Acceptable Use Policy

Version 2019 (07.01.2019)

Terms of Use
  1. In General. All CareServ customers are responsible for reviewing and complying with this CareServ Acceptable Use Policy (the “AUP”), which is available to CareServ customers at CareServ Schedules, or any other Internet site indicated by CareServ, from time to time. CareServ customers who provide services to their customers or other end users are responsible for ensuring compliance with the terms of this AUP by their customers and end users and must perform those tasks necessary to ensure compliance by their users with this AUP. For this AUP, "Customer" means each CareServ customer to whom CareServ provides services, and all employees, agents, and third parties (including customers and end users) to whom the customer makes CareServ services available.
  2. General Prohibitions. CareServ defines the actions described below as "network abuse" and are strictly prohibited under this AUP. The examples listed below are not exhaustive and are provided solely for guidance to Customers. CareServ reserves the right to determine that any conduct that is or could be harmful to CareServ's network, Customers, and/or users violates this AUP and to exercise any or all of the remedies contained in this AUP. If any Customer is unsure of whether a contemplated use or action is permitted, the customer must determine whether the application is allowed by contacting CareServ via e-mail at abuse@gocareserv.com. In general, CareServ Customers may not use CareServ’s network, machines, or services in any manner that:
    • violates any applicable law, regulation, treaty, or tariff, including, but not limited to, data privacy laws;

    • violates the acceptable use policies of any networks, machines, or services that are accessed through CareServ’s network;

    • infringes on the intellectual property rights of CareServ or others;

    • violates the privacy of others;

    • involves the resale of CareServ's products or services, unless explicitly documented in any written and fully executed agreement with CareServ;

    • includes deceptive online marketing practices including, without limitation, practices that: violate the United States Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines for proper online marketing schemes; violate any specific instructions given by CareServ for reasons of health, safety or quality of any other telecommunications services provided by CareServ, or by basis of the need for technical compatibility of equipment attached to the CareServ network;

    • materially affects the quality of any telecommunications services provided by CareServ; and/or

    • otherwise violates this AUP.

  3. Specific Prohibitions. Other expressly prohibited activities include, but are not limited to, the following:
    • unauthorized use (or attempted unauthorized use) or sabotage of any computers, machines, or networks;

    • attempting to interfere with or deny service to any user or host (e.g., denial of service attacks or Domain Name System (“DNS”) spoofing attacks);

    • falsifying user identification information;

    • introducing malicious programs into CareServ Network or Servers (e.g., viruses, worms, Trojan horses, etc.);

    • scanning the networks of others for vulnerabilities without authorization;

    • executing any form of network monitoring (e.g., using a packet sniffer) or otherwise engaging in any monitoring or interception of data not intended for the customer without authorization;

    • attempting to circumvent Customer authentication or security of any host, network, or account (“cracking”) without authorization;

    • using any program/script/command or sending messages of any kind, each designed to interfere with a third-party customer terminal session, via any means, locally or via the Internet;

    • "phishing," or simulating communications from the website or other services of another entity to collect identity information, authentication credentials, or other information from the legitimate users of that entity's service;

    • "pharming," or using malware, DNS cache poisoning, or other means to redirect a user to a website or other service that simulates a service offered by a legitimate entity to collect identity information, authentication credentials, or other information from the legitimate users of that entity's service;

    • transmitting or receiving, uploading, using, or reusing material that is abusive, indecent, defamatory, obscene or menacing, or in breach of copyright, confidence, privacy, or similar third party rights;

    • furnishing false or incorrect data on the signup form; using the services above any specified bandwidth limitation for the customer's user account;

    • advertising, transmitting or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP;

    • attempting to circumvent or alter the process or procedures to measure time, bandwidth utilization, or other methods to document the “use” of CareServ’s products and services;

    • falsifying header information or user identification information;

    • attempting to breach, breaching, or disrupting Internet communication including, but not limited to, accessing data of which the customer is not an intended recipient or logging into a CareServ server or account that the customer is not expressly authorized to access;

    • hijacking IP space;

    • collecting responses from mass unsolicited e-mail messages;

    • deliberately sending excessively large attachments to one e-mail recipient;

    • sending unsolicited (“opt-out”) bulk email;

    • transmitting unsolicited commercial e-mail messages;

    • maintaining an open mail relay and/or an open proxy;

    • collecting e-mail addresses from the Internet to send an unsolicited bulk e-mail or to collect addresses for others for that purpose; and/or

    • offering, participating in, and/or transmitting, the Usenet or similar bulletin-board or newsgroup services.

  4. Filters. CareServ reserves the right to install and use, and to have customers install and use, any appropriate devices to prevent violations of this AUP, including devices designated to filter or terminate access to any CareServ service.
  5. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. CareServ will promptly process and investigate notices of alleged intellectual property infringement and will take appropriate actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) and other applicable intellectual property laws. Upon receipt of notice of a violation of the DMCA which complies or substantially complies with the DMCA, CareServ, when the breach and/or violator is under its control, will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to any material claimed to be infringing or alleged to be the subject of infringing activity and to remove or disable access to any reference or link to material or activity that is claimed to be infringing. CareServ will terminate access for Customers who are repeat infringers. Customers who believe that a copyrighted work has been copied and is accessible on CareServ’s site or through CareServ’s services in a way that constitutes copyright infringement may notify CareServ by providing CareServ’s registered copyright agent with the following information:
    • a description of the copyrighted work claiming to be infringed;

    • a description of where the allegedly infringing material is located on the site;

    • the address, telephone number, e-mail address, and electronic or physical signature of the complaining party;

    • a statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and

    • a statement by the complaining party, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in the notice is accurate and that the complaining party is the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf. Notices of claimed infringement should be directed to dmca@gocareserv.com.

    • When CareServ removes or disables access to any material claimed to be infringing, CareServ may attempt to contact the customer who has posted or provided such content to allow that customer to respond to the notification. All counter notifications submitted by the customer will be furnished to the complaining party. CareServ will allow the complaining party to seek judicial relief per the DMCA before CareServ replaces or restores access to any material as a result of any counter-notification.

  6. Cooperation with Law Enforcement. CareServ will cooperate with appropriate law enforcement agencies and other parties involved in investigating claims of illegal or inappropriate activity. CareServ reserves the right to disclose Customer information to the extent authorized or required by federal or state law. Without limiting the foregoing, in those instances involving child pornography, CareServ complies with all applicable federal and state laws and may provide notice to the National Center for the Missing and Exploited Children or other designated agencies, including, without limitation, the Internet Watch Foundation, and removes all content for which such agencies request removal.
  7. Impending Security Event Notification. The customer is responsible for notifying CareServ immediately if the customer becomes aware of an imminent event that may negatively affect the CareServ network. This includes, without limitation, extortion threats involving the threat of "denial of service" attacks, unauthorized access, and other security events.
  8. Configuration. The customer is responsible for configuring its systems to provide the maximum possible accountability. CareServ shall not be liable for any damage caused by such system configurations regardless of whether such configurations have been authorized or requested by CareServ. For example, customers should ensure there are clear "path" lines in news headers so that the originator of a post may be identified. The customer should also configure its Mail Transport Agents (MTA) to authenticate (by lookup on the name or similar procedures) any system that connects to perform a mail exchange, and should generally present header data as possible. As another example, customers should maintain logs of dynamically assigned IP addresses. The customer is responsible for educating itself and configuring its systems with at least underlying security. Should systems at the customer's site be violated, the customer is responsible for reporting the violation and then fixing the exploited system. For instance, should a site be abused to distribute unlicensed software due to a poorly configured FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server, the customer is responsible for re-configuring the system to stop the abuse.
  9. Downstream Users. CareServ Internet Internet Hosted Services Customers who provide services to their users must affirmatively and contractually pass on the restrictions of this AUP to its users and take steps to ensure compliance by their users with this AUP, including, without limitation, termination of the user for violations of this AUP; maintain valid postmaster and abuse addresses for their domains; comply with all applicable Internet Request for Comments (“RFC’s”); maintain appropriate reverse DNS information for all hosts receiving connectivity through CareServ's network for which DNS responsibility has been delegated to the customer; maintain accurate contact information with the InterNIC and any other appropriate domain, IP and AS registrars; take reasonable steps to prevent IP spoofing by their users and downstream customers, including, without limitation, using IP unicast reverse-path forwarding (“uRPF") wherever appropriate and using IP address filtering wherever necessary; provide a 24/7 contact address to CareServ for dealing with security and abuse issues; and act promptly to ensure that users are in compliance with this AUP. When CareServ receives a complaint regarding an alleged violation of this AUP by a Customer's user, CareServ may notify the customer of such claim, inform the complainant that the customer is investigating the complaint, and provide the complainant with the necessary information to contact the customer directly to resolve the complaint.
  10. E-mail. In connection with any e-mail transmitted or received via the CareServ network, servers, or services, the following actions are prohibited:
    • using e-mail to engage in harassment, whether through language, frequency, or size of messages, including continuing to send someone an e-mail after being asked to stop;

    • using e-mail to disrupt (e.g., mail bombing, "flashing," etc.);

    • an originating e-mail with falsified header information or obscured information (e.g., encoded or “obfuscated URLs”) designed to hinder identification of the location of what is advertised;

    • originating chain letters, pyramid schemes, and hoaxes;

    • using another party's e-mail server to relay e-mail without express permission from such other party;

    • using the CareServ or Customer account to collect replies to messages sent from another provider that violate these rules or those of the other provider; and

    • using CareServ services in connection with or in support of the running of a mail server without a license to run such a server in any jurisdiction where such license is required.

  11. Bulk E-mail. Customers sending bulk e-mails using CareServ services may only engage in such activity through the use of "closed-loop opt-in" lists. Such Customers who send bulk e-mail through "closed-loop opt-in" lists must have a method of confirmation or verification of subscriptions and be able to show evidence of subscription for users who complain about receiving unsolicited e-mail. Sending unsolicited ("opt-out") bulk e-mail is prohibited and is grounds for termination of those services to Customers who engage in the practice. Sending "opt-out" bulk e-mail from another provider advertising or implicating, directly or indirectly, the use of any service hosted or provided by CareServ, including without limitation, e-mail, web, content distribution, FTP, and DNS services, is prohibited. Customers may not advertise, distribute, or use software intended to facilitate sending "opt-out" e-mails or harvest e-mail addresses from the Internet for that purpose. Also, Customers may not sell or distribute lists of harvested e-mail addresses for "opt-out" e-mail. Customers who provide or make use of a service employing referral IDs will be considered responsible for unsolicited bulk e-mail sent by members of the referral ID service that refers to services hosted by CareServ. Customers who engage in the practice of unsolicited bulk e-mail, as set forth above, from CareServ accounts will be charged the cost of labor to respond to complaints, no less than $200. Customers listed on an industry-recognized spam abuse list will be deemed to violate this AUP.
  12. The World Wide Web and FTP. CareServ reserves the right to require that sites using web or FTP space that receive high amounts of traffic be moved to other servers. Web pages and FTP files may not contain any material, text, or images, whether hosted on CareServ servers or “transclusion” (images from another site displayed on the page), that violate or infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, statutory, common law, or proprietary rights of others. Web pages and FTP files may not contain links that initiate downloads of copyright-infringing or other illegal material.
  13. Routing Protocols and Route Exchange. If CareServ learns that a customer is sending excessive or unnecessary route publications, CareServ reserves the right to limit the number of routes that will be accepted.
  14. Internet Relay Chat. Using Internet Relay Chat (“IRC”) bots is prohibited. Flooding, cloning, spoofing, harassment, or otherwise hindering the ability of others to use IRC properly is forbidden. Impersonating other users, advertising, and spamming via IRC are not permitted. IRC services that are serving as command and control channels for bots are not allowed, and any violation shall subject the customer to filtering and blocking by CareServ within 24 hours of CareServ learning of such breach. CareServ is not obligated to provide notice of such action to the customer.
  15. Servers and Proxies. Customers may not run on CareServ’s servers any program that makes a service or resource available to others, including, but not limited to, port redirectors, proxy servers, chat servers, MUDs, file servers, and IRC bots. Customers may not run such programs on their machines connected to the CareServ network to make such services or resources available to others; a dedicated access account is required for such purposes. Customers are responsible for the security of their networks, machines, and accounts, including, without limitation, maintaining the confidentiality of passwords and account information. CareServ will assume neither responsibility nor accountability for failures or breaches of Customer-imposed protective measures, whether implied or actual. Abuse that occurs as a result of a compromised customer's system or accounts, such as when a system becomes infected with a worm or Trojan horse program as a result of an Internet download or the execution of an e-mail attachment, may result in the suspension of services or account access by CareServ. Any programs, scripts, or processes that generate excessive server load on CareServ servers are prohibited, and CareServ reserves the right to terminate or suspend any such program, script, or process.
  16. Dialup Connections. Customers may not run programs or configure machines in such a way as to keep a dialup connection active when not in use or otherwise bypass automatic disconnection for inactivity unless they have a dedicated Internet access account. Customers may not have multiple simultaneous connections with a single dial-up account. CareServ reserves the right to impose restrictions on or terminate accounts deemed to violate these conditions. CareServ's dialup access servers will disconnect after 30 minutes of inactivity and after 12 hours of continuous access.
  17. Storing Files. The storage of any program, utility, or file on CareServ’s servers, the use of which would constitute a violation of this AUP, is prohibited. For example, it is a violation to store hacker scripts, IRC bots, or spamming software on CareServ’s servers.
Privacy
  1. Because the Internet is an inherently open and unsecured means of communication, any data or information a user transmits over the Internet may be susceptible to interception and alteration. Subject to this AUP, as CareServ may amend it from time to time, CareServ makes no guarantee regarding, and assumes no liability for, the security and integrity of any data or information a Customer transmits via CareServ’s services or over the Internet, including any data or information transmitted via any Server designated as “secure.” Customers should not have an expectation of privacy in any content, including accounts of files transmitted through CareServ’s services.
Violations
  1. CareServ has absolute discretion in determining whether any Customer's activities or use of CareServ's services are in breach of this AUP. In the event of any Customer’s breach of or failure to comply with this AUP, CareServ expressly reserves the right, in its sole and absolute discretion, to pursue any remedies that CareServ believes are warranted, which may include, but are not limited to, suspension or termination of the provision of any CareServ service and any other remedies available in law or equity. CareServ may take any or all such actions without notice to the customer.
Modifications to AUP
  1. This AUP is subject to change with notice by publication on CareServ’s Internet web site indicated, which Customers are responsible for monitoring for changes. This AUP was last updated on August 1, 2019. While CareServ uses reasonable efforts to provide accurate and up-to-date information on CareServ’s Internet website, CareServ makes no warranty or representation as to its accuracy. Moreover, information that may have been accurate at the time of posting may have changed and therefore may no longer be valid or in effect. CareServ undertakes no duty to update such information.
Additional Terms and Conditions
  1. All use of the CareServ Network and services is subject to the terms and conditions of any agreements entered into by such Customer and CareServ. This AUP is incorporated into such agreements by reference.
Contact Information
  1. To contact CareServ with questions or comments regarding this AUP, or to report claimed violations of this AUP, please e-mail abuse@gocareserv.com.