AUP
Acceptable Use Policy

Introduction

The AUP is a description of the types of activities that are not allowed on Data-Xata’s network and as such forms part of Our Hosting Terms. Data-Xata reserves the right to require changes or disable, as necessary, any website, account, database, or other component that does not comply with its established policies, or to make any such modifications in an emergency at its sole discretion. To meet the changing needs of our customers, our business, the Internet environment and the legal landscape, this AUP may be revised at any time and we encourage our customers to review this AUP regularly. If you feel you have discovered a violation of any area of our AUP please report it to: abuse@data-xata.com

Spam

1.0 Data-Xata has a zero tolerance SPAM policy.

1.1 Sending unsolicited commercial communication (including, but not limited to email, instant messaging, SMS, chat rooms, discussion boards and newsgroups) is not permitted via Data-Xata's network.

1.2 Regardless of how the recipient’s email address was acquired, if email communication was not explicitly requested or consented to by the recipient or if the recipient would not expect to receive it as a result of an existing relationship, the communication is considered unsolicited (this applies to communication sent to both personal email addresses and company email addresses e.g. abuse@data-xata.com). Email communication that does not clearly originate from a consensual sender or which appears to come from a 3rd party or affiliate is considered unsolicited.

Examples of unsolicited communication: Purchased mailing lists, “safe lists” and harvesting of email addresses, where the users of those email addresses have not explicitly agreed to receive communication from a specified consensual sender is considered unsolicited. Sending emails where the recipient must opt-out of receiving further emails that they didn’t originally request is considered unsolicited. Sending a once-off invitation to receive further information, which was not explicitly requested or consented to by the recipient is considered unsolicited. Email communication to a mailing list including addresses of unwilling recipients or a recipient who has indicated that they wish to be removed from such list, yet continues to receive unwanted emails after a reasonable period, is considered unsolicited.

1.3 Mailing list operators should maintain meaningful records of recipient requests and their consent to receive said email communications. There should also be an option for the recipient to unsubscribe from receiving further email communications

1.4 When Data-Xata receives a spam complaint, in order to establish if the communication was unsolicited, we may ask you to verify whether the recipient agreed to receive communications from you and if so, when and where you recorded their email address.

1.5 Data-Xata reserves the right to suspend or terminate the account of any user who sends out unsolicited email otherwise known as Spam with or without notice in accordance with its General Terms and Conditions.

1.6 As a Data-Xata customer, should you infringe this policy, you will be held liable for any costs incurred by Data-Xata, both monetary and in reputation. Data-Xata reserves the right to charge the customer of the account used to send any unsolicited email a clean-up fee or any charges incurred for blacklist removal. This cost of the clean-up fee is entirely at the discretion of Data-Xata.

The use of any other service for the purposes of sending SPAM with any reference to Data-Xata services (including but not limited to mailboxes, autoresponders, and Web pages), will also be grounds for suspension/termination as described above. If your website was compromised and exploited for the purpose of sending unsolicited communications, Data-Xata will be more lenient in resolving the issue. However, repeat exploitations of the same website and/or customer account would be grounds for suspension/termination.

Offensive Content

Data-Xata does not allow any of the following content or links to such content, to be published on its Hosting Systems: Content of a pornographic, sexually explicit or violent nature. “Hate” sites or content that could be reasonably considered as discriminatory in any way including by way of sex, race or age discrimination.

2.1 Content of an illegal nature (including stolen copyrighted material).

2.2 Content that is defamatory or violates a person’s privacy.

2.3 Content that involves theft, fraud, drug-trafficking, money laundering or terrorism.

2.4 Pirated software sites.

2.5 Illegal gambling sites.

2.6 If Data-Xata in its sole discretion determines that any customer content violates any law, including the Film and Publications Act, 65 of 1966 or this policy, it may:

2.6.1 Request the customer to immediately remove such content; and/or Require the customer to modify such content; and/or Without notice, suspend or terminate access to any services; and/or Without notice, delete the offending content; and/or

Notify the relevant authorities of the existence of such content (if required by law or otherwise), make any backup, archive or other copies of such material as may be required by such authorities, disclose such elements of the customer’s data as may be requested by the authorities and take such further steps as may be required by such authorities.

2.7 not to use Data-Xata services to host any website, other content, links or advertisements of websites that: infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other proprietary rights of any third party information; contain nudity, pornography or other content deemed adult related; profess hatred for particular social, ethnical, religious or other group; contain viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, corrupted files, or any other similar software or programs that may damage the operation of a computer or a person's property; contain warez; contain any kind of proxy server or other traffic relaying programs; promote money making schemes, multi-level marketing or similar activities; contain lottery, gambling, casino; contain torrent trackers, torrent Portals or similar software; violent or encouraging violence.

2.8 not to upload unacceptable material which include: IRC bots, warez, image, file storage, mirror, or banner-ad services, topsites, streaming, Escrow, High-Yield Interest Programs (HYIP) or related sites, investment sites (FOREX, E-Gold Exchange, etc), bitcoin miners, sale of any controlled substances without providing proof of appropriate permit(s) in advance, AutoSurf sites, Bank Debentures, Bank Debenture Trading Programs, Prime Banks Programs, lottery sites, muds / rpg's, hate sites, hacking focused sites/archives/programs, or sites promoting illegal activities, IP Scanners, Brute Force Programs, Mail Bombers and Spam Scripts.

2.9 not to engage in or to instigate actions that cause harm to Data-Xata or other customers. Such actions include, but are not limited to, actions resulting in blacklisting any of Our IPs by the any online spam database, actions resulting in DDOS attacks for any servers, etc. Data-Xata reserves the right to refuse service to anyone upon Our discretion. Any material that in Data-Xata judgment, is either obscene or threatening is strictly prohibited and will be removed from Data-Xata servers immediately with or without prior notice and may lead to possible warning, suspension or immediate account termination with no refund. You agree that We have the sole right to decide what constitutes a violation of the acceptable policy use described above as well as what is the appropriate severity of any corrective action to be applied. In the event that a violation of Our Acceptable Use Policy is found, Data-Xata will take corrective action upon our own discretion and will notify You. Data-Xata decision in such case is binding and final, and cannot be a subject of a further change. Data-Xata cannot and shall not be liable for any loss or damage arising from Our measures against actions causing harm to Data-Xata or any other third party. We have the right to terminate each and any hosting account that has been suspended for any reason for more than 14 calendar days after the suspension date, unless You has taken corrective measures to remove the initial suspension threat or violation. Any backup copies of the hosting account will be permanently deleted upon termination and no refund will be due. Data-Xata will not be liable for any loss or damages in such cases.

2.10 not to violate the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008 or similar legislation, or promote, encourage or engage in the sale or distribution of prescription medication without a valid prescription.

At its discretion, Data-Xata can remove any content we determine to be prohibited by this agreement or our Terms and Conditions. No backups will be kept of removed content.

Server side processes

The installation or operation of any stand-alone, unattended server-side process (daemons) on Data-Xata servers, with the exception of cron jobs as per point 4 above, is not possible. Violation of this policy will result in immediate account termination without warning. This is not applicable to Data-Xata's Dedicated servers, providing that it does not interfere with Data-Xata's ability to manage the server on the customer’s behalf.

3.1 This policy exists for several reasons:

3.1.1 To protect the CPU and memory resources available on each server.

3.2.2 To protect and enhance system security by not allowing unapproved third-party programs to accept connections from the outside world

Internet Abuse

4.1 Unauthorised access to or use of data, services, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network or to break security or authentication measures without express authorisation of the owner of the system or network;

4.2 Monitoring data or traffic on any network or system without the authorisation of the owner of the system or network;

4.3 Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks;

4.4 Use of an Internet account or computer without the owner’s authorisation;

4.5 Collecting information by deceit, including, but not limited to Internet scamming (tricking other people into releasing their passwords), password robbery, phishing, security hole scanning, and port scanning;

4.6 Use of Data-Xata's service to distribute software that covertly gathers information about a user or covertly transmits information about the user;

4.7 Any activity or conduct that is likely to result in retaliation against our network;

4.8 Any activity or conduct that is likely to be in breach of any applicable laws, codes or regulations including the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 (see ECT Act) which renders you liable to a fine or imprisonment;

4.9 Introducing intentionally or knowingly into Data-Xata's service any virus or other contaminating program or fail to use an up to date virus-scanning program on all material downloaded from the Web;

4.10 Forging email or other messages is forbidden. Trafficking in pirated software is forbidden. Port scanning or the use of similar tools is forbidden.

4.11 Use of Data-Xata services to publish or otherwise disseminate information about the availability of pirated software or other material that is being made available illegally, including the publication of a list of links to such material, regardless of disclaimers, is specifically forbidden. We do not condone any illegal material or behaviour.

Compliance with the acceptable use policies of any network or system with which you connect through our service is required. If inappropriate activity is detected, all accounts of the user in question will be deactivated until the investigation is complete. Prior notification to the user is not assured. In extreme cases, law enforcement will be contacted regarding the activity.

Security

Data-Xata customers must take reasonable security precautions. Negligence could result in the hacking of websites as well as compromised mailboxes due to vulnerable PCs, website software or the use of weak passwords, which could affect other Data-Xata customers through blacklisting, phishing or spamming.

5.1 It is the customer’s responsibility to ensure that scripts/programs installed under their account are secure (using the latest version) and permissions of directories are set properly, regardless of installation method. Users are ultimately responsible for all actions taken under their account. This includes the compromise of credentials such as user name and password. It is required that customers use a secure password. If a password is found to be weak, Data-Xata will notify the user and allow time for the user to change/update the password. Failure to make a password change that inadvertently leads to the website being compromised could result in the user’s account being suspended / terminated.

5.2 Passwords should consist of at least 11 mixed alpha and numeric characters with case variations. Customers should not use a common word as a password and should change their passwords regularly. In the event of abuse Data-Xata reserves the right to reset a password.

IP Address

Data-Xata assigns to You an Internet Protocol ("IP") address in connection with Your use of the Data-Xata services. The right to use that IP address will remain with and belong only to Data-Xata, and You will have no right to use that IP address except as allowed by Data-Xata in its sole and absolute discretion.

Trademark or Copyright Claims

Data-xata is a service provider and respects the copyrights and other intellectual property rights of others [and herein incorporates its Copyright Infringement Policy]. To the extent Data-Xata receives a proper notice of infringement of copyright, trademark or other intellectual property, Data-Xata reserves the right to access, preserve and disclose to third parties any of Your information or data (including personally identifiable information and private communications) related to a written complaint of infringement if Data-xata believes in its sole discretion that such access, preservation, or disclosure is necessary or useful to respond to or otherwise address such complaint.

Data-Xata expressly reserves the right to terminate in appropriate circumstances an account or the access rights of a subscriber for repeated copyright infringement. Data-Xata also reserve the right to terminate an account or subscriber for even one instance of infringement.

7.1 Proper notice of infringement shall include the following information in writing to Data-Xata's designated agent:

7.1.1 the electronic or physical signature of the rights holder or the person authorized to act on behalf of that person;

7.1.2 identification of the work that has been infringed;

7.1.3 an identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing, and information reasonably sufficient to permit Data-Xata to locate the material (for example, by providing a URL to the material); or, if applicable, identification of the reference or link to material or activity claimed to be infringing, and information reasonably sufficient to permit Data-Xata to locate that reference or link;

7.1.4 Your name, address, telephone number, and email address;

7.1.5 a statement by You that You have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the rights holder, its agent, or the law; and a statement that the information in Your notification is accurate and a statement, made under penalty of perjury, that You are the rights holder or are authorized to act on the behalf of the rights holder.

7.1.6 Notice of infringement must be sent to Data-Xata's designated agent to receive notification of claimed infringement as follows: Attn: Legal Department, Data-Xata, Sepapaja 6, 15551 Tallinn, Eesti Registrikood 14196337.

Additional Reservation of Rights

Data-Xata expressly reserves the right to deny, cancel, terminate, suspend, lock, or modify access to (or control of) any account or any Services (including the right to cancel or transfer any domain name registration) for any reason (as determined by Data-Xata in its sole and absolute discretion), including but not limited to the following: (i) to correct mistakes made by Data-Xata in offering or delivering any Services (including any domain name registration); (ii) to protect the integrity and stability of, and correct mistakes made by, any domain name registry; (iii) to assist with our fraud and abuse detection and prevention efforts; (iv) to comply with applicable local, state, national and international laws, rules and regulations; (v) to comply with requests of law enforcement, including subpoena requests; (vi) to comply with any dispute resolution process; (vii) to defend any legal action or threatened legal action without consideration for whether such legal action or threatened legal action is eventually determined to be with or without merit, or (viii) to avoid any civil or criminal liability on the part of Data-Xata, its officers, directors, employees and agents, as well as Data-Xata's affiliates.

In the event that Data-Xata need exercise any of its rights expressed herein to investigate any potential breach or violation of the terms and conditions of this Agreement, service fees may continue to accrue on your accounts, and you will continue to remain responsible for the payment of any service fees that accrue during the relevant period.