CREN networks are for the use of persons legitimately affiliated with CREN Member or Affiliate organizations, to facilitate the exchange of information consistent with the academic, educational, and research purposes of its members. All individuals affiliated with CREN Member or Affiliate organizations are responsible for seeing that their communities are aware of these guidelines, and that the guidelines are followed, both in letter and in spirit.

CREN networks are, at the discretion of the institutions involved, open to use by students enrolled at participating CREN Member or Affiliate educational institutions.

Use of CREN networks shall: - Be consistent with the purposes and goals of the networks - Avoid interfering with the work of other users of the networks - Avoid disrupting the network host systems (nodes) - Avoid disrupting network services

Acceptable Use of the Networks

The following examples may help users of the networks apply these principles in particular cases.

- Messages that are likely to result in the loss of recipients' work or systems are prohibited.

- CREN networks are not to be used for commercial purposes, such as marketing, reselling bandwidth, or business transactions between commercial organizations.

- Advertising is forbidden. Discussion of a product's relative advantages and disadvantages by users of the product is encouraged. Vendors may respond to questions about their products as long as the responses are not in the nature of advertising.

- CREN networks may be used for the provision of services which support the needs and purposes of the CREN networks, and for which a charge is made, if the network is an optional mechanism for provision of this service for which no additional charge is made, and as long as the use of the service is consistent with the bandwidth of the network and the forwarding hosts. Providers of such information may be non-profit or for-profit organizations.

- Any communications which violates applicable laws and regulations is not allowed. In particular, messages and data sent to destinations outside the US must satisfy the Department of Commerce regulations (either be within the GTDA guidelines for information which may be generally transmitted or have the required license).

Users of CREN networks are expected to be responsible in their use:

- "Chain letters," "broadcasting" messages to lists or individuals, and other types of use which would cause congestion of the networks or otherwise interfere with the work of others are not allowed.

- Users are requested to minimize the transmission of large files in order not to degrade network performance. Files up to 1 Mb should be able to traverse most of the network. See the file: BITNET FILESIZE on LISTERV@BITNIC.EDUCOM.EDU for CREN guidelines on file size and handling.

CREN Members or Affiliates are expected to take reasonable measures (given the constraints of technology and management) to ensure that traffic using gateways between CREN networks and other networks conforms to these guidelines.

Final authority for CREN acceptable use policies lies with the CREN Board. It is the responsibility of member representatives to contact the CREN Board, in writing, regarding questions of interpretation. Until such issues are resolved, questionable use should be considered "not acceptable."