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Legal

Acceptable Use Policy

What is and isn’t allowed on our network, and how we deal with abuse and take-down notices.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd · Last updated 19 October 2026

General Notice

Thank you for reading MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). By accessing this website, or by contracting with us for service/s, you agree, without limitation or qualification, to be bound by this policy and the terms and conditions it contains, as amended from time to time by MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd, as well as any other additional terms, conditions, rules or policies which are displayed to you in connection with this service/website.

The purpose of this AUP is to, amongst other things, comply with the relevant laws of the Republic of South Africa; to specify to customers and users of our service/website what activities and online behavior are considered an unacceptable use of the service/website; to protect the integrity of our network and to specify the consequences that may flow from undertaking any such prohibited activities.

This document contains a number of legal obligations which you are presumed to be familiar with. As such, we encourage you to read this document thoroughly and direct any queries to our customer services/legal department at 031 816 9399

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd respects the rights of our customers and users of our services to freedom of speech and expression; access to information; privacy; human dignity; religion, belief and opinion in accordance with our Constitution. We undertake not to interfere with any of those Constitutionally guaranteed rights unless required to do so by law; unless those rights are exercised for unlawful purposes; or unless the exercise of those rights threatens to cause harm to another person or affect the integrity of our network.

Industry codes of conduct

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd is not currently a member of the Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA). We nevertheless follow the principles of the ISPA Code of Conduct and the notice and take-down provisions of the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, 25 of 2002 (“ECTA”), as set out under Notice and Take-down Procedures below. See our ISPA page for our current status.

Unlawful Use

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s services/website may only be used for lawful purposes and activities. We prohibit any use of our website/network including the transmission, storage and distribution of any material or content using our network that violates any law or regulation of the Republic of South Africa, or any other jurisdiction in which the unlawful use may take place. This includes, inter alia,:

  1. Any violation of local and international laws prohibiting child pornography; obscenity; discrimination (including racial, gender or religious slurs) and hate speech; or speech designed to incite violence or hatred, or threats to cause bodily harm.
  2. Any activity designed to defame, abuse, stalk, harass or physically threaten any individual in the Republic of South Africa or beyond its borders; including any attempt to link to, post, transmit or otherwise distribute any inappropriate or defamatory material.
  3. Any violation of Intellectual Property laws including materials protected by local and international copyright, trademarks and trade secrets. Moreover MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd cannot be held liable if you make any unlawful use of any multimedia content accessed through the search facility provided by MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s network, or otherwise available through access to the MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd network, whether for commercial,  non-commercial or any other purposes.
  4. Any violation of an individual’s right to privacy, including any effort to collect personal data of third parties without their express consent.
  5. Any fraudulent activity whatsoever, including dubious financial practices, such as pyramid schemes; the impersonation of another subscriber without their express consent; or any attempt to enter into a transaction with MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd on behalf of another subscriber without their express consent.
  6. Any violation of the exchange control laws of the Republic of South Africa.
  7. Any activity that results in the sale, transmission or distribution of pirated or illegal software, copyright or other intellectual property.
  8. Failing to respond to a request by a recipient of unsolicited mail to be removed from any mailing or direct marketing list and continuing to send unsolicited mail following such a request for removal.

Where any user resides outside of the Republic of South Africa, permanently or temporarily, such user will be subject to the laws of the country in which s/he is currently resident and which apply. On presentation of a legal order to do so, or under obligation through an order for mutual foreign legal assistance, MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd will assist foreign law enforcement agencies  in the investigation and prosecution of a crime committed using MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s resources, including the provisioning of all personal identifiable data.

Prohibited Activities

The following sections outline activities that are considered an unacceptable use of MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s services/network/website and also detail the guidelines for acceptable use of certain facilities/services, as the case may be. The below list is not intended to be exhaustive.

Threats to Network Security

Any activity which threatens the functioning, security and/or integrity of MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s network is unacceptable and expressly prohibited. This includes, inter alia,:

  • Any efforts to attempt to gain unlawful and unauthorised access to the network or circumvent any of the security measures established by MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd for this purpose;
  • Any effort to use MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s equipment to circumvent the user authentication or security of any host, network or account (“cracking” or “hacking”);
  • Forging of any TCP-IP packet header (spoofing) or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting;
  • Any effort to breach or attempt to breach the security of another user or attempt to gain access to any other person’s computer, software, or data without the knowledge and consent of such person;
  • Any activity which threatens to disrupt the service offered by MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd through “denial of service attacks”; flooding of a network, or overloading a service or any unauthorised probes (“scanning” or “nuking”) of others’ networks;
  • Any activity which in any way threatens the security of the network by knowingly posting, transmitting, linking to or otherwise distributing any information or software which contains a virus; Trojan horse; worm, lock, mail bomb, cancelbot or other harmful, destructive or disruptive component.
  • Any unauthorised monitoring of data or traffic on the network without MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s express, prior written consent.
  • Any unsolicited mass mailing activity including direct marketing; spam and chain letters for commercial or other purposes, without the consent of the recipients of those mails.

Public Space and Third Party Content and sites

In reading this AUP or in signing a service contract with MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd, you acknowledge that MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd has no power to control the content of the information passing over the Internet and its applications, including e-mail; chat rooms; news groups; or other similar fora, and that MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd cannot be held responsible or liable, directly or indirectly, for any of the abovementioned content, in any way for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of, or in connection with your use of, or reliance on, any such content.

Our services also offer access to numerous third party webpages. You acknowledge that we exercise absolutely no control over such third party content, or sites and in such cases, our network is merely a conduit or means of access and transmission. This includes, but is not limited to, third party content contained on or accessible through the MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd network websites and/or web pages and/or sites displayed as search results or contained within a directory of links on the MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd  network. It remains your sole responsibility to review and evaluate any such content, and that any and all risk associated with the use of, or reliance on, such content rests with you.

Access to public Internet spaces, such as bulletin boards, Usenet groups, chat rooms and moderated forums is entirely voluntary and at your own risk.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd employees do not moderate any of these services, or your communications, transmissions or use of these services. We do not undertake any responsibility for any content contained therein, or for any breaches of your right to privacy that you may experience as a result of accessing such spaces.

Usenet Newsgroups

The customer is responsible for determining and familiarizing himself or herself with the written policies of a given newsgroup before posting to it.

The customer must comply with these guidelines which can be obtained from the group’s administrators/moderators upon request, at all times.

The following are prohibited practices with regard to Usenet newsgroups and MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to delete and/or cancel posts which constitute prohibited practices;

  1. Excessive cross-posting of the same article to multiple newsgroups.
  2. Posting of irrelevant or off-topic material to newsgroups (also known as USENET spam).
  3. Posting binaries to a non-binary newsgroup.
  4. Posting adverts, solicitations, or any other commercial messages unless the guidelines of the newsgroup in question expressly permit them.

Unsolicited, Spam and Junk mail

Spam and unsolicited bulk mail are highly problematic practices. They affect the use and enjoyment of services by others and often compromise network security. MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd will take swift and firm action against any user engaging in any of the following unacceptable practices:

  1. Sending unsolicited bulk mail for marketing or any other purposes (political, religious or commercial) to people who have not expressly consented to receiving such mail;
  2. Operating or maintaining mailing lists without the express permission of all recipients listed;
  3. Failing to promptly remove from lists invalid or undeliverable addresses or addresses of unwilling recipients or a recipient who has indicated s/he wishes to be removed from such list;
  4. Using MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s service to collect responses from unsolicited e-mail sent from accounts on other Internet hosts or e-mail services, that violate this AUP or the AUP of any other Internet service provider;
  5. Including MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s name in the header or by listing an IP address that belongs to MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd in any unsolicited email whether sent through MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s network or not;
  6. Failure to secure a customer’s mail server against public relay as a protection to themselves and the broader Internet community. Public relay occurs when a mail server is accessed by a third party from another domain and utilised to deliver mails, without the authority or consent of the owner of the mail-server. Mail servers that are unsecured against public relay often become abused by unscrupulous operators for spam delivery and upon detection such delivery must be disallowed. MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to examine users’ mail servers to confirm that no mails are being sent from the mail server through public relay and the results of such checks can be made available to the user. MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd also reserves the right to examine the mail servers of any users using MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s mail servers for “smarthosting” (when the user relays its mail via a MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd mail server to a mail server of its own or visa versa) or similar services at any time to ensure that the servers are properly secured against public relay. All relay checks will be done in strict accordance with MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s privacy policy.

Spam/virus Filtering

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd provides a spam and virus filtering system to protect customers from unsolicited mail and viruses. The customer acknowledges that this system might incorrectly identify a valid message as spam or as a virus and consequently this message might not be delivered to the customer. The customer acknowledges and agrees that MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd shall without limitation have no responsibility for, or liability in respect of any data lost as a result of this system.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to examine incoming or outgoing mail to the extent necessary to determine if it is classified as spam.

Webmail

Webmail and other web based email services made available by MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd are provided on an “as is” basis without representations, warranties or conditions of any kind, and the customer acknowledges and agrees that MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd shall have no responsibility for, or liability in respect of, any aspect of the Webmail services, including without limitation for any lost or damaged data or any acts or omissions of MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd. As webmail storage space is limited, some Webmail messages may not be processed due to space constraints or message limitations.

Webmail is provided to individuals and for personal use only. Any unauthorised commercial use of the Webmail service, or resale of the Webmail service is expressly prohibited.

Protection of Minors

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd prohibits customers from using MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s service to harm or attempt to harm a minor, including, but not limited to, by hosting, possessing, disseminating, distributing or transmitting material that is unlawful, including child pornography.

Privacy and Confidentiality

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd respects the privacy and confidentiality of our customers and users of our service. Please review our privacy policy which details how we collect and use personal information gathered in the course of operating this service. Our Privacy Policy may be viewed here

User Responsibilities

Customers are responsible for any misuse of MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s services that occur through the customer’s account. It is the customer’s responsibility to ensure that unauthorised persons do not gain access to or misuse MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s service/website.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd urges customers not to reply to unsolicited mail or “spam”, not to click on any suggested links provided in the unsolicited mail. Doing so remains the sole responsibility of the customer and MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd cannot be held liable for the Customer being placed on any bulk mailing lists as a result or suffering any damage as a result thereof.

Where the customer has authorised a minor to use any of the MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s services or access its websites, you accept that as the parent/legal guardian of that minor, you are fully responsible for: the online conduct of such minor; controlling the minor’s access to and use of any services or websites; and the consequences of any misuse by the minor, including but not limited to transactions entered into by the minor using such access.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd cannot be held liable for any business dealings you have with any third parties on the Internet, including any vendors, or advertisers found on, or through, the MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd network. Further, MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd assumes no responsibility whatsoever for any charges you or any user of your account incurs when making purchases or other transactions in this manner. Further, the responsibility for ensuring compliance with all applicable customs and exchange control laws in connection with any such transactions shall be the customer’s.

Notice and Take-down Procedures

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd has a procedure in place for the notice and take-down of unlawful material. A take-down notice in terms of section 77 of ECTA must be in writing, be signed by the complainant, and include: the complainant’s full name and address; the complainant’s written or electronic signature; identification of the right that has allegedly been infringed; identification of the material or activity claimed to be unlawful; the remedial action required; telephone and e-mail contact details; a statement that the complainant is acting in good faith; and a statement by the complainant that the information in the notice is, to their knowledge, true and correct.

Take-down notices must be sent to abuse@mzansico.net or delivered to Unit 4, 12 Frosterly Crescent, Frosterly Park, La Lucia Ridge, Durban, 4051. We will acknowledge receipt, assess the notice and act on it as required by law. Anyone who knowingly lodges a false notice may be liable for damages under section 77(2) of ECTA.

Complaints and procedures

It is the customer’s responsibility to familiarise himself or herself with the procedure set out below and report any cases of violation of this AUP to MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s designated complaints handling agent.

Please note that MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd cannot handle complaints concerning networks or users that do not have service contracts with us or our affiliates, or are outside of our control.

In order for MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd to thoroughly investigate the complaint and take appropriate action, all complaints must be in writing, via fax or e-mail and contain as much information as possible, including, but not limited to:

  • the origin of abuse or offence, including the website, full mail headers, relevant logfile extracts etc;
  • any contact details for the source of the complaint;
  • a brief explanation why the incident is considered to be an offence.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd discourages anonymous complaints being made via this service, and urges complainants to supply their name and contact details to us. Such information will not be released, except where required by law enforcement. Anonymous complaints will however be acted upon as long as sufficient detail as outlined above is supplied.

Action following breach of the AUP

Upon receipt of a complaint, or having become aware of an incident, MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd may take any of the following steps:

  • In the case of a network, inform the user’s network administrator of the incident and request the network administrator or network owner to address the incident in terms of this AUP and applicable industry codes of conduct;
  • In severe cases, suspend access of the user’s entire network until abuse can be prevented by appropriate means;
  • In the case of individual users, warn the user; suspend the user’s account and/or revoke or cancel the user’s network access privileges completely;
  • In all cases, charge the offending parties for administrative costs as well as for machine and human time lost due to the incident, as determined by MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd;
  • Assist other networks or website administrators in investigating credible suspicions of any activity listed in this AUP;
  • Institute civil or criminal proceedings;
  • Share information concerning the incident with other Internet access providers, or publish the information, and/or make available the users’ details to law enforcement agencies

Reservation and Non Waiver of Rights

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to amend or alter this policy at any time, and without notice to you. It is expressly understood and agreed that the onus to check the provisions of this AUP lies solely with you at all material times.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to take action against any individuals, companies or organizations that violate any of the prohibited activities set out herein, or engage in any illegal or unlawful activity while accessing our services, to the fullest extent of the law.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to act against other types of abuse not listed in this document and to investigate or prevent illegal activities being committed over our network.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to monitor user and network traffic for site security purposes and prevent any unauthorised attempts to tamper with our site or cause damage to our property.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to suspend, revoke or cancel MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s services to the customer/user if the safety and integrity of MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s resources are placed at risk in continuing to provide service to the subscriber/user, as determined in the sole and unfettered discretion of MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd reserves the right to remove any information or materials in whole or in part, that, in MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd’s sole discretion, is deemed to be offensive, indecent, or otherwise objectionable.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd does not undertake to guarantee the security of any data passing through its networks. Although MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd will provide a “best effort” service, including regular updates on computer viruses and other threats to security of data, it is the responsibility of the communicating parties to safeguard their data, and MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd cannot be held liable for any loss or damage arising as result of the failure to do so.

MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd does not waive its right to enforcement of this AUP at any time, or prejudice its right to take subsequent action, should MzansiCo (Pty) Ltd fail, neglect or elect not to enforce a breach of the AUP at any time.

Call us: 031 816 9399

Email:  hello@mzansico.net

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