Acceptable Use Policy

1. Introduction

Next Generation Digital Technologies takes great pride in providing next-generation network services to its customers that are fast, reliable and cost-effective. The purpose of this Acceptable Use Policy is to comply with the relevant laws of South Africa and communicate which activities and behaviour are not permitted by customers that make use of the Next Generation Digital Technologies network and services. This policy forms part of our strategy to maintain the integrity and quality of services for our customers and protect our infrastructure as well as other Internet users from abuse.

Customers making use our services, equipment, facilities, networks and any other products,  must comply with all applicable laws, and agree, without limitation or qualification, to be bound this Acceptable Use Policy. Furthermore, Next Generation Digital Technologies (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to amend or alter this policy at any time, and without notice.

IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THIS ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY, AS AMENDED FROM TIME TO TIME, YOU SHOULD IMMEDIATELY STOP USING THE SERVICE AND NOTIFY NEXT GENERATION DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES THAT YOU ARE TERMINATING THE SERVICE.

2. Unlawful or Inappropriate Content

Next Generation Digital Technologies network and services may only be used for lawful purposes and activities. Without limitation, you may not use (or allow anyone else to use) our network or services for illegal or inappropriate purposes. The following activities are strictly forbidden:

1. You may not access, store or transmit any content that violates any law or regulation of the Republic of South Africa.
2. You may not access, store or transmit child pornography or any other content that is otherwise offensive or objectionable.
3. You may not access, store or transmit any content that unlawfully promotes or incites hatred and discrimination including racial, gender or religious slurs.
4. You may not defame, abuse, stalk, harass or threaten any individual, incite violence or hatred or transmit any inappropriate or defamatory content.
5. You may not encourage conduct that would constitute a criminal offence.
6. You may not take part in any activity that results in the sale, transmission, distribution or use of pirated or illegal software.
7. You may not violate an individual’s right to privacy, such as collecting personal data of third parties without their consent.
8. You may not violate any intellectual property laws including content protected by local and international copyright, trademarks and trade secrets.
9. You may not impersonate another user without their consent.
10. You may not engage in any fraudulent activity whatsoever.
11. You may not contravene any South African tax or exchange control laws.

For purposes of this Acceptable Use Policy, “content” refers to all forms of communications including, without limitation, text, graphics (such as photographs, illustrations, drawings and logos), executable programs, as well as audio and video files.

3. Prohibited Activities

Without limitation, you may not use (or allow anyone else to use) our network or services for any of the following:

3.1 Unsolicited Mail (Spam) and Bulk Mail

Unsolicited Mail (Spam) is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages indiscriminately to recipients that have not consented to receive communication from the sender. Unsolicited bulk mail is highly problematic and Next Generation Digital Technologies has a zero-tolerance policy.

1. If a customer is found to be sending unsolicited mail via the Next Generation Digital Technologies network they will have their services suspended immediately and could have their services permanently cancelled.
2. Next Generation Digital Technologies does not permit its outgoing mail servers to be used for bulk messages or mailing lists of any kind.
3. We recommend that customers make use of an “opt-in” legitimate bulk mailing service, that complies with section 45(4) of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act No. 25 of 2002, should they need to send out marketing and promotional electronic mail.
4. We recommend that customers do not respond to unsolicited mail in any way. Doing so remains the sole responsibility of the customer and Next Generation Digital Technologies cannot be held liable for the customer being placed on any bulk mailing lists as a result.

3.2 Security Threats

Any activity which threatens the proper operation, security, stability and/or integrity of Next Generation Digital Technologies network, an upstream provider or other Internet user is considered unacceptable and Next Generation Digital Technologies has a zero-tolerance policy.

1. You may not attempt to gain unlawful and unauthorised access to any network, or computer system or circumvent any security measures established by Next Generation Digital Technologies (Pty) Ltd or other Internet users including, without limitation, accessing data not intended for you, logging into or making use of a server or account you are not expressly authorised to access.
2. You may not use or distribute tools designed for compromising the security of a computer system, such as password guessing programs, cracking tools, packet sniffers or network probing tools.
3. You may not forge the headers of any data packets or any part of the header information in an e-mail or a newsgroup posting. “Spoofing”
4. You may not initiate a denial of service attack against any Internet user such as flooding a network or overloading of a service.
5. You may not tamper with or unlawfully intercept any data that has been transmitted over the Internet.
6. You may not deliberately distribute software of a harmful nature such as viruses, bombs, worms, trojans or malware.
7. You may not mislead any Internet user into divulging confidential information or security credentials. “Phishing”

3.3 Protection of Minors

Next Generation Digital Technologies strictly prohibits customers from using Next Generation Digital Technologies network and services 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.

4. Customers Responsibilities

1. Customers are responsible for all activity that occurs on their account and are responsible for any misuse of Next Generation Digital Technologies network and services.
2. It is the customer’s responsibility to ensure that unauthorised persons do not gain access to or misuse the services provided by Next Generation Digital Technologies. Customers must take the necessary steps to ensure that others do not gain unauthorised access to the services through the customer’s service, including, without limitation, wireless networking and wired networking.
3. The customer agrees to install anti-virus software on all computers, servers and relevant systems that connect to the service provided by Next Generation Digital Technologies. The customer also agrees to take responsibility for ensuring that anti-virus signature updates, software updates and security updates are installed at regular intervals.
4. The customer agrees to take all reasonable precautions to secure the computers and equipment that connects to the service provided by Next Generation Digital Technologies such as using strong passwords and implementing the necessary security policies to prevent their systems becoming compromised.
5. The customer accepts responsibility for the maintenance of all equipment that will connect to the service provided by Next Generation Digital Technologies. Should it be determined that customer’s equipment is faulty or causing interference and not the service provided by Next Generation Digital Technologies, the customer will be liable for any costs or repairs carried out to resolve the fault.
6. The customer acknowledges that Next Generation Digital Technologies has no power to control the content of the information passing over the Internet and its applications, including web, email, chat, etc, and that Next Generation Digital Technologies cannot be held responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any of the abovementioned content, in any way for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of, or in connection with your use of, or reliance on, any such content.
7. The customer accepts that they are fully responsible for their online conduct, and that of any minors that they have authorised to use the service. Next Generation Digital Technologies assumes no responsibility whatsoever for the actions of the customer while using the service provided.
8. Next Generation Digital Technologies cannot be held liable for any business transactions you make with other companies while using our network or services. Next Generation Digital Technologies assumes no responsibility whatsoever for any charges you, a minor or any employee of your organisation incurs while making purchases or other transactions online. Furthermore, the responsibility for ensuring compliance with all applicable customs, tax and exchange control laws shall be the customer’s responsibility.
9. Next Generation Digital Technologies does not guarantee the security of any data passing through its networks and services. It is the responsibility of the customer to safeguard their data and use encryption to secure sensitive material. Next Generation Digital Technologies cannot be held liable for any loss or damage arising as result of failure to do so.
10. Should the customer host a mail server that connects to the Internet via the Next Generation Digital Technologies network, the customer must ensure that the mail server is not an open relay. Mail servers that are unsecured against public relay often become abused by unscrupulous people for the delivery of spam. Should Next Generation Digital Technologies discover an open relay on our network we block access to the server’s IP address immediately and notify our customer.
11. Customers may not sell or resell any service provided to them by Next Generation Digital Technologies or allow the service to be accessed by a 3rd party.

5. Privacy and Confidentiality

Next Generation Digital Technologies respects the privacy and confidentiality of all our customers.

1. Next Generation Digital Technologies will not intercept, block or interfere with any data transmitted via our network unless ordered to do so by a court of law or unless your usage threatens to cause harm to another entity or affect the integrity of our network and services.
2. Next Generation Digital Technologies reserves the right to monitor customer and network traffic usage for security purposes, planning for additional capacity and to prevent any unauthorised attempts to tamper with, disrupt or cause damage to our network, services or property.
3. Next Generation Digital Technologies (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to electronically examine incoming or outgoing email transmitted via its mail servers to determine if it is classified as spam or contains malicious executable content such as viruses.
4. Next Generation Digital Technologies reserves the right to examine the email servers of any customers that make use of Next Generation Digital Technologies email servers as a relay to ensure that the servers are properly secured and not an open relay.

6. Network Management and Uncapped Fair Use Policy

Next Generation Digital Technologies strives to provide the best possible experience for all customers that make use of our network and services. In order to maintain the stability of our network and ensure that all users have the best possible experience, we reserve the right to manage network traffic as we see fit, including without limitation, by limiting bandwidth, content filtering and protocol filtering/prioritisation.

1. Next Generation Digital Technologies reserves the right to apply restrictions to the service if the customer’s behaviour is determined to be affecting the experience of other customers using Next Generation Digital Technologies network or service. Such restrictions may include, but are not limited to, throttling the customer’s overall throughput and limiting the use of bandwidth-intensive protocols and applications.
2. During peak network traffic times Next Generation Digital Technologies may block or limit the bandwidth of bandwidth-intensive protocols and applications to ensure the experience of other customers on Next Generation Digital Technologies network is not compromised.
3. Next Generation Digital Technologies may take any other action we deem appropriate in order to help ensure the integrity of the network experience for all customers.
4. Any customer that is found attempting to bypass or circumvent measures implemented to regulate and prioritise traffic will be suspended and could have their service cancelled.

5. Content Filtering

Should the customer make use of the email hosting or filtering services offered by Next Generation Digital Technologies, the customer acknowledges that this system might incorrectly identify a legitimate message as spam or contain a virus and consequently, a message might not be delivered to its destination. The customer acknowledges that Next Generation Digital Technologies shall, without limitation, have no responsibility for, or liability in respect of any data lost as a result of using the email hosting service or content filtering service.

6. Complaints

All complaints regarding violations of this Acceptable Use Policy should be directed to [email protected] Upon receipt of a complaint Next Generation Digital Technologies will work diligently to investigate and take the appropriate action.

7. Take-down notices

This procedure is in compliance with section 77 of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act No. 25 of 2002. To log a takedown notice please visit http://www.nextgenerationdigitaltechnologies.com/take-down-notice

8. Violations

Next Generation Digital Technologies reserves the right, upon receipt of a complaint, security breach or any other incident, to take any of the following actions:

1. Notify the customer of the incident and request that the customer take immediate action to correct the breach as well as provide sufficient evidence that the customer has taken the necessary steps to prevent the breach from occurring again in the future.
2. Next Generation Digital Technologies may suspend services to the customer until such time as a meeting can be held with customer to discuss the breach or complaint, and to determine the next course of action that will be taken such as instituting civil or criminal proceedings and sharing information concerning the incident with other Internet Service Providers, or law enforcement agencies.
3. Next Generation Digital Technologies reserves the right to take legal action against the customer, if any of these terms and conditions are violated or if the customer engages in any illegal or unlawful activity while accessing our network or services, to the fullest extent of the law.

9. Reservation of Rights

1. Next Generation Digital Technologies (Pty) Ltd reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to act against other types of abuse not listed in this document and to investigate or prevent illegal activities being committed over our network.
2. Next Generation Digital Technologies reserves the right to suspend, revoke or cancel any services to the customer if the stability and integrity of Next Generation Digital Technologies network and services are placed at risk by continuing to provide services to the customer.
3. Next Generation Digital Technologies reserves the right to remove any information or materials in whole or in part, that, in Next Generation Digital Technologies sole discretion, is deemed to be offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable.
4. Next Generation Digital Technologies does not waive its right to enforce these terms and conditions at any time, or prejudice its right to take subsequent action, should Next Generation Digital Technologies Ltd neglect to or elect not to enforce a breach of these terms and conditions.

10. Jurisdiction

1. These terms and conditions will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of South Africa. All disputes, actions and other matters relating thereto will be determined in accordance with South African law by a South African court having jurisdiction
2. Should any of the terms and conditions of this agreement be held to be invalid, unlawful or unenforceable, such terms and conditions will be severable from the remaining terms and conditions, which will continue to be valid and enforceable.