Terms of IUAA Alumni and Member Services
1. Scope
This policy applies to all individuals who use or maintain IU Alumni Association Alumni and Member Information Technology Services (“IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services”). Use of IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services evidences the user's agreement to be bound by this policy.
2. Policy Statement
IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services are courtesies that the IUAA offers to its active members, and they act as a means of engagement. Users have the responsibility to use these services in an efficient, ethical, and lawful manner.
3. Reason for Policy
The purpose of this policy is to establish the terms of service for IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services.
4. Procedures
4.1 Appropriate Use and User Responsibility
Users have the responsibility to use IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services in an efficient, ethical, secure, and lawful manner. Users are responsible for ascertaining, understanding, and complying with the laws, rules, policies, contracts, and licenses applicable to their particular uses.
To prevent the unauthorized use of IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services accounts, the sharing of passwords is strictly prohibited. Each individual is responsible for his/her accounts, including the safeguarding of access to the accounts. All action originating from an account is assumed to have been taken by the account holder, and it is the responsibility of that holder to ensure compliance with these guidelines.
With respect to IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services accounts, the exchange of any inappropriate content outlined below and described elsewhere in this policy, is prohibited:
- Is for conducting business for profit under the aegis of IU or the IUAA;
- Is for conducting political activities under the aegis of IU or the IUAA;
- Generates or facilitates SPAM;
- Infringes on another person’s copyright, trade or service mark, patent, or other property right or is intended to assist others in defeating those protections;
- Violates, or encourages the violation of, the legal rights of others or federal and state laws;
- Is for any malicious, unlawful, invasive, infringing, defamatory, or fraudulent purpose;
- Intentionally distributes viruses, worms, Trojan horses, malware, corrupted files, hoaxes, or other items of a destructive or deceptive nature;
- Interferes with the use of the email services, or the equipment used to provide the email services, by customers, authorized resellers, or other authorized users;
- Alters, disables, interferes with, or circumvents any aspect of the email services;
- Tests or reverse-engineers the email services to find limitations, vulnerabilities or evade filtering capabilities;
- Constitutes, fosters, or promotes pornography;
- Is excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence, or contains harassing content;
- Creates a risk to a person’s safety or health, creates a risk to public safety or health, compromises national security, or interferes with an investigation by law enforcement;
- Improperly exposes trade secrets or other confidential or proprietary information of another person;
- Misrepresents the identity of the user.
Other improper uses of Alumni IT Accounts include:
- Using or attempting to use the accounts of others without their permission.
- Collecting or using email addresses, screen names, or other identifiers without the consent of the person identified (including without limitation, phishing, spidering, and harvesting);
- Use of IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services accounts to distribute software that covertly gathers or transmits information about an individual;
- Conducting business for profit or political activities under the aegis of Indiana University or the IU Alumni Association.
This list is not intended to be exhaustive but rather to provide some illustrative examples.
Users are also bound by the use policies of the appropriate service provider. These use policies are agreed to with each service provider as part of utilizing their services. Each service may/may not have separate use policies. These policies include, but are not limited to:
4.2 Account Creation
Those who wish to connect to IU by becoming an active member of the IUAA can request an IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services account and one may be provided to them.
4.3 Usernames
IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services accounts are created based on the name requested by the user. Requests for account name changes will be considered on a case-by-case basis. For example, a person legally changing their name may request an update to their account.
There is no assurance that currently registered IU usernames can successfully be utilized in alumni domains.
4.4 Ownership of Data
The IUAA owns all IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services accounts. Subject to underlying copyright and other intellectual property rights under applicable laws and IUAA policies, the IUAA also owns data transmitted or stored using the IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services accounts.
4.5 Privacy and Right of Association Access
While the IUAA will make a reasonable attempt to keep account contents secure, privacy is not guaranteed, and users should have no general expectation of privacy in the content contained in IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services accounts. Under certain circumstances, it may be necessary for appropriate IUAA officials to access IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services accounts. These circumstances may include, but are not limited to, maintaining the system, investigating security or abuse incidents, or investigating violations of this or other IUAA policies.
4.6 Data Purging
Messages and other data held in IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services accounts are subject to the respective service provider’s storage and retention policies, which may change from time to time, with or without notice.
4.7 Data Backup
Data backup is not provided or administered by the IUAA. Retention policies are outlined by the respective service provider.
4.8 Termination of Accounts
Individuals may separate from the IUAA for a variety of reasons, which gives rise to differing situations regarding the length of IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services account privileges or expiration of accounts. Notwithstanding the circumstances listed below, the IUAA reserves the right to revoke IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services account privileges at any time.
- IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services accounts that are created but never signed into will be deprovisioned after a period of 12 months.
- IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services accounts that are inactive for a period of 24 months will be deprovisioned.
In the event the IUAA terminates or otherwise ceases its contractual relationship with a service provider of an Alumni Member IT Service, users with respective accounts will lose access to the account and the data held in the account in accordance with the terms of the service provider’s contract. Notice will be provided as soon as is reasonably possible.
4.9 Security
Each respective service provider offers varying levels of protection against viruses, phishing attacks and SPAM. Due to the rapidly evolving nature of information technologies, no transmission of data over the Internet can be guaranteed to be completely secure. It is therefore incumbent on each individual to use proper care and consideration to prevent compromising security and privacy.
5. Definitions
- IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services are courtesies offered by the IUAA to active IUAA members as a means of engagement. These courtesies are accessed in the form of information technology accounts. IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services include, but are not limited to, and Alumni Email
- Alumni Email is a tool provided by the IUAA to active IUAA members. The Indiana University Alumni Association (IUAA) currently utilizes a cloud-based system using IUAA’s domain name pursuant to an agreement between Indiana University (IU) and Google, Inc. (“G Suite Accounts, which is known as “Alumni Email Accounts.”
- SPAM refers to unsolicited and undesired commercial email or bulk email that most often contains advertisements for products or services.
- Phishing refers to typically fraudulent email messages that prompt the recipient to divulge sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details (and sometimes, indirectly, money), often for malicious reasons, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity.
6. Sanctions
Failure to comply with these Terms for IUAA Alumni and Member IT Services may result in sanctions relating to the individual's use of the services (such as suspension or termination of access); civil or criminal liability; or any combination of these.
7. Approval and Revisions
Interim: April 30, 2019
Approved: June 11, 2019
Revised: April 22, 2024