Acceptable Use Policy

Internet Services

1. Goals
Kingston’s goals are to protect its network resources, preserve the privacy and security of its customers, and maximise the utility of the Internet, while recognising Kingston’s position in the Internet community as a whole.

2. 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 netiquette of the Internet community, whether or not expressly mentioned in this Policy, is prohibited. Kingston reserves the right at all times to prohibit activities that damage its commercial reputation or interests.

3. Security
Any “denial of service” attack, any attempt to breach authentication or security measures, or any unauthorised attempt to gain access to any other account, host or network is prohibited.

4. Compliance with Law
Kingston’s customers must not use their account for the purpose of storing, sending or receiving any material which is obscene, menacing, threatening, offensive, abusive, indecent, defamatory, libellous, fraudulent or breaches any law or regulation enforceable in the United Kingdom.

5. Email and Usenet News
Using any Kingston 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 Kingston account or server to post advertisements or messages that violate the charter of any newsgroup or mailing list is prohibited.
Excessive cross-posting, posting of irrelevant material to newsgroups and posting binaries to non-binary newsgroups is prohibited.

Advertising any site or service by means of duplicative, unsolicited e-mail or news posting is prohibited, irrespective of whether the messages were sent using a Kingston service. Kingston reserves the right to make the determination whether a given message violates the newsgroup or mailing list charter. However, in most cases Kingston will defer to the judgement 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 software piracy) is prohibited.

Note: Kingston requires all of its customers to ensure that their own systems are not used for any form of network abuse. This includes ensuring that your mail server is correctly confi gured to reject attempts to relay third party email. In order to maintain the integrity of Kingston’s systems, and for the protection of other Kingston customers, Kingston reserves the right to block open relays from feeding mail or news to Kingston servers. Any such action may be carried out without notice.

6. Use of Web Space
Customers must ensure that they only use up to the maximum amount of web space they are entitled to use through their Kingston account. Customers are responsible for any content stored or displayed on their Kingston web space, including obtaining any necessary permissions or licenses relating to material or works contained in that content.
Customers should note that web space made available through Kingston accounts will not support Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripts. Customers must not attempt to use their web space with these facilities without obtaining written permission from Kingston.

7. FTP
Customers must ensure that their FTP sites, hosted by themselves or on Kingston servers, are controlled so that such areas that allow uploading of content do not contravene this Policy.

8. 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.

9. 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 for any legitimate purpose.

10. Copyright, Privacy, and Intellectual Property
Customers must not use or allow their Kingston accounts to be used in a way that causes an infringement of any intellectual property rights owned by a third party including, without limitation, any copyright, trade mark, design right, service mark, or patent. 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 Kingston subscribers are not for sale or commercial distribution to third parties without the express prior consent of the subscriber.

11. Broadcast Echo Requests (e.g. “Smurf Attacks”)
Kingston does not permit its infrastructure, or that of customers, to be used for broadcast amplifi cation attacks, e.g. the ICMP/ping flood known as “smurf attacks.” Kingston customers must ensure their equipment is confi gured to prevent amplification of broadcasts, and co-operate with Kingston in identifying the causes of such incidents, for example by providing logs.

12. Abuse of Unmetered Dial Up Services
This section applies to Kingston customers whose accounts give them access to the Internet on unmetered dial up tariffs. Like all dial up Internet access services, Kingston’s dial up services are provided using a bank of shared modems. If customers act irresponsibly by staying connected to the service indefi nitely, then other customers may not be able to connect because all of the modems are engaged.

For this reason, customers must disconnect from the service when they are not using the Internet. Kingston recommends that customers set their PC’s “idle time out” to 20 minutes. This will disconnect customers who have not used their modem for more than 20 minutes (for example if they forget to log off from the service when getting a cup of coffee). In order to prevent customers using its dial up services irresponsibly, Kingston will monitor its customers’ use of services on unmetered tariffs and will
investigate any excessive use.

13. Abuse of Broadband Services
This section applies to Kingston customers using broadband services. Customers must not use the service in ways that make unusually heavy use of the available bandwidth and/or degrade the user experience of other Kingston customers. If customers use the service in this way, Kingston reserves the right to impose restrictions on customers’ use of the services. These restrictions may include imposing download limits and/or limiting peer-to-peer traffic. These limits may be imposed across the Kingston network as a whole or on individual customers.

In order to prevent broadband customers using bandwidth irresponsibly, Kingston will monitor its customers’ use of broadband services and will investigate any excessive use.

14. Miscellaneous
Use of IP Multicast is prohibited unless expressly authorised by Kingston. Also any usage which overloads the Kingston network is prohibited.

15. Co-operation with Other Providers
Using Kingston ‘s facilities to engage in activities that violate the Terms of Service of any other network access provider is prohibited.

16. Consequences of Violation
Violation of this Policy by a Kingston customer may result in temporary suspension or permanent termination of service as specifi ed in the customer’s agreement for service. Kingston does not issue service credits for any outages incurred through service disablement resulting from Policy violations.

17. Internet Watch Foundation (IWF)
Kingston abides by any “notice and take down” recommendations communicated to Kingston by IWF. Please see http://www.iwf.org.uk for further information about the IWF.

18. Modification
Kingston 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 the abuse team

KCOM Group PLC
Registered Number: 2150618
Registered Office: Carr Lane, Kingston upon Hull, HU1 3RE