Q: Do you censor?
A: No. If presented with a court order, we have no choice but to remove messages as outlined in the court order, but in this case the court is the censor. If the owner of an account from which a message was posted asks us to remove a message, and we can verify the message came from the account, we will attempt to honor the request. If a message flood results in a group becoming unusable, we reserve the right to restore the group to a useable state, possibly by altering or deleting the message flood.
Q: Do you honor cancels?
A: No. If you are a user of Altopia services, we will propagate your cancel messages, but they will not be honored locally. We do not honor cancels because we have found that many messages are canceled by those who would not like the message content to be read, and not by the message originators themselves.
Q: Why do you not allow your users to cancel messages posted by other people?
A: We believe that if someone feels they need to cancel someone else's posts, they should run their own news server and take on the full burden of the complaints resulting from their actions.
Q: What is your policy on unsolicited advertising?
A: We have a strict policy against unsolicited advertising because we feel it involves the theft of resources from other systems on Usenet. Our user agreement says that customers will be charged $10 per complaint received about unsolicited advertising originating from their account. In addition, we may terminate a user's account for unsolicited advertising or disable their posting ability.
Q: Do you consider make money fast (MMF) schemes to be unsolicited advertising?
A: Absolutely.
Q: Why do you carry groups that are focused on illegal activities?
A: It is our belief that a group name in of itself is not illegal and that what is actually in a group does not necessarily correspond to a group name. In general we do not remove groups, even if they become inactive. It is possible for illegal messages to be posted to any group on Usenet and we have no way of monitoring or controlling this.
Q: I've seen cancels for unsolicited advertising come out of Altopia. What's up with that?
A: Occasionally, we are asked by the owner of an account, from which unsolicited advertising was posted, to issue cancels for the posts. We include the phrase "Canceled at the request of the author." in those cancel messages.
Q: What is your policy on child pornography?
A: We rely on users to follow the law which applies to Altopia and/or the user. We rely on readers to report presumed child pornography to the appropriate law enforcement agency so they may then contact us and follow-up as they feel appropriate. We do not review messages that are on or have passed through the server because that action in of itself can be illegal. Further, we are not in a position to know what is child pornography and what is not.
Q: What is your policy on copyrighted material?
A: We rely on users to follow the copyright law which applies to Altopia and/or the user. If you have believe that a user of Altopia has violated a copyright you should contact the copyright holder directly. We do not review messages that are on or have passed through the server because that action in of itself can be illegal. Further, we are not in a position to know what is a copyright violation and what is not.
Q: What is your policy on message floods?
A: If a message flood is resulting in a denial of service, we will stop it. If a user on Altopia is causing it, we may disable their posting ability. If an incoming flood is making a group or groups available on Altopia be unusable, we may delete the message flood or prevent it, so as to make the group(s) be usable.
Q: What is your policy on non-advertising excessive multi-postings (EMP)?
A: We consider excessive multi-postings to be a flood and we react to it as described above.
Q: What is your policy on binaries in non-binary groups?
A: We do not have a policy against binaries in non-binary groups and we rely on users to operate in a way that they feel is appropriate for Usenet and/or the groups they are participating in.
Q: What is your policy on off-topic postings?
A: We do not have a policy against off-topic postings and we rely on users to operate in a way that they feel is appropriate for Usenet and/or the groups they are participating in.
Q: What is your policy on a user posting with a bogus return address?
A: We feel users have a right to decide whether to be anonymous or not and so we do not have a problem with a user posting with a bogus return address. The news server software does require that a return address be in Internet standard format, such as foo@bar, but the address does not have to be real. We do require that users verify that the address they choose to use is not actually someone else's valid address or domain. For example, bar@foo.com is actually a valid email address, because foo.com is a registered domain.
Q: What is your policy on forgery?
A: We have a policy against a user of Altopia making posts in a way that uses the email address of another user on Usenet or the Internet, in an attempt to deceive readers of the true identity of the poster, without that email address owner's permission. In addition, if you are the victim or witness to a forgery, you may want to contact the appropriate law enforcement agency so they may then contact us and follow-up as they feel appropriate.
Q: Why don't posts from your site contain an NNTP-Posting-Host: header?
A: We feel users have a right to decide whether to be anonymous or not and so we do not add the NNTP-Posting-Host: header to users' posts.
Q: What is your policy on postings to moderated newsgroups without the permission of the moderator?
A: We do not have a policy against this and we rely on users to operate in a way they feel is appropriate for Usenet and/or the groups they are participating in. If you're a reader, we recommend you ignore it or ask your admin to run appropriate moderation software. If you're the moderator, do what you feel is necessary to manage the group you moderate. If you are a site admin, configure or use appropriate software to avoid storing unapproved postings. Altopia is not against the concept of newsgroup moderation, we just don't believe the legacy baby-sitting system of moderation is practical and that technological solutions (ex. PGPMoose, STUMP, passive-UDP, or active-UDP) should be used to enforce moderation.
Q: What if I don't like one of your customers or what they are saying on Usenet? Will you delete them for me if I complain enough?
A: No. We will ignore you. Further, we reserve the right to forward your complaint to the customer so that they are aware of your discontent. If you feel one of our customers is using the service for illegal purposes, please contact law enforcement and not us.
Q: I don't like your policies so I am going to get a Usenet Death Penalty issued for your site. What say you?
A: We say that it is your right to protest our presence on Usenet. We feel that the positive contributions of Altopia users to Usenet far outweigh the occasional negative contributions. It is each Usenet site's right to decide which servers to reject postings from, as long as it is done in a way that does not affect the rights of other Usenet sites.
Q: What if a Usenet Death Penalty issued against Altopia is active instead of passive?
A: We believe that active-UDPs cause more and more sites to cease honoring cancels, and thus backfire.
Q: I am going to complain to your upstream sites because I disagree with your views. What say you?
A: If our upstream sites decide not to accept postings from us, that is their right. We feel that the positive contributions of Altopia users to Usenet far outweigh the occasional negative contributions and we believe our upstream sites will realize this.
Q: I am going to complain to your bandwidth providers because I disagree with your views. What say you?
A: We work hard to make sure that we do not violate the provisions of any contracts we have with bandwidth providers. If a bandwidth provider decides they do not want our business, we will take it elsewhere as necessary.
Q: Why don't you allow customers under 18 to use your service?
A: We require a user agreement to be signed with us before we create an account. In the eyes of the law, people under 18 are unable to enter into a binding agreement.
Q: One of your users is harassing me. What should I do?
A: You should probably ask them to stop or try to ignore them. If that does not work, you might want to consider contacting the appropriate law enforcement agency. We are unable to control what users say on Usenet, nor are we able to determine whether harassment is taking place. If you contact us about this, we will ignore you.
Q: Why do you allow users so much freedom?
A: We believe that the more responsibilities we take away from a user, the more irresponsible they will act. By attempting to maximize freedom, we believe our users will act responsibly and not abuse that freedom.
Q: Is it true you are trying to position yourself as a common carrier?
A: Yes. Although it is unknown whether Usenet service providers have common carrier status, we are trying to position ourselves as one. We do not monitor the content of Usenet that flows through or originates at Altopia. We recommend complaints of a legal nature be taken to the appropriate law enforcement agency. We do attempt to restrict unsolicited advertising, but this is done after the event has occurred and not in a way that alters the event.
Q: Is this site a Site of Virtue?
A: No. If you would like more information on what a Site of Virtue is check out http://www.jetcafe.org/~dave/usenet/.