Acceptable Use Policy

Scope: This policy covers the www.prosynergy.org domain and its associated Web Sites and Services Effective Date: February 15, 2006

This Policy is a guide to the acceptable use of the sites and services described under Scope. Any Michigan Disability Rights Coalition (hereafter MDRC) employee or MDRC agent, or any user connecting with the sites (hereafter User) in order to use them directly, must comply with this policy.

The following guidelines will be applied to determine whether or not a particular use under the Scope of this policy is appropriate:

  1. Users must respect the privacy of others. Users shall not intentionally seek information on, or represent themselves as, another user unless explicitly authorized to do so by that user. Nor shall Users obtain copies of, or modify files, other data, or passwords belonging to others.
  2. Users must respect the legal protection applied to programs, data, photographs, music, written documents and other material as provided by copyright, trademark, patent, licensure and other proprietary rights mechanisms.
  3. Users must respect the integrity of other public or private computing and network systems. Users shall not intentionally develop or use programs that harass other users or infiltrate any other computer, computing system or network and/or damage or alter the software components or file systems of a computer, computing system or network.
  4. Use should be consistent with guiding ethical statements and accepted community standards. Use of the Services for malicious, fraudulent, or misrepresentative purposes is not acceptable.
  5. The Services may not be used in ways that violate applicable laws or regulations.
  6. The Services may not be used in a manner that precludes or significantly hampers network access by others. Nor may the Services be used in a manner that significantly impairs access to other networks connected to the sites under the scope of this policy.
  7. Connections which create routing patterns that are inconsistent with the effective and shared use of the Services may not be established.
  8. Unsolicited advertising is not acceptable. Advertising is permitted on some Web pages, mailing lists, news groups and similar environments if advertising is explicitly allowed in that environment.
  9. Repeated, unsolicited and/or unwanted communication of an intrusive nature is strictly prohibited. Continuing to send e-mail messages or other communications to an individual or organization after being asked to stop is not acceptable.

The intent of this policy is to identify certain types of uses that are not appropriate, but this policy does not necessarily enumerate all possible inappropriate uses. Using the guidelines given above, MDRC may at any time make a determination that a particular use is not appropriate.

MDRC will not monitor or judge the content of information transmitted via the Services, but will investigate complaints of possible inappropriate use. In the course of investigating complaints, MDRC staff will safeguard the privacy of all parties and will themselves follow the guidelines given in this policy and in the MDRC Privacy Policy. MDRC will only release sensitive, confidential or personally identifiable information to third parties when required by law, or when in MDRC's judgment, release is required to prevent serious injury or harm that could result from violation of this policy.

Remedial Action

When MDRC learns of possible inappropriate use, MDRC staff will notify the person or organization that made the inappropriate use of the event, and will propose remedial action. Wherever possible, MDRC will pursue remedial action with the least impact to the overall service.

Should the situation be considered an emergency, and MDRC deems it necessary to prevent further inappropriate activity, MDRC may temporarily bar a user or organization from continuing to use the sites described under the Scope of the policy. An emergency is defined as: "Serious security incidents that require immediate attention to prevent harm to an individual, to protect information from loss or damage that would be difficult or impossible to correct or to deal with serious on-going denial of service attacks."

If barring use is deemed necessary by MDRC staff, every effort will be made to inform the User or Organization prior to disconnection, and every effort will be made to re-establish the connection as soon as it is mutually deemed safe.

Any determination of inappropriate use serious enough to require disconnection shall be promptly communicated to every member of the MDRC Board of Directors through an established means of publication.

Questions about this policy can be directed to