Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

Effective Date: August 31, 2024
Last Modified Date: October 4, 2024

This Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) applies to any use of the services provided by Outcrop Communications Ltd.. (“Outcrop,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) to you the user (“Subscriber” or “you”). Subscriber has separately entered a services agreement (“Agreement”) with Outcrop, and this AUP is deemed “Supplemental Terms” within the meaning of the Agreement. These Supplemental Terms take effect on the earlier of (i) the last date a party signs, (ii) when you click an “Accept” button or (iii) by your use of any of the Services (the “Effective Date”). All capitalized terms are as defined in the Agreement except as set out herein. If you suspect or have knowledge of any activity in violation of this AUP or the Agreement, please promptly report such matters to [email protected].

Customer Expectations

You agree that you will:

  1. Comply with all applicable laws, including, without limitation, privacy laws, intellectual property laws, anti-spam laws, export control laws, tax laws, and regulatory requirements;
  2. Provide accurate contact information to us and keep it updated;
  3. Use the Services in a professional manner;
  4. Be at least 13 years of age, or 16 years of age if you are an individual within the European Union, or of the legal age in your jurisdiction, and
  5. Possess the legal authority, right, and freedom to enter into a binding agreement for yourself or on behalf of the person, organization, or entity you represent.

Prohibited Use and Activities

You agree that you will NOT use the Services for:

  1. Unauthorized Access. Provide or permit access to the Services other than by the authorized End User, or attempt to breach Outcrop’s security or authentication measures, whether by passive or intrusive techniques or otherwise remove or circumvent any form of protection designed to prevent or inhibit unauthorized use or copying of the Services (i.e., using the Services to harm Outcrop);
  2. Competing with Outcrop. Reverse engineer, copy or replicate code, or otherwise use, mimic, publish, compete, or substitute for the Services or any part thereof;
  3. Embargoed or Sanctioned Activities. This includes any organization on a sanctions list, including but not limited to the Consolidated Canadian Autonomous Sanctions List, including organizations that have a 50% or more, directly or indirectly and in aggregate, ownership by a sanctioned party;
  4. Export Controlled Data. Process or store any data that is export controlled under the Canadian Export Control List (ECL) under the Export and Imports Act (EIPA), the Controlled Goods Program (GCP) as administered by Public Services and Procurement Canada, or otherwise regulated by Canadian privacy laws, except with the appropriate authorizations and licenses;
  5. Nuclear, Air Traffic Control, or Life Support systems. Operate nuclear facilities, air traffic control, or life support systems, or other uses where the use or failure of the Services could lead to death, personal injury, or environmental damage;
  6. Telecom Services. Operate or enable any telecommunications service or allow End Users to place calls or to receive calls from any public switched telephone network;
  7. Malware. Introduce any computer programming routine, robot, spider, or other automatic device, program, script, algorithm, methodology, or engine that is intended to access, acquire, copy, monitor, damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept, or expropriate any system, data, materials, documents, services, or information on Outcrop, its customers, or third parties;
  8. Phishing. Using the Services to acquire sensitive data through a fraudulent email or website;
  9. Spam. Sending bulk emails, texts, or messages to parties that you’re not authorized to communicate with;
  10. Benchmark Testing or Monitoring. Publish any performance or benchmark tests or analyses relating to the Services, or the use thereof, without our prior authorization;
  11. Highly Secure Data. Use the Services to process or store Restricted Data as set out in the Agreement and in all cases requiring a standard of protection more stringent or specific than reasonable technical, physical, and procedural safeguards against disclosure;
  12. Disrupting Outcrop’s Products & Operations. Attempt to interrupt service to any site or degrade Outcrop itself through denial of service or any other means; or
  13. Crypto Mining. Creating, or attempting to create, cryptocurrencies, including through the validation of cryptocurrency transactions or generating security hashes.

Prohibited Customers

Companies, entities, organizations, groups, or others (“organization”) are prohibited from using Outcrop’s Services if the organization is primarily focused on, engaged in, or supporting:

  • Criminal behavior and activity;
  • Organized hate
  • Voter fraud or disinformation
  • A combination of the above

As organizations may change or evolve over time, this test is based on activities and actions over the past 5 years. No organization or individual is exempt from these standards regardless of position or public office. Should a customer fail these standards, you will either not be offered a contract, or, if you are a customer, be given a reasonable period to migrate your site to another provider.

Decisions on whether a site is prohibited will be made at the primary domain level (e.g., university.ca rather than lawschool.university.ca/professor_opinion), and we will review both the content on the site as well as information from external sources (e.g., social media, speaking engagements, events, legal filings/cases, etc.).

Prohibited Content

Customers are prohibited from including content on your site that is:

  • Risk to personal or public safety
  • Impersonating people, groups, or entities
  • Personal harm
  • Theft or misuse of intellectual property
  • Violent, graphic or sexual content

Criminal Behaviour and Activity

Criminal organization is defined as any person, organization, entity, group, or other association who, as evidenced by its content or actions, is primarily:

  • Engaged in or threatens to engage in criminal activity;
  • Promoting or publicizing violent crime, theft, and/or fraud;
  • Depicting criminal activity or admit to crimes they or their associates have committed;
  • Facilitating or coordinating future criminal activity, including acts of physical harm against people;
  • Praising any of the above organizations or individuals or any acts committed by them.

Permissible activities include debate or advocating for the legality of criminalizing activities, addressing the above in a rhetorical or satirical way, or drawing attention to harmful activity, including crimes they’ve witnessed or experienced.

Organized Hate

A hate organization is defined as any person, organization, entity, group, or other association who, as evidenced by its content or actions, is primarily or substantially engaged in:

  • Attacking, restricting, subjugating, marginalizing, or otherwise bringing harm to individuals based on characteristics, including race, religious affiliation, nationality, ethnicity, gender, sex, sexual orientation, serious disease or disability, or other criteria as defined as fundamental human rights by the United Nations;
  • Engaging in hate speech, which we define as a direct attack in violent or dehumanizing speech, statements of inferiority, or calls for exclusion or segregation of people based on protected characteristics as defined in the United Nations guiding principles, such as race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity, serious disease or disability, or immigration status; or
  • A site that praises or supports the above organizations or individuals or any acts committed by them.

In addition to the analysis of the organization’s content and external activities, as discussed in Section 2 above, we will also look for indicators of hate symbols as identified by the Anti-Defamation League.

Permissible activities include humor and social commentary related to these topics.

Voter Fraud or Disinformation

Voter fraud and disinformation sites are defined as any person, organization, entity, group, or other association who, as evidenced by its content or actions, is primarily or substantially engaged in:

  • Voter suppression, defined as misrepresentation of the dates, locations, and times, and methods for voting, voter registration, or the unsubstantiated fairness or accuracy of elections;
  • Misrepresentation of who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information and/or materials must be provided to vote;
  • Other misrepresentations related to voting in an official election.

Risk to Personal or Public Safety

People commonly express disdain or disagreement by threatening or calling for violence in facetious and non-serious ways. Consideration must be given to language, context, and details to distinguish casual statements from content on sites that constitute a credible threat to public or personal safety. In determining whether a threat is credible, additional information may be considered, such as a targeted person’s public visibility and vulnerability. We reserve the right to disable accounts, remove content, and/or work with law enforcement when we believe there is a genuine risk of physical harm or direct threats to public safety, including but not limited to the following threats:

  • Credible statements of intent to commit violence against any person, groups of people, or place. We assess credibility based upon the information available to us and generally consider statements credible if the following are present:
    • A target (person, group of people, or place); and
    • Bounty/demand for payment; or
    • Mention or image of specific weapon; or
    • Sales offer or ask to purchase weapon; or
    • Spelled-out address or named building; or
    • A target and two or more of the following details (can be two of the same detail):
      • Location
      • Timing
      • Method
    • Any statement of intent to commit violence against a vulnerable person (identified by name, title, image, or other reference) or vulnerable group, including (but not limited to) heads-of-state, witnesses and confidential informants, activists, journalists, and other vulnerable groups identified by the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights
    • Calls for violence or statements advocating violence against the following targets (identified by name, title, image, or other reference):
      • Any vulnerable person or group including (but not limited to) heads of state, national elected officials, witnesses and confidential informants, activists, and journalists
      • Public individuals, if credible as defined above
      • Groups of people or unnamed specific person(s), if credible
      • Places, if credible
      • If no target is specified, a symbol of the target or a visual of weapons is included
    • Aspirational and conditional statements of violence against:
      • Any vulnerable groups
      • Public individuals, if credible (unless the individual is convicted of certain crimes or is a member of a dangerous organization)
      • Vulnerable person(s), if credible
      • Groups of people or unnamed specific person(s), if credible
      • Places, if credible
  • Instructions on how to make or use weapons if the goal is to injure or kill people as may be evident from:
    • Language explicitly stating that goal, or
    • Imagery that shows or simulates the end result (serious injury or death) as part of the instruction
    • The exception for the above is if there is clear context that the content is for an alternative purpose (for example, shared as part of recreational self-defense activities, training by a country’s military, commercial video games, or news coverage):
      • Instructions on how to make or use explosives, unless there is clear context that the content is for a nonviolent purpose (for example, clear scientific/educational purpose use or fireworks)
      • Any content containing statements of intent, calls for action, representation, support or advocating for violence due to voting, voter registration, or the outcome of an election
      • Misinformation that contributes to imminent violence or physical harm

Personal Harm

We are committed to removing content that encourages real-world harm including, but not limited to, the following:

Suicide and self-injury

To promote a safe environment on Outcrop, we reserve the right to remove content that encourages suicide or self-injury, including depictions that might lead others to engage in similar behavior. Self-injury is defined as the intentional and direct injuring of the body, including self-mutilation, and eating disorders.

We reserve the right to remove any content that identifies and negatively targets victims or survivors of self-injury or suicide seriously, humorously, or rhetorically.

Permissible activities include sharing information about self-injury and suicide to draw attention to the issue and allow for discussion so long as they do not promote or encourage self-injury or suicide.

Public outing

Any content created for the express purpose of:

  • Outing an individual as a member of a designated and recognizable at-risk group as defined by the United Nations in our guiding principles; or
  • Exposing vulnerable individuals’ identities without their permission.

Sexual exploitation of adults

We reserve the right to remove content that depicts, threatens, or promotes sexual violence, sexual assault, or sexual exploitation, while also allowing space for victims to share their experiences.

In order to avoid facilitating transactions that may involve trafficking, coercion, and non-consensual sexual acts, we reserve the right to remove content that displays, advocates for, or coordinates sexual acts with non-consenting parties or commercial sexual services, such as prostitution and escort services.

Harassment

Harassment at Outcrop is not tolerated. Our harassment policy applies to both public and private individuals in order to prevent unwanted or malicious contact.

Permissible activities include sharing content if something was shared to condemn or draw attention to harassment.

Violent, Graphic or Sexual Content

We reserve the right to remove content that glorifies violence or celebrates the suffering or humiliation of others.

Do not post imagery of violence committed against real people or animals with comments or captions by the poster that contain:

  • Enjoyment of or pleasure from suffering or humiliation
  • Remarks that speak positively of the violence; or
  • Videos of dying, wounded, or dead people if they contain
    • Dismemberment unless in a medical setting
    • Visible internal organs
    • Charred or burning people
    • Victims of cannibalism
  • Videos that show child abuse, which is defined as
    • Repeated kicking, beating, slapping, or stepping on by an adult or animal
    • Strangling or suffocating by an adult or animal
    • Drowning by an adult or animal
    • Biting through skin by an adult or animal
    • Poisoning by an adult
    • Forcible restraint by an adult
    • Inflicting of burn or cut wounds by an adult
    • Forcible smoking
    • Tossing, rotating, or shaking of an infant (too young to stand) by their limbs or neck

Outcrop does not permit sites with videos or images that contain explicit depictions of nudity or sexual acts (in most cases), nor do we allow videos that seem primarily focused on sexual stimulation. Sexually explicit content like pornography is not allowed. In most cases, violent, graphic, or humiliating fetishes are not allowed. We also don’t allow videos designed to advertise goods and services of an erotic nature.

Permissible content includes depictions of nudity and sexuality that serve a clear creative, artistic, aesthetic, or narrative purpose, as well as non-sexual nudity, including naturalistic and documentary depictions of human bodies; and graphic content (with some limitations) to help people raise awareness about issues.

Impersonating People, Groups or Entities

Outcrop prohibits the impersonation of others by:

  • Using their images with the explicit aim to deceive people
  • Creating a site assuming the persona of or speaking for another person or entity
  • Posting imagery that is likely to deceive the public as to the content’s origin, if:
    • The entity or an authorized representative, objects to the content, and
    • Can establish a risk of harm to members of the public.
  • Engage in inauthentic behavior, which includes creating, managing, or otherwise perpetuating
    • Fake sites, brands, personalities, businesses, or people
    • Mislead people about the origin of content
    • Mislead people about the destination of links on the site (for example, providing a display URL that does not match the destination URL)
    • Mislead people to encourage shares, likes, or clicks

Permissible content includes humor, satire, and social commentary related to these topics.

Theft or Misuse of Intellectual Property

You must own or license the content and information on your website.

We ask that you respect other people’s copyrights, trademarks, and other legal rights. We are committed to helping people and organizations promote and protect their intellectual property rights.

Outcrop’s Terms and Conditions do not allow people to use content on their site that violates someone else’s intellectual property rights, including copyright and trademark.

Upon receipt of a report from a rights holder or an authorized representative, we will remove or restrict content that engages in copyright or trademark infringement.

Internal Review and Remediation

Notifications of potential AUP violations, including emails sent to [email protected], will first be investigated internally. This research and information will be compared to this policy to decide whether the site complies with this AUP. If there is uncertainty, or if a decision is appealed, this will then be escalated to the company’s General Counsel.

Content that is deemed to be Prohibited Content will be removed as soon as possible.

Sites that meet the criteria of Prohibited Customers and are existing customers, whether directly or through a partner, will be immediately notified of the need to find an alternate provider.

We commit to giving any customer affected by this policy a reasonable period to migrate to another provider and, if appropriate, a prorated refund of prepaid fees. If you do not migrate off the platform within the specified period, we have the right to terminate the Agreement and all related hosting with no further liability.

Potential customers that meet the criteria of Prohibited Customers will not be offered a contract.

General Terms

If a court with authority over this AUP finds any part of it unenforceable, you and we agree that the court should modify the terms to make that part enforceable while still achieving its intent. If the court cannot do that, you and we agree to ask the court to remove that unenforceable part and still enforce the rest of this AUP.

This version of the AUP supersedes all prior versions.

You agree that the only way to provide us legal notice regarding this AUP is at the email addresses provided in Section 13 and as stated in the Agreement.