Introduction and Purpose
This document sets forth the principles, guidelines and requirements of the Acceptable Use Policy of SeattleServer.com, Inc. (“Company”) governing the use by the Customer (“Customer”) of the Company’s services and products (“Services and Products”). The Purpose of Company’s Acceptable Use Policy, hereinafter referred to as the AUP, is to comply with all federal, state, and local laws coupled with protecting the network security, network availability, physical security, Customer privacy, and other factors affecting the services provided by Company. Company reserves the right to impose reasonable rules and regulations regarding the use of its services provided to all Customers and such rules and regulations are subject to change. Such rules and regulations are located on the Internet at http://seattleserver.com/?page=legal The AUP is not an all inclusive exhaustive list and Company reserves the right to modify the AUP at any time as needed, effective upon either the posting of the modified AUP to http://seattleserver.com/?page=aup or notification to the Customer via email. Acceptance and execution of the Master Services Agreement binds all parties to Company stated AUP at the time the contract is executed and as modified from time to time. Any violation of the AUP may result in the suspension or termination of Customer account(s) or such other action as Company deems appropriate. No credits will be issued for any interruption in service resulting from policy violations.
VIOLATION OF ANY SECTION OF THE AUP IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED AND MAY RESULT IN THE IMMEDIATE TERMINATION OR SUSPENSION OF THE SERVICES CUSTOMER RECEIVES FROM COMPANY.
Any questions or comments regarding the AUP should be directed to abuse@seattleserver.com or legal@seattleserver.com.
Compliance with Law
Customer shall not post, transmit, re-transmit or store material on or through any of Services or Products which, in the sole judgment of the Company (i) is in violation of any local, state, federal or non-United States law or regulation, (ii) threatening, obscene, indecent, defamatory or that otherwise could adversely affect any individual, group or entity (collectively, “Persons”) or (iii) violates the rights of any person, including rights protected by copyright, trade secret, patent or other intellectual property or similar laws or regulations including, but not limited to, the installation or distribution of “pirated” or other software products that are not appropriately licensed for use by Customer. Customer shall be responsible for determining what laws or regulations are applicable to its use of the Services and Products.
Customer Security Obligation
Each Customer must use reasonable care in keeping each server or network devices attached to Company infrastructure up-to-date and patched with the latest security updates. Failure to use reasonable care to protect a server may result in a security compromise by outside sources. Company is not responsible for Customer server level security unless a security administration package, firewall security administration package or fully managed operating system package is contracted for and maintained. A compromised server creating network interference will result in immediate Customer notification and will be disconnected from the network immediately so as to not directly affect other Customers. No service credits will be issued for outages resulting from disconnection due directly to breached server security. The Customer is solely responsible for any breaches of security affecting servers under Customer control, including repairing the system, terminating the account(s) of the abusive user(s), and reporting occurrence of the issue to abuse@seattleserver.com. If a Customer intentionally creates a security breach, the cost to resolve any damage to Customer’s server or other servers will be charged directly to the Customer. The labor used to resolve such damage is categorized as emergency security breach recovery and is currently charged at $100.00 USD per hour.
System and Network Security
Violations of system or network security are strictly prohibited, and may result in criminal and civil liability. Company investigates all incidents involving such violations and will cooperate with law enforcement if a criminal violation is suspected.
Examples of system or network security violations include, without limitation, the following:
Internet Etiquette
Each Customer is expected execute reasonable Internet etiquette (Netiquette), the accepted behavior and expectations of the Internet community. The Customer will comply with the rules appropriate to any network to which Company may provide access. The Customer should not post, transmit, or permit Internet access to information the Customer desires to keep confidential. The Customer is not permitted to post any material that is illegal, libelous, and tortuous, indecently depicts children or is likely to result in retaliation against Company by offended users. Company reserves the right to refuse or terminate service at any time for violation of this section. This includes advertising services or sites via IRC or USENET in clear violation of the policies of the IRC channel or USENET group.
Child Pornography
Company will cooperate fully with any criminal investigation into a Customer’s violation of the Child Protection Act of 1984 concerning child pornography. Customers are ultimately responsible for the actions of their clients over Company network, and will be liable for illegal material posted by their clients.
According to the Child Protection Act, child pornography includes photographs, films, video or any other type of visual presentation that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity, or the dominant characteristic of which is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years or any written material or visual representation that advocates or counsels sexual activity with a person under the age of eighteen years.
Violations of the Child Protection Act should be reported to the U.S. Customs Agency at 1-800-BEALERT.
Copyright Infringement
Company datacenter infrastructure including network, leased hardware, co-location services, and other hardware located in the facility may only be used for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution, or storage of any information, data or material in violation of United States or state regulation or law, or by the common law, is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret, or other intellectual property rights; including creating, utilizing, distributing unauthorized copies of software, or the use of BitTorrent or other types of technologies utilized in the distribution of illegally copied materials. If Customer copies, distributes or installs software in defiance of the license agreement, Customer is violating federal copyright law. Company will cooperate with all law enforcement agencies in relation to alleged copyright infringement housed in our datacenters.
Repeated violations of The Planet’s Copyright Infringement Policy could result in permanent suspension of customer’s account.
Hosting Policy
Data Unlawful or Against the AUP: Promoting violation of the law or the AUP by hosting data that facilitates the violation is prohibited, including but not limited to:
Email Policy
Fraud Policy
By agreeing to this AUP, Customer affirms that the contact and payment information provided to Company identifies Customer and that Customer is authorized to use the payment method. Commitment of fraud, obtaining services, or attempting to obtain services by any means or device with intent to avoid payment is prohibited.
IP Allocation
Company administers an Internet network on which multiple Customer servers reside. Customers shall NOT use IP addresses that were not assigned to them by the NOC staff or network administrators. Any server utilizing IP addresses outside of the assigned range will be suspended from network access until such time as the IP addresses overlap can be corrected. Use of an unauthorized IP address will result in a charge of $20 per IP. Use of an unauthorized IP address creating a third party Customer outage will result in a $100 charge and termination of service until the IP allocation is resolved.
IRC Policy
Company allows stand alone IRC servers which are not connected to global IRC networks such as Undernet, EFnet, DALnet and other IRC networks. IRC servers which establish and maintain connections to global IRC networks such as Undernet, EFnet, DALnet and others will be considered to be in violation of the Acceptable Use Policy.
Company does not allow IRC plug-ins, scripts, add-ons, clones or other software that has the intent or effect of disrupting or denying service to other users. Harassing, disrupting or denying service to other users is expressly prohibited, and may result in the immediate suspension or cancellation of Customer account(s).
If IRC servers attract DoS or DDoS attacks that disrupts or denies service to other Customers, Company will null-route, ACL or otherwise suspend service to maintain quality of service for other Customers on our network.
Company allows the limited use of stand-alone IRC “bots”. Company prohibits the use of “botnets”. Customer IRC server may run a “bot”, but Customer may not join a “botnet”. The use of IRC BNC’s or other proxy and re-direction software is expressly prohibited.
For the purposes of policy enforcement, any malicious activity observed to originate from a Customer’s server may result in the immediate suspension of service to the offending Customer’s server without prior notice. Frequently compromised servers may be reviewed for account termination on a case-by-case basis. The purpose of this case-by-case review is to deter AUP prohibited activity from occurring under the blanket excuse of a “compromised server.”
Harassing, abusive and aggressive IRC activity is prohibited. This includes ‘flooding’ (rapid transmission of information with the intent to harass or deny service), ‘hijacking’ (taking improper or unauthorized control of channel or server operator privileges), sending messages to users who do not want them, attempting to circumvent a channel or server ban, impersonating other IRC users and other abusive IRC behavior as determined by Company.
Company reserves the right to modify or amend the IRC policy at any time.
Reseller Policy
Resellers are responsible for the conduct of their Customers and by agreeing with this AUP, agree that their Customers will adhere to the AUP. Resellers should make their perspective Customers aware of the AUP and the consequences for violation.
Usenet Policy
Usenet posts must conform to standards established by the Internet community. Prohibited acts include, but are not limited to, the following:
Note: While legitimacy of a posting is generally determined by a moderator, Company reserves sole authority of determining post legitimacy.
Suspension and Cancellation
Company will use reasonable care in notifying the Customer and in resolving the problem in a method resulting in the least amount of service interference as reasonably possible. Company reserves the sole right to suspend service to any Customer located in our datacenter for violation of the AUP without notice. Company reserves the right to terminate service without notice for any violations of the AUP.
Violations of the AUP will result in the following:
Failure to resolve the AUP violation within 72 hours will result in the following:
Repeat violation of the above terms will result in the following actions.