Acceptable Usage

Our acceptable usage policy is pretty much governed by the terms of our upstream providers. Hence most of it is copied verbatim. Basically be a good internet citizen and you have nothing to worry about, this is really so we can kick the bad guys off if they decide they want to abuse our service :(

On our shared hosting products the ONLY limits are Disk space and bandwidth. You can use our shared hosting products to host anything that you have the intellectual property rights to and is legal in the UK. You are responsible for the content of your website.

If you are not sure if something is allowed on our network, contact us BEFORE you order and we can clarify our position to you, or make special arrangements.

This AUP is incorporated by reference in your Terms of Service with hostby.net and your service may be suspended or terminated for violation of this AUP.

Inquiries regarding this policy should be directed to abuse@hostby.net

Internet Abuse

You may not use hostby.net’ network to engage in, foster, or promote illegal, abusive, or irresponsible behavior, including:

  • Unauthorized access to or use of data, systems or networks, including any attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of a system or network or to breach security or authentication measures without express authorization of the owner of the system or network;
  • monitoring data or traffic on any network or system without the express authorization of the owner of the system or network;
  • Interference with service to any user of the hostby.net or other network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks;
  • Use of an Internet account or computer without the owner’s authorization;
  • Collecting or using email addresses, screen names or other identifiers without the consent of the person identified (including, without limitation, phishing, Internet scamming, password robbery, spidering, and harvesting);
  • Collecting or using information without the consent of the owner of the information;
  • Use of any false, misleading, or deceptive TCP-IP packet header information in an e-mail or a newsgroup posting;
  • Use of the service to distribute software that covertly gathers information about a user or covertly transmits information about the user;
  • Any conduct that is likely to result in retaliation against the hostby.net network or website, or hostby.net’ employees, officers or other agents, including engaging in behaviour that results in any server being the target of a denial of service attack (DoS).

You must not use the service for distribution of advertisement delivery software (adware) unless:

  • The user affirmatively consents to the download and installation of such software based on a clear and conspicuous notice of the nature of the software, and
  • The software is easily removable by use of standard tools for such purpose included on major operating systems; (such as Microsoft’s “ad/remove” tool)

Security
You must take reasonable security precautions in light of your use of the hostby.net services. You must protect the confidentiality of your password(s), and you should change your password(s) periodically.

A compromised server is potentially disruptive to hostby.net network and other customers. Therefore hostby.net may take your server off line if it is accessed or manipulated by third party without your consent.

Bulk or Commercial E-Mail
You must comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and other laws and regulations applicable to bulk or commercial e-mail. In addition, you must obtain hostby.net’s advance approval for any bulk e-mail, which will not be given unless you are able to demonstrate all of the following to hostby.net’s reasonable satisfaction:

  • Your intended recipients have given their consent to receive e-mail via some affirmative means, such as an opt-in procedure;
  • Your procedures for soliciting consent include reasonable means to ensure that the person giving consent is the owner of the e-mail address for which the consent is given;
  • You retain evidence of the recipient’s consent in a form that may be promptly produced on request, and you honour recipient’s and hostby.net’ requests to produce consent evidence within 72 hours of receipt of the request.
  • You have procedures in place that allow a recipient to revoke their consent – such as a link in the body of the e-mail, or instructions to reply with the word “Remove” in the subject line; you honor revocations of consent within 48 hours, and you notify recipients that the revocation of their consent will be implemented in 48 hours;
  • You must post an e-mail address for complaints (such as abuse@yourdomain.com) in a conspicuous place on any Web site associated with the e-mail, you must register that address at abuse.net, and you must promptly respond to messages sent to that address;
  • You must have a Privacy Policy posted for each domain associated with the mailing;
  • You have the means to track anonymous complaints; and
  • You may not obscure the source of your e-mail in any manner. Your e-mail must include the recipients e-mail address in the body of the message or in the “TO” line of the e-mail.

These policies apply to messages sent using your hostby.net service, or to messages sent from any network by you or any person on your behalf that directly or indirectly refer the recipient to a site or an e-mail address hosted via your hostby.net service. In addition, you may not use a third party e-mail service that does not practice similar procedures for all its customers. These requirements apply to distribution lists prepared by third parties to the same extent as if the list were created by you.

hostby.net may test and otherwise monitor your compliance with its requirements, and may block the transmission of e-mail that violates these provisions.

Vulnerability Testing
You may not attempt to probe, scan, penetrate or test the vulnerability of a hostby.net system or network or to breach hostby.net’ security or authentication measures, whether by passive or intrusive techniques, without hostby.net’ express written consent.

Newsgroup, Chat Forums, Other Networks
You must comply with the rules and conventions for postings to any bulletin board, chat group or other forum in which you participate, such as IRC and USENET groups including their rules for content and commercial postings. These groups usually prohibit the posting of off-topic commercial messages, or mass postings to multiple forums.

You must comply with the rules of any other network you access or participate in using your hostby.net services.

Offensive Content
You may not publish or transmit via hostby.net’ network and equipment any content or links to any content that hostby.net reasonably believes:

* Constitutes, fosters, or promotes child pornography;
* is excessively violent, incites violence, threatens violence, or contains harassing content or hate speech;
* is unfair or deceptive under the consumer protection laws of any jurisdiction, including chain letters and pyramid schemes;
* is defamatory or violates a person’s privacy;
* creates a risk to a person’s safety or health, creates a risk to public safety or health, compromises national security, or interferes with a investigation by law enforcement;
* improperly exposes trade secrets or other confidential or proprietary information of another person;
* is intended to assist others in defeating technical copyright protections;
* infringes on another person’s copyright, trade or service mark, patent, or other property right;
* promotes illegal drugs, violates export control laws, relates to illegal gambling, or illegal arms trafficking;
* is otherwise illegal or solicits conduct that is illegal under laws applicable to you or to hostby.net; or
* is otherwise malicious, fraudulent, or may result in retaliation against hostby.net by offended viewers.

Content “published or transmitted” via hostby.net’ network or equipment includes Web content, e-mail, bulletin board postings, chat, and any other type of posting or transmission that relies on the Internet.

Copyrighted Material
You may not use hostby.net’ network or equipment to download, publish, distribute, or otherwise copy in any manner any text, music, software, art, image, or other work protected by copyright law unless:

* you have been expressly authorized by the owner of the copyright for the work to copy the work in that manner;
* you are otherwise permitted by established United Kingdom copyright law to copy the work in that manner.

hostby.net may terminate the service of copyright infringers.

Copyright Infringement Notice (Digital Millennium Copyright Act)
If you believe your copyright is being infringed by a person using the hostby.net network, please send your written notice of copyright infringement to:

Abuse Dept.
hostby.net
9 High Street
Tring
Hertfordshire
HP23 5TE
UK
abuse@hostby.net

Your notice must include the following:

* A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
* Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or if multiple copyrighted works at a single site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site;
* Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled, and information reasonably sufficient to permit hostby.net to locate the material;
* Information reasonably sufficient to permit hostby.net to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an e-mail address;
* A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, the copyright owner’s agent, or the law;
* A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Cooperation with Investigations and Legal Proceedings

hostby.net may, without notice to you:

* report to the appropriate authorities any conduct by you that it believes violates applicable criminal law, and

provide any information it has about you in response to a formal or informal request from a law enforcement or government agency, or in response to a formal request in a civil action that on its face meets the requirements for such a request.

Other

* You must have valid and current information on file with your domain name registrar for any domain hosted on the hostby.net network.
* You may only use IP addresses assigned to you by hostby.net staff in connection with your hostby.net services.

You agree that if the hostby.net IP numbers assigned to your account are listed on Spamhaus, Spews, NJABL or other abuse databases, you will be in violation of this AUP, and hostby.net may take reasonable action to protect its IP numbers, including suspension and/or termination of your Service, regardless of whether the IP numbers were listed as a result of your actions.
Consequences of Violation of AUP

hostby.net may without notice to you, suspend your service or remove any content transmitted via the hostby.net service if it discovers facts that lead it to reasonably believe your service is being used in violation of this AUP. You must cooperate with hostby.net’ reasonable investigation of any suspected violation of the AUP. hostby.net will attempt to contact you prior to suspension of network access to your server(s), however, prior notification is not assured.

You are strictly responsible for the violation of this AUP, including violation by your customers, and including violations that occur due to unauthorized use of your service.

hostby.net may charge you its hourly rate for AUP breach recovery (currently £500.00) plus the cost of equipment and material needed to (i) investigate or otherwise respond to any suspected violation of this AUP, (ii) remedy any harm caused to hostby.net or any of its customers by the violation of this AUP, (iii) respond to complaints, including complaints under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, (iv) respond to subpoenas and other third party requests for information as described in the Master Services Agreement, and (v) have hostby.net’ Internet Protocol numbers removed from any abuse database. No credit will be available for interruptions of service resulting from AUP violations including unauthorized compromise of your server.

Amendments to AUP
The Internet is still evolving, and the ways in which the Internet may be abused are also still evolving. Therefore, we may from time to time amend this AUP to further detail or describe reasonable restrictions on your use of our services.

Disclaimer
hostby.net is under no duty, and does not by this AUP undertake a duty, to monitor or police our customers’ activities and disclaims any responsibility for any misuse of the hostby.net network. hostby.net disclaims any obligation to any person who has not entered into an agreement with hostby.net for services.