Acceptable Use Policy

This acceptable use policy covers the products, services, and technologies (collectively referred to as the "Products") provided by HeadOffice Inc. under any ongoing agreement. It's designed to protect us, our customers and the general Internet community from unethical, irresponsible and illegal activity.

HeadOffice Inc. customers found engaging in activities prohibited by this acceptable use policy can be liable for service suspension and account termination. In extreme cases, we may be legally obliged to report such activities to the relevant authorities.

This policy was last reviewed on 28 November 2023.

Fair use

We provide our facilities with the assumption that they will be used responsibly. We trust our customers to use our Products with consideration for others. In the event we become aware of irresponsible use, we reserve the right to enforce restrictions.

We are not, by this policy, attempting to restrict any particular programming language, technology, or application not mentioned in these terms.

Customer accountability

We regard our relationship with our customers as a partnership. It's your responsibility to ensure that your website and any software you install or run on our servers is secure. We keep our servers as secure and up to date as possible, and we select our partners and suppliers to maintain complementary levels of service and security, but we cannot be held responsible for activities initiated by you or your users.

If a customer — or their end-user or anyone using our Products as a result of the customer — violates our acceptable use policy, we reserve the right to terminate any Products associated with the offending account or the account itself or take any remedial or preventative action we deem appropriate without notice. To the extent permitted by law, no credit will be available for interruptions of service resulting from any violation of our acceptable use policy.

Prohibited activity

Our Products must not be used for the purpose of advertising, transmitting or otherwise making available any software, program, product or service designed to violate this acceptable use policy, or the acceptable use policy of other service providers. This includes but isn't limited to facilitating the means to send spam and the initiation of network sniffing, pinging or other monitoring activities designed to reveal information about others.

Copyright infringement and access to unauthorised material

Our Products must not be used to transmit, distribute or store any material in violation of any applicable law. This includes but isn't limited to:

any material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret, or other intellectual property right used without proper authorisation, and any material that contains images, music, recordings, or text protected by copyright law;
copyrighted music and movies;
pirated computer programs and video games;
cracking or hacking software and related documentation;
any other material which the customer does not have the lawful right to use, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, or make available to others.

Spam and unauthorised message activity

Our Products must not be used for the purpose of sending unsolicited bulk or commercial messages in violation of the laws and regulations applicable to your jurisdiction ("spam"). This includes but isn't limited to sending spam, soliciting customers from spam sent from other service providers, and collecting replies to spam sent from other service providers.

Our Products must not be used for the purpose of running unconfirmed mailing lists or telephone number lists ("messaging lists"). This includes but isn't limited to subscribing email addresses or telephone numbers to any messaging list without the permission of the email address or telephone number owner, and storing any email addresses or telephone numbers subscribed in this way. All messaging lists run on or hosted by our Products must be "confirmed opt-in". Verification of the address or telephone number owner's express permission must be available for the lifespan of the messaging list.

We prohibit the use of email lists, telephone number lists or databases purchased from third parties intended for spam or unconfirmed messaging list purposes on our Products.

This spam and unauthorised message activity policy applies to messages sent using our Products, or to messages sent from any network by the customer or any person on the customer's behalf, that directly or indirectly refer the recipient to a site hosted via our Products.

Unethical, illegal, or fraudulent activity

Our Products must not be used for the purpose of advertising, transmitting, storing, posting, displaying, or otherwise making available child pornography or content that is considered to be obscene, indecent, unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, profane, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable. This includes but isn't limited to hosting, posting, transmitting, e-mailing, or otherwise making available any content that depicts minors in a sexual manner.

Our Products must not be used for any unlawful or fraudulent activity or to solicit the performance of unlawful acts, including but not limited to the following:

Offering or disseminating fraudulent goods, services, schemes, or promotions;
Operating pyramid schemes, Ponzi schemes, or other "get rich quick" schemes;
Phishing or pharming;
Intentionally distributing viruses, worms, defects, Trojan horses, corrupted files, hoaxes, or any other items of a destructive or deceptive nature;
Illegally transmitting another's intellectual property or other proprietary information without such owner's or licensor's permission;
Using our Products or services to violate the security of any computer network, crack passwords or security encryption codes;
Running or advertising any software, program, or service designed to violate this policy, or the policy of others, including (but not limited to) tools designed for compromising security, such as password cracking, security scanning, network probing, or port scanning tools;
Generating or attempting to generate "click fraud" or any other fraudulent impression or click generation related to any advertisement, link, or website;
Impersonating any person or entity, including any of our employees or representatives, including through the use of false headers or other identifying information, or falsely stating or otherwise misrepresenting your affiliation with a person or entity;
Using our services to collect, or attempt to collect, personal information about third parties without their knowledge or consent;
Using our services for the purpose of misleading others about the origin of content, including by forging headers or manipulating identifiers in order to disguise the origin of content;
Interfering with the use of our Products, or the equipment used to provide our Products, by customers, authorised resellers, or other authorised users;
Selling, licensing, or exploiting for any commercial purposes any use of or access to our Products;
Modifying, copying, distributing, transmitting, displaying, performing, reproducing, publishing, licensing, creating derivative works from, transferring, or selling any information or software obtained from our Products;
Taking any action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;
Utilising any form of automated device or computer program that enables the submission of postings on our Products without each posting being manually entered by the author thereof (excluding our approved automated posting tools);
Using any form of automated device or computer program to access our Products for any purpose, or otherwise accessing our Products by any automated means;
Using our Products in such a way that adversely affects the availability, performance or functionality of our Products or interferes with any other party's use of our Products;
Accessing any content on our Products through any technology or means other than those provided or authorised by us;
Bypassing any measures we may use to prevent or restrict access to our Products;
Using our Products to advertise or offer to sell or buy any goods or services for any business purpose that is not specifically authorised;
Making unsolicited offers, advertisements, proposals, or sending junk mail or spam to other users of our Products. This includes, but is not limited to, unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, or other solicitation material, bulk mailing of commercial advertising, chain mail, informational announcements, charity requests, petitions for signatures, or any of the foregoing related to promotional giveaways (such as contests and sweepstakes), and other similar activities;
Using our Products for any unlawful purposes or for solicitation of unlawful activities;
Attempting to gain unauthorised access to our Products, other computer systems or networks connected to our Products, through password mining or any other means;
Obtaining or attempting to obtain any materials or information through any means not intentionally made available through our Products;
Using our Products to engage in any activity that would violate any law, regulation, ordinance, or directive, including but not limited to laws and regulations related to advertising, consumer protection, unfair competition, anti-discrimination, or false advertising;
Using our Products to engage in any activity that would give rise to civil liability or that would constitute a criminal offense;
Using our Products to violate any third-party right, including any breach of confidence, copyright, trademark, patent, or other intellectual property or proprietary right;
Interfering with or disrupting our Products or servers or networks connected to our Products, or disobeying any requirements, procedures, policies, or regulations of networks connected to our Products;
Reproducing, duplicating, copying, selling, reselling, trading, or exploiting for any commercial purposes, any portion of our Products, use of our Products, or access to our Products;
Using meta tags or any other hidden text utilising any of our names, trademarks, URL or product names;
Creating or maintaining any link from another website to any page on our Products without our prior written permission;
Harvesting or otherwise collecting information about others, including email addresses, without their consent;
Creating user accounts by automated means or under false or fraudulent pretenses;
Promoting or providing instructional information about illegal activities or promoting physical harm or injury against any group or individual;
Transmitting or uploading any material that contains viruses, trojan horses, worms, or any other harmful or deleterious programs;
Displaying an advertisement, or accepting payment or anything of value from a third person in exchange for your performing any commercial activity on or through our Products on behalf of that person, such as placing commercial content on our Products, posting blogs or bulletins with a commercial purpose, selecting a profile with a commercial purpose, or sending messages with a commercial purpose;
Using our Products for the purpose of facilitating the unsolicited distribution of email with falsified header information;
Promoting, encouraging or engaging in any activity prohibited under this Acceptable Use Policy.

System and network security

Violations of system or network security may result in civil or criminal liability. We will investigate incidents involving such violations and may involve, and cooperate with, law enforcement if a criminal violation is suspected. Examples of system or network security violations include, without limitation, the following:

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;
Unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on any network or system without express authorisation of the owner of the system or network;
Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks;
Forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in any email or newsgroup posting;
Any conduct that is likely to result in retaliation against our network;
Attempts to circumvent 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 a server or account you are not expressly authorised to access, or probing the security of other networks. Use or distribution of tools designed for compromising security is prohibited. Examples of these tools include, but are not limited to, password guessing programs, cracking tools or network probing tools;
Unauthorised port scanning;
Unauthorised vulnerability scanning;
Use of any program, file or command, or sending messages of any kind, designed to interfere with or disable a user's terminal session, via any means, locally or via the Internet;
Providing information (including, without limitation, account information, passwords and personal information) about security vulnerabilities to unauthorised individuals;
Identification or exploitation of security vulnerabilities in our Products;
Use of the Products as a conduit for gaining unauthorised access to other systems;
Not taking reasonable security precautions. This includes, but is not limited to, keeping passwords secure, logging out of systems, and keeping systems patched and up to date;
Launching or facilitating, whether intentionally or unintentionally, a denial of service attack on any of our Products or any other conduct that adversely impacts the availability, reliability or stability of our Products;
Enabling others to gain unauthorised access to our Products;
Using our Products to gain unauthorised access to any other system, including but not limited to other systems accessible via our Products;
Acting as an intermediary or proxy on behalf of others in order to avoid detection;
Using our Products to facilitate any of the activities described in this section, regardless of whether the activity is directed at our Products or a third-party system.

Other activities

Other activities that are prohibited include:

Providing false data on any contract, application, or form, which includes but isn't limited to false statements regarding the nature of your business;
Social engineering attacks against us or other providers in our industry. This includes but isn't limited to any activity where you provide false information to us in an attempt to gain unauthorised access to accounts or systems;
Reselling or sub-contracting any of our Products to a person whose use would violate this policy;
Sharing account information, such as usernames, passwords and keys, with unauthorised individuals;
Using our Products for anything other than lawful purposes;
Other activities that harm or interfere with our ability to provide our Products, our customers' ability to use our Products, or the Internet in general;
Failing to respond to abuse complaints in a timely manner, or failing to take steps to avoid payment;
The unauthorised access, alteration or destruction (or any attempt thereof) of any information about our customers or end-users, by any means or device;
Any act or omission in violation of consumer protection laws and regulations;
Any violation of a person's privacy.

Our Products may not be used by any person or entity, which is involved with or suspected of involvement in activities or causes relating to illegal gambling; terrorism; narcotics trafficking; arms trafficking or the proliferation, development, design, manufacture, production, stockpiling, or use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, weapons of mass destruction, or missiles; in each case including any affiliation with others whatsoever who support the above such activities or causes.

Email

We do not allow the transmission, distribution or delivery of any bulk commercial email, whether or not solicited, promotional or informational.

We reserve the right to determine in our sole discretion whether any email is in violation of this policy.

We do not allow the use of our Products for activities designed to send email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act or any other applicable anti-spam law.

We do not allow the use of our Products to send email on behalf of, or to advertise, any service hosted elsewhere that violates this policy.

We reserve the right to require the use of specified Return-Path and Message-ID headers in any email sent via our Products.

You may not send any unsolicited email to any person who has indicated that they do not wish to receive it. You must comply with the unsubscribe requests of any recipient of email sent via our Products.

You may not send emails using an invalid or non-existent return address or other header information which is false, misleading or deceptive.

You may not send emails to any email address obtained via illegal or inappropriate means, including but not limited to purchasing lists of email addresses from third parties, web scraping, or guessing email addresses.

You may not send emails that fail to comply with RFC 5321 (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) or RFC 5322 (Internet Message Format), or other applicable technical standards.

You may not send emails that contain or advertise misleading information in the subject lines, header, or content.

You may not send emails that contain or advertise any content that violates this policy.

You may not send emails using our Products for the purpose of forwarding or re-sending emails in a manner that conceals or obscures the source of the email.

You may not use our Products to send emails for the purpose of fraudulently gaining service, custom, patronage or user trust.

About this policy

This policy outlines a non-exclusive list of activities and intent we deem unacceptable and incompatible with our brand.

We reserve the right to modify this policy at any time by publishing the revised version on our website. The revised version will be effective at the time we publish it.

This policy was last modified on 28 November 2023.

Effective Date: 28 November 2023

HeadOffice Inc. Acceptable Use Policy