• AcceptableUseDiscussion

9/2/01

This document is an earlier draft of the Terms of Service/Acceptable Use Policy revised August 21, 2001 available at http://wiki.freenetworks.org/index.cgi/AupTos

Use that document instead of this one.

Anthony Townsend NYCwireless

This is an attempt to build an acceptable use policy (aka. AUP or TOS) that people must agree to before they can access the PersonalTelco network (or any other network that wants to use it).

The entire first version of this document as proposed by Terry (?) is included below. I chose to do it this way so that you would be able to compare what was initially intended with what we have right now. Note that NYCWireless can be replaced by your own network name (i.e PersonalTelco etc). All comments and suggestions can be forwarded to voytek at dojka dot com

The following are related documents I am also working on:

http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/TermsOfService

http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/PrivacyPolicy

ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY (AUP)

1. ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT

   As a provider of Internet access through a public wireless access network NYCWireless offers its users the means to acquire and disseminate a wealth of public, private, commercial, and non-commercial information. NYCWireless recognizes the fact that the Internet provides a forum for free and open discussion and dissemination of information, however, when there are competing interests at issue, NYCWireless reserves the right to take certain preventative or corrective actions. In order to protect these competing interests NYCWireless has developed an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP), which is intended as a guide to the user's rights and obligations when utilizing NYCWireless' services. This AUP will be revised from time to time. A customer's use of NYCWireless' services after changes to the AUP are posted on NYCWireless' web site, http://www.NYCWireless.net, will constitute the user's acceptance of any new or additional terms of the AUP that result from those changes.

   This document should be viewed in connection with NYCWireless' Terms Of Service (TOS) agreement (available at http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/TermsOfService) and the Privacy Policy (available at http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/PrivacyPolicy).

2. CHANGES TO THIS DOCUMENT

   This is version 0.1 of the NYCWireless Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and was last updated on the 7th of June 2001. This is a living document and NYCWireless reserves the right to revise, amend, or modify this Acceptable use Policy (AUP), the Terms of Service (ToS), the Privacy Policy, and any other policies and agreements at will, and without notification. If changes are made to this document NYCWireless will attempt to notify the User, but it is the User's responsibility to be aware of changes to this document. Users of the NYCWireless' network are expected to familiarize themselves with this document before using the network. Notice of any revision, amendment, or modification together with the current version of this document is always available at http://www.NYCWireless.net/policies.

3. DEFINITIONS

   • The "Supplier" refers to NYCWireless with all of its affiliate network projects.

   • The "Affiliate" refers to any person or entity providing Internet services in connection with the NYCWireless' operations.

   • The "User" refers to any user of the NYCWireless Network including employees, temporary employees, consultants, contractors, affiliates and guests.

   • To "Access" means to gain access to the network owned by, contracted for, or under the control of, NYCWireless or any of its affiliates at any location via a modem, DSL, Ethernet or wireless connection.

   • The "Network" refers to all personal or desktop computers, including laptops, personal digital assistants (PDAs) and other portable computing devices and all related peripheral equipment as well as servers, data storage devices, communication networks and software owned by, contracted for, of under the control of, NYCWireless or any of its affiliates at any location.

( what about a separation between the internet access provider and the 802.11 provider? i can see cases where one group might donate a connection to the Inet, while another would fund/supply the wireless gear. one or the other might be unhappy about having to take liability for both groups in such a setup. so we end up with: * Internet Provider, being the entity/person who provides an uplink to the Internet. * Wireless Provider, being the entity/person who provides access using the 802.11b protocol in the 2.4Ghz range. )

1. AGREEMENT Commencement of Agreement - This agreement begins as soon as the User accesses the Suppliers network............. One important aspect of the Internet is that no one party owns or controls it. This fact accounts for much of the Internet's openness and value, but it also places a high premium on the judgment and responsibility of those who use the Internet, both in the information they acquire and in the information they disseminate to others. When users obtain information through the Internet, they must keep in mind that NYCWireless cannot monitor, verify, warrant, or vouch for the accuracy and quality of the information that users may acquire. For this reason, the user must exercise his or her best judgment in relying on information obtained from the Internet, and also should be aware that some material posted to the Internet is sexually explicit or otherwise offensive. Because NYCWireless cannot monitor or censor the Internet, and will not attempt to do so, NYCWireless cannot accept any responsibility for injury to its users that results from inaccurate, unsuitable, offensive, or illegal Internet communications. When users disseminate information through the Internet, they also must keep in mind that NYCWireless does not review, edit, censor, or take responsibility for any information its users may create. When users place information on the Internet, they have the same liability as other authors for copyright infringement, defamation, and other harmful speech. Also, because the information they create is carried over NYCWireless' network and may reach a large number of people, including both users and non-users of NYCWireless, users' postings to the Internet may affect other users and may harm NYCWireless's goodwill, business reputation, and operations. For these reasons, users violate NYCWireless policy and the service agreement when they, their customers, affiliates, or subsidiaries engage in the following prohibited activities:

( how about an explicit declaration that this is not a "broadband" service. getting people's expectations up about what type of service to expect probably isn't good. )

• Spamming -- Sending unsolicited bulk and/or commercial messages over the Internet (known as "spamming"). It is not only harmful because of its negative impact on user attitudes toward NYCWireless, but also because it can overload NYCWireless' network and disrupt service to NYCWireless users.

  Intellectual Property Violations -- Engaging in any activity that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, software piracy, and patents held by individuals, corporations, or other entities. Also, engaging in activity that violates privacy, publicity, or other personal rights of others. It is NYCWireless' policy to terminate the privileges of users who commit repeat violations of copyright laws.

(repeat violations? should the word 'repeat' really be in there? I'm assuming it may take a few times for someone to notice and complain, but it feels like asking for trouble to indicate that more than one violation may take place before someone will do something.)

• Obscene Speech or Materials -- Using NYCWireless' network to advertise, transmit, store, post, display, or otherwise make available child pornography or obscene speech or material. NYCWireless is required by law to notify law enforcement agencies when it becomes aware of the presence of child pornography on or being transmitted through NYCWireless' network.

  Defamatory or Abusive Language -- Using NYCWireless' network as a means to transmit or post defamatory, harassing, abusive, or threatening language.

  Forging of Headers -- Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the originator of the message.

  Illegal or Unauthorized Access to Other Computers or Networks -- Accessing illegally or without authorization computers, accounts, or networks belonging to another party, or attempting to penetrate security measures of another individual's system (known as "hacking"). This includes any activity that might be used as a precursor to an attempted system penetration (i.e. port scan, stealth scan, or other information gathering activity).

  Distribution of Internet Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses, or Other Destructive Activities -- Distributing information regarding the creation of and sending Internet viruses, worms, Trojan horses, pinging, flooding, mailbombing, or denial of service attacks. Also, activities that disrupt the use of or interfere with the ability of others to effectively use the network or any connected network, system, service, or equipment.

  Facilitating a Violation of this AUP -- Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mailbombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software.

  Export Control Violations -- Exporting encryption software over the Internet or otherwise, to points outside the United States.

  Usenet Groups -- NYCWireless reserves the right not to accept postings to newsgroups where we have actual knowledge that the content of the newsgroup violates the AUP.

  Other Illegal Activities -- Engaging in activities that are determined to be illegal, including advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, fraudulently charging credit cards, and pirating software.

  Other Activities -- Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that NYCWireless determines to be harmful to its subscribers, operations, reputation, goodwill, or customer relations. As we have pointed out, the responsibility for avoiding the harmful activities just described rests primarily with the user. NYCWireless will not, as an ordinary practice, monitor the communications of its users to ensure that they comply with NYCWireless policy or applicable law. When NYCWireless becomes aware of harmful activities, however, it may take any action to stop the harmful activity, including but not limited to implementing screening software designed to block offending transmissions, denying access to the Internet, taking any other action it deems appropriate.

• PRIVACY

  The privacy of all electronic communications taking place with the use of the NYCwireless networks is governed by the Privacy Policy which can be accessed at http://www.personaltelco.net/index.cgi/PrivacyPolicy. By accepting this Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is is assumed that the user has also reviewed and consents to all provisions of the Privacy Policy.

• VIOLATIONS By accepting this AUP users indemnify NYCWireless for any violation of the service agreement, law, or NYCWireless policy that results in loss to NYCWireless or the bringing of any claim against NYCWireless by any third-party. This means that if NYCWireless is sued because of a user's activity, the user will pay any damages awarded against NYCWireless, plus costs and reasonable attorneys' fees.

• REPORTING VIOLATIONS OF NYCWIRELESS' AUP

  NYCWireless requests that anyone who believes that there is a violation of this AUP direct the information to abuse@NYCWireless.net. If available, please provide the following information:

  • The IP and (if possible) MAC address used to commit the alleged violation
  • The date and time of the alleged violation
  • Evidence of the alleged violation
  Email with full header information provides all of the above, as do syslog files. Note that other situations will require different methods of providing the above information. NYCWireless may take any one or more of the following actions in response to complaints:
  • Issue warnings: written or verbal
  • Suspend the user's access privileges
  • Terminate the user's access privileges
  • Bill the user for administrative costs and/or any other charges
  • Bring legal action to enjoin violations and/or to collect damages, if any, caused by user's violations.

Some resources for writing an AUP ...

• http://www.earthlink.net/about/policies/

• http://home.verio.com/company/policies/aup.cfm

• http://www.earthlight.co.nz/main/accessagreement.html

• http://consume.net/mailing_lists.html

Things that should be included ...

• Final version probably shouldn't be a wiki page (but I changed the agreement so it shouldn't effect me!

• Needs to be a living document (eg. version on line is the final/authoritative legal document)
• Needs to be a flexible AUP that can applied to all online communities that wish to use it, for example Personal Telco affiliate NYCWireless.Net
• Should encourage ??? - Adam what is??
• Need to describe what is considered acceptable use. For example doing commercial work over the network is ok (i.e. writing web pages and uploading them), but hosting a webserver for commercial profit is not ok.
• Provide legal means of termination.
• Should encourage people to connect link back to the network (ala. consume)
• Disallow reselling of bandwidth (ie. commercial usage without explicit written permission of access point, and internet bandwidth provider)
• Not that we plan to collect user data but it might be worthwhile to have a privacy policy built in.
• notification of network monitoring, including reverse IDS
• notification that this is a wireless broadcast network, and thus the user should not expect any data privacy, and instead should use either secure end to end protocols (IMAP with SSL, POP with SSL, Web with SSL, SSH, SMTP with SSL, etc.), or VPN (IPSec, PPtP, etc) back to a network connection they trust.
• Should state how and under what terms we will cooperate with the law.
• No guarantee of service or liability for outages.
• user should indemnify supplier against damages they cause
• define that each access point is run by an independent volunteer of the project
• each individual access point may have specific rules for their access points, and the user must refer to that access points webpage for more information.

Actual Legalese ...

1. AGREEMENT DATE AND VERSION This is version 0.1 of the Suppliers Acceptable Use Policy and was last updated the 16th of May 2001.
2. TERMS

   • The 'Supplier' is The Personal Telco Project and its affiliate network projects.

   • The 'User' is the end user of the Network (end user needs to be better defined)

   • To 'Access' means to gain access to the Suppliers network via modem, DSL, ethernet or wireless wireless.

   • The 'Network' refers to any computer network maintained by or paid for by the Supplier. (or by an affiliate? ... employee? ...)

3. ABOUT THIS DOCUMENT This is a living document, it may be amended at will, and without notification, by the Supplier. If changes are made the Supplier will attempt to notify the User but it is the Users responsibility to be aware of changes to this document.

   Users of the Suppliers network are expected to familiarize themselves with this document before using the network. The current version is always available at http://blah.com/,

4. BACKGROUND The Supplier has built a public access network which consists of blah blah.
5. AGREEMENT.
   1. Agreement to Grant Access - The Supplier agrees to allow the User to Access the Network but in no way guarantees where or when it'll work ... blah.
   2. Commencement of Agreement - This agreement begins as soon as the User accesses the Suppliers network.
6. VIOLATIONS

[CategoryLegal]

CategoryHistorical