Newport Internet: Acceptable Use Policy

 

Newport Internet provides web site hosting and dedicated services to its clients as a way to pursue the informational and commercial exchange the Internet affords. To protect the interests of all clients and to ensure optimal service levels, Newport Internet has developed the following Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") for clients as a guide to client rights and responsibilities when utilizing services offered by Newport Internet. Use of any service offered by Newport Internet by any end user or their customers will constitute acknowledgment of and agreement to the terms outlined in this document.

 

Due to the evolving nature of the Internet and on-line commerce it is necessary for us to reserve the right to make changes to this AUP at any time, and without notice. For this reason as well, this AUP may not represent all possible ways in which you or an End User (as defined below) engage in unacceptable behavior. We reserve the right to determine, in our sole and exclusive judgment, what activities are unacceptable. Continued use of services offered by Newport Internet after such changes or enhancements to the AUP have been made will constitute acceptance of any revisions to the AUP.

 

This AUP incorporates, either explicitly, or by reference, other policies from entities providing products through us to you. These policies must be "passed through" to you. These policies apply to you through this AUP. You are strongly encouraged to review these policies prior to agreeing to be bound by this AUP. We will provide you with information about these policies on request.

 

You violate this AUP when you, your affiliates, agents, and/or customers (End User(s)) engage in activities prohibited by it. It is your responsibility and contractual obligation to ensure that End Users comply with this AUP. We expect that you will cooperate with us in the enforcement and administration of this AUP. Your failure to do so is a violation of the TOS.

 

The AUP contains four parts, which may, or may not, apply to customers and End Users:

 

All customers
Shared Hosting
Dedicated and Colocation Hosting
Domain Registrations and Renewals

 

 

A. All customers

The following apply to all customers:

Lawful Purpose

Our products, and services provided by you using our products, may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or presentation of any information, data or material in violation of any applicable law, regulation, this AUP, or our Terms of Service (TOS) is prohibited. You may not use our products to directly facilitate the violation of any particular law or regulation.

We expect you to use good business judgment in your conduct. The following list is designed to help guide you in determining if Newport Internet is a suitable service provider for you. It is meant to provide you with examples of activities that may fall within this paragraph, and does not represent all unlawful uses of our products by you or End Users:


instructing others in prohibited activities; forging, misrepresenting, omitting or deleting message headers, return mailing information, internet protocol addresses to conceal or misidentify the origin of a message; excessive cross posting or multiple posting of the same or similar messages to one or more news groups; creating or sending Internet viruses, worms or Trojan horses, flood or mail bombs, or engaging in denial of service attacks; hacking, and/or subverting, or assisting others in subverting, the security or integrity of our products or systems; soliciting the performance of any illegal activity, even if the activity itself is not performed; and/or acting in any manner that might subject us to unfavorable regulatory action, subject us to any liability for any reason, or adversely affect our public image, reputation or goodwill, as determined by us in our sole and exclusive discretion.

SPAM

 

The sending of unsolicited email (spamming) from a Newport Internet server or referencing a domain hosted by Newport Internet in any spam, whether originating from the Newport Internet network or not, is forbidden. Newport Internet maintains a zero-tolerance approach to SPAM. This zero tolerance policy extends both to your using our products to disseminate SPAM, and the use of our products to send SPAM to our customers.

 

Complaints regarding spamming are investigated thoroughly by Newport Internet. Should abuses be found, Newport Internet reserves the right to immediately and without notice terminate or suspend the offending account. Sites that promote, sell, or otherwise provide access to spamware products or email lists or products that are solely for the purpose of extraction or sale of email addresses or which are used to send bulk email are not permitted on any Newport Internet server. You may not use our products to host a site that is advertised in SPAM.

 

Unsecured "form to" mail scripts, such as Matt Wright's formmail script, are likewise prone to exploitation and abuse by spammers outside of our network as are any naming variant of generic form to mail scripts (formmail.*, Formmail.*, FormMail.*). If any third-party scripts or forms are exploited by outside parties the afflicted site will be suspended immediately until the problem is remedied by the site owner/developer. Unsecured form to mail scripts found to exist under any client account which have been previously exploited may be deleted or renamed at the discretion of Newport Internet.


Customers who violate this policy will have their accounts suspended. We consider SPAM to be the sending or receipt of 500 or more email messages at one time. However, we reserve the right to determine, in our sole and absolute discretion, what constitutes SPAM. We also prohibit you, or End Users, from relaying email. In addition, should your use of our products cause us to be "black listed," your account may be suspended.

 

We allow customers to engage in email marketing that complies with the "CAN-SPAM" act. Customers who plan to engage in email marketing are strongly encouraged to familiarize themselves with this act to avoid inadvertent allegations that they are engaged in Spamming. Please note, that we may suspend or terminate your account based on this Spam policy even if your activity is allowed under CAN-SPAM, if, in our sole and exclusive judgment, your activities compromise our overall business interests. The "CAN-SPAM Toolkit" is here.

Copyright Infringement

We are required by law, pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to remove material found to be in violation of the terms set forth in the guidelines. If your site has been copied by our customer, or an End User, in a way that falls within the terms of the DMCA, you must provide us with proper notice of such an infringement. T

 

he DMCA contains very specific guidelines of what your notice must contain. These guidelines are available here: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#512. Accordingly, we are not required to respond to notices that do not fall within these provisions. In addition, we will actively refer complainants who use the DMCA for improper purposes to relevant law enforcement agencies.

Our designated agent for receipt of notices pursuant to the DMCA is:

M. Harris
Copyright Agent
Newport Internet
PO Box 950
Newport, OR 97365


email: abuse@newportnet.com

Violations of Rights, Other than Copyright

When you place information on the Internet, or use it to transmit information, you have the same liability for intellectual property violations as other authors or creators of information. You and End Users may not engage in activity that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property rights of others. This includes but is not limited to, copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, software piracy and patents.

 

You and End Users may not use our products to defame, harass, abuse or threaten third parties. Complaints about such activity by our customers or End Users may be directed to abuse@newportnet.com.

Child Pornography, Child Erotica and Bestiality

We take a zero-tolerance approach to using our products to disseminate or display images classified under U.S. law as child pornography, child erotica and/or bestiality. We take an active role in cooperating with law enforcement in their efforts to prosecute violations of statutes restricting child pornography and bestiality. We also terminate the accounts of customers who are themselves, or whose End Users are, using our products to disseminate or display child erotica regardless of its literary merit.

We are required by law to report the use of our products to disseminate or display child pornography and bestiality. You or End Users will not be notified that we have reported the use of our products in this manner, nor that we may be cooperating with law enforcement. Further information about child pornography may be found at www.ncmec.org.

Complaints about activity in violation of this policy by customers or End Users may be directed to abuse@newportnet.com.

U.S. Export Laws

Your, and an End User's, use of our products is governed by U.S. export control laws. These laws apply regardless of whether you, or an End User, actually reside in the United States. You may not use our products to engage in a violation of these laws. Violation of these laws may include selling products that may be legal to sell in the U.S., but illegal to export. You may not use our products to provide products to End Users with whom U.S. citizens may not do business. More information about U.S. export laws may be found at: http://www.export.gov

Privacy

Our privacy policy may be found on our website; www.newportinternet.org. While we are concerned with the privacy of on-line communications, and websites, the Internet is no more secure than other means of communication. You, and End Users, should assume that all on-line communications are unsecure. We are not responsible for the security of any information transmitted over our network unless we have expressly agreed to assume that obligation. Such an agreement must be in writing and signed by an officer of Newport Internet.

Entities who provide products to us may have privacy policies that differ from ours. We will be happy to provide you with the names of those businesses who provide products through us to you, and links to their privacy policies, on your request.

IP Addresses

We administer the network on which our products are provided. You cannot use IP addresses which were not assigned to you by us. If it is determined that you are using IP addresses which were not officially assigned by us, you will be suspended from network access until such time as the IP address overlap can be corrected. We own the IP numbers and addresses that may be assigned to you by us. These addresses may not be assigned or transferred, and are recycled by us on termination of your use of the products. We may, in our sole discretion, change these addresses.

Suspension and/or Termination of Services, and Credits.

Your failure to abide by any of the items set out in this AUP is grounds for suspension or termination of the services provided by us. We may do the same should this AUP be violated by an End User. Any termination or suspension may be undertaken with, or without, notice to you or an End User.

We do not issue credits for outages incurred as a result of our decision to suspend or terminate service for a violation of this AUP. You agree to hold us harmless from any claims that a suspension or termination of products for this reason has damaged an End User.

Monitoring Services, Cooperation with Law Enforcement and Legal Documents.

You are solely responsible for ensuring that materials disseminated or posted using our products comply with this AUP and relevant laws. We do not review, edit, censor, or take responsibility for any information that customers or End Users may create. Because of this, we cannot accept any responsibility for customers, End Users, or third parties, resulting from inaccurate, unsuitable, offensive, or illegal content or transactions.

We take no responsibility for customer or End User content or activities. We may, at our sole discretion, take any action we deem necessary to ensure that customers or End Users comply with this AUP and the law. We may disclose information, including information that you or End Users may consider confidential, in order to comply with a court order, subpoena, summons, discovery request, warrant, regulation, or governmental request. We assume no obligation to inform you or an End User that information has been so provided, and in some cases may be prohibited by law from giving such notice. We may also disclose such information when it is necessary for us to protect our business, or others, from harm.

On occasion, we may have a need to communicate with you by email about issues related to billing, service changes, additions and modifications to the network. It is your responsibility to provide a working, monitored, email address to us.

It is your responsibility to contact us with any changes to your account or contact information. We have no responsibility for communications that are misdirected as a result of your failure to provide us with updated contact information.

Security

The Internet is no more or less secure than any other method of communication. You are solely responsible for ensuring that your data is secure, that confidential information remains confidential, and that you do not expose your business to risks you are not prepared to assume.

 

We reserve the right to take immediate action to suspend or terminate your account if, in our sole and exclusive discretion, you or an End User is engaging in activities that jeopardize our security, the security of other customers, or of the Internet in general. You may not be provided with advance notice that we are taking such action.

We make tools available to you that are designed to make your use of the Internet more secure. These tools are provided on an AS-IS basis and are used at your own risk. You are encouraged to evaluate other methods of making your Internet transactions more secure.

 

Data Retention

 

Newport Internet provides the tools needed to create backups of account data including FTP access and the Plesk Control Panel. It is the responsibility of the customer to keep up-to-date archives of their backed up data. Newport Internet currently does not utilize any backup services and is not responsible for any lost data.

 

Backups are sometimes performed by Newport Internet as a courtesy to some, but not all, of our clients upon request; however, all clients are advised to maintain a current local copy of their files in the event backups are irretrievable for any reason.

 

Newport Internet will not be deemed responsible for data or other loss resulting from the unavailability of backups. Backups will not be retained for accounts that have been cancelled, unless such retention is deemed necessary by Newport Internet. As cancellation requests are processed immediately, any required files from the affected account should be downloaded prior to the cancellation request.

 

Misuse of System Resources

 

To protect and maintain high availability of all servers, activities designed to cause harm to or monopolize the resources of any server in the Newport Internet network is prohibited.

 

This includes, but is not limited to, the use of programs that consume excessive CPU time; use of server space for backup or storage of material unrelated to the web site of an account; use of server space to be utilized for the purpose of major software repository items; use of any provided mail services other than for the client's own account; resale of disk space without an appropriate reseller agreement; use of servers to engage in any malicious or illegal activity, including unauthorized access to remote systems or providing the means for such access or engaging in any activity that can be used as a means to begin remote system penetration; distribution of viruses, worms, or any other electronic destructive resource; or maintaining or creating any free for all (FFA) type sites.

Internet Relay Chat ("IRC") related materials are prohibited, without exception. This includes bots, bouncers, or any script or software package designed to facilitate the creation, maintenance, or access to any IRC server or channel. Client accounts found to have such software or scripts uploaded are subject to suspension or termination without notice. Scripts or software found to exist on any server will be deleted immediately upon discovery, without notice, and a warning issued. Further violations of this policy will result in account termination.

CGI or php-based shell scripts are prohibited. This includes any script that is used for the purpose of issuing shell-level commands or which acts as a proxy for shell access via a web browser rather than the use of the embedded SSH client in the control panel or the use of a standalone SSH client. Such scripts will be deleted without notice when found. Continued use of such scripts will be grounds for account termination.

Web proxy scripts are prohibited. This includes any script, such as nph-proxy, that allows anyone to browse to a third party web site from any server in the Newport Internet network or that otherwise masks the true origination point of browsing activities by use of network information associated with Newport Internet. Such scripts will be deleted when found. Repeated violations will result in account suspension or termination.

 

Other Activities

 

Any activity not defined above but judged by Newport Internet to be harmful to other clients or general operations of the network will be addressed on a case by case basis.

 

 

B. Shared Web Hosting

The following apply to all customers with shared accounts:

Shared accounts cannot be transferred or used by anyone other than you. You may not sell, lease or assign the connection or parts of the connection to any party not named in our records. You may allow ftp access and host websites for your customers without violating this AUP.

In instances in which an excessive amount of system resources are utilized by you, we reserve the right to place CPU process, storage and bandwidth limits on your account to prevent the disruption of other customers. We are the sole arbiter of what is considered to be high server usage. Customers can upgrade to a suitable package if current limits are restrictive.

 

 

C. Dedicated and Co-location

The following apply to all Dedicated and Co-location accounts:

You are solely responsible for any breaches of security affecting servers under your control. If your server is involved in an attack on another server or system, it will be shut down and an immediate investigation will be launched to determine the cause/source of the attack. In such an event, you are solely responsible for the cost to rectify any damage done to your server and any other requirement affected by the security breach.

You may not engage in activities designed to monitor Internet traffic other than your own. This means, that you may not monitor our Internet traffic, nor the Internet traffic of any other entity.

Co-location customers are bound by our co-location rules and regulations. Co-location customers were provided a copy of these rules and regulations with their co-location contract. Additional copies will be provided on request.


 

D. Domain Registrations and Renewals

 

By authorizing Newport Internet to act as the registering agent for new domain registrations, clients are bound by the terms of the registration agreement.

 

Domain disputes are governed by the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) as outlined at this link.

 

As a courtesy all domain name registrations and renewals are completed prior to receiving payment. Any domain cancellations requested before payment for the domain registration or renewal has been received will incur an additional fee of $30.00. Additionally, failure to appropriately address notices for domains renewals can result in domains lapsing should the notices remain open past expiry. Newport Internet will not be responsible for domain expiries where the renewal or registration fees have not been paid.

 

If your domain lapses and Newport Internet has to acquire another domain for you and transfer your site to that domain in an emergency situation, you will be required to pay a $50.00 emergency transfer fee. Domains that enter the redemption period that every registrar maintains will incur higher fees to renew per the registrar's fee schedule. As of the date of this document, the current fee is an additional $10.00 if the domain is renewed under the 30 day notification.

 

Copyright Information

 

This document and all portions of the Newport Internet web site, including images, text, and scripts where ownership is not held by third parties are copyright 2000-2010 Newport Internet No portion of this site or the content contained within may be reproduced in any form, or modified or otherwise altered for use by any party without the express permission of Newport Internet Under no circumstances may the Acceptable Use Policy or Privacy Policy be reproduced by any party for any reason. Violations of the copyright held by Newport Internet on any material from this site may be reported to abuse@newportnet.com