Acceptable Usage Policy
General Notice
Thank you for reading No Frills Online's (NFO's) Acceptable Use Policy
(AUP). By accessing this website, or by contracting with us for service,
you agree, without limitation or qualification, to be bound by this
policy and the terms and conditions it contains, as well as any other additional
terms, conditions, rules or policies which are displayed to you in connection
with this service/website. The purpose of this AUP is to comply with the
relevant laws of the Republic; to specify to customers and users of our
service/website what activities and online behaviour are considered an
unacceptable use of the service/website; to protect the integrity of our
network and to specify the consequences that may flow from undertaking
such prohibited activities. This document contains a number of legal obligations
which you are presumed to be familiar with. As such, we encourage you to
read this document thoroughly and direct any queries to our customer services
department at +27-84-5786-214 or abuse@infostream.co.za. NFO respects the
rights of our customers and users of our services to freedom of speech
and expression; access to information; privacy; human dignity; religion,
belief and opinion in accordance with our constitution. We undertake not
to interfere with any of those rights unless required to do so by law;
unless those rights are exercised for unlawful purposes; or unless the
exercise of those rights threatens to cause harm to another person or affect
the integrity of our network.
ISPA membership and Code of Conduct
NFO confirms that in compliance with section 72 of the Electronic
Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, NFO is a member of the
Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) and has adopted and implemented
the association's official Code of Conduct, which can be viewed at http://www.ispa.org.za/code.
Unlawful Use
NFO's services/website may only be used for lawful purposes and activities.
We prohibit any use of our website/network including the transmission,
storage and distribution of any material or content using our network
that violates any law or regulation of the Republic.
This includes:
- Any violation of local and international laws prohibiting child pornography; obscenity;
discrimination (including racial, gender or religious slurs) and hate speech;
or speech designed to incite violence or hatred, or threats to cause
bodily harm.
- Any activity designed to defame, abuse, stalk, harass or physically
threaten any individual in the Republic or beyond its borders; including
any attempt to link to, post, transmit or otherwise distribute any inappropriate
or defamatory material.
- Any violation of Intellectual Property laws including materials protected
by local and international copyright, trademarks and trade secrets.
Moreover NFO cannot be held liable if you make any unlawful use of any
multimedia content accessed through the search facility provided by NFO's
network, or otherwise available through access to our network, whether
for commercial or noncommercial purposes.
- Any violation of the individual's right to privacy, including any effort
to collect personal data of third parties without their consent.
- Any fraudulent activity whatsoever, including dubious financial
practices, such as pyramid schemes; the impersonation of another subscriber
without their consent; or any attempt to enter into a transaction with
NFO on behalf of another subscriber without their consent.
- Any violation of the exchange control laws of the Republic.
- Any activity that results in the sale, transmission or distribution
of pirated or illegal software.
- Failing to respond to a request by a recipient of unsolicited mail
to be removed from any mailing or direct marketing list and continuing
to send unsolicited mail following such a request for removal.
Where any user resides outside of the Republic, permanently or temporarily,
such user will be subject to the laws of the country in which s/he is currently resident
and which apply. On presentation of a legal order to do so, or under obligation
through an order for mutual foreign legal assistance, NFO will assist foreign
law enforcement agencies (LEA) in the investigation and prosecution of
a crime committed using NFO's resources, including the provisioning of
all personal identifiable data.
Prohibited Activities
The following sections outline activities that are considered an
unacceptable use of NFO's services/network/website and also detail the
guidelines for acceptable use of certain facilities/services, as the
case may be.
Threats to Network Security
Any activity which threatens the functioning, security and/or integrity
of NFO's network is unacceptable. This includes:
- Any efforts to attempt to gain unlawful and unauthorised access to the
network or circumvent any of the security measures established by NFO for
this goal;
- Any effort to use NFO's equipment to circumvent the user authentication
or security of any host, network or account ("cracking" or "hacking");
Forging of any TCP-IP packet header (spoofing) or any part of the header
information in an email or a newsgroup posting;
- Any effort to breach or attempt to breach the security of another user
or attempt to gain access to any other person's computer, software, or
data without the knowledge and consent of such person;
- Any activity which threatens to disrupt the service offered by NFO through
"denial of service attacks"; flooding of a network, or overloading a service
or any unauthorised probes ("scanning" or "nuking") of others' networks;
Any activity which in any way threatens the security of the network by
knowingly posting, transmitting, linking to or otherwise distributing any
information or software which contains a virus; Trojan horse; worm, lock,
mail bomb, cancelbot or other harmful, destructive or disruptive component.
- Any unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on the network without
NFO's explicit, written consent.
- Any unsolicited mass mailing activity including direct marketing; spam
and chain letters for commercial or other purposes, without the consent
of the recipients of those mails.
Public Space and Third Party Content and sites
In reading this AUP or in signing a service contract with NFO, you acknowledge
that NFO has no power to control the content of the information passing
over the Internet and its applications, including e-mail; chatrooms; news
groups; or other similar fora, and that NFO cannot be held responsible
or liable, directly or indirectly, for any of the abovementioned content,
in any way for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of,
or in connection with your use of, or reliance on, any such content.
Our services also offer access to numerous third party webpages. You acknowledge
that we exercise absolutely no control over such third party content, or
sites and in such cases, our network is merely a conduit or means of access
and transmission. This includes, but is not limited to, third party content
contained on or accessible through the NFO network websites and web pages
or sites displayed as search results or contained within a directory of
links on the NFO network. It remains your responsibility to review and
evaluate any such content, and that any and all risk associated with the
use of, or reliance on, such content rests with you.
Access to public Internet spaces, such as bulletin boards, Usenet groups,
chat rooms and moderated forums is entirely voluntary and at your own risk.
NFO employees do not moderate any of these services, or your communications,
transmissions or use of these services. We do not undertake any responsibility
for any content contained therein, or for any breaches of your right to
privacy that you may experience as a result of accessing such spaces.
Usenet Newsgroups
The customer is responsible for determining and familiarizing himself
or herself with the written policies of a given newsgroup before posting
to it.
The customer must comply with these guidelines at all times which
can be obtained from other users of the newsgroup upon request, or from
the group's administrators/moderators.
The following are prohibited practices with regard to Usenet newsgroups
and NFO reserves the right to delete and/or cancel posts which violate
the following conditions:
- Excessive cross-posting of the same article to multiple newsgroups.
- Posting of irrelevant or off-topic material to newsgroups (also known
as USENET spam).
- Posting binaries to a non-binary newsgroup.
- Posting adverts, solicitations, or any other commercial messages unless
the guidelines of the newsgroup in question explicitly permit them.
Unsolicited, Spam and Junk mail
Spam and unsolicited bulk mail are highly problematic practices.
They affect the use and enjoyment of services by others and often compromise
network security. NFO will take swift and firm action against any user
engaging in any of the following unacceptable practices:
- Sending unsolicited bulk mail for marketing or any other purposes (political,
religious or commercial) to people who have not consented to receiving
such mail;
- Operating or maintaining mailing lists without the express permission
of all recipients listed;
- Failing to promptly remove from lists invalid or undeliverable addresses
or addresses of unwilling recipients;
- Using NFO's service to collect responses from unsolicited e-mail sent
from accounts on other Internet hosts or e-mail services, that violate
this AUP or the AUP of any other Internet service provider;
- Including NFO's name in the header or by listing an IP address that
belongs to NFO in any unsolicited email sent through NFO's network or not;
- Failure to secure a customer's mail server against public relay as a
protection to themselves and the broader Internet community. Public relay
occurs when a mail server is accessed by a third party from another domain
and utilised to deliver mails, without the authority or consent of the
owner of the mail-server. Mail servers that are unsecured against public
relay often become abused by unscrupulous operators for spam delivery and
upon detection such delivery must be disallowed. NFO reserves the right
to examine users' mail servers to confirm that no mails are being sent
from the mail server through public relay and the results of such checks
can be made available to the user. NFO also reserves the right to examine
the mail servers of any users using NFO's mail servers for "smarthosting"
(when the user relays its mail via a NFO mail server to a mail server of
its own) or similar services at any time to ensure that the servers are
properly secured against public relay. All relay checks will be done in
strict accordance with NFO's privacy policy.
Spam/virus Filtering
NFO provides a spam and virus filtering system to protect customers from
unsolicited mail and viruses. The customer acknowledges that this system
might incorrectly identify a valid message as spam or as a virus and consequently
this message might not be delivered to the customer or the alternative
where a virus or spam email passes through as a valid message. The customer
acknowledges and agrees that NFO shall without limitation have no responsibility
for, or liability in respect of any data lost as a result of this system.
Webmail
Webmail and other web based email services made available by NFO are provided
on an "as is" basis without representations, warranties or conditions of
any kind, and the customer acknowledges and agrees that NFO shall have
no responsibility for, or liability in respect of, any aspect of the Webmail
services, including without limitation for any lost or damaged data or
any acts or omissions of NFO. As webmail storage space is limited, some
Webmail messages may not be processed due to space constraints or message
limitations.
Webmail is provided to individuals and for personal use only. Any unauthorised
commercial use of the Webmail service, or resale of the Webmail service
is expressly prohibited.
Protection of Minors
NFO prohibits customers from using NFO's service to harm or attempt to
harm a minor, including, but not limited to, by hosting, possessing, disseminating,
distributing or transmitting material that is unlawful, including child
pornography.
Privacy and Confidentiality
NFO respects the privacy and confidentiality of our customers and users
of our service. Please review our privacy policy which details how we collect
and use personal information gathered in the course of operating this service.
User Responsibilities
Customers are responsible for any misuse of NFO's services that occurs
through the customer's account. It is the customer's responsibility to
ensure that unauthorised persons do not gain access to or misuse NFO's
service.
NFO urges customers not to reply to unsolicited mail or "spam", not to
click on any suggested links provided in the unsolicited mail. Doing so
remains the sole responsibility of the customer and NFO cannot be held
liable for the Customer being placed on any bulk mailing lists as a result.
Where the customer has authorised a minor to use any of the NFO's services
or access its websites, you accept that as the parent/legal guardian of
that minor, you are fully responsible for: the online conduct of such minor;
controlling the minor's access to and use of any services or websites;
and the consequences of any misuse by the minor, including but not limited
to transactions entered into by the minor using such access.
NFO cannot be held liable for any business dealings you have with any
third parties on the Internet, including any vendors, or advertisers found
on, or through, the NFO network. Further, NFO assumes no responsibility
whatsoever for any charges you or any user of your account incurs when
making purchases or other transactions in this manner. Further, the responsibility
for ensuring compliance with all applicable customs and exchange control
laws in connection with any such transactions shall be the customer's.
Notice and Take-down Procedures
NFO confirms that it has a procedure in place for the notice and take-down
of illegal material. In compliance with section 77 of the Electronic Communications
and Transactions Act (No. 25 of 2002) NFO's designated agent for this process
can be reached at (010) 500 1200 or at complaints @ ispa.org.za. The notice
and take-down procedure can be viewed at http://www.ispa.org.za/code.
Customers are also notified of the content and procedures of the ISPA
Code of Conduct (http://www.ispa.org.za/code) which may be used against
any Internet service provider who fails to comply with the code of conduct.
We urge you to familiarise yourselves with this code.
Complaints and procedures
It is the customer's responsibility to familiarise himself or herself
with the procedure set out below and report any cases of violation of this
AUP to NFO's designated complaints handling agent.
Please note that NFO cannot handle complaints concerning networks or users
that do not have service contracts with us or our affiliates, or are outside
of our control.
In order for NFO to thoroughly investigate the complaint and take appropriate
action, all complaints must be in writing, via fax or e-mail and contain
as much information as possible, including, but not limited to:
- the origin of abuse or offence, including the website, full mail headers,
relevant logfile extracts etc;
- any contact details for the source of the complaint;
- a brief explanation why the incident is considered to be an offence.
NFO discourages anonymous complaints being made via this service, and
urges complainants to supply their name and contact details to us. Such
information will not be released, except where required by law enforcement.
Anonymous complaints will however be acted upon as long as sufficient detail
as outlined above is supplied.
Action following breach of the AUP
Upon receipt of a complaint, or having become aware of an incident, NFO
may take any of the following steps:
- In the case of a network, inform the user's network administrator of
the incident and request the network administrator or network owner to
deal address the incident in terms of this AUP and the ISPA Code of Conduct;
- In severe cases suspend access of the user's entire network until abuse
can be prevented by appropriate means;
- In the case of individual users, warn the user; suspend the user's account
and/or revoke or cancel the user's network access privileges completely;
- In all cases, charge the offending parties for administrative costs
as well as for machine and human time lost due to the incident;
- Assist other networks or website administrators in investigating credible
suspicions of any activity listed in this AUP;
- Institute civil or criminal proceedings;
- Share information concerning the incident with other Internet access
providers, or publish the information, and/or make available the users'
details to law enforcement agencies.
Reservation and Non Waiver of Rights
NFO reserves the right to amend or alter this policy at any time, and
without notice to you.
NFO reserves the right to take action against any individuals, companies
or organizations that violate any of the prohibited activities set out
herein, or engage in any illegal or unlawful activity while accessing our
services, to the fullest extent of the law.
NFO reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to act against other types
of abuse not listed in this document and to investigate or prevent illegal
activities being committed over our network.
NFO reserves the right to monitor user and network traffic for site security
purposes and prevent any unauthorised attempts to tamper with our site
or cause damage to our property.
NFO reserves the right to suspend, revoke or cancel NFO's services to
the customer/user if the safety and integrity of NFO's resources are placed
at risk in continuing to provide service to the subscriber/user.
NFO reserves the right to remove any information or materials in whole
or in part, that, in NFO's sole discretion, is deemed to be offensive,
indecent, or otherwise objectionable.
NFO does not undertake to guarantee the security of any data passing through
its networks. Although NFO will provide a "best effort" service, including
regular updates on computer viruses and other threats to security of data,
it is the responsibility of the communicating parties to safeguard their
data, and NFO cannot be held liable for any loss or damage arising as result
of the failure to do so.
NFO does not waive its right to enforcement of this AUP at any time, or
prejudice its right to take subsequent action, should NFO fail, neglect
or elect not to enforce a breach of the AUP at any time.