Use Policy

This VUNNEL Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") applies to the use of any product, service or website provided by us (VUNNEL), whether we provide it directly or use another party to provide it to you (each, a "VUNNEL Service"). This AUP is designed to ensure compliance with the laws and regulations that apply to the VUNNEL Service. This AUP also protects the interests of all of our clients and their customers, as well as our goodwill and reputation. These terms are so important that we cannot provide the VUNNEL Service unless you agree to them. By using the VUNNEL Service, you are agreeing to these terms.

 

If you are using any VUNNEL Service, this AUP applies to you. Every client of ours agrees to abide by this AUP and is responsible for any violations. You are not allowed to assist or engage others in a way that would violate this AUP. We will enforce and ensure compliance with this AUP by using methods we consider to be appropriate, such as complaint and email failure monitoring. We may also suspend or terminate your use of VUNNEL Services pursuant to our Customer Terms of Service for violations of this AUP.

 

We periodically update these terms and we will let you know when we do through a notification in the VUNNEL portal used to access your VUNNEL subscription (if you have one), or by posting a revised copy on our website in the logged in area. You agree to review the AUP on a regular basis and always remain in compliance.

 

1. Reporting Suspected Violations

We encourage recipients of email messages sent using the VUNNEL Service to report suspected violations of this AUP to us by forwarding a copy of the received email with FULL headers to Admin@vunnel.net. We have a policy to investigate all of these reports and to respond in the way we consider appropriate.

 

If you know of or suspect a violation of this AUP, you will promptly notify us in writing of the known or suspected violation of this AUP.

 

2. Messaging Policy

You agree to comply fully with our Messaging Policy.

 

3. Prohibited Communications Actions

a. You may not use VUNNEL to send spam. Spam can be in the form of bulk email/sms or one to one commercial email/sms. Use only permission-based marketing electronic communications (i.e., Recipient affirmatively opted-in to receiving those electronic communications).

 

Bulk email is spam when it is unsolicited. Unsolicited means the recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent. Bulk means that the message is sent as part of a larger collection of messages that have substantively similar content. One-to-one commercial emails are spam when they violate CAN-SPAM. One-to-one commercial emails are also considered Spam if the data processed for purposes of sending that email is in scope of the General Data Protection Regulation (‘GDPR’) and you fail to provide notice to individuals and establish a lawful basis of processing.

 

You may not use the VUNNEL Service in any way (directly or indirectly) to send, transmit, handle, distribute or deliver: (a) spam in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act (referenced below) or any other law; (b) email to an address obtained via Internet harvesting methods or any surreptitious methods (e.g., scraping or harvesting); (c) email to an address that is incomplete, inaccurate and/or not updated for all applicable opt-out notifications, using best efforts and best practices in the industry, (d) commercial electronic messages in violation of Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (referenced below), or (e) in violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

 

b. You may not use any misleading or false names, addresses, email address, or subject line.

 

Email sent, or caused to be sent to or through the VUNNEL Service may not: (a) use or contain invalid or forged headers; (b) use or contain invalid or non-existent domain names; (c) employ any technique to otherwise misrepresent, hide or obscure any information in identifying the point of origin or the transmission path; (d) use other means of deceptive addressing; (e) use a third party's internet domain name without their consent, or be relayed from or through a third party's equipment without the third party’s permission; (f) contain false or misleading information in the subject line or otherwise contain false or misleading content; or (g) use our trademark(s), tagline(s), or logo(s) without our prior written consent and only then pursuant to our trademark usage guidelines.

 

If you use email, we recommend that you adopt the Messaging, Malware and Mobile Anti-Abuse Working Group (M3AAWG) Sender Best Communications Practices (BCP), which were created and agreed upon with collaborative input from both volume email senders and Internet Service Providers. The Sender Best Communications Practices documents are available here. You will use commercially reasonable efforts to follow these practices.

 

c. You may not use purchase lists.

 

You are prohibited from using the VUNNEL Service to email or SMS: (a) purchased, rented, or borrowed lists, and (b) lists that are likely to result in an excessive number of unsubscribe requests or Spam complaints or notices, as determined by acceptable industry practices.

 

4. Email Opt-out Requirements

You warrant that each email you send or is sent for you using the VUNNEL Service will contain: (a) header information that is not false or misleading; and (b) an advisement that the recipient may unsubscribe, opt-out or otherwise demand that use of its information for unsolicited, impermissible and/or inappropriate communication(s) as described in this AUP be stopped (and how the recipient can notify you that it wants to unsubscribe, opt-out, or stop this use of its information). These requirements may not apply if the email sent is a transactional email and these requirements are not otherwise required by law. You warrant that you will promptly comply with all opt-out, unsubscribe, "do not call" and "do not send" requests.

 

5. Telephone Laws

You must comply with all laws relating to telephone marketing, including without limitation those specifically referenced in the ‘Proper Usage of VUNNEL Service’ section below. You must comply with all laws related to the recording of phone calls and ensure all proper consent to record is obtained prior to making any such recording. If you use the VUNNEL Service to place telephone calls, you must also comply with all applicable industry standards, including those applicable guidelines published by the CTIA and the Mobile Marketing Association. You are prohibited from using or permitting access to use the VUNNEL Service to make emergency calls or to provide or seek emergency services.

 

6. No Disruption

You agree not to use the VUNNEL Service in a way that impacts the normal operation, privacy, integrity or security of another's property. Another’s property includes another’s account(s), domain name(s), URL(s), website(s), network(s), system(s), facilities, equipment, data, other information, or business operations. You also agree not to use the VUNNEL Service to gain unauthorized access to, use, monitor, make an unauthorized reference to, another’s property, unless you have the appropriate express prior consent to do so. Examples of prohibited actions include (without limitation): hacking, spoofing, denial of service, mailbombing and/or sending any email that contains or transmits any virus or propagating worm(s), or any malware, whether spyware, adware or other such file or program. You also agree not to use the VUNNEL Service in a way that causes or may cause any VUNNEL IP addresses, VUNNEL domains, or VUNNEL customer domains to be blacklisted. These restrictions apply regardless of your intent and whether or not you act intentionally or unintentionally.

 

7. Proper Usage of the VUNNEL Service

Without limiting the other requirements in this AUP, you may not (directly or indirectly) use the VUNNEL Service with content, or in a manner that:

 

is threatening, abusive, harassing, stalking, or defamatory;

is deceptive, false, misleading or fraudulent;

is invasive of another's privacy or otherwise violates another’s legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity);

contains vulgar, obscene, indecent or unlawful material;

infringes a third party's intellectual property right(s);

publishes, posts, uploads, or otherwise distributes any software, music, videos, or other material protected by intellectual property laws (or by rights of privacy or publicity) unless you have all necessary rights and consents to do so;

uploads files that contain viruses, corrupted files, or any other similar software or programs that may damage the operation of another person's computer;

downloads any file that you know, or reasonably should know, cannot be legally distributed in that way;

falsifies or deletes any author attributions, legal or proprietary designations, labels of the origin or source of software, or other material contained in a file that is uploaded;

restricts or inhibits any other user of the VUNNEL Service from using and enjoying our website and/or the VUNNEL Service;

harvests or otherwise collects information about others, including e-mail addresses, without their consent;

violates the usage standards or rules of an entity affected by your use, including without limitation any ISP, ESP, or news or user group (and including by way of example and not limitation circumventing or exceeding equipment use rights and restrictions and/or location and path identification detail);

is legally actionable between private parties;

is not a good faith use of the service, such as uploading Contacts in excess of your Contact tier, emailing those Contacts and then purging them shortly thereafter; and/or

is in violation of any applicable local, state, national or international law or regulation, including all export laws and regulations and without limitation the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM Act) (15 U.S.C. § 7701 et seq.), the U.S Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (47 U.S.C. § 227), the Do-Not-Call Implementation Act of 2003 (15 U.S.C. § 6152 et seq.; originally codified at § 6101 note), the General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679), the Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and Council of 8 June 2000, on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular, electronic commerce in the Internal Market ('Directive on Electronic Commerce'), along with the Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and Council of 12 July 2002, concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector ('Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications'), regulations promulgated by the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission, any rules of national or other securities exchange, including without limitation, the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ, the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) (S.C. 2000, c. 5), Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL) (S.C. 2010, c. 23), Japan’s Act on Regulation of Transmission of Specified Electronic Mail (Act No. 26 of April 17, 2002) and any regulations having the force of law or laws in force in your or your email recipient's country of residence;

encourages, promotes, facilitates or instructs others to engage in illegal activity, including without limitation multi-level marketing (except in compliance with the FTC’s Business Guidance Concerning Multi-Level Marketing , promoting or offering for sale or use of illegal drugs (including but not limited to Marijuana-derived CBD Oil); or infringing or promoting the infringement of the intellectual property rights of any person.

promotes, encourages, or facilitates: hate speech, violence, discrimination based on race, color, religion or creed, national origin or ancestry, sex, age, physical or mental disability, veteran status, genetic information, and/ or citizenship.

If you use any of our developer tools including Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), developer tools, or associated software, you certify all developers will comply with the Acceptable Use Policy and Terms of Service

You will use the VUNNEL Service for your internal business purposes and will not: (i) willfully tamper with the security of the VUNNEL Service or tamper with our customer accounts; (ii) access data on the VUNNEL Service not intended for you; (iii) log into a server or account on the VUNNEL Service that you are not authorized to access; (iv) attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of any VUNNEL Service or to breach the security or authentication measures without proper authorization; (v) willfully render any part of the VUNNEL Service unusable; (vi) lease, distribute, license, sell or otherwise commercially exploit the VUNNEL Service or make the VUNNEL Service available to a third party other than as contemplated in your subscription to the VUNNEL Service; (vii) use the VUNNEL Service for timesharing or service bureau purposes or otherwise for the benefit of a third party; or (viii) provide to third parties any evaluation version of the VUNNEL Service without our prior written consent.

 

8. Conforming Outbound Calls

VUNNEL only permits only Conversational Voice Calling Patterns which is defined as having an ASR (defined, below) of greater than 60% and Short Call Ratio (defined below) of less than 15%.

 

ASR % = Number answered outbound calls / Number of calls dialed.

Short Call = A call duration of fifteen (15) seconds or less / Number answered outbound calls.

9. Restricted Industries

Some industries have higher than average abuse complaints, which can directly impact our ability to provide the VUNNEL Services to other customers. To protect our customers, These industries are restricted from using the VUNNEL Services:

 

Escort and dating services

Pharmaceutical products

Gambling services or products

Negative option credit monitoring services

List brokers or list rental services (for example; selling lists of contact information for telemarketing)

Selling 'Likes' or followers for a social media platform

We additionally reserve the right to discontinue your use of the VUNNEL Services if your account or industry can impact our ability to provide Services to other customers.

 

10. Fair Use

VUNNEL provides hosting and data services to our customers including but not limited to content delivery network (CDN) services to help ensure your websites load very fast. Unless otherwise stated in your service, VUNNEL permits 50 GB/mo bandwidth per paid account. If you need more than 50GB/mo you have a free option to simply use CloudFlare.com on your website. CloudFlare is a free global CDN that takes most (usually 95%+) of the bandwidth load off our CDN which means you could continue to meet our fair use bandwidth with approximately 20 times the bandwidth, 1000 GB/mo, to your website. Alternativly you can purchase 1,000 GB/mo the bandwidth from us for just $19/mo until canceled anytime via email. We will notify you via email if you exceed the fair use bandwidth to select one of these options. We reserve the right to have you enable CloudFlare for any of your websites at anytime.

 

Excessive data use on any of the VUNNEL services may cause the Service to become slow or unavailable. We have no liability for the effect that your excessive data usage may have on service performance. We may suspend or terminate your service if we determine in our sole discretion and with or without advance notice that your data usage is excessive, has negative effects on the service, or for any other reason.

 

VUNNEL provides the Service on a tiered-pricing bases, some tiers may process more data with less impact on service performance. Contact us if you would like more information about pricing for data usage that may be more appropriate for your needs.

 

11. VUNNEL Trademark Use

Unless you have our express prior written permission, you may not use any name, logo, tagline or other mark of ours or the VUNNEL Service, or any identifier or tag generated by the VUNNEL Service, including without limitation: (a) as a hypertext link to any website or other location (except as provided for or enabled expressly by us); or (b) to imply identification with us as an employee, contractor, agent or other similar representative capacity. You also agree not to remove or alter any of these items as we may have provided or enabled.

 

12. General Terms

We may immediately suspend your access to the VUNNEL Service if you breach this AUP or don’t respond to us in a reasonable period after we’ve contacted you about a potential breach of this AUP. We may also suspend your access as we explain in our Customer Terms of Service and, if you breach this AUP, we may terminate your subscription agreement for cause. You acknowledge we may disclose information regarding your use of any VUNNEL Service to satisfy any law, regulation, government request, court order, subpoena or other legal process. If we make this type of required disclosure we will notify you, unless we are required to keep the disclosure confidential.

 

We are not obligated to, but may choose to, remove any prohibited materials and deny access to any person who violates this AUP. We further reserve all other rights.

 

We may update and change any part or all of this AUP. If we update or change this AUP, the updated AUP will be posted in the logged in area after clicking on your Name on the top right (profile page). If you have a VUNNEL subscription, we will let you know through a Notification in the VUNNEL portal used to access your VUNNEL subscription. If you do not have a VUNNEL subscription, we will let you know by posting the revised copy on our website. We encourage you to review this AUP periodically.