The Hosted Services, and TOPS’ equipment and services generally, are designed for general business use only. This Acceptable Use Policy (the “Policy”) sets out guidelines governing the use of TOPS’ services and equipment, so as to ensure that TOPS is able to provide safe and high quality services to all customers. Customers are responsible for ensuring that all use of the TOPS services by the customer and its users complies with this Policy.

In addition to any other rights and remedies that it may have, in the event of a violation of this Policy, TOPS may (i) suspend or terminate all or any part of the services provided to customer, or (ii) block access to or remove any offending content. Any delay or failure by TOPS to exercise or enforce any of its rights shall not be deemed to be a waiver of this Policy or of any of TOPS’ rights under this Policy.

Customers are solely responsible for the use of their TOPS account, regardless if such use occurred with or without the account holder’s knowledge or consent.

TOPS may amend this policy at its sole discretion. Customer should review this page periodically to check for amendments. If the customer continues to use the TOPS services more than thirty (30) days after an amended policy has been posted, the customer will be deemed to have accepted the amended policy and to be bound by its terms.

PROHIBITED ACTIVITIES

Customers may not, and will ensure that their users do not, use the TOPS services:

1. for any activity that violates any local, provincial, federal, international or any other applicable law, rule or regulation, including applicable laws governing the transmission or export of restricted information;
2. to transmit or store any material that is libelous, defamatory, discriminatory, obscene, racist, sexist, hateful, malicious or harmful to any person;
3. to transmit or store any material that threatens, advocates, promotes or otherwise encourages violence, or which provides instruction, information or assistance in causing or carrying out such violence;
4. to create, solicit, transmit, upload or publish any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, data file or other communication which does or may: (i) violate the rights of others, including any privacy or intellectual property rights; (ii) contain or embody any computer virus, harmful component or corrupted data; (iii) adversely affect the performance or availability of any of TOPS systems or services; or
5. to impersonate any person, including TOPS personnel.

Further, Customer will not, and will ensure that their users do not:

1. reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code or underlying algorithms underlying TOPS’s services or systems (or any part thereof);
2. modify, translate, or create derivative works based on any portion of the TOPS services;
3. rent, lease, distribute, license, sublicense, sell, resell, assign, or otherwise commercially exploit any portion of the TOPS services or make any portion of the TOPS services available to any person other than customer’s authorized users;
4. use any part of the TOPS services for timesharing or service bureau purposes, or otherwise make the services available for use by or for the benefit of third parties;
5. access or attempt to gain access to any other person’s computer, software or data, without their knowledge or consent;
6. publish or disclose to any person evaluations of the TOPS services;
7. tamper with the security of any portion of TOPS’ services or systems, including circumventing user authentication or security of any user, host or network;
8. interfere with service to any user, host or network (“denial of service attacks”) including, but not limited to, mail bombing, flooding of networks, deliberate attempts to overload a service and attempts to crash a host;
9. use or distribute tools designed to compromise security, such as password guessing programs, cracking tools, packet sniffers or network probing tools; or
10. use TOPS services or systems to send messages (including fax and voice traffic) that have the effect of preventing fair and proportionate use of TOPS services by others, or that constitute “spam” or “phishing” or similar disruptive use.

SECURITY / PENETRATION TESTING

Customer and users must not attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of any portion of TOPS’ system, or to breach any TOPS security or authentication measures, without TOPS’ prior written consent. Requests for consent for any form of security testing of TOPS’ systems must be submitted not less than ten (10) business days prior to the intended test date, and must include details regarding the scope and timing of the intended testing activity.

TOPS DISCLAIMERS

Except as expressly provided in the applicable customer services agreement, the TOPS services are provided “as is”. TOPS and its third party suppliers are not responsible for, and will not be held liable for any damages resulting from the conduct, content, communications, goods and services available on or through the TOPS services. The customer will indemnify and hold TOPS and its third party suppliers harmless from any claim brought by third parties relating to the customer’s or its users’ use of the TOPS systems or services. The customer must pay and defend all legal costs (including legal fees) arising from such claims. Upon receiving notice, the customer must immediately notify TOPS of any claim or potential claim involving their use of the TOPS services. Failure to do so gives TOPS or its third-party supplier the right to defend such claims at the customer’s sole cost.

TOPS may co-operate with its third party suppliers and other Internet Service Providers to discourage and resist any abuse of online policies and procedures, including any breach of this Policy.

MONITORING AND PRIVACY

TOPS may, but shall not be obliged, to monitor use of the TOPS services and compliance with this Policy.

The customer acknowledges that TOPS may monitor or disclose the contents of private communications if TOPS, in its sole discretion, where permitted under applicable law or where TOPS reasonably believes that such action is necessary:

1. to comply with applicable law or valid legal processes;
2. to protect TOPS’ or a third party’s rights or assets;
3. in emergencies where a person’s physical safety is compromised; and
4. to enforce the terms of this Policy.

TOPS is not obliged to inform the customer that such information has been disclosed or will be disclosed.

TOPS CONTACT INFORMATION

Questions or comments regarding this Policy, or reports regarding a suspected breach of this Policy, should be sent to TOPS at management@topsoffice.ca.