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Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

The iPlant Collaborative and its resources are intended to support open science research in plant sciences.  Other uses of iPlant resources, including for corporate use, may be allowed at iPlant's sole discretion.

All Users are responsible for complying with this AUP and for violations thereof attributable to them.  This AUP does not obligate the iPlant Collaborative to monitor, review, or police the data and content residing on its servers, or create any obligation or duty to any party that is not a User.  Unless and until notified, iPlant is not likely to be aware of any violations of this AUP or any violations of the law, however iPlant reserves the right to monitor and investigate usage and content from time to time to operate iPlant services, to identify violations of this AUP, and/or to protect iPlant resources and our User community.  THE iPLANT COLLABORATIVE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY LIABILITY FOR THE DATA AND CONTENT TRANSMITTED THROUGH OR INTERMEDIATELY, TEMPORARILY, OR PERMANENTLY STORED ON ANY SERVER OR VIRTUAL MACHINE AND FOR THE ACTIONS OR OMISSIONS OF USERS.

This AUP:

  • applies to all Users, including third-party Users, of the iPlant Collaborative's resources, services, and products, including but not limited to the tools and services within the Discovery Environment, Atmosphere, My-Plant, DNA Subway, etc., and any stand alone products and services.
  • is designed to protect and regulate iPlant's User community, its website, products, services, resources, and infrastructure.
  • is incorporated by reference into iPlant's Service Level Agreement(s) and Privacy Policy.
  • is not intended to impose restrictions that are contrary to the collaboration goals of the iPlant Collaborative.
  • is not intended to be an exhaustive listing of every and all possible forms of acceptable and unacceptable uses.

Users' Security Obligation 

Users must use reasonable care to ensure the security of their account, uploads, images, virtual machine (VM), etc.  A User is solely responsible for any intrusions into, or security breaches of, any of its VMs, except as otherwise covered by a specifically designated security administration or firewall security service package. iPlant reserves the right to disconnect without notice any Users or any hardware objects on iPlant resources as a result of a security compromise.

Prohibited Content

Users shall not post, transmit, or store data or content on or through iPlant servers which in iPlant's sole determination, constitutes a violation of any federal, state, local, or international law, regulation, ordinance, court order or other legal process.  Prohibited content includes, without limitation, content or code that:

  • facilitates any violation of this AUP,
  • includes 'harvested' addresses or information,
  • includes phishing websites or spamvertising sites, or
  • includes material believed by iPlant to constitute pornography, pirated software, hackers' programs or archives, Warez sites, IRC bots, MP3 files, spyware of any sort, SPAM software of any sort, etc.

All iPlant hosting services, virtual or otherwise, may only be used for lawful purposes.

Abuse and Unacceptable Uses

Users are prohibited from engaging in any activities that iPlant determines, in its sole and absolute discretion, to constitute abuse or unacceptable uses, including but not limited to:

  • introducing or executing malicious content or programs into iPlant servers or virtual machines, such as viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and key loggers.
  • causing or initiating security breaches or disruptions of system communications and/or connectivity, including port scans, flood pings, email bombing, packet spoofing, IP spoofing, and forged routing information.
  • executing any form of system activity that will intercept data not intended for the User's account or VM.
  • evading or circumventing User authentication or security of any host, network, or account, including cracking, brute-force, or dictionary attacks.
  • interfering with or denying service to any User, host, or network other that the User's host, such as a denial of service attack or distributed denial of service attack.
  • conduct designed to avoid restrictions or limits access to specific services, hosts, or networks, including the forging of packet headers or other identification information.
  • soliciting the performance of any illegal activity, even if the activity is not performed.
  • using any program, or sending messages of any kind, designed to interfere with or disable a User's terminal session.
  • revealing your account password to others or allowing use of your account by others.
  • using iPlant's computing resources to actively engage in procuring or transmitting material that is in violation of sexual harassment or hostile workplace laws in the User's local jurisdiction.
  • engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that iPlant determines to be harmful to its users, user community, operations, reputation, community goodwill, or community relations.

Intellectual Property Infringement

Users may not transmit, distribute, download, copy, cache, host, or store on an iPlant VM or server any information, data, material, or work that infringes the intellectual property rights of others or violates any trade secret right of any other person/User.   iPlant has the right to disable access to, or remove, infringing content to the extent required by law or regulation, and to suspend permanently or terminate access to Atmosphere, the iPlant Discovery Environment, or any iPlant cyberinfrastructure of any User engaging in such infringement. 

Violations of this AUP

iPlant reserves the right to deactivate a User's account(s) if any or all portions of this AUP are being violated in any way, in iPlant's sole and absolute discretion.

Indemnification

User agrees to indemnify and hold harmless the iPlant Collaborative and its staff, directors, agents, and collaborators from and against any claims, losses, judgments, damages, costs, and expenses incurred by any of the foregoing parties due to or resulting from:

  • User's publication of unacceptable content or materials stored on iPlant resources, or
  • User's breach or violation of any covenant contained in this policy, or resulting from their use of iPlant's services.