The following is an agreement between Au Fait Communications (Au Fait) and any customer using Au Fait's services (customer). Au Fait reserves the right to change these terms and conditions after publishing a notice on-line.

1. General Overview

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Au Fait offers unlimited interactive internet access to all users in its coverage area. However, freedom of access is not a license for abuse. Certain rules are necessary to protect Au Fait's rights and the rights of our customers. These rules will ensure that all our customers are able to enjoy the internet to the fullest. Au Fait requires all its customers to follow the rules in this document.

Au Fait can not and will not control or warrant the validity or usefulness of any information on the Internet which is access through Au Fait's network. Au Fait does not willfully censor or monitor any information available on the Internet. Because some material available on the Internet may be offensive or adult in nature, the customer alone is responsible for monitoring any information that children may access on the Internet. Software is available to assist parents and other concerned adults in monitoring children's use of the internet.

2. Consent to Rules

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Before signing up with Au Fait or continuing to use our service, please read these terms and conditions. By using Au Fait's services, you agree to comply with these Acceptable Use rules. Au Fait may terminate your account if you fail to comply with these rules.

If you do not agree to follow these rules, please notify support@aufait.net so we may cancel your service and give you a prorated refund.

1. Use of Services
1. The customer agrees to use Au Fait's services for lawful purposes, in compliance with all applicable local, state, and federal laws.
2. Au Fait provides unlimited interactive dialup accounts for use in conformance with these Terms and Conditions. Au Fait reserves the right to investigate suspected violations of these rules.
3. During an investigation, Au Fait may suspend the accounts involved and/or remove the material involved from its servers, and Au Fait is not responsible in any way for any damages resulting from the removal or suspension.
4. If Au Fait believes a violation of these rules has occurred, it may take responsive action at its sole discretion. Au Fait, at its sole discretion, will determine what action will be taken in response to a violation on a case-by-case basis. Such action may include, but is not limited to:
1. temporary or permanent removal of material from Au Fait's servers.
2. cancellation of news group posts
3. warnings to the customers responsible
4. suspension or termination of the accounts responsible.
Violations of these rules could also subject the customer to criminal or civil liability.
5. When the customer accesses another network through Au Fait's network or connected to Au Fait's network, the customer must comply with the rules for that other network.
2. Use of Material
1. Materials in the public domain may be downloaded or uploaded using Au Fait's services. Customers may also redistribute materials in the public domain. The customer assumes all risks regarding the determination of whether material is in the public domain.
2. The customer is prohibited from storing, distributing, or transmitting any unlawful material through Au Fait's services.
3. The customer may not post, upload, or otherwise distribute copyrighted material on Au Fait's servers without the consent of the copyright holder.
3. Account Usage
1. Individual accounts are for personal, non-transferable use. Customers may not share passwords or accounts with other individuals.
2. Family accounts are for immediate family members living in the same household. Concurrent logins to the same account are prohibited. Au Fait reserves the right to terminate any or all sessions if it detects multiple logins.
3. Business accounts are limited to either one machine or one user. Concurrent logins to the same account are prohibited. Au Fait reserves the right to terminate any or all sessions if it detects multiple logins.
4. All dialup accounts are meant for personal and interactive use. You are required to disconnect from Au Fait's services when not using them. Au Fait will disconnect any connections that have been idle for over 20 minutes.
5. Daemons, bots, MUDs, servers, and other background processes are prohibited.
4. System Security
1. The customer is prohibited from utilizing Au Fait's services to compromise the security or tamper with Au Fait's system resources or accounts on any of Au Fait's equipment.
2. The customer is prohibited from using Au Fait's services to compromise the security or tamper with any other network's resources or accounts.
3. The customer is prohibited from the use or distribution of tools designed for compromising security. Examples of the tools include, but are not limited to, password guessing programs, cracking tools or network probing tools.
4. Au Fait reserves the right to release the user names of customers involved in violation of system security to system administrators at other sites in order to assist them in resolving security incidents.
5. System Resources
1. Au Fait will allocate system resources to provide all customers with the best service possible. As part of this resource allocation, Au Fait may limit, restrict or prioritize access to system resources, including CPU time, memory, disk space, session length, and the number os sessions.
2. Au Fait may institute services and fees for customers who are interested in accessing system resources above and beyond the acceptable usage. E-mail info@aufait.net if you have such a requirement.
3. Au Fait may log instances of abuse of system resources and take action outline in Section II.A
4. System abuse is defined as any use of Au Fait's resources which disrupts the normal use of system or Internet services for others. Examples of system abuse include, but are not limited to: attempting to disrupt the sessions of other Internet users, consuming excessive amounts of memory, disk space, bandwidth or otherwise affecting the performance of Au Fait's servers or networks.
5. Dialup users may not run programs which provide network services from their accounts. Examples of prohibited programs include, but are not limited to: mail, http, and irc servers, and multi-user interactive forums.

3. Acceptable Usage

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Acceptable usage is hereby defined as the normal activities associated with the usage of the Internet, including but not limited to usage of Au Fait's systems and network facilities for accessing the WWW, IRC, Usenet News, E-mail, and other Internet features. Depending on the type of account, this may include file storage on Au Fait's servers for customers own personal web page, file access area (FTP), and possibly Unix utilities used in a shell account.

This policy is subject to any and all laws and regulations set forth by the Federal, State or any other governmental authority.

4. Prohibited Activities

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Activities specifically prohibited by Au Fait include but are not limited to the following:
1. Using a dialup account to run background and/or server type applications.

These applications include but are not limited to IRC bots, HTTP servers, MUDs, and daemons.
2. Flooding or abuse of other users

Flooding is a fairly common occurrence on the Internet and is dealt with strictly at Au Fait. Flooding takes place in numerous ways, including but not limited to ICMP flooding, mail bombing (sending large amounts of e-mail repeatedly to a person for purposes of harassment), msg/CTCP flooding on IRC, as well as other, less common methods.
3. Attempting to compromise system and/or network security

Programs such as packet sniffers, password crack programs, and similar utilities found to be running from a user's account are prohibited. This also includes attempts to crack into systems other than Au Fait's.
4. Sharing of accounts

Sharing of a user's account with another party for purposes of avoiding payment for a second account is strictly prohibited.
5. Attempting to bypass resource usage limitations

Au Fait has implemented certain resource limitations in order to provide fair service to all of our customers. The two most common limitations are disk quotas on the servers and idle time-outs on dialup accounts. Any attempt to bypass any resource usage limitation is prohibited. The current idle timeout is twenty minutes.
6. Excessive use of system resources

This is broken down into two different parts: system and dialup. For system purposes, this is defined as the continued use of programs or commands which take a large amount of system resources, be that processor time, network bandwidth, and/or drive space on the host system. For dialup purposes, this primarily prohibits the continued usage of a dialup port to simulate a dedicated connection for the user's home system. Dialup accounts are designed to provide on-demand access for customers, not dedicated connections. If a dedicated connection is desired, you should contact info@aufait.net.
7. E-mail abuse

E-mail abuse includes but is not limited to sending of harassing and/or threatening messages to other users, forging of e-mail addresses and headers, and an excessive number of recipients. The current limit is 25 recipients for each e-mail. if you have a requirement to have over 25 recipients, contact info@aufait.net for prices for mailing list services.
8. Usenet abuse

Usenet abuse includes forging of addresses or headers, harassment/threats, posting of the same message to an excessive number of multiple news groups, and posting of information in groups where it is not relevant or wanted.
9. Pyramid schemes

Such activities as the transfer of information or solicitation of persons via the Internet in an attempt to extort money or other valuables or the use of pyramid/chain letters are all illegal and all are prohibited.
10. Pirated Software

Pirated software is defined as the illegal exchange of software via the Internet for purposes of avoiding the purchase of said software by the individuals involved. The exportation of software or technical information in violation of U.S. export control laws is also prohibited.

5. Penalties for Abuse

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1. Penalties for account abuse include termination of a customer's account and any applicable legal penalties. The penalties imposed on a user for abuse will vary based on the level of offense. Accounts closed due to subscriber abuse will not be reopened.
2. Au Fait will not reimburse users whose service was suspended or disabled due to any of the reasons listed above.
3. All Au Fait customers agree to indemnify and hold Au Fait, its employees, and affiliates harmless from any and all claims and expenses related to the customer's violation of this agreement, including any abusive or unlawful behavior on the part of the customer or the customer's dependents or the infringement of any intellectual property or privacy right of any person or entity.
6. Privacy

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Au Fait realizes that privacy is an important concern of our customers. Therefore, Au Fait will do everything in its power to protect our customer's right to privacy.
1. Au Fait will not give any information about our customers to third parties unless required by law.
2. Au Fait will not sell any of our customers name and addresses to mailing lists.
3. Au Fait will not monitor a customer's Internet activity. unless required by court order or Au Fait is actively investigating abuse of our network.
4. Au Fait automatically logs some events. These logs are necessary to measure performance and troubleshoot reported network problems. Au Fait will delete these logs after their useful life has expired unless required by a court order to keep them. The useful life will vary depending on the particular log, but is typically six months or less.
7. Additional Policies

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1. Due to the explosive growth of the Internet and the constant addition of new services and thus the new possibilities of abuse, Au Fait reserves the right to add and enforce new policies.
2. While Au Fait strives to provide local access to our customers, Au Fait can not guarantee such service. It is the customer's responsibility to verify with the telephone carrier whether the calls made via the customer's modem to access the Internet are local calls. Customers are responsible for paying their own dialup telephone charges for accessing the Internet. Au Fait will not reimburse users for any long distance charges.
8. Limitations of Liability

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Au Fait's liability under any circumstances is limited to the current month's service charge.
9. Warranties

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Au Fait's service is provided on an as is, as available basis. No warranties, express or implied, including but not limited to those of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose, are made with respect to Au Fait's service or any information or software therein. Under no circumstances shall Au Fait be liable for any incidental, special, or consequential damages that result from the use of or inability to use Au Fait's service. Nor shall Au Fait be responsible for any damages that result from mistakes, omissions, interruptions, deletion of files, errors, defects, delays in operation or transmission or any failure of performance whether or not caused by events beyond Au Fait's reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, communications line failure, theft, destruction, or unauthorized access to Au Fait's records, programs, or services. In no event, shall Au Fait's total liability for all damages, losses, and causes of action exceed the aggregate dollar amount paid under the agreement.
10. Billing Policies

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1. Service payments will be submitted in advance of receiving services. Au Fait will automatically charge the users credit card when payment is due. Au Fait reserves the right to suspend service if the payment for an account is more than 10 days late.
2. The customer assumes full responsibility for making timely payments for each Au Fait account. Timely payment includes keeping account and billing information current for all customer accounts.
3. If an account is suspended due to non-payment, it will be held inactive for 30 days. If the customer renews before that time, all the files and any incoming mail will be intact, but your renewal will be from the original due date, not from the date of payment.
4. Au Fait will charge a $15 service charge for each returned check.
5. In event of cancellation of service by the customer, the customer must contact Au Fait in one of the following manners:
1. via mail properly addressed to: Au Fait Communications, 945 Forest Drive, Hagerstown, MD 21742
2. via email to support@aufait.net where the subject has the words 'Account Cancellation'
3. via telephone to an Au Fait representative at (301) 665-1178 followed by written confirmation by the customer properly addressed to and received by Au Fait within ten (10) days from the date of telephone cancellation.
Notificaton of cancellation must be accompanied by the customer's login name.
6. Non-usage of an account is not proof of cancellation of service. Customers are responsible for full payment on all accounts whether or not the account is ever utilized.
7. Au Fait will forward e-mail and redirect web hits for 90 days to the customer's new web page for all accounts that are current in payments and have followed the cancellation procedure listed above.
8. Any billing discrepancies shall be presented to Au Fait in reasonable detail, in writing, within twenty (20) days of the date of the charge. Such notification shall not relieve the customer of the obligation to make all payments on the undisputed portion of the bill. Au Fait shall not be obligated to consider any customer's notice of billing discrepancies which are received by Au Fait more than twenty (20) days following the date of invoice in question. If a customer fails to dispute any charge after twenty (20) days from the date of charge, the customer waives its rights to thereafter make any such dispute and all such charges will be deemed valid.
9. In the event that a customer pre-pays for their Internet account in order to be eligible for discounts, the discounts given by Au Fait for such payment plans are calculated that the customer is paying for the regular months of service and getting additional months at the end of the service term at a discount. In the event that a customer cancels their service before the end of the discount plan, the customer is no longer entitled to any discounts.
11. Jurisdiction

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12. This agreement shall be governed by the laws of the State of Maryland.
13. Severability

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If any provision of this agreement is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be contrary to law, the remaining provisions of this agreement will remain in full force and effect.