Acceptable Usage Policy

eDisc, is a privately owned company in South Africa.

By using our web hosting services, you agree to comply with our policies. You are expected to use the Internet with respect, courtesy, and responsibility, giving due regard to the rights of other Internet users. We expect you to have a basic knowledge of how the Internet functions, the types of uses which are generally acceptable, and the types of uses which are to be avoided. Common sense is the best guide as to what is considered acceptable use. The following are unacceptable uses:

Illegality in any form, including but not limited to activities such as unauthorized distribution or copying of copyrighted software, violation of export restrictions, harassment, fraud, trafficking in obscene material, drug dealing, and other illegal activities.

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. eDisc reserves the right at all times to prohibit activities that damage its commercial reputation and goodwill.


Illegal / Unlawful Use
eDisc's servers may be used only for lawful purposes and activities. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, without limitation,

• Any violation of local and international laws prohibiting child pornography; obscenity; discrimination (including racial, gender, religious or country of origin) and hate speech; or speech which may incite violence or hatred or prejudice, 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.

• Dox (doxing) or posting personally identifiable information such as addresses and phone numbers of individuals with the hope of causing damage or harm to said person.

• Material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes a legal threat, or violates export control laws. Examples of unacceptable content or links: "Pirated software", "Hackers programs or archives", "Warez Sites", "Irc Bots", "Mp3" etc.

We will be the sole arbiters as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.


System and Network Security
Violations of system or network security are prohibited, and may result in criminal and civil liability. Examples include, but are not limited to the following: unauthorized access, use, probe, or scan of a systems security or authentication measures, data or traffic. Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks. Forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in an e-mail or a newsgroup posting.

It is a violation for anyone who, including but not limited to, employs posts or programs which consume excessive CPU time or storage space, permits the use of mail services, mail forwarding capabilities, POP accounts, or auto responders other than for their own account; or resale of access to CGI scripts installed on our servers.


Tortuous Conduct
No one shall post defamatory, scandalous, violent or private information about a person without their consent, intentionally inflicting emotional distress, or violating trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights.


Spamming
Sending unsolicited mail messages, including, without limitation, commercial advertising and informational announcements, is expressly prohibited. A user shall not use another site's mail server to relay mail without the express permission of the site or distributing, advertising or promoting software or services that have the primary purpose of encouraging or facilitating unsolicited commercial E-mail or spam.

It is contrary to eDisc's policy for customers to use our servers to effect or participate in any of the following activities:

• To post to any Usenet or other newsgroup, forum, e-mail mailing list or other similar group or list articles which are off-topic according to the charter or other owner-published FAQ or description of the group or list;

• To send unsolicited mass e-mailings, if such unsolicited e-mailings provoke complaints from the recipients;

• To engage in any of the foregoing activities using the service of another provider, but channeling such activities through a eDisc provided server, or using a eDisc provided server as a maildrop for responses;

• To falsify user information provided to eDisc or to other users of the service in connection with use of a eDisc service.

When eDisc becomes aware of an alleged violation of its AUP (Acceptable Use Policy), eDisc will initiate an investigation (within 24-48 hours). During the investigation eDisc may restrict Customer 's access in order to prevent further possible unauthorized activity. If the Customer is found in violation of our SPAM policy, eDisc may, at its sole discretion, restrict, suspend, or terminate Customer's account and/or pursue other civil remedies. Also, eDisc reserves the right to pursue civil remedies for any costs associated with the investigation of a substantiated policy violation. If such violation is a criminal offence, eDisc will notify the appropriate law enforcement department of such violation.

eDisc does not issue service credits for any outages incurred through service disablement resulting from Policy violations.
The Customer shall be held liable for any and all costs incurred by eDisc as a result of the customer's violation of these terms and conditions. This is including, but is not limited to, attorney fees and costs resulting from Postmaster responses to complaints from and the cleanup of unsolicited commercial mailings and/or unauthorized bulk mailings and/or news server violations. First violations will result in a Cleanup Fee of R2000 and the customer’s account will be reviewed for possible immediate termination. A second violation will result in Cleanup Fee of R4000 and immediate termination of the customer’s account. The Customer who violates this policy agrees to also pay Investigation Fees of no more than R2000 per hour that eDisc personnel must spend to investigate any violations.

Because the Internet is a global communication tool, and we have clients from nearly every country in the world it is difficult to dictate what is considered "adult material." However, it is not our function to discriminate against those who choose to utilize adult content or adult related material. This being said, there are still several reasons why eDisc has been forced to create its no adult sites policy for its virtual server users.

What does eDisc consider "Adult Material?"

• Any site whose revenue is gained in part or whole from its adult content.

• Photos or videos showing frontal nudity on either men or women for non-scientific or non-artistic purposes.

• Photos or videos showing graphic violence or death.

• Revenue-generating hyperlinks to sites who violate policy #1.

Why does eDisc have this policy?

Bandwidth and Resources
A virtual server is a shared environment where many web sites & domains reside on each particular server. This being said, consider that an average "adult site" gets more hits than 100 standard web sites. Some of the smaller adult sites get around 5 GB of transfer per day. With these types of resources being utilized, our servers would be severely slowed if we allowed these high traffic sites to also reside on our servers. On top of that, we would be forced to raise our prices to pay for the additional bandwidth. We strive to keep our service offering fast and inexpensive, and our bandwidth clear; therefore, adult sites are not an option.

eDisc reserves the right to decide what it considers "adult content", "adult material", "sexually explicit", or "sexually related". Let us know if you are unsure of the approval of your site before placing an order. We allow this type of content on 1 selected server only. Please ensure that you notify us beforehand if you will be displaying this type of content to enable us to ensure that you get hosted on the correct server.

Modification
eDisc reserves the right to add, delete, or modify any provision of this Policy at any time without notice. Reporting Network Abuse Any party seeking to report any violations eDisc’s policy may contact via e-mail: abuse@edisc.co.za