General Notice
Thank you for reading Yuppy Connect’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 of South Africa; to specify to customers and users of our service/website what activities and online behavior 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.
Yuppy Connect 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.
Acceptable and Fair Data Usage
Yuppy Connect reserves the right to establish policies, rules and limitations concerning the use of any of its services. Subscribers must comply with any bandwidth capacity management measures, data usage and/or transfer protocol management measures or other limitations, which Yuppy Connect may impose from time to time. Failure to comply with these rules may result in the Subscribers service being restricted, suspended or terminated, at Yuppy Connect’s reasonable discretion.
Yuppy Connect reserves the right to manage its network, any IP Services and/or network services to optimize its efficiency for the benefit of all its Subscribers. Management will be done in the form of:
- Rate limiting (speed);
- Transfer protocol filtering and/or limiting (e.g. throttling bit torrents);
- Rejecting or removing spam or otherwise unsolicited bulk e-mail, anti-virus mechanisms, etc. or;
- Taking any other action deemed appropriate in order to help ensure the security of the network and IP Services to help ensure the integrity of the network experience for all Subscribers.
Yuppy Connect will manage bandwidth usage to the best of its ability during peak periods, however, it remains a best effort service.
Yuppy Connect reserves the right to limit the number of emails that Subscribers may send in any given period or to limit the total message volume (amount of data) sent per hour.
Subscribers may not create place an unusually large burden on any of the wholesale networks Yuppy Connect is using, including, without limitation, continuously uploading or downloading streaming video or audio; continuous FTP uploading or downloading, or otherwise generating levels of traffic sufficient to impede others’ ability to send or retrieve information, or to use the services in an abusive manner in connection with any unlimited or uncapped packages, options or promotions.
Subscribers may not use the service for unattended automated operation, unless otherwise agreed. Subscribers may stay connected as long as you are actively using that connection. Subscribers further agree not to use Internet applications for the purpose of simulating network activity to avoid session inactivity disconnections.
Subscribers may not resell any services, receive any charge or benefit for the use of any services or provide Internet access or any other feature of the services to any third party or in any other way exploit the service for any commercial purposes. For example, a Subscriber cannot provide Internet access to others through an ADSL, fibre, wireless or other connection, host shell accounts over the Internet, provide e-mail or news services, or send a news feed.
Code of Conduct
Yuppy Connect confirms that it has adopted and implemented the official Code of Conduct of the ISPA (Internet Service Provider’s Association), which can be viewed at http://www.ispa.org.za/code-of-conduct.
Unlawful Use
Yuppy Connect’ 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 of South Africa. This includes:
- 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.
- Any activity designed to defame, abuse, stalk, harass or physically threaten any individual in the Republic of South Africa or beyond its borders; including any attempt to link to, post, transmit or otherwise distribute any inappropriate or defamatory material.
- Any violation of Intellectual Property laws including materials protected by local and international copyright, trademarks and trade secrets. Moreover Yuppy Connect cannot be held liable if you make any unlawful use of any multimedia content accessed through the search facility provided by Yuppy Connect’ network, or otherwise available through access to our network, whether for commercial or non commercial purposes.
- Any violation of the individual’s right to privacy, including any effort to collect personal data of third parties without their consent.
- 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 Yuppy Connect’ on behalf of another subscriber without their consent.
- Any violation of the exchange control laws of the Republic of South Africa.
- Any activity that results in the sale, transmission or distribution of pirated or illegal software.
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 of South Africa, 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, Yuppy Connect’ will assist foreign law enforcement agencies (LEA) in the investigation and prosecution of a crime committed using Yuppy Connect’ resources, including the provisioning of all personal identifiable data.
Prohibited Activities
The following sections outline activities that are considered an unacceptable use of Yuppy Connect’ 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 Yuppy Connect’ network is unacceptable. This includes:
- Any efforts to attempt to gain unlawful and unauthorised access to the network or circumvent any of the security measures established by Yuppy Connect for this goal;
- Any effort to use Yuppy Connect’ 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 Yuppy Connect 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 unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on the network without Yuppy Connect’ 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 Yuppy Connect, you acknowledge that Yuppy Connect’ has no power to control the content of the information passing over the Internet and its applications, including voice conversations, e-mail; chat rooms; news groups; or other similar fora, and that Yuppy Connect cannot be held responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any of the above mentioned 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 Yuppy Connect network websites and web pages or sites displayed as search results or contained within a directory of links on the Yuppy Connect 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. Yuppy Connect 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.
Protection of Minors
Yuppy Connect’ prohibits customers from using Yuppy Connect’ 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.
Privacy and Confidentiality
Yuppy Connect’ 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 Yuppy Connect’ services that occurs through the customer’s account. It is the customer’s responsibility to ensure that unauthorised persons do not gain access to or misuse Yuppy Connect’ service.
Where the customer has authorised a minor to use any of the Yuppy Connect’ 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 to transactions entered into by the minor using such access.
Yuppy Connect’ 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 Yuppy Connect’ network. Further, Yuppy Connect’ 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
Yuppy Connect’ confirms that it has a procedure in place for the notice and take-down of illegal material. The notice and take-down procedure can be viewed at http://www.ispa.org.za/code-of-conduct.
Action following breach of the AUP
Upon receipt of a complaint, or having become aware of an incident, Yuppy Connect 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 all 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 criminal 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
- Yuppy Connect’ reserves the right to amend or alter this policy at any time, with 30 (thirty) days notice to you.
- Yuppy Connect 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.
- Yuppy Connect 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.
- Yuppy Connect reserves the right to monitor user and network traffic for site security purposes and prevent any unauthorised attempts to tamper with our site or cause damage to our property.
- Yuppy Connect reserves the right to suspend, revoke or cancel Yuppy Connect’ services to the customer/user if the safety and integrity of Yuppy Connect’ resources are placed at risk in continuing to provide service to the subscriber/user.
- Yuppy Connect reserves the right to remove any information or materials in whole or in part, that, in Yuppy Connect’ sole discretion, is deemed to be offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable. Yuppy Connect does not undertake to guarantee the security of any data passing through its networks.
- Yuppy Connect does not waive its right to enforcement of this AUP at any time, or prejudice its right to take subsequent action, should Yuppy Connect fail, neglect or elect not to enforce a breach of the AUP at any time.
