12.   Net abuse

12.1   What constitutes Net abuse?

What is conventionally meant by the term Net abuse is abuse of the resources of the Net rather than abusive language on the Net. Usenet is a medium in which forthright opinions are often exchanged and few ISPs are likely to be interested in complaints about swearing or personal abuse. Those who indulge in Net abuse as described below risk having their Internet account suspended or withdrawn - although, like any sanction, this does not prevent the foolhardy going ahead. Net abuse includes (not an exhaustive list):
 
  • UCE/UBE - Unsolicited Commercial (/Bulk) Email, the Internet equivalent of junk mail, commonly referred to as spam;
  • mailbombing - sending very many or very large emails to annoy the recipient or to make his or her Internet account almost unusable;
  • spam - originally this meant posting the same message to a large number of newsgroups, most of them inappropriate, but is now used to refer to unsolicited email aswell;
  • the deliberate posting of adverts and binaries to inappropriate groups;
  • attempting to pose as someone else by forging the headers of an email or news posting.


In addition, you would be well advised not to post material which is illegal or which could be construed as defamtaory or libellous.

Demon provide their own informal discussions on news and email abuse at: http://www.demon.net/helpdesk/producthelp/aup/discussions/

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