Our network is shared by many customers, and every IP address on it carries a reputation that all of them depend on. This policy sets out what our services may not be used for, and what we do when they are. It is part of our Terms & Conditions.
Who it applies to
It applies to every service we provide and to everyone who uses one: you, anyone you give access to, and, if you are a seller, your own customers. You are responsible for all of them. We do not routinely monitor what runs on your services, but we act on what we find and on every report we receive. If you would like this policy in another language listed in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India, ask us.
Content that is not allowed
As rule 3(1)(b) of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 requires, you must not host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information that:
- belongs to another person and to which you have no right;
- is obscene, pornographic, paedophilic, invasive of another person's privacy (including bodily privacy), insulting or harassing on the basis of gender, racially or ethnically objectionable, relates to or encourages money laundering or gambling, is an online game that causes harm to users, or promotes enmity between groups on the grounds of religion or caste with the intent to incite violence;
- is harmful to children;
- infringes any patent, trademark, copyright or other proprietary right;
- deceives or misleads the recipient about the origin of a message, or knowingly and intentionally communicates misinformation, or information that is patently false, untrue or misleading;
- impersonates another person;
- threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with foreign States or public order, incites the commission of a cognisable offence, prevents the investigation of an offence, or insults another nation;
- contains a software virus, or any other code, file or program designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functioning of a computer resource;
- is an online game that has not been verified as permissible, or advertises or promotes one, or a platform offering one;
- violates any law for the time being in force.
Child sexual abuse material is never tolerated: we remove it at once, preserve the evidence and report it to the authorities. The same applies to content that promotes terrorism or incites violence.
Network and security abuse
- Attacking anything: denial-of-service attacks, flooding, or running or selling "booter" or "stresser" services.
- Scanning, probing or testing networks or systems you do not own, or trying passwords against them, without the owner's written permission.
- Gaining or attempting unauthorised access to any system or data; distributing exploits or malware; running botnets or their command-and-control servers.
- Spoofing IP or MAC addresses, forging packet headers, or using an IP address that has not been assigned to you.
- Intercepting or monitoring traffic that is not addressed to you.
- Running open proxies, open mail relays or open DNS resolvers that anyone on the internet can use. A service that is abused because it was left open counts as your abuse.
- Running a Tor exit node, unless we have agreed to it in writing.
Testing the security of your own systems is fine. Testing anyone else's needs their written permission, and if a test could look like an attack, tell us beforehand.
Email and messaging
- No unsolicited bulk email, SMS, WhatsApp or other messages. Mailing lists must be opt-in and every message must carry a working unsubscribe link.
- No forged headers, misleading sender details, or harvesting of addresses.
- No hosting of websites or services that are advertised through spam, even if the spam is sent from elsewhere.
If your sending gets one of our IP addresses listed on a blocklist, we may stop it until the cause is fixed.
Fraud and deception
- Phishing pages, fake shops, and fake investment, loan, job or prize schemes; pyramid and Ponzi schemes.
- Card testing, carding, or using payment details or accounts that are not yours.
- Impersonating any person, business or government body, including us.
- Submitting false or edited payment proofs, or opening chargebacks for services you received.
- Creating accounts or orders to get around the limits of an offer or coupon.
Premium IPs and proxies
- Use Premium IPs, and any proxy you run on a server, only for lawful purposes. They must not be used for fraud, spam, credential stuffing, creating fake accounts in bulk, click or advertising fraud, attacks, or unauthorised access, or to get around a block placed on you by a court or government order.
- Keep authentication switched on. A proxy must never be offered to the public as an open proxy.
- You are responsible for all traffic that passes through your IP addresses, including that of anyone you share them with, and for complying with the terms of the websites and services you reach through them.
Fair use of shared resources
- On shared-CPU plans, physical processor cores are shared with other customers. Sustained full use that degrades other customers' servers may be limited; constant heavy workloads belong on a dedicated plan.
- Mining or "farming" cryptocurrency is not allowed on any plan, unless the plan explicitly says it is.
- Disk and network use beyond what your plan includes may be limited.
Piracy and infringement
Do not host or distribute pirated software, films, music or books, stream or restream television, OTT or sports content without the rights holder's permission, or sell counterfeit goods. When we receive a valid notice of infringement, we may disable access to the material and forward the notice to you; you can respond through the ticket we open. Accounts that infringe repeatedly are closed.
Other unlawful activity
- Online money games, betting or gambling that Indian law does not permit, or promoting them.
- Selling drugs, weapons, explosives, wildlife products or anything else whose sale is prohibited.
- Offering financial services that need a licence or registration you do not have.
- Anything that breaks the laws of India, or of the country where your server or its users are.
Your responsibilities
- Keep your servers secure and updated. A compromised server is your responsibility, and we may isolate it until it is cleaned.
- When we forward an abuse report to you, reply within 24 hours, or sooner if we ask, saying what you found and what you did about it.
- Keep your contact details current, so that we can reach you when it matters.
- If you are a seller, make sure your customers follow this policy. A breach by them is treated as a breach by you.
What we do about a breach
We look into every report. Depending on how serious and urgent the problem is, we may:
- ask you to fix it by a deadline;
- remove or disable access to the content concerned;
- limit, filter or null-route traffic;
- suspend the service or your account;
- terminate the service or account, without refund;
- report the matter to the authorities and cooperate with their investigation.
For attacks in progress, malware, phishing, child sexual abuse material and anything else that cannot wait, we act at once and tell you afterwards. Where the law requires, we preserve information about removed content and the accounts involved, for use in an investigation.
If your own service is the target of an attack large enough to affect others, we may null-route its IP address until the attack stops. That is not a breach on your part, and your service returns as soon as it is safe.
The IT Rules require us to tell you, and to remind you at least once a year, that if this policy is not complied with, we may end your access immediately, remove the non-compliant information, or both.
Reporting abuse
Report abuse to support@skyhostvps.com. Include:
- the IP address or web address involved;
- the date, time and time zone of the activity;
- the evidence: log lines, full email headers, or the offending content's address;
- a short description of what happened.
We acknowledge reports within 24 hours. We may share your report with the customer concerned so they can fix the problem; tell us if you want your contact details left out. Complaints about content under the IT Rules, and requests to remove it, can also go to our grievance officer, whose details are on our Contact page. Child sexual abuse material should also be reported at cybercrime.gov.in.