General
Notice
Thank
you for reading ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD'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/legal department at 011-477-0135.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD confirms that in compliance
with section 72 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions
Act 25 of 2002, ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD
cannot be held liable if you make any unlawful use of any multimedia
content accessed through the search facility provided by ALTO
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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, ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS
(PTY) LTD will assist foreign law enforcement agencies (LEA) in
the investigation and prosecution of a crime committed using ALTO
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’s resources, including
the provisioning of all personal identifiable data.
Prohibited Activities
The following sections outline activities that are considered
an unacceptable use of ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD'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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’s network is unacceptable.
This includes:
–
Any efforts to attempt to gain unlawful and unauthorized access
to the network or circumvent any of the security measures established
by ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD for this goal;
– Any effort to use ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD'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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD through "denial
of service attacks"; flooding of a network, or overloading
a service or any unauthorized 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 unauthorized monitoring of data or traffic on the
network without ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD'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 ALTO
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD, you acknowledge that ALTO NETWORK
COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD network websites
and web pages or sites displayed as search results or contained
within a directory of links on the ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS
(PTY) LTD 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.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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.
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. ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY)
LTD 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;
4. Using ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’s name
in the header or by listing an IP address that belongs to ALTO
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD in any unsolicited email sent
through ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’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 utilized 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. ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS
(PTY) LTD 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. ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD also reserves
the right to examine the mail servers of any users using ALTO
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’s mail servers for "smarthosting"
(when the user relays its mail off a ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS
(PTY) LTD 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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’s
privacy policy.
Email & Webmail Services
Email, Webmail and other email services made available by ALTO
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD are provided on an "as is"
basis without representations, warranties or conditions of any
kind, and the customer acknowledges and agrees that ALTO NETWORK
COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD shall have no responsibility for, or
liability in respect of, any aspect of email services, including
without limitation for any lost or damaged data or any acts or
omissions of ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD. Although ALTO
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD runs server side virus scanning
on its mail servers, ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD does
not accept any responsibility and cannot be held liable in any
way in the event that a users machine is infected with a virus.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD strongly recommends that
all Internet users install virus protection software on their
home and business machines and that they keep their virus software
current. The user is solely responsible for ensuring that his
home / office computer is protected against all viruses.
Protection of Minors
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD prohibits customers from
using ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’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
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS
(PTY) LTD’s services that occurs through the customer’s
account. It is the customer’s responsibility to ensure that
unauthorized persons do not gain access to or misuse ALTO NETWORK
COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’s service.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS
(PTY) LTD cannot be held liable for the Customer being placed
on any bulk mailing lists as a result.
Where the customer has authorized a minor to use any of the ALTO
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’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 too transactions entered into by the
minor using such access.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD network. Further, ALTO NETWORK
COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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 25 of 2002 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY)
LTD’s has designated the Internet Service Provider’s
Association as the agent to receive notifications of infringements
For
further details contact the Internet Service Providers' Association
–
Postal address: PO Box 3423, Parklands, 2121
– Physical address: 11 Coetzee Street,
Minnebron, Brakpan
– Voice: +27 11 314 7751
– Fax: +27 11 678 2097
– Email: takedown@ispa.org.za
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 familiarize yourselves
with this code.
Complaints and procedures
It is the customer’s responsibility to familiarize himself
or herself with the procedure set out below and report any cases
of violation of this AUP to ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY)
LTD’s designated complaints handling agent.
Please note that ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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 ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD discourages anonymous complaints
being made via this service, and urge 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,
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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 both 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 legal 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
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD reserves the right to amend
or alter this policy at any time, and without notice to you.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD reserves the right to monitor
user and network traffic for site security purposes and prevent
any unauthorized attempts to tamper with our site or cause damage
to our property.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD reserves the right to suspend,
revoke or cancel ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’s
services to the customer/user if the safety and integrity of ALTO
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’s resources are placed
at risk in continuing to provide service to the subscriber/user.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD reserves the right to remove
any information or materials in whole or in part, that, in ALTO
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD’s sole discretion, deems
to be offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD does not undertake to guarantee
the security of any data passing through its networks. Although
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD 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 ALTO
NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD cannot be held liable for any
loss or damage arising as result of the failure to do so.
ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS (PTY) LTD does not waive its right
to enforcement of this AUP at any time, or prejudice its right
to take subsequent action, should ALTO NETWORK COMMUNICATIONS
(PTY) LTD fail, neglect or elect not to enforce a breach of the
AUP at any time.
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