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GENERAL NOTICE

Thank you for reading GrandWell (Pty) Ltd's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). By accessing this website, or by contracting with us for service/s, you agree, without limitation or qualification, to be bound by this policy and the terms and conditions it contains, as amended from time to time by GrandWell (Pty) Ltd as well as any other additional terms, conditions, rules or policies which are displayed to you in connection with this service/website.

The purpose of this AUP is to, amongst other things, comply with the relevant laws of the Republic of South Africa; to specify to customers and users of our service/website what activities and online behaviours are considered an unacceptable use of the service/website; to protect the integrity of our network and to specify the consequences that may flow from undertaking any such prohibited activities.

This document contains a number of legal obligations which you are presumed to be familiar with. As such, we encourage you to read this document thoroughly and direct any queries to our customer services/legal department at legal@grandwell.co.za.

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd respects the rights of our customers and users of our services to freedom of speech and expression; access to information; privacy; human dignity; religion, belief and opinion in accordance with our Constitution. We undertake not to interfere with any of those Constitutionally guaranteed rights unless required to do so by law; unless those rights are exercised for unlawful purposes; or unless the exercise of those rights threatens to cause harm to another person or affect the integrity of our network.

ISPA Membership and Code of Conduct

In terms of Section 75 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act ("the Act") GrandWell (Pty) Ltd has designated the Internet Service Providers' Association (ISPA) as an agent to receive notifications of infringements as defined in Section 77 of the Act. ISPA can be reached at 010 500 1200 or takedown@ispa.org.za. The notice and take-down procedure can be viewed at www.ispa.org.za/code.

Unlawful Use

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd's services/website may only be used for lawful purposes and activities. We prohibit any use of our website/network including the transmission, storage and distribution of any material or content that violates any law or regulation of the Republic of South Africa, or any other jurisdiction. This includes, inter alia:

  1. Any violation of local and international laws prohibiting child pornography; obscenity; discrimination (including racial, gender or religious slurs) and hate speech; or speech designed to incite violence or hatred, or threats to cause bodily harm.
  2. Any activity designed to defame, abuse, stalk, harass or physically threaten any individual; including any attempt to link to, post, transmit or otherwise distribute any inappropriate or defamatory material.
  3. Any violation of Intellectual Property laws including materials protected by local and international copyright, trademarks and trade secrets.
  4. Any violation of an individual's right to privacy, including any effort to collect personal data of third parties without their express consent.
  5. Any fraudulent activity whatsoever, including dubious financial practices such as pyramid schemes; the impersonation of another subscriber without their express consent; or any attempt to enter into a transaction with GrandWell (Pty) Ltd on behalf of another subscriber without their express consent.
  6. Any violation of the exchange control laws of the Republic of South Africa.
  7. Any activity that results in the sale, transmission or distribution of pirated or illegal software, copyright or other intellectual property.
  8. Failing to respond to a request by a recipient of unsolicited mail to be removed from any mailing or direct marketing list and continuing to send unsolicited mail following such a request for removal.

Prohibited Activities

Threats to Network Security

Any activity which threatens the functioning, security and/or integrity of GrandWell (Pty) Ltd's network is unacceptable and expressly prohibited. This includes, inter alia:

  • Any efforts to attempt to gain unlawful and unauthorised access to the network or circumvent any security measures established by GrandWell (Pty) Ltd;
  • Any effort to use GrandWell (Pty) Ltd's equipment to circumvent the user authentication or security of any host, network or account ("cracking" or "hacking");
  • Forging of any TCP-IP packet header (spoofing) or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting;
  • Any effort to breach the security of another user or attempt to gain access to any other person's computer, software, or data without their knowledge and consent;
  • Any activity which threatens to disrupt the service through "denial of service attacks", flooding of a network, or overloading a service or any unauthorised probes ("scanning" or "nuking") of others' networks;
  • Knowingly posting, transmitting, linking to or otherwise distributing any information or software which contains a virus, Trojan horse, worm, lock, mail bomb, cancelbot or other harmful, destructive or disruptive component;
  • Any unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on the network without GrandWell (Pty) Ltd's express, prior written consent;
  • Any unsolicited mass mailing activity including direct marketing, spam and chain letters for commercial or other purposes, without the consent of the recipients.

Public Space and Third-Party Content

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd has no power to control the content of the information passing over the Internet and its applications, including e-mail, chat rooms, news groups, or other similar fora, and cannot be held responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any such content. Our services also offer access to numerous third-party webpages over which we exercise absolutely no control — our network is merely a conduit or means of access and transmission.

Usenet Newsgroups

The customer is responsible for determining and familiarising himself or herself with the written policies of a given newsgroup before posting to it. The following are prohibited practices:

  1. Excessive cross-posting of the same article to multiple newsgroups.
  2. Posting of irrelevant or off-topic material to newsgroups (USENET spam).
  3. Posting binaries to a non-binary newsgroup.
  4. Posting adverts, solicitations, or any other commercial messages unless the guidelines of the newsgroup expressly permit them.

Unsolicited, Spam and Junk Mail

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd will take swift and firm action against any user engaging in any of the following unacceptable practices:

  1. Sending unsolicited bulk mail for marketing or any other purposes to people who have not expressly consented to receiving such mail;
  2. Operating or maintaining mailing lists without the express permission of all recipients listed;
  3. Failing to promptly remove from lists invalid or undeliverable addresses or addresses of unwilling recipients;
  4. Using GrandWell's service to collect responses from unsolicited e-mail sent from accounts on other Internet hosts or e-mail services;
  5. Including GrandWell (Pty) Ltd's name in the header or by listing an IP address that belongs to GrandWell (Pty) Ltd in any unsolicited email;
  6. Failure to secure a customer's mail server against public relay as a protection to themselves and the broader Internet community.

Spam/Virus Filtering

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd provides a spam and virus filtering system to protect customers from unsolicited mail and viruses. The customer acknowledges that this system might incorrectly identify a valid message as spam or as a virus. GrandWell (Pty) Ltd shall have no responsibility for, or liability in respect of any data lost as a result of this system.

Webmail

Webmail and other web-based email services made available by GrandWell (Pty) Ltd are provided on an "as is" basis without representations, warranties or conditions of any kind. Webmail is provided to individuals and for personal use only. Any unauthorised commercial use of the Webmail service, or resale of the Webmail service is expressly prohibited.

Protection of Minors

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd prohibits customers from using GrandWell (Pty) Ltd's service to harm or attempt to harm a minor, including, but not limited to, by hosting, possessing, disseminating, distributing or transmitting material that is unlawful, including child pornography.

Privacy and Confidentiality

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd respects the privacy and confidentiality of our customers and users of our service. Please review our Privacy Policy which details how we collect and use personal information gathered in the course of operating this service.

User Responsibilities

Customers are responsible for any misuse of GrandWell (Pty) Ltd's services that occurs through the customer's account. It is the customer's responsibility to ensure that unauthorised persons do not gain access to or misuse GrandWell (Pty) Ltd's service/website.

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd urges customers not to reply to unsolicited mail or "spam" and not to click on any suggested links provided in the unsolicited mail. Doing so remains the sole responsibility of the customer.

Where the customer has authorised a minor to use any of GrandWell (Pty) Ltd's services, you accept that as the parent/legal guardian of that minor, you are fully responsible for: the online conduct of such minor; controlling the minor's access to and use of any services or websites; and the consequences of any misuse by the minor.

Notice and Take-Down Procedures

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd confirms that it has a procedure in place for the notice and take-down of illegal material. In compliance with section 77 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act (No. 25 of 2002), GrandWell (Pty) Ltd's designated agent for this process is the Internet Service Providers' Association. ISPA can be reached at 010 500 1200 or takedown@ispa.org.za. The notice and take-down procedure can be viewed at www.ispa.org.za/code.

Complaints and Procedures

All complaints must be in writing, via fax or e-mail and contain as much information as possible, including:

  • The origin of abuse or offence, including the website, full mail headers, relevant logfile extracts, etc.;
  • Any contact details for the source of the complaint;
  • A brief explanation why the incident is considered to be an offence.

Action Following Breach of the AUP

Upon receipt of a complaint, or having become aware of an incident, GrandWell (Pty) Ltd may take any of the following steps:

  • Inform the user's network administrator of the incident and request that it be addressed;
  • In severe cases, suspend access of the user's entire network until abuse can be prevented;
  • Warn the user; suspend the user's account and/or revoke or cancel the user's network access privileges completely;
  • Charge the offending parties for administrative costs as well as machine and human time lost due to the incident;
  • Assist other networks or website administrators in investigating credible suspicions of any activity listed in this AUP;
  • Institute civil or criminal proceedings;
  • Share information concerning the incident with other Internet access providers, or publish the information, and/or make available the users' details to law enforcement agencies.

Reservation and Non-Waiver of Rights

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to amend or alter this policy at any time, and without notice to you. It is expressly understood and agreed that the onus to check the provisions of this AUP lies solely with you at all material times.

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to take action against any individuals, companies or organizations that violate any of the prohibited activities set out herein, or engage in any illegal or unlawful activity while accessing our services, to the fullest extent of the law.

GrandWell (Pty) Ltd does not undertake to guarantee the security of any data passing through its networks. Although GrandWell (Pty) Ltd will provide a "best effort" service, including regular updates on computer viruses and other threats to security of data, it is the responsibility of the communicating parties to safeguard their data.

For queries, contact us at legal@grandwell.co.za.