Acceptable Use Policy

This policy sets out what you may and may not do with the services and network of Stacklayer Communications Ltd. It applies to you and to anyone who uses your service. Our network runs as AS218805. Misuse by one customer can affect all of them, so we enforce this policy.

Who this policy applies to

It applies to every customer and to anyone using a service through a customer, such as staff, clients, players or website visitors. You are responsible for making sure those people follow it.

Your responsibility

You are responsible for everything that is stored on, sent from or run on your service, whether you put it there or someone else did. Not knowing about a problem does not make you any less responsible for it, although we will take it into account when deciding what to do.

Illegal content and activity

You must not use our services to store, publish, send or link to anything that is illegal in the United Kingdom, or in the country where the content is aimed or the service is used, or to carry out illegal activity.

We have no tolerance for child sexual abuse material. We remove access to it at once, report it to the Internet Watch Foundation and the police, and end the service.

Content we do not allow

You must not host or distribute:

• content that sexualises children, or that exploits or abuses them in any way
• material that encourages or supports terrorism or violence
• content that threatens people, harasses them, or is unlawfully hateful or discriminatory
• malware, including sites that host it, spread it or collect data taken by it
• phishing pages, scams, or pages that impersonate a person or organisation to deceive
• counterfeit goods, or material that infringes copyright, trade marks or other rights
• stolen data, including lists of passwords, card numbers or personal details
• anything that breaches someone's privacy without a lawful reason

Email and messaging

You must not send spam. That means bulk or unsolicited messages to people who have not agreed to receive them, whether by email, text, chat or any other channel. You must not hide who a message comes from, use lists you did not collect lawfully, or run a service that helps others do those things.

If you send marketing, you must have a lawful basis for it, identify yourself, and honour unsubscribe requests promptly. Mail servers must not be left open for others to relay through.

Attacks, scanning and unauthorised access

You must not use our services or network to:

• run or host denial-of-service attacks, or offer booter or stresser services
• scan, probe or test other people's systems for weaknesses without their permission
• try to guess passwords or take over accounts on other systems
• run command-and-control servers for malware or botnets
• gain unauthorised access to any system, account or network
• try to bypass, disable or test our DDoS protection or other security controls

You may test the security of your own service. Do not test other customers' services or our network.

Network abuse

You must not spoof IP addresses, interfere with routing or other network protocols, or send traffic designed to disrupt other networks. You must not run open DNS resolvers, open NTP servers or similar services that can be used to amplify attacks, and you must not operate services that can easily be abused by others unless they are properly restricted.

You may only use the IP addresses we have assigned to you.

Resource use

Do not use your service in a way that harms the performance of our network, our platform or other customers. If your use does, we can ask you to reduce it, move to a suitable plan, or limit it ourselves.

Keeping your service secure

You must keep the software on your service up to date and sensibly configured. If your service is compromised and is being used to attack or harm others, we may suspend it until it is secured. We may ask you to reinstall it from a clean source.

Services you run for other people

If you run a service for others, such as a forum, a game server, a community platform or a hosting business, you are responsible for what your users do with it. You must have a way for people to report problems and must act on those reports. If we pass you a report about one of your users, you need to deal with it promptly.

Investigations

We do not read the content of your service as a matter of routine. We may look into a service when we receive a report, see signs of abuse, or are required to by law. We may use automated tools to detect attacks and malware, and to protect the network.

What happens if this policy is broken

Depending on how serious the problem is and how you respond, we may:

• ask you to remove the content or fix the problem
• limit or restrict the service
• suspend the service
• end the service, in line with our Terms of Service

For serious breaches, such as illegal content or an active attack, we may act immediately without warning. We may give information to the police, regulators and other authorities where the law requires or allows it. Suspension or ending a service for breaking this policy does not entitle you to a refund.

If you disagree with a decision

If you think we have made a mistake, open a support ticket and tell us why. We will look at it again. We may keep a service suspended while we do, if there is a risk to our network or other people.

Reporting a problem

To report abuse of our services or network, see our Abuse Policy.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy as threats and the law change. The version on this page is the current one. We will tell you about changes that matter.