Acceptable Use Policy

This policy applies to all Services and to anyone who uses them, including your staff, contractors and your website's users. You are responsible for their compliance.

You may not host, store, transmit or link to content that:

• Is illegal, or promotes or facilitates illegal activity, in the United States or the jurisdiction where it is accessed.
• Sexually exploits or endangers minors in any way. We report such content to the appropriate authorities.
• Infringes copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, privacy or other rights, including pirated software, media or "warez".
• Threatens, harasses or incites violence or hatred against individuals or groups.
• Is fraudulent or deceptive, including fake shops, impersonation, pyramid schemes and phishing pages.
• Sells or promotes illegal drugs, weapons or other regulated goods without the required licenses.

You may not use the Services to:

• Distribute malware, viruses, ransomware, spyware or other malicious code.
• Scan, probe, attack or gain unauthorized access to any system or network, including denial-of-service attacks.
• Run open proxies, open mail relays, VPN or anonymizing services, or TOR exit nodes.
• Interfere with or bypass our security, monitoring, resource limits or billing.
• Access other clients' accounts or data, or attempt to do so.
• Forge email headers, IP addresses or other identifying information.

4.1Consent

Only send commercial email to people who have clearly agreed to receive it. Purchased, rented or scraped lists are not allowed.

4.2Compliance

Your messages must comply with the CAN-SPAM Act and other applicable laws, including accurate sender details, a physical address and a working unsubscribe link honored within 10 business days.

4.3Bulk email

Newsletters and marketing campaigns must be sent through a dedicated email marketing provider, not your hosting mailbox. We may limit outgoing mail volumes to protect our servers' reputation.

4.4Complaints

Mailboxes or websites that generate spam complaints or cause our servers to be blocklisted may be paused while we investigate.

Hosting is designed for websites and their email. To keep performance fair for everyone, the following are not permitted on shared Hosting:

• Cryptocurrency mining or other compute-intensive processing.
• File-sharing, public file hosting, backup storage or media streaming unrelated to your website.
• Game servers, chat servers, bots or long-running background processes.
• Scheduled tasks (cron jobs) that run more often than every 5 minutes without our agreement.
• Scripts or sites that consistently use a disproportionate share of CPU, memory or disk activity.

If your site outgrows shared Hosting, we'll help you find the right plan rather than simply shutting it down.

Outdated plugins, themes and applications are the most common way websites are compromised. You are responsible for keeping your site's software updated and using strong, unique passwords, unless your site is on a Care Plan, in which case we handle updates for you.

If a compromised site puts the server or other clients at risk, we may take it offline until it has been cleaned. We can help with clean-up as chargeable work.

We respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). To submit a notice, email [email protected] with:

• Your physical or electronic signature, and your contact details.
• Identification of the copyrighted work you claim is infringed.
• The URL or location of the material you want removed.
• A statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorized.
• A statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized to act for the owner.

We may remove or disable the material and notify the affected client, who may submit a counter-notice. Accounts that repeatedly infringe will be terminated.

To report spam, phishing, malware or other abuse on a SiteSmith-hosted website, email [email protected] with the address involved, a description and any supporting evidence such as full email headers. We review every report.

We may investigate suspected violations, including by reviewing content and logs on the affected Service. Our response depends on the severity:

We are not obliged to monitor content, and our decision not to act in one case doesn't waive our right to act in another.

We cooperate with law enforcement and regulators in response to valid legal process, and may disclose information as described in our Privacy Policy.

We may update this policy to address new risks. Material changes will be announced by email at least 30 days in advance, except where an immediate change is needed to protect our network or clients.

Questions about what's allowed? Email [email protected] before you launch, and we'll be happy to help.