Acceptable Use Policy

Created by Salomie Drake
Last updated: Nov 26, 2020

This AUP forms part of the Service Terms which it is incorporated into by reference. By agreeing to the Service Terms, you agree to be bound by this AUP and related legal documents.

This AUP outlines the acceptable use of CloudAfrica’s Services and Website by users. This is version 1.0 of this AUP and it became effective on 2013-07-05.

1.1    Interpreting this AUP

This AUP contains a number of words and phrases which have specific meanings and most of which are capitalized. Supplementary Glossary, below, contains many of these words and phrases (others are set out in these Service Terms’ body and are designated by terms in quotation marks). CloudAfrica also applies certain rules when interpreting this AUP and the Service Terms’ Interpretation Guide sets out these rules.

1.2    Important provisions pertaining to legal liability

The Service Terms, and this AUP as a result, contains provisions that limit CloudAfrica’s exposure to legal liability and even make users responsible for a variety of acts. Some of these provisions do have the effect of limiting users’ rights in law and conferring obligations on users by virtue of their Service Terms to be bound by this AUP.

It is therefore important that users familiarize themselves with these provisions before accessing the Services or the Website and that they not access the Services or the Website if they do not agree to abide by those provisions.

1.3    Prohibited Uses

Users may not use the Services or the Website for or in conjunction with any illegal, unlawful, or immoral purposes or as prohibited by this AUP.

You may not frame the Service in any way whatsoever except as permitted by the Services’ functionality (details may be found on the Website) or otherwise without CloudAfrica’s prior written permission.

Recognizing the global nature of the Internet, you agree to comply with all local laws, rules, and regulations regarding your conduct on the Service.

You agree to adhere to generally acceptable Internet and messaging etiquette. In this regard, without being limited to the examples listed below, you agree not to:

  • engage in any abuse of a messaging service or sending unsolicited messages, including, without being limited to 
  • the posting or cross-posting of unsolicited messages with the same or substantially similar content to recipients that did not request to receive such messages; and
    • inviting people who you may be connected to using 3rd Party services to access the Service where those people may not wish to receive such invitations or similar communications (in other words, make sure your contacts on other services are receptive to receiving invitations to joining us and accessing the Service or other communications you send them from us);
  • engage in any activity intended to entice, solicit, or otherwise recruit website users to join an organization except where we expressly authorize such activities in writing;
  • take any action aimed at deceiving or misleading any person, attempt to impersonate or misrepresent your affiliation to any person or forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of anything posted or transmitted through the Service;
  • submit any person’s personal information to CloudAfrica without that person’s consent to do so (for more information about our requirement for informed consent, see below);
  • use the Services or the Website to post or transmit anything which is defamatory, discriminatory, obscene, offensive, threatening, abusive, harassing, harmful, hateful or which carries child pornography, religious or racial slurs or threatens or encourages bodily harm or the like or which may violate any person’s personality rights;
  • use the Services or the Website to make fraudulent offers to sell or buy products, items or services or to offer or solicit for any type of financial scam such as “pyramid schemes” and “chain letters”;
  • use the Services or the Website in a manner that may infringe the Intellectual Property Rights or other proprietary rights of others;
  • use the Services or Website in any manner which could damage, impair, overburden or disable the Services or the Website or interfere with any other party’s access to the Services or the Website;
  • collect and/or process any user’s personal information, without the relevant users’ knowledge and express consent, for commercial, political, charity or similar purposes using the Services or the Website, either as a whole or any aspect of it;
  • violate the privacy of any person or attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Services or the Website or any other network, including (without being limited to) through hacking, password mining or any other means; and/or
  • Otherwise use the Services or the Website to engage in any illegal or unlawful activity.

Should you engage in any one or more of the above practices, which shall be determined in our sole discretion (and which decision shall be final), then we shall be entitled, without prejudice to any other rights CloudAfrica may have, to:

  • without notice, suspend or terminate your access to the Services or the Website;
  • hold you liable for any costs we incur as a result of your misconduct; and/or
  • Notwithstanding CloudAfrica’s Data Protection Policy, disclose any information relating to you, whether public or personal, to all persons affected by your actions.

1.4    Security Threats

Any activity which threatens CloudAfrica’s infrastructure functioning, security, and/or integrity is prohibited. This includes:

Any efforts to attempt to gain unlawful and unauthorized access to CloudAfrica’s infrastructure or circumvent any of the security measures established by CloudAfrica for this purpose. - Any effort to use CloudAfrica’s infrastructure to circumvent the user authentication or security of any host, network, or account (known as “cracking” or “hacking”). - Forging of any TCP/IP packet headers (known as “spoofing”) or any part of the headers of an email or a newsgroup posting. - Any effort to breach or attempt to breach the security of another user or attempt to gain access to any other person’s computer, software, or data without the knowledge and consent of such person. - Any activity which threatens to disrupt, disrupts, interferes with and/or otherwise accesses the Services in a manner not approved by CloudAfrica in writing including, but not limited to, activities such as DoS Attacks, flooding of a network, or overloading a 3rd Party service or any conducting unauthorized probes of any 3rd Party networks. - Use the Services or the Website to post anything which contains viruses or any other destructive features, regardless of whether or not damage is intended. - Any unauthorized monitoring of data or traffic on CloudAfrica’s infrastructure without CloudAfrica’s explicit, written consent. - Running services and applications with known vulnerabilities and weaknesses, for example, insufficient anti- automation attacks, unpatched software, any traffic amplification attacks, including recursive DNS attacks, SMTP relay attacks.

1.5    Public Space and Third Party Content and sites

You acknowledge that CloudAfrica is unable to control content passing across the Internet, its facilities, and its applications, including email; social networks, and services and that CloudAfrica cannot be held responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for Losses resulting from any content loss, alteration, misuse or your reliance on content accessed or transmitted through the Services or the Website.

You acknowledge that CloudAfrica exercises no control over and does not monitor 3rd Party services and that CloudAfrica’s infrastructure is merely a conduit or means of access and transmission. This includes, but is not limited to, External Parties’ content contained on or accessible through the Services or the Website. It remains your responsibility to review and evaluate any such content, and you bear any and all risk associated with the use of, or reliance on, such content.

CloudAfrica employees do not actively moderate any of its Services, or your communications, transmissions, or use of these Services.

1.6    Supplementary Glossary

The defined terms set out below are to be interpreted in accordance with the principles set out in the Interpretation Guide in the Service Terms. - “AUP” means this Acceptable Use Policy, as amended from time to time; - “DoS Attack” means inundating a target with communications requests so the target either cannot respond to legitimate communications requests or responds so slowly that it becomes ineffective; - “Service Terms” means the CloudAfrica Service Terms of Use which is accessible through the Website at Terms of use;

  • “you” has a corresponding meaning with “users” in the Service Terms.