Acceptable Usage Policy
This Policy describes for what YouFibre deems as acceptable use of our Services and Network.
In this Policy the following references shall have the meanings set out below:
“Network” means our broadband network which we use to provide you Services.
“Services” means the YouFibre broadband service described in our Price Book.
“Website” means the YouFibre Website.
References to “we”, “us” or “our” are references to YouFibre Limited and all references to “you”, “Customer” and “your” are references to you, the customer of YouFibre.
1. Responsibility for use
As account holder, you are responsible for all use of our Services, whether you gave your permission or not. For example, you are responsible for anyone at your business premises or home (“Premises”) or who you're responsible for (that means family, friends, tenants, visitors). You are responsible for:
· materials or content accessed or put online
· what you say or do online
· materials or data on equipment that you connect to our Services
· websites or pages you own, run or control using our Services
· making sure your network and devices are properly password protected, up to date and running appropriate security software.
Your responsibility for all use of the Services remains your responsibility even if these things happens or are attempted (i) without you knowing or agreeing to them, or (ii) by you contributing to them, or (iii) by you allowing them to happen or (iv) by you acting alone or with others.
YouFibre is not responsible for any of your activities in using our Network or Website.
You must always follow the rules in this Policy when you use our Services, Network or Website and must make sure that anyone else accessing our Network or a through your Premises or accessing our Services through your Account knows about and follows these rules.
When using our Services, you must follow all laws and regulations that apply to you and have any authorisations or permissions required by them.
Some types of material infringe certain laws or regulations. These materials may be illegal to possess or to send or publish on the internet. You must not post material which (i) infringes the intellectual property rights (e.g. trademarks or copyright) of others (ii) is false and could harm someone’s reputation, or (iii) makes us legally liable for hosting that material on our servers. More information on things you’re not allowed to use our Services or Website for is set out in the “Unacceptable Usage” section below.
When using YouFibre Services or Website, this can result in you, the user, crossing networks or using other website(s) and or services that YouFibre do not own or operate. In this instance, you must follow the acceptable use policies and other terms and conditions set by the operators of those networks websites, and services. We aren’t responsible or liable for the content of any other person’s website, platform, apps or services, even if there’s a link to them from our Website.
2. Unacceptable Usage
It is not possible to set out exactly and all of what makes for an “acceptable use” or an “unacceptable use” of our Services and or Network. Our Policy is designed to assist and help you understand the types of use that are unacceptable. The list provided does not include every use that may be unacceptable and is to provide a guide of what we do not allow or which is deemed to be ‘illegal’.
You can only use our Network, Website, and Services for lawful purposes. You cannot use them:
· in any way that breaks any laws or regulations that might apply;
· in any way that is criminal, illegal, unlawful or fraudulent, or that has any criminal, illegal, unlawful or fraudulent purpose or effect;
· to harm or try to harm children or other vulnerable people in any way;
· to send, knowingly receive, publish, post, contribute, distribute, disseminate, collect, access, encourage the receipt of, use, upload, download, record, review or stream, use or re-use any material that doesn’t follow our “Content Standards” section below;
· to send, or cause the sending of, anything related to pyramid selling schemes or any unsolicited communications or unauthorised advertising (like spam or nuisance calls).
· to create, send, store, publish or upload material containing viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time-bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware, corrupted files, or any other harmful programs or similar computer code designed to harm computer software, hardware or telecommunications equipment owned by us or anyone else.
· to carry on activities that infringe someone else’s rights. This includes (i) downloading, installing or distributing software that isn’t properly licensed (e.g. pirated software), (ii) deleting any author attributions, legal notices or labels/notices of ownership in any file that’s uploaded, (iii) falsifying the origin or source of any software or other material or (iv) not properly following the Data Protection Act 2018 (and any laws or regulations that change, add to or replace it in any way) when collecting or using an individual’s personal data, as set out in that Act;
· to monitor or record the actions (i) of any person, who’s allowed to be at your Premises, without their knowledge or (ii) of any person or thing outside your Premises including, among other things, any public highway or roadway or another person’s home or business premises; or
· to collect, stream, distribute or access any material that you know or should reasonably know, is illegal to collect, stream, distribute or access.
You must not:
· reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell or re-sell any part of our Website, Network or Services;
· access without our permission, interfere with, damage or disrupt:
a) any part of our code and or website
b) the YouFibre Network and equipment;
c) any software used in providing YouFibre Services or Website; or
d) any equipment, network or software owned or used by someone else, if this is outside what we’d expect of someone using either our Services under a residential or business contract (whichever applies to you) or our Website;
· do anything that may disrupt or interfere with our Website, Network or Services or which causes our Website or Network, or any computer or other device connected to our Network, to crash;
· launch “denial of service” attacks, “mailbombing” attacks or “flooding” attacks against a network, or a device or computer connected to a network, (including, among other things, port scans, ping floods, packet spoofing, forged routing information, deliberate attempts to overload a service, or any otherwise unspecified form of “denial of service” attack);
· let people, who don’t live or who aren’t at your Premises, access your Services without your consent;
· make excessive use of, or overload, our Network;
· avoid the user authentication or security process of a network or a computer or device connected to a network;
· give false information on our on-line forms. This would include (but isn’t limited to) giving wrong or fraudulent details or information (i) about direct debits, bank accounts or credit card numbers or (ii) in relation to a wayleave or other permission to install our Services at your Premises. If you do this, we can immediately end your agreement for our Services. By doing tis you may also have criminal or other liability under law.
3. Telephone Services
If either YouFibre Residential or Business service terms apply to your YouPhone telephone service, the subsequent following terms also apply.
You can make unlimited free calls from 7pm to 7am Monday to Friday and all weekend, which are 1 hour or less in length, to UK destinations free of charge. Your making these calls should be within what YouFibre expect from you (i) as a residential user; (ii) as a small business customer, using our telephone service at home; or (iii) as a business customer, as applicable.
If any of these calls last over an hour, YouFibre will charge you from the end of the 60th minute, at the standard per-minute charge that applies to that call. If you want your call to stay free after the 60th minute, you should end the call before the free hour is over and then redial the same number to carry on the call. You can do this without limit, if you follow this Policy in all other ways and your call pattern is reasonable overall.
All numbers you dial, beginning in 0500, 0800 or 0808, stay free for the whole length of the call.
Certain types of call aren’t included in the free calls described above. YouFibre will charge you for these at our standard prevailing rate. These calls include:
· calls to the Channel Islands (e.g. numbers beginning in 01534 and 01481);
· all calls to mobile phones (e.g. numbers beginning in 07);
· all international calls (e.g. all numbers beginning in 00 except 0044 (UK));
· all Premium Rate Service calls (e.g. all numbers beginning in 09);
· calls to Number Translation Services (e.g. numbers beginning in 0845, 0870, 0871, 0844);
· all directory enquiry services beginning in 118;
· all other dialling codes, not listed above as free of charge and/or dialled without following this Policy.
Our telephone service mustn’t be used for (i) auto-dialling, (ii) continuous or extensive call forwarding or call diversion, (iii) voicemail broadcasting or (iv) continuous or extensive incoming-only calls.
We can immediately stop or change your YouPhone telephone service if we think you’re not using it in a normal way.
All our call charge rates are published in our Price Book.
4. Interactive Services
You may and can from time to time provide interactive services on our Website, for example, Support Chat conversations, social media and Customer Forums (“Interactive Services”). Where we provide any Interactive Services, YouFibre will give you clear information about the kind of service offered, whether it’s moderated and, if it is, the sort of moderation that’s being used (e.g. whether it’s human or automated).
We will do our best to work out any possible risks for users (especially for children) from other people when they use any Interactive Services, and will decide in each case whether to use moderation (and what kind this should be). However, we don’t have a duty to keep an eye on or moderate any Interactive Services. We also accept no responsibility for any loss or damage caused by someone who uses an Interactive Services but doesn’t follow the “Content Standards” section below (whether the Interactive Service is moderated or not).
A child can only use an Interactive Service if their parent or guardian agrees to this. YouFibre both advise parents and guardians who allow their children to use an Interactive Service to talk to their children about the risks involved with this and about staying safe online.
5. Content Standards
Content rules apply to all material you send, receive, communicate, publish, post, contribute, distribute, disseminate, collect, access, encourage the receipt of, use or re-use, upload, download, record, review or stream using our Network, Services or Website and to any Interactive Services (as mentioned in the above section). YouFibre call these “contributions”.
As with unacceptable use, the list provided does not set out every single standard which we can or may apply to your contributions. It is provided to help you understand what your contributions can and cannot contain. The standards apply to each part of any contribution, as well as to the whole contribution.
Contributions must:
· be accurate (where they give facts);
· be genuinely held (where they give opinions); and
· follow the laws and regulations of the UK (and of any country that apply to them).
Contributions must not:
· contain false statements that harm anyone’s reputation;
· contain any material which is indecent, obscene, offensive, hateful or meant to stir up anger;
· promote sexually explicit material;
· encourage violence;
· encourage discrimination based on race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation or age;
· infringe any copyright, database right, intellectual property right or trade mark of any other person.
· be likely to deceive any person;
· be made by breaking a legal duty owed to another person (like a duty under a contract or a duty to keep material secret);
· encourage any illegal activity;
· be threatening, abuse or invade someone else’s privacy, or cause annoyance, trouble or unnecessary stress;
· be likely to trouble, upset, embarrass, alarm, scare or annoy any other person;
· be used to impersonate any person, or be dishonest about your identity or connection to any person;
· give the impression that they come from us, if this isn’t true; or
· encourage or help an unlawful act, like (as an example only) copyright infringement or computer misuse.
We can't and don't look at all material or content available on the internet or other people's activities. We're not responsible for any content or material belonging to other people or companies which you might be able to access through our services. Therefore, we can't guarantee to protect you from seeing things you might be offended by.
6. Security
You are responsible for protecting your YouFibre customer identification and associated password(s) you use to access our Services and your account with YouFibre. You’re also responsible for any use of your password.
You should not disclose your customer YouFibre identification or password(s) to anyone else. If you do, you are responsible for their use of your account. If your customer identification or password are disclosed or used without your permission, you must tell us immediately. You must not use your customer identification or password(s) to use our Network or Website, in a way that we find unacceptable. Nor should you use them to access or try to access other parts of our Network, Services or Website where we have not given you permission to do so.
You are responsible for taking all reasonable steps necessary to stop someone else accessing our Network through your account, where you’ve not given them permission to do this.
You must protect your computer from viruses, adware, malware and spyware by installing and updating suitable anti-virus and security software. We’re not responsible for security problems with your computer, its files, or its applications.
You must keep copies of your own data. We’re not responsible for any loss of or corruption of your files or data.
You must tell us immediately if you think that any part of this “Security” section has been breached.
7. Excessive Usage
YouFibre do not have a traffic management Policy, although YouFibre may choose to introduce one in the future. However, it should be noted that the YouFibre will identify and notify you of excessive use and if we believe that your use of the internet, our Network or Services is so excessive that other customers’ Services are being harmed, then we may and can give you a written warning to reduce your use. If you do not do this, we may suspend or end your Services with YouFibre.
If YouFibre reasonably suspect that your use of the YouFibre telephone service is excessive and unreasonable, we can, if we wish, limit the free calls you can make to UK numbers. We can also charge you, at our standard prevailing rate, for all the calls you make to UK numbers, which we think are excessive compared to the number of calls we’d expect of a residential user or small business customer, using our telephone service at home or for home working. Prior to YouFibre charging you for these calls, we will let you know by phone or email, using the contact information that you have provided YouFibre.
8. Parental Controls
You must decide whether any content or communications you access using our Services is appropriate for children or others at your Premises to view or use.
You are responsible for setting parental controls or any other controls available for our Services and keeping them up to date. When parental controls are on:
· we limit access to websites we (or our supplier) believe should be blocked because they may be unsafe or unsuitable for you to view or access based on the choices you've made; and
· websites are sorted for blocking by our supplier. We aren't responsible for categorising websites or for you always being able to go to websites which aren't barred.
9. How we will deal with breaches
YouFibre have various methods that allow us to see if you are following this Policy. When you use YouFibre Services and or our Website, you give us (or our agents or subcontractors) permission do this by checking your networks and/or equipment and your use of our Network, Website and/or Services.
If we think you have not followed this Policy, YouFibre will investigate this. We will act reasonably and fairly when and if we do. If we decide that you haven’t followed this Policy, we can take any action (as set out in the next paragraph) that YouFibre think is appropriate. If YouFibre find that you have not followed this Policy, you would also have broken your Residential Terms of Service, Business Terms of Service and/or our Website Terms and Conditions.
This will mean YouFibre can either deal with the matter under whichever of these documents applies to you or take any of the following actions (with or without notice):
· the issue of a warning to you;
· immediate, temporary or permanent suspension or ending of your Services;
· the termination of our Contract with you;
· immediate, temporary or permanent removal of any posting or material uploaded by you to the internet using our Services or to our Website whether or not using our Services;
· restricting your access to any illegal material or data;
· the issue of legal proceedings against you to fully compensate us for all costs to us (including reasonable administrative and legal costs) resulting from you not following this Policy;
· the taking of further legal action against you; and
· the disclosure of any information to law enforcement or other appropriate authorities or regulators that we reasonably think is necessary.
Along with the other communications providers, we block attempts to access child sexual abuse images. We don't decide which images to block. That's done by the Internet Watch Foundation (iwf.org.uk). If they wrongly label an image, you can appeal the decision by following the appear process on the IWF website.
We aren’t limited to the actions we’ve just set out – we can take any other action we think is reasonably appropriate. We don’t accept any liability resulting from actions we take because of you not following this Policy.
10. Applicable law
Your Agreement with YouFibre is made under English and Welsh law. If a dispute arises that we cannot settle between us, despite following our Complaints Code of Practice, it will be decided in the English and Welsh courts.
11. Changes to this Policy
YouFibre may and can update or change this Policy at any time. If we make such changes, we will update the relevant terms on our Website.
12. Contact Us
If you wish to contact us in relation to this this Policy please do so by telephoning our customer care team at 0800 270 0000, by emailing us at hello@youfibre.com, by writing to us at Unit H The Courtyard, Tewkesbury Business Park, Tewkesbury, UK, GL20 8GD, or by using the ‘Send us a message’ form on the ‘Contact us’ page of our Website.
13. Date
This Policy applies with effect from 29 March 2021.
