Hosting and Maintenance ContractsWeb hosting takes many forms, from single-site hosting arrangements between a web professional and a customer, through shared hosting, cloud-based hosting and virtual private servers, to the provision of high-end dedicated servers and co-location facilities. Hosting is usually packaged with a range of ancillary services, such as domain name registration and email services, but the range and nature of these services will vary from host to host.
There are many legal issues common to all web hosting arrangements. For instance, all hosting companies need to be protect themselves from the abuse of hosting facilities by customers. Nonetheless, different types of hosting - and different packages of ancillary services - need different terms and conditions. There is no such thing as a universal hosting agreement.
Web hosting is usually bundled with some level of support service, but support may also be supplied as a discrete service. Web support and maintenance services are as diverse as hosting services. Support services providers range from small businesses serving a small business client base, to large scale suppliers of remote support for the consumer and SME market, to specialist consultancies supporting the bespoke systems of major institutions.
Although we have grouped our web hosting and web maintenance contracts together in this category, there are as many differences as there are similarities between these types of contract.
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