Acceptable Use Policy

"Services" means every service provided by HostElevate, including web hosting, WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting, reseller hosting, cloud servers, cPanel servers, domain registration, SSL certificates, email, and any related add-on or support.

"Account" means your HostElevate client area account and every Service ordered through it.

"Content" means any data, files, websites, software, scripts, databases, email and other material stored, processed, transmitted or published using the Services, whether by you or by your Users.

"Users" means anyone who uses the Services through your Account, including your staff, developers, contractors, website visitors who can post content and, for reseller accounts, your own customers.

"Shared Services" means Services on which server resources are shared between customers, including web hosting, WordPress hosting, WooCommerce hosting and reseller hosting.

"Cloud Servers" means virtual private servers and cPanel servers on which you have administrative (root) access.

"Abuse" means any use of the Services, or any Content, that breaches this Policy.

"Applicable Law" means the laws of the country in which HostElevate is registered and any other law that applies to you, to your Users, to your Content or to us.

This Policy applies to all Services and all Accounts, including free, trial and discounted Services.

This Policy forms part of the Terms of Service and is read together with the Privacy Policy and the Refund Policy. Where they differ on what may be run on our infrastructure, this Policy applies.

You are responsible for all activity carried out through your Account, whether by you or by your Users, and whether or not you authorised it.

Where you give others access to your Account or Services, you must make sure they follow this Policy.

The examples in this Policy are not a complete list. Any activity with substantially the same purpose or effect as a prohibited activity is also prohibited.

You must not use the Services to store, publish, transmit or facilitate any Content or activity that is unlawful under Applicable Law.

Without limiting clause 3.1, the following are prohibited on every Service:

1. (a)child sexual abuse material, or any content that sexualises minors;
2. (b)content that promotes terrorism or incites violence or hatred against any person or group;
3. (c)fraud and scams, including fake shops, fake investment or payment schemes and pages impersonating banks, couriers or government bodies;
4. (d)the sale or supply of illegal goods or services, including controlled drugs, weapons and forged documents;
5. (e)content that infringes copyright, trademarks or other intellectual property rights, including pirated software, media and licence keys;
6. (f)personal data about others that has been obtained or published unlawfully;
7. (g)sexually explicit or pornographic material; and
8. (h)gambling or betting services that are unlawful where they are offered or accessed.

Where we find child sexual abuse material, we terminate the Account without notice, preserve the relevant data and report it to the competent authorities, without exception.

You must not send unsolicited bulk or commercial email (spam), whether from our servers or from elsewhere to advertise a website, email address or service hosted with us.

Mailing lists must contain only recipients who have opted in. Every marketing message must carry a working unsubscribe link, and unsubscribe requests must be honoured promptly. You must keep records of consent and provide them to us on request.

You must not use purchased, rented, harvested or scraped address lists.

You must not forge message headers, spoof sender addresses or use misleading subject lines.

Hourly sending limits apply on Shared Services to protect the reputation of shared mail servers. Newsletters and other bulk mailings should be sent through a dedicated email marketing provider.

If your Account causes high bounce or complaint rates, or causes our IP addresses to be listed on a blocklist, we may restrict outgoing mail from your Account until the cause is fixed.

The same rules apply to SMS, messaging-app and push notification campaigns run using the Services.

You must not access, or attempt to access, any system, network, account or data without authorisation, including ours and those of other customers.

You must not scan, probe or test the security of any network or system that you do not own or have written permission to test.

You must not take part in denial-of-service attacks, flooding, botnets, brute-force or credential-stuffing attacks.

You must not run open mail relays, open proxies, open DNS resolvers or any other service that third parties can misuse.

You must not forge packets, spoof IP addresses or use IP addresses that have not been assigned to you.

You must not interfere with our monitoring, metering or billing systems, or bypass resource limits, firewalls or other security controls.

Security testing of your own website or application is permitted. Testing that could affect shared infrastructure needs our written agreement first; open a ticket before you start.

You must not host, distribute or link to malware, ransomware, spyware, exploit kits, phishing pages, credential harvesters or command-and-control infrastructure.

You must keep the software you install up to date, including content management systems, plugins, themes and scripts, and protect your Account with strong, unique passwords and two-factor authentication where it is offered.

If your Account is compromised without your knowledge, we do not treat it as deliberate Abuse. To contain the damage we may quarantine files, disable scripts, reset passwords or suspend the affected Service. We will tell you what we found and work with you to clean it up. Any cleanup included with your plan is described on the plan itself.

If the same Account is compromised again through software we have already asked you to update or remove, we may treat it as a breach of this Policy.

Each Shared Services account has limits on CPU, memory, processes, disk input/output and file count, as shown on the plan. Reaching a limit slows your own account; it does not affect other customers.

Where a feature is described as "unlimited" or "unmetered", it means we do not set a fixed quota for it. It does not mean infinite, and it remains subject to this section.

The following are not permitted on Shared Services:

1. (a)using the account mainly for file storage, backups or file distribution unrelated to a website hosted in it;
2. (b)long-running background processes, daemons or bots, other than those we provide;
3. (c)scheduled tasks that run so often, or for so long, that they degrade the server;
4. (d)streaming media servers, or serving large downloads in a way that acts as a content delivery network;
5. (e)cryptocurrency mining;
6. (f)public proxy, VPN or Tor services;
7. (g)IRC servers or bots, game servers, torrent trackers and torrent clients; and
8. (h)mass-mailing software.

If an account repeatedly affects other customers, we will contact you first wherever the situation allows. Where the workload is legitimate, we will suggest a plan that fits it rather than simply limiting it. Where there is an immediate risk to other customers, we may limit the account first and contact you straight after.

You have administrative control of your Cloud Server and are responsible for securing, updating and monitoring it and everything that runs on it. Every other section of this Policy also applies to Cloud Servers.

Cryptocurrency mining of any kind is not permitted on any Service, including Cloud Servers. Our infrastructure providers prohibit it.

Running Tor exit nodes or public proxy and VPN services offered to third parties is not permitted. Private VPNs for your own use are permitted.

Outgoing mail ports may be restricted on new Cloud Servers. If you need to send email directly from a server, open a ticket and we will review the request.

You must respond to any abuse notice we forward to you within 24 hours, or sooner where the notice requires it.

If a Cloud Server is under attack, or is being used to attack or send abuse to others, we may firewall, null-route or power it off to protect the network, and we will tell you as soon as we have done so.

You are responsible for your customers' compliance with this Policy. Your own terms with your customers must be at least as strict as this Policy.

We send complaints about your customers' accounts to you. You must act on them within 48 hours, or immediately where there is an active threat.

Where one of your customers' accounts presents an immediate risk, we may suspend that individual account directly and will notify you.

Overselling is permitted, but the total use of your reseller account remains subject to section 7.

Domains registered through us are subject to the rules of the relevant registry and, where applicable, the policies of ICANN or the relevant country-code registry, in addition to this Policy.

You must keep the registrant contact details for your domains accurate and current. Inaccurate details can lead the registry to suspend a domain.

A domain used for phishing, malware distribution, botnet control, spam or fraud may be suspended or locked at registry level.

You must not register domain names in bad faith to impersonate a brand, person or public body. Disputes over domain names are decided under the dispute policy of the relevant registry.

Rights holders can report infringing Content to abuse@hostelevate.com. The report must identify the rights holder or their authorised agent, the work concerned, the exact URLs of the infringing material, a statement that the complaint is made in good faith, and contact details.

We forward valid complaints to the customer concerned and may disable access to the specific material while the matter is resolved.

The customer may reply explaining why the material is lawful. Where the complaint appears unfounded, we may restore the material.

We may terminate the Accounts of customers who repeatedly infringe the rights of others.

We do not routinely monitor Content, but we investigate reports of Abuse and signs of Abuse that we detect ourselves.

Where circumstances allow, we contact you first and give you a reasonable opportunity to resolve the issue.

We may act without prior notice in the case of active attacks, malware or phishing distribution, child sexual abuse material, orders from a court or competent authority, and any situation that places other customers or our network at immediate risk.

Depending on the seriousness of the breach, we may:

1. (a)issue a warning;
2. (b)remove or disable access to specific Content;
3. (c)limit resources or outgoing email;
4. (d)suspend one or more Services; or
5. (e)terminate one or more Services or the whole Account.

Services terminated for breach of this Policy are not eligible for a refund, as set out in the Refund Policy. Fees for the current term remain payable.

After termination we will provide a copy of your data on request, except where the law or the nature of the breach prevents it.

You can challenge any action taken under this Policy by replying to our notice or opening a ticket. We will review it and answer in writing.

We comply with lawful requests and orders from courts and competent authorities in the countries where we operate.

We disclose customer information only where we are legally required to, and we notify the affected customer where the law permits.

We may preserve Content and logs that are relevant to an investigation or legal proceedings.

Report abuse involving any HostElevate Service to abuse@hostelevate.com.

Include the URL or IP address concerned, the date and time with time zone, a description of the issue and any supporting evidence, such as full email headers or log extracts.

We aim to review every report within one working day. For privacy reasons we may not be able to tell you what action was taken against a customer's Account.

We may disregard reports that are knowingly false or made to harass a customer.

We may update this Policy from time to time. Material changes are notified by email at least thirty days before they take effect, in line with the Terms of Service.

Changes needed to comply with the law, or to deal with an urgent security threat, may take effect sooner.

The current version is always published on this page, with the date it was last updated.

If any provision of this Policy is found to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in full force.

If we do not enforce a provision straight away, we have not waived our right to enforce it later.

This Policy is governed by the laws of the country in which HostElevate is registered, and the courts of that country have jurisdiction over any dispute arising from it.

Questions about this Policy can be sent to support@hostelevate.com. Reports of abuse go to abuse@hostelevate.com.