Effective Date: 01/20/2012
Last Updated: 01/20/2026

1. Purpose and Scope

This Acceptable Use Policy (“Policy”) establishes the standards and responsibilities for Customers and Users regarding the use of services, facilities, and equipment provided by DartPoints and its affiliates (“Provider”).

By installing equipment or using the Service, Customers agree to comply with this Policy and indemnify Provider against any claims resulting from violations. This Policy is incorporated into all Master Service Agreements and Service Orders.

This Policy covers, without limitation, colocation, interconnection (cross-connects), IP addressing, and Internet transit services.

The purpose of this Policy is to:

• Protect the integrity, security, and availability of Provider’s network and services.
• Ensure compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
• Safeguard the interests of Customers, Users, and the Internet community.

This Policy applies to:

• All Customers and Users accessing Provider’s services.
• All equipment located in Provider facilities.
• All activities conducted through Provider’s network.

2. Responsibility

It is the responsibility of Customers, Users, and their affiliates to follow and implement this Policy.

Customer Responsibilities

• Maintain equipment in compliance with safety and legal standards.
• Ensure secure configurations and apply critical patches.
• Protect account credentials and notify Provider of breaches.
• Comply with IP addressing guidelines; unauthorized routing is prohibited.
• Services may only be used for lawful purposes.
• Customers are responsible for compliance by their Users and affiliates.
• Provider reserves the right to modify this Policy at any time without prior notice. Continued use of the Service constitutes acceptance of changes.

3. Policy: Prohibited Uses

Customers and Users must not engage in any of the following:

3.1 Illegal Activities

• Violations of federal, state, or local laws.
• Infringement of intellectual property rights.
• Transmission of obscene, defamatory, or fraudulent content.
• Export control violations.
• Sanctions violations (including providing services to sanctioned persons, entities, or regions where prohibited by law).

3.2 Security Violations

• Unauthorized access to systems or data.
• Probing, scanning, or testing vulnerabilities without consent.
• Denial-of-service attacks or interference with network operations.
• Introducing malware, viruses, or harmful code.

Security Testing and Scanning

• Penetration testing, vulnerability scanning, or other security testing that targets Provider systems or infrastructure, or that may impact Provider networks or other customers, is prohibited unless pre-approved in writing by Provider, including agreed scope, time window, and source IPs.
• Internet-wide scanning services, bot-driven scanning, or automated probing originating from Provider-assigned IP space may be restricted or prohibited unless expressly authorized in writing.

3.3 Spam and Abuse

• Sending unsolicited bulk or commercial email (“spam”).
• Mailbombing or excessive attachments.
• Using third-party services to distribute spam.

3.4 Fraud and Misrepresentation

• Falsifying identity or contact information.
• Injecting false routing or DNS data.
• Forging headers or packet information.

3.5 Offensive or Harmful Content

• Posting or transmitting obscene, violent, or hateful material.
• Advocating illegal activities or violence.

3.6 Additional Prohibited Activities

• Tampering with Provider facilities or equipment.
• Circumventing bandwidth or usage limits.
• Facilitating illegal gambling or deceptive marketing.

3.7 Network Integrity and Routing (Internet Transit / IP Services)

• Route leaks (advertising routes learned from Provider or another upstream/peer to third parties) and acting as an unauthorized transit provider are prohibited unless expressly authorized in writing.
• Customer must comply with reasonable routing security requirements communicated by Provider (e.g., max-prefix limits, prefix/ASN filtering, and remediation of RPKI-invalid announcements when notified).
• Announcing, advertising, or routing IP prefixes or ASNs not assigned or authorized for your use (including route hijacking).
• Operating open resolvers, open proxies, or other misconfigured services that enable abuse (e.g., amplification, reflection, or anonymization) without Provider’s written approval.
• Generating, facilitating, or participating in distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, reflection attacks, or other traffic intended to overwhelm systems or networks.
• Operating command-and-control (C2) infrastructure, botnets, malware distribution, credential stuffing, or other activities that materially increase abuse risk.
• Failing to maintain accurate WHOIS/registration and technical contact information for IP resources where required.
• Resource Abuse and High-Risk Applications or other automated/high-resource workloads that pose security or operational risk may be restricted or prohibited unless expressly authorized in writing.
• Use of the Service in a manner that creates excessive abuse complaints, blocklisting, or reputational harm to Provider networks may be treated as a Policy violation.

4. Customer Responsibilities

• Maintain equipment in compliance with safety and legal standards.
• Ensure secure configurations and apply critical patches.
• Protect account credentials and notify Provider of breaches.
• Comply with IP addressing guidelines; unauthorized routing is prohibited.

5. Enforcement and Consequences

Provider reserves the right to:

• Suspend or terminate services without notice for violations.
• Remove offending material or block access.
• Cooperate with law enforcement investigations.
• Customer agrees to maintain current legal and security contacts for time-sensitive lawful requests and incident coordination. Provider may preserve and disclose information as required by law, and may request Customer cooperation (including preservation of relevant logs) as reasonably necessary to respond to lawful process or to protect the network.
• Take emergency actions to protect safety and operations.
• Impose remediation fees for violations (including Provider’s time and materials at standard rates and any third-party costs incurred in investigation, mitigation, or cleanup).
• Provider may implement reasonable network management and security measures (including filtering, rate-limiting, blackholing, and collection of routing/service information) to prevent or mitigate Policy violations and to protect the Provider network and other customers.

DDoS Mitigation

• Provider may apply protective measures (including RTBH/blackholing, rate limiting, ACLs, traffic diversion to scrubbing services, or temporary suspension of affected ports/services) when necessary to protect the Provider network or other customers. Customer acknowledges these measures may impact availability and are permitted under this Policy.
• Provider may take action based on credible abuse reports, threat intelligence, and/or listings by reputable anti-abuse organizations, and is not required to validate every complaint before acting to protect the network.

Violations may result in civil or criminal liability.

6. Complaints and Reporting

• Report violations or abuse to Provider via the DartPoints user portal: My.DartPoints.com
• For urgent issues (e.g., live attacks), contact Customer Support immediately.

7. Privacy

Provider does not guarantee the security of data transmitted over the Internet. Customers should implement appropriate safeguards.

8. Policy Updates

Provider may update this Policy at any time. Updates will be posted on the Provider’s website, and continued use of the Service indicates acceptance.

Revision History

• 01 — 01/20/2012: Original Document Created
• 02 — 06/24/21: Modified from Immedion to DartPoints
• 03 — 01/20/26: Updated to template and included new industry best practices