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Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

last updated February 20, 2007

This Acceptable Use Policy document, including the following list of Prohibited Activities, along with our Terms of Service, are an integral part of your Hosting Agreement with Laughing Squid. The Customer may only use Laughing Squid’s services for lawful purposes. If you engage in any of the activities prohibited by this AUP document or any unlawful activities, Laughing Squid has the right to immediately discontinue such service to Customer without liability.

Laughing Squid’s Acceptable Use Policy (the “Policy”) for Laughing Squid Services is designed to help protect Laughing Squid, Laughing Squid’s customers and the Internet community in general from irresponsible or, in some cases, illegal activities. The Policy is a non-exclusive list of the actions prohibited by Laughing Squid. Laughing Squid reserves the right to modify the Policy at any time, effective upon posting at http://laughingsquid.net/aup/.

Prohibited Uses of Laughing Squid Systems and Services:

Sending Unsolicited Bulk Email (”UBE”, “spam”). The sending of any form of Unsolicited Bulk Email through Laughing Squid’s servers is prohibited. Likewise, the sending of UBE from another service provider advertizing a website, email address or utilizing any resource hosted on Laughing Squid’s servers, is prohibited. Laughing Squid accounts or services may not be used to solicit customers from, or collect replies to, messages sent from another Internet Service Provider where those messages violate this Policy or that of the other provider.

Unsolicited advertising via email and/or “Spamming” is a violation of State and Federal Law and is otherwise a violation of this agreement. This includes referencing domains hosted on Laughing Squid servers in said spam. Such prohibited conduct subjects Customer to immediate cessation of service as provided herein and the termination of this agreement without notice. Laughing Squid reserves the right to report such illegal activities to any and all regulatory, administrative and/or governmental authorities for appropriate prosecution. In addition, Laughing Squid has the right to charge one dollar (US$1.00) per email recipient for any such activity.
Mass mailings, scripts that send out mass mailings or any other kind of high-volume mailing activities are not allowed on our servers. Purchasing lists of email addresses from 3rd parties for mailing to from any Laughing Squid-hosted domain, or referencing any Laughing Squid account, is prohibited.
Using a non-existing email return address on a commercial solicitation, spamming (sending unsolicited advertising to numerous email addresses or newsgroups and/or generating a significantly higher volume of outgoing email than a normal user), trolling (posting outrageous messages to generate numerous responses, mailbombing (sending multiple messages without significant new content to the same user), subscribing someone else to a mailing list without that person’s permission or attempting without authorization to enter into a secured computer system. Laughing Squid reserves the right to determine what is internet abuse.
Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP or the AUP of any other Internet Service Provider, which includes, but is not limited to, the facilitation of the means to send Unsolicited Bulk Email, initiation of pinging, flooding, mail-bombing, denial of service attacks.
Operating an account on behalf of, or in connection with, or reselling any service to, persons or firms listed in the Spamhaus Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database at www.spamhaus.org.
We do not host porn/adult websites. We do allow erotic photography, erotic art and other adult material. You are responsible for making sure that you provide proper warnings and disclaimers concerning the contents of your website. Our definition of a porn website is a website that sells memberships to access adult images and video or a website that is solely setup to distribute adult images and video. Most porn websites in general tend to have a heavy load on the server because they attempt to attract as much traffic as possible to the website and the visitors to these websites in turn download a high volume of files. We avoid hosting any websites that may have a adverse affect on the performance of our servers and the websites they host.

The Customer expressly understands and agrees that Laughing Squid is not liable for legal action taken against Customer websites that have content featuring nudity and/or of a sexual nature.

If you’re sill not sure how we would classify your website, then enter a support ticket through our Help Desk, referencing the url of your website and we’ll let you know if it is the type of website that we will host.
We do not allow the unauthorized distribution or copying copyrighted software and files (including MP3’s, warez, cracks, ROMs, etc.), violation of US laws, harassment, fraud, trafficking in obscene material, drug dealing, and other illegal activities. This includes, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or other intellectual property right used without proper authorization, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws.

Laughing Squid reserves the right to report such illegal activities to any and all regulatory, administrative and/or governmental authorities for appropriate prosecution.
In general, we do not host any kind of media download websites, that is websites that exist specifically to enable people to download files, audio, video (mp3’s, ROMs, emulators, video games, cheats etc.).
Unauthorized attempts by a user to gain access to any account or computer resource not belonging to that user (e.g., “cracking”).
Obtaining or attempting to obtain service by any means or device with intent to avoid payment.
Unauthorized access, alteration, destruction, or any attempt thereof, of any information of any Laughing Squid customers or end-users by any means or device.
Knowingly engage in any activities designed to harass, or that will cause a denial-of-service (e.g., synchronized number sequence attacks) to any other user whether on the Laughing Squid network or on another provider’s network.
Using Laughing Squid’s Services to interfere with the use of the Laughing Squid network or servers by other customers or authorized users.
Tortious conduct such as posting of defamatory, libelous, slanderous, scandalous, or private information about a person without their consent, intentionally inflicting emotional distress, or violating trademarks, copyright, or other intellectual property right.
Any other misuses of the system resources, such as employing scripts or programs which consume excessive CPU time or storage space, permitting use of mailservers, mail forwarding capabilities, POP accounts, file managers, autoresponders or resale/outsource of access to scripts installed on our servers.
Attempting without authorization to enter into a secured computer system. Malicious hacking, cracking or otherwise altering of a website owned and operated by another person. Laughing Squid reserves the right to report such illegal activities to any and all regulatory, administrative and/or governmental authorities for appropriate prosecution.
Script sharing with other domains is not permitted. Any scripts deemed to be adversely affecting server performance or network integrity will be shut down without prior notice.
IRC software, IRC bots or Eggdrop bots are not allowed on our servers.
Customer installed chat room scripts or programs are not allowed on our servers.
We do not allow web cams because they could potentially reduce our servers’ performance as well as consuming large amounts of bandwidth.
Shell emulators, virtual servers, file systems or system binaries are not allowed on our servers.
We do not allow websites that provide banner ad services outside websites. Using banner ads on your own website is fine.
Dating or personals scripts and other scripts that send out anonymous email are not allowed on our servers.

Customer Responsibility for Customer’s Users

Each Laughing Squid customer is responsible for the activities of its users and, by accepting service from Laughing Squid, is agreeing to ensure that its customers, representatives or end-users abide by this Policy. Complaints about customers, representatives or end-users of an Laughing Squid customer will be forwarded to the Laughing Squid customer’s primary contact for action. If violations of the Laughing Squid Acceptable Use Policy occur, Laughing Squid reserves the right to terminate services with or take action to stop the offending customer from violating Laughing Squid’s AUP as Laughing Squid deems appropriate, without notice.