Acceptable Use Policy

Acceptable Use Policy

Effective Date: 28 March 2020


This Acceptable Use Policy applies to all users of DataServ's network, servers and systems and is supplementary to any additional service agreements.

Definitions

In this document, unless the context requires otherwise: "DataServ", "us", "we" and "our" means DataServ. “users” and reference to “you” means users of DataServ's network, services and systems, including their affiliates or customers.

Users will be seen to be in violation of this Acceptable Use Policy when they (or their affiliates or customers) engage in any of the following prohibited activities;

 

Unacceptable Website Content

Users may not use DataServ's network, servers or systems in order to transmit, distribute or store material, or in any other manner

  • in violation of any applicable law,
  • in a manner that will infringe the copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property rights of others or the privacy, publicity or other personal rights of others, or
  • that is obscene, threatening, abusive or hateful.
  • Pornography and sex-related merchandising and content are prohibited on all servers. This may include content with sexual inferences or links to adult content on other sites.
  • Any site which sells or promotes Bulk Email services is not permitted.

Other examples of unacceptable content or links are:

  • Pirated software
  • Hackers programs or archives
  • Warez Sites
  • Irc Bots
  • Media Files, e.g. mp3, mpeg, wav, ogg, quicktime. (Exemption: files for which you own the copyright, or have express permission of the copyright owner, or are in the public domain, or which have been obtained under a copyleft license such as Creative Commons or GFDL.

You must not use your web hosting disk space for electronic storage of archived materials or storage of any files not related to your website.

 

Server Abuse and other Harmful and Illegal Internet Activities

Any attempts to undermine or cause harm to a DataServ server or any other server on the Internet is strictly prohibited. This includes but is not limited to, using our services for creating or sending Internet viruses, worms or Trojan horses, or for pinging, flooding or mailbombing, hacking or other unauthorised access and attempts to penetrate DataServ's or other users’ security systems, or engaging in denial of service attacks. It is also not permitted for any user to engage in activities with the intention of disrupting or interfering with, or that results in the disruption of or interference with, the ability of others to effectively use our services.

 

CGI Scripts

You are free to use any CGI scripts provided with your account or to add any additional scripts you require. However, any CGI scripts deemed to be adversely affecting the server performance or the network integrity may be shut down without prior notice. For the purpose of this clause, "CGI script" includes any script which processes on the server regardless of scripting language. CGI script sharing with domains not hosted by DataServ is not permitted.

 

Background Running Programs

Background daemons in general are prohibited.

 

Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Messages (Spam)

DataServ's servers may not be the source, intermediary, or destination address involved in the transmission of spam (unsolicited commercial email), flames, or mail bombs. Your domain may not be referenced as originator, intermediary, or reply-to address in any of the above.

We consider spam to be any unsolicited commercial message in the mediums of:

  • Newsgroups (including Usenet, Google Groups, Yahoo Groups)
  • Email
  • Instant Messaging (including but not limited to ICQ, MSN, AIM, Yahoo messenger, Skype, Jabber)
  • SMS and MMS Messaging (text and image-based mobile phone messaging)
  • Comment Spam (off-topic comments on blogs or web forums which link to a website)
  • Any similar communication technologies which may emerge.

If you are found to have spammed, then we may immediately, without warning, disable your service. We also reserve the right to refuse or terminate service to known spammers.

You are permitted to operate bulk mailing lists so long as they use an opt-in process with a clear audit trail and so long as un-subscription requests are honoured promptly.

The Department of Internal Affairs enforces the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007. Businesses and individuals are able to lay complaints about spam with the ‘Anti-Spam Compliance Unit’. The Department may investigate these complaints and take the appropriate action. Please see http://www.antispam.govt.nz/ for further details on laying a complaint.

 

Intellectual Property and Copyright Violation

You must not reproduce, distribute, copy, download, transmit or otherwise exploit any content which infringes any third party intellectual property rights or similar right unless you own or control the relevant rights or have obtained all the requisite licenses and approvals.

If a copyright owner believes that there has been a violation of his/her copyright on a website that is hosted by DataServ, and the copyright owner wants DataServ to remove the website or disable the material in question, DataServ may remove the offending material if it is satisfied of the legitimacy of the request on receipt of a Notice of Infringement acceptable to us.

If DataServ deletes or prevents access to a user’s material we know or have reason to believe infringes copyright, we will give notice to the user that the material has been removed or blocked.

 

Defamation

You must not publish words or images which in our opinion are defamatory or likely to be defamatory of any other person or business.

If a person wishes to make a complaint regarding defamatory content published on a website that is hosted by DataServ, and the complainant wants DataServ to remove the website or offending content, DataServ may remove the offending material if it is satisfied of the legitimacy of the request.

If DataServ deletes or prevents access to a user’s material we know or have reason to believe is defamatory, we will give notice to the user that the material has been removed or blocked.

DataServ does not monitor its clients' websites or activities to determine whether they are in compliance with this policy. However, if DataServ becomes aware of any violation of this policy it may take any action to stop or correct such violation, including but not limited to, shutting down a website, denying access to services, and removing material. In the event of a violation of this policy, no refund of service fees will be applicable and DataServ will not be liable for any damages, costs, harm or loss suffered as a result of its actions in enforcing this policy.

DataServ reserves the right in its sole and absolute discretion to determine what violates this Acceptable Use Policy.

DataServ may vary this Acceptable Use Policy at any time by general notice on this website and changes will become effective upon publication.