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Important
Note: This document is updated often. Please make a habit of reviewing
it from time to time to stay abreast of acceptable as well as inappropriate
uses of your Imagematte Internet Services account. Reports of activity
in violation of this policy may be sent via e-mail to abuse@imagematte.com.
This document
is divided into the following sections:
Introduction
When you open
your Imagematte account, you join two communities. First is the
community formed by our network and our customers; the second
community is the one made up of all networks and users connected
to each other to form the Internet. Becoming a member of these
communities gives you certain rights and privileges, but also
imposes certain duties and responsibilities. Imagematte has established
an Acceptable Use Policy in order to make these duties and responsibilities
more clear. This document is intended to provide a general understanding
of Imagematte's Acceptable Use Policy. The following factors guide
the establishment and enforcement of Imagematte's usage policies:
- Ensure
reliable service to our customers
- Ensure
security and privacy of our systems and network, as well as
the networks and systems of others
- Comply
with existing laws
- Maintain
our reputation as a responsible service provider
- Encourage
responsible use of the Internet and discourage activities which
reduce the usability and value of Internet services
- Preserve
the value of Internet resources as a conduit for free expression
and exchange of information
- Preserve
the privacy and security of individual users
Imagematte
intends to provide its customers access to everything the Internet
has to offer. While Imagematte is firmly committed to the principles
of free speech, certain activities are damaging to the resources
of both Imagematte and the Internet and cannot be permitted under
the guise of free speech. The resources of Imagematte and the
Internet are limited, and abuse of these resources by one user
has a negative impact on the entire community.
We do not
routinely monitor the activity of accounts except for measurements
of system utilization and the preparation of billing records.
However, in our efforts to promote good citizenship within the
Internet community, we will respond appropriately if we become
aware of inappropriate use of our service.
If a Imagematte
account is used to violate the Acceptable Use Policy, we reserve
the right to terminate your service without notice and you agree
to indemnify Imagematte and its affiliates against any claims
threatened or brought by third parties as a result of your violation
of this Acceptable Use Policy and/or the content of your website.
We prefer to advise customers of inappropriate behavior and any
necessary corrective action. However, flagrant violations of the
Acceptable Use Policy will result in immediate termination of
service. Our failure to enforce this policy, for whatever reason,
shall not be construed as a waiver of our right to do so at any
time.
If you have
any questions regarding this policy, please contact us at abuse@imagematte.com.
General
Information
Imagematte
customers are prohibited from transmitting on or through any of
Imagematte's services, any material that is, in Imagematte's sole
discretion, unlawful, obscene, threatening, abusive, defamatory,
libelous, or encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal
offense, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any
local, state, federal or international law.
In general,
you may NOT use your Imagematte account:
- In a manner
which violates any law, regulation, treaty or tariff;
- In a manner
which violates the rules, regulations and policies of any network,
server, web site, database or service provider that you access
through your Imagematte account;
- In a manner
which is defamatory, fraudulent, indecent, offensive or deceptive;
- To threaten,
harass, abuse or intimidate others;
- To damage
the name or reputation of Imagematte, its parent, affiliates
and subsidiaries;
- To break
security on any computer network, or to access an account which
does not belong to you; or
- In a manner
which interferes with other customers' use and enjoyment of
the services provided by Imagematte.
Imagematte's
services 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 any other
statute. Imagematte's reserves the right to remove such illegal
material from its servers or to immediately terminate your services.
The customer
is responsible for keeping his billing data with Imagematte up-to-date
and accurate. Furnishing false data on any contract or application,
including fraudulent use of credit card numbers, is grounds for
immediate termination, and may subject the offender to civil or
criminal liability.
Imagematte
reserves sole discretion to determine whether any use of the service
is a violation of this policy. Guidelines for using your account
follows. This information is only a guideline, and is not intended
to be all-inclusive.
Electronic
Mail
Certain Imagematte
accounts give you the ability to send and receive electronic mail.
Misuse of electronic mail may result in termination of service.
The following examples are non-exclusive and are provided for
your guidance.
- You may
not use your account to send unsolicited bulk or commercial
messages ("spam"). This includes, but is not limited
to, bulk mailing of commercial advertising, informational announcements,
charity requests, petitions for signatures, and political or
religious tracts. Such messages may only be sent to those who
have explicitly requested it.
- You may
not use your account to collect responses from unsolicited bulk
or commercial e-mail sent from accounts with other providers.
- Forging,
altering or removing electronic mail headers is prohibited.
- You may
not send numerous copies of the same or substantially similar
message, nor may you send very large messages or files to a
recipient, with the intent to disrupt a server or account ("mail
bombing").
- You may
not use electronic mail to harass or intimidate others. Harassment,
whether through language, frequency of messages, or size of
messages, is prohibited. Sending a single unwelcome message
may be considered harassment. If a recipient asks to stop receiving
e-mail, you must not send that person any further messages.
- You may
not forward or otherwise propagate chain letters, whether or
not such messages solicit money or other items of value, and
whether or not the recipient wishes to receive such mailings.
- Imagematte
accounts may not be used to collect replies to messages sent
from another Internet service provider if those messages violate
this Acceptable Use Policy or the acceptable use policy of the
other service provider.
- If you
use the services of another provider to promote a web site hosted
by or through Imagematte, then the provisions of this Acceptable
Use Policy shall apply to the methods used to promote such site.
Newsgroups
Certain Imagematte
accounts give you access to thousands of newsgroups. These newsgroups
allow you to read and post messages on a variety of topics. Newsgroups
may be moderated or unmoderated. Newsgroups may also have a charter
or a FAQ that describes what subjects are appropriate for each
newsgroup. Misuse of newsgroups may result in the termination
of your service.
- Imagematte
provides an uncensored newsfeed. As such, Imagematte does not
control the content of the newsgroups available to you. Imagematte
believes that decisions about which newsgroups and messages
to read are best left to its customers. Screening software is
available from third parties, and it is your responsibility
to use such tools if desired. Imagematte is not responsible
for the content of any newsgroup message, whether or not the
message was posted by a Imagematte customer.
- Messages
posted to newsgroups must comply with the written charters or
FAQs for those newsgroups. Advertisements, solicitations, or
other commercial messages should be posted only in those newsgroups
whose charters or FAQs explicitly permit them. You are responsible
for determining the policies of a given newsgroup before posting
to it. If you are unable to find a newsgroup's policy regarding
commercial messages, you must assume that such messages are
not welcome.
- You may
not post or cross-post the same or substantially similar message
to more than 5 newsgroups. Continued cross-posting can result
in termination of service and the cancellation of the message.
- You may
not post binary files to newsgroups not specifically named for
that purpose.
- You may
not post messages promoting pyramid schemes, "Make Money
Fast" (MMF) schemes, chain letters, or other schemes to
newsgroups. Doing so will result in immediate termination of
service.
- You may
not forge or remove header information. This includes attempting
to circumvent the approval process for posting to a moderated
newsgroup.
- You may
not solicit mail for any address other than your Imagematte
Internet Service account or service where doing so manifests
an intent to harass others.
- You may
not post messages for the purpose of threatening, harassing
or intimidating others.
- You may
not post messages which infringe on personal or property rights
of others (privacy rights or copyrights, for example).
- You may
not cancel messages other than your own, with the exception
of official newsgroup moderators performing their duties.
Imagematte
does not censor or control content posted to a newsgroup. As a
user of our service, you are solely responsible for the content
that you publish. Imagematte, upon receiving notification that
certain posts violate this policy, or any state or federal law,
or infringe on the trademarks or copyrights of another, reserves
the right to remove such posts from our news server and to terminate
your account.
Web
Sites
Imagematte
provides storage space and access for web sites through its Web
Hosting services. In addition, dedicated accounts may provide
for the hosting of web sites. Imagematte will not routinely monitor
the contents of your web sites.
You are solely
responsible for any information contained on your web site. However,
if complaints are received regarding language, content or graphics
contained on your web site, Imagematte may, at its sole discretion,
remove the web site hosted on Imagematte servers and terminate
your Web Hosting service. You agree to promptly reimburse Imagematte
for any reasonable expenses it incurs (including attorney's fees)
in defending itself form third party claims relating to any of
the content (whether created by you, your customers or your users)
contained on your website.
You may not
use your web site to publish material which Imagematte determines,
at its sole discretion, to be unlawful, indecent or objectionable.
For purposes of this policy, "material" refers to all
forms of communications including narrative descriptions, graphics
(including photographs, illustrations, images, drawings, logos),
executable programs, video recordings, and audio recordings.
Unlawful
content is that which violates any law, statute, treaty, regulation,
or lawful order. This includes, but is not limited to: obscene
material; defamatory, fraudulent or deceptive statements; threatening,
intimidating or harassing statements, or material which violates
the privacy rights or property rights of others (copyrights or
trademarks, for example).
Indecent
content is that which depicts sexual or excretory activities
in a patently offensive matter as measured by contemporary community
standards.
Objectionable
content is otherwise legal content with which Imagematte concludes,
in its sole discretion, it does not want to be associated in order
to protect its reputation and brand image, or to protect its employees,
shareholders and affiliates.
Examples of
prohibited web site content:
- Materials
which hold Imagematte including its affiliates, employees or
shareholders up to public scorn or ridicule.
- Materials
which encourage the commission of a crime; or which tends to
incite violence; or which tends to degrade any person or group
based on sex, nationality, religion, color, age, marital status,
sexual orientation, disability or political affiliation.
Security
You are responsible
for any misuse of your account, even if the inappropriate activity
was committed by a friend, family member, guest or employee. Therefore,
you must take steps to ensure that others do not gain access to
your account. In addition, you may not use your account to breach
security of another account or attempt to gain unauthorized access
to another network or server.
- You must
adopt adequate security measures to prevent or minimize unauthorized
use of your account.
- You may
not attempt to circumvent user authentication or security of
any host, network or account ("cracking"). This includes,
but is not limited to, accessing data not intended for you,
logging into or making use of a server or account you are not
expressly authorized to access, or probing the security of other
networks. 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.
- You may
not attempt to interfere with service to any user, host, or
network ("denial of service attacks"). This includes,
but is not limited to, "flooding" of networks, deliberate
attempts to overload a service, and attempts to "crash"
a host.
- Users who
violate systems or network security may incur criminal or civil
liability. Imagematte will cooperate fully with investigations
of violations of systems or network security at other sites,
including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in the
investigation of suspected criminal violations.
Network
Management
You are responsible
for ensuring that the services obtained from Imagematte are used
in an appropriate manner by your customers and users. Therefore,
you must take steps to manage the use of the services obtained
from Imagematte in such a way that network abuse is minimized.
You must also make information publicly available about how to
contact you, and you must respond in a timely manner to complaints
concerning misuse of the services obtained from Imagematte. Failure
to responsibly manage the use of the services obtained from Imagematte
may be cause for termination of services to you.
- You must
designate one or more individuals ("Contacts") to
be responsible for every host, IP network or subnet connected
to the Internet through the use of the services. You must provide
Contact names, phone numbers, and postal and e-mail addresses
("Contact Information") to any and all appropriate
Domain Name Registrars prior to the initial network connection
of your service. You must keep Contact Information updated and
accurate at all times. Changes in the Contact Information must
be sent to the appropriate Domain Name Registrars in a timely
manner.
- Contacts
must have the authority, access and tools necessary to configure,
operate and control access to your systems. For important timesharing
hosts, primary domain name servers and mail relays or gateways,
Contacts must be accessible to Imagematte via telephone 24 hours
a day, 7 days a week.
- Every
customer who allows third party access to the services provided
by Imagematte, whether such third parties are employees, users
or customers, must maintain a postmaster address for the receipt
of complaints by e-mail. Messages delivered to the postmaster
address must be reviewed and handled in a timely manner.
Network
Performance
Imagematte
accounts operate on shared resources. Excessive use or abuse of
these shared network resources by one customer may have a negative
impact on all other customers. Misuse of network resources in
a manner which impairs network performance is prohibited by this
policy and may result in termination of your account.
- You are
prohibited from excessive consumption of resources, including
CPU time, memory, disk space and session time. You may not use
resource-intensive programs which negatively impact other customers
or the performance of Imagematte systems or networks. Imagematte
reserves the right to terminate or limit such activities.
Internet
Relay Chat
Although Imagematte
does not offer software or technical support for Internet Relay
Chat (IRC), subscribers to our dial-up service may use their account
to connect to IRC servers and networks maintained by third parties.
Please remember that you are a guest when you make use of these
facilities. It is particularly important that you do not engage
in activities which might interfere with other customers' access
to IRC.
- You may
not use IRC scripts or programs that interfere with or deny
service to other users on any other server, host, network or
channel.
- You may
not engage in activities which harass other users. This includes,
but is not limited to, "flooding" (rapidly entering
text with the intent to disrupt service), "flashing"
(disrupting terminal emulation), "takeovers" (improper
seizing and abuse of operator privileges), attempting to send
private messages to those who do not wish to receive them, attempting
to return to a channel after being banned from it, and other
disruptive behaviors.
- You may
not attempt to impersonate other users. The use of nicknames
does not constitute impersonation.
- You may
run "clones" (multiple simultaneous IRC connections)
and "robots" only as permitted by the host IRC server.
Illegal
Activity
Any activity
on our network that is a violation of any state or federal law
is a violation of this policy and will result in immediate termination
of service. Prohibited activities include, but are not limited
to:
- Transmitting
obscene materials or child pornography
- Intentionally
spreading or threatening to spread computer viruses
- Gaining
or attempting to gain unauthorized access to any network, including
Imagematte's private network infrastructure
- Accessing
or attempting to access information not intended for you
- Transmitting
pirated software
- Conducting
or participating in illegal gambling
- Soliciting
for pyramid and other illegal schemes.
Imagematte
does not permit any site that contains: (i) images (including
on banner ads) of nude models that appear to be under the age
of 18 (in Imagematte's sole judgment), (ii) sexually explicit
images (including on banner ads) of models that appear to be under
the age of 18 (in Imagematte's sole judgment); or (iii) sites
containing language promoting child pornography together with
any sexually explicit or nude images. As required by federal law
in the United States, Imagematte will forward all offenders of
this policy to the appropriate federal agency.
Privacy
Statement
Imagematte
has a policy to respect and protect the privacy of its customers
and their information that is stored with Imagematte. Imagematte
will only access and disclose information as necessary to comply
with applicable laws and government requests, to provide the Imagematte
Services, to operate or maintain its systems or to protect itself
or its customers.
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