Acceptable Use Policy
This Acceptable Use Policy specifies the actions prohibited by Firefly to users of the Firefly Network. Users may be defined as "customer or anyone who uses or accesses the Firefly Network or Internet service". Firefly reserves the right to modify this Policy at any time, effective upon posting of the modified Policy to this URL. Any modifications to this Policy will be made when Firefly feels it is appropriate and it is the User's responsibility to ensure their awareness of any such changes.
Illegal Use
The Firefly Network may be used only for lawful purposes. Transmission, distribution or storage of any material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. This includes, without limitation, material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret or intellectual property right used without proper authorisation, and material that is obscene, defamatory, constitutes an illegal threat, or violates export control laws.
The Network
The user acknowledges that Firefly is unable to exercise control over the content of the information passing over the Firefly Network. Therefore, Firefly is not responsible for the content of any message whether or not the posting was made by a Firefly customer. The Firefly Network may be used to link into other networks worldwide and the user agrees to conform to the acceptable use policies of these networks. In addition the user undertakes to conform to the Internet protocols and standards. The user may not circumvent user authentication or security of any host, network, or account (referred to as "cracking" or "hacking"), nor interfere with service to any user, host, or network (referred to as "denial of service attacks"). Without prejudice to the foregoing, Firefly considers that any application that overloads the Firefly Network by whatever means will be considered as making profligate use of the Firefly Network and is as such NOT allowed. Use of IP multicast other than by means provided and co-ordinated by Firefly is likewise prohibited. Users who violate systems or network security may incur criminal or civil liability. Firefly will fully co-operate with investigations of suspected criminal violations, violation of systems or network security under the leadership of law enforcement or relevant authorities.
System & Network Security
Violations of system or network security are prohibited, and may result in criminal and civil liability. Firefly will investigate incidents involving such violations and will involve and will co-operate with law enforcement if a criminal violation is suspected. Examples of system or network security violations include, without limitation, the following : Unauthorised access to or use of data, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network or to breach security or authentication measures without express authorisation of the owner of the system or network; Unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on any network or system without express authorisation of the owner of the system or network; Interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mailbombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks; Forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting. If approached with complaints relating to any of the above violations, Firefly will co-operate and assist the Police and law enforcing bodies with their investigations in order to bring such mis-use and violations to an end.
Email
It is explicitly prohibited to send unsolicited bulk mail messages ("junk mail" or "spam") of any kind (commercial advertising, political tracts, announcements) etc. It is also explicitly prohibited to allow others to send unsolicited bulk mail messages either directly or by relaying through the Users systems. For the avoidance of doubt, users must ensure that their systems cannot be relayed through. Users may not forward or propagate chain letters nor malicious e-mail. A user may not solicit mail for any other address other than that of the user, except with full consent of the owner of the referred address.
Broadband
This section should be used as a guide to Firefly's policy with regard to fair and reasonable use of our broadband, and related services (the service(s)). Our policy is to provide a quality service to our Customers who, we trust, will use the service(s) provided to them in a fair, honest and reasonable manner. The policy is in place to help ensure Firefly can continue to provide the quality and speed of service our Customers have come to expect. Due to the technology used by all service providers in the UK and the system in place at your local exchange, you share your broadband connection with other Firefly Customers. This is normal for all UK ISPs and is called contention. Home services usually have a contention ratio of 50:1 and business connections have, in general, a 20:1 contention. In general contention is not an issue with broadband services in the UK. However, some customers, mainly those who use Peer2Peer or file sharing software, or who pass large amounts of data, are deemed to be 'Heavy Users' and have a detrimental effect on all users of the Firefly broadband service and an impact on contention.
Staff Abuse
We have a zero tolerance approach to abuse of staff. We reserve the right to suspend/terminate any and all services supplied to a customer without prior notice in the event of any verbal or online communications which is deemed abusive in any way.