This Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) governs your use of the Services and is incorporated by reference into VerticHost’s Terms of Service. Unless otherwise stated, defined terms in this AUP have the meanings provided in the Terms of Service. VerticHost may modify this AUP at any time without notice.
The Services provided by VerticHost may only be used for lawful purposes. You agree to comply with all applicable laws, rules and regulations in connection with your use of the Services. VerticHost reserves the right to refuse service to anyone. Any material that in our judgment violates this AUP in any manner may be removed from our servers (or otherwise disabled), with or without notice. Failure to respond to an email from our abuse department within the specified time period in our email to you may result in the suspension or termination of the Services.
Services of VerticHost may be used for lawful purposes only. Transmission, storage, or distribution of any information, data, or material in violation of any applicable Romanian and European and/or International law or regulation is strictly prohibited.
1.1. Illegal Activity
Customer may only use VerticHost Server for lawful purpose. Transmission of any material in violation of any Country, Federal, State or Local regulation is prohibited. Inflaming inter-ethnic discord, terrorism and extremism, inciting subversion of State power is strictly prohibited. To this effect, child pornography is strictly prohibited as well as housing any copyrighted information (to which the customer does not hold the copyright or an appropriate license). Also, using VerticHost’s servers or network to conspire to commit or support the commission of illegal activities is forbidden as well.
1.2. Hacking
Websites dedicated to the discussion of hacking activities or the distribution of hacking tools are prohibited. Also, the usage of VerticHost’s computer systems or network to access any system, service, or network without the owner’s consent is expressly forbidden.
Unacceptable on our servers include without limitation:
a) Software/Systems that are designed to harm other people (e.g. Scam, Phishing, Botnet, Malware, Virus)
b) Trying to gain unauthorized access into other systems/networks
c) Forging of any network packet headers
d) Denial of Service (DoS) attacks of any kind
e) Use of probing, or scanning of systems security or authentication measures, data, or traffic interference with service to any user, host, or network including, without limitation, mail bombing, flooding, deliberate attempts to overload a system, broadcast attacks, MITM (man in the middle) attacks
f) IP Scanners
g) Bruteforce Programs/Scripts/Applications
1.3. Service Interruptions
Any activity which causes service interruptions to either VerticHost’s network/servers or any outside network. This includes, but is not limited to, the execution of Denial of Service attacks or other maliciously configured software.
1.4. Anonymous Proxies
Anonymous proxies are easily abused and often cause a negative impact on both the servers and the network they are connected to. As such, they’re prohibited on VerticHost’s network and servers.
1.5. Spamming
Spamming (sending unsolicited commercial or bulk emails) using our servers is strictly prohibited. Sending spam emails which include links to a web site hosted on one of our servers is also forbidden. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate any site that is linked to from spam emails. To protect our servers, we may impose limits on the number of emails sent within a particular time frame from our servers.
Usenet Spamming: We have a zero tolerance policy for the use of our network for the posting of messages or commercial advertisements, which violate the rules, regulations, FAQ or charter of any newsgroups or mailing list. Commercial messages that are appropriate under the rules of a newsgroup or mailing list or that are solicited by the recipients are permitted.
Customer agrees to not have any content on their site that advocates, sells or in any way makes available tools or methods to send unsolicited e-mail or usenet postings (spam), or to use VerticHost’s Servers for relaying unsolicited e-mail or usenet postings, or to use unsolicited e-mail or usenet postings to advertise for their site hosted at VerticHost. Any complaint we receive about a violation of this or the preceding two points will be taken very seriously and will result in immediate account cancellation without a refund.
VerticHost reserves the right to require changes or disable as necessary, any website, account, database, or other component that does not comply with our policies, or to make any such modifications in an emergency that we deem necessary at our sole discretion.
VerticHost reserves the right to charge the holder of the account used to send any unsolicited e-mail a cleanup fee or any charges incurred for blacklist removal at our sole discretion.
1.6. Personal Information Harvesting
Collecting or using email addresses, screen names or other personal identifiers without the consent of the person identified (including, without limitation, phishing, Internet scamming, password robbery, spidering, and harvesting) is strictly prohibited.
1.7. Blacklisting
You agree that if the VerticHost IP numbers assigned to your account are listed on an abuse database or blacklist like Spamhaus, you will be in violation of this agreement, and VerticHost 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.
1.8. Spoofing/Impersonation
Usage of the VerticHost network to impersonate another person or entity, be it through Email, Internet Forums, or any other means, is strictly prohibited. This includes spoofing email or network packet headers whether or not it is done for malicious purposes.
1.9. Spamdexing
Customer agrees to not engage in activities pertaining to Black Hat SEO, Spamdexing, and so-called “Scraper sites.” These can all have a severely detrimental effect on server performance and are not permitted. Any conduct that is likely to result in retaliation against VerticHost’s network or website, or VerticHost’s employees, officers or other agents, including engaging in behavior that results in any server being the target of a denial of service attack (DoS).
1.10. Distribution of Viruses, Spyware, and Malware
Distributions of software that attempts to and/or causes damage, harassment, or annoyance to persons, data, and/or computer systems are prohibited. Distribution of software that monitors computer or computer user activity without the computer user’s knowledge and consent is prohibited.
1.11. Adult Websites and Child Pornography Prohibited
We prohibit adult (pornographic) websites and content on our servers. Content that is potentially harmful to minors, as determined in VerticHost’s sole discretion, is strictly forbidden, including but not limited to, child pornography or content perceived to be child pornography. Any website found to host child pornography or linking to child pornography will be suspended immediately without notice.
1.12. Infringement of Intellectual Property Rights
1.12.1. Copyright or trademark infringement: Use of the VerticHost service to transmit any material (by e-mail, uploading, posting, hot linking, directly linking or otherwise) that infringes any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret or other proprietary rights of any third party, including, but not limited to, the unauthorized copying of copyrighted material, the digitization and distribution of photographs from magazines, books, or other copyrighted sources, and the unauthorized transmittal of copyrighted software.
1.12.2. Use of the Services to infringe upon another party’s intellectual property rights is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to, the unauthorized copying or distribution of movies, music, books, photographs, software/warez, or any other copyrighted work. Selling or offering to sell any counterfeit merchandise will result in the immediate termination of your account. Any account found to be infringing on the intellectual property rights of others will be expeditiously removed or access to the material will be disabled. Any account found to be in repeated violation of this prohibition will be suspended or terminated.
1.11.3. If you believe that your intellectual property rights are being infringed upon, please email abuse@vertichost.com
1.13. Abusive Scripts/Processes
Any script/process/etc that adversely affects the ability of any other customer to satisfactorily use their provided services is forbidden. This includes, but is not limited to, CPU-intensive CGI/PHP scripts and websites for which the scale of traffic has exceeded the acceptable limits of a shared hosting environment.
You are responsible for ensuring that any scripts that you install do not compromise the security of our servers. This includes, but is not limited to:
a) ensuring that it is not possible to abuse such scripts to gain access to the file system of the server.
b) ensuring that it is not possible to abuse such scripts to send emails to third parties.
c) ensuring that you update any installed scripts with the latest releases, which often contain security fixes.
If a script installed on your site is compromised, we may require a clean up of your site. Where we provide an automatic script installer we may update installed scripts to the latest releases.
1.14. IRC Bots/Bouncers
All IRC bots and “bouncers” (bnc, etc) are forbidden.
1.15. BitTorrent software
While we recognize the value in the BitTorrent protocol as a distribution method, it is far too easily (and often accidentally) abused/misused and therefore not allowed on VerticHost Hosting services.
1.16. Proxy Software
All proxy software, anonymous or otherwise, is forbidden on VerticHost Hosting services.
1.17. Network Daemons
Any process that opens a network socket to accept connections from external networks is forbidden. Processes are allowed to bind to the local host only, but are held to the limitations placed on all other processes. They must not use up more than their fair share of resources and they must not interfere with any other customers’ activities.
1.18. Other Prohibited Content
We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Any material that, in our judgment, is obscene, threatening, illegal, or violates our Terms of Service in any manner may be removed from our servers (or otherwise disabled), with or without notice.
2.1. Your Services may be terminated with or without notice upon any violation of this AUP.
2.2. In case VerticHost receives “Abuse Complaints” regarding the customer, VerticHost shall forward these abuse complaints to the customer and verify its validity. If it turns out to be a valid abuse case, VerticHost gives the customer a 24-hour timeframe to resolve the issue. All abuse issues must be dealt with via trouble ticket/email and will receive a response within twenty-four (24) hours.
2.3. If the customer fails to contact VerticHost and/or doesn’t resolve the abuse issue within this given timeframe, VerticHost reserves the right to fully suspend the services provided to the customer. VerticHost reserves the right, in urgent matters, to suspend and terminate the service and contact the customer afterwards.
2.4. If you feel you have discovered a violation of our AUP please report it to: abuse@vertichost.com
2.5. Violations of this Agreement will waive your rights under the refund policy.