Firstly, absolutely no unsolicited email for objectionable purposes will be permitted. The definition of "objectionable" is in the hands of the recipient and the administrators. A few examples will clarify what we mean: an unsolicited email attempting to sell the recipient (for money or any other medium of exchange) a product or service (we include religious and political solicitations in this category, by the way) will be considered a violation of the recipient's privacy, as will any harassing or threatening material. Users will only be allowed one (verifiable) mistake in this regard. On the second instance (or the first, if it's obviously not a mistake ...) their access will be revoked and a $500 termination fee added to their final bill.

Furthermore, CLIQ has adopted the following extension to this standard policy from another ISP (sharpcomm.com, which seems to have gone offline, modified only slightly):

Sending out unsolicited or offensive e-mail from an account not hosted on CLIQ's systems that contain referrals to auto responders, web pages, web sites, or e-mail accounts hosted at CLIQ will be treated the same as if the unsolicited or offensive messages were initiated from a CLIQ account. Hiring or using a service that mass e-mails/posts your message does not excuse you from these policies or liabilities. They are acting as your agent. You will be held responsible for their actions as if they were your own.

In addition, we intend to take this policy even further and apply it to any offensive email beneficial to the user. A particularly egregious spam email Robin once received is a good example: it contained an advertisement for a company that has a net presence, several domain names and web sites, that being the "Global Marketing Group", an organization dedicated to "multi-level marketing" scams. Now, this email had no reference to their net presence, but the fax number was easily traced to them. Situations of this nature, where the offender is a CLIQ user, will be dealt with just as though the offfending email had originated on CLIQ's systems.

Secondly, this system may not be used as a stage for attacks on any site, of any kind. On the first verifiable instance of such activity (with intent, we won't be coming after you for an honest mistake), the user's access will be revoked and a $500 termination fee added to their final bill.. Chronic disregard for the administrators of other systems (activity on their systems that causes them to complain to CLIQ's administrators) will also result in the loss of access and a $500 termination fee added to their final bill.

Thirdly, absolutely no propagating "malware". This is malicious software, such as viruses, worms, or any of the rest of a wide varity of programs whose sole purpose is to give somebody a bad day by messing up their system (or worse). As with the spamming section above, the definition of "malware" is in the hands of the recipient and the administrators. We recognize, of course, that many such programs propagate on their own and do not blame users whose machines get infected with one and in result end up unintentionally propagating one. On the other hand, should such a user fail to deal with it in a timely manner when they're notified (or as soon as we find out, if it's obviously not a mistake ...) their access will be revoked and a $500 termination fee added to their final bill.

Nextly, no hate sites or sites seriously advocating personal violence will be permitted on our servers. This is the only restriction which we place on web sites or similiar content, as they are much less invasive than email: a user must actually initiate the viewing of a web site. This is an important distinction to us. A good guideline here is that if a site would qualify for entrance in Donna Kossy's Hall of Hate then we would consider it to be in violation of this policy. Any site considered to be in violation of this policy (after consultation with the user involved) will be removed. On a repeat performance, the user's access will be revoked and a $500 termination fee added to their final bill.

Fourth, CLIQ's systems may not be used for the distribution of copyrighted material in a manner contradictory to the copyright holder's expressed policy. We also ask users not to break laws that they can't personally take all the brunt for. We don't particularly want to get dragged into a lawsuit against a user (or by a user, for that matter) so use your best judgement.

Additionally, all material on these servers is actually owned by someone. If it is owned by you (which will be blatantly obvious ...), then feel free to use it in any way you see fit. If it is not (by far the more likely case ...), then contact the owner before use. This includes all text, images, audio files and all other materials on these machines including the email addresses used in the "mailto" tags on the web sites. Using this material without the owner's permission (such as to bombard CLIQ folks or our users with spam ...) is in violation of these copyrights. Conversely, if you find something of yours is being used here without permission, please contact us.

Fifth, although extremely obvious to us it should be stated here, user accounts on CLIQ's systems may not be shared. If you have a friend or business associate who needs access to your material stored here, they must have their own account. This information, of course, is not used for anything other than contacting the person responsible for an account. Accountability goes straight down the tube when actions cannot be traced to the actor. Really, look what total anonymity is doing to the email system and Usenet ...

Lastly, all software installed on CLIQ's servers is subject to continuing security and functionality audits (in source code form) by CLIQ's administrator's. In general, we're happy to run any software you'd like provided only that it not conflict with other uses of the boxen, it is stable in our environment and that it not have any identifiable security holes. Now, obviously we won't be able to catch every potential problem, but if we do find an issue we consider to be serious we do require that it be repaired in a reasonable timeframe. A necessary implication of this policy, of course, is that you must provide us with the current source for any compiled programs you want to use on our servers. This isn't an issue with CGIs, generally, since Perl is stored in source form so we don't expect this aspect of the policy to affect many users. Another implication is that we commit to repairing any user identified problems with the system code in a reasonable timeframe.

This is a private system. Material on the servers is the private property of whichever user put it there. The identities of the users are a matter of concern only between the administrators and the users. The exception to this, of course, is to be found in violations of this policy. Though we do not guarantee the anonymity of users (how would we?), we will host material without disclosing the real-world information of the user who controls it. But we will also provide that identity and any relevant data or logs to any appropriate person who can demonstrate a violation of this policy. Anonymity and privacy do not extend to those who abuse them.

That's it for specific policies. These are essentially the minimal standards of conduct for our virtual community here. Of course, we'd appreciate basic civility and respect in everyone's interactions (here in cyberspace and out in the real world) but we do not feel comfortable requiring anything specific along those lines. Everyone has different standards for that sort of thing, but we at CLIQ all agree that the above policy should constitute an acceptable minimum. As far as we're concerned, these requirements are just common sense, but we're stating them here so that there can be no confusion over it. If you (as a user or a visitor) have any questions or suggestions about this policy, please email us.