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Acceptable Use Guidelines for Internet Services for NortheastNet Please read these Guidelines, and the Terms and Conditions for Internet services carefully before opening or continuing a Internet account with us. By using our services, you agree to comply with these acceptable use guidelines, and we may terminate your account if you fail to comply with these guidelines. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THESE GUIDELINES, YOU SHOULD IMMEDIATELY END YOUR USE OF OUR SERVICES AND OUR SOFTWARE AND NOTIFY US SO THAT WE MAY INITIATE A CLOSURE OF YOUR ACCOUNT.
NORTHEASTNET ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY 1.0 Use of Services 1.01 The accountholder agrees to use our Internet services only for lawful purposes, in compliance with all applicable laws. The accountholder agrees that the internet connection will not be used for continuous, uninterrupted connection. The accountholder is responsible for making sure the access number they use is a local, toll-free number for them.
1.02 Our Internet accounts are provided for use in conformance with
these Guidelines and the Terms and Conditions. We reserve the right to
investigate suspected violations of these guidelines. When we become
aware of possible violations, we may initiate an investigation which
may include gathering information from the accountholder or
accountholders involved and the complaining party, if any, and
examination of material on any of our servers. 1.03 The accountholder of record is responsible for all use of the account, with or without the knowledge or consent of the accountholder. 2.0 Use of Material 2.01 Materials in the public domain (e.g., images, text, and programs) may be downloaded or uploaded using our services. Accountholders may also redistribute materials in the public domain. The accountholder assumes all risks regarding the determination of whether the material is in the public domain. 2.02 The accountholder is prohibited from storing, distributing or transmitting any unlawful material through our services. Examples of unlawful material include but are not limited to direct threats of physical harm, child pornography, and copyrighted, trademarked and other proprietary material used without proper authorization. The accountholder may not post, upload or otherwise distribute copyrighted material on our servers without the consent of the copyright holder. The storage, distribution, or transmission of unlawful materials could subject the accountholder to criminal as well as civil liability, in addition to the actions outlined in 1.02 above. 2.03 The account holder may not store or distribute certain other types of material on our servers. Examples of prohibited material include, but are not limited to, programs containing viruses or trojans and tools to compromise the security of other sites. 3.0 Passwords 3.01 Personal Internet accounts are for individual use only. Accountholders may not share passwords or accounts with other individuals. Accountholders of business accounts, or of accounts that expressly permit multiple users, and who pay the enhanced rates for these services, may share passwords and access with individuals associated with their account. 3.02 Each Internet account user is responsible for the security of his or her password. Secure passwords are between 6 and 8 characters long, contain letters of mixed case and non-letter characters, and cannot be found in whole or part, in normal or reverse order, in any dictionary of words or names in any language. The accountholder is responsible for changing his or her password regularly. 3.03 Our staff may monitor the security of accountholder's passwords at any time. An accountholder with an insecure password may be directed to change the password to one which complies with the above rules. Accountholders who repeatedly choose insecure passwords may be assigned a password by us; continued failure to maintain password security may be grounds for account termination. 4.0 System Security 4.01 The accountholder is prohibited from utilizing our services to compromise the security or tamper with system resources or accounts on computers at any of our facilities or at any other site. Use or distribution of tools designed for compromising security is prohibited. Examples of these tools include but are not limited to password guessing programs, cracking tools or network probing tools. 4.02 We reserve the right to release the usernames of accountholders involved in violations of system security to system administrators at other sites, in order to assist them in resolving security incidents. We will also fully cooperate with law enforcement authorities in investigating suspected lawbreakers. 5.0 System Resources
5.01 We will allocate system resources to provide all accountholders
with the best service possible. As part of resource allocation, we may
limit, restrict or prioritize access to system resources, including CPU
time, memory, disk space, session length, and number of sessions. 5.02 We may log instances of abuse of system resources, including but not limited to those outlined below, and take action as outlined in section 1.02 above. 5.03 System abuse is defined as any use of our resources which disrupts the normal use of the system or internet services for others. Examples of system abuse include, but are not limited to, attempting to disrupt the sessions of other internet users, consuming excessive amounts of CPU time, memory or disk space, or otherwise affecting the performance of our servers. 5.04 Accountholders may not run programs which provide network services from their accounts. Examples of prohibited programs include, but are not limited to, mail, http and ircservers and multiuser interactive forums. 5.05 Accountholders may only make use of our system resources while logged in. The sole exceptions to this policy are e-mail filters, which process and sort mail as it arrives. 6.0 Usenet News Use
6.01 Our services include access to many usenet discussion groups
(newsgroups). The accountholder acknowledges that some newsgroups
contain language, pictures, or discussion of subjects intended for
adult audiences. We do not monitor access to Usenet newsgroups or the
content of posts by our accountholders or accountholders at other sites. 6.02 We reserve the right to discontinue access to any Usenet newsgroups at any time for any reason. 6.03 We will investigate complaints regarding posts of inappropriate material to Usenet by accountholders and we may, at our sole discretion, take action based on the rules below. Criteria for determining whether a post is inappropriate include, but are not limited to, the written charter/FAQ of the newsgroup(s) in question, the established Usenet conventions outlined below, the system resources consumed by the posting, and applicable laws. 6.04 If a post is found to violate one of the policies below, or to contain unlawful material, as described in 2.02 and 2.03 above, we may require that the post be moved to a more appropriate forum (if any), or take action as outlined in 1.02 above. 6.05 Usenet news articles posted using our services must comply with the written charter/FAQ of newsgroups to which they are posted. If a newsgroup does not have a charter or FAQ, its title may be considered sufficient to determine the general topic of the newsgroups. Our accountholders are responsible for determining the rules of a newsgroups before posting to it. 6.06 Established Usenet conventions ("Netiquette") prohibit advertising in most Usenet newsgroups. Our accountholders may post advertisements only in those newsgroups which specifically permit them in the charter or FAQ. some newsgroups may permit "classified ads" for single transactions between private individuals, but not commercial advertisements. Our accountholders are responsible for determining whether or not a newsgroup permits advertisements before posting. 6.07 Netiquette prohibits certain types of posts in most usenet newsgroups.Types of prohibited posts include chain letters, pyramid schemes, encoded binary files, job offers or listings, and personal ads. Our accountholders may post these types of message only in newsgroups which specifically permit them in the charter or FAQ (if any). Our account holders are responsible for determining whether or not a newsgroup permits a type of message before posting. 6.08 Our accountholders may not alter the headers of posts to Usenet to conceal their e-mail address or to prevent accountholders from responding to posts. 6.09 Only the poster of an Usenet article or Northeastnet has the right to cancel the article. Our accountholders may not use our resources to cancel articles which they did not post. The sole exception to this rule is for moderators of formally moderated newsgroups; the moderator of a newsgroup may cancel any articles in a newsgroup he or she is moderating. Our accountholders may not attempt to "flood" or disrupt Usenet newsgroups. Disruption is defined as posting a large number of messages to a newsgroup which contains no substantive content, to the extent that normal discussion in the group is significantly hindered. 6.10 Examples of disruptive activities include, but are not limited too, posting multiple messages with no text in the body, or posting many follow-ups to messages with no new text. 7.0 E-mail Use 7.01 We will investigate complaints regarding e-mail and may, in our sole discretion, take action based on the rules below. If an e-mail message is found to violate one of the policies below, or to contain unlawful material, as described in 2.02 and 2.03 above, we may take action as outlined in 1.02 above. 7.02 Our accountholders may not send e-mail to any user who does not wish to receive it, either to our accountholders or elsewhere. We recognize that e-mail is an informal medium; however, accountholders must refrain from sending further e-mail to an user after receiving a request to stop. 7.03 Unsolicited advertising mailings, whether commercial or informational, are strictly prohibited. Our accountholders may send advertising material only to addresses which have specifically requested it. We will not forward mail of accounts terminated for bulk mailing or unsolicited advertising. 7.04 Chain letters are unsolicited by definition and may not be propagated using our services. 7.05 Our accountholders may not send, propagate, or reply to mailbombs. Mailbombing is defined as either e-mailing copies of a single message to many accountholders, or sending large or multiple files or messages to a single user with malicious intent. 7.06 Our accountholders may not alter the headers of e-mail messages to conceal their e-mail address or to prevent accountholders from responding to messages. 7.07 Violations of our policies outlined in this document can sometimes result in massive numbers of e-mail responses. If one of our accountholders receives so much e-mail that our resources, in our sole opinion, are adversely affected, we may shut down the accountholder's mailbox. 8.0 World Wide Web Use
8.01 The accountholder acknowledges that some World Wide Web (WWW)
pages contain language, pictures, or discussions of subjects intended
for adult audiences. We do not monitor access to the World Wide Web or
the content of our accountholders' personal Web pages. 8.02 The accountholder is solely responsible for the content of Web pages owned by the account. 8.03 We reserve the right to remove any Web page on our servers, at any time and for any reason. 8.04 We will investigate complaints regarding inappropriate material on Web pages within our domain and may, at our sole discretion, require that the material be removed or take action as outlined in 1.02 above. Criteria for determining whether a page is inappropriate include, but are not limited to, the system resources consumed by the page and applicable laws. 8.05 Our accountholders may not use World Wide Web pages within or outside our domain to violate any part of these Guidelines, or to attempt to disrupt the pages or Internet experiences of other users. 9.0 IRC Use 9.01 IRC channels are not monitored by us. Any user in IRC may create a channel and hold operator privileges, and any user with operator privileges on a channel may remove anyone else from that channel. Channel operators are not our agents, and are in no way compensated or supervised by us, with the exception of the operators of our official channels used for the sole purpose of customer support or communication between our employees. Accordingly, we are not liable for the content of any communication made on IRC. 9.02 We will respond to complaints of inappropriate behavior in IRC, and may, in our sole discretion, take action based on the rules below. If the accountholder's behavior is found to violate policies, or to involve unlawful material, as described in 2.02 and 2.03 above, we may take action as outlined in 1.02 above. 9.03 Accountholders may not engage in "flooding". Flooding is defined as deliberately repeating actions in quick succession in order to fill the screens of other accountholders with text. 9.04 Accountholders may not maintain more than three (3) simultaneous IRC connections from one account. This includes the use of automated programs ("bots") and "clones". A "bot" is a program written by a user to automatically execute IRC commands. Each bot counts as an IRC connection. Our accountholders may run bots as long as the total number of connections does not exceed three (3), and the bots do not violate any of our IRC guidelines. Bots may not be run while the owner is not logged in. 9.05 A "flash" is a message which contains control code information designed to disrupt a user's terminal emulation or session. Our accountholders may not send or relay such messages via any medium, including IRC. 9.06 Each IRC channel is controlled by one or more accountholders with operator privileges, or "ops". The holder of ops on a channel has the ability to remove any other user from that channel, temporarily or for as long as the channel exists. "Hacking" is defined as manipulation of IRC servers in order to harass or disconnect other accountholders, or forcible seizure of ops on a channel for purposes of disruption or harassment. Our accountholders may not engage in hacking or attempt to gain operator privileges for a channel without the permission of the current holder(s) or ops (if any) on that channel. 9.07 As stated above, the holder of ops on a channel has the right to remove any accountholders he or she considers offensive. Users who are removed have the option to move to another channel of their own, where they hold operator privileges. Our accountholders may not attempt to return to a channel after being banned from it. 9.08 Any user has the ability to screen out messages from an user they find objectionable, using the "ignore" command. Our accountholders may not attempt to continue sending private messages to an user after being ignored. 9.09 Our accountholders may adopt any available nickname for use in IRC; however, the "/whois" command can be used to discover the username and hostname of any IRC user. Our accountholders may not attempt to disguise their username or hostname in order to impersonate other accountholders or to use IRC anonymously. 10.0 Transfer Rate 10.01 There is a 0.5 GB per day per account limit on FTP transfers from our servers. Accountholders whose accounts are generating transfers which surpass the limit or which consumes an excessive percentage of our FTP resources may receive a warning from us. Continued excessive use of our FTP resources may result in suspension or termination of the account. 10.02 There is a 750 MB per account limit on data transfers to and from a personal web page. Accountholders whose personal page is generating transfers in excess of the limit may receive a warning from us. Continued excessive use of our personal page Web server resources may result in suspension or termination of the account. |