This Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is intended to help protect both customers and the Internet community from the inappropriate use of the Internet. A customer's use of any service constitutes acceptance of this AUP. The Service Provider reserves the right to revise and update this AUP from time to time. The Service Provider expects customers to cooperate with the company’s TOS/Abuse department when requested to assist in their investigations.

This AUP is divided into two sections:

• • Section 1. Violations and Descriptions of Appropriate Use
• • Section 2. Reporting to the Service Providers TOS/Abuse department

Section 1: Violations and Descriptions of Acceptable Use

• • General Violations
• • Network Disruptions
• • E-mail
• • Facilitating a Violation of This AUP
• • News
• • Web
• • Excessive Bandwidth or Disk Utilisation

General Violations

Our AUP prohibits the following:

• Impersonation/Forgery

Adding, removing, or modifying identifying network header information ("spoofing") in an effort to deceive or mislead is prohibited. Attempting to impersonate any person by using forged headers or other identifying information is prohibited. The use of anonymous re-mailers and nicknames does not constitute impersonation. Using deliberately misleading headers ("munging" headers) in news postings in order to avoid spam e-mail address collectors is allowed provided appropriate contact information is contained in the body of the posting.

• Privacy Violations

Attempts, whether successful or unsuccessful, to gain access to any electronic systems, networks or data, without proper consent, are prohibited.

• Threats

Threats of bodily harm or destruction of property are prohibited.

• Harassment

Threatening or harassing activity is prohibited.

• Illegal Use

The use of this service for illegal purposes is prohibited.

• Reselling

The resale of any service without proper authorisation from the Service Provider is prohibited.  

• Copyright Infringement

All material published must be owned by the publisher or the appropriate releases must have been obtained prior to publishing. We will co-operate with all agencies attempting to assert their rights in these matters.

Network Disruptions and Network-Unfriendly Activity

Any activities, which adversely affect the ability of other people or systems to use UKFSN services or the Internet, are prohibited. This includes "denial of service" (DoS) attacks against another network host or individual user. Interference with, or disruption of, use of the network by others, network services or network equipment is prohibited.

It is the customer's responsibility to ensure that their network is configured in a secure manner. A customer may not, through action or inaction, allow others to use their network for illegal or inappropriate actions. A customer may not permit their network, through action or inaction, to be configured in such a way that it gives a third party the capability to use their network in an illegal or inappropriate manner.

E-Mail

We do not tolerate, endorse or participate in e-mail spamming. Sending unsolicited commercial e-mail is prohibited. We cannot authorise bulk e-mailing although we do recognise that in some instances this is a valid and useful form of marketing for both senders and recipients. Using a Entanet e-mail or Web site address to collect responses from unsolicited commercial e-mail is prohibited.

Sending large volumes of unsolicited e-mail, whether or not that e-mail is commercial in nature is prohibited. All solicited e-mail should have been confirmed through the use of a double opt-in list (i.e. the recipient must confirm their wish to receive that particular e-mail twice).

Activities that have the effect of facilitating unsolicited commercial e-mail, or large volumes of unsolicited e-mail, whether or not that e-mail is commercial in nature, are prohibited. Users operating mail servers must ensure that they are not open relays .

Anonymous bulk e-mailings are not permitted and we will terminate the accounts of any customers who attempt to do this. This may happen without notice.

If we receive any complaints from recipients or other third parties, or any mailing causes technical problems on our systems, we may take further action to stop this happening again. This may involve the termination of any accounts the sender has and may occur without notice. In the event that we are alerted to anyone sending bulk e-mails, we will generally attempt to make contact with the senders to discuss appropriate actions.

We recommend that anybody undertaking this kind of activity has a data protection statement on their Web site explaining how the company fulfils their obligations in terms of the Data Protection Act.

Senders must give recipients the ability to easily contact the sender and remove themselves from their mailing list. Senders must be sure that recipients are aware that they are listed on the sender's e-mailing list and that they themselves provided their information or authorised a third party to do so on their behalf. Senders must make every effort to ensure that the information they are sending is of interest to the recipient and matches the reason given for the collection of the e-mail address in the first place (e.g. e-mail collected from people interested in Motorcycle Products should not be sent e-mail relating to tattoos, no matter how likely it may seem that they will be interested in the same topic).

In the event of any problems being caused by this type of activity, we will make every effort to ensure that the problem is resolved as quickly as possible. This includes full co-operation with any relevant authorities.

Facilitating a Violation of this AUP

Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, programme, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP, or the AUP of any other Internet Service Provider, which includes, but is not limited to, the facilitation of the means to spam is expressly forbidden and may result in suspension or termination of service without notice.

USENET News

Customers should use their best judgment when posting to any newsgroup. Many groups have charters, published guidelines, FAQs, or ‘community standards’ describing what is and is not considered appropriate. Usenet can be a valuable resource if used properly. The continued posting of off-topic articles is prohibited. Commercial advertisements are off-topic in most newsgroups, especially non-commercial regional groups. The presence of such articles in a group is not indicative of the group's intended use. Please familiarise yourself with basic USENET netiquette before posting to a newsgroup.

Newsgroup spamming: Spam is, first and foremost, a numerical metric-posting of substantively similar articles to multiple newsgroups. This form of spam is sometimes referred to as "excessive multi-posting" (EMP). We consider ‘multi-posting’ to 10 or more groups within a two-week period to be excessive.

Hostile attacks or invectives (flames) aimed at a group or an individual poster are generally considered inappropriate in any service groups we publish or make available. Flames in the non-service groups are discouraged. Many newsreaders offer filtering capabilities that will bring certain messages to your attention or skip over them altogether (kill files).

Customers may not cancel messages other than their own messages. A customer may cancel posts forged in that customer's name. We may cancel any postings that violate this AUP.

Web

Using a UKFSN web site address or UKFSN hosted web account for the purpose of distributing illegal material is prohibited. We will co-operate with authorities to remedy breaches of this policy.

Using a UKFSN web site address or UKFSN hosted web account to collect responses from unsolicited commercial e-mail is also prohibited.

Excessive bandwidth or Disk Utilisation

Our account descriptions specify current limits on bandwidth and disk utilisation. Where limits are not specifically defined the judgement of the Internet Technical Support team shall be used to define those limits. The use of bandwidth or disk space in excess of those limits is not permitted. 

The total number of bytes transferrred to and from a customers broadband connection determines bandwidth utilisation for broadband services. 

The total number of bytes transferred from an account’s web and FTP space determines bandwidth utilisation for hosting services. The total number of bytes required to store an account’s Web, FTP, and Mail data determines disk utilisation. If we determine that excessive bandwidth or disk space utilisation is adversely affecting our ability to provide service, we may take immediate action. We will attempt to notify the account owner by e-mail as soon as possible.  

Section 2: Reporting to the TOS/Abuse Department

We request that anyone who believes that there is a violation of this AUP should direct the information to the AUP Abuse Staff at this address: abuse@ukfsn.org

Customers who wish to report ‘spam’ from a source other than the UKFSN service should direct such reports to the ISP responsible for the source, ensuring that  such reports include copies of the e-mail they received along with full header information.

Reporting attempted security breaches

If you wish to report a security breach or an attempted security breach by one of our customers please provide full details including firewall logs. Ensure that your logs clearly show the date and time of the breach or attempted breach and that such date and time is stated in UTC or that the offset from UTC is clearly stated.

Copyright Infringement

We are not a court or a law enforcement agency. If you believe that one of our customers has engaged in activity that constitutes a breach of copyright law you may send us a notice, in the form specified below, in response to which we undertake that we shall notify our customer of your complaint and, if the complaint can reasonably be verified by us, we may act to remedy such breach. Where taking such action results in a cost to us we may require you to indemnify us against such cost.

Where a complaint regarding copyright infringement is found to be incorrect or invalid we will pass your details to our customer. 

Reports alleging copyright infringement must comply with the following specification or they will not be processed:

• 1. The full details of the material alleged to be subject to copyright breach must be specified including a statement that the reporting party is either themself the owner of the copyright or is explicitely authorised to make such reports by the holder of such copyright
• 2. The identifying characteristics of the infringement including the IP address
• 3. The date and time of the alleged infringement including the time zone or offset from UTC
• 4. A statement that you will indemnify us against all costs arising from acting in respect of your report