Important Note:

Prairie Online Internet Services ("POL") may revise this Acceptable Use Policy without notice by posting a revised version on our Web Site at www.prairie.ca/aup. Accordingly, POL customers should consult this document regularly to ensure that their usage conforms to the most recent version. In the event of conflict between any customer agreement and this Policy, the terms of this Policy will govern. Complaints of violations of this Policy by POL users can be directed to:

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1. Introduction
POL provides a variety of Internet Services to residences and businesses (the Services). The POL Service allows residential customers to connect to the POL network, and the Internet. iNet, Professional, and Business services allow businesses to connect to the POL high-speed backbone network, and the Internet for the purposes of transacting business.

All of the Services provided by POL are subject to this Acceptable Use Policy.
The Services use resources that are shared with many customers. Moreover, the Services provide access to the Internet which is used by millions of others. Each user benefits by being able to share resources and communicate almost effortlessly with other members of the user community. However, as with any community, the benefits and privileges available from the Service, and the Internet in general, must be balanced with duties and responsibilities designed to guarantee uniform access to all customers of the Service.

Use of the Services is subject to the following rules and guidelines. Each customer of POL is responsible for ensuring that the use of all Services provided to such customer comply with this Acceptable Use Policy (the Policy). ANY USER WHO DOES NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS MUST IMMEDIATELY CANCEL THE SERVICE AND NOTIFY POL'S CUSTOMER SERVICE DEPARTMENT THAT THE ACCOUNT IS TO BE TERMINATED.

2. Illegal Activity
Use of the Services for any activity that violates Local, Provincial, Federal or International law, order or regulation, is a violation of this Policy.
Prohibited activities include, but are not limited to:
· Posting or disseminating unlawful material (child pornography or obscene material)
· Disseminating material which violates copyright or intellectual property rights. The customer assumes all risk regarding whether material is in the public domain
· Pyramid or other illegal soliciting schemes
· Fraudulent activities; including but not limited to: impersonating any person or entity, or forging anyone's digital or manual signature

3. Security
The customer is responsible for any misuse of the Services that originate from their account, even activities committed by any friend, family, co-worker, employee, guest or anyone with access to the account. Customers must ensure that others not gain unauthorized access to the Services.

The Services may not be used to breach the security of another user, or to attempt access to anyone's computer, software or data, without the knowledge and consent of that person. The Services may not be used in any attempt to circumvent the user authentication or security of any host, network, or account. This includes, but is not limited to, accessing data not intended for you, logging into or making use of a server or account you are not expressly authorized to access, probing the security of other networks. Use or distribution of tools designed for compromising security, such as password guessing programs, cracking tools, packet sniffers or network probing tools, is prohibited.

You may not disrupt the Services. The Services also may not be used to interfere with computer networking or telecommunications services to any user, host or network, including, without limitation, denial of service (DoS) attacks, flooding of a network, overloading a service, improper seizing and abuse of operator privileges and attempts to crash a host. The transmission or dissemination of any information or software that contains a virus or other harmful feature is also prohibited.

The customer is responsible for the security of any device connected to the Services by the customer, including data stored on that device. In particular, POL recommends against enabling file or printer sharing of any kind. POL recommends that any files or services you make available for remote access be password protected.

4. Inappropriate Content
Certain Internet content available through the Services may be offensive to individuals (particularly for children), or may not be in compliance with local laws or regulations; i.e. pornographic content or hate literature. POL assumes NO responsibility for Internet content available through the Services. The customer assumes all risk when accessing content through the Services, and POL shall not be liable for any and all claims, losses, actions, damages, suits or proceedings arising out of or otherwise relating to, access of such content. Parents are responsible for restricting access to sexually explicit material on the Internet, by purchasing the appropriate filtering software, or by monitoring Internet use. Content questions or complaints should be addressed to the content provider, not POL.

The customer is responsible for information published to the Web or other Internet services, through their account. POL reserves the right to refuse to post or to remove any information or materials, in whole or in part, that it, at its sole discretion, deems to be offensive, indecent, or otherwise inappropriate regardless of whether such material or its dissemination is unlawful.

POL has no obligation to monitor transmissions made on the Services. However, POL has the right to monitor such transmissions and to disclose the same in accordance with your Service agreement. By using the Services to publish, transmit or distribute content, a user is warranting that the content complies with this Policy and authorizes POL to reproduce, publish, distribute and display such content worldwide.

5. Electronic Mail
The Services may not be used to send unsolicited bulk (spamming) or commercial messages. This includes, but is not limited to, bulk mailing of commercial advertising, informational announcements, charity requests, petitions for signatures and political or religious messages. Such messages may be sent only to those who have explicitly requested them.

The Services may not be used to collect responses from unsolicited email sent from accounts on other Internet hosts or email services which violates this Policy or the acceptable use policy of any other Internet service provider. Moreover, unsolicited email may not direct the recipient to any web site or other resource that uses the Services.

Forging, altering or removing electronic mail headers is prohibited. However, you may insert additional characters into your from: and reply-to: addresses in order to prevent your true address from being automatically added to the mailing lists used by bulk emailers. In this case, your true address must remain obvious to any human viewer. For example, you may substitute nospam.john.smith for john.smith.

You may not reference POL (e.g. including Organization: Prairie Online Internet Services in the header, or by listing an IP address that belongs to POL) in any unsolicited email, even if that email is not sent through POL.

Mail Bombing is prohibited; you may not send numerous copies of the same or substantially similar messages, nor may you send very large messages or files to a recipient with the intent to disrupt a server or account. The propagation of chain letters is prohibited, whether or not the recipient wishes to receive such mailings.
POL is not responsible for the forwarding of email sent to any account that has been suspended or terminated. Such email will either be returned to sender, ignored, deleted, or stored temporarily, at POL's sole discretion.

6. Newsgroups
Messages posted to newsgroups must comply with the written charters or FAQ's for those newsgroups. Advertisements, solicitations, or other commercial messages should be posted only in those newsgroups whose charters or FAQ's explicitly permit them. The customer is responsible for determining the policies of a given newsgroup before posting to it.

Posting or cross-posting the same or substantially similar messages to any amount of newgroups deemed unacceptable by POL is prohibited.

Binary files may not be posted to newsgroups not specifically named for that purpose.

Forging, altering or removing header information is prohibited. This includes attempting to circumvent the approval process for posting to a moderated newsgroup.

POL reserves the right to discontinue access to any Usenet newsgroup at any time and for any reason.

You may not flood or disrupt Usenet newsgroups. Disruption is defined as posting a large number of messages to a newsgroup that contains no substantive content, to the extent that normal discussion in the group is significantly hindered. Examples of disruptive activities include, but are not limited to: posting multiple messages with no text in the body, posting many follow-ups to messages with no new text.

Messages may not be cancelled, except by the author or by official newsgroup moderators performing their duties.

The Usenet news service included with a POL account is provided for interactive use by the customer, using a commonly available NNTP client such as Netscape Communicator. Non-interactive clients that download Usenet articles in bulk are prohibited.

7. Internet Relay Chat
The Services may be used to participate in Chat discussions hosted by POL servers, third party servers, or may not involve servers at all. In all cases, POL does not monitor the contents of the discussion and is not liable for the content of any communications made via Internet Chat.

The Services may not be used for Chat flooding. Flooding is defined as deliberately repeating actions in quick succession in order to fill the screens of other Internet users with text.

Any computer or other device connected through the Services may not maintain more than 2 simultaneous chat connections. This includes the use of automated programs, such as bots or clones. Automated programs may not be used when the account holder is not physically present at the device.

The Services may not be used to send messages that disrupt another Internet user's equipment, including software, hardware and user display.

The Services may not be used to access any chat server in violation of the acceptable use policy of that server. The Services may not be used to manipulate any chat server in order to harass or disconnect other Internet users, or to gain privileges that have not been authorized.

A customer may not use the Services to connect to chat servers or channels from which they have been previously banned.

The Services may not be used to continue to send chat messages to an Internet user who has indicated their desire to not receive messages.

Forging, altering, or obscuring your identity while participating in chat sessions is forbidden. You may, however, use a nickname as long as all chat participants are able to discover your real name via normal Internet conventions, such as the whois command.

8. Bandwidth, Data Storage and Other Limitation
You must comply with the current bandwidth, data storage and other limitations on the Services.

Users must ensure that their activity does not improperly restrict, inhibit or degrade any other customer's use of the Services, nor represent (in the sole judgement of POL) an unusually large burden on the network itself. In addition, users must ensure that their activity does not improperly restrict, disrupt, inhibit, degrade or impede POL's ability to deliver the Services and monitor the Services, backbone, network nodes, and/or other network services.

Customers may not resell, share, or otherwise distribute the Services or any portion thereof to any third party without the written consent of POL. For example, you cannot provide Internet access to others through a dial up connection, host shell accounts over the Internet, provide email or news service, or send a news feed unless express permission is granted by the customer agreement.

You may not use POL Service for commercial purposes. You may not run a server in connection with the POL Service nor may you provide network services to others via the POL Service. Examples of prohibited servers and services include, but are not limited to, mail, http, ftp, irc, and dhcp servers, and multi-user interactive forums. Some Business services may be exempt from these limitations.

9. Unlimited Service
You acknowledge that POL's Service is intended for periodic, active use of e-mail, user newsgroups, file transfers via FTP, Internet chat, Internet games and browsing the World Wide Web. You further agree not to use the service as a dedicated connection, or a connection that is actively---or inactively--- in use for more than 16 hours a day. POL reserves the right to monitor any heavily active or inactive account, and reserves the right to terminate any connection that is inactive for more than thirty (30) minutes or for a session lasting longer than six (6) continuous hours. POL also reserves the right to suspend, cancel, or upgrade an "unlimited service" account to a "dedicated connection" account in the event the Customer or User is using the service as a dedicated connection. The use of pinging, or any other technologies that mimic activity is expressly prohibited.

10. Violation of Acceptable Use Policy
POL does not routinely monitor the activity of accounts for violation of this Policy. However, in our efforts to promote good citizenship within the Internet community, we will respond appropriately if we become aware of inappropriate use of the Services. Although POL has no obligation to monitor the Services and/or the network, POL reserves the right to monitor bandwidth, usage and content from time to time, to identify violations of this Policy; and/or to protect the network and POL users.

POL prefers to advise customers of inappropriate behaviour and any necessary corrective action. However, if the Services are used in a way that POL, in its sole discretion, believes are in violation of this Policy, POL may take any responsive actions deemed appropriate. Such actions include, but are not limited to, temporary or permanent removal of content, cancellation of newsgroup posts, filtering of Internet transmissions, and the immediate suspension or termination of all or any portion of the Services. POL will not have any liability for any such responsive actions. The above-described actions are not POL's exclusive remedies and POL may take any other legal or technical action it deems appropriate.

POL reserves the right to investigate suspected violations of this Policy, including the gathering of information from the user or users involved and the complaining party, if any, and examination of material on POL's servers and network. During an investigation, POL may suspend the account or accounts involved and/or remove material that potentially violates this Policy.

You hereby authorize POL to cooperate with (i) law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations, and/or (ii) system administrators at other Internet service providers or other network or computing facilities in order to enforce this Policy. Such cooperation may include POL providing the username, IP address, or other identifying information about a subscriber.

Upon termination of an account, POL is authorized to delete any files, programs, data and email messages associated with such account.

The failure of POL to enforce this Policy, for whatever reason, shall not be construed as a waiver of any right to do so at any time.

You agree that, if any portion of this Policy is held invalid or unenforceable, that portion will be construed consistent with applicable law as nearly as possible, and the remaining portions will remain in full force and effect.