Acceptable use policy

Introduction

Use of BahatiGroup’s internet services (from any of our partners) is subject to the service provider’s Acceptable Use Policy (‘AUP’), as listed below; failure to comply with the terms below may result in the termination of your services:

Electronic Mail

Your account with BahatiGroup Internet includes the ability to send and receive electronic mail. Misuse of email may result in termination of service. The following examples are non-exclusive and are provided for guidance to customers:

• use of an email account to send an unsolicited bulk or commercial message is prohibited on your BahatiGroup Internet account. This includes, but is not limited to, bulk-mailing of commercial advertising, informational announcements, charity requests, petitions for signatures, and political or religious tracts. Such material may only be sent to those who have explicitly requested it;
• sending mass unsolicited mail or deliberately sending very large messages or files to one or more recipients (“mail bombing”) is prohibited;
• forging or removing email headers is prohibited;
• use of email to harass or intimidate other users is prohibited. Harassment, whether through language, frequency of messages, or size of messages, is prohibited. Sending a single unwelcome message may be considered harassment. If a recipient asks to stop receiving email from you, you must not send that person any further messages; and
• BahatiGroup Internet accounts may not be used to collect replies to messages sent from another ISP, where those messages violate this AUP or the AUP of the other ISP. BahatiGroup reserves the right to delete messages or files which have remained on its servers for excessive periods of time as determined by BahatiGroup, in its sole discretion.

Protection of network performance

BahatiGroup reserves sole discretion to determine whether any customer’s use of the BahatiGroup Internet service interferes with other customers’ use and enjoyment of any services provided by BahatiGroup to customers over the same network. The following examples are non-exclusive and are provided for guidance to customers:

• the sending of excessive numbers of email or excessively large files which, in BahatiGroup’s sole opinion, negatively affects the performance of the network or any server on the network may result in deletion of the offending message or file, and may result in the termination of services;
• you may not provide network services from your account (for example, you may not use your account to operate as an FTP server);
• BahatiGroup Internet accounts operate on shared resources. You are prohibited from excessive consumption of resources, including central processing unit time, memory, disk space and session time. You may not use resource-intensive programs which negatively impact other customers or the performance of BahatiGroup systems or networks. BahatiGroup reserves the right to terminate or limit such activities; and
• you may not employ automated electronic or mechanical processes designed to defeat network inactivity time-outs. Such tools include, but are not limited to, repetitive pinging the host.

Illegal activities

Any activity on BahatiGroup’s network that is a violation of any law, regulation or this policy, as such may be in force from time to time, may result in immediate termination of service without notice to you. It is also your responsibility to ensure that you are aware, stay aware of, and shall at all times comply with, all statutory or other regulatory provisions and rules applicable to the provision and use of the BahatiGroup Internet service as amended from time to time, including but not limited to the provisions of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002, the Films and Publications Act 65 of 1996 and the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication Related Information Act 70 of 2002. Prohibited activities include, but are not limited to:

• transmitting obscene materials, including child pornography or any material regarded as illegal;
• intentionally spreading or threatening to spread computer viruses;
• gaining or attempting to gain unauthorized access to private networks including BahatiGroup’s private network infrastructure;
• accessing or attempting to access information not intended for the customer;
• engaging in the transmission of pirated software and other copyrighted material;
• conducting or participating in illegal gambling, soliciting for illegal pyramid and other schemes through electronic mail; or
• any other activities declared to be illegal in terms of any applicable law.

BahatiGroup uncapped fair use policy

BahatiGroup Internet uncapped accounts are designed for either home or business use, and customers need to select the appropriate package designed for their access port speed and type of usage application (for example, for business or home use). BahatiGroup Internet uncapped products are not capped in the ordinary course. However, BahatiGroup reserves the right to apply restrictions on an uncapped account if a customer’s behaviour is determined to be affecting the user experience of other customers on BahatiGroup’s network. Such restrictions may include but are not limited to throttling a customer’s throughput speeds to an appropriate proportion of the actual port speed and / or shaping a customer’s bandwidth to limit the use of bandwidth intensive protocols and applications.

Examples of customer behaviour which may compromise BahatiGroup’s network performance include, for example, causing network congestion, include running excessive concurrent internet sessions or accessing excessive bandwidth intensive protocols such as peer-to-peer. In the event of such behaviours, BahatiGroup reserves the right to terminate the account of a customer whose usage is continuously affecting BahatiGroup’s network performance, as a customer of BahatiGroup Internet uncapped products. In order to assist a customer to be made aware of when his or her behaviour is compromising BahatiGroup’s network performance, BahatiGroup will provide to the customer such information as is practically available regarding the customer’s usage status by way of email communications. A customer will be informed when his or her usage is excessively high. Once usage is indicated as being excessively high, BahatiGroup reserves the right to suspend the relevant customer’s usage within 24 (twenty four) hours of usage having reached such levels. Customers who are restricted by BahatiGroup in the aforementioned manner in a calendar month will be returned to full service profile at the beginning of the next month. The above controls will be implemented by BahatiGroup in addition to those set out elsewhere in this AUP regarding unlawful behaviour.

Breach of acceptable use policy

In general, if you use your BahatiGroup Internet account in a manner which:

violates rules, regulations and policies applicable to any network, server, computer database, website or Internet Service Provider (“ISP”) that you access through your internet account;

• violates any law, regulation, treaty or tariff,
• is defamatory, fraudulent, indecent, offensive, deceptive; or threatens, harasses, abuses or intimidates others;
• damages the name or reputation of BahatiGroup, its holding company, affiliates and subsidiaries;
• interferes with other customers’ use and enjoyment of the services provided by BahatiGroup; or
• breaches the security on any computer network; or
• to access an account which does not belong to you; it will be regarded as a breach of this AUP.

In the event of breaches of this AUP, BahatiGroup will, where circumstances allow, provide notice of the breach to the relevant user with a request to remedy same immediately, failing which the relevant customer’s account may be terminated. However, where the circumstances warrant it, BahatiGroup may terminate a customer’s account without notice. In addition to the above, users who violate systems or network security may incur criminal or civil liability. BahatiGroup will co-operate fully with investigations of violations of systems or network security at other sites, including co-operating with law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violations.

General

BahatiGroup’s failure to enforce this policy, for whatever reason, shall not be construed as a waiver of BahatiGroup’s right to do so at any time. BahatiGroup reserves the right to amend the AUP from time to time.