Responsiveness to the Community 
[Home][Services][Contact Us][Support][Members Only]


 

Acceptable Use Policy

Goals

BerkshireNet's goals are to protect network resources, preserve the privacy and security of BerkshireNet and our customers' networks, and maximize the utility of BerkshireNet and the Internet, while recognizing BerkshireNet's position in the Internet community as a whole.

Interpretation

The provisions of this Policy are intended as guidelines and are not meant to be exhaustive.

Generally, conduct that violates law, regulation, or the accepted norms of the Internet community, whether or not expressly mentioned in this Policy, is prohibited. BerkshireNet reserves the right at all times to prohibit activities that damage its commercial reputation and goodwill.

Security

Any "denial of service" attacks, any attempt to breach authentication or security measures, or any unauthorized attempt to gain access to any other account, host or network is prohibited, and will result in immediate service termination, which may be without notice.

Any account that has it's password passed via email will be considered to be a compromised account. To prevent a possible security problem, the password must be changed immediately or the account will stay inactive until the customer calls to do so.

E-mail and Usenet News

Using any BerkshireNet account or server to send duplicative, unsolicited e-mail messages (commercial or otherwise), or to collect the responses from unsolicited e-mail, is prohibited.

Similarly, using any BerkshireNet account or server to post advertisements or messages that violate the charter of any newsgroup or mailing list is prohibited.

BerkshireNet reserves the right to make the determination whether a given message violates the newsgroup or mailing list charter. In most cases BerkshireNet will defer to the judgment of the newsgroup or mailing list moderator or administrator.

Commercial messages that are appropriate under the charter of a newsgroup or mailing list, or that are expressly solicited by the recipients, are permitted.

Conduct in connection with e-mail or Usenet news that is an obvious nuisance (such as "mail bombing") or that would be unlawful in other contexts (for example, threats, harassment, defamation, obscenity, or software piracy) is prohibited.

Most accounts have 20 MB of storage allowed on our servers for their account. If your mail and/or other files exceed this level, you will be warned. Should the account space remain at more than 20 MB for an extended period, an additional storage fee may apply ($1 per 1 MB). Also, any mail left on the system for 30 days or more is candidate for removal at our discretion.

IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

Using programs that interfere with others' use, or running an IRC robot, on any IRC server is prohibited. When logged into any IRC server, users are expected to comply with the rules and policies established by the server's administrator.

Account Usage

BerkshireNet dialup accounts are for active use only. We reserve the right to disconnect any connection to our servers active for more than 24 hours or Idle for more than 20 minutes. Users that are abusive to the system or to the staff may have their accounts terminated.

Selling Internet accounts on a dialup account is prohibited. This includes Web sites, FTP sites, shell accounts and dialup accounts.

Each account is allowed a certain amount of usage per month. If your usage exceeds what is allowed per month, each additional hour of usage is billed at 99 cents for peak hours (10am - 10pm) and 49 cents per hour for off-peak time (10pm - 10am).

It is the customer's responsibility to be aware of which account they signed up for, and what terms apply for that account. If you are not sure which terms apply to your account, you may review them here.

* A dialup account is intended for usage by a single person or entity. Multiple simultaneous logins on a single account is subject to either account termination or having the account charged for the largest number of simultaneous logins on record at our sole discretion.

Forgery of Identity

Falsifying addressing information or otherwise modifying headers to conceal the sender's or recipient's identity, for the purpose of circumventing this Policy, is prohibited. This provision is not intended to disallow the use of aliases or anonymous remailers for any legitimate purpose.

Copyright, Privacy, and Intellectual Property

Using a BerkshireNet connection to commit, aid or abet any violation of copyright or intellectual property law is prohibited.

This prohibition includes publishing a private e-mail message to third parties, by any means, without the express prior consent of the author.

The e-mail addresses of BerkshireNet subscribers are not for sale or commercial distribution to third parties without the express prior consent of the subscriber.

Broadcast Echo Requests (Smurf Attacks)

BerkshireNet is committed to implementing the configuration required to ensure that BerkshireNet infrastructure cannot be used as the host of smurf attacks.

BerkshireNet Customer Support is working with all customers on BerkshireNet to ensure that their networks cannot be used as amplifiers for Broadcast Echo Requests.

Cooperation with Other Providers


Using BerkshireNet's facilities to engage in activities that violate the Terms of Service of any other network access provider is prohibited. For example, sending unsolicited commercial e-mail through BerkshireNet's facilities to the subscribers of any Internet or online service provider that disallows unsolicited commercial e-mail is prohibited.

Consequences of Violation

Violation of this Policy by a BerkshireNet customer may result in temporary suspension or permanent termination of service, at BerkshireNet's sole discretion.

BerkshireNet does not issue service credits for any outages incurred through service disablement resulting from Policy violations.

Any legal or technical costs incurred by BerkshireNet through violation of either its Acceptable Use Policy or its Terms of Service will be solely born by the client whose actions caused those expenses.

Modification

BerkshireNet reserves the right to add, delete, or modify any provision of this Policy at any time without notice.

Please send reports of any activity in violation of this Policy to:

abuse@berkshire.net


[Back to Top]