, works, music, comments, data, profiles etc.) published, uploaded or otherwise in any way and form available on the Hosted Site;
  • Banners or Banner Service: advertising formats and/or advertising positions, made available by Altervista, which the User optionally places or activates on the Hosted Site. Such advertising positions and formats allow the User to receive consideration from Altervista based on Advertising Rates (as better defined below) and/or criteria described within the Hosted Site's administration panel, which the User accesses in order to activate the Banners. By activating the Banner Service or placing Banners on the Hosted Site, the User declares that he/she also fully accepts the “Supplementary Rules for the Activation of Banners” pursuant to Article 17 of these General Terms and Conditions. Except for the activation of the Banner Service, it is prohibited to insert, activate and display in the Hosted Site and/or its Contents any form of banners, popUp or popUnder, and/or activate and/or insert any other form of advertising and/or source or means of monetization of the Hosted Site traffic and/or any type of advertising network or adserver or to license to third parties advertising or promotional space on the Hosted Site and/or Contents and/or to use other forms of sponsorship and codes different from those made available by Altervista without explicit written authorization from the Altervista staff;
  • Notification(s) or Push Notification Service: the service through which, after acquiring the consent of visitors to the Hosted Site, who have authorized their browser or acquired the token, the Owner of the Hosted Site, using automated systems that support web push notification technology, can send (optionally and at its own discretion) notifications of updates or new content (such as but not limited to images, text, links) in push mode and in the forms permitted and supported by browsers. The selection of content subject to Notification is at the sole discretion of the Owner of the Hosted Site. Visitors to the Hosted Site may revoke their authorization to receive Notifications at any time only and exclusively through their browser. Likewise, the Owner of the Hosted Site may revoke its consent to use the Push Notifications Service at any time by accessing the Altervista administration panel. By activating the Push Notifications Service, the User declares that also fully accepts the “Supplementary terms for the activation of the Notifications Service” pursuant to Article 18 of these General Conditions.
  • Advertising Formats: types of banners, generally identified with a market standard format (by way of example only: 728x90 or “leaderboard”, “skin”, 300x250 or “video banner” etc.). Advertising Formats define the form and characteristics of banners. The Banners and Advertising Formats made available by Altervista may change over time, at any time and without notice, and may not always be available to Users and/or for certain Salary Bands (as better defined below);
  • Advertising Rates: rates and/or criteria determined according to the Advertising Format and/or the Pay Band and/or the placement of the same Advertising Format on the pages of the Hosted Site, and/or the performance of the Banner, and/or the amount and type of Hosted Site or Banner traffic (by way of example but not limited to: domestic vs. foreign traffic, type of traffic by device: desktop - mobile - tablet), and/or the semantic category to which the Hosted Site belongs, and/or the advertising market trends, and/or the advertising collection costs incurred by Altervista, and/or the sales effectiveness of Altervista's advertising concessionaire or to whom Altervista entrusts advertising collection, and any other advertising remuneration systems used by Altervista to enable Altervista to make advertising enhancement of the Banners, including for the purpose of being able to pay the fee provided to Users for the Banner Service. The Advertising Rates may change over time and may be modified, in whole or in part, at any time, even with immediate effect, even for only one or some of the Advertising Formats and/or Remuneration Bands;
  • Pay Bands (or Advertising Pay Levels): pay levels to which the Hosted Site belongs, which determine the Advertising Rates and the availability or non-availability of certain Advertising Formats. The Remuneration Bands depend, for example, on criteria such as: the Domain of the Hosted Site and/or the semantic field of the Hosted Site and/or its Content and/or whether or not the User has activated Google AdSense, and/or the amount of traffic to the Hosted Site and/or the interest by the concessionaire to which Altervista entrusts advertising collection to the Hosted Site Content. The Hosted Site's applicable Pay Band and associated Advertising Rates and Banner Formats are visible within the Hosted Site's administration panel. The Remuneration Bands may change over time and be modified, in whole or in part, at any time, including with immediate effect, including by varying one or more of the Advertising Rates and/or changing, eliminating or adding one or some of the Advertising Formats.

The General Conditions will be applied also to any services which will be provided to the Users in the future unless differently specified during the registration procedure or during the first supply of the new service. Some services, in any case, regulated by the General Conditions, may be subject also to particular terms and conditions, depending on their nature and/or their features, which will be communicated to the users with the modality provided by the General Conditions.

Single point of contact in accordance with Article 11 DSA: the Company indicates as the single point of contact the following e-mail address “abuse_rs@altervista.it”. The Company states that the languages that can be used are Italian and English.

Single point of contact pursuant to Article 12 DSA: the Company indicates as the single point of contact: the following contact form https://it.altervista.org/feedback.php?who=feedback

2. The Hosting Service

2.1 The Hosting Service allows the creation by the User of a website (the Hosted Site) and the publication in full autonomy, and without any revision of the Content (before or after the publication) by Altervista, and under the personal responsibility of the User on the Hosted Site Content; inter alia, the Hosting Service offered for the creation and the management of the Hosted Site have the following characteristics:

  • web space, with php/mysql/control panel support for Hosted Site management;
  • no advertising elements forcibly inserted into the uploaded pages;
  • possibility offered to the User to enhance the traffic of the Hosted Site through the advertising Banners that Altervista makes available to Users for their Hosted Sites;
  • wordpress blog possibly preinstalled in their web space.

2.2 The Hosting Service is provided free of charge to Users registered online in accordance with the terms contained in Article 3 of the General Conditions below, with the exception of certain specific services that require the purchase of the same, such as, but not limited to, the registration of second-level domains or resource expansions for the Hosted Site beyond those provided for the Hosting Service.

2.3 Altervista has a partnership with Cloudflare inc. (https://www.cloudflare.com/) that provides Content Delivery Network and security services for Hosted Sites aimed at improving delivery performance and protecting Hosted Sites from common cyber threats. The User can request activation or deactivation of the service provided by Cloudflare directly from its control panel. By requesting activation of the service provided by Cloudflare, the User declares that he/she has also fully read and accepted Cloudflare's Terms of Service: https://www.cloudflare.com/terms and accepts that Altervista will forward to the User, either automatically or manually, via email or within the control panel, any service notices disseminated by Cloudflare.

2.4 Altervista reserves the right to independently activate the services offered by Cloudflare for the Hosted Site if it detects a cyber attack addressed to it (for example, denial of service or spambot attack).

2.5 The User acknowledges that at any time, the services offered by Cloudflare for the Hosted Site may, for technical reasons and/or reasons attributable to the Cloudflare service provider, no longer be available, in whole and/or in part, either permanently or temporarily. Such suspension may be effective with immediate effect without any prior notice being sent to the User.

3. Registration Methods

3.1 The use of the Services offered by Altervista is permitted exclusively to a registered User who has:

  • carefully and fully read the information regarding the processing of personal data and consented to the processing of personal data: https://en.altervista.org/privacy.php;
  • accepted these Terms and Conditions;
  • completed the registration process to Altervista and the creation of Hosted Site by choosing an identification term (username), which is also part of the web address of the Hosted Site (for example http://username.altervista.org, or https: //blog.giallozafferano.it/username/, or https://blog.pianetamamma.it/username/, etc.).

3.2 The User has the duty to choose a username for access and use of the Services and the right to change the password assigned to him/her by Altervista during registration, and acknowledges that username and password constitute the validation system of the User's accesses to the Services and the only suitable means to legitimize the User to access the Services themselves. The User therefore assumes full responsibility for all acts performed through the use of username and password assigned to him/her. The User is required to keep the username and password in the strictest confidence and to guard them with the utmost diligence. The User is also required to choose a password that is not easy to identify. For security reasons, Altervista advises Users to periodically change the password. In this regard, the User acknowledges that Altervista reserves the right to request a password change if it deems such an operation necessary for the protection of the Services and the data contained therein. In fact, knowledge of the username and related password by third parties will allow those third parties to use the Services on their behalf.

3.3 The User agrees to notify Altervista as soon as possible, in writing, by registered letter with return receipt to the address Mondadori Media S.p.A., Via Gian Battista Vico 42, 20123 Milan, Italy, and/or by communication via certified electronic mail (PEC) to the address altervista@pec.mondadori.it or by email to the address abuse_rs@altervista.it, (provided that it is followed within 48 hours of sending registered letter a/r/o PEC),

  • i) any use of your Hosted Site or the Services by unauthorized use of your username and password,
  • ii) any unauthorized use of the username and password assigned to it,
  • iii) any other breach of security relating to the Services or the Hosted Site of which it becomes aware.

Altervista undertakes, following notice, to deactivate the password that is the subject of the breach of secrecy and to allow the User to recreate a new password. In this regard, the User acknowledges that the link to recreate a new password will be sent by Altervista exclusively to the e-mail address indicated by the User when registering with Altervista or when updating such data. For security reasons, it is not intended to send such a link to an e-mail address other than the one indicated in the User's profile. If such address is incorrect and/or updated, therefore, the User acknowledges that, in order to obtain from Altervista the link for the creation of the new password, he/she will have to file a report of theft and/or loss of his/her password to the competent Authorities, assuming any possible burden or cost, including any legal fees, and send a copy of such act to Altervista.

3.4. When filling out the registration form, the User is requested to provide certain personal data, the processing of which is carried out in accordance with the provisions of Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of April 27, 2016 (hereinafter “GDPR”), and in accordance with the information provided to the User during registration. By accepting the General Terms and Conditions, the User declares that its data are up-to-date, correct and true, and agrees to promptly modify them to this end. Any communication made by Altervista to the e-mail address provided by the User during registration or, subsequently, when making changes, will be considered valid and effective, the User being fully responsible for the truthfulness of the information provided to Altervista in this regard.

3.5 The User, moreover, acknowledges that the completion of the registration is subject to the verification, partly automated, by Altervista of the existence of certain requirements including the reliability of the email domain, the type of internet connection (e.g. the use of private connections such as VPN etc. is prohibited), the approximate location of the IP address to the extent that registration to the Hosting Service is not permitted worldwide.

3.6 The User's right to use the Services is personal and non-transferable: the User agrees not to resell or make other commercial use of the Services provided by Altervista.

3.7 The User undertakes to use the Services exclusively for lawful purposes and in any case in full compliance with the provisions of the law on intellectual property and personal data protection (including, but not limited to, the GDPR, Legislative Decree 196/2003, as amended by Legislative Decree 101/2018) and to indemnify and hold harmless Altervista and/or the Company from any claim or demand arising from the use or misuse of the Services.

3.8 Altervista also on the basis of the provisions of Article 6 DSA reserves the right to permanently discontinue without notice the provision of the Service(s) to the individual User in the event that it has become aware that the User:

  • a) has not provided updated, complete, true and correct personal data;
  • b) is also using or has used any of the Services for purposes or in ways that are illegal or unlawful or that are otherwise incompatible with the nature of the Services provided;
  • c) violates or has violated the General Terms and Conditions or the particular terms and conditions governing the Services;
  • d) is the recipient of a partial or total obscuration provision by the competent Judicial Authority.

3.9 The Services provided by Altervista are all intended and intended to be used exclusively by Users of legal age. Should, however, the Services be used by Users who are minors, the provisions of Article 9 below of these General Conditions shall apply.

4. Use of the Services

4.1 The User states to assume full and total legal liability on the information published on the Site Hosted and above all Contents loaded in the web space, relieving Altervista and holding harmless from any claim or claims arising from the use or misuse of the services offered.

4.2 The User warrants the lawfulness and originality and truthfulness of the Content and any content, information, material, photos and data posted on the Hosted Site or sent via Notifications, and that the same are free from third party rights. The User assumes all responsibility in relation to the originality and lawfulness and truthfulness of the Content, completely exonerating Altervista and/or the Company from any grievance for any reason made by third parties.

4.3 You acknowledge that you are solely responsible for any and all Content, and you agree to indemnify and hold Altervista and/or the Company harmless from any third party claims and/or demands arising from the Content.

4.4 Any third party copyrighted material may be used only if the User has acquired, from the copyright holder, the related rights of use, then only with the written permission of the right holder and with the obligation to cite the source and the existence of such permission. Photographic or video material of third parties or reproducing the portrait of third parties may be used only if the User has acquired the consent of the author and/or the person portrayed. In relation to the availability of such rights and consents, the User assumes all responsibility completely exonerating the Company and/or Altervista.

4.5 The User also assumes full responsibility for the accuracy and truthfulness of the Content, in the name and/or on behalf of third parties, and assures that the same is in its legitimate availability, is not contrary to mandatory rules and does not violate any distinctive sign, intellectual property right, industrial, image right or other right of third parties arising from the applicable legal rules or custom or usage.

4.6 Without prejudice to Article 4.8 below, the User agrees not to use the Services improperly or in violation of any rule of law or regulation. In any case, the Content entered must never present forms and/or content of a pedo-pornographic, pornographic, obscene, blasphemous, defamatory, offensive, contrary to public order or morality, untrue, promoting or inducing illegal activities or containing viruses or other programs damaging the functionality of other people's computer systems.

4.7 The User acknowledges that Altervista, as an internet service provider, is required to store traffic data relating to the activities carried out by users and is obliged to make them available to the Judicial Authority, as provided for in Article 132 of Legislative Decree 196/2003, as amended by Legislative Decree 101/2018.

4.8 The User acknowledges that Altervista reserves the right to immediately suspend, even permanently, the Hosting Service or the Services, if, also upon notice from third parties, it becomes aware that the Content placed by the User on the Hosted Site is of an unlawful nature or otherwise in violation of third party rights or of these General Conditions. The User also acknowledges that, in any case, Altervista is obliged, pursuant to Articles 6 DSA and 17 of Legislative Decree 70/2003 (consistent with the provisions of Article 8 DSA), to:

  • Immediately remove the offending information or otherwise disable access to it upon notice from the competent authorities;
  • inform the judicial authority or the administrative authority having supervisory functions, if it has knowledge, of alleged illicit activities or information concerning the User;
  • provide, at the request of the competent authorities, information in its possession that allows the identification of the User, in order to identify and prevent illegal activities.

IMPORTANT: also in accordance with Article 14 DSA, the User is not allowed to upload content (“Illegal Content”) that directly or indirectly, in whole or in part, constitutes conduct that qualifies as harassment or acts of incitement to hatred, is offensive, harms the reputation of any person, contains any unauthorized personal data of third parties, contains obscene or vulgar expressions as well as any type of content that is sexually explicit (including links or reference to adult sites), violent, dangerous, has a terrorist nature, may compromise the safety of minors or is otherwise illegal (even if created through the use of artificial intelligence systems), violates the principles of the Code of Ethics adopted by the Mondadori Group and available at https://www.mondadorigroup.com/corporate-governance/ethics-and-conduct/code-of-ethics

Without prejudice to the foregoing, the User, with respect to each Content declares, assuming all civil and criminal liability, that the Content is lawful and makes no direct or indirect reference to, among other topics, all of the content listed below are also to be understood as “Illegal Content”:

  • pornographic and/or child pornographic and/or sexually oriented material and otherwise obscene in nature;
  • material that violates copyrights, especially pirated software, music files, images, videos, copyrighted text, or infringes industrial property rights;
  • material that is offensive or defamatory to anyone, including expressions of bigotry, racism, hatred, irreverence or threats, news and/or political or religious views;
  • material that promotes or provides information that instructs in illegal activities or is otherwise related to them in any way or that may cause harm to third parties;
  • material that contains personal data and/or special data referable to third parties even of a sensitive and/or judicial nature, in particular but not limited to referring to information about health, racial origins or sexual habits;
  • material that contains information relating to the use of weapons, drugs and/or that in any way incites the use of violence or reports facts of a violent nature;
  • that may cause any form of direct or indirect harm to third parties and/or Altervista;
  • material or activities that, in general, violate or induce to violate any provision of law and/or measures of the Public Authority;
  • phishing content (fake-login).

The publication of illegal Content, may result in the suspension or permanent termination of the Hosting Service and/or Services and termination of the User's account.

Also in accordance with Article 14 DSA, the User is not allowed to upload content (“Inappropriate Content”) that directly or indirectly, in whole or in part:

  • contain links to web pages that may result in harm and/or risk to visitors;
  • containing gambling-related initiatives, contests, games that require paid participation;
  • not suitable for minors under 18 years of age;
  • depicting minors and/or concerning minors;

The publication of unsuitable Content will result in temporary or permanent suspension of the Hosting Service and/or Services, the reasons behind the suspension will be sent via email to the User and/or visible in the Altervista control panel accessed via the Altervista Login. The User may appeal this decision by writing to abuse_rs@altervista.it. The appeal by sending reports to abuse_rs@altervista.it does not in any way limit the possibility for the User to take action before the judicial authorities to protect his rights.

4.9 The User acknowledges that Altervista reserves the right to verify compliance with the General Conditions at any time and without notice, at its discretion. Altervista reserves the right to immediately suspend, even permanently, the Hosting Service and/or the /Services if, in its sole discretion, also upon report of third parties, it considers that the General Conditions have been violated, the User has posted illegal or unsuitable Content (see article 4.8 above), the User engages in malicious behavior or, again, the Hosted Site address is used in unsolicited communications (spam) or uses Altervista's emailing features to send said communications.

The User acknowledges that Altervista reserves the right to immediately suspend, even permanently, the Hosting Service and/or the /Services if, also upon report of third parties, it becomes aware of breaches by the User with respect to what is established in these General Conditions, that the User engages in malicious behavior or, again, that the Hosted Site address is used in unwanted communications (spam) or uses the email sending functionalities of Altervista to send said communications. The User acknowledges that Altervista, in fulfillment of its obligations under Articles 6 DSA and 17 D. Lgs. 70/2003 (consistent with Art. 8 DSA), is obliged to report any illegal Content placed on the Hosted Sites to the competent authorities and/or disable access to the contents of the Hosted Sites and/or provide (where possible) for the removal of the contents of the Hosted Sites (or any other measure suitable to obtain the effect of making such contents no longer available to the public) and/or implement any other measure imposed by the law or by the competent authorities against Altervista. The User acknowledges and accepts that in the event of its failure to respond to or comply with notifications and/or measures of any competent authority imposing the removal of specific content Altervista may be required to disable access to the entire space hosting such content and that such action by Altervista is provided for by specific legal regulations that prevail over the User's rights provided for in the General Conditions.

4.10 Altervista is expressly authorized to insert in the Hosted Site any appropriate warning about the non-existence of any link between Altervista and the User and the Contents or the activity exercised by the User through the Hosted Sites (such as, for example: links to the Disclaimer, to the General Conditions, to any Altervista Abuse Notice).

4.11 It is not permitted to use the Hosting Service as a mere space to deposit files for download, dynamic elements or other material used by external sites, as well as to create multiple accounts for a single Hosted Site (so-called “mirroring”), or to host parts of it. Also, it is not allowed to use the service to host robots, bots or any other application other than a website or blog.

4.12 You may not abuse the Password Area Restriction Service by creating archives, databases or sites whose most significant content is not freely accessible to the public.

4.13 The User agrees to clearly, accurately and conspicuously indicate the presence of content generated or reprocessed through generative and/or general artificial intelligence.

4.14 Each Hosted Site must be fully accessible and navigable from the url assigned to it.

4.15 Hosted Sites use shared resources, so care should be taken with the software used in webspace, as particularly heavy or poorly optimized applications cannot run in shared environments. In order to always ensure a fair distribution of the available resources among the Users of each server, Altervista may intervene to limit the abuse of resources in the event that the execution of software capable of compromising the quality of the Services offered is detected.

4.16 It is not allowed in any way to use the Hosted Site as a simple “redirect” to external resources or to build doorways, proxies or exclusively content aggregators.

4.17 Altervista may allow User to create Hosted Sites not only on the altervista.org domain but also on alternative domains, if at that time made available to the User, dedicated to specific thematic content or semantic fields (collectively the “Domains” and individually the “Domain”); by way of example only but not limited to:

  • blog.giallozafferano.it, giallozafferano.blog, blog.cookaround.com: usable, when made available to Users, only for Hosted Sites whose Content is original and of quality and belongs exclusively and all to the semantic fields cuisine and recipes.
  • blog.pianetamamma.it: usable, when made available to Users, only for Hosted Sites whose Content is original and of quality and belongs exclusively and all to semantic fields such as: mothers and children.
  • blog.zingarate.com: usable, when made available to Users, only for Hosted Sites whose Content is original and of quality and belongs exclusively and all to semantic fields such as: travel.
  • blog.soldionline.it: usable, when made available to Users, only for Hosted Sites whose Contents are original and of quality and belong exclusively and all to semantic fields such as: economics and finance.
  • blog.giallozafferano.com: usable, when made available to Users, only for Hosted Sites whose Content is in English, original and of quality and belongs exclusively and all to the semantic fields cooking and recipes.

4.18 The availability of Domains for the creation of new Hosted Sites may vary over time. Altervista therefore does not guarantee that each of the domains listed above will always be open for new Hosted Site activations.

4.19 Altervista may at any time decide to change or cease use and provision on one or more of the Domains among those offered to host Hosted Sites. In the event that a Domain could no longer be used, Altervista shall notify Users 10 days in advance by email notification and notices on the User's administration panel. The User in this case will have the option to withdraw from the General Conditions (pursuant to Articles 10 and 12 of these General Conditions), or migrate the Hosted Site to altervista.org domain.

4.20 The User has the right, when allowed by Altervista, to create a Hosted Site by choosing an alternative domain to altervista.org from the list in art. 4.17 above, undertaking to produce original, quality, truthful content and in the language that is in line with the topics and semantic fields linked to the domains and described in the aforementioned list.

4.21 Advertisers use automatic semantic analysis systems of the content published on the Hosted Sites to ensure that the delivery of advertising campaigns takes place on sites that deal with topics in line with their target audience. The User acknowledges and accepts that Hosted Sites that deal with topics that are not in line with the semantic fields of the Domain chosen during registration, for technical reasons and/or at the express request of the advertisements, may be reallocated to a different domain.

4.22 The User has the right to create or relocate a Hosted Site on a second-level domain (by way of example only domainsite.tld) by making use of the Domain Registration Service as described in Article 16.1 below

4.23 Electronic reporting in accordance with Article 16 DSA shall be made through the following reporting form: https://en.altervista.org/feedback.php?who=abuse

5. Obligations and responsibilities of the User

5.1 The User undertakes to use the Hosting Service and/or the Services exclusively for lawful purposes and in accordance with the law, regulations, customs and traditions and in such a way as not to cause any damage or prejudice to Altervista, the Company and third parties.

5.2 The User assumes all responsibility for any and all damage or harm that may result to himself, to Altervista, to the Company, to third parties from the publication, disclosure, or transmission of the Content.

5.3 The User hereby agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Altervista and/or the Company and/or the other Users, indemnifying them, substantially and procedurally, from any and all damages, losses, damages, liabilities, costs, charges, expenses (including legal fees), civil, administrative, and criminal, arising from any claim and/or demand and/or action (of a compensatory and/or indemnification nature) that has been and/or may be made against Altervista and/or the Company, in any forum, by third parties, in connection with the publication and dissemination on the Hosted Site of the Content.

5.4 The User agrees in particular to comply with the GDPR, the Italian and European legislation on the protection of personal data (Legislative Decree 196/2003 as amended by Legislative Decree 101/2018) and the legislation on copyright and industrial property rights.

5.5 The User is the owner of the processing of personal data used in the Content of which, therefore, assumes full responsibility.

5.6 The User warrants that he/she is the owner, assignee or licensee of all rights of economic use of any Material or Content entered through the Services in any form, in any area or space made available by Altervista.

5.7 Each Material in the ownership of third parties may be used by the User only if the latter has acquired, from the respective owner, the relevant rights of use (including the authorizations of any holders of related rights and artists, performers and performers, where required). In this regard, the User undertakes to acquire and retain a written copy of the assignment or license agreement or authorization to use the Material signed by the third party owner of such Material (and of any additional holders of related rights), undertaking to cite the author/owner of the Material and the origin of the authorization to use the same in all cases required by law or by Altervista.

5.8 Photographic or audiovisual Material reproducing the portrait of third parties may be used only if the User has acquired the consent of the portrait subject to the use of the portrait for the purposes pursued by the User. Any Material containing names, voices or traits traceable to an individual other than the User may be used only after acquiring the consent of the individual who holds the relevant right to personal identity. In this regard, the User agrees to acquire and retain written copies of the authorizations required by this Section 5.8 and to produce them in all cases required by law or by Altervista.

5.9 In relation to the availability of the aforementioned rights and consents, the User assumes all responsibility, acknowledging that he/she is solely responsible for them, and therefore undertakes to indemnify and hold harmless Altervista, from a substantive and procedural point of view, in relation to any third party dispute.

5.10 The User declares and acknowledges that he/she is solely responsible for the accuracy and truthfulness of the Material entered, and ensures that the same is within his/her legitimate availability, is not contrary to mandatory rules and does not violate any distinctive sign, intellectual property right, industrial right, image right or other right of third parties arising from the applicable legal rules (including any subsequent modification or integration), custom or usage. In any case, the Material entered must not present forms and/or content of a pedo-pornographic, pornographic, obscene, blasphemous or defamatory nature. Therefore, the User agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Altervista, substantively and procedurally, in connection with any third party claim that its rights have been violated as a result of the User's posting of any Material through the Service.

5.11 By accepting these General Terms and Conditions, the User agrees to comply with the provisions of the Regulations on the protection of copyright on electronic communication networks and implementing procedures pursuant to Legislative Decree No. 70 of April 9, 2003 referred to in Resolution No. 680/13/CONS of December 12, 2013 (hereinafter the Regulations of the Italian Communications Authority; hereinafter “AGCOM”). For the purposes of this article, the User acknowledges the qualification of Altervista as a “service provider” within the meaning of Art. 1. (f) of the Regulations and that in this capacity Altervista may be the addressee of measures of AGCOM requiring it to provide for the disabling of access or (where possible) the removal of content entered by the User (or other measure suitable to obtain the effect of making such content no longer available to the public), if the User has been held responsible for the unlawful use of digital works pursuant to the Regulations. In the event that a proceeding is instituted before AGCOM in relation to content placed by the User, the latter undertakes to give AGCOM all feedback and information required by the Regulations and acknowledges that Altervista, pursuant to the Regulations, is not obliged to provide any assistance in favor of the User in the context of the aforementioned proceeding. Without prejudice to the provisions of the preceding paragraph, in the event that a proceeding is instituted before AGCOM in relation to content entered by the User and Altervista requests information, documents or clarifications from the User, the User undertakes to provide them promptly and in any event within the term indicated by Altervista. In light of the obligations imposed by law, and in particular by the Rules, on Altervista, the User acknowledges that the latter must disable access to the contents of the Hosted Sites and/or provide for the removal of the contents of the Hosted Sites (or other suitable measure to obtain the effect of making such contents no longer available to the public) and/or implement any other measure imposed by law and/or by the Rules on Altervista.

5.12 Anonymized tracking codes (such as Google Analytics, Comscore, Audiweb, Nielsen Net Ratings) will be present in the layout of the websites created with the pre-installed applications, or installed through its own control panel, for the detection of traffic in an anonymous and aggregated form. These codes will be deactivatable or can be integrated with other tracking codes of the Owner of the Hosted Site. Altervista reserves the right to process in anonymous and aggregate form the information detected by the preset anonymized tracking codes (if active). Such activities do not in any way imply profiling of visitors or forms of control over the Content placed by the User on the Hosted Site.

5.13 In the event that the User activates the Banner Service, the User may make use of tracking codes for profiling visitors to the Hosted Site, which are necessary to optimize the delivery and rendering of Banner Advertisements. The User acknowledges that the activation of tracking codes for profiling are activated exclusively upon the presence and acceptance of the Owner of the Hosted Site's cookie policy by visitors to the same Hosted Site. Such activities do not in any way imply any form of control over the Content placed by the User on the Hosted Site.

6. Additional Services

6.1 Banner or Banner Service

6.1.1 The User may, at its discretion and optionally, place or activate Banners within the Hosted Site.

6.1.2 By activating the Banner Service or placing Banners on the Hosted Site, the User declares that he/she also fully accepts the “Supplementary Rules for the activation of Banners” set forth in Article 17 of these General Terms and Conditions.

6.1.3 The Banners allow the User to receive a payment from Altervista based on Advertising Rates and/or Remuneration Levels and/or Criteria (described within the Hosted Site administration panel that the User accesses in order to activate the Banners). Advertising Rates and/or Advertising Formats and/or Pay Ranges may be changed at any time without notice.

6.1.4 Banners are provided by advertisers under existing agreements with Altervista.

6.1.5 IMPORTANT: Except for the activation of the Banner Service, it is forbidden to insert, activate or display on the Hosted Site and/or its Contents any form of banner , popUp or popUnder, and/or activate and/or insert any other form of advertising and/or source of monetization of the Hosted Site traffic and/or any type of advertising network or adserver or to license to third parties advertising or promotional space on the Hosted Site and/or Contents and/or to use other forms of sponsorship and codes different from those made available by Altervista without explicit written authorization from the Altervista staff. Exceptions to these prohibitions are made only exclusively for Google AdSense Banner advertisements, but only in the event that the contract between the User and Google for Adsense Banners has been perfected by the User through Altervista's control panel, or the association of an already active AdSense account is perfected, again through Altervista's control panel.

6.1.6 The provision of Google AdSense Advertising Banners takes place following the signing of a direct agreement between the User and Google, Altervista is therefore not responsible regarding the relationship between the User and Google, nor of the payment of the fees due to the User, which is the sole responsibility of Google. However, User acknowledges and agrees that following User's activation of Google AdSense, Google will recognize Altervista a revenue sharing on Google AdSense revenues generated by the Hosted Site.

6.1.7 User acknowledges and agrees that Google may suspend, at its sole discretion, the provision of Google Adsense Banner advertisements, without Altervista having any liability in this regard. Following Google's suspension of the provision of Google Adsense Banner Ads, Altervista may consider whether or not to suspend the provision of the Banner Service for the Hosted Site.

6.1.8 It is prohibited to set up web pages on the Hosted Site exclusively or predominantly devoted to Banners and/or Adsense Banners, and it is also not permitted to place advertising elements on pages under construction or within pages devoid of content. Banners must be placed in a conspicuous location and may not be stacked haphazardly, or placed adjacent to one another, or placed at the bottom of the page, except as provided by Altervista.

However, Banners must always be well spaced from each other within the same web page, always be separated from each other by appropriate amounts of Non-Advertising Content, and their overall footprint on any single web page must never exceed that of Non-Advertising Content. All of the above also applies to Google Adsense Banners and to the possible co-presence on the same web page of Banners and Google Adsense Banners.

6.1.9 The User acknowledges and accepts that advertisers, by way of example but not limited to: Google, Facebook, Amazon, subject advertising traffic to extremely strict automatic controls in order to prevent fraud and verify full compliance with the quality guidelines summarized in the Supplementary Rules for the activation of Banners.

6.1.10 Any attempt aimed at artificially inflating the revenues accrued by Users through the Banners will automatically result in the ouster of the Hosted Site from providing the Banners, the suspension of the User's account and, in case of recurrence, the possible reporting to the Public Authorities. Purely by way of example but not limited to, it is prohibited to repeatedly click on one's own advertising elements (the Banners), use systems for generating visits/clicks (autosurf, autohit, traffic exchange, etc...) on one's Hosted Site and/or on the Banners, clickjacking and tampering or modifying the Banner delivery codes without any written authorization from Altervista.

6.1.11 It is forbidden to include within the text and Content of the Hosted Site, phrases that may induce the visitor of the same to click on the Banners, i.e., insert phrases such as “contribute to the maintenance of the site” or “support us.”

6.1.12 Banners must always be placed in a prominent position and must never be cut off or partially covered, that is, they must always be displayed in their entirety.

6.1.13 The placement of Banner advertisements on the Hosted Sites, which is optional pursuant to the first paragraph of this Article, is done automatically and manually by the User in its Hosted Site, through external services such as, but not limited to, Criteo, Krux, DoubleClick for Publishers and Google AdSense, or other adservers or ad networks. Therefore, in order to provide the Banner Service, to allow its best monetization and perform analysis, the User agrees to insert and allows Altervista to insert all the necessary tracking codes (without this implying any intervention or form of control by Altervista on the Content placed by the User on the Hosted Site ), which may change over time according to the needs of Altervista (such as but not limited to: Krux, Criteo, Google Analytics, Google Adsense, Doubleclick for Publisher, Facebook etc.).

6.1.14 That said, Altervista acknowledges that, as with all other services offered, it does not directly and/or indirectly implement, manage, nor does it supervise and/or control in any way the content of the banner advertisements disseminated on the Hosted Sites. In relation to this activity, Altervista is to be understood as a hosting service provider, in accordance with the provisions of Article 6 DSA and therefore, is not responsible for the content of the banners conveyed on the Hosted Sites.

6.1.15 In case of violation by the User of the provisions of this Article 6 or the “Supplementary Rules for the activation of Banners”, the User will be obliged to pay a penalty (pursuant to Article 1382 of the Italian Civil Code). The amount of the penalty due is equal to the total amount of credits for Banners accrued by the User and not yet collected, as quantified and specified in the User's administration panel, as of the date of Altervista's communication with which the violation is contested, without prejudice in any case to Altervista's right to take legal action for any greater damages. Altervista reserves the right to offset, pursuant to Article 1252 of the Italian Civil Code, the claim arising from the above penalty with its own debt arising from the balance for the Banners claimed by the User. Altervista may at its sole discretion decide to rehabilitate the User responsible for the violation to the Banners functionality.

6.1.16 The User guarantees the compliance of its Hosted Site with all applicable regulations, in particular, the User undertakes to produce and keep updated and to publish in a suitable manner on the Hosted Site, autonomously or thanks, when present, to the tools offered by Altervista, the cookie policy, suitable for the provision of the Services, and any other disclaimer and/or privacy policy necessary for the provision of the Banner advertising, under penalty of immediate suspension of the Banner Service. It is understood as of now that the implementation of the tools offered by Altervista (e.g. cookie policy, privacy policy) will be at the exclusive charge and responsibility of the User, who will have to adapt them from time to time to their specific needs. The User, therefore, agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Altervista and/or the Company from any third party claims that may be made in relation to such tools.

6.1.17 Without implying any intervention or form of control by Altervista over the Content placed by the User on the Hosted Site, the User acknowledges and accepts that the Advertising Formats and/or Advertising Rates and/or their availability within each Pay Band may be modified at any time and without prior notice. The User, furthermore, acknowledges and accepts that the Advertising Rates of the individual Advertising Formats may be subject to change and/or differentiation depending on their belonging to certain Remuneration Bands and that different Advertising Rates may be applied to the same Advertising Format due to the semantic field to which the Hosted Site belongs, the traffic generated by the Hosted Site and/or Banners and generally all the criteria underlying the determination of the Remuneration Bands. Finally, the User acknowledges and accepts that new and/or modified and/or eliminated (including permanently) existing Advertising Bands may be created at any time and with immediate effect. In case of elimination, the Hosted Sites belonging to the eliminated band will be reallocated to another Advertising Band.

6.1.18 Altervista reserves the right to apply special conditions also to the individual Hosted Site as well as to exclude it from the provision of the Banner Service, the latter point if at the request of its advertising concessionaire.

6.1.19 Altervista reserves the right to determine, at its sole discretion, the access of the Hosted Site to each of the Remuneration Levels, as well as moving the Hosted Site from one Remuneration Level to another.

6.1.20 Altervista reserves the right to terminate even permanently and without notice the provision of the Banner Service and possibly also the Service to the individual User in the event that it becomes aware that the latter violates or has violated the General Conditions or the particular terms and conditions applicable to the Banner Service.

6.2 Notification(s) - Push Notification Service

6.2.1 The Owner of the Hosted Site may, optionally and at its own discretion, activate the Push Notification Service that allows it to send to visitors of the Hosted Site who have provided appropriate authorization through their browser and/or by activating the token, notifications of updates or new content (such as but not limited to images, text and links) chosen by the Owner of the Hosted Site and provided that they are supported by web push notification technology.

6.2.2 The User acknowledges and accepts that the authorization of each of the visitors to the Hosted Site to receive the Notifications may be revoked by the visitor at any time through his or her browser.

6.2.3 Likewise, the Owner of the Hosted Site may revoke, at any time, its consent to use the Push Notifications Service by accessing the Altervista administration panel.

6.2.4 By activating the Push Notifications Service, the User declares that he/she also fully accepts the “Supplementary Rules for the activation of Notifications” referred to in Article 18 of these General Conditions.

6.2.5 Activation and use of the Push Notification Service is available only and exclusively for Blogs placed in Remuneration Levels and cannot be activated from all Remuneration Levels.

6.2.6 The Push Notifications Service is provided free of charge and may be provided in whole or in part through the use of third-party messaging services.

6.2.7 The User acknowledges and accepts that the Push Notification Service, due to technological limitations, cannot be guaranteed and in the event of significant obstacles in continuing delivery may be discontinued in whole or in part or temporarily suspended.

6.2.8 In case of violation by the User of the provisions of this Article 6.2 or of the “Supplementary rules for the activation of Notifications” Altervista reserves the right to grant and temporary or permanent interruption of the provision of the service to the individual Hosted Site.

6.2.9 Altervista acknowledges that, as with all other Services offered, it does not directly and/or indirectly implement, manage, or supervise and/or control in any way the content of the Notifications. In relation to such activity, Altervista is to be understood as a hosting service provider, in accordance with the provisions of art. 6 of the DSA and therefore, is not responsible for the content of the Notifications sent by the Owners of the Hosted Sites. The User, therefore, agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Altervista and/or the Company from any third party claims that may be made in relation to this specific Service and, in particular, the content of the Notifications. The User acknowledges that Altervista, in fulfillment of its obligations under Articles 6 DSA and 17 of Legislative Decree 70/2003 (consistent with the provisions of Art. 8 of the DSA), is obliged to report any Illegal Content sent through the Notification Service by the Owners of the Hosted Sites to the competent authorities and/or (where possible) disable access to such content and/or provide (where possible) for the removal of the content (or other suitable measure to achieve the effect of making such content no longer available to the public) and/or implement any other measure imposed by law or by the competent authorities against Altervista.

7. Remuneration for advertisement on the hosted sites

7.1 Altervista undertakes to make payment of the amounts accrued as a result of the insertion or activation of Banners on the Hosted Site as resulting from its advertising statistics service, which the User is entitled to check directly on the administration panel of the Hosted Site.

7.2 It is possible to obtain payment of the credit (of the amounts accrued) upon reaching the minimum threshold of 36.15 euros including any sign-up bonus allocated to each User at the time of registration. The User also has the right to choose the mode of payment among those available, modes that may vary over time , and which, in any case, must comply with the regulations on the traceability of financial flows and anti-money laundering

7.3 In order for the payment to be made correctly, it is necessary to send the data and documentation that may be required, including if required copy of a legally valid identification document and tax code (in the case of payments required through the use of a Paypal account, sending a copy of the identity document and tax code is mandatory), within the timeframe referred to in art. 7.4 below, in addition, the payment of remuneration accrued is not transferable, so it can only be sent to the User.

7.4 If, at the end of each calendar month, the User has reached the minimum threshold as indicated in Article 7.2 above, the User shall have six (6) months to provide Altervista with the necessary payment details. Otherwise, the credit will be extinguished and the User will no longer be able to make any claim in this regard against Altervista.

7.5 The User acknowledges that in the event Altervista archives its Hosted Site due to inactivity and/or abandonment, as better described and specified in Article 10.2 below, and the User fails to restore it within the term set forth in Article 10.3 below, any credit accrued by hosting advertising Banners on such Hosted Site will be lost and can no longer be recovered. In the event of reactivation of the Hosted Site, however, the rules set forth in Article 7.4 above shall apply.

7.6 Altervista cannot be held liable for User's failure to receive payments as a result of User's entry of incorrect information (e.g., taxpayer identification numbers, incorrect IBAN) or other User error (e.g., failure to complete creation of a Paypal account).

7.7 The remuneration paid to the individual User for the Banner Service shall be deemed to be advertising fees.

8. Spam protection

Altervista is against spam (generically understood as the sending of unsolicited and unwanted messages to indistinct subjects) practiced in any form and by any means. Users therefore agree not to use Altervista's resources for this type of activity, which includes, by way of example but not limited to, sending messages that can be considered spam and that contain links to one or more of Altervista's domains, regardless of whether the mail server used to send them belongs to the Altervista network or not.

9. Protection of minors

9.1 Minors must complete the registration process with the assistance of a parent or legal guardian.

9.2 Persons who, exercising parental authority over minors, allow them to use the Services are responsible for the minor's online behavior, control of access, and consequences in the event of abuse of the Service(s) by the minor.

10. Duration and Termination

10.1 The Services are provided indefinitely unless terminated by either party in accordance with the General Terms and Conditions. However, Altervista reserves the right to archive Hosted Sites (no longer making them available and visible online) if they are found to be inactive and/or abandoned, as defined in paragraph 10.2 below and in accordance with the procedures described in paragraph 10.3 below.

10.2 A Hosted Site is considered inactive and/or abandoned when at least one of the following conditions occurs:

  • The Hosted Site has been open for more than one month and has not generated at least 100 page views, in the last 30 days (as measured by Altervista's web server logs and where possible through Google Analytics).
  • The Hosted Site consists for the most part of spam content (by way of example only: posts, comments, doorways, etc...).
  • The User, the Owner of the Hosted Site, has not logged in for 24 months to the Hosted Site's control panel via Altervista Login and, following Altervista's sending of an appropriate email notice to the User, the User has not logged in via Altervista Login to the control panel of the Hosted Site after 30 days from the sending of the email notice.
  • The Hosted Site contains outdated software that may pose a security risk to visitors.
  • Also for the protection of the User's safety, the User's contact information will be out of date and thus make the User unavailable to face possible requests from the Judicial Authority.

10.3 The archiving by Altervista of a Hosted Site consists in making it no longer available and visible online and in the simultaneous creation of a backup copy containing all the Hosted Site Material (including the mysql database, if any), a copy that can be restored from the Hosted Site account control panel by the User for the 30 days following the sending of the notification of archiving invites by Altervista to the User via e-mail. Archiving also includes the deactivation of any @altervista.org email aliases.

10.4 Altervista also reserves the right to delete (even permanently) the Hosted Sites and all the Materials contained therein, which have been archived and not reactivated within the period referred to in Article 10.3 above, simultaneously terminating the existing Contract with the User.

10.5 The User who is a Consumer within the meaning of the Consumer Code shall be entitled to freely withdraw from the Contract within fourteen (14) business days following its conclusion. The withdrawal must be exercised by registered letter with return receipt sent to Mondadori Media S.p.A., at its registered office at Via Gian Battista Vico 42, 20123 Milan, Italy. The withdrawal may also be sent, within the same term, by e-mail to the e-mail address withdrawal@altervista.it, provided that the notice of withdrawal is confirmed by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt within the following 48 hours.

10.6 The User has in any case the right to delete its Hosted Site directly online and without the need to send any written notice, by following the appropriate procedure within the User panel or via online withdrawal form https://aa.altervista.org/account-delete.php, unless the Hosted Site is under seizure by the Judicial Authority. This will result in what is better defined in Section 10.7.

10.7 The removal of the Hosted Site terminates any contractual relationship between the parties and the complete elimination of the Hosted Site and its Content, backups and any additional services activated for it.

10.8 In case of termination of the Contract by the User, the User may request the balance of the credits accrued in relation to the Banner Service, provided that the credit exceeds 36.15 euros within the limits and conditions of paragraph 7 above.

10.9 In the event of termination of the Contract by Altervista due to User's breach of the General Conditions, any amount due to User as accrued credit shall be retained by Altervista as a penalty, without prejudice to Altervista's right to any greater damages.

11. Limitation of Responsibility

11.1 The User assumes sole responsibility for any of its activities within the scope of the Services offered by Altervista and agrees to indemnify and hold Altervista harmless from any claim, demand or threat relating to or arising out of the use or misuse of the Services.

11.2 The User undertakes to use Altervista exclusively for lawful purposes and in accordance with the law, regulations, usages and customs.

11.3 The User assumes all and the broadest responsibility for the download operations that he/she should perform using the Service and of the Material subject to Upload in the Hosted Site.

11.4 The User is responsible and legally liable in connection with the Content and the Hosted Site. In entering Content, the User represents that he or she will strictly abide by these Terms and Conditions.

11.5 In the event that Altervista is the recipient of legal action at the initiative of third parties regarding the activity exercised or the manner of use of the Services by a User, the User expressly agrees to indemnify and hold harmless Altervista from any claim, action or prejudicial effect related to the legal action, undertaking to reimburse all expenses and compensate any direct and/or indirect damage suffered by Altervista as a result of the aforementioned legal action.

11.6 The User also undertakes to indemnify and hold harmless Altervista from any and all responsibility, and consequent losses, damages, costs and expenses suffered and/or incurred by third parties and deriving from the use of the Hosted Site in a manner that does not comply with the obligations contemplated by the General Conditions by navigators or by third parties to whom it had allowed the use of the Hosted Site, including any legal expenses that may be incurred by Altervista even in the event of damages claimed by third parties for any reason whatsoever.

11.7 The User assumes all responsibility for any and all damage or harm that may be caused to himself or to third parties by the disclosure, subtraction, transmission to unauthorized third parties of the Material that he or third parties have placed on the Hosted Site.

11.8 Altervista declares that it does not perform editorial control over the Contents of the Hosted Sites. Therefore, any liability for damages and torts arising out of such Content shall be borne entirely and exclusively by Users.

11.9 The backup of the Contents of its webspace and database is the responsibility of the User, who agrees to keep up-to-date copies and take all necessary measures to safeguard its data. Even if the User has activated the recurring backup service of its webspace and database, Altervista shall not be liable where such backup copy is incomplete or not immediately available for restoration.

11.10 The User assumes all responsibility for any Content that may also be published by third parties on the Hosted Site through applications created by the User or pre-installed in the webspace. The User also assumes all responsibility for the proper treatment, in accordance with applicable regulations, of third party data that he or she may have collected through or on the Hosted Site.

11.11 Use of the Service is entirely at the User's own risk. Altervista makes no warranties or promises as to the quality, proper functioning or suitability of the Service for any particular purpose or result set by the User.

11.12 Altervista assumes no liability for damages, claims, direct or indirect losses arising to Users due to the failure or defective functioning of Users' or third parties' electronic equipment. Altervista shall not be held liable for damages resulting from the failure to provide the Service due to the malfunction or failure of the electronic means of communication due to causes beyond the sphere of its foreseeable control, including but not limited to fire, natural disasters, power failure, unavailability of telephone connection lines or other network service providers, as well as from the actions of other Users or other persons having access to the network.

11.13 Without prejudice to the obligations of each individual User to operate in accordance with the tax regulations applicable to the same committing as of now to indemnify and hold harmless Altervista and/or the Company from any disputes arising from a failure and/or misapplication of tax and fiscal profiles attributable to the same.

11.14 IMPORTANT: Altervista does not engage in any promotion and/or advertising and/or sponsorship of the Hosted Sites. Any mention and/or indication of the Hosted Sites within websites and/or social pages of the Company and/or on Altervista, has the sole purpose of promoting the activity conducted by Altervista.

12. Variation of the Terms of Service or General Conditions

12.1 Altervista reserves the right to modify at any time the General Conditions as well as the terms and characteristics of the Services offered, by means of general notices to Users published on www.altervista.org (or specific language localizations, e.g. it.altervista.org, en.altervista.org, etc.) and/or by means of control panel and/or by means of e-mail communication to the User indicating the effective date of the modifications themselves, which must be at least 30 days after the date of Altervista's communication.

12.2 In the event that the changes result in a significant reduction in the Services, the User shall be entitled to terminate the Contract within fourteen (14) business days of receipt of the notice of the change.

12.3 The continued use of one or more of Altervista's Services after the period referred to in paragraph 12.2 has elapsed constitutes manifestation of the User's willingness to accept the new General Conditions and/or their modifications and/or the new terms and/or features of the Services.

12.4 Without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 12.3, if the Consumer User notifies Altervista that he/she does not wish to accept the changes to the General Conditions, the Contract shall be dissolved by withdrawal, which shall be effective 30 days after receipt of the notice referred to in paragraph 12.1.

12.5 The General Conditions will remain valid even if Altervista should change its domain and/or its business name and/or should be interested in extraordinary operations with another entity or company.

13. Suspension or termination of the Services

13.1 Altervista reserves the right to suspend or discontinue, even permanently (even with possible permanent closure of the same), at any time, the provision of the Services and even of a single Service or of a part or feature of the same for reasons of a technical - commercial nature.

13.2 Altervista disclaims any liability in relation to potential damages caused by the interruption of the Services, also resulting from black-outs or failures of the servers of Altervista or of third party suppliers of the Company.

13.3 Altervista reserves the right to interrupt the Services due to the need to maintain or upgrade its own or third party supplier's computer systems.

13.4 Altervista may at any time interrupt the provision of the Services to a User if justified security reasons or breaches of confidentiality exist, or the removal of any unlawful content has been ordered by the competent Judicial Authority pursuant to articles 6 DSA and 17 of Legislative Decree 70/2003 (compatibly with the provisions of art. 8 DSA) and point 4.8 above , in which case it will notify the User.

13.5 Altervista also reserves the right to immediately interrupt, either temporarily (suspension of the provision of the service) or permanently, the provision of the Services or an individual service to the User who has been found to be in breach of the provisions relating to its obligations, as set out in these General Conditions.

14. Applicable Law

14.1 The General Conditions are governed by Italian law.

14.2 For any dispute concerning these General Conditions, in the event that the User is a Consumer, the competent Court shall be the Court of the location indicated by the User at the time of registration (or subsequently modified) as their residence or domicile, if located in the territory of the Italian State.

15. Rules applicable to the Forum

15.1 The Altervista Forum (forum.it.altervista.org / forum.en.altervista.org) is a tool that provides technical support to Users, both on topics regarding the operation of Altervista's services and on generic topics related to website building and programming. Publication of content in the Forum is restricted to Users logged in via the Altervista Login, while simple reading is also open to visitors.

15.2 Users of the Forum are also bound by the following rules:

Forum moderators are not subject to the control of Altervista management and voluntarily take on the task of monitoring discussions. Therefore, Altervista does not ensure their constant presence. Altervista disclaims any responsibility for the activity performed by them. The group of moderators is an open group that anyone can request to be part of; it is composed of Users who voluntarily offer to keep the Forum in order. In order to ensure the proper functioning of the Forum, just as the moderators undertake to carry out their duties as seriously and fairly as possible, so do the Users undertake to make the work of moderation possible by respecting the moderators themselves and the decisions made by them.

For each Support Forum there are guidelines on tags to be used in titles.

  • Research should be done before opening a discussion.
  • There is no obligation on the part of Users or moderators to answer questions posed within the Forum.
  • Spamming, crossposting, UP, OT activities are not allowed.
  • Any User may be “banned,” i.e., lose the right to write on the Forum for the duration of the ban, with any account in his/her possession. In case of using other accounts they too will be banned for a period equal to or longer than the main penalty. The decision to ban a User is made by the moderators.

For all the above bans and in order to simplify the work of moderation and control by Users of the warnings received, a point system is introduced. Upon issuance of a warning the User will be notified of the infraction, the infraction score, and the expiration date of the score. Upon reaching certain score thresholds a ban from the Forum will be automatically triggered.

The table of infractions and thresholds follows:

Types of offenses:

  • Racial, religious, political discrimination: 15 points - 6 months
  • Insults / Vulgar language: 10 points - 6 months
  • Private discussions in public: 10 points - 5 months
  • Spam / cross posting: 10 points - 6 months
  • Up / consecutive posts: 5 points - 3 months
  • Search not done: 5 points - 1 month
  • Resurrecting old topic: 5 points - 1 month
  • Title not explicit: 5 points - 1 month
  • Wrong section: 5 points - 1 month
  • Signature too long: 5 points - 1 month
  • Presence with other nick if banned: 50 points - no deadline

Punishment thresholds:

  • 20 points 3 days ban
  • 25 points 7 days ban
  • 30 points 1 month ban
  • 35 points 3 months ban
  • 50 points permanent ban

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16. Special terms and conditions applicable ONLY to who requires a second level domain registration (“Domain registration service”)

To Users, who use the Domain Registration Service, the provisions set forth in the General Conditions shall apply. For the purposes of the General Conditions, the provisions provided for the Service shall be deemed to extend to the Domain Registration Service, unless expressly provided. Users of the Domain Registration Service are also bound by the following terms and conditions.

16.1 The Domain Registration Service allows for the registration of one's own second-level domain (e.g. yourname.com, .org., .net, .info, .it), with the further possibility of modulating certain additional services (hereinafter “Additional Services”), as explained in detail at www.altervista.org (or specific language localizations, e.g. it.altervista.org, en.altervista.org, etc.). Registration of a domain does not involve the creation of a new webspace, nor any changes to the existing webspace, or the associated virtual host.

16.2 The offer and updated features of the Domain Registration Service and the Additional Services can be found at www.altervista.org (or specific language localizations, e.g. it.altervista.org, en.altervista.org, etc.).

16.3 The User who decides to use, for a fee, the Domain Registration Service and the Accessory Services has the right to choose the payment method, among those indicated in the control panel.

16.4 The User acknowledges that the registration of a .biz domain is reserved for those who make use of it or intend in good faith to make use of it for a commercial activity or otherwise instrumental to the exchange of goods or services.

16.5 Altervista proceeds with the registration of domain names according to the chronological order of requests and assumes no responsibility for the acceptance of registrations by the competent Registration Authorities, nor for disputes, which may arise regarding the assignment of a domain name, nor for any changes in the registration procedures or naming rules by the aforementioned Registration Authorities, since these are events beyond its control.

16.6 Altervista undertakes to maintain the Domain Registration Service in an efficient and functional manner. Altervista disclaims any liability for direct or indirect damages caused by the service itself, it being understood that in the event of non-renewal of the domain name registration for causes attributable to Altervista, Altervista will be required to pay a penalty in favor of the registrant equal to three times the amount paid by the registrant for the domain name renewal request, to the exclusion of any other claim or compensation by the User.

16.7 The User is required to check with the registries kept by the competent Registration Authorities that the registration procedures have been successful.

16.8 The Domain Registration Service has a term of one year from the date of actual registration of the domain name. Upon expiration of the year, the Domain Registration Service will be discontinued, unless renewed at least 30 days prior to expiration by payment of the fee at the rates in effect at the time of renewal.

16.9 You acknowledge that it is your responsibility to be familiar with the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy in effect with respect to the requested Domain Registration Service.

16.10 Altervista reserves the right to modify the Domain Registration Service and vary the conditions of the offer at any time, in the manner set forth in Article 12 of the General Conditions. However, for each Contract already in force, the conditions in force at the time of the conclusion of the Contract itself will be guaranteed until its annual expiration.

16.11 In case of transfer of the domain to another provider or maintainer, carried out by the User, the Contract will be understood to be terminated at the User's will as of the date of the conclusion of the transfer, with the consequent deactivation of all Accessory Services provided. Altervista shall retain as consideration for the termination any sums already paid relating to the remaining term of the Contract.

16.12 Altervista reserves the right to suspend the Domain Registration Service and the Accessory Services, in the event of a dispute with a third party regarding the registered domain name, pending the resolution of the dispute itself, being excluded any reimbursement or compensation or liability of Altervista for the User's failure to use the Domain Registration Service and the Accessory Services during the period of suspension.

16.13 The User acknowledges that it is his or her responsibility to be familiar with the rules for the processing of his or her personal data by the competent Registration Authorities in the various jurisdictions encompassed by the chosen domain name, stating that he or she is aware that such rules may provide for obligations to disseminate or register personal data in registers accessible to the public via the Internet, without any control by Altervista.

16.14 The User acknowledges that it is his or her burden and responsibility to keep the domain name holder data up to date and indemnifies Altervista from service interruptions imposed by Registration Authorities and Registries as a result of failures to update and verify the aforementioned data.

17. Supplementary Rules for the activation of Banners

The Supplementary Norms for the activation of Banners, viewable at the following Link, apply in full to the User who has activated or placed Banners.

Read: Supplementary rules for the activation of Banners

18. Supplementary Norms for the activation of Notifications

The Supplementary Rules for the activation of Notifications, viewable at the following Link, apply in full to the Owner of the Hosted Site who has activated the Push Notifications Service via control panel, provided that the Hosted Site has the features and/or requirements such as to allow such activation and that visitors have provided appropriate authorization via browser or token acquisition to receive Notifications.

Read: Supplementary rules for the activation of Notifications