Acceptable terms of use

Acceptable Use Policy Version 1.1

FOR Norfolk Open Link Network INTERNET SERVICES

Please read these terms and conditions carefully as they are applicable to your use of the Norfolk Open Link Internet Service (the "Internet Service") and explain what you can and cannot do with the Internet Service provided. These terms are legally binding and form part of the terms and conditions included in your Norfolk Open Link Agreement with Norfolk County Council. The Norfolk Open Link Agreement offered to you herein by Norfolk County Council can be found on our website at www.openlink.org.uk or you may contact our Customer Care line on 0906 617 0071 to request a copy or enquire about any of your rights and responsibilities under these terms.
Please note that calls to this number are charged at 60 pence per minute from a BT landline, calls from mobiles and other networks may vary (Call costs correct at date of publication 28/07/06)

Customer support is available 9am till 5pm Monday to Friday

Customer Support is provided by Telabria Networks Ltd, 1090 Galley Drive , Kent Science Park, Sittingbourne , Kent ME9 8GA

We may change or update the terms of our Acceptable Use Policy at any time and such updated policy shall be posted to your nominated contact and displayed on the website. We recommend that you visit our website regularly to ensure that you are aware of any changes.

Norfolk Open Link provides you with a fast, secure private Internet Service which operates up to speeds of 1Mbps providing access to the World Wide Web and email, depending on how you connect and subject to the terms of this Acceptable Use Policy.

Use of the Internet Service and compliance with Law

The Network utilised in offering Norfolk Open Link Internet Services may be used only for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or intellectual property right used without proper authorisation, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws.

These terms and conditions shall be construed and interpreted in accordance with English Law and the English Courts shall have non-exclusive jurisdiction to settle any disputes which may arise out of or in connection with these terms and conditions or use of the website.

These terms and conditions do not exclude our liability (if any) to you for personal injury or death resulting from our negligence, for fraud or for any matter which it would be illegal for us to exclude or to attempt to exclude our liability.

We are only liable to you for losses which you suffer as a result of a breach of these terms and conditions by us. Our liability to you shall not in any event include losses related to any business, including but not limited to lost data, lost profits or business interruption. We are also not responsible for any losses which you may incur which we could not foresee when you entered into this agreement.

1.1 You agree that you will only use the Internet Service in a way which is consistent with these terms and conditions and which is not in violation of any law or regulation which is enforceable in the United Kingdom . In particular, you agree that you will not use the Internet Service:

1.1.1 for any commercial or business purpose whatsoever, including to advertise or offer to sell any goods or services not permissible under current UK legislation; or

1.1.2 allow others to use it other than at the address at which the Internet Service is installed; or

1.1.3 to send, receive, encourage the receipt of, upload, download, use or reuse any material which is offensive, abusive, defamatory, obscene or menacing or a breach of the copyright, trade mark, confidence, privacy or any other rights of any person; or

1.1.4 in a manner which is invasive of another's privacy, causes annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to any person; or

1.1.5 to upload or send unsolicited e-mail or otherwise transmit any unsolicited advertising or promotional materials; or

1.1.6 to upload or send any material which contains software viruses or other codes, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software, hardware or telecommunications equipment; or

1.1.7 to conduct or forward unsolicited pyramid selling schemes or chain letters; or

1.1.8 in any manner which would interfere with or disrupt the proposed Internet Service or contravenes any instructions which we may give to you in connection with the Internet Service from time to time; or

1.1.9 in any manner which would contravene the Computers Misuse Act 1990; or

1.1.10 in any manner which infringes or breaches any third party intellectual property rights (which shall include but not be limited to copyrights, trade marks, design rights, trade secrets, patents, moral rights and performance rights). For the avoidance of doubt, the installation or distribution of "pirated" software or other software products that are not appropriately licensed to you will constitute a violation of intellectual property rights. 

1.2 You acknowledge that the Internet Service will only support shared internet access for up to a maximum of 100 personal computers which have been connected up to the Internet Service on a wired, wireless or combination basis by an approved Norfolk County Council (or its authorised subcontractors) engineer.

1.3 You acknowledge that the Internet is designed to appeal to a broad audience.  It is your responsibility to determine whether any of the content accessed via the Internet Service by your staff/personnel is appropriate.

1.4 You acknowledge that the Internet Service and any information or goods, which you obtain from the Internet Service, are provided for your personal and/or internal business use only and may not be used for any commercial purposes or distributed commercially using Norfolk County Council as an advertising or transactional medium without our prior written permission.

1.6 Given the global nature of the Internet, you agree to comply with all local rules and applicable UK legislation regarding online conduct and acceptable content.  You also agree to comply with any applicable rules regarding the export of technical data from any country - including but without limitation the United States .

1.7 You acknowledge that we are not obliged to monitor your use of the Internet Service but that we and our agents reserve the right to refuse or to remove any material which you upload or send using the Internet Service without notice to you if we believe, in our absolute discretion, that such material breaches these terms and conditions.

1.8 You are responsible for ensuring that any others in your premises who you allow to use the Internet Services, use the Internet Service in accordance with these terms and conditions.

1.9 If we believe that the Internet Service is being used in contravention of these terms and conditions we are entitled to disconnect the Internet Service without prior notice to you.  Prior to restoring the Internet Service, (which shall be at our absolute discretion), we may require an assurance from you in a form we deem acceptable that there will be no further breach of these terms and conditions.

2 Provision of the Internet Service and Our Liability

2.1 We will use commercially reasonable endeavours to ensure that the Internet Service is fully operational at all times. However we cannot guarantee that the Internet Service will be fault free or that your access to the Internet will be uninterrupted and we will not be liable to you if your access to the Internet Service is interrupted or restricted at any time for reasons beyond our reasonable control. Our total liability in this matter shall be as detailed within the version of the Norfolk County Council Service Level Agreement pertaining at the time of any reported incident.

2.2 Due to the nature of the Internet and the fact that in providing the Internet Service to you we must rely on third party services, we cannot guarantee specific levels of service performance beyond the Norfolk County Council Service Level Agreement pertaining at the time of any reported incident.

2.3 We reserve the right to restrict access to the Internet Service and to impose data traffic restrictions at our discretion, in order to provide upgrades, implement new facilities, allow data retrieval and maintain service levels and for any other purpose. Where practicable all such work shall be undertaken outside of normal business hours (nominally 08.00-18.00 hours) and we shall endeavour to advise you of any such measures in advance by e-mail and/or via our website within a reasonable timeframe.

2.4 We reserve the right to filter emails and to remove emails containing, or suspected by us of containing, a computer virus and/or any email which we, in our absolute discretion, consider to be email spam but we are not under any obligation to monitor the content of any use or transmissions of the Internet Service. Where emails which are considered by us to be email spam are not removed, we reserve the right to modify the header of such emails so as to identify such email as "spam".

2.5 Norfolk County Council does not set nor prescribe any email account size or archiving limits upon customers. However, you would be well advised to undertake or procure to undertake email protection, storage and archiving arrangements suitable for your use.

2.6 At its sole discretion, Norfolk County Council may offer such supplemental services outside of the scope of this agreement as it may from time to time determine.

2.7 We do not guarantee that use of the Internet Service will be compatible with all hardware and software which you may use to access it.

2.8 We are not liable to you for any damage or loss arising from the consequences of viruses received by you via the Internet Service or for any losses related to any business, including but not limited to lost data, lost profits, business interruption or wasted expenditure.

2.9 If you become aware of a fault occurring with the Internet Service you should telephone us on Tel: 0906 617 0071 (calls will be answered by Norfolk County Council Support Subcontractor Telabria Limited). We will endeavour to rectify the fault as soon as reasonably practicable and as detailed within the version of the Norfolk County Council Service Level Agreement pertaining at the time of any reported incident.

3. Suspension and Modification of Internet Service

Your access to the Internet Service may occasionally be interrupted or restricted to allow for repairs or maintenance to be carried out or the introduction of new facilities or services. We will endeavour to restore the Internet Service as soon as possible.  We may modify the Internet Service at any time with or without notice.

4 Termination

We may restrict, suspend or terminate your use of the Internet Service if we believe, in our absolute discretion, that you have breached these terms and conditions or the terms of the Norfolk County Council Agreement at any time. The suspension or termination of the Internet Service will be without prejudice to any rights that we may have against you under the Norfolk County Council Agreement.

5 Links

5.1 The Internet Service may provide links to Web sites operated by third parties.  Such links are provided for your convenience only. We have no control over these sites and are not responsible for their availability or content. Our inclusion of links to such sites does not imply any endorsement of the material on such sites or any association with their operators unless expressly described in writing.

5.2 We will not be responsible for any charges you may incur as a result of any dealings you may have with any third party whilst using the Internet Service.

THE NETWORK

6.1 You acknowledge that Norfolk County Council is unable to exercise control over the content of the information passing over the network utilised by Norfolk County Council services. Therefore, Norfolk County Council is not responsible for the content of any message whether or not the posting was made by a Norfolk County Council customer.

6.2 The Network utilised by Norfolk County Council services may be used to link into other networks worldwide and you agree to conform to the acceptable use policies of these networks.

6.3 In addition you undertake to conform to the Internet protocols and standards.

6.4 You may not circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network, or account (referred to as "cracking" or "hacking"), nor interfere with service to any user, host, or network (referred to as "denial of service attacks").

6.5 Without prejudice to the foregoing, Norfolk County Council considers that any application that overloads the Network utilised by Norfolk County Council services by whatever means will be considered as making profligate use of the Network utilised by Norfolk County Council services and is as such NOT allowed. Use of IP multicast other than by means provided and co-ordinated by Norfolk County Council is likewise prohibited.

6.6 Users who violate systems or network security may incur criminal or civil liability. Norfolk County Council will fully co-operate with investigations of suspected criminal violations, violation of systems or network security under the leadership of law enforcement or relevant authorities.

SYSTEM AND NETWORK SECURITY

7.1 Violations of system or network security are prohibited, and may result in criminal and civil liability. Norfolk County Council will investigate incidents involving such violations and will involve and will co-operate with law enforcement if a criminal violation is suspected. Examples of system or network security violations include, without limitation, the following:

7.1.1 Unauthorised access to or use of data, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network or to breach security or authentication measures without express authorisation of the owner of the system or network;

7.1.2 Unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on any network or system without express authorisation of the owner of the system or network;

7.1.2 Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mailbombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks;

7.1.3 Forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting.

7.1.4 If approached with complaints relating to any of the above violations, Norfolk County Council will co-operate and assist the Police and law enforcing bodies with their investigations in order to bring such mis-use and violations to an end.

E-MAIL

It is explicitly prohibited to send unsolicited bulk mail messages ("junk mail" or "spam") of any kind (commercial advertising, political tracts, announcements) etc.

It is also explicitly prohibited to allow others to send unsolicited bulk mail messages either directly or by relaying through the Users systems. For the avoidance of doubt, users must ensure that their systems cannot be relayed through. Users may not forward or propagate chain letters nor malicious e-mail.

A user may not solicit mail for any other address other than that of the user, except with full consent of the owner of the referred address.

INTERNET WATCH FOUNDATION

9.1 Norfolk County Council shall abide by advice given by the independent industry body The Internet Watch Foundation ("IWF") in relation to content of the Internet. For further information regarding IWF and its policy, please refer to http://www.iwf.org.uk .

Complaints regarding Illegal Use or System or Network Security issues, Email abuse, USENET abuse or spamming should be sent via our website www.norfolkopenlink.com or you may contact our Customer Care Line on Tel: 0906 617 0071

INDIRECT OR ATTEMPTED VIOLATIONS OF THIS POLICY, AND ACTUAL OR ATTEMPTED VIOLATIONS BY A THIRD PARTY ON BEHALF OF A NORFOLK COUNTY COUNCIL CUSTOMER OR A CUSTOMER'S END USER, SHALL BE CONSIDERED VIOLATIONS OF THIS POLICY BY SUCH CUSTOMER OR END USER.