Springs Hosting Acceptable Use Policy

Updated on May 18, 2026.

This Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) applies to all services provided by Springs Hosting (“SH”), including shared hosting, VPS hosting, PCI hosting, colocation, internet access, IP address assignment, bandwidth, email hosting, DNS, backup services, remote hands, and any related services.

This AUP is incorporated into and governed by the Master Service Agreement and any applicable Accompanying Agreement. Capitalized terms not defined in this AUP have the meanings given to them in the Master Service Agreement.

PURPOSE

SH provides hosting, network, and data center services to many clients. This AUP is intended to protect SH, SH Infrastructure, the SH Network, SH’s IP address space, SH’s upstream providers, third-party networks, and other clients from illegal, abusive, disruptive, or harmful activity.

Client is responsible for ensuring that its use of the Services complies with this AUP.
CLIENT RESPONSIBILITY

Client is responsible for all activity involving its Services, including activity by Client’s employees, contractors, administrators, customers, users, website visitors, email users, downstream customers, and any other person or system using Services assigned to Client.

Client is responsible for all Client Data, websites, applications, scripts, email accounts, databases, DNS records, virtual machines, servers, devices, software, plugins, themes, credentials, and configurations used with the Services.

Client must promptly investigate and resolve any abuse, security issue, blacklist issue, copyright complaint, spam complaint, phishing complaint, malware report, network complaint, or other issue related to Client’s Services.

Client may not use lack of knowledge, third-party activity, compromised credentials, compromised software, or downstream user activity as a defense to a violation of this AUP.
ILLEGAL OR HARMFUL USE

Client may not use the Services for any illegal, harmful, fraudulent, abusive, or unauthorized purpose. Prohibited activity includes, but is not limited to:
1. Violating any applicable law, regulation, court order, or government requirement.
2. Fraud, scams, deceptive practices, or impersonation.
3. Theft, credential harvesting, identity theft, or unauthorized access.
4. Distribution, storage, hosting, or promotion of malware, ransomware, viruses, botnets, exploit kits, or malicious code.
5. Phishing, pharming, spoofing, or social engineering.
6. Unauthorized collection, use, disclosure, or sale of personal information.
7. Activity that violates the rights of another person or entity.
8. Activity that violates the rights of another person or entity.
9. Activity that creates legal, security, operational, network, provider, reputational, or compliance risk for SH.
NO BULK EMAIL OR MASS MAILING

Client may not use the Services to send, facilitate, relay, host, advertise, support, or enable bulk email, mass mailing, cold email, purchased-list campaigns, rented-list campaigns, list-cleaning services, unsolicited marketing, high-volume newsletter delivery, or similar email activity.

This restriction applies regardless of whether the email is claimed to be opt-in, legally compliant, or sent from a VPS, shared hosting account, dedicated IP address, colocated server, third-party script, website form, mailing list software, SMTP service, or other system connected to the Services.

Client may not purchase, lease, or use Services for the purpose of obtaining “clean” IP addresses, mail server space, VPS resources, or hosting infrastructure for bulk mail, cold outreach, sender rotation, IP warming, reputation rebuilding, or similar activity.

SH may suspend, restrict, rate-limit, block, or terminate Services if SH determines that Client’s email activity may harm SH’s IP reputation, mail server reputation, network reputation, provider relationships, deliverability, shared hosting environment, or other customers.
SPAM AND EMAIL ABUSE

Client may not send, cause to be sent, facilitate, relay, or host spam or abusive email. Prohibited email activity includes, but is not limited to:
1. Unsolicited commercial email.
2. Bulk marketing email.
3. Cold email campaigns.
4. Purchased, rented, scraped, harvested, or third-party email lists.
5. Email address verification, list cleaning, or list validation services.
6. Forged headers, deceptive subject lines, spoofed sender information, or misleading routing information.
7. Phishing emails, malware emails, credential theft emails, or fraudulent emails.
8. Mail bombing, excessive bounce traffic, backscatter, or mail queue abuse.
9. Operating an open relay, open proxy, compromised form, vulnerable script, or insecure SMTP service.
10. Sending email that causes blacklisting, spamtrap hits, excessive complaints, provider complaints, or harm to SH’s email reputation.
Client is responsible for securing all email accounts, contact forms, mailing scripts, website forms, SMTP credentials, and email client configurations.

SH may disable, suspend, throttle, rate-limit, block, or remove email services, email accounts, scripts, forms, mail queues, or related Services if SH determines they are being used for spam, abuse, or reputation-harming activity.
PHISHING, MALWARE, AND SECURITY ABUSE

Client may not use the Services to host, distribute, redirect to, link to, advertise, support, or facilitate phishing, malware, ransomware, viruses, trojans, botnets, exploit kits, credential theft, malicious scripts, malicious downloads, or similar harmful activity.

Client may not operate systems that attack, scan, exploit, compromise, or attempt to gain unauthorized access to other systems.

Client must promptly remove or remediate any compromised website, script, application, plugin, theme, account, virtual machine, server, device, or file associated with Client’s Services.

If SH determines that Client’s Services are compromised, infected, abusive, or harmful, SH may suspend, disable, quarantine, remove, restrict, block, null-route, or terminate the affected Services without advance notice.
NETWORK ABUSE

Client may not use the Services in a way that disrupts, damages, degrades, attacks, scans, overloads, or interferes with SH Infrastructure, the SH Network, another customer, or any third-party network. Prohibited network activity includes, but is not limited to:
1. Denial-of-service attacks or participation in denial-of-service activity.
2. Port scanning, vulnerability scanning, exploit scanning, or network probing without authorization.
3. Packet spoofing, IP spoofing, MAC spoofing, ARP spoofing, route hijacking, or similar activity.
4. Operating open proxies, open resolvers, open relays, anonymizing services, botnet nodes, command-and-control systems, or abusive VPN services.
5. Excessive bandwidth use, packet rates, connection counts, or traffic patterns that disrupt the Services.
6. Mining cryptocurrency or operating high-resource workloads that interfere with shared infrastructure unless expressly approved in writing.
7. Circumventing rate limits, security controls, access controls, abuse controls, or service restrictions.
8. Announcing, routing, advertising, or using IP addresses not assigned or authorized for Client’s use.
SH may filter, block, rate-limit, null-route, suspend, or terminate Services involved in network abuse or network disruption.
RESOURCE ABUSE

Client may not use shared or allocated resources in a way that harms, degrades, or interferes with SH Infrastructure, SH Network, or other clients. Resource abuse includes, but is not limited to:
1. Excessive CPU, memory, disk I/O, storage, inode, database, process, email, or bandwidth usage.
2. Long-running scripts, runaway processes, cron jobs, bots, crawlers, or automation that overload shared resources.
3. Excessive MySQL, MariaDB, PHP, Apache, LiteSpeed, mail, DNS, or control panel resource consumption.
4. Excessive backup, archive, media storage, file sharing, or non-hosting storage use on shared hosting.
5. Operating services inconsistent with the purchased plan or Accompanying Agreement.
6. Activity that causes performance issues, outages, alerts, instability, or degradation for other clients.
SH may suspend, throttle, limit, migrate, disable, or require Client to upgrade Services if SH determines that Client’s usage is excessive, abusive, or unsuitable for the current Service.
SHARED HOSTING, CPANEL EMAIL, AND IP REPUTATION

Shared hosting is a multi-tenant environment. Client understands that shared hosting accounts may share server resources, mail services, IP addresses, DNS infrastructure, and related systems with other customers. Client may not use shared hosting in a way that harms the shared environment or the reputation of shared IP addresses. Client is responsible for securing and maintaining:
1. WordPress installations.
2. Themes and plugins.
3. Website forms.
4. Scripts and custom code.
5. File uploads.
6. cPanel accounts.
7. FTP and SFTP accounts.
8. Email accounts.
9. Databases.
10. Passwords and administrator accounts.
Client may not use shared hosting accounts for bulk mail, high-volume email, bulk newsletters, email marketing platforms, file distribution platforms, public file storage, backup storage, proxy services, VPN services, crypto mining, scraping, or other use inconsistent with shared hosting.
SH may suspend, disable, quarantine, remove, or restrict any website, email account, script, database, file, process, or hosting account that SH reasonably believes is compromised, abusive, resource-intensive, causing blacklist issues, harming IP reputation, or disrupting the shared hosting environment.
IP ADDRESS USE AND JUSTIFICATION

Any IP addresses assigned by SH are provided only for use with active SH Services. Client does not own IP addresses assigned by SH.

Client must use IP addresses efficiently and only for legitimate active services.

Unless SH approves an exception in writing, Client must maintain at least eighty percent (80%) active utilization of all SH-assigned IPv4 addresses at all times.

Upon request, Client must provide a current and accurate utilization report identifying the purpose, assigned system, domain, service, customer, or other reasonable justification for each IP address assigned to Client.

Client may not sell, lease, sublease, transfer, assign, route, announce, advertise, or provide SH-assigned IP addresses to another party except as expressly approved by SH in writing.

Client must cooperate with SH regarding IP justification, abuse complaints, blacklist issues, ARIN, upstream provider, carrier, registry, or routing requirements.

SH may reclaim, renumber, reduce, suspend, or reassign IP addresses if:
1. Client fails to maintain required utilization.
2. Client fails to provide accurate utilization information.
3. IP addresses are unused or unjustified.
4. Client violates this AUP.
5. IP addresses are involved in abuse, spam, phishing, malware, blacklisting, or reputation issues.
6. SH is required to do so by law, registry policy, upstream provider, carrier, network design, security issue, or operational necessity.
VULNERABILTY SCANNING AND PENETRATION TESTING

Client may not perform vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, exploit testing, load testing, denial-of-service testing, security research, or similar activity against SH Infrastructure, the SH Network, shared hosting servers, control panels, other customers, or third-party systems without prior written authorization from SH.

Client may test systems assigned exclusively to Client only if:
1. The testing is lawful.
2. The testing does not affect SH Infrastructure, the SH Network, shared services, other customers, or third parties.
3. Client provides advance notice if SH reasonably requires it.
4. Client immediately stops testing if requested by SH.
SH may suspend, filter, or block testing activity that SH determines is unauthorized, harmful, excessive, or disruptive.
COPYRIGHT, DMCA, TRADEMARK, AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY COMPLAINTS

Client may not use the Services to violate the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, publicity rights, or other proprietary rights.

SH may respond to copyright, DMCA, trademark, counterfeit goods, or other intellectual property complaints involving Client’s Services.

Upon receipt of a valid complaint or notice, SH may forward the complaint to Client, request a response, disable access to allegedly infringing content, suspend Services, terminate Services, or take other action SH determines appropriate.

Client is responsible for responding to intellectual property complaints involving Client Data, Client websites, Client applications, Client users, or Client’s use of the Services.

Client agrees to cooperate with SH in resolving intellectual property complaints.

SH may terminate Services for repeat infringement or repeated intellectual property complaints.

Nothing in this section requires SH to adjudicate disputes between Client and a complaining party. SH may act based on the information available to it and may require Client to resolve disputes directly with the complaining party.
LAWFUL CONTENT AND NETWORK DISRUPTION

SH does not prohibit lawful content solely because of its subject matter, viewpoint, or category. Client is responsible for ensuring that Client Data and Client’s use of the Services comply with applicable law.

SH may suspend, restrict, remove, disable, null-route, or terminate Services if SH determines that Client Data, Client’s website, Client’s application, Client’s users, or activity related to the Services creates legal risk, security risk, abuse risk, network disruption, denial-of-service activity, excessive complaints, provider issues, IP reputation harm, service degradation, or risk to SH, SH Infrastructure, SH Network, third-party networks, or other customers.

This includes situations where otherwise lawful content becomes the target or source of attacks, abuse, excessive complaints, traffic floods, provider complaints, or other disruptive activity.
RESALE AND DOWNSTREAM USERS

Client is responsible for all use of the Services by Client’s downstream customers, users, resellers, subaccounts, tenants, and any other third-party using Services through Client.

Client must maintain accurate contact information for downstream users when reasonably necessary to investigate abuse, security issues, IP utilization, legal complaints, or service problems.

Client must promptly cooperate with SH to investigate and remediate abuse or violations involving downstream users.

If Client resells or provides Services to others, Client must ensure that downstream users comply with this AUP.

SH may suspend, restrict, or terminate Services if downstream user activity violates this AUP, harms SH, harms other customers, harms IP reputation, or creates legal, security, network, provider, or operational risk.
INVESTIGATION AND ENFORCEMENT

SH may investigate suspected violations of this AUP.

Client agrees to cooperate with SH during investigations and to provide information reasonably requested by SH, including logs, contact information, IP utilization details, user information, abuse remediation steps, or other information relevant to the issue.

SH may take enforcement action based on its reasonable judgment and the information available at the time. Enforcement actions may include:
- Warning Client.
- Requesting remediation.
- Requiring Client to remove content, patch software, change passwords, update systems, or disable functionality.
- Disabling scripts, files, websites, mailboxes, databases, ports, IP addresses, or accounts.
- Rate-limiting, filtering, blocking, or null-routing traffic.
- Suspending Services.
- Terminating Services.
- Reclaiming IP addresses.
- Reporting activity to law enforcement, providers, registries, carriers, payment processors, or affected third parties when legally required or reasonably appropriate.
SH is not required to provide advance notice before taking enforcement action if SH determines that immediate action is needed to protect SH, SH Infrastructure, SH Network, SH customers, third-party networks, providers, IP reputation, or the public.
SUSPENSION, FILTERING, NULL-ROUTING, AND TERMINATION

SH may suspend, filter, block, null-route, disable, quarantine, remove, restrict, or terminate Services if SH reasonably believes that Client has violated this AUP or that Client’s Services create legal, security, abuse, operational, network, provider, or IP reputation risk.

Suspension or restriction of Services does not waive Client’s payment obligations.

SH is not liable for any loss, damage, downtime, data loss, business interruption, email interruption, website interruption, or other harm resulting from enforcement action taken in good faith under this AUP.
COOPERATION AND REMEDIATION

Client must promptly remediate any violation of this AUP. Depending on the issue, remediation may include:
1. Removing abusive or illegal content.
2. Cleaning malware.
3. Updating WordPress, plugins, themes, scripts, applications, or operating systems.
4. Changing passwords or access credentials.
5. Disabling compromised accounts.
6. Securing email forms, mailboxes, SMTP credentials, or mailing scripts.
7. Disabling vulnerable services.
8. Reducing resource usage.
9. Providing IP utilization records.
10. Responding to legal, copyright, spam, phishing, malware, blacklist, or provider complaints.
SH may require evidence of remediation before restoring Services. SH may charge for remediation, investigation, cleanup, migration, support, blacklist response, or other work performed by SH unless expressly included in the applicable Accompanying Agreement.
POLICY UPDATES

SH may update this AUP from time to time.

Changes required by law, regulation, court order, provider requirement, carrier requirement, registry requirement, security necessity, abuse prevention, IP reputation protection, or operational necessity may become effective immediately upon posting or notice.

Other material changes will become effective upon renewal of the applicable Service unless Client accepts the changes earlier by continuing to use the Services after notice.