Frequently Asked Questions

The NearlyFreeSpeech.NET FAQ (*)

Policy (*)

What's the catch?

We're doing the best job we can to ensure that there is no catch. But of course, there's always fine print. Ours is a pay-for-what-you-use infrastructure, and in order to convey your deposits into your account and then keep track of them, we have to maintain our billing infrastructure, do our accounting, file our taxes, and deal with payment compliance issues and fraud. All that adds up, so we have to charge you a small deposit fee.

We do not profit from deposit fees.

The base deposit fee is exactly the same for all members and payment methods. However, before charging you this fee, we offset it as much as we can by applying a variable instant rebate. This helps ensure that small deposits remain cost-effective and helps us tweak the system to make sure deposit fees are distributed fairly without overcharging anyone.

If the deposit fee and instant rebate system seems unnecessarily complicated, it is and we apologize. It is unfortunately necessary in order to provide you with the best possible pricing without running afoul of the conditions imposed upon us by our payment processors. We're constantly on the lookout for ways to reduce (or simplify!) these administrative costs, because they don't help us and they don't help you.

What payment methods do you accept for account deposits?

What is your refund policy?

What if I want to host unpopular or controversial content?

What happens if my account runs completely out of funds?

What is customer service like for subscription members?

What is customer service like for baseline members?

What if my site uses less than $0.01 of bandwidth in a month?

Do you allow adult content?

Do I get interest on my deposit?

Can I get a credit if your service goes down?

What's the difference between an 'account' and a 'membership?'

If I use your web hosting, will you put banners or ads onto my site?

Do you impose CPU limits?

May I send email from a website hosted at NearlyFreeSpeech.NET?

What if my site gets a DMCA complaint?

Do you provide anonymous hosting?

Can I use my NearlyFreeSpeech.NET site to accept credit cards?

What types of sites should not be hosted on your service?

How do I sign up for my company/club/organization?

Will you honor a court order requiring the takedown of my site?

Can I use your ssh server as a web/SOCKS proxy?

What is supplemental verification?

What will you do if I send you email instructing you to do something to my membership?

Is anything recoverable from a membership that has been closed?

What is the "MFFAM" policy?