SOUTHERN OHIO
COMMUNICATIONS SERVICEs, INC. ACCEPTABLE USE AND
PROHIBITED INTERNET AND
TELEPHONY SERVICE ACTIVITIES POLICY
By subscribing to
any residential or commercial broadband Internet and/or telephony service
(collectively, the “Services” and individually, a
“Service”) provided by Southern Ohio Communications Services, Inc. (“SOCS”),
Customer agrees not to use the Services for any unlawful purpose and to comply
with all policies and terms of this Acceptable Use and Prohibited Internet and
Telephony Service Activities (the “AUP” or “Policy”). This Policy,
including its use restrictions, is in addition to the restrictions contained in
Southern Ohio Communications Services, Inc. Master Service Agreement (“Service
Agreement”), which Customer previously entered into with SOCS. This Policy has
been incorporated by reference into the Service Agreement. Any capitalized terms used herein
shall have the same meaning as defined in the Service Agreement.
Customer
understands, acknowledges and agrees that SOCS reserves the right to reclassify
any Service to a higher grade or to immediately suspend or terminate any
Service without prior notice for Customer’s failure to comply with any portion
of this Policy or Service Agreement. (Please see the Service Agreement for
details on the suspension and termination policy.) Any violation of this
Policy and Service Agreement may also lead to prosecution under State and/or Federal
law. SOCS will also provide information
in response to law enforcement requests, subpoenas, court orders, to protect
its rights and property, and in the case where failure to disclose the
information may lead to imminent harm to a Customer or others.
(a) “Acceptable
use” is hereby defined as the normal activities associated with the Customer’s use
of the Internet and SOCS’s Services, including without limitation to usage of
the SOCS Network and any other facilities for accessing the World Wide Web,
Internet Relay Chat, USENET Newsgroups, Email, and other Internet features.
Depending on the account type, this may include: File storage on SOCS’s servers
for Customer’s own personal web page and file access area (FTP), etc. Customer’s
acceptable use of the Services will depend on whether Customer requests the
Services for residential or commercial purposes.
(i) Residential service includes all
Services designated for personal, family and household use within a single
home. Customer understands, acknowledges and agrees that only Customer and
co-residents living in the same home will use the Services. The term “single
home” means Customer’s home and includes any apartment, condominium, flat or
other residential unit that may be used as a residence in any multiple dwelling
unit. The Services are being provided solely for residential use in Customer’s
home and any unauthorized access by a third party to e-mail, Internet access,
or any other function of the Services is in violation of this Policy and the
Service Agreement. Customer is responsible for any misuse of the Service that
occurs through Customer’s account, whether by a member of Customer’s household
or an authorized or unauthorized third party. Customer shall not use, or allow
others to use, the Service to operate any type of business or commercial
enterprise, including, but not limited to, IP address translation or similar
facilities intended to provide additional access. Customer shall not advertise
that the Service is available for use by third parties or unauthorized users. Customer
shall not resell or redistribute, or allow others to resell or redistribute,
access to the Service in any manner, including, but not limited to, wireless
technology.
(ii) Commercial
service includes all Services designed for use by a business entity or by an
individual, in providing goods or services for sale or lease or operating a
commercial enterprise. Customer understands, acknowledges and agrees that
Customer will allow only Customer’s employees, patrons, and vendors to utilize
the commercial Services within Customer’s office area. Commercial Services are
provided solely for Customer’s business operations, and any unauthorized access
by a third party to e-mail, Internet access, or any other function of the
Services is in violation of this Policy and the Service Agreement. Customer is
responsible for any misuse of the Services that occurs through Customer’s
account, whether by a member of Customer’s employees, patrons, vendors, or an
authorized or unauthorized third party.
(b)
“General Prohibited Activities for
All Services” specifically include without limitation the following:
(i) Misuse of Services – Customer is responsible for any misuse of the
Services, regardless of whether the inappropriate activity was committed by an
invitee, licensee, agent, servant, guest, patron, employee or any other person
who gains access to the Services. Therefore, Customer is responsible to take
steps to ensure that others do not gain unauthorized access to the Services,
for instance by strictly maintaining the confidentiality of Customer’s
passwords or by appropriately protecting the use of Customer’s computer,
network or any wireless devices. Customer is solely responsible for the
security of any device Customer choose to connect to the Services, including
any data stored on that device.
(ii) Prohibited and Objectionable Use and Content – (i)
any use that is threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous,
deceptive, fraudulent, invasive of another’s privacy or other rights, or
otherwise objectionable in SOCS’s sole discretion; (ii) any use in connection
with surveys, contests, pyramid schemes, chain letters, junk email, spamming,
or any duplicative or unsolicited messages not in compliance with the federal
CAN-SPAM Act or the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and state laws(commercial
or otherwise); (iii) publishing, distributing, or disseminating any
inappropriate, profane, defamatory, infringing, obscene, indecent, or unlawful
material or information; (iv) advertising, soliciting, selling or buying, or
attempting to buy and sell any goods for any non-personal or household purposes
for residential Services; (v) harvesting or otherwise collecting information
about others, including email addresses or telephone numbers, without their
consent; (vi) creating a false identity for the purpose of misleading others as
to the identity of the sender or the origin of a message or call; (vii)
transmitting or uploading any material that contains viruses, Trojan horses,
worms, time bombs, cancel bots, or any other harmful or deleterious programs or
software or other material protected by intellectual property laws, rights of
privacy or publicity or any other applicable law unless Customer owns or
controls the rights thereto or have received all necessary consents; (viii)
interfering with or disrupting networks connected to the Services or violate
the regulations, policies or procedures of such networks; and (ix) attempting
to gain unauthorized access to the Services, other accounts, computer systems,
devices, or networks connected to the Service, through password mining or any
other means; host any type of publicly accessible file sharing, gaming, or
email server including, but not limited to HTTP, FTP, SMTP, POP3, and
Peer-to-Peer; interfere with another customer or user’s use and enjoyment of
the Services.
(iii) Excessive
Utilization of Network or System Resources –
The excessive use or abuse the SOCS
Network or system resources by Customer may have a negative impact on all other
Customers. Accordingly, Customer may not use the Service or take any action,
directly or indirectly, that will result in excessive consumption or utilization
of the system or network resources, or which may weaken network performance, as
determined in SOCS’s sole discretion. Such prohibited actions include, but are
not limited to using the Service to host a web server site which attracts
excessive traffic at Customer’s location, continuously uploading or downloading
streaming video or audio, USENET hosting, or continuous File Transfer Protocol
(“FTP”) uploading or downloading, and continued
use of programs or commands which take a large amount of system resources, be
that processor time, memory, network bandwidth, and/or drive space on the host
system.
(c)
“Prohibited Internet Service
Activities” specifically include without limitation the following:
(i)
Background and/or server-type
applications – Including without limitation to IRC bots, HTTP servers, MUDs,
and any other harmful process which were initiated by the Customer that
continues execution on the system upon Customer logout. FCC authorized smart
home systems and IoT devices are excluded from this prohibition.
(ii)
Long-term storage of data –
Long-term storage of data is referred to as the storage of files which are not
used regularly in an account for an extended period of time. This specifically
includes, without limitation, programs such as shareware programs which the
Customer may download to their account for purposes of transferring to their
home computer(s)/device(s). Such programs should be removed at such time as
they are successfully transferred to the Customer’s personal system.
(iii)
Flooding or abuse of other users –
Flooding is a fairly common occurrence on the Internet, and one which is dealt
with strictly by SOCS. Flooding takes place in numerous ways, including,
without limitation, ICMP flooding, mail bombing (sending large amounts of email
repeatedly to a person for purposes of harassment), phishing, mass mailings to
multiple addresses via bulk email not in compliance with the federal CAN-SPAM
Act and Telephone Consumer Protection Act, MSG/CTCP flooding on IRC, as well as
other, less common methods. “Bulk Email” is defined as the same or similar
email messages sent to more than twenty-five (25) recipients.
(iv)
Attempts to compromise system
and/or network security – Programs such as packet sniffers, password crack
programs, and similar utilities found to be running from Customer’s account are
prohibited. This also includes attempts to hack into non-SOCS systems.
(v)
Sharing of accounts – Sharing
Customer’s Internet Services with another party for purposes of avoiding
payment for a second Service is strictly prohibited. Customer may connect
multiple computers/devices within a single location to Customer’s modem,
router, and/or radio to access the Internet Service, but only through a single SOCS-issued
IP address.
(vi)
PPP/SLIP emulation software –
Since PPP/SLIP is a product offered by SOCS, Customers desiring such access are
required to sign up for that service rather than attempting to emulate it by
software. Any such software will be removed from Customer’s account by SOCS immediately
when found.
(vii)
Bulk broadcast data – This
includes flood pinging, broadcast pinging, multicast, or IGMP use outside of
the private network.
(viii)
Port scanning – Use of any
application, software, or technique to scan any host’s ports.
(ix)
Conducting a commercial business
through a residential account – The residential single-Customer Internet
accounts provided by SOCS are designed for the home/casual Customer and may not
provide the level of service, capacity or speed required for conducting a business.
Therefore, conducting a business with a residential account is not advisable.
Please contact SOCS’s sales department to upgrade to a business account.
(x)
Excessive use of system resources
– This includes without limitation the continued use of programs or commands
which take a large amount of system resources, be that processor time, memory,
network bandwidth, and/or drive space on the host system. Customer may not
resell Services.
(xi)
Email abuse – Email abuse
typically comes in one of three forms, the transfer of a message to unsolicited
individuals not in compliance with the CAN-SPAM Act, the sending of harassing
and/or threatening messages to other users, and the forging of email addresses
so as to make the email appear to be from another user.
(xii)
USENET news abuse – Similar to
email abuse, includes forging of addresses, harassment/threats, the posting of
the same message to multiple newsgroups (spamming), as well as the posting of
information in groups where it is not relevant and unwanted.
(xiii)
Pyramid/money-making schemes –
Such activities as the transfer of information or solicitation of persons via
the Internet in an attempt to extort money or other valuables or the use of
pyramid/chain letters are all prohibited.
(xiv)
Pirated software and copyright
Infringement – Pirated software is defined as the illegal exchange of software
for purpose of avoiding the purchase of said software by the individuals
involved. This includes most commercial applications such as Adobe Photoshop,
Microsoft Office, etc. Such activities are prohibited by Federal law and are
thus not allowed in any form on or using the SOCS Network. Such prohibition
also includes the unauthorized copying, streaming, broadcasting, posting or any
distribution of copyrighted material including, without limitation to
digitization and distribution of photographs from magazines, books, or other
copyrighted sources and copyrighted software. The exportation of software or
technical information in violation of U.S. export control laws is strictly
prohibited.
(xv)
High-traffic websites –
Residential Internet service is intended to provide access to individuals
only. As most individuals primarily download content, rather than upload it,
the performance for everybody on the systems is optimal. However, some individuals
occasionally choose to host content on their account that could degrade
performance for other users. Due to such circumstances, SOCS may have to
implement certain limitations on the amount of web hosting traffic an
individual Customer’s residential account can receive.
(xvi)
Unlawful Use of Copyrighted Content
– Customer may not download, upload, store, distribute, or transmit any copyrighted
content via any means through the Services or using the SOCS Network without
proper authorization. This includes without limitation copyrighted,
trademarked and other proprietary material used without proper authorization,
or anything that would be deemed a violation of the rightful author’s rights.
Customer may not post, upload or otherwise distribute copyrighted content
without the consent of the copyright holder.
(xvii)
Storing Distributing or
Transmitting other unlawful or harmful content or material – Customer may not download,
upload, store, distribute or transmit other types of unlawful or harmful content
material through the Services or using the SOCS Network. Examples of other
prohibited material/content include without limitation: direct threats of
physical harm; bullying; child pornography; and software, applications and programs
containing viruses, Trojans and other tools or technology that would compromise
the security or safety of SOCS or others.
The download,
upload, storage, distribution, or transmission of unlawful or harmful content
or material could subject Customer to criminal as well as civil liability, in
addition to any actions taken by SOCS as provided in the Service Agreement.
Customer understands, acknowledges and agrees that SOCS may remove any content
at any time that is alleged to infringe on a third party’s copyrights upon
receiving a notice of infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(“DMCA”) or upon other disclosures or findings, and to terminate the Customer’s
Services without prior notice if there is repeat infringement. Please see the SOCS
Website Terms of Use Agreement and DMCA Copyright Infringement Notification
Process for details.
(d)
“Prohibited Telephony Service
Activities” specifically include without limitation the following:
(i) Resell or transfer of the Telephony
Service or Equipment to another party – Customer is prohibited from using the
Telephony Service or SOCS Equipment for autodialing, continuous or extensive
call forwarding, telemarketing (including, without limitation, charitable or
political solicitation or polling), fax or voicemail broadcasting or fax or
voicemail blasting.
(ii) Calls/Texts
Abuse – Call/text abuse typically comes in one of three forms, the sending or
transfer of a telephone call (as defined by the Federal Communications
Commission to include text messages) to unsolicited individuals not in
compliance with the Federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the sending of
harassing and/or threatening calls to other callers, and the forging or
spoofing of caller ID so as to make the call/text appear to be from another
person.
(iii) International
Calling –SOCS does not presently offer or support the Telephony Service in any
countries other than the United States. If Customer uses the Telephony Service
or Equipment outside of the United States, Customer will be solely responsible
for any violations of local laws and regulations, or additional charges and/or
fees resulting from such use.
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