Abusive Practices
The act of transmission of unsolicited or prohibited advertising/e-mail or inappropriate Usenet postings while using HantamNet's servers is hereby expressly forbidden. Any such act (commonly known as "Spam") will result in immediate and irrevocable termination of that customer's services without warning or notice. Furthermore, the customer will be held legally responsible for the damages to HantamNet, both monetary and in reputation.
The use of any of HantamNet's services to make such a mailing or posting, including but not limited to mailboxes, Web pages, and autoresponders, shall also be grounds for immediate account termination as described above.
HantamNet will not be party to any such willful and generally damaging act. It is distasteful, and frowned generally upon by the internet community. We will therefore not tolerate these abuses.
Service Contract
HantamNet is a Web Presence Provider. Clients using our services are subject to compliance with the terms and conditions set forth below. Under the terms of this agreement, your placement of information on HantamNet servers is an acknowledgement that you have read and understood this agreement, and that you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions below. If you do not
wish to be bound by these terms and conditions, you should not proceed to place any information of any kind on HantamNet servers.
1. User/Customer Conduct
HantamNet's services may only be used for lawful purposes. Any use of these services which violates any local, state,
federal, or international laws which may apply to Hantam Internet, your local jurisdiction, or any jurisdiction that you or your site may be subject to is strictly prohibited.
While using the service, you may not:
- Restrict or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying the Internet;
- Post or transmit any unlawful, threatening, abusive, libellous, defamatory, obscene, offensive, indecent, pornographic, profane, or otherwise objectionable information of any kind, including without limitation any transmissions constituting or encouraging conduct that would constitute a criminal offence, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any national or international law, including without limitation laws protecting intellectual property including copyright, trademark, trade secret, misappropriation and anti-dilution laws;
- Post, publish, transmit, reproduce or distribute any information or software which contains a virus or other harmful component;
- Post, publish, transmit, reproduce, distribute or in any way exploit any information, software, or other material obtained through the service for commercial purposes (other than as expressly permitted by the provider of such information, software, or other material);
2. Charges
- Usage charges will be calculated in accordance with HantamNet's Access Schedule.
- The charge for the subscriber's entitlement to use the service on a monthly basis is a monthly fee, which is payable monthly in advance by the subscriber to HantamNet. A valid debit order must be submitted to HantamNet within 7 days of placing the order.
- The charge for the subscriber's entitlement to use the service on an annual basis is payable in full in advance by the subscriber to HantamNet within 21 days of placing the order. Should the client decide to cancel the subscription a refund will be made to the client on a pro rata amount basis for time not used.
- HantamNet reserves the right to adjust service charges at their sole discretion.
- It is the policy of HantamNet to provide subscription only on the basis of a debit order on a bank or credit card account.
- A rejected debit order will accrue an additional handling fee of R20 to the outstanding amount.
3. Termination
The agreement shall continue indefinitely and shall be terminable on the expiry of one calender months written notice given by either party to the other.
4. Indemnification
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless HantamNet from any and all liability, penalties, losses, damages, costs,
expenses, attorneys' fees, causes of action or claims caused by or resulting indirectly from your use of the service which damages either you, HantamNet, or any other party or parties without limitation or exception. This indemnification and hold harmless agreement extends to all issues associated with your account, including but not limited to domain name selection and Web site content.
5. Refusal or Discontuance of Service
HantamNet reserves the right to refuse or discontinue service to anyone at HantamNet's sole discretion. HantamNet may deny you access to all or part of the service without notice if you engage in any conduct or activities that HantamNet in its sole discretion believes violates any of the terms and conditions in this agreement. HantamNet shall have no responsibility to notify any third-party providers of services, merchandise, or information, nor any responsibility for any consequences resulting from such discontinuance or lack of notification. You agree that HantamNet has the right to monitor the service electronically from time to time and to disclose any information as necessary to satisfy the law, or to protect itself or its subscribers. HantamNet reserves the right to refuse to post or to remove any information or materials, in whole or in part, that, in its sole discretion, are unacceptable, undesirable, or in violation of this agreement.
6. Warranties
HantamNet makes no warranties or representations of any kind for the services being offered. The service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not
limited to warranties of title, non-infringement, or implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No advice or information given by HantamNet or its agents or employees shall create a warranty. HantamNet provides no warranty that the service will be uninterrupted or error free or that any information, software or other material accessible on the service is free from viruses or other harmful components. Under no circumstances shall HantamNet be liable for any direct, indirect, special, punitive, or consequential damages that result in any way from your use of or inability to use the service, or for third parties' use of the service to access your Web space, or to access the Internet or any part thereof, or your or any third parties' reliance on or use of information, services, or merchandise provided on or through the service, or that result from mistakes, omissions, interruptions, deletion of files, errors, defects, delays in operation or transmission, or any failure of performance. If you are dissatisfied with HantamNet service or any of its terms, conditions, rules, policies, guidelines, or practices, your sole and exclusive remedy is to discontinue using the service.
You understand that by placing information on HantamNet servers that such information becomes available to all Internet users and that HantamNet has no way of limiting or restricting access to such information or protecting such information from copyright infringement. You assume total responsibility and risk for your use of HantamNet servers and the Internet. It is solely your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness, and usefulness of all opinions, advice, services and other information, and the quality and merchantability of all merchandise provided through HantamNet or on the Internet generally.
7. IDENTIFICATION INFORMATION
You agree, as the person legally responsible for use of this account, to supply HantamNet with a current and truthful name, postal address and telephone number for our records, and you have a continued obligation to keep this information current. You also agree that you are an authorised user of any credit card that you supply to us and agree that we have an obligation to fully investigate any possible fraudulent credit card use.
8. NO INTERFERENCE WITH OPERATION OF SYSTEM
You agree not to maliciously or intentionally interfere with the proper operation of the system, including but not limited to defeating identification procedures, obtaining access beyond that which you are authorized for, and impairing the availability, reliability, or quality of service for other customers. You further agree not to interfere with the proper operation of other systems reachable through the Internet, including any attempt at unauthorized access. You agree to follow the Acceptable Use Policy of any network or service you connect to.
You agree to adhere to system policies as published online by HantamNet, including restrictions on services available with each account type, restrictions on certain features, and all other policies designed to protect and enhance the quality and reliability of service at HantamNet. You agree to abide by any and all future HantamNet
policy decisions.
8. SECURITY
You agree that the security of your account is solely your own responsibility. You further agree that if you believe the security of your account has been compromised in any way, you will notify HantamNet immediately in writing by registered mail, return receipted, to HantamNet, P.O. Box 430, Calvinia, 8190, South Africa. You shall be held fully responsible for any misuse or compromise to your account for which HantamNet is not properly notified. You agree that if any security violations are believed to have occurred in association with your account, HantamNet has the right to suspend access to the account pending an investigation and resolution. You also agree that HantamNet has the right to cooperate in any government or legal investigation regarding any aspect of our services, including services sold to you. Any use of our system to engage in software piracy or other violations of law will result in account suspension and be immediately reported to the appropriate authorities.
9. BACKUP OF DATA
Your use of the service is at your sole risk. HantamNet is not responsible for files and data residing on your account. You agree to take full responsibility for files and data transferred and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on HantamNet servers.
10. TRANSMITTAL OF MATERIALS
You agree not to transmit unsolicited or prohibited advertising or other harassing or illegal materials through electronic mail, Usenet postings, or other Internet media. The use of HantamNet or any other service with reference to services obtained through HantamNet, for unsolicited mass mailings, postings, or other activities considered an annoyance to others, commonly referred to as "spamming" is strictly prohibited and may cause your services to be terminated immediately and without
warning and you will be held fully responsible for any damages to you, HantamNet, or any other party or parties resulting from any such conduct.
11. PAYMENT
You agree to supply
appropriate payment for the services received from HantamNet, in advance of the time period during which such services are provided. You agree that all setup fees are non-refundable once setup is completed. You agree that until and unless you notify HantamNet of your desire to cancel any or all services received, those services will be billed on a recurring basis. HantamNet agrees that pro-rated refunds for unused time periods will be provided upon request, in the event of account termination.
12. PRIOR AGREEMENTS
This agreement supercedes any written, electronic, or oral communication you may have had with HantamNet or any agent or representative thereof, and constitutes the complete and total agreement between the parties.
13. SEVERABILITY
If any provision of this agreement is determined to be invalid or unenforceable, all other provisions shall remain in full force and effect and said provision shall be reformed only to the extent necessary to make it enforceable.
15. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
By placing and continuing to maintain or place information on HantamNet servers you are stating and acknowledging that you have read the aforementioned terms and conditions and that you understand such terms and conditions and agree to be bound by them.
This is our account service contract. It is fairly standard legalese. Although it may sound harsh, rest assured that we have nothing but good intentions towards our customers. Like all of our policies, the contract is designed to maximize the efficiency and quality of our service for all customers.
Please note that the contract can not be modified.
Interactive Chat Applications
Interactive Web applications, of the specific type commonly known as "chat", are not allowed on HantamNet servers. For the purposes of this policy, a "chat" system is defined as a Web site or portion thereof that encourages visitors to post messages that are immediately viewable by other users, in order to engage in "real-time" conversation with other visitors at the same site.
The Web model is supremely unsuited to this type of application, and the impact on servers is immense. It will not be tolerated.
Adult-Orientated Material
Adult-oriented material, either for entertainment or commercial purposes, is not allowed on HantamNet servers. Forbidden sites include those that provide access to pornographic materials, whether for free or for payment, regardless of whether adult verification is used or not.
Exceptions are made for educational sites.
The "hit profile" of an adult-oriented site is amazingly different from any other kind of site. Because there are relentless, insatiable hordes of visitors, it is almost impossible to control the bandwidth requirements of such sites in a manner that will satisfy the visitors, the adult site customer, and our other customers. The peak hit frequency of some adult sites is extreme; even when access is blocked to restrict bandwidth, the impact on servers is more than noticeable.
Our services are tuned for general purpose use. It is in the interest of efficiency and reliability to restrict these sites, in order to provide the best service for the majority of our customers.
Resource Usage
Users may not, through a cron job, CGI script, interactive commands, or any other means, initiate the following on our servers:
- Run any process that requires more than 8Mb of memory space.
- Run any program that requires more than 30 CPU seconds.
- Use find anywhere except in their own directories.
- Send out mail to more than 20 addresses in one batch, whether sequentially or in parallel. Such batches must "sleep" for at least three seconds between each delivery attempt.
- Send or receive, through mail, any file larger than 500Kb. This limit, or a similar limit, may be enforced in our software. a similar limit, may be enforced in our software.
- Run their own mailing list software.
- Run an interactive chat application.
- Run a banner exchange, remotely accessible web counter, or any other services that perform CGI processes for sites outside our network.
Exceptions are usually granted for Analog, Logresolve, and other special cases.
Most of these restrictions are based on our other policies. The restrictions on mail delivery exist for a very simple reason: We run Web servers, not mail servers. Processing large amounts of mail adversely affects Web server performance.
If we find that you are performing bulk mail runs, regardless of whether it is Spam or not, we will have to deactivate your account and investigate. Please send such mailings through your local ISP's mailserver, or any other mailserver which you are authorized to use. Many such mailservers are configured especially to handle an extremely high volume of mail.
Resource Usage by CGI Scripts
CGI scripts and programs are subject to resource limitations as set forth by this policy. These limits may be enforced by the system. The present limits are:
- Size of Core Files - 0 Mb
- CPU Time Used - 30 seconds
- Data Size - 3 Mb
- File Size Created - 1 Mb
- Memory Locked - 1 Mb
- Number of Open Files - 32
- Number of Simultaneous Processes - 8
Details of what these limits mean are available in the setrlimit documentation. (This is an external link)
CGI scripts are to be run only by users with the appropriate account types - Advanced for use of the System CGI, and Webmaster or higher account levels for custom CGI scripting. No user may run CGI scripts for the benefit of external sites or services. This includes in particular all variations of "free Web counter" services.
These limits are subject to change and variation as necessary, at the sole discretion of HantamNet.
The use of system resource limits is intended to prevent runaway CGI scripts on an unattended server. Also, processes with large memory footprints or hungry CPU requirements will incur swapping and other slowdowns that cause problems for every site on the server.
Resource limits are enforced by automatic monitoring systems.
Domain Registrations
With regard to the support of domain names for "virtual hosting" and "parking", several points of policy apply:
- For all domains, the nameservers must be selected and approved by HantamNet, including all secondaries. Secondary nameservice is not shared with a third party except by special pre-arrangement.
- HantamNet reserves the right to refuse to host, register, or support domain names that it finds offensive or libelous. Judgement of what constitutes "offensive" or "libelous" shall be at the sole discretion of HantamNet.
- HantamNet makes no attempt to exercise control over its customers' domains, and will not make modifications to administrative, billing, organization, or other associated records, without prior permission, except in cases of emergency or violation of this policy.
- Registering any domain to our nameservers without the intent of paying our fees or the authoratative NIC's fees is expressly prohibited. Registering multiple domains with no intent of using those domains for service is forbidden. Anyone found to be "warehousing" domain names for resale or not in "good faith" will have their services terminated at our discretion, and we may contact the appropriate NIC and advise them of the situation.
- The use of any domain name that is considered offensive, defamatory, libelous or violative of any local, state, federal or international law including any violation of intellectual property, copyright, trademark, trade secret, misappropriation and anti-dilution laws is strictly prohibited. It is the sole responsibility of the domain name owner to take all steps necessary to ensure that the domain name selected is not violative of any law or any other party's rights.
- You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless HantamNet from any and all liability, penalties, losses, damages, costs, expenses, attorneys' fees, causes of action or claims caused by or resulting from your registration, acquisition or use of a domain name which damages either you, HantamNet or any other party or parties, without limitation or exception.
- Domain names that have been registered with HantamNet as the Billing Contact and that have not been paid for within the period specified on the HantamNet invoice will be deleted or reregistered into HantamNet's ownership.
Other Information
We are strongly opposed to anyone collecting large numbers of domain names and selling them off. If you need to hold onto a couple of names for future projects, that's fine; if you are registering hundreds of names just because they're combinations of words, or because you think someone might want the names from you in the future, you'll have to find service elsewhere.
Cron Usage
The use of "cron jobs", which are processes that are run automatically at certain times, in accordance with a "crontab" file set up by each user, are NOT allowed on HantamNet servers. This is not negotiable.
Database Resource Usage
MySQL and mSQL databases may be set up and used, subject to the conditions and restrictions below;
- Each qualifying individual account is limited to a maximum of three (3) databases in total.
- No database may be used to act as a "hit counter," or for logging of information distributed nightly in the raw web logs (including but not limited to browser and page referrer information).
- Each individual database is allotted up to 5 MB (megabytes) of disk space. Extra disk usage within reason is allowed, and may be charged for at our normal disk overusage rate in the near future.
- Databases may not be used for circumventing account disk allowances by storing web sites within the database.
- Databases may only be used in conjuction with HantamNet hosted accounts. Access to databases from outside our local network is provided strictly for site and database development.
- Databases may not be used to store binary files (including but not limited to image and application files). These files should be stored within the user account and referred to in the database by a "pointer," if needed.
HantamNet reserves the right to require changes to databases and database usage that has an adverse impact on a database server and/or other user databases on that server. In extreme cases, HantamNet reserves the right to disable any database determined to be unacceptably harming performance of a database server.
HantamNet reserves the right to implement further allowances for database usage in the future, as new tools for determining a database's server impact are developed.
This policy exists in order to protect the integrity and performance of the database servers for all users. Accounts that acquired more than 5 databases before this policy went in to effect will be allowed to operate them for the lifetime of that account.
Server Side Processes
The installation or operation of any stand-alone, unattended server-side process (daemons) on HantamNet servers, with the exception of cron jobs subject to their own policy, is forbidden, except by special arrangement. This specifically includes IRC bots or clients as well as any redirector programs. Use of such a process to accept network connections, for any purpose whatsoever, is expressly forbidden. Violation of this policy will result in immediate account termination without warning.
The reason for this policy is:
- To protect the CPU and memory resources available on each server.
- To protect and enhance system security by not allowing unapproved third-party programs to accept connections from the outside world.
- To allow us to be aware of any such programs, by requiring that special arrangements be made.
Security and Cracking
Use of HantamNet services to engage in any type of fraud, "cracking", malicious behavior, or harassment is expressly forbidden. Interference with the proper operation of systems reachable via the Internet is forbidden. Compliance with the acceptable use policies of any network or system with which you connect through our service is required. Forging e-mail, Usenet postings, or other messages is forbidden. Trafficking in pirated software is forbidden. Port scanning or the use of similar tools is forbidden.
Use of HantamNet services to publish or otherwise disseminate information about the availability of pirated software or other material that is being made available illegally, including the publication of a list of links to such material, regardless of disclaimers, is specifically forbidden. We do not condone or encourage any illegal material or behavior.
If inappropriate activity is detected, all accounts of the user in question will be deactivated until the investigation is complete. Prior notification to the user is not assured. In extreme cases, law enforcement will be contacted regarding the activity.
This policy simply requires that you use your accounts responsibly. Breaking into other systems, trying to break into ours, forging messages, swapping games with your friends - all of this is illegal and inappropriate for our userbase of Internet professionals.
Because of the potential legal and technical risks these activities can present to our service, we deactivate first, and ask questions later. This is necessary to protect our service for all customers.
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