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DakotaCom.Net Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)
Customers utilizing any of DakotaCom.Net’s services hereby agree to abide by the reasonable rules and regulations imposed by DakotaCom.Net regarding the use of its services. These rules and regulations are called the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and are described herein. The AUP is not exhaustive and DakotaCom.Net reserves the right to modify the AUP at any time. This Policy is subject to change with notice by publication on this webpage; customers are responsible for monitoring this webpage for changes. Customers who provide services to their own users must take steps to ensure compliance by their users with this AUP. This Policy was last updated on January 1, 2006.Any violation of the AUP may result in the suspension or termination of your account or such other action as DakotaCom.Net deems appropriate. An unlisted activity may also be a violation of the AUP if it constitutes illegal, irresponsible or disruptive use of the Internet. No credits of any kind will be issued for an interruption in service resulting from policy violations.
DakotaCom.Net is committed to providing quality dial-up and high-speed internet access, security, and various IP services to its customers. We strongly believe that the internet is an incredible resource for all to enjoy. However, it can also be abused when it is used to harm others and/or excessive amounts of resources are hoarded by one or a few individuals. As a customer or user of DakotaCom.Net’s services, it is your responsibility to submit any questions about appropriate use of this resource to DakotaCom.Net’s attention by emailing us at custsvc@DakotaCom.Net.
This document constitutes what we believe to be an appropriate "Acceptable Use Policy.” If DakotaCom.Net finds that someone is abusing the system, DakotaCom.Net will first educate the user(s) who has broken this agreement and then terminate the user’s (or users’) DakotaCom.Net services or any portion thereof if necessary.
Customers may use DakotaCom.Net to connect to the internet and, in general, use this connection any way they like, with some common-sense restrictions. The following categories describe areas where customers should be aware of potential problems.
General
DakotaCom.Net customers may not use DakotaCom.Net's network, machines, or services in any manner which:- Violates any applicable law, regulation, treaty, or tariff,
- Violates the acceptable use Policy of any networks, machines, or services which are accessed through DakotaCom.Net's network,
- Infringes on the intellectual property rights of others,
- Sends or helps to propagate computer viruses, worms, etc.,
- Directly or indirectly results in DakotaCom.Net or any of its subsidiaries being listed in any abuse database,
- Constitutes prohibited activity. Prohibited activity includes but is not limited to: unauthorized use/access or attempted unauthorized use/access of any machines or networks, denial of service attacks, falsifying header information or user identification information, monitoring or scanning the networks of others without permission, sending unsolicited bulk email, maintaining an open mail relay, collecting email addresses from the Internet for the purpose of sending unsolicited bulk email or to provide collected addresses to others for that purpose, transmitting or receiving copyright-infringing or obscene material, and interfering with service to any user, host or network in any way.
If inappropriate activity is detected, all accounts and services of the customer in question will be suspended until an investigation to determine the cause/ source of the offense is complete; pending the outcome of said investigation, the customer’s account may be suspended indefinitely. Prior notification to customer of suspension is not assured. Those persons who initiate blatant violations of this AUP are responsible for the cost of labor, without limitations, to correct any damage done to the DakotaCom.Net system or network or any damage done to DakotaCom.Net’s patrons’ systems or networks, including but not limited to DakotaCom.Net or outside contractors repairing damages caused by the violation, responding to complains from customers of DakotaCom.Net whose services were interrupted or damaged by said violation, and compensating for any other monetary or proprietary loss caused by the violation. Labor to correct such damages will be categorized as emergency recovery service and will be charged at the current industry standard rate for emergency security breach recovery which will be not less than $200 USD per hour, which the person or persons who initiated the violation will be liable for paying. Additional liabilities, above and beyond merely the cost of labor to reverse such destruction, may apply. Such violations that breach US, US state, or international law will be reported to the appropriate law enforcement authorities and criminal charges will be filed. Any violation of policies which results in extra costs will be billed to the customer.
Passwords
A password is one of the most important aspects of each customer’s account. Each customer is responsible for protecting his or her passwords. Any unauthorized use of the password or passwords of one or more customers will be reported to and dealt with by law enforcement authorities. DakotaCom.Net will cooperate fully with any legal or punitive investigations conducted by law enforcement authorities pertaining to unauthorized use of such information.The following is a non-exhaustive list of email practices that are prohibited:
- Sending unsolicited bulk email (SPAM) for any reason.
- Sending unsolicited bulk email from another provider advertising or implicating, directly or indirectly, the use of any service hosted or provided by DakotaCom.Net, including without limitation email, web, FTP, and DNS services. In addition, users who send unsolicited bulk email from DakotaCom.Net accounts will be charged the cost of labor to respond to complaints, with a minimum charge of $200. Users who send bulk email to "opt-in" lists must have a method of confirmation or verification of subscriptions and be able to show evidence of subscription for users who complain about receiving unsolicited email. DakotaCom.Net reserves the right to audit for proof of such subscriptions any individual or company using our services to send bulk email to such lists. Requests for “opt-in” proof must be responded to within 72 hours from the time the request was made.
- ontinuing to send someone email after being asked to stop (this constitutes harassment).
- Using email to disrupt others (e.g., mail bombing, "flashing," etc.).
- Sending email with falsified header information.
- Sending chain letters, pyramid schemes, hoaxes and/or any email that similarly extorts, threatens or provides knowingly false information with the intention to cause harm, terror or loss, be it financial or otherwise.
- Users may not use DakotaCom.Net’s services to harvest or collect in any manner email addresses or other personal information from the Internet for the purpose of unsolicited marketing of any kind, directly or indirectly, including sending unsolicited email including but not limited to selling email addresses or other personal information to third parties.
Connections
Dial-up and ISDN accounts are intended for part-time use of DakotaCom.Net resources. Customers desiring fulltime, dedicated Internet connections may purchase dedicated access for additional fees. Customers may not run programs or configure machines in such a way as to keep a dialup connection active when not in use or otherwise bypass automatic disconnection for inactivity, unless they have a dedicated access account. DakotaCom.Net users may not have multiple simultaneous connections with a single dialup account. DakotaCom.Net reserves the right to impose restrictions on or terminate accounts deemed to be in violation of these conditions. DakotaCom.Net's dialup access servers will disconnect after 30 minutes of inactivity and after 6 hours of continuous access.Other digital connectivity, such as DSL, T-1s, Wireless, et al., while intended for use as “always on” are not allowed to be used for resale or re-distribution to users other than those at the customer’s location.
Unregulated use of software that would cause large amounts of bandwidth usage, such as P2P file sharing (LimeWire, KaZaa, etc.), is prohibited. Download/Upload grand-total for all internet services on any given account, not including T1 services, should not exceed 4 Gigabytes of data per 1-month billing period. Anything over will be considered abuse and could lead to account suspension.
Static IP's are defined as IP addresses that do not change each time the customer connects to DakotaCom.Net's network. While DakotaCom.Net will make every effort to ensure that once issued, static IP's will not have to be re-numbered, DakotaCom.Net reserves the right to renumber IP's at any time. Customer is wholly and fully responsible for all costs associated with configuring and programming their equipment to utilize static IP's.
Newsgroups
DakotaCom.Net provides access to Newsgroups through a subscription service to another company. There are a limited number of open connections, or ports, available at any given time. Due to this limited availability, customers are permitted to use the Newsgroups while they are actively using their computer. It is prohibited to leave newsgroup reading software running while the customer's machine is unattended. Such behavior will be considered to be in breech of this AUP and could lead to account suspension.Dedicated and Web-hosting Customers
In order to better serve our business customers (who provide services to their own users), we ask that business customers:- Maintain valid postmaster and abuse addresses for their domains,
- Comply with all applicable Internet RFCs,
- Maintain appropriate reverse DNS information for all hosts receiving connectivity through DakotaCom.Net's network for which DNS responsibility has been delegated to the customer,
- Maintain accurate contact information with the InterNIC and any other appropriate domain and IP address registries,
- Provide a 24/7 contact address to DakotaCom.Net for dealing with security and abuse issues,
- ct promptly to ensure that users are in compliance with DakotaCom.Net's AUP.
The World Wide Web and FTP
The web space and public FTP space included with a dialup account may not be resold or used for adult-oriented material.DakotaCom.Net reserves the right to require that sites using web or FTP space which receive unreasonably high amounts of traffic be moved to other servers.
Web pages and FTP files may not contain any material, text, or images, whether hosted on DakotaCom.Net servers or "transclusioned" (images from another site displayed on the page) which violate or infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, statutory, common law, or proprietary rights of others. Web pages and FTP files may not contain links that initiate downloads of copyright-infringing or other illegal material. Those who believe users of DakotaCom.Net's services are infringing their copyrights must submit their complaints in writing to webmaster@DakotaCom.Net.
No material may be published by means of DakotaCom.Net that is illegal, libelous, tortuous, indecently depicts children or is likely to result in retaliation against DakotaCom.Net by offended users.\
Using the DakotaCom.Net network to solicit any illegal activity, regardless of whether the illegal activity is actually performed, is prohibited.
Internet Relay Chat/ Usenet
Any hosting, installing, or maintaining or use of bots over the DakotaCom.Net system is prohibited. Flooding, cloning, spoofing, harassment, or otherwise hindering the ability of others to properly use IRC/ Usenet is prohibited. Impersonating other users, advertising, and spamming via IRC/ Usenet is prohibited. Any use of IRC/Usenet that is in clear violation of the policies of that respective media is also a violation of this AUP.Servers and Proxies
Users may not run on DakotaCom.Net servers any program which makes a service or resource available to others, including but not limited to port redirectors, proxy servers, chat servers, MUDs, file servers, and IRC bots. Users may not run such programs on their own machines to make such services or resources available to others through a DakotaCom.Net dialup account; a dedicated access account is required for such purposes.Customers are responsible for the security of their own networks and machines, including servers stored on the DakotaCom.Net premises. DakotaCom.Net will assume neither responsibility nor accountability for failures or breach of customer-imposed protective measures, whether implied or actual. Abuse that occurs as a result of a compromised customer's system or account may result in suspension of services or account access by DakotaCom.Net and will be reported to the proper law enforcement authorities.
Any programs, scripts, or processes which generate excessive server load on DakotaCom.Net servers are prohibited and DakotaCom.Net reserves the right to terminate or suspend any such program, script, or process.
Any customer using one or more IP addresses not assigned by DakotaCom.Net will be suspended from the network until such IP addresses are corrected. Any customer spoofing a false IP address will be suspended from network access.
Storing files
It is prohibited to store on DakotaCom.Net's servers any program, utility or file that in use would constitute a violation of this policy or of US or state law. For example, it is a violation to store hacker scripts, IRC bots, or spamming software on DakotaCom.Net's servers. It is also a violation to store any media which in any way breaches US laws regulating child pornography or obscene materials. Federal and state laws make it a crime to produce, possess, distribute, or sell pornographic materials that exploit or portray a minor. Increasingly, child pornography laws are being utilized to punish use of computer technology and the Internet to obtain, share, and distribute pornographic material involving children, including images and films. Further, DakotaCom.Net disallows using DakotaCom.Net’s servers for hosting the commercial distribution of adult-oriented material including pornographic or otherwise obscene material as defined by the “Miller test” (Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15,1973).Disclaimer of Responsibility
DakotaCom.Net is under no duty to monitor user activity to determine if a violation of this AUP, including violation of any law, regulation, treaty, or tariff, has occurred. Furthermore, DakotaCom.Net does not assume any responsibility through the publication or creation of this AUP to monitor or police user activities or internet related activities. DakotaCom.Net disclaims any liabilities to itself caused by a user’s or users’ violation of this AUP.DakotaCom.Net makes no warranty or guarantee, express or implied, with respect to any services or products provided under this AUP. DakotaCom.Net expressly disclaims any implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. DakotaCom.Net shall not be liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, reliance or special damages, including without limitation damages for harm to business, lost profits, lost savings or lost revenues, whether or not DakotaCom.Net has been advised of the possibility of such damages.
DakotaCom.Net shall not be liable for unauthorized access by third parties to customer’s transmission facilities or premise equipment or for unauthorized access to or alteration, theft, loss or destruction of customer’s network, systems, applications, data files, programs, procedures or information through accident, fraudulent means or devices, or any other method.
*For the purpose of this AUP, the terms “customer” and “user” are used interchangeably. The use of the term “customer” applies to every person who uses DakotaCom.Net’s services regardless of the amount, if any, said customer pays for services. This AUP is non-exhaustive.
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