Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

 

(Last Revision: 16th November 2021)

 

HostWithLove.com ("HostWithLove", "us", "we", or "our") has developed this Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") document to govern HostWithLove's online services ("Services") which consist of Domain Registrations/Transfers/Management, Shared Hosting, Semi-Dedicated Hosting, Reseller Hosting, Dedicated Servers, Business Emails, Data Backups and any related add-on products. Our AUP is incorporated into our Terms of Service (TOS) and any other contracts we have with you by this reference. Terms not defined in this AUP have the meaning given to them in your agreement with us in our Terms of Service (TOS).

We reserve the right to amend this AUP at any time. We will notify you of these changes by sending an email to your contact email address registered on file and posting a complimentary notice in our Client Area. If we make a change that materially impacts your ability to use the Services, you may terminate the affected Services without penalty. The most recent version of the AUP can be found on our website at: https://www.hostwithlove.com/acceptable-use-policy.php

Failure to abide by the terms of this AUP shall be grounds for immediate account suspension or termination, in some cases without notice, and forfeiture of all fees paid. Please note that the evolving nature of the Internet prevents us from including in this AUP all possible unacceptable usage of the Services. We reserve the right to determine, in our sole discretion, what other activities are unacceptable.

It is your responsibility to ensure that your End Users comply with the terms of this AUP. Your failure to do so constitutes a violation of this AUP.

To report suspected abuse or any violation of these policies, please contact our Abuse Department at: https://clients.hostwithlove.com/submitticket.php?step=2&deptid=5

The AUP contains four sections:

A. Provisions for All Customers

B. Provisions for Shared, Semi-Dedicated and Reseller Hosting Customers Only

C. Provisions for Dedicated Servers Customers Only

D. Provisions for Business Emails Customers Only


 

A. Provisions for All Customers

1. Illegal Usage

All Services provided by HostWithLove may only be used for lawful purposes. The Customer agrees to indemnify and hold harmless HostWithLove from any claims resulting from the use of our Services.

Distribution, presentation, storage or transmission of any data, information or material in violation of any applicable law or regulation is prohibited. Examples of such violations are provided below. This list is intended as a guide for you and your End Users, and does not represent all possible unlawful uses of the Services.

Examples of Illegal Usage (not limited to the following)
Acting in any manner that might subject us to unfavorable regulatory action, any liability for any reason, or adversely affect our public image, reputation or goodwill, as determined by us in our sole and exclusive discretion
Child pornography, child erotica and bestiality
Creating or sending Internet viruses, worms or Trojan horses, flood or mail bombs, or engaging in denial of service attacks
Directly facilitating violation of a law or regulation and/or instructing others in prohibited activities
Files, images or torrent hosting service
Forging, misrepresenting, omitting or deleting message headers, return mailing information, or internet protocol addresses to conceal or misidentify the origin of a message
Forums and/or websites that distribute or link to warez, pirated and/or illegal content
Gambling, or similar activities such as HYIP (High Yield Investment Programs), Ponzi schemes or pyramid schemes
Hacking, and/or subverting, or assisting others in subverting, the security or integrity of HostWithLove's Services or systems
Obscene speech
Online pharmacies
Participate in any file-sharing or peer-to-peer activities
Phishing websites
Pirated software (warez)
Promoting violence or injury
Public proxy
Running of any software that interfaces with an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) network
Sale of any controlled substance without prior proof of appropriate permit(s)
Soliciting the performance of any illegal activity, even if the activity itself is not performed
Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) / SPAM
Using defamatory, threatening or abusive language
Violations of U.S. export control laws
Violation of intellectual property rights of others

 

 

2. Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) / SPAM

The only email marketing activities allowed under this AUP are those compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act. We strongly encourage you to familiarize yourself with this act before engaging in any email marketing activities using our Services. Please note that activities permitted under the CAN-SPAM Act can still be violations of this AUP for other reasons, and may result in immediate suspension or termination of your account, without notice, as determined by us in our sole discretion.

Spam is strictly prohibited under this AUP. Violations of our spam policy shall result in a possible suspension and/or termination of your account or Services. We reserve the right to determine, in our sole discretion, what constitutes a violation of this spam policy, but include the following as a guide: unauthorized or unsolicited advertising and promotional materials such as "junk mail," "instant messaging," "chain letters," or "pyramid schemes." An electronic message is "spam" IF: (1) the recipient's personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients; AND (2) the recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent; AND (3) the transmission and reception of the message appears to the recipient to give a disproportionate benefit to the sender.

The sending of Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE) from another service provider advertising a website, email address or utilizing any resource hosted on HostWithLove's servers, is also prohibited. All bulk email must be solicited, meaning that the sender has an existing and provable relationship with the email recipient and the recipient has not requested not to receive future mailings from the sender. Documentation of the relationship between the sender and the recipient must be made available to HostWithLove upon request. HostWithLove Services may not be used to solicit customers from, or collect replies to, messages sent from another Internet Service Provider where those messages violate this Policy or that of the other provider. Running Unconfirmed Mailing Lists Subscribing email addresses to any mailing list without the express and verifiable permission of the email address owner is prohibited. All mailing lists run by HostWithLove Customers must be closed-loop ("Confirmed Opt-in"). The subscription confirmation message received from each address owner must be kept on file for the duration of the existence of the mailing list. All purchased lists, even if offered as a "safe list" or "double opt-in", will be treated as spam.

Operating an account on behalf of, or in connection with, or reselling any service to, persons or firms listed in the Spamhaus Register of Known Spam Operations (ROKSO) database at www.spamhaus.org is also prohibited.

 

3. Security

This AUP also prohibits any action that compromises our system and/or network security, the security of our Customers, and that of the Internet generally. We reserve the right to immediately suspend or terminate your account, without notice, as a result of such actions by you or your End Users. Based on your actions, you may also be exposed to criminal and civil liability. Examples of such actions include, but are not limited to, unauthorized access, use, probe, or scan of a system security or authentication measure, data or traffic; interference with service to any user, host or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks; forging of any TCP-IP packet header or any part of the header information in an email or a newsgroup posting.

You are aware that the Internet can be an insecure environment, and are responsible for ensuring the security of your data, passwords, username and confidential information.

 

4. Copyright Infringement

If you feel that your site has been copied by one of our Customers or an End User, in such a way that could violate the DMCA, you must provide us with proper notice of such infringement. The DMCA sets forth very specific guidelines of what your notice must contain. These guidelines are available here: http://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap5.html#512

To report a copyright infringement, please contact our Abuse Department at: https://clients.hostwithlove.com/submitticket.php?step=2&deptid=5

 

5. Violation of Rights Other Than Copyright

You shall not, and your End Users shall not, use our Services to violate the intellectual property rights of others, including, but not limited to, copyright, trademark, trade secret and patent rights. You shall not, and your End Users shall not, use our Services to violate the recognized rights of others, including, but not limited to, acts that defame, harass, abuse or threaten others.

 

6. Child Pornography, Child Erotica and Bestiality

Use of the Services to display or disseminate images classified under U.S. law as child pornography, child erotica and/or bestiality is strictly prohibited. We shall immediately terminate the accounts of any Customers and/or End Users who are using the Services in this manner, and report them as required by law, without prior notice. Further information about child pornography may be found at http://www.ncmec.org

 

7. U.S. Export Laws

Use of the Services by you and/or your End Users is governed by U.S. export control laws. These laws apply regardless of whether you and/or your End User actually reside in the United States. You may not use our Services in violation of these laws, or to conduct business with third parties from sanctioned countries. More information about U.S. export laws may be found at: http://www.export.gov/exportcontrols.html

 

8. IP Addresses

We own the IP Addresses that may be assigned to you pursuant to your use of the Services. These IP Addresses may not be assigned or transferred, and are recycled upon termination of the Services. We reserve the right to change these IP Addresses. We are required to comply with the relevant RIR policies and procedures regarding IP Addresses.

 

9. Actions Upon AUP Violations

Your violation of any of the terms within this AUP may result in immediate suspension or termination of your account, without notice. We are the sole arbiter of what constitutes a violation of this AUP.

Upon learning of an alleged violation, we shall initiate an investigation. During this time, it may be necessary to restrict your access to the Services to prevent further potentially unauthorized activity. If such violation could constitute a criminal offense, we may notify the appropriate law enforcement authorities.

Under no circumstances shall we issue credits for suspension of your Service because of an AUP violation. You agree to hold HostWithLove harmless from any claims that a suspension or termination of Services for this reason has damaged an End User.

 

10. Other Abuse

The use, and misuse, of our Services changes over time. If we determine that your use of our Services negatively impacts our ability to provide Services to other Customers, may subject us to liability, indicates your unfamiliarity with use of the Services, or if you abuse our support staff, we may terminate your account.


 

B. Provisions for Shared, Semi-Dedicated and Reseller Hosting Customers Only

The provisions of this section also apply to all Customers with Shared Hosting, Semi-Dedicated Hosting and Reseller Hosting services:

You agree to restrict your use of the Services to the direct serving of website content over the HTTP protocol. Misuses include, but are not limited to, scientific/grid/distributed computing, data warehouse/backup storage, and bandwidth sinks. We shall determine, in our sole discretion, what constitutes a misuse of the Services. If you are unsure about the suitability of an application, you should consult with us before using the Services in that manner.

Your usage of the Services shall not be used to distribute and store an unusual amount of multimedia files. Multimedia files are defined as any graphics, audio, and video files. An unusual amount refers to any website with disk space usage for storing the multimedia files exceeding 70% of its total usage, either in terms of total size or number of files.

We do not allow chat rooms, proxy servers or scripts, torrent clients or tracks to be run on our servers. We will not register or install any third party DLLs/EXEs or software on our servers.


 

C. Provisions for Dedicated Servers Customers Only

The provisions of this section also apply to all Customers with Dedicated Servers services:

You are solely responsible for any breaches of security affecting the servers under your control. If your server is involved in an attack on another server or system, it will be shut down and an immediate investigation will be launched to determine the cause/source of the attack. In such an event, you shall be responsible for the cost to rectify any damage done to your server and any other requirement affected by the security breach.

You may not engage in activities designed to monitor Internet traffic other than your own. This means, that you may not monitor our Internet traffic, nor the Internet traffic of any other entity.

 

D. Provisions for Business Emails Customers Only

The provisions of this section also apply to all Customers with Business Emails services:

Email Sending and Receiving Limits: Customer acknowledges that the Business Email Services are not designed for sending and receiving a high volume of email messages. Our system may automatically limit the number of email messages that a customer may send and receive and the number of recipients per email message sent over a given time period. Attempts to circumvent these limits by using multiple accounts or by other means shall constitute a material breach of the Acceptable Use Policy.

Cloud Drive: Data that is synchronized to the Cloud will be encrypted at rest. However customers are still required to comply with all provisions under section A above, including but not limited to the usage of our Services to store copyrighted material and child pornography/erotica and bestiality.