Acceptable Use Policy

Introduction

PRiS provides local Internet services for the enjoyment of PRiS members and their friends. PRiS members strongly support the concept of freedom of expression on the Internet. They also believe that they have the right to exercise personal control over the acceptability of their Internet environment.

We must all take responsibility for the quality of our experience. In this spirit, The PRiS Board of Directors (“the Board”) has drawn up some rules to help everyone understand what is acceptable and what is not. As in all PRiS matters, policy is determined by the Board, which is elected by PRiS members.

In an effort to safeguard the Internet environment, PRiS maintains a zero-tolerance policy on network abuse and will take action against member who violates our Acceptable Use Policy. The final decision of what constitutes network abuse rests with the Board.

If you have a complaint about someone you believe is in violation of the PRiS Acceptable Use Policy, please send an e-mail to sysop@pris.ca stating the exact time stamp of the offending material.

MEMBERS WHO VIOLATE THE TERMS OF OUR ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY MAY BE PERMANENTLY BANNED FROM USING PRiS. USING PRiS SERVICES WILL CONSTITUTE ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS POLICY.

Table of Contents

PRiS Acceptable Use Policy

GENERAL

POLICY

1)

Your use of PRiS Services is subject to the Acceptable Use Policy (“Policy”) described herewith. You should read and interpret this Policy in conjunction with the PRiS Agreement for Use of Internet Services. This document forms an integral part of the PRiS “Agreement for Use of Internet Services”.

SOLE RESPONSIBILITY

2)

You, as the holder of the account, are solely responsible for all access, activities conducted, and data flows through your account. Particular care will be required on your part if you operate a wireless Local Area Network. In cases where you have allowed any other individual to use your account or have purposefully or through negligence made your access publicly available, you recognize that you are fully responsible for:

  • (i) the online conduct of such user;
  • (ii) controlling the user’s access to and use of PRiS;
  • (iii) any data traffic charges incurred by such use, and
  • (iv) the consequences of any misuse.

LOGS KEPT

3)

PRiS may elect to keep logs of all activities, including a log of the originators of all materials posted through PRiS. This information will be used solely to enable PRiS staff to take appropriate action when there are complaints that the Policy has been violated, or as outlined in (4) (below). The use of a ‘handle’ does NOT provide you anonymity from the System Administrator.

PRIVACY RESPECTED

4)

It is PRiS policy to respect the privacy of its members. PRiS will not disclose the contents of the logs to outside parties unless required to do so by law or in PRiS’s good faith belief that such action is reasonably necessary to:

  • (i) conform to the edicts of the law or comply with legal process;
  • (ii) protect and defend the rights or property of PRiS; or
  • (iii) act under exigent circumstances to protect the personal safety of PRiS members or the public.

NO ILLEGAL ACTIVITY

5)

While using PRiS, you may not post, transmit, or otherwise distribute information constituting or encouraging conduct that would constitute a criminal offense or give rise to civil liability, or otherwise use PRiS in a manner which is contrary to law, or would serve to restrict or inhibit any other user from using or enjoying PRiS, or the Internet.

RESPECT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

6)

You may upload software files, text, sounds, graphics or other files or data, or otherwise transmit on or through PRiS only such files or data:

  • that are not subject to any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary rights held by any person (including any society or other corporation) other than you, or
  • in which any other holder of such rights has given you express authorization for distribution of such files or data on PRiS, in which case you warrant that you have such rights and you accept responsibility for the use and transmission of such files or data.

By using the facilities of PRiS for the transmission or storage of any such files or data, you automatically grant — or warrant that the owner of such content has expressly granted — PRiS a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive right and license to adapt, publish, translate, distribute, transmit and display such content (in whole or part).

RESPECT COMMUNITY STANDARDS

7)

In the case of publicly accessible postings such as in Discussion Groups, Newsgroups or Web pages, or in the case of any unsolicited e-mail communications:

  • (i) Pornographic and obscene images and language are not permitted. Language which is derogatory to, or which is intended to instill the hatred of any group based on race, colour, creed, or gender is not permitted.
  • (ii) Offensive and indecent handles are not allowed.
  • (iii) Harassment of another Internet User or the use of obscene, threatining, or abusive language is not permitted.
  • (iv) Impersonation of others, including PRiS staff, or another PRiS member is not permitted
  • (v) Distribution or posting of electronic viruses, trojan horses, bots, destructive packets, worms, or other harmful or disruptive components is not permitted.

For the purposes of this provision, merely making one’s address accessible to the public shall not constitute a request or invitation to receive messages.

NO HACKING

8)

You are not permitted to attempt to access the accounts of others, or to attempt to penetrate security measures of PRiS or other entities’ systems (hacking), whether or not the intrusion results in corruption or loss of data.

SHARING, RESELLING SERVICE RESTRICTED

9)

You may not share, re-sell, sub-lease or in any way transfer use of your Internet connection to any person except as expressedly permitted by PRiS. Application to allow such sharing or reselling must be made in writing to pris@pris.ca. PRiS generally grants permission to share or resell access under the following conditions:

  • Each computer or terminal connected through your account is owned or controlled by you,
  • You accept responsibility for all traffic flows to and from each computer or terminal connected through your account,
  • You agree to monitor usage to ensure that it conforms to the PRiS Acceptable Use Policy
  • All computers or terminals are located at the same physical location. A physical location is any collection of rooms that have the same complete mailing address and 911 address,
  • You agree to pay Data Transfer Fees as described in the Data Transfer Limit Policy as described below.
  • You agree to display a notification visible from each connected terminal stating that Internet Connectivity is provided by the Peace Region Internet Society.

E-MAIL

UNTAMPERED HEADERS

1)

You may not forge any message header, in whole or in part, of an electronic transmission originating or passing through the PRiS system, or in any way misrepresent the originator of the message.

NO SPAM

2)

You are not permitted to undertake any activity which is generally known as “spamming”. Specifically:

  • (i) You acknowledge that you are expressly prohibited from using the PRiS System for sending the same, or substantially similar, unsolicited messages, whether commercial or not, to a large number of recipients. This prohibition extends to the sending of unsolicited mass mailings from another service which in any way implicates the use of PRiS services.
  • (ii) A message is unsolicited if it is posted in violation of a USENET or newsgroup charter, or if it is off-topic for a mailing list or similar forum. Posting the same message to more than 15 newsgroups is considered to be excessive.
  • (iii) Sending unsolicited e-mail messages where the recipient objects to the content of the message or to the receipt of the message in general is prohibited.
  • (iv) Sending chain letters, or pyramid scheme letters is prohibited.

DESTRUCTIVE ATTACHMENTS

3)

A message, or message attachement which is identified to contain a virus, or other harmful or disruptive component that could compromise the integrity of a computer system may be intercepted and deleted by PRiS.

VIRTUAL DOMAINS AND WEB HOSTING

The rental of a Virtual Domain from PRiS means that, for all intents and purposes, you have your own Internet site, and your own address in the Internet world. However, you are still physically located on the PRiS Server, and for legal, logistical, and ethical reasons, we require that you, and your site, conform to all facets of the PRiS Acceptable Use Policy.

Data Transfer Limit Policy - Standard Wireless 50/100/250/500/Unlimited

The intention of the Data Transfer Limit Policy is to provide a process through which PRiS can protect itself and its members from excessive or disruptive data transfer activities by any member. The process is based on the principle that PRiS is entitled to provide equitable access to all PRiS members given existing system capacity, and to recover costs incurred by PRiS as a result of a member’s activities. The costs of incremental data traffic include the fees paid for capacity to upstream providers and the cost of equipment acquisition / management for Last Mile connectivity to the member.

All service is delivered on a best effort basis, but such effort may include Technical Internet Traffic Management Practices (Technical ITMPs). PRiS does not promise any particular Committed Data Rate (CDR) to its members. Technical ITMPs may limits speeds below individual connection capabilities as described below.

PRiS provides all users with data transfer statistics relating to their account.

Traffic is counted separately between the hours of 7:00 AM and Midnight. From Midnight to 7:00 AM traffic is ‘Free Time’. It is not counted in monthly totals or averages, and is free of ITMP’s:

PRiS has two data management policies:

  1. By default, members will be subject to Technical ITMPs that may impose additional speed limits on the account when the member’s Data Transfer activity for the month exceeds the amounts allotted.
  2. In special circumstances Overage Data Charges (ODCs) may be applied to the normal monthly fee for services when the member’s Data Transfer activity for the month exceeds the amounts allotted (below). Members who have agreed to pay prescribed ODC’s will be provided a fixed speed for the entirety of the month.

ODCs

  • In special circumstances members will be required to pay prescribed Overage Data Charge (ODC) going forward by agreeing to do so in writing, and can revoke acceptance in writing, effective the start of any calendar month.
  • Current rates are as follows.
    • $ 2.00 per 1 Gigabytes in excess of 2 Gigabytes per month for Dial-up accounts,
    • $ 2.00 per 1 Gigabytes in excess of 10 Gigabytes per month for Standard Wireless accounts,
    • $ 3.00 per 1 Gigabytes in excess of 2 Gigabytes per month for accounts with PRiS permission to share, resell or sublease services. These charges are mandatory.
    • $ 2.00 per 1 Gigabytes in excess of 30 Gigabytes per month for Fibre to-the-home (FTTH)
    • $ 1.00 per 1 Gigabytes in excess of 50 Gigabytes per month for ADSL

    PRiS may impose pre-payment conditions, or additional limitations on data transfer rates, as deemed necessary to maintain the balance on the member’s account payable to a fiscally responsible level.

DEFAULT

  1. Technical ITMPs are implemented on PRiS wireless networks solely to ensure that all members have equitable access to the Internet. They ensure that no one member can utilize a disproportionate amount of available bandwidth or access point air time, thereby denying service to other members. The amount of bandwidth/air time available at any given site varies markedly with time in an uncontrolled fashion and is not automatically shared evenly between members.
  2. PRiS Technical ITMPS do not involve “Deep Packet Inspection” and there is no differentiation between protocols, ports, or source IP addresses. Net Neutrality is respected.
  3. Members will not be subject to any overage data charges (ODCs), regardless of the amount of data transferred.
  • PRiS members who build wireless LAN networks at their locations are reminded to be especially vigilant to ensure that their networks are blocking access by unauthorized parties to their Internet connection. PRiS members are fully responsible for ALL traffic flowing to or from their network through PRiS, regardless of whether they are personally cognizant of that traffic.
  • Regular monthly membership fees will not be reduced because of any speed restrictions imposed.

Data Transfer Limit Policy - Wireless and Fibre

If you are signed up for one of the Wireless or Fibre Internet packages, there is a monthly data usage allowance for your service. This monthly usage allowance varies by package. Your usage is the amount of data sent and received to and from the Internet through your PRiS radio. When you exceed the usage allowance in a given billing month, your connection will be throttled to a fixed.

Our goal is to ensure that each PRiS member receives fair and consistent access to the Internet throughout the day. To minimize the impact that heavier users might have on the experience of other PRiS members, we have implemented a Data Transfer Limit. Our intent with this policy is to affect the fewest members possible while helping maintain the best speeds for the majority of our members.

Traffic Management Policy

Depending on which package you have signed up for, there is a monthly usage allotment of 50, 100, 250, 500 or unlimited gigabytes (GB) of data. When our systems detect that a member has used more than their monthly allotment, their connection will be throttled for the remainder of the calendar month. The member’s connection will be throttled to a speed of 256Kbps.