Ethical Business

All businesses operate in, rely upon and affect the community in which they are based. Businesses are not an entity in themselves, but are made up of the people who run them. We believe that those people are responsible for the actions of their business and the effects that it has on the community. Active Net is a business and so takes these duties seriously. Below are the policies that we employ to further these aims.


Environmental Policy

Our environmental awareness reflects the nature of our business, and our efforts include the following :

- Electricity literally powers our business. All of our electricity is from providers who use 100% renewable sources (mainly wind turbines).

- We only update our computer hardware when necessary and older equipment is deployed into different roles where possible. Where no other role exists, surplus equipment is either donated to good causes or sent for recycling.

- We have a general policy of reduce, reuse, recycle.



Business Policy

We treat our suppliers with the same respect that we show to our customers.

Where our costs are lowered we share the savings with our customers.

Our business procedures and policies are open, transparent and honest.

We compete with others simply by attempting to provide better quality services at lower prices.

We welcome competition and embrace collaboration with competitors for furtherance of the industry as a whole.



People Policy

We treat people the way we would like to be treated.

We do not discriminate against employees, customers or suppliers on the basis of race, religion, disability or any other factor that does not directly effect the job at hand. We do not support or tolerate "Positive Discrimination". We stand by peoples rights as laid down in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.



Intellectual Property Policy

We respect Copyright.

Patents prevent competition, stifle innovation and provide unfair advantages to larger businesses. In particular to our market, Software Patents make software development unfeasible for small businesses like ours and mean that customers are forced to use substandard, overpriced software from other sources. Thus, we will not hold patents and will not respect patents held by others.

We respect Trademarks, except where they apply to common words or are used to restrict the freedom of speech of others (for instance by stifling criticism of a product).



Data Property Policy

We take seriously the protection of personal and business data. The steps we take include :

- encryption of data where practical

- stringent physical and electronic protection of computers and media storing the data

- physical shredding of paper based data and electronic shredding of computer based data when no long needed.

- complete compliance with the Data Protection Act


Terms and Conditions

We operate within our Terms and Conditions of service, and provide a Service Level Agreement for all hosting accounts. These are available here for all customers so that both we and they know where each other stands.