By contracting with us for services, you agree, without limitation or qualification, to be bound by this Policy and the terms and conditions it contains, as well as any other additional terms, conditions, rules or policies which are displayed to you in connection with the services/website.

The purpose of this AUP is:

• to ensure compliance with the relevant laws of the Republic;
• to specify to customers and users of our service what activities and online
• behaviour are considered an unacceptable use of the service;
• to protect the integrity of our network; and
• to specify the consequences that may flow from undertaking such prohibited activities.

This document contains a number of legal obligations which you will be presumed to be familiar with. As such, we encourage you to read this document thoroughly. Netbits respects the rights of our customers and users of our services to freedom of speech and expression; access to information; privacy; human dignity; religion, belief and opinion in accordance with our Constitution.

Netbits’ services may only be used for lawful purposes and activities. We prohibit any use of our website/network including the transmission, storage and distribution of any material or content using our network that violates any law or regulation of the Republic.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• Any violation of local and international laws prohibiting child pornography; obscenity; discrimination (including racial, gender or religious slurs) and hate speech; or speech designed to incite violence or hatred, or threats to cause bodily harm.
• Any activity designed to defame, abuse, stalk, harass or physically threaten any individual in the Republic or beyond its borders; including any attempt to link to, post, transmit or otherwise distribute any inappropriate or defamatory material. 
• Any violation of Intellectual Property laws including materials protected by local and international copyright, trademarks and trade secrets.
• Any violation of another’s right to privacy, including any effort to collect personal data of third parties without their consent.
• Any fraudulent activity whatsoever, including dubious financial practices, such as pyramid schemes; the impersonation of another subscriber without their consent; or any attempt to enter into a transaction with Netbits on behalf of another subscriber without their consent.
• Any violation of the exchange control laws of the Republic.
• Any activity that results in the sale, transmission or distribution of pirated or illegal software.
• Failing to respond to a request by a recipient of unsolicited mail to be removed from any mailing or direct marketing list and continuing to send unsolicited mail following such a request for removal.

Any activity which threatens the functioning, security and/or integrity of Netbits’ network is unacceptable.

This includes:

• Any efforts to attempt to gain unlawful and unauthorised access to the network or circumvent any of the security measures established by Netbits for this goal.
• Any effort to use Netbits’ equipment to circumvent the user authentication or security of any host, network or account (“cracking” or “hacking”).
• Forging of any TCP-IP packet header (spoofing) or any part of the header information in 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 the service offered by Netbits through “denial of service attacks”; flooding of a network, or overloading a service or any unauthorised probes (“scanning” or “nuking”) of others’ networks.
• Any activity which in any way threatens the security of the network by knowingly posting, transmitting, linking to or otherwise distributing any information or software which contains a virus; Trojan horse; worm, lock, mail bomb, cancelbot or other harmful, destructive or disruptive component.
• Any unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on the network without Netbits’ explicit, written consent.
• Any unsolicited mass mailing activity including direct marketing; spam and chain letters for commercial or other purposes, without the consent of the recipients of those mails.

You acknowledge that Netbits has no power to control content passing over the Internet, its facilities and its applications, including email; chat rooms; news groups; or other similar fora, and that Netbits 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.

Our services also offer access to numerous third party webpages. You acknowledge that we exercise absolutely no control over such third party content or sites nor are we obliged to monitor our network: our network is merely a conduit or means of access and transmission. This includes, but is not limited to, third party content contained on or accessible through the Netbits network websites and web pages or sites displayed as search results or contained within a directory of links on the Netbits network.

It remains your responsibility to review and evaluate any such content, and that any and all risk associated with the use of, or reliance on, such content rests with you. Access to public Internet spaces, such as bulletin boards, Usenet groups, chat rooms and moderated forums is entirely voluntary and at your own risk. Netbits employees do not moderate any of its services, or your communications, transmissions or use of these services. We do not undertake any responsibility for any content contained therein, or for any breaches of your right to privacy that you may experience as a result of accessing such spaces.

Where any user resides outside of the Republic, permanently or temporarily, such user will be subject to the laws of the country in which s/he is currently resident and which apply. On presentation of a legal order to do so, or under obligation through an order for mutual foreign legal assistance, Netbits will assist foreign law enforcement agencies (LEAs) in the investigation and prosecution of a crime committed using Netbits’ resources, including the provisioning of all personal identifiable data.

Netbits prohibits customers from using Netbits’ service 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. Netbits prohibits customers from using Netbits’ service to host sexually explicit or pornographic material of any nature.

Netbits respects the privacy and confidentiality of our customers and users of our service. Please review our Privacy Policy which details how we collect and use personal information gathered in the course of operating this service.

Upon receipt of a complaint, or having become aware of an incident, Netbits may, in its sole and reasonably-exercised discretion take any of the following steps:

In the case of a network, inform the user’s network administrator of the incident and request the network administrator or network owner to address the incident in terms of this AUP and the ISPA Code of Conduct (if applicable);

• In severe cases suspend access of the user’s entire network until abuse can be prevented by appropriate means;
• In the case of individual users, warn the user; suspend the user’s account and/or revoke or cancel the user’s network access privileges completely;
• In all cases, charge the offending parties for administrative costs as well as for machine and human time lost due to the incident;
• Assist other networks or website administrators in investigating credible suspicions of any activity listed in this AUP;
• Institute civil or criminal proceedings;
• Share information concerning the incident with other Internet access providers, or publish the information, and/or make available the users’ details to law enforcement agencies.

Any one or more of the steps listed above, insofar as they are deemed necessary by Netbits, may be taken by Netbits against the offending party. To help ensure that all customers have fair and equal use of the service and to protect the integrity of the network, Netbits reserves the right, and will take necessary steps, to prevent improper or excessive usage thereof.

Such steps include but are not limited to:

• Limiting throughput;
• Preventing or limiting service through specific ports or communication protocols; and/or
• Complete termination of service to customers who grossly abuse the network through improper or excessive usage.

This policy applies to and will be enforced for intended and unintended (e.g., viruses, worms, malicious code, or otherwise unknown causes) prohibited usage. Online activity will be subject to the available bandwidth, data storage and other limitations of the service provided, which Netbits may, from time to time, revise at its own discretion and without prior notice to the customer.

We manage all of our uncapped accounts on an hour to hour basis depending on the performance of our network at that time.

• We monitor our overall network usage on an hour to hour basis and if our capacity is stretched we dynamically shape and throttle certain clients’ uncapped accounts to relieve congestion.
• These uncapped clients will be chosen based on their historic bandwidth usage. The uncapped users who have used the most bandwidth will be throttled first if there is network congestion.
• We evaluate our network capacity each hour and if capacity opens up we will unthrottle uncapped users who may have been throttled until such a time that the capacity is used up again.
• It is our goal to ensure the best possible experience for both the biggest and smallest of our clients given the parameters we have and as such we reserve the right to manage Uncapped wireless accounts as we deem necessary to ensure optimal performance across our network for all of our clients.

Netbits reserves the right to amend or alter this policy at any time, and without notice to you. Netbits reserves the right to take action against any individuals, companies or organizations that violate any of the prohibited activities set out herein, or engage in any illegal or unlawful activity while accessing our services, to the fullest extent of the law.

Netbits 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.

Netbits reserves the right to monitor user and network traffic for site security purposes and prevent any unauthorised attempts to tamper with our site or cause damage to our property. Netbits does not undertake to guarantee the security of any data passing through its networks.

Although Netbits will provide a “best effort” service, including regular updates on computer viruses and other threats to security of data, it is the responsibility of the communicating parties to safeguard their data, and Netbits cannot be held liable for any loss or damage arising as result of the failure to do so.

Netbits does not waive its right to enforcement of this AUP at any time, or prejudice its right to take subsequent action, should Netbits fail, neglect or elect not to enforce a breach of the AUP at any time.