Acceptable Use Policy
Use and Misuse of the Services
All complaints of abuse, violation and misuse of
the Services, whether described in this section or otherwise, shall be
investigated promptly. If you are not sure if your actions will be an abuse,
violation or misuse, then please contact us.
You are responsible for all use of your website,
with or without your knowledge or consent.
You agree to use the Services only for lawful
purposes, in compliance with all applicable laws. Illegality includes, but is
not limited to: Drug dealing; Attempting without authorization to access a
computer system; Pirating (distributing copyrighted material in violation of
copyright law, specifically MP3s, MPEGs, ROMs, and ROM emulators); Gambling;
Schemes to defraud; Trafficking in obscene material; Sending a message or
having content that is obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, or indecent with
intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person; Threatening bodily
harm or damage to individuals or groups; Violating export restrictions;
stalking; or violating other state or federal law.
When MWDesign becomes aware of possible
violations of this Agreement, MWDesign may initiate an investigation that may
include gathering information from you and the complaining party, if any, and
examination of material on MWDesign’s servers. MWDesign, in its sole discretion,
will determine what action will be taken in response to a violation on a
case-by-case basis. Violations of this Agreement could subject you to criminal
or civil liability.
BY ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT, YOU AGREE TO WAIVE
AND HOLD MWDESIGNHARMLESS FROM ANY CLAIMS RELATING TO ANY ACTION TAKEN BY MWDESIGN
AS PART OF ITS INVESTIGATION OF A SUSPECTED VIOLATION OF THIS AGREEMENT OR AS A
RESULT OF ITS CONCLUSION THAT A VIOLATION OF THIS AGREEMENT HAS OCCURRED. THIS
MEANS THAT YOU CANNOT SUE OR RECOVER ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER FROM MWDESIGN AS A
RESULT OF MWDESIGN’S DECISION TO: REMOVE MATERIAL FROM ITS SERVERS, WARN YOU,
SUSPEND OR TERMINATE YOUR ACCOUNT, OR TAKE ANY OTHER ACTION DURING THE
INVESTIGATION OF A SUSPECTED VIOLATION OR AS A RESULT OF MWDESIGN CONCLUSION
THAT A VIOLATION HAS OCCURRED. THIS WAIVER APPLIES TO ALL VIOLATIONS DESCRIBED
IN THIS AGREEMENT.
Use and Misuse of Materials
Materials in the public domain (e.g., images, text,
and programs) may be downloaded or uploaded using the Services. You may also
re-distribute materials in the public domain. You assume all risks regarding
the determination of whether the material is in the public domain.
You are prohibited from storing, distributing or
transmitting any unlawful material through the Services. Examples of unlawful
material include, but are not limited to, threats of physical harm, child
pornography, and copyrighted, trademarked and other proprietary material used
without proper authorization. Pornography and sex-related merchandising, or
links to such material, even if legal, are not acceptable uses of MWDesign’s
servers. You may not post, upload or otherwise distribute copyrighted material
on MWDesign’s servers without the consent of the copyright holder.
Unacceptable uses of website content also
include the presence of the following programs or the activities associated
with them, regardless of whether or not any actual intrusion results in the
corruption or loss of data: Server broadcast messages or any message sent on an
intrusive basis to any directly or indirectly attached network; Attempts to
circumvent any user authentication or security of host, network, or account;
Accessing data not intended for user; probing the security of any network;
Spawning dozens of processes; Port scans, ping floods, packet spoofing, and
forging router information; Denial of service attacks, sniffers, flooding,
spoofing, ping bombing, smurfs, winnuke, land and teardrop; Promulgation of
viruses; and IRC bots, such as eggdrop or BitchX.
Software installations that may cause service
degradation (high CPU or RAM usage) are also banned, including but not limited
to PABX, VOIP, game servers, crypto-currency mining (such as Bitcoin),
audio/video processing, etc.
MWDesign supports free speech on the Internet
and will not suspend or cancel an account simply because it disagrees with
views expressed at a website. However, examples of unacceptable activities
include posting private information about a person without his or her consent,
defaming a person or business, and knowingly making available code that will
have a deleterious effect on third-party computers. Where there are allegations
that your on-line activity has violated the legal rights of a third party, MWDesign
will not substitute itself for a court of law in deciding tort claims raised by
the third party.
Email Use
Unacceptable affronts to netiquette and
unacceptable activities include, but are not limited to, the following:
Spamming (sending unsolicited advertising to
those with which you have no existing business relationship and posting
off-topic advertising in newsgroups);
Spoofing (using a return email address that is not the valid reply address of the sender or sending an email message that does not contain enough information to enable the recipient to identify you);
Passive spamming (promoting a website hosted by MWDesign by spamming from some other source);
Trolling (posting controversial messages in newsgroups to generate responses);
Mailbombing (inundating a user with email without any serious intent to correspond or sending large or multiple files to a user);
Generating a higher volume of outgoing mail than a normal user (over 10% of available system resources) via the use of mailing lists;
Propagating chain letters; and subscribing someone else to an electronic mailing list without that person’s permission.
A message is considered unsolicited if it is posted in violation of a newsgroup charter or sent to a recipient who has not requested the message. Making an email address available to the public does not constitute a request to receive messages.
Distribution of mass emailing programs is also prohibited. All recipients on a mailing list must have personally subscribed.
Mailing lists may not be used to distribute unsolicited email or marketing material in bulk.
If you are repeatedly mailbombed or attract such
behavior, the Services will be terminated.
You should not send email to any user who does not wish to receive it, either
at MWDesign or elsewhere. MWDesign recognizes that email is an informal medium;
however, you must refrain from sending further email to a user after receiving
a request to stop.
You may not alter the headers of email messages to disguise their identity or
to prevent users from responding to the messages. MWDesign may disclose the
usernames of accounts responsible for forged email messages to system
administrators or users requesting the information.
Violations of the MWDesign policies outlined herein can sometimes result in
massive numbers of email responses. If you receive so much email that MWDesign
resources are affected, MWDesign’s staff may shut down your mailbox.
Forms that allow visitors to ‘Email a Friend’ and the script called Matt’s
Formmail is banned on our servers due to spammer abuse. If
this script is found on your website, it WILL be removed immediately. We
provide an alternative, more secure script on our website for your use.
System Security
You are prohibited from utilizing the Services to compromise the security of
system resources or accounts on servers at MWDesign or at any other site. Use
or distribution of tools designed for compromising security or containing
viruses or trojans is prohibited. Examples of these tools include, but are not
limited to, password guessing programs, cracking tools or network probing
tools.
If you are involved in violations of system security, MWDesign reserves the
right to release all usernames of users involved in such violations to system
administrators at other sites in order to assist them in resolving security
incidents. MWDesign will also fully co-operate with law enforcement authorities
in investigating suspected lawbreakers.
System Resources
System abuse includes any use of MWDesign’s resources that disrupts the normal use
of its servers or services for others. Examples of system abuse include running
excessive numbers of processes or consuming excessive amounts of CPU time,
memory or disk space.
Any usage of 10% or more of MWDesign’s system resources is an undue burden on MWDesign’s
system and is unacceptable. If your usage ever exceeds 10% of system resources,
your account may be terminated immediately without prior notice and without
providing evidence.
Further, running programs in the background on a MWDesign server without MWDesign’s
prior written authorization, or running chat rooms, Internet Relay Chat, IRC
bots, mailing lists that send more then 1,000 emails within a 12 hour period
and the like are not acceptable uses of MWDesign’s servers.