Acceptable Use Policy

1. Who this policy applies to

You are responsible for everything done on or through your services, whether by you, your staff, your customers or someone who gained access to your server. If you resell or share our services, you must make your own users follow rules at least as strict as these.

Using the Services lawfully means following the law of Canada, the law of the country where your server is located and the law that applies to you and your users.

2. Illegal and harmful content

You may not host, store, send or link to:

• child sexual abuse material, in any form. We have zero tolerance: we end the service at once and report it to the authorities;
• content that promotes terrorism, violent extremism or violence against people;
• threats, harassment, or the publication of someone’s private information without their consent;
• phishing pages, scam websites, fake shops or any other content meant to defraud people;
• malware, ransomware, exploit kits or other code meant to harm devices or data;
• material that infringes copyright, trademarks or other rights, such as pirated software, films or music;
• the sale of illegal goods or services, or any other content that is illegal where it is hosted or offered.

3. Network and security abuse

You may not use the Services to attack or misuse other systems or our network, including:

• denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, packet floods or stress tests against systems you do not own or are not authorised to test;
• port scans, vulnerability scans, brute-force login attempts or penetration tests without the written permission of the system’s owner;
• unauthorised access to accounts, servers or networks, or attempts to bypass their security;
• IP spoofing, forged packet headers, or using IP addresses that were not assigned to you;
• running botnets, command-and-control servers or other tools that control infected machines;
• running open proxies, open mail relays or open DNS resolvers that anyone on the internet can abuse.

4. Email and spam

You may not send spam: bulk or commercial messages to people who did not agree to receive them. If you send email from your server, you must follow anti-spam laws such as Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation (CASL), the US CAN-SPAM Act and the GDPR, in particular:

• send marketing only to people who opted in, never to bought, rented or harvested lists;
• identify yourself clearly and include a working unsubscribe link, and honour unsubscribe requests promptly;
• never forge headers or sender addresses, or hide where a message comes from.

The same rules apply to spam sent through other channels, such as messaging apps, forums and comment sections, and to advertising a website hosted with us through spam sent from elsewhere.

5. Fair use of resources

• Cryptocurrency mining is not allowed on plans with shared CPU. Choose a plan with dedicated CPU if you want to mine.
• Do not use the Services in a way that seriously degrades our network or other customers’ services, for example with sustained traffic or disk activity far beyond normal use of your plan.
• If your use affects others, we will contact you and may limit the resources involved until it is resolved, or ask you to move to a more suitable plan.

6. VPN and proxy servers

You may run VPN and proxy servers, such as WireGuard, OpenVPN or Outline, for yourself and for users you authorise, as long as access requires a key, password or other authentication.

You are responsible for all traffic that passes through them, as if you had sent it yourself. A VPN or proxy that is open to anyone, or that is used to commit any of the abuse in this policy, is a breach of this policy.

7. Keeping your server secure

Our servers are self-managed, so keeping them secure is your job: install security updates, use SSH keys or strong passwords, and close services you do not need.

A compromised server often attacks others. If we find that your server has been compromised, we may restrict its network access until you have cleaned it, even if you did not cause the problem.

8. How we handle violations

When we receive a report or detect abuse, we usually:

• forward the report to you by email and ask you to resolve it, normally within 48 hours;
• restrict the network access of, or suspend, the server involved if you do not respond in time or the problem continues;
• end the service, without refund, for serious or repeated breaches.

In serious cases, such as an attack in progress, phishing, malware or child sexual abuse material, we may act at once and without warning. We report illegal activity to the authorities where required, and we answer valid legal requests. We may also charge for the costs of handling repeated abuse, such as removing our IP addresses from blocklists.

9. Reporting abuse

To report abuse from our network, email [email protected]. To help us act quickly, please include:

• the IP address or domain name involved;
• the date and time of the activity, with the time zone;
• evidence such as logs, full email headers or screenshots;
• for copyright complaints: the work that is infringed, where the infringing copy is, and your contact details.

We review every report. We forward copyright notices to the customer concerned, as Canada’s Copyright Act requires.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as new forms of abuse appear or the law changes. We publish the new version on this page with a new date, and tell you about significant changes as described in our Terms of Service.