Acceptable Use Policy

Scope

This Acceptable Use Policy applies to everyone using PIVIHOST's hosting, VPS, domain, and any other services we provide (the "Services"). It's part of our Terms of Service — breaching this policy is a breach of that contract.

Prohibited content and activity

You must not use the Services to store, transmit, distribute, or facilitate:

• Illegal content or activity under the law of the United Kingdom or a jurisdiction your use of the Services targets.
• Child sexual abuse material, in any form. This is never tolerated, will result in immediate suspension, and will be reported to the relevant authorities (in the UK, the Internet Watch Foundation and/or the police) without prior notice to you.
• Intellectual property infringement — content that infringes someone else's copyright, trade mark, or other rights, where a valid complaint is made or infringement is otherwise evident.
• Malware, ransomware, or exploit code — creating, hosting, or distributing software designed to damage, disrupt, or gain unauthorised access to systems.
• Phishing or credential theft — content or infrastructure designed to impersonate a real service or steal login details, payment details, or other credentials.
• Unauthorised access ("hacking") — attempting to access a computer, account, or network without permission, including port scanning, vulnerability scanning, or credential-stuffing directed at systems you don't own or have explicit permission to test.
• Denial-of-service activity — launching or participating in DDoS attacks, or operating botnet command-and-control infrastructure.
• Spam and email abuse — sending unsolicited bulk email, operating open mail relays, or using compromised accounts to send abusive mail; this includes activity that damages our mail servers' reputation or gets our IP ranges blacklisted.
• Fraud and impersonation — using the Services to defraud any person, or to impersonate a real individual, business, or organisation with intent to deceive.
• Abusive automation or resource abuse — automated activity, or resource use, that is disproportionate to normal use of your plan and materially affects the service of other customers on shared infrastructure.

This list describes categories, not every possible example — if something isn't listed here but is clearly illegal or seriously harmful to us, our other customers, or third parties, it's still prohibited.

Shared infrastructure and resource limits

Our shared hosting plans list specific resource allocations (RAM, CPU, storage, and similar) on each plan's own page — see Hosting. Where a plan states "unlimited" for a specific item (for example, unlimited domains or email accounts on our Unlimited Domains plans), that limit is genuinely unlimited for that item, subject to the plan's other real, stated resource limits (RAM, CPU, storage) and to this policy's prohibition on abusive automation and disproportionate resource use.

VPS-specific responsibilities

If you have a VPS, you have root/administrator access and are responsible for the software you install, its configuration, and keeping it secure and patched. This policy applies to everything running on your VPS, whether we installed it or you did. A compromised VPS being used to attack other systems is treated the same as deliberate abuse for the purposes of suspension under this policy, even if the compromise wasn't your fault — see Terms §Suspension for how we handle that.

How we enforce this policy

We aim to respond proportionately, not reflexively:

1. We investigate reports and evidence of a breach before acting, where that's safe and practical to do.
2. Where the issue isn't an immediate security or legal risk, we'll normally notify you and give you a reasonable opportunity to fix it.
3. Where there's a serious, immediate security threat (active malware distribution, an ongoing attack, a live compromise being used against others) or a serious legal issue (such as CSAM), we may suspend the affected service immediately, without prior notice, to protect our infrastructure, other customers, and third parties.
4. We cooperate with law enforcement and other lawful authorities where we're required to by law.

See Terms §Suspension and §Termination by PIVIHOST for what happens to your service and data after enforcement action.

Reporting a problem

If you believe a PIVIHOST-hosted service is being used to abuse, attack, or defraud you or someone else, tell us using our contact form or by emailing admin@pivihost.com, with as much detail as you can (URLs, IP addresses, timestamps, evidence). We don't currently operate a dedicated, separately-staffed abuse mailbox — reports go through the same channel as other enquiries and are handled by us directly.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as new kinds of abuse emerge or our services change. We'll update the "Last updated" date below when we do. Material changes that affect what's allowed will also be reflected in our Terms §Changes to Terms process.