This Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) set forth the rules that govern the use of the systems, products and services provided by Strategic / Internet Access Cincinnati ("IAC"). This policy has been created to help ensure the reliability, security, integrity, and privacy of IAC systems and it’s networks as well as the systems and networks of our customers and others.

By subscribing and using IAC or an IAC service constitutes acceptance of this AUP. IAC reserves the right to modify this Acceptable Use Policy at any time without notice to the subscriber.

Questions about these policies can be directed to help@iac.net.

General Conduct
Electronic Mail (E-Mail) Practices
USENET (News) Practices
Dial-up / Shell Accounts
Hosted Web Sites
Technical Support
Accounts
Miscellaneous
Enforcement
Liability
Policy abuse claims

General Conduct

1. Transmitting on or through IAC’s systems, services, or products any material that is, in IAC’s sole discretion, unlawful, obscene, threatening, abusive, libelous, or hateful, or encourages conduct that would constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any locale, state, national, or international law.
2. The Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or any other statute. The IAC systems, services, and networks may be used only for lawful purposes.
3. The resale of IAC products and services is not permitted, unless specifically permitted and documented in a written agreement.
4. Actions that restrict or inhibit any Person, whether a customer of IAC or otherwise, in its use of any of IAC’s systems, products or services.
5. Deceptive on-line marketing practices.
6. Furnishing false information on the signup form, contract, or on-line application, including fraudulent use of credit card numbers. Such conduct is ground for immediate termination and may subject the offender to civil or criminal liability.
7. Attempting to circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network or account ("cracking"). This includes but not limited to, accessing data not intended for the customer, logging into a server or account the customer is not expressly authorized to access, or probing the security of other networks.
8. Attempting to interfere with service to any user, host or network ("denial of service attacks"). This includes but not limited to, "flooding" of networks, deliberate attempts to overload a service, and attempts to "crash" a host.
9. Interfering with the operation of the system or networks of IAC or any other network is prohibited.

IAC will cooperate fully with investigations of system or network security at other sites, including cooperating with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations.

Electronic Mail (E-Mail) Practices

1. Sending unsolicited mail messages, including, without limitation, commercial advertising and informational announcements, is explicitly prohibited. Such information may only be sent to those who explicitly requested such material in advance. In addition a previous recipient who asked for such information and then requests to be removed must be removed from future mailings.
2. UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email) or spam clean up fee. IAC currently charges a rate of $120 per hour (one hour minimum) to the account responsible for the UCE to deal with the problems it creates such as complaints and clogged mail servers.
3. Using an IAC address or IAC hosted website to collect responses/removal requests from unsolicited commercial e-mail is prohibited.
4. Creating or the forwarding of chain letters of any type, whether the recipient wishes to receive such mailings.
5. Harassment, whether through but not limited to language, or frequency, is prohibited.
6. The use of another networks mail server to relay mail without the express permission of that site is prohibited.
7. The forging of mail header information is prohibited.
8. Willful failure to secure open SMTP ports so as to prevent the unauthorized use of customer resources for the purposes of sending unsolicited E-Mail by a third party. The customer agrees that if there is evidence of third party relaying occurring through their systems that IAC may suspend outbound SMTP service until the customers SMTP server in question is secured. This is done to protect both you the subscriber and IAC networks. Remote networks are known to simply ban traffic from networks with open mail relays not wanting to deal with the headaches. That ban can sometimes be difficult to get removed or to know it even exists until another comminication attempt is made to that network. Network administrators please contact help@iac.net with any questions you may have.

USENET (News) Practices

1. Postings to USENET newsgroups must comply with the written charters or FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) for those newsgroups. Advertisements should only be posted in those newsgroups whose charter/FAQ explicitly permits them. The poster is responsible for determining the etiquette of a given newsgroup, prior to posting articles.
2. Customers are prohibited from posting the same or similar message to large numbers of newsgroups. IAC reserves the right to limit the number of newsgroups an article can be cross-posted to.
3. Posting chain letters of any type is prohibited.
4. Customers are prohibited from posting encoded binary files to newsgroups not specifically named for that purpose.
5. Canceling or superseding posts other than your own are prohibited, with the exception of official newsgroup moderators performing their duties.
6. Customers are prohibited from forging header information. This includes but is not limited to, attempts to circumvent the approval process for posting to a moderated group.
7. Posting harassing messages whether through , frequency or language is prohibited.

Actions by Dial-up / Shell Accounts

1. Multiple logins into IAC’s dialup ports is prohibited.
2. Shell account users may not run programs that provide network services from their accounts. These include but are not limited to IRC or MUD servers.
3. Running programs on the shell server while not logged in is prohibited. This includes but is not limited to running IRC bots.
4. Consuming excessive resources, including but not limited to disk space, memory, or CPU time. The use of resource intensive programs that impact the performance of any IAC server is prohibited. Such action may cause the termination of the program.
5. Sharing passwords or accounts is prohibited. Allowing others access to your account(s) for such activities such as web site development is permitted.
6. Dial-up accounts are Unlimited Interactive Usage Accounts. Meaning you may use the service as much as you want as long as it is interactively. Simply someone must be physically at the device originating the dial-up connection and using the Internet or IAC network services. Dial-up accounts are not to be used as dedicated accounts.
7. Dial-up accounts may not provide network services such as FTP, SMTP, or WWW, those types of accounts are available. This type of usage falls outside the Unlimited Interactive Usage policy.
8. Dial-up users of any class of service shall not run programs that circumvent idle timeouts. Currently IAC defines being idle as 20 or more minutes of inactivity. IAC reserves the right to change this definition of an idle session. IAC reserves the right to terminate a connection with or without activity as well as limit the length of a dial-up session. If you require a constant connection please contact our sales department for a dedicated connection.

Hosted Web Sites

1. Consuming excessive resources, including but not limited to bandwidth, disk space, memory, or CPU time. The use of resource intensive programs that impact the performance of the any IAC server is prohibited. Such action may cause the termination/suspension of the program.
2. Personal web sites (for example http://www.iac.net/~username) are not to be used to host commercial web sites.
3. Bandwidth. Commercial or Personal websites do NOT include unlimited bandwidth. Please see the products page for the current bandwidth levels included with the accounts.

Technical Support

1. IAC provides free account related technical support via the phone, e-mail, and web site. In some cases a customer may be directed to consult our support web site for instructions. A lot of times this methods may be needed to convey setup information or a more visual representation to assist you better.
2. Free technical support is not provided via phone or e-mail on the use of any operating system or the creation/trouble-shooting of web pages (including CGI). The support website does have links to information to other websites that may be able to assist you with those questions (it is still unsupported though). Pay per incident or by contract support for these types of problems is available.
3. IAC technical support is only available for services provided by IAC. We cannot provide support for other services that are not provided by IAC. If you have troubles with outside services please contact that services technical support as they will be able to assist you better.

Accounts

1. It shall be the responsibility of the subscriber to keep IAC informed of any changes in the subscribers billing address.
2. It shall be the responsibility of the subscriber to, on a regular basis check their E-Mail stored on IAC systems. The subscriber may opt to have that IAC E-Mail address forwarded to another valid E-Mail address. The subscriber must keep the e-mail forward up to date. This is to allow IAC a fast means to communicate with you about your account, service upgrades, and other vital information. In addition to E-Mail general service alerts will also be made available at http://www.iac.net/notices.
3. The Subscriber agrees to pay all applicable taxes, however designated, imposed or based on the sale of IAC Services.
4. The Subscriber certifies that he or she is at least 18 years of age.
5. IAC is not responsible for any long-distance charges incurred when using our services. Please check with your phone provider first to ensure that calling any of our access numbers is a local call.
6. LIMITED WARRANTY. IAC WARRANTS THAT, IF A SUBSCRIBER IS NOT SATISFIED WITH THE LIMITED WARRANTY. IAC SERVICE, IAC WILL, UPON NOTIFICATION FROM THE SUBSCRIBER TO IAC, REFUND THE SERVICE FEES FOR ANY PREPAID FEES OR FUTURE MONTHS, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE CURRENT MONTH AND/OR INCLUDING ANY SETUP FEES INCLUDING ASSOCIATED HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE, UNPAID DEBT, OR PENALTIES INCURRED BY THE SUBSCRIBER. SUBSCRIBERS HOLDING LONG TERM, PRE-PAID CONTRACTS WITH IAC WILL BE SUBJECT TO AN EARLY CANCELLATION PENALTY EQUALING 25% OF THE REFUNDED AMOUNT. OTHER THAN THE FOREGOING, NO WARRANTY IS MADE BY IAC REGARDING ANY INFORMATION, SERVICES OR PRODUCTS PROVIDED THROUGH, IN CONNECTION WITH, OR LOCATED ON THE COMPUTER SYSTEMS OF THE INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE OR OTHER SERVICES PROVIDED BY IAC, AND IAC HEREBY EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION: 1) ANY WARRANTIES AS TO THE AVAILABILITY, ACCURACY, OR CONTENT OF INFORMATION, PRODUCTS, OR SERVICES; AND 2) ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
7. LIMITED LIABILITY. ANY LIABILITY OF IAC, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES CAUSED OR ALLEGEDLY CAUSED BY ANY FORCE/MAJEUR, FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE, ERROR, OMISSION, INTERRUPTION, DELETION, DEFECT, DELAY IN OPERATION OR TRANSMISSION, COMMUNICATIONS LINE FAILURE, THEFT OR DESTRUCTION OF OR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO, ALTERATION OF, OR USE OF RECORDS, WHETHER FOR BREACH OF CONTRACT, TORTIOUS BEHAVIOR, NEGLIGENCE, OR UNDER ANY OTHER CAUSE OF ACTION, SHALL BE STRICTLY LIMITED TO THE AMOUNT PAID BY OR ON BEHALF OF THE SUBSCRIBER TO IAC FOR THE CURRENT MONTH.

Miscellaneous

• IAC is not responsible for the content of but not limited to any USENET postings, E-Mail, or web site.

• IAC at its discretion reserves the right to remove materials from it’s servers and to terminate all access to customers that have violated this Acceptable Use Policy.

• Internet Access Cincinnati does not sell, rent, loan, trade, or lease any personal information or email addresses to third parties. Your privacy is highly respected and important to us. Please see our privacy statement for more information.

Enforcement

IAC may, at its discretion, suspend or terminate a customer’s service for violation of any part of the Acceptable Use Policy.

In nearly all cases IAC will make attempts to work with the customer to correct the violation and to see that there isn’t a reoccurrence of the violation.

Liability

In no event will IAC be liable to any customer or third party for any direct, indirect, special or other consequential damages for actions taken pursuant to this Acceptable Use Policy. Including, but not limited to, business interruption, loss of data, lost profits, or otherwise, even if IAC was advised of the possibility of such damages.

Policy abuse claims

Complaints regarding abusive conduct may be reported by email to abuse@iac.net. Please read further to insure a proper response and action to your problem.

When reporting a complaint it is important to to include all relevant information. For example when reporting a UCE (spam) complaint make sure to include the entire message as well as the full headers (not just the from and to line). Failure to do so may result in delay or worse no action being taken. When sending a complaint make sure you include the evidence as to why you are sending a complaint. If you need help with forming such a report please contact your local technical support as we only provide such support to our customers.

Being abusive in complaints is not appreciated as we understand the problem and will work to correct it from occuring again. Thank you for your understanding.