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Acceptable Use Policies ("AUP")
It is surprisingly easy to ban spamming, spam services and spamware sites, as some of the biggest and best Internet ISPs and hosting firms have demonstrated by the clauses in their AUPs below.
All major Backbones and Tier-1 providers have a clause in their AUPs banning spamming. Most also ban the hosting of spam services and sales of spamware designed for illegal use.
Smaller ISPs who have not yet implemented such clauses in their own AUPs will normally find that their upstream has and that they are bound by their upstream's AUP. Spammers now look for small ISPs without AUPs or with poor spam clauses. For ISPs who have not yet implemented a proper AUP to keep professional spammers off their netwoorks, a free online AUP 'builder' is available here.
Good Example AUPs
The following are specific anti-spam clauses from the AUPs of well known providers:
| Sprint (sprint.net/sprint.com) |
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AUP:
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http://www.sprint.net/policy/abuse.html |
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Clause:
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8. Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP or the AUP of any other Internet Service Provider, which includes, but is not limited to, the facilitation of the means to send e-mail spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mail-bombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software.
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| EarthLink (earthlink.net) |
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AUP:
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http://earthlink.net/about/policies/use/ |
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Clause:
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g. Unsolicited commercial email/Unsolicited bulk email. Using the Services to transmit any unsolicited commercial email or unsolicited bulk email. Activities that have the effect of facilitating unsolicited commercial email or unsolicited bulk email whether or not that email is commercial in nature, are prohibited. |
| VERIO (verio.net/verio.com) |
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AUP:
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http://home.verio.com/company/policies/aup.cfm |
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Clause:
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Facilitating a Violation of this AUP
Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mailbombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software. |
| Interland, Inc. (interland.com) |
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AUP:
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http://www.interland.com/Legal30.asp |
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Clause:
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3. Prohibited Uses. Users may not:
Utilize the Services to distribute, advertise or promote software or services that have the primary purpose of encouraging or facilitating unsolicited commercial e-mail or spam;
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RCN.COM
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AUP:
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http://www.rcn.com/internet/agreement.html |
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Clause:
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PROHIBITED/ABUSIVE ACTIVITIES
(u) Inappropriate software, products, and services. You agree not to post, transmit, promote, or otherwise make available any software, product or service that is illegal, violates the rights of RCN or a third party, or is designed to violate this Agreement. Such software, products or services include, but are not limited to, programs designed to send unsolicited advertisements (i.e. "spamware"), services which send unsolicited advertisements, programs designed to initiate "denial of service" attacks, mail bomb programs, and programs designed to gain unauthorized access to networks on the Internet. |
| HostPro, Inc (hostpro.com) |
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AUP:
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http://www.hostpro.net |
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Clause:
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Internet Abuse. HostPro will always take the appropriate action when Internet abuse is brought to our attention. Customer shall not abuse Internet resources including, but not limited to, allowing spamming by third parties to promote a web site hosted by HostPro; offering for sale or otherwise enabling access to (i) warez or (ii) software products that facilitate the sending of unsolicited e-mail or facilitate the assembling of multiple e-mail addresses ("spamware").
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| Time Warner Telecom (twtelecom.com) |
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AUP:
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http://info.twtelecom.net/ |
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Clause:
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Facilitating a Violation of this AUP: Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam. |
| Burlee Networks (Burlee.com) |
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AUP:
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http://www.burlee.com/ |
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Clause:
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3.1.2 Pornography and pornographic related merchandising are prohibited
under all the Company's services. This includes sites that include links to
pornographic content elsewhere. Further examples of unacceptable content or
links include pirated software, "hacker" programs, archives of "Warez
Sites", game rooms or MUDs, Chat Rooms, IRC Bots, Egg Drop programs,
programs designed to send unsolicited advertisements (i.e. "spamware"), any
kind of illegal software or shareware. |
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