All Web hosting organizations, especially resellers should develop
acceptable usage policies to govern the terms of use of their products and
services.
The use of an acceptable usage policy, or AUP is very important to limit a
reseller's liability. An AUP sets the ground rules applicable to a
reseller's clientele.
By creating and implementing an AUP, resellers ensure that the behaviour of
their clients is within acceptable legal perimeters. An AUP acts to layout
basic policies or guidelines that customers must adhere to.
Primarily, acceptable usage policies prohibit activities that damage the
commercial reputation and goodwill of a higher-tier hosting company or a
reseller operation. AUPs ensure that servers are only used for lawful
purposes.
Usually, AUPs reinforce the fact that transmission, distribution and storage
of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is
prohibited. This includes copyrighted and trademarked materials, trade
secrets and all other intellectual property used without proper
authorization.
Resellers also use AUPs to bar the transmission of obscene material such as
pornography. Many resellers attempt to bar customers intent on setting up
adult sites due to the costs associated with hosting it. Because
pornography is extremely popular, it generates a tremendous amount of
traffic that will usually tie up user resources and increase bandwidth
usage. For this reason, many resellers specifically ban this type this type
of material. And indeed, all AUPs should make specific reference to the
illegality of child pornography.
Resellers must also use AUPs to reiterate the illegality of using Internet
resources to defame persons or corporations, make threats or violate export
control laws.
AUPs also instruct customers not to breach the reseller's network security
precautions. Most policies will explicitly prohibit violations of system or
network security. Policies in this regard should be in-depth, prohibiting
unauthorized access and use of network resources. Most AUPs will ban using
a reseller's resources to launch an attack on an Internet system or to
undertake surveillance of another party's network resources.
Policies should also ban the most annoying of Internet practices: spamming.
A well-written AUP will explicitly prohibit the transmission of unsolicited
mail messages, including, without limitation, commercial advertising and
informational announcements. Spamming is viewed as an unacceptable and
annoying practice with most Internet users, which also ties up valuable
server resources.
As a subset of an AUP, a Web host reseller must inform their clients that
misuse of system resources is a violation of policy. Such misuse can
include the deployment of programs that consume excessive CPU resources or
storage space.
Any violations of the acceptable user policy must have a consequence clearly
delineated within the document itself. Usually resellers can respond to
violations by suspending or terminating a customer's account. For the AUP
to be fairly enforced, customers must agree to the terms of the policy
before their sign-up for your services.
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