Acceptable Usage Policy

All ForumCo.com communities (including their administrators, moderators and normal users) agree to be bound by the following Acceptable Usage Policy. This document may be updated from time to time. Please consult this page periodically for the most recent revision of this document.

No ForumCo community shall:

1. Do anything illegal or anything that adversely affects ForumCo's legal interests. The following list is non-exclusive, and should not be considered license to commit other illegal activities not specified below. All illegal activity is prohibited, and ForumCo will cooperate fully with any law enforcement officials and/or agencies investigating and/or prosecuting such activities.
   1. Cracking/Hacking - attempts to access accounts or systems other than the user's own accounts or systems or an account or system that the user has been explicitly authorised to access is illegal under Irish law.
      
   2. Child pornography - as defined by Irish law. This is strictly prohibited and dealt with quickly and harshly.
      
   3. Sexual content of any kind including (but not limited to) pornographic material (including images, audio and video), discussions about contraception, abortion, sterilisation, homosexuality, or any sexual material which is not suitable for minors. ForumCo shall be the sole arbiter as to what constitutes a violation of this provision.
   4. Pyramid schemes or fraud - are illegal under a number of Irish laws.
      
   5. Theft of services - attempts to utilize services that are not contracted for is considered theft and will be dealt with as such.
      
   6. Harassment - use of ForumCo's network to harass or threaten (in the legal sense of those terms) any other person is prohibited.
      
   7. Warez - distribute licensed or illegal softwares are prohibited. Link to them are also prohibited.
      
      Please consult an solicitor if you are unsure of the legal status of your activities.
      
      
2. Do anything that threatens the integrity of ForumCo's network or the utilization thereof by other persons.
   
   
   1. Denial of Service (DOS) attacks - no community will commit a DOS attack against any ForumCo community's host, or any other host on the Internet. Similarly, no ForumCo community will willfully or negligently allow incitement of others to attack any host on ForumCo's network, or any other host on the Internet.
      
   2. Blacklists - No community shall do anything that could get any portion of ForumCo's IP space (or address space announced by ForumCo on behalf of Customer) put on blacklists such the RBL (Realtime Black List) as maintained by MAPS (http://www.mail-abuse.com) or other similar organisations, or perform activities that would cause portions of the Internet to block mail or refuse to route traffic to any portion of ForumCo's IP space (or address space announced by ForumCo on behalf of Customers).
      
   3. Perform actions that cause unusual load on ForumCo servers (for example, mail servers, web servers, usenet servers, name servers, etc.), that cause slowness or denial of service to other ForumCo communities.
      
      
3. Do anything that threatens the Internet or any other network.
   
   
   1. No community shall take actions that cause any portion of the Internet, or the Internet as a whole, to become unusable to any other portion of the Internet, or the Internet as a whole.
      
   2. No community shall take actions that degrade the usefulness of the Internet, or any portion of the Internet, either through network degradation, flooding of usenet or email or so on.
      
      
4. Spam - No community shall send unsolicited commercial email, unsolicited mass mailings, spam or flood usenet newsgroups, or anything of that sort. If you have questions about what is allowed and what is not, please refer to http://spam.abuse.net, and/or email abuse@forumco.com for clarification.
   
   
   1. No spam may originate from ForumCo IP space.
      
   2. No spam may advertise sites or services located on ForumCo IP space (even if the spam originates elsewhere).
      
   3. No ForumCo community shall use third party mail servers to relay spam. This is considered a DOS attack on the third party and will be treated as such.
      
   4. No community shall participate in pyramid schemes or email chain letters.
      
   5. Use of ForumCo's facilities to provide software or lists for mass mailing unsolicited email is prohibited.

Furthermore, all ForumCo communities must:

1. Adhere strictly to the ForumCo Terms of Service and Forum Registration Policy.
2. Maintain and enforce on their members an AUP similar in scope and intent to this document.
   
3. Maintain a policy requiring proper "From" and/or "Reply-To" headers for email and usenet postings.
   
4. Maintain proper security on their mail server, to prevent the mail server from being used as a "spam amplifier" by third parties. Servers must restrict "email relaying." (Not applicable to communities who do not maintain a mail server.)
   
5. ForumCo reserves the right to terminate without notice or interrupt any account or community (whether provided for a monthly fee, a yearly fee or for free) in part or in full for violation of this Acceptable Use Policy. In all but the most extreme or serious cases, good faith attempts will be made to resolve an issue without interruption of service provided that the forum administrator was not complicit in the violation. In cases where service has been terminated or interrupted, resolution will be handled on an individual case basis, at ForumCo's sole discretion.

For further explanation of any portion this document, and the terms set herein, or to determine whether your intended activities are permissible under the terms of this document, contact us by email at info_at_forumco.com.