Acceptable Use Policy

Who this policy applies to

This policy applies to every HostElevate service and to everyone who uses it, including the clients of our reseller customers. It is part of our Terms of Service.

Content that is not allowed

• Child sexual abuse material of any kind. We remove it immediately and report it to the authorities.
• Content that promotes terrorism or violence, or threatens or harasses people
• Pirated software, media or other content that infringes copyright or trademarks
• Malware, phishing pages and scam websites, such as fake shops, fake banks or fake investment schemes
• The sale of illegal goods or services
• Personal data obtained or published without a legal basis
• Intimate images shared without the consent of the people shown
• Any other content that is illegal where it is published or where we operate

Activities that are not allowed

• Accessing, scanning or testing systems without the owner's permission
• Denial-of-service attacks, botnets or their control servers
• Forging network traffic or email headers
• Sending spam, as explained in our Anti-Spam Policy
• Running open mail relays, open proxies or open DNS resolvers
• Cryptocurrency mining on any plan
• Public file-sharing, torrent or download mirror services
• Getting around resource limits or security controls
• Reselling hosting services without a reseller plan

Shared hosting

Web, WordPress, WooCommerce and reseller hosting share servers with other customers, so these plans may not be used for:

• background programs that run all the time, such as game, chat or streaming servers;
• cron jobs that run more often than the site really needs; or
• storing files that are not part of the websites on the account, as explained in our Bandwidth & Resource Policy.

VPS

• You manage your server and are responsible for its security. Keep the operating system and software up to date and use strong passwords or SSH keys.
• Do not run services that can be abused by others, such as open proxies or open relays.
• If your server uses so much CPU or network capacity for so long that it affects our platform, we may limit it and contact you.

Reseller hosting

You are responsible for your clients following this policy. If one of your client accounts breaks it, we may act on that account directly, and we will tell you.

Keeping your account secure

• Use strong, unique passwords and two-factor authentication where it is offered.
• Keep your website software, themes and plugins up to date.
• Remove scripts and old sites you no longer use.

What happens if this policy is broken

Depending on how serious it is, we may warn you, remove content, limit or suspend the service, or terminate it. We may act without notice when there is ongoing harm or the law requires it. Our Abuse Handling Policy explains this process.

Reporting a breach

To report a breach of this policy, email abuse@hostelevate.com.