Acceptable Use Policy | ADVANTAGE INVESTORS

Advantage Investors Acceptable Use Policy

Introduction. This acceptable use policy (the “Policy”) defines acceptable practices relating to the use of Advantage Investors’s services (the “Service”) by customers of Advantage Investors (“Customers”) and by users that have gained access to the Service through Customer accounts (“Users”). By using the Advantage Investors Service, you acknowledge that you and your Users are responsible for compliance with the Policy. You are responsible for violations of this Policy by any User that accesses the Services through your account, which includes without limitation Users for whom you provide services as a reseller of Advantage Investors Services. The Policy applies to all aspects of the Service. “Advantage Investors” means Advantage Investors, llc., and all of its affiliates (including direct and indirect subsidiaries and parents). “Advantage Investors” includes, without limitation, Advantage Investors constructed or leased transmission network, including all equipment, systems, facilities, services and products incorporated or used in such transmission network. As used in this Policy, “you” refers to Customers, and any reference to “Users” is intended to encompass, as applicable, both Customers and their Users. This Policy is designed to assist in protecting the Advantage Investors, the Service, our Users, the Internet and the Internet community, and to improve Service and to improve Service offerings.

Acceptable Use Policy – Services and Network Security. Advantage Investors makes no guarantee regarding, and assumes no liability for, the security and integrity of any data or information transmitted by a User over the Internet. Use of the Services is subject to CALEA. Any attempt to breach system and network security measures is a violation and may result in criminal and civil liability. These violations include, without limitation, the following: (I) Unauthorized Access – Users may not attempt to gain unauthorized access to or attempt to interfere with the normal functioning and security of the Advantage Investors or any other system, computers, accounts, or networks or purposely breach firewalls or security measures of another company’s or individual’s system (hacking); (ii) Unauthorized Monitoring – Users may not attempt to monitor any information on any network or system without authorization from the network administrator; (iii) Interference – Users may not attempt to intercept, redirect or otherwise interfere with communications intended for others; (iv) Fraud/Forgery – Users may not impersonate another party by altering IP addresses or forging TCP-IP packet header information within an e-mail or newsgroup posting.; (v) “Denial of Service Attacks” – Users may not cause or further a denial of service attack or otherwise flood or attempt to overload a system; (vi) Virus Transmission – Users may not intentionally or negligently transmit files containing a computer virus, Trojan Horse, worms, corrupted data or other destructive activities.

Unlawful Use. Customer will use best efforts to prevent unauthorized, illegal, or fraudulent use of the Services, and shall terminate any unauthorized, illegal, or fraudulent user access and immediately notify Advantage Investors of any such unauthorized, illegal, or fraudulent use, attempted use of, or access to, the Services. Regardless of how Customer becomes aware of unlawful activity, Customer is not relieved of liability related to the offending traffic and will also be responsible for paying third-party fees directly related to the offending traffic. Advantage Investors has no obligation to prevent, monitor, notify, or actively seek facts or circumstances indicating any fraud, abuse or illegal activities.

Use of the Services for transmission, distribution, retrieval, or storage of any information, data or other material in violation of any applicable law or regulation (including, where applicable, any tariff or treaty) is prohibited. The Services shall not be used for any unlawful activities or in connection with any criminal or civil violation and the Services shall in all cases be used in compliance with applicable law. This includes, without limitation, the use or transmission of any data or material protected by copyright, trademark, trade secret, patent or other intellectual property right without proper authorization and the transmission of any material that constitutes an illegal threat, violates export control laws, or is obscene, defamatory or otherwise unlawful. (i) Intellectual property – unauthorized Transmission of material protected by patent, copyright, trade secret, or other intellectual property right (including, without limitation, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act); (ii) Inappropriate content – any Transmission of material that is obscene or constitutes child pornography, material that is libelous, defamatory, hateful, or that constitutes an illegal threat or abuse; (iii) Export control – Unauthorized Transmission of any material that may violate export control laws or other regulations (iv) Forging of Headers – misrepresenting or forging message headers to mask the originator of a message; (v) CAN-SPAM ACT – failure to comply with all provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act (15 U.S.C 7701, et. seq., and 16 CFR Part 316).

Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Repeat Infringer Policy. You are prohibited from using the Internet services to access, display, distribute, or download content that infringes copyrights. If Advantage Investors receives a notice from any copyright owner or its authorized agent, pursuant to the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) indicating that the Internet Protocol (“IP”) Address associated with your Internet services account has been used to access, display, distribute, or download content that infringes the owner’s copyrights, Advantage Investors will reasonably implement the following repeat infringer policy in its sole discretion and in consideration of the circumstances surrounding the actual or alleged infringement.

First Notice – Upon receiving a notice from a copyright owner, Advantage Investors will issue you a warning with notice that if Advantage Investors receives a second notice from any copyright owner, your Internet service will be suspended for ten (10) days.
Second Notice – Upon receiving a second notice from any copyright owner, Advantage Investors will suspend your Internet for ten (10) days and provide you with notice that if Advantage Investors receives a third notice from any copyright owner, your Internet service will be suspended for thirty (30) days.
Third Notice – Upon receiving the a third notice from any copyright owner, Advantage Investors will suspend your Internet service for thirty (30) days.

If Advantage Investors becomes aware that your Internet service is repeatedly infringing the copyrights of others, or if it receives multiple notices of alleged infringement regarding your account, Advantage Investors reserves the right to terminate your Internet service.

Users are prohibited from intentionally or negligently injecting false data into the Internet or call stream, for instance in the form of bad routing information (including but not limited to the announcing of networks owned by someone else or reserved by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) or incorrect DNS information. Users may not attempt to send e-mail messages or transmit any electronic communications using a name or address of someone other than the User for purposes of deception. Any attempt to impersonate someone else by altering a source IP address information or by using forged headers or other identifying information is prohibited. Any attempt to fraudulently conceal, forge or otherwise falsify a User’s identity in connection with use of the Service is prohibited.

Advantage Investors will cooperate with appropriate law enforcement agencies and other parties involved in investigating claims of illegal or inappropriate activity. Advantage Investors reserves the right to disclose Customer information to the extent authorized by federal or state law, including without a subpoena, in specific extenuating circumstances. As a reseller Customer of Advantage Investors Services (if applicable), by using and accepting Services, you consent to our disclosure to any law enforcement agency pursuant to a court order or a lawful subpoena of your identity as the service provider of record (including basic contact information), as applicable, for any User about whom Advantage Investors is contacted by the law enforcement agency.

Penalties. If Customers or Users engage in conduct or a pattern of conduct, including without limitation repeated violations by a User whereby correction of individual violations does not in Advantage Investors’s sole discretion correct a pattern of the same or similar violations, while using the Service that violates the Policy, or is otherwise illegal or improper, Advantage Investors may, in its sole discretion, take any or all of the following actions if it discovers or reasonably suspects any abuse or unlawful activity: (i) take commercially reasonable action on offending numbers in order to minimize misuse; (ii) issue a verbal, e-mail or written warning notifying the Customer of the misuse and the corrective action that must be taken; (iii) suspend, with or without warning, all or part of a Customer’s Service and may condition restoration of such Service upon Customer affecting corrective action; and/or (iv) terminate, with or without warning, all or part of Customer’s service and may terminate Customer’s Agreement. Advantage Investors will generally attempt to notify you of any activity in violation of the Policy and request that the User cease such activity; however, in cases where the operation of the Advantage Investors is threatened or cases involving unsolicited commercial email/SPAM, a pattern of violations, mail relaying, alteration of your source IP address information, denial of service attacks, illegal activities, suspected fraud in connection with the use of Service, harassment or copyright infringement, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate your Service or the User’s access to the Service without notification.

Any unauthorized, illegal, or fraudulent use or misuse of the Services by or through Customer voids all warranties, express or implied, by Advantage Investors, and relieves Advantage Investors from any responsibility for performance under the respective Service Order where fraud, abuse or illegality occurred.

Failure of Advantage Investors to enforce this Policy or take any action with respect to a Violation shall not constitute a waiver of its right to enforce any other Violation. Advantage Investors reserves the right to modify this Policy at any time by communicating such modified Policy to Customer or by posting it on Advantage Investors’s website at www.AdvantageInvestors.net, effective upon posting.

For questions, please email: regulatory@AdvantageInvestors.net

Traffic Filtering and Routing

Implement Quality of Service (QoS): Prioritize legitimate voice traffic over less important traffic to maintain call quality.
Apply Real-time Filtering: Use techniques like call validation and fraud detection tools that block traffic from suspicious sources.
Use Route Optimization: Make sure to route calls through trusted, high-quality carriers and routes.

Fraud Prevention Tools

Call Authentication (STIR/SHAKEN): These protocols help to authenticate calls, ensuring they are coming from legitimate sources.
Fraud Detection Systems: Use advanced fraud detection systems that analyze traffic patterns to detect anomalies, like unusually high volumes of calls or calls to high-risk destinations.
Threshold Alerts: Set thresholds for specific metrics (e.g., call volume, duration, destination) and be alerted if these limits are breached.

Blacklist and Whitelist Management

Blacklisting Suspicious Numbers: Keep updated blacklists of known fraudulent or spam number ranges and block these automatically.
Whitelist Trusted Numbers: Create a whitelist of trusted number ranges, ensuring traffic is routed only from reliable sources.

Rate Limiting

Apply rate limits to control the number of calls a particular source can place in a specific time frame. This can help identify and block high-volume fraudulent traffic quickly.

Behavioral Analytics

Use tools that track call behavior over time. Any unusual patterns (such as sudden spikes in call volume or destinations) could signal bad traffic, allowing you to stop it early.

Partner with Reliable Termination Providers

Ensure that your termination provider has robust security measures and fraud prevention strategies in place.
Work with providers that offer real-time reporting, which can help identify suspicious traffic and allow for fast action.

Monitor Traffic in Real Time

Monitor traffic continuously to spot any anomalies, including dropped calls, failed attempts, and routing inefficiencies.
Set up alerts to notify you when unexpected patterns are detected.

Use Anti-Fraud Software

Many anti-fraud systems provide detailed reporting and can automatically block or reroute traffic that seems suspicious.