Acceptable Use Policy
- Application of this AUP
1.1 All Netminders’s customers (“Customers”) are responsible for reviewing and complying with this Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”). Customers who provide services to their own users must affirmatively and contractually pass on the restrictions of this AUP to users, and take steps to ensure compliance by their users with this AUP including, without limitation, termination of users who violate this policy.
1.2 This Policy is subject to change with notice by publication on this Web site. Customers are responsible for monitoring this web site for changes. For clarity, Customer shall be solely responsible for all the acts or activities of the users, regardless of whether the Customer is aware of or can prevent the act or activities of the users.
1.3 The examples named below are not exhaustive and are provided solely for guidance to Customers. If any Customer is unsure of whether a contemplated use or action is permitted, it is Customer's responsibility to check with Netminders whether the use is permitted by contacting Netminders via electronic mail.
- System Abuse
Customers or users shall not use the Netminders's network, machines, or services (collectively, “Service”) in any of the following manner:
(a) violate any applicable law, regulation, treaty, or tariff.
(b) violate the acceptable use policies of any networks, machines, or services which are accessed through Netminders's network.
(c) violate this AUP .
(d) use or attempt to use the Service in any unauthorized manner, or attempt to use any unauthorized machines or networks via the Service.
(e) attempt to interfere with or deny service to any user or host (e.g. denial of service attacks).
(f) falsify header information or user identification information.
(g) introduce malicious programs into the network or Server (e.g. viruses, worms, Trojan horses, etc.) or otherwise in association with any spam activities.
(h) monitor or scan the networks of others without permission.
(i) breach or disrupt or attempt to breach or disrupt Internet communication including, but not limited to, accessing data of which Customer is not an intended recipient or logging into a Server or account that Customer is not expressly authorized to access.
(j) execute any form of network monitoring (e.g. packet sniffer) which will intercept data not intended for the Customer.
(h) circumvent or attempt to circumvent Customer authentication or security of any host, network, or account ("cracking").
(l) use any program/script/command, or sending messages of any kind, designed to interfere with a third party customer terminal session, via any means, locally or via the Internet; sending unsolicited email whether in bulk or not.
(m) collect email addresses from the Internet for the purpose of sending unsolicited bulk email or to provide collected addresses to others for that purpose.
(n) transmit, receive or store any copyright-infringing, use of intellectual property right without proper authorization or obscene material.
- Co-location & Hosting Customers
In addition, Customers for Netminders’s Co-location and web hosting service, who provide services to their own users must:
(a) maintain valid postmaster and abuse addresses for their domains.
(b) comply with all applicable Internet RFCs, maintain appropriate reverse DNS information for all hosts receiving connectivity through Netminders's network for which DNS responsibility has been delegated to the customer.
(c) maintain accurate contact information with the Internet and any other appropriate domain and IP address registries.
(d) take reasonable steps to prevent IP spoofing by their users and downstream customers.
(e) provide a 24/7 contact address to Netminders for dealing with security and abuse issues.
(f) act promptly to ensure that users are in compliance with this AUP. Reasonable steps include, but are not limited to, using ip verify unicast reverse path wherever appropriate and using IP address filtering wherever appropriate.
- Email
4.1 No Customers or users may send any unsolicited ("opt-out") email, whether in bulk or not. Sending unsolicited bulk email from another provider advertising or implicating, directly or indirectly, the use of any service hosted or provided by Netminders, including without limitation email, web, FTP, and DNS services, is prohibited and is ground for termination of those services to Customers or users who engage in the practice.
4.2 Netminders Customers or users who send bulk email to "opt-in" lists must have a method of confirmation or verification of subscriptions and be able to show evidence of subscription for users who complain about receiving unsolicited email.
4.3 The following actions are also prohibited:
(a) Using email to engage in harassment, whether through language, frequency, or size of messages. Continuing to send someone email after being asked to stop is considered harassment.
(b) Using email to disrupt (e.g., mail bombing, "flashing," etc.) is prohibited.
(c) Sending email with falsified header information.
(d) Sending email with falsified or obscured information (e.g., encoded or "obfuscated URLs") designed to hinder identification of the location of what is advertised.
(e) Creating or forwarding chain letters, pyramid schemes, and hoaxes.
(f) Send unsolicited mail messages ("spam") of any kind (commercial advertising, political tracts, announcements).
(g) Using the Netminders or customer account to collect replies to messages sent from another provider, which violate these rules or those of the other providers.
- Usenet newsgroups
In addition, the following restrictions apply to Customer or newsgroup postings by its users:-
(a) All illegal content including child pornography or infringing materials are not permitted.
(b) All postings should conform to the various conventions, guidelines and local culture found in each respective newsgroup and Usenet as a whole.
(c) Posting 20 or more copies of the same article in a 45-day period ("spamming") or continued posting of off-topic articles after being warned is prohibited. Without prejudice to any other remedies that Netminders may have, users who engage in spamming using Netminders accounts will be charged the cost of labor to issue cancellations and respond to complaints, with a minimum charge of $200. Users who engage in spamming from another provider advertising or implicating, directly or indirectly, the use of any service hosted or provided by Netminders, including without limitation email, web, FTP, and DNS services, is prohibited and is ground for termination of those services to those users.
(d) Posting articles with falsified header information is prohibited. "Munging" header information to foil email address harvesting by "spammers" is acceptable provided that a reasonable means of replying to the message originator is given. Use of anonymous remailers is acceptable, so long as the use is not otherwise a violation of this policy.
(e) Users may not issue cancellations for postings except those which they have posted themselves, those which have headers falsified so as to appear to come from them, or in newsgroups where they are the official moderator.
- The World Wide Web and FTP
6.1 The web space and public FTP space included with a dialup account may not be resold or used for adult-oriented material.
6.2 Netminders reserves the right to require that sites using web or FTP space which receive high amounts of traffic be moved to other servers.
6.3 Web pages and FTP files may not contain any material, text, or images, whether hosted on Netminders servers or "transclusioned" (images from another site displayed on the page) which violate or infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, statutory, common law, or proprietary rights of others. Web pages and FTP files may not contain links that initiate downloads of copyright infringing or other illegal material.
- Servers and Proxies
Users may not run on Netminders servers any program, which makes a service or resource available to others, including but not limited to port redirectors, proxy servers, chat servers, file servers, and IRC bots. Users may not run such programs on their own machines to make such services or resources available to others through a Netminders dialup account; a dedicated access account is required for such purposes. Customers are responsible for the security of their own networks and machines. Netminders will assume neither responsibility nor accountability for failures or breach of customer-imposed protective measures, whether implied or actual. Abuse that occurs as a result of a compromised customer's system or account may result in suspension of services or account access by Netminders. Any programs, scripts, or processes which generate excessive server load on Netminders servers are prohibited and Netminders reserves the right to terminate or suspend any such program, script, or process. - Unsolicited Bulk Email Support Services and Email Address Harvesting
Customers and users may not advertise, distribute, or use software intended to facilitate sending unsolicited bulk email or harvest email addresses from the Internet for that purpose. Customers and users may not sell or distribute lists of harvested email addresses for that purpose. - Facilitating a Violation of this AUP
Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mailbombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software. This can include failure to update software used on Customer account or web site that is known to be vulnerable to malicious activity or exploitation. Netminders also expects Customer to use secure passwords to protect Customer account and associated email accounts. Use of passwords deemed by Netminders to be insecure is a violation of this AUP. - Network Disruptions and Unfriendly Activities
Use of the NetmindersHost service for any activity which affects the ability of other people or systems to use NetmindersHost Services or the Internet. This includes "denial of service" (DOS) attacks against another network host or individual user. Interference with or disruption of other network users, services or equipment is prohibited. It is the Member's responsibility to ensure that their network is configured in a secure manner. Customers and users may not, through action or inaction, allow others to use their network for illegal or inappropriate actions. Customers and users may not permit their network, through action or inaction, to be configured in such a way that gives a third party the capability to use their network in an illegal or inappropriate manner. Unauthorized entry and/or use of another company and/or individual's computer system will result in immediate account termination. NetmindersHost will not tolerate any customers and users attempting to access the accounts of others, or penetrate security measures of other systems, whether or not the intrusion results in corruption or loss of data. - Suspension, Termination of Service or Removal of Contents
11.1 Should Netminders be of the view that Customers or users have breached any one of the above provisions or should Netminders receive any written complaint(s) from any third party alleging that the Customer or user has or have breached any one of the above provisions, notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in the General Terms and Conditions for Netminders Services, Netminders shall be entitled to suspend or terminate the Service or to take down or remove any contents that is/ are posted in the Internet via Netminders’s Service immediately without any notice and without any liability for such suspension or termination or any other actions to remove or to take down the contents.
11.2 If Netminders exercises its right of termination as mentioned above, Customer shall be deemed to be in default of the material or important term of the applicable terms and conditions between Customer and Netminders; accordingly Customer shall be liable to pay Netminders any early termination charges arising therefrom and details of such early termination charges are more particularly detailed in the General Terms and Conditions for Netminders Services.
