Acceptable Use Policy
for hosting services
1. DEFINITIONS
1.1
"The Company" is Mythic Beasts Ltd.
1.2
"Facilities" are computer hardware, computer software, and other systems access to which is provided to a user by the Company.
1.3
"Resources" are particular elements of the Facilities to which access is granted to individual users.
1.4
An "Account" is granted to a particular user, and constitutes authorisation to use certain Facilities and Resources in conjunction with an agreement between the Company and that user.
1.5
"Login Information" means any login name, password, cryptographic key or other credential or means of identification by which a user may gain access to Facilities.
1.6
"User Data" is computer data stored by a user using the Facilities.
1.7
"Suspension" of an Account means action taken by the Company in order to temporarily prevent the use of any Resources which would normally be available in conjunction with the account, including, but not limited to, changing or suspension of Login Information, prohibiting access to User Data, and preventing any software from being run in conjunction with the Account.
1.8
An "Internet Server" is software which accepts connections and/or reads data from other users, or another connected host or network, using any Internet Protocol or any other means.
1.9
"Internet Relay Chat" is the peer-to-peer communications protocol described in RFC 1459.
1.10
A "Mailing List" is a management system for a list of email recipients, used for the discussion of particular topics. No person shall be subscribed to any Mailing List without their consent.
1.11
A "Web Server" is the software and internet URL associated with a particular set of information available for download via the Hypertext Transfer Protocol described in RFC 2068 and other documents.
1.12
"Bandwidth" means the amount of data transferred between the Facilities and any connected hosts, by means of any Internet Protocol or other means.
1.13
The "Price List" is the list of charges for services.
1.14
Documents referenced as "RFC" and a number are Internet Requests For Comments, and are available from the Internet Engineering Task Force at http://www.ietf.org and elsewhere. Such documents specify the protocols and describe the operation of services on the Internet.
2. USE OF FACILITIES
2.1
Not all Resources are available for the use of all users. Users shall not attempt to gain access to Resources which are not explicitly made available with their Account.
2.2
The Facilities are provided only for registered users who hold Accounts, with the exception of:
(a) Web Servers which provide files and information to the public;
(b) Mailing Lists to which any individual may subscribe;
(c) Cases where an Account provides the facility to offer services to other individuals, as in the case of certain virtual mail facilities.
2.3
The Facilities shall not be used in a manner that contravenes the Acceptable Use Policies or other relevant conditions of use of any network or resource to which they are used to connect; nor shall they be used in a manner which contravenes local law for any connected networks or resources. It is the user's responsibility to assess how these conditions affect their activities or proposed activities.
2.4
The Company reserves the right to audit any user software which can be executed by another person, or processes data which is sent to or from another user or another connected host or network (including, but not limited to, CGI scripts and other dynamic web content, and mail filtering software), in order to ensure that it does not compromise the stability and security of the Facilities. Where an audit of the source code is not possible (for instance, where such code cannot be made available for copyright reasons), or if the user does not wish to have the code audited, such software must be removed from the Facilities unless explicit permission is granted by the Company to the contrary. Such permission may include additional conditions on the use of the software designed to ensure that such software is used in a secure manner.
2.5
Where an email address is provided to a user, the user shall read email sent to this address regularly, since important information may be communicated by the Company and its personnel to users via email.
2.6
The Company reserves the right to shut down or prevent execution of any user software which is causing difficulties for other users or where the effects of running the software are in breach of this Acceptable Use Policy.
3. MISUSE OF FACILITIES
3.1
The Facilities shall not be used to attempt to gain access to any computer system or network other than those to which the user has legitimate access.
3.2
The Facilities shall not be used in any activity which is intended to inconvenience another user of the Facilities or of any other computer or to prevent them from making use of any resources to which they have legitimate access.
3.3
No user shall engage in activity which is likely to damage, render unuseable, impose an unacceptable load on, or in any other way detrimentally affect the Facilities. This includes all mining or farming of cryptocurrency.
3.4
No user shall attempt to impersonate another user, or the Company or any of its personnel; nor shall the Facilities be used to impersonate any other individual or corporation.
3.5
No user shall attempt to run their own Internet Server using the Facilities except where permission to do so has been explicitly granted by the Company.
4. INTERNET RELAY CHAT
4.1
The Facilities shall not be used to connect any software - including, but not limited to, conventional "chat" clients, automatic "bots" and all other forms of client and server - to any Internet Relay Chat network.
5. UNSOLICITED AND BULK EMAIL
5.1
The Facilities shall not be used to send unsolicited or bulk email.
5.2
Correctly configured Mailing Lists shall not be considered "bulk email" for the purposes of 5.1 above.
6. AUTOMATED PROCESSING OF EMAIL
6.1
Where an Account provides Resources for the automated processing of incoming or outgoing email (such as procmail or exim filtering scripts), a User shall take every care to ensure that under no circumstances could such automated processing lead to the emission of extremely large number of emails, of excessively long emails, of emails which loop through any system repeatedly, or of unsolicited emails.
7. PRIVACY AND SECURITY
7.1
The Company and its personnel shall not view, modify or copy User Data, except with the permission of the user, or
(a) where pursuant to tracing a system fault or security problem, both in relation to the Facilities and where there is cause to believe that an Account is being used to compromise the security of another computer or network;
(b) where there is cause to believe that the terms of this Acceptable Use Policy are being broken or have been broken;
(c) at the instigation of a competent law enforcement agency;
(d) following an order by a competent court;
(e) where such action is judged necessary to prevent the development of problems in the future;
(f) in connection with activities described in 2.4 above.
Note that certain files which are used routinely and automatically by system software (such as .forward files and configuration files for ssh) may be checked from time to time without notice as in (e) above. This action is necessary to ensure smooth running of the Services.
7.2
Users consent to certain information about their activities (including, but not limited to, name, email address and times and durations of logins to the system) to be made available to other users on a day-to-day basis (for example, by use of the "last" or "who" commands for shell accounts). Users may individually consent to information about them being made available by the "finger" service to users on other hosts.
7.3
Users consent to day-to-day logging of their usage of the Facilities for the purposes of accounting, fault prevention, and maintaining system security, as deemed appropriate by the Company and its personnel. Such logged information shall be treated as User Data for the purposes of the provisions in 7.1 above, except where the logged information is needed for routine checks on the Facilities not covered there, and will be kept secret from users except as in 7.2 above.
7.4
Users shall not attempt to gain access to the Data stored by other Users, except where that data is made available to others explicitly or implicitly, for instance by being made available on a public HTTP server. It should be noted that leaving files or directories readable to others on a shared computer does not constitute implicit permission for the purposes of this provision.
7.5
No Login Information shall be given by a user to any other party, except with the permission of the Company. Certain Resources enable a user to set Login Information for others, for instance some virtual email services and password-protected content on a Web Server. In these cases, permission may be taken as granted to set, reset and distribute such Login Information as the user sees fit; the account holder shall be responsible for ensuring that the activities of persons holding such Login Information fall within this Acceptable Use Policy.
7.6
The Company reserves the right to suspend or invalidate Login Information at any time, if it believes it to have been compromised, disclosed without permission to another party, or where there is reason to believe that it is being used in conjunction with activities in breach of this Acceptable Use Policy. Such withdrawal or invalidation shall extend only to the Login Information, and not to the associated Account itself.
8. USER DATA, QUOTAS AND BACKUPS
8.1
Company facilities shall not be used to store or process data in contravention of applicable national law, or in connection with any activity which would itself contravene this Acceptable Use Policy. Particular attention is drawn to the relevant legislation on Data Protection, Computer Misuse, and Copyright; this should not, however, be taken as an exhaustive list.
8.2
An Account may have imposed upon it a "quota" of disk space. Users shall not attempt to store more data than is allowed by their quota. This quota extends to data in files in a home directory and other directories, data which constitutes user email in transit, and data stored in any database by the user. Exceeding a quota for longer than the allowed "grace" period may incur additional charges.
8.3
Separate quotas may, at the Company's option, be applied to the use of other resources such as computer time used and bandwidth. Such quotas ensure that the Facilities are available for use by all authorised users.
8.4
The backup of User Data data stored on an Account is the responsibility of the owner of the account. The Company may not routinely make backups of User Data. If any backup of User Data is made in the course of routine or other system maintenance, then the data will not be read except as in 7.1 above. Such backups will be destroyed after they cease to be pertinent.
9. USE OF BANDWIDTH
9.1
Bandwidth usage is chargeable as per the terms in the Price List, and must be paid for quarterly in arrears except by specific agreement.
9.2
Bandwidth usage is monitored by the Company. All traffic, both incoming and outgoing, is chargeable, including that used for email, shell access, web serving, and any other purpose.
9.3
The Company reserves the right to suspend any Account which it has reason to believe is being used in connection with excessive bandwidth usage.
9.4
Where a user expects the usage of bandwidth for any Account to rise by a factor of five or more over normal levels, they shall inform the Company in advance. Such bandwidth usage shall be deemed excessive if such notice has not been given, and this may incur additional charges and/or lead to the Suspension of the Account.
10. WITHDRAWAL/TERMINATION OF SERVICE
10.1
A user may not attempt to gain access to the Facilities if their access has been terminated or suspended.
10.2
The Company reserves the right to terminate service to any user, including removal of Account, withdrawal or invalidation of Login Information, and deletion of User Data, in the event that
(a) the user is deliberately acting in breach of this Acceptable Use Policy;
(b) charges payable are overdue.
10.3
The Company reserves the right to Suspend an account temporarily, wherever there exists reason to believe that a breach of this Acceptable Use Policy is taking place or has taken place.
11. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
11.1
The Company shall not be held liable for any damages or injuries resulting from non-availability of service, either announced interruptions or unannounced ones resulting from causes beyond the Company's control.
12. EXCEPTIONS AND EXCLUSIONS
12.1
The Company may make specific exceptions or exclusions to this Acceptable Use Policy under such circumstances determined at the discretion of the Company and in agreement with the User concerned.
13. AMENDMENTS
13.1
The Company may amend this Acceptable Use Policy from time to time. Such amendments will be communicated to all users by means of email, and displayed publically on the Company's Web Server.
13.2
Users' activities are always governed by the most recent version of the Acceptable Use Policy.