Privacy Policy

BytzGroup c/o CTE Ventures places the utmost importance on the privacy and protection of our clients and considers this to be a critical part of our service contract.

In the course of serving its customers, BytzGroup acquires, stores and transmits customer communications and information that customers may regard as private or sensitive. Some of this information – such as the customer’s name, address, telephone number, and credit card data – is provided to BytzGroup by its customers in order to establish service. Other information – such as the customer’s account status, choice of services, and customer logs – is created and maintained by BytzGroup in the normal course of providing service.

Throughout the duration of the services rendered by BytzGroup, all content stored on our servers or servers of clients, whether e-mail communications, website information, database, files or other data, will be kept private and not redistributed to any party that is not authorised to access the information. BytzGroup also hereby undertakes not to access any data belonging to its customers unless specifically requested to do so by the customer.

BytzGroup will protect the confidentiality of its customers’ information, account information and personal communications to the fullest extent possible and consistent with the law. To protect the loss, misuse, and alteration of information that is collected from customers, BytzGroup has appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures in place.

BytzGroup will not disclose any customer information to third-parties nor will it use this information for purposes other than to maintain customer’s account or to update customers on service changes (such as new features).

The following exceptions apply to this rule:
BytzGroup is required to cooperate with interception orders, warrants, or other legal process that BytzGroup determines in its sole discretion to be valid and enforceable; and it is necessary to provide to a law enforcement agency when the contents are inadvertently obtained by BytzGroup and appear to pertain to the commission of a crime.

Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

BytzGroup as a digital developer, the products and services rendered such as web site hosting, and other Internet-related services (Software and/or Hardware), BytzGroup c/o CTE Ventures offers its clients, and their customers and users, the means to disseminate a wealth of public, private, commercial, and non-commercial information. BytzGroup respects that the Internet provides a forum for free and open discussion and dissemination of information, however, when there are competing interests at issue, BytzGroup reserves the right to take certain preventative or corrective actions. In order to protect these competing interests, BytzGroup has developed an Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”), which supplements and explains certain terms of each customer’s respective service agreement and is intended as a guide to the customer’s rights and obligations when utilizing BytzGroup’s services. This AUP will be revised from time to time. A customer’s use of BytzGroup’s after changes to the AUP are posted on BytzGroup’s web site, will constitute the customer’s acceptance of any new or additional terms of the AUP that result from those changes.

One important aspect of the Internet is that no one party owns or controls it. This fact accounts for much of the Internet’s openness and value, but it also places a high premium on the judgment and responsibility of those who use the Internet to disseminate information to others.

When information is disseminated through the Internet, they also must keep in mind that BytzGroup does not review, edit, censor, or take responsibility for any information its clients may create. When users place information on the Internet, they have the same liability as other authors for copyright infringement, defamation, and other harmful speech. Also, because the information they create is carried over BytzGroup’s network and may reach a large number of people, including both clients and non-clients of BytzGroup, clients’ postings to the Internet may affect other clients and may harm BytzGroup’s goodwill, business reputation, and operations. For these reasons, clients violate BytzGroup policy and the service agreement when they, their customers, affiliates, or subsidiaries engage in the following prohibited activities:

Spamming
Intellectual Property Violations
Adult Material
Defamatory or Abusive Language
Forging of Headers
Illegal or Unauthorized Access to Other Computers or Networks
Background Running Programs
Distribution of Internet Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses, or Other Destructive Activities
Facilitating a Violation of this AUP
Export Control Violations
Usenet Groups
Other Illegal Activities
Other Activities

Definition: Spamming
Sending unsolicited bulk and/or commercial messages over the Internet (known as “spamming”). It is not only harmful because of its negative impact on consumer attitudes toward BytzGroup, but also because it can overload BytzGroup’s network and disrupt service to BytzGroup clients. Also, maintaining an open SMTP relay is prohibited. When a complaint is received, BytzGroup has the discretion to determine from all of the evidence whether the e-mail recipients were from an “opt-in” e-mail list.

Definition: Intellectual Property Violations
Engaging in any activity that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, software piracy, and patents held by individuals, corporations, or other entities. Also, engaging in activity that violates privacy, publicity, or other personal rights of others. BytzGroup is required by law to remove or block access to customer content upon receipt of a proper notice of copyright infringement. It is also BytzGroup’s policy to terminate the privileges of customers who commit repeat violations of copyright laws.

Definition: Adult Material
Because the Internet is a global communication tool, and we have clients from nearly every country in the world it is difficult to dictate what is considered “adult material.” However, it is not our function to discriminate against those who choose to utilize adult content or adult related material. This being said, there are still several reasons why BytzGroup has been forced to create its no adult sites policy for its virtual server users.

What does BytzGroup consider “Adult Material?”
Any site whose revenue is gained in part or whole from its adult content.
Photos or videos showing frontal nudity on either men or women for non-scientific or non-artistic purposes.
Revenue-generating hyperlinks to sites who violate policy #1.

Why does BytzGroup have this policy?

Bandwidth and Resources
A virtual server is a shared environment where many servers reside on each particular machine. This being said, consider that an average “adult site” gets more hits than 100 standard websites. Some of the smaller adult sites get around 5GB of transfer per day. With these types of resources being utilized, our servers would be severely slowed if we allowed these high traffic sites to also reside on our servers. On top of that, we would be forced to raise our prices to pay for the additional bandwidth. We strive to keep our servers fast and inexpensive, and our bandwidth clear; therefore, adult sites are not an option.

BytzGroup reserves the right to decide what it considers “adult content”, “adult material”, “sexually explicit”, or “sexually related”. Let us know if you are unsure of the approval of your site before placing an order.

Defamatory or Abusive Language
Using BytzGroup’s network as a means to transmit or post defamatory, harassing, abusive, or threatening language.

Forging of Headers
Forging or misrepresenting message headers, whether in whole or in part, to mask the originator of the message.

Illegal or Unauthorized Access to Other Computers or Networks
Accessing illegally or without authorization computers, accounts, or networks belonging to another party, or attempting to penetrate security measures of another individual’s system (often known as “hacking”). Also, any activity that might be used as a precursor to an attempted system penetration (i.e. port scan, stealth scan, or other information gathering activity).

Background Running Programs
Background Daemons in general are prohibited on BytzGroup servers, including, but not limited to, IRC bots, eggdrop, BitchX, XiRCON, warez sites and any other program that interferes with normal server operation.

BytzGroup will be the sole arbitor of what consitutes a violation of the above policy.

Distribution of Internet Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses, or Other Destructive Activities
Distributing information regarding the creation of and sending Internet viruses, worms, Trojan horses, pinging, flooding, mailbombing, or denial of service attacks. Also, activities that disrupt the use of or interfere with the ability of others to effectively use the network or any connected network, system, service, or equipment.

Facilitating a Violation of this AUP
Advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP, which includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mailbombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software.

Usenet Groups
BytzGroup reserves the right not to accept postings from newsgroups where we have actual knowledge that the content of the newsgroup violates the AUP.

Other Illegal Activities
Engaging in activities that are determined to be illegal, including advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes, fraudulently charging credit cards, and pirating software.

Other Activities
Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that BytzGroup determines to be harmful to its clients, operations, reputation, goodwill, or customer relations.

As we have pointed out, the responsibility for avoiding the harmful activities just described rests primarily with the client. BytzGroup will not, as an ordinary practice, monitor the communications of its client to ensure that they comply with BytzGroup policy or applicable law. When BytzGroup becomes aware of harmful activities, however, it may take any action to stop the harmful activity, including but not limited to, removing information, shutting down a web site, implementing screening software designed to block offending transmissions, denying access to the Internet, or take any other action it deems appropriate.

BytzGroup also is concerned with the privacy of on-line communications and web sites. In general, the Internet is neither more nor less secure than other means of communication, including mail, facsimile, and voice telephone service, all of which can be intercepted and otherwise compromised. As a matter of prudence, however, BytzGroup urges its clients to assume that all of their on-line communications are insecure. BytzGroup cannot take any responsibility for the security of information transmitted over BytzGroup’s facilities.

BytzGroup will not intentionally monitor private electronic mail messages sent or received by its clients unless required to do so by law, governmental authority, or when public safety is at stake. BytzGroup may, however, monitor its service electronically to determine that its facilities are operating satisfactorily. Also, BytzGroup may disclose information, including but not limited to, information concerning a client, a transmission made using our network, or a web site, in order to comply with a court order, subpoena, summons, discovery request, warrant, statute, regulation, or governmental request. BytzGroup assumes no obligation to inform the client that client information has been provided and in some cases may be prohibited by law from giving such notice. Finally, BytzGroup may disclose client information or information transmitted over its network where necessary to protect BytzGroup and others from harm, or where such disclosure is necessary to the proper operation of the system.

We hope this AUP is helpful in clarifying the obligations of Internet users, including BytzGroup and its clients, as responsible members of the Internet. Any complaints about a client’s violation of this AUP should be sent to [email protected].

Updated on January 2024