Interactive Web applications, of the specific type commonly known as "chat", are not allowed on IperWeb servers. For the purposes of this policy, a "chat" system is defined as a Web site or portion thereof that encourages visitors to post messages that are immediately viewable by other users, in order to engage in "real-time" conversation with other visitors at the same site.

Other Information

The Web model is supremely unsuited to this type of application, and the impact on servers is immense. It's not just that people like to "chat"; it's that they often like to engage in "cybersex". When this happens, the volume of hits, most of which generate CGI calls, quickly becomes prohibitive. We have been forced to shut down "innocent" chat systems that were generating over 150,000 CGI calls per day. It's worth noting that most of the users of such systems are not "useful" traffic for your site, unless you're trying to provide inflated hit counts to support general-purpose advertising.

Note - A guestbook application is not generally considered a "chat" application. You are free to use guestbooks, such as the Guestbook that we provide, for their intended purpose. Most bulletin board and discussion forum systems are also acceptable, although certain commercial applications will be better suited for Dedicated servers.

We recommend the use of a system such as Internet Relay Chat for these applications. IRC is designed expressly for this purpose.