MINDSPRING COMPUTING ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY
GENERAL NOTICE
Thank you for reading Mindspring Computing’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 behavior 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
us at +27-21-657-1780.
Mindspring Computing 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
Mindspring Computing confirms that in compliance with section 72 of the Electronic
Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, Mindspring Computing 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 HERE
UNLAWFUL USE
Mindspring Computing’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:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Any violation of Intellectual Property laws including materials protected by local and
international copyright, trademarks and trade secrets. Moreover Mindspring
Computing cannot be held liable if you make any unlawful use of any multimedia
content accessed through the search facility provided by Mindspring Computing’s
network, or otherwise available through access to our network, whether for commercial
or noncommercial purposes.
4. Any violation of the individual’s right to privacy, including any effort to collect personal
data of third parties without their consent.
5. 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 Mindspring Computing on behalf of
another subscriber without their consent.
6. Any violation of the exchange control laws of the Republic.
7. Any activity that results in the sale, transmission or distribution of pirated or illegal
software.
8. 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, Mindspring Computing will assist foreign law enforcement
agencies (LEA) in the investigation and prosecution of a crime committed using Mindspring
Computing’s resources, including the provisioning of all personal identifiable data.
PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES
The following sections outline activities that are considered an unacceptable use of
Mindspring Computing’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 Mindspring
Computing’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 Mindspring Computing for this
goal;
• Any effort to use Mindspring Computing’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 Mindspring Computing
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 Mindspring
Computing’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 Mindspring Computing, you
acknowledge that Mindspring Computing has no power to control the content of the
information passing over the Internet and its applications, including e-mail; chat rooms; news
groups; or other similar fora, and that Mindspring Computing 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 Mindspring
Computing network websites and web pages or sites displayed as search results or
contained within a directory of links on the Mindspring Computing 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.
Mindspring Computing 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 Mindspring
Computing reserves the right to delete and/or cancel posts which violate the following
conditions:
1. Excessive cross-posting of the same article to multiple newsgroups. [Some companies
specify a number here and if you’d prefer to, you may well do so and advise of the
cancellation of the post if such number is exceeded]
2. Posting of irrelevant or off-topic material to newsgroups (also known as USENET
spam).
3. Posting binaries to a non-binary newsgroup.
4. 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. Mindspring
Computing will take swift and firm action against any user engaging in any of the following
unacceptable practices:
1. Sending unsolicited bulk mail for marketing or any other purposes (political, religious or
commercial) to people who have not consented to receiving such mail;
2. Operating or maintaining mailing lists without the express permission of all recipients
listed;
3. Failing to promptly remove from lists invalid or undeliverable addresses or addresses of
unwilling recipients or a recipient who has indicated s/he wishes to be removed from
such list;
4. Using Mindspring Computing’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;
5. Including Mindspring Computing’s name in the header or by listing an IP address
that belongs to Mindspring Computing in any unsolicited email whether sent
through Mindspring Computing’s network or not;
6. 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. Mindspring
Computing 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. Mindspring Computing also reserves the right to
examine the mail servers of any users using Mindspring Computing’s mail servers
for “smarthosting” (when the user relays its mail via a Mindspring Computing mail
server to a mail server of its own or vica-versa) 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 Mindspring Computing’s privacy policy.
Spam/virus Filtering
Mindspring Computing 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. The customer acknowledges and agrees that
Mindspring Computing shall without limitation have no responsibility for, or liability in
respect of any data lost as a result of this system.
Mindspring Computing reserves the right to examine incoming or outgoing mail to the
extent necessary to determine if it is classified as spam.
Webmail
Webmail and other web based email services made available by Mindspring Computing
are provided on an “as is” basis without representations, warranties or conditions of any kind,
and the customer acknowledges and agrees that Mindspring Computing 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 Mindspring
Computing. 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
Mindspring Computing prohibits customers from using Mindspring Computing’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
Mindspring Computing 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 Mindspring Computing’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 Mindspring Computing’s service.
Mindspring Computing 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 Mindspring Computing 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 Mindspring Computing’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.
Mindspring Computing 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
Mindspring Computing network. Further, Mindspring Computing 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
Mindspring Computing confirms that it has a procedure in place for the notice and takedown
of illegal material. In compliance with section 77 of the Electronic Communications and
Transactions Act (No. 25 of 2002) Mindspring Computing’s designated agent for this
process is the Internet Service Providers’ Association. ISPA can be reached at +27-11-318-
1406 or takedown@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 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 Mindspring Computing’s designated
complaints handling agent.
Please note that Mindspring Computing 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 Mindspring Computing 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.
Mindspring Computing 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, Mindspring
Computing 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
Mindspring Computing reserves the right to amend or alter this policy at any time, and
without notice to you.
Mindspring Computing 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.
Mindspring Computing 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.
Mindspring Computing 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.
Mindspring Computing reserves the right to suspend, revoke or cancel Mindspring
Computing’s services to the customer/user if the safety and integrity of Mindspring
Computing’s resources are placed at risk in continuing to provide service to the
subscriber/user.
Mindspring Computing reserves the right to remove any information or materials in whole
or in part, that, in Mindspring Computing’s sole discretion, is deemed to be offensive,
indecent, or otherwise objectionable.
Mindspring Computing does not undertake to guarantee the security of any data passing
through its networks. Although Mindspring Computing 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 Mindspring
Computing cannot be held liable for any loss or damage arising as result of the failure to do
so.
Mindspring Computing does not waive its right to enforcement of this AUP at any time, or
prejudice its right to take subsequent action, should Mindspring Computing fail, neglect or
elect not to enforce a breach of the AUP at any time