Proper Internet use is generally a matter of common sense and courtesy to others. The vast majority of people will be able to use their own sense of what is appropriate to guide their behaviour and will conform to this Usage Policy without even thinking about it.

We respect the privacy of our clients.  There is no 'Big Brother' monitoring by First-Web and this page relates only to circumstances when our attention has been drawn to harmful activities which could affect our ability to look after our clients' interests.

There are many forms of service abuse. This page discusses the more common forms, but is by no means an exhaustive list, and indeed it is most likely impossible to compile a complete list of abusive activities. This policy document is provided to give some guidance as to what First-Web will consider to be service abuse.  In matters where there is dispute as to whether abuse has occurred, any decision made by First-Web will be final.

It is usual in this context to describe "abuse" as being abuse of Internet facilities, rather than common abuse sent via the Internet. To qualify as "abuse", an act must interfere with the use of the network by an individual or group of individuals, for example by consuming resources or wasting others time including the time of First-Web staff spent in tracking activity which may be viewed as abusive. The term "abuse" also includes activities that are illegal.

The Internet community’s definition of what is ‘acceptable’ has changed over the years, and will no doubt continue to change.  A dramatic example of this change is the increase in unwelcome bulk unsolicited email ('Spam'). 

This policy document and its day to day application is based on the formal and informal practices of the Internet community, a community where First-Web is one participant amongst many.  We reserve the right to amend this guidance document at our sole discretion and without prior notice. 

Our policy on bulk email
Email servers can be Blacklisted (i.e. rendered unable to send email to certain other email servers) as a result of multiple complaints from recipients of bulk email. We use such screening Blacklists ourselves. If it is First-Web's clients who have sent the offending bulk email, then it is First-Web's email servers which may be Blacklisted. Obviously we need to take steps to prevent this happening, so we do not permit:

Sending to a group of recipients email which might be considered by a recipient to waste their time and resources.

To avoid the above, you must operate a policy for your mailouts which conforms to The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003. A mailing list must be properly maintained by providing at the time of each communication a means for subscribers to opt out (in other words to change their mind), and by checking replies and non-delivery reports carefully in order to remove obsolete email addresses. If you send email which results in an email server becoming Blacklisted, we may regard this as evidence of lack of an effective policy.

We do not permit sending bulk email (i.e. sending similar emails in an automated way to multiple recipients) through our standard email servers. If you wish to send more than one hundred bulk solicited emails per day, please contact us for details of our bulk servers which are better suited to this purpose and to avoiding disruption to your day to day email (and that of our other clients!)

First-Web’s services may not be used for any of the following:-

1) ‘Make Money Quick’ schemes, Chain Letters, Pyramid Selling schemes, Unsolicited Email
Unsolicited emails seem to be the biggest single source of annoyance to our clients.  These emails waste the resources of Internet Service Providers and users who download the messages.  Since many Internet users use a dial-up connection and pay for their online time, it costs them money to receive messages. Receipt of such messages therefore costs them money and is often therefore particularly unwelcome, particularly if the email has attachments.  

It should be noted that a user has not expressed an interest in receiving this kind of message by the mere act of posting a news article in any particular newsgroup, or by visiting a web site, unless of course they have made a specific request for information to be sent to them. 

2) Unsolicited Email (including non-commercial and non-bulk)
As noted above, unsolicited emails seem to be the biggest single source of annoyance to our clients.  Due to the time taken to download it, sending a long email to sites without prior agreement can amount to denial of service, or denial of access to email at the receiving site. Note that adding binary attachments to email may increase its size considerably. If prior arrangement has not been made, the email may be extremely unwelcome.

It cannot be over-emphasised: receiving unsolicited emails, of any sort, is likely to annoy people!