Corporation for Research and Educational Networking
Acceptable Use Policy
January 1, 1993
CREN networks are for the use of persons legitimately
affiliated with CREN Member or Affiliate organizations, to facilitate
the exchange of information consistent with the academic, educational
and research purposes of its members. All individuals affiliated with
CREN Member or Affiliate organizations are responsible for seeing that
their communities are aware of these guidelines, and that the guidelines
are followed, both in letter and in spirit.
CREN networks are, at the discretion of the institutions
involved, open to use by students enrolled at participating CREN Member
or Affiliate educational institutions.
Use of CREN networks shall:
- Be consistent with the purposes and goals of the networks
- Avoid interfering with the work of other users of the networks
- Avoid disrupting the network host systems (nodes)
- Avoid disrupting network services
Acceptable Use of the Networks
The following examples may help users of the networks apply these
principles in particular cases.
- Messages that are likely to result in the loss of recipients'
work or systems are prohibited.
- CREN networks are not to be used for commercial purposes,
such as marketing, reselling bandwith, or business
transactions between commercial organizations.
- Advertising is forbidden. Discussion of a product's relative
advantages and disadvantages by users of the product is
encouraged. Vendors may respond to questions about their
products as long as the responses are not in the nature of
advertising.
- CREN networks may be used for the provision of services which
support the needs and purposes of the CREN networks, and for
which a charge is made, if the network is an optional
mechanism for provision of this service for which no
additional charge is made, and as long as the use of the
service is consistent with the bandwidth of the network and
the forwarding hosts. Providers of such information may be
non-profit or for-profit organizations.
- Any communication which violates applicable laws and
regulations is not allowed.*
Users of CREN networks are expected to be responsible in their use:
- "Chain letters," "broadcasting" messages to lists or
individuals, and other types of use which would cause
congestion of the networks or otherwise interfere with the
work of others are not allowed.
- Users are requested to minimize the transmission of large
files in order not to degrade network performance. Files up
to 1 MB should be able to traverse most of the network.**
CREN Members or Affiliates are expected to take reasonable
measures (given the constraints of technology and management) to ensure
that traffic using gateways between CREN networks and other networks
conforms to these guidelines.
Final authority for CREN acceptable use policies lies with the
CREN Board. It is the responsibility of member representatives to
contact the CREN Board, in writing, regarding questions of
interpretation. Until such issues are resolved, questionable use should
be considered "not acceptable."
_________________
* In particular, messages and data sent to destinations outside the
US must satisfy the Department of Commerce regulations (either be
within the GTDA guidelines for information which may be generally
transmitted or have the required license).
** See the file BITNET FILESIZE on LISTSERV@BITNIC for CREN guidelines
on file size and handling.
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