Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") forms part of the HOSTI GUARD LLC Terms of Service and applies to everyone who uses our hosting, servers, e-mail, domains, proxies or any other Service, including your own customers and anyone you give access to.

Its purpose is simple: to keep our network, our IP addresses and our other customers safe. You are responsible for everything that happens on your Service, whether you did it yourself, your customer did it, or an attacker did it through software you failed to keep updated.

1. Who this applies to

This Policy applies to the account holder, to every user, reseller customer, employee or contractor acting under the account, and to all content, code, e-mail and traffic passing through the Service.

If you resell our Services, you must impose rules on your own customers that are at least as strict as this Policy, and you remain responsible to us for their conduct.

2. Prohibited content

You must not publish, store, link to or distribute:

• material that sexualises minors in any form — such accounts are terminated immediately, without notice or refund, and reported to the competent authorities;
• content that is illegal where you are, where your audience is, or where our servers are located;
• content that infringes copyright, trade marks, patents, trade secrets, privacy or publicity rights, including pirated software, films, music, books, courses or licence keys;
• counterfeit goods, forged documents, fake identification, or stolen credentials, card numbers or personal data;
• phishing pages, fake login or payment pages, or any page designed to impersonate another brand, bank or government body;
• malware, ransomware, exploit kits, keyloggers, botnet controllers, or tools whose main purpose is to attack or gain unauthorised access to systems;
• content that incites terrorism, violence or hatred against a group of people;
• material that breaches export control or sanctions laws.

3. Prohibited activities

You must not use the Service to:

• scan, probe, flood, brute-force or otherwise attack any network or system, whether ours or a third party's;
• launch or take part in a denial-of-service attack, or knowingly host a target of one in a way that endangers our network;
• interfere with another customer, bypass resource limits, or attempt to access data, accounts or servers that are not yours;
• forge the origin of any traffic, packet or message, or hide the identity of the person responsible for the content;
• operate anonymising proxies, VPN exit nodes or TOR exit relays on shared or cloud hosting plans;
• mine cryptocurrency, run blockchain nodes, or perform sustained heavy computation on shared or cloud hosting plans;
• run public file-sharing, file-dumping or media-streaming services whose main purpose is bulk storage or distribution of files;
• operate a business or scheme that is fraudulent or deceptive, including fake shops, pyramid and Ponzi schemes, and "money-doubling" or unlicensed investment offers.

4. E-mail and anti-spam

Unsolicited bulk e-mail is not allowed from our network, in any quantity, even if the list was bought from a third party or scraped from the web.

If you send marketing e-mail you must have the recipient's consent, identify yourself honestly, include a working unsubscribe link, and honour an unsubscribe request promptly. You must not forge headers, use an open relay, relay through another provider to hide the source, or send mail that would get our IP ranges blacklisted.

We apply sending limits to protect deliverability for everyone. If you need to send at volume, use a dedicated e-mail service and tell us first.

5. Fair use of shared resources

Shared and cloud hosting plans run on servers used by many customers. Resources are generous but not unlimited, and they are meant for normal websites and applications.

We may ask you to optimise, or we may throttle or move a site, when a single account persistently consumes CPU, memory, disk I/O, inodes or bandwidth to the point that it degrades the server for others. We will always try to contact you first unless the server is at immediate risk.

Backups we take are for our own disaster recovery. Keep your own copy of anything you cannot afford to lose.

6. Domain names

You must give accurate registrant details and keep them up to date; registry rules require it, and a domain with knowingly false details can be suspended by the registry.

You must not register domains that infringe a trade mark, impersonate another organisation, or are intended for phishing or typosquatting.

7. Cryptocurrency and higher-risk use

Websites about cryptocurrency, and wallets, dashboards or informational sites, may be hosted with us.

Running an exchange, a custodial wallet, a mixing or tumbling service, an ICO or token sale, or any unlicensed financial service from our shared or cloud plans is not allowed, and mining is not allowed on any shared plan. Tell us before you launch such a project so we can advise which product is suitable.

8. Reporting abuse

If you believe something hosted by us breaches this Policy, write to billing@hostiguard.com with the URL or IP address, a description of the problem and, where relevant, evidence such as full e-mail headers. We review every report.

Copyright owners should include the information required for a takedown notice: identification of the work, the infringing URL, your contact details, and a statement that you are the owner or authorised to act.

9. What we do when the rules are broken

Our response depends on how serious and how urgent the problem is. We may:

• ask you to fix it within a stated time;
• remove or disable the specific content, script or mailbox;
• throttle or isolate the account to protect the server;
• suspend the Service, with or without notice;
• terminate the account and delete its data where the breach is serious or repeated;
• report the matter to law enforcement, to the registry, or to the rights holder where the law requires it or the harm is severe.

If you believe we acted on wrong information, reply to the suspension ticket and we will review it.

10. Changes to this Policy

We may update this Policy as new forms of abuse appear. The version in force is the one published on this page, and the date it was last changed is shown at the top. Continuing to use the Services means you accept the current version.

11. Contact

Abuse reports and questions about this Policy: billing@hostiguard.com. HOSTI GUARD LLC, 8206 LOUISIANA BLVD NE.