Our Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is designed to help protect our customers, and the Internet community, from irresponsible or illegal activities. Therefore, we do not allow fraudulent practices such as impersonation, unlawful solicitation, and unwelcome interference or disruption of Internet Services.

Section 1. Logon Policies

The personal dialup accounts offered by Carolina Connection Inc (CCI) are for general Internet usage via modem and tcp/ip protocols. Each account upon origination receives by mutual agreement a unique username and a password which must be kept confidential to prevent unauthorized connections by "hackers" or other unethical users. Therefore, passwords will be given only to the account holder after acceptable positive identification.

All accounts are singular in nature: no more than one connection may be in progress at any given time. CCI does not program automatic disconnects for high-time users, but customers are asked not to abuse this policy. During periods of peak connections, chronic high-time users may be "bumped" off line to give others fair opportunity. Chronic high-time users should contact CCI management to arrange for a dedicated private connection.

When computers are not in use, they should be disconnected from the internet to avoid overloading the system, and they should be disconnected by proper procedure, not by simply turning off the power. Improper disconnects may lock up CCI's equipment and disrrupt service.

Upon request, any personal account holder may be allocated 5 MB of space for a homepage. Rarely will a personal homepage need 5 MB, but additional space is available by arrangement at a nominal fee.

Section 2. Violations and Decriptions of Appropriate Use

General Violations
Impersonation/Forgery: Adding, removing, or modifying identifying network header information (aka "spoofing") so as to deceive or mislead is prohibited. (The use of nicknames does not constitute impersonation.)

Network unfriendly activity: Hostile activities which interferes with other people's use of the Internet are prohibited. Hostile activities include "denial of service" (DoS) attacks against another network host or individual user.

Privacy violations: Attempts to gain unauthorized access to any computer system or data are prohibited.

Threats: Threats of bodily harm or destruction of property are prohibited.

Financial
Sharing Unlimited or Works accounts with anyone other than immediate family members, or re-selling service without express written consent from CCI, or offering any public information service through a CCI personal account, such as running a web server or FTP server, is prohibited. Using computer programs to defeat CCI system devices which limit inactive connect time is prohibited.

Payment is due upon receipt of invoice. There must be a thirty day written notice in order to cancel your account. Notices shall include positive identification. Notices may be e-mailed to accounting@cconnect.net, but Telephone cancellations will not be accepted without written confirmation. Accounts must be current and paid in full before cancelation.

TERMINATION

Carolina Connection may terminate our Service with or without cause at any time and effective immediately. In addition, Carolina Connection, in its sole discretion, may terminate your account for violation of the letter or spirit of this AUP.

Upon termination of our Service, your right to use the Service immediately ceases. Carolina Connection shall have no obligation to maintain any content in your account or to forward any unread or unsent messages to you or any third party.

E-mail
You agree that Carolina Connection is not responsible or liable for the deletion or failure to store email messages.  Our E-mail Service is provided to individuals only. Any unauthorized commercial use of our Service, or the resale of its services, is expressly prohibited.

You agree to abide by all applicable local, state, national and international laws and regulations and are solely responsible for all acts or omissions that occur under your account or password, including the content of your transmissions through our Service. By way of example, and not as a limitation, you agree NOT to:

1. use the Service in connection with chain letters, junk email, spamming or any duplicative or unsolicited messages (commercial or otherwise);
2. harvest or otherwise collect information about others, including email addresses, without their consent;
3. create a false identity or forged email address or header, or otherwise attempt to mislead others as to the identity of the sender or the origin of the message;
4. transmit through the Service unlawful, harassing, libelous, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene or otherwise objectionable material of any kind or nature;
5. transmit any material that may infringe the intellectual property rights or other rights of third parties, including trademark, copyright or right of publicity;
6. transmit any material that contains viruses, trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots, or any other harmful or deleterious programs;
7. violate any U.S. law regarding the transmission of technical data or software exported from the United States through the Service;
8. interfere with or disrupt networks connected to the Service or violate the regulations, policies or procedures of such networks;
9. attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service, other accounts, computer systems or networks connected to the Service, through password mining or any other means; or
10. interfere with another member's use and enjoyment of the Service or another entity's use and enjoyment of similar services

NO SPAM; DAMAGES

Carolina Connection will immediately terminate any account which it believes, in its sole discretion, is transmitting or is otherwise connected with any spam or other unsolicited bulk email. In addition, because damages are often difficult to quantify, you agree to pay Carolina Connection liquidated damages of $5 for each piece of spam or unsolicited bulk email transmitted from or otherwise connected with your Carolina Connection account(s), or Carolina Connection's actual damages, whichever is greater.

News
Many groups have charters, published guidelines, FAQs, or "community standards" describing what is and is not considered appropriate. Usenet can be a valuable resource if used properly. Spam and off-topic articles diminish the usefulness of this resource for everyone. Users should familiarize themselves with basic USENET netiquette before posting to a newsgroups.

Newsgroup spamming: Posting substantively similar articles individually to multiple newsgroups constitutes a form of spamming, sometimes referred to as "excessive multi-posting" (EMP). Carolina Connection considers posting to 10 or more groups within a two week sliding window to be excessive. For further clarification and definition of what else constitutes spam, users may read Chris Lewis' FAQ "Current Spam thresholds and guidelines." The full version is posted regularly to the newsgroup news.admin.net-abuse.misc. This article is posted once per week and is intended to describe the current consensus spam thresholds and ensure that the definitions of the terms are available. It is believed that most spam cancelers use these definitions and thresholds.

Flames, hostile attacks, or invectives aimed at a group or an individual poster, are generally considered inappropriate. You're probably better off ignoring flames than responding to them. Many news readers offer filtering capabilities that will bring certain messages to your attention or skip over them all together (kill files).

Threatening or harassing news articles are prohibited always. Such articles may be canceled by Carolina Connection.

Section 3. Rationale and Ruminations

Rationale
This Section attempts to provide a general understanding of Carolina Connection's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). Common sense and judgment are a necessary part of any rule, and this AUP is no exception. Of course, flagrant or repeated violations of the policy are viewed in a very different light than minor infractions. Carolina Connection considers net-abuse an action that undermines the ability of the Internet to serve as a communications medium. In addition, net-abuse may be a violation of state or federal law, or the laws of other countries.

Protection of our customers and our resources, the ability to provide quality service to our customers, conformance with existing law, and the protection of our reputation as a service provider are all contributing factors to decisions on AUP violations.

It is our intention to allow our customers access to everything the Internet has to offer with minimal or no interference. Our belief in free speech is a firm commitment to our customers. However, just as free speech does not include the right to shout "Fire" in a crowded theater, certain activities are considered inappropriate by the Internet community at large and cannot be permitted under the guise of free speech.

Carolina Connection does not censor the content. We believe such choices should be left to the individual. We do advise our users that software tools are available to screen out newsgroups found to be. It is the account owner's responsibility to make use of such tools if desired.

Carolina Connection does not monitor the activity of accounts except for measurements of system utilization and billing records. However, in our efforts to promote good citizenship within the Internet community, we will respond to violations of this AUP as such violations come to our attention.

If a Carolina Connection user violate the AUP, we reserve the right to terminate service without notice. Flagrant violations of the AUP may result in immediate termination of service.

In the event that an account is temporarily inactivated as a result of any prohibited activities, the account may be subject to reactivation charges and/or deposit requirements determined by Carolina Connection.

Privacy
Carolina Connection employees from time to time may examine system accounting logs and other records to resolve system problems. Carolina Connection must reserve the right to access an user mailboxes to resolve system problems. In addition, Carolina Connection must cooperate with the appropriate legal authorities in bonafide investigations of illegal activity, including but not limited to illegal transfer or use of copyrighted material, postings or e-mail containing threats of violence.

Carolina Connection makes no guarantee and assumes no liability for the security of any data on any server including "secure servers." E-mail may pass through many computer systems, and should not be considered a secure means of communication unless encrypted. Even then, information is only as secure as the encryption method.