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Acceptable Use Policy

About this policy: This Acceptable Use Policy is provided by A+ Hosting Inc., a Nevada corporation, and applies to all services purchased through any of our three brand websites: APlusHosting.com, ServerPoint.com, and ColossusCloud.com. The terms below apply identically regardless of which brand website you signed up through. References to "we", "us", or "our" in this document mean A+ Hosting Inc.

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") governs the use of all services provided by A+ Hosting Inc. By using our services, you agree to comply with this AUP. This policy is incorporated by reference into our Terms of Service.

Violation of this AUP may result in suspension or termination of your services without refund.

The Internet evolves quickly, so we reserve the right to update this AUP at any time. Your continued use of our services means you accept any changes. This AUP does not cover every possible unacceptable use, and we reserve full discretion to decide what counts as unacceptable.

1. User obligations

By using our services, you represent and warrant to A+ Hosting Inc. that the content, materials, data, works, trademarks, service marks, trade names, links, advertising, and services placed on or transmitted through your account do not and will not violate any applicable law or regulation, and do not and will not infringe or misappropriate any proprietary, intellectual property, contract, or tort right of any person. You further represent and warrant that you own your account content and all proprietary or intellectual property rights in that content, or that you have express written authorization from the rights holder to copy, use, and display the content on and within your account. You represent that no content hosted on our infrastructure will be used in connection with any illegal activity.

You expressly (a) grant A+ Hosting Inc. permission to cache the entirety of the content you submit, store, distribute, or disseminate through our services and your website, including content supplied by third parties hosted with us, and (b) agree that such caching is not an infringement of any of your intellectual property rights or those of any third party.

2. Accounts

This Acceptable Use Policy applies to all accounts, sub-accounts, and alternative account names associated with your principal account. The terms of this AUP bind you from the moment a Client Portal account is created in your name and apply throughout the term of any service, regardless of whether any specific service has been purchased, activated, or is being provided as a trial, free month, or any other promotional offer. You are responsible for the use of each account, whether used under any name or by any person, and for ensuring full compliance with this AUP by all users of that account. An A+ Hosting Inc. account may not be transferred to another person or entity without our prior written approval.

3. Prohibited activities

By using our services, you agree:

  • not to violate any applicable local, state, national, or international laws, regulations, or ordinances;
  • not to infringe any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other proprietary or intellectual property right of any third party, or distribute pirated software, music, movies, or other copyrighted material, or sell counterfeit goods, or operate fraudulent schemes;
  • not to transmit any unsolicited commercial or bulk email, or engage in spamming, mail bombing, or any similar activity, whether from our servers or referencing websites hosted on our servers;
  • not to host, distribute, or transmit malware, viruses, trojans, worms, or other malicious code, or operate phishing pages or fraudulent websites designed to deceive users;
  • not to host content promoting violence, terrorism, illegal activities, self-harm, or suicide;
  • not to host child sexual abuse material (CSAM), which we report immediately to authorities;
  • not to make, attempt, or allow any unauthorized access to our website, servers, your own account, or the accounts of other customers, or to circumvent any authentication or security measures;
  • not to interfere with services to any user, host, or network;
  • not to initiate or participate in denial-of-service or distributed denial-of-service attacks, port scans, network probes, or other invasive procedures against our infrastructure or that of any third party;
  • not to forge packet headers, message headers, signatures, or any identifying mark or code, or otherwise deceive others as to the true identity of the sender, user, or account holder;
  • not to run open proxies, open relays, open DNS resolvers, or TOR exit nodes without our prior authorization;
  • not to engage in cryptocurrency mining, farming, plotting, or any other cryptocurrency-related computational activities on any of our services, including shared hosting, VPS, and dedicated servers;
  • not to run processes that consume excessive CPU, memory, or bandwidth, or that negatively impact other customers or our infrastructure;
  • not to use shared hosting resources for purposes other than hosting websites, including not using shared hosting storage for backup or archival of data unrelated to your hosted website, mirrors for other websites, file storage or distribution services, or off-site backup for other servers or services;
  • not to disable, block, or reconfigure out-of-band management interfaces (IPMI, iLO, iDRAC, or similar) on dedicated servers, not to configure firewalls or security settings that prevent our staff from remotely accessing your server for maintenance or support, and not to disable or remove remote access software required for managed services;
  • not to repeatedly, constantly, or systematically create and delete virtual machines for the purpose of obtaining new IP addresses to circumvent another company's terms of service, abuse policies, filtering, or blocking systems;
  • not to provide, share, or redistribute the resources we provide to third parties at no cost, including operating a free email service or providing free hosting to others;
  • not to host harassment, threats, hate speech, discriminatory content, defamatory material, false statements intended to harm reputation, or non-consensual intimate imagery;
  • not to host IRC bots, proxy scripts, traffic-relaying programs, warez, ROM emulators, pirated software distribution, image hosting / file-dump / mirror / banner-ad services, topsites, commercial audio or video streaming services, torrent trackers or P2P portals, escrow services, High-Yield Interest Programs (HYIP) or related investment schemes, bank debentures or prime-bank programs, AutoSurf sites or pyramid / multi-level marketing schemes, lottery or gambling sites (without prior approval), MUDs / RPGs / persistent game servers on shared hosting, hacking-focused sites, archives, or programs, IP scanners, brute-force programs, mail bombers, spam scripts, or forum sites linking to warez content;
  • not to sell controlled substances without proof of appropriate permits;
  • not to violate the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act of 2008 or similar legislation, or promote, encourage, or engage in the sale or distribution of prescription medication without a valid prescription;
  • not to engage in or instigate actions that cause harm to A+ Hosting Inc., our infrastructure, or other customers, including actions that result in any of our IP addresses being blacklisted by any online spam database.

If your actions require our staff to perform physical work on your server (remote hands), you will be charged at our technical and remote hands rate (currently $250/hour, with a one-hour minimum). See our Terms of Service for full details.

A+ Hosting Inc. reserves the right, in our sole discretion, to investigate any account for violations of this policy and to remove any content we determine to be prohibited. No backup copies will be retained of removed content.

4. Email and communication standards

When sending email through our services, you must:

  • Comply with the CAN-SPAM Act and applicable anti-spam laws
  • Only send email to recipients who have opted in to receive it
  • Include a valid physical postal address in all commercial emails
  • Provide a clear and functional unsubscribe mechanism
  • Honor unsubscribe requests within 10 business days
  • Not use purchased, harvested, or third-party email lists

Liquidated damages for spam. If you transmit, or are otherwise connected with, any spam or unsolicited bulk email through our services, you agree to pay us liquidated damages of $3.00 for each piece of spam or unsolicited bulk email transmitted from or otherwise connected with your account, in addition to any other remedies available to us. The parties agree that this amount represents a reasonable estimate of the damages incurred and is not a penalty.

Spam and virus filtering. Your email service includes automatic spam and virus filtering. We do not guarantee that this filtering is 100% effective or error-free. Spam, malware, or other unwanted messages may sometimes pass through, and legitimate messages may sometimes be flagged or blocked. We are not liable for any loss, damage, or missed communication resulting from the operation of our spam and virus filters.

Email is not archival storage. Email is provided for routine business communication, not as long-term archival storage. You are solely responsible for maintaining independent backup copies of any emails, attachments, or content you wish to preserve. We are not liable for any loss, deletion, or destruction of email content for any reason.

Mailbox usage restrictions. You may not use email mailboxes to store audio, video, or other large files unrelated to ordinary business communication, or to back up hosting accounts or other data.

Intended use. Our email service is provided for ordinary website and small-business communication. It is designed for sending and receiving the volume of mail a person, or a small team, sends in the normal course of business. It is not designed, sized, or licensed for use as a mailing-list service, bulk-email service, transactional-email service, or marketing-automation platform.

Mailing lists prohibited. You may not use our email service to send mail to a list of recipients beyond your immediate working correspondents, regardless of whether those recipients have opted in. This includes newsletters, promotional broadcasts, automated drip campaigns, transactional notifications generated by your website or application, and any other use that involves sending mail to an audience larger than what a real person handles by hand. If you need to send mail at that scale, use a dedicated email service provider built for it.

Volume limits. We enforce send limits at the mail-server level to protect our infrastructure and the deliverability of mail for all customers. We do not publish specific numeric limits because the limits are tuned over time based on infrastructure conditions and abuse patterns. Mail that exceeds a limit may be queued, delayed, throttled, rate-limited, or silently rejected without notice. We are not liable for any consequence of such throttling or rejection, including missed messages, lost transactions, or business impact.

Enforcement. Patterns of use consistent with mailing-list or bulk-mail operation, including a high volume of recipients, frequent sends to large recipient lists, sends to many addresses that bounce, or use of mailing-list software, may result in suspension or termination under §9 of this AUP, in addition to any liquidated damages for spam already set out in this Section 4.

5. Adult content

Adult content is permitted only on dedicated servers or VPS with prior written approval from us. Adult content is strictly prohibited on shared hosting. All adult content must comply with applicable laws and must not involve minors in any way.

6. High-risk activities

The following activities require prior written approval and may be subject to additional terms: operating proxy services, high-volume email marketing (even with opt-in lists), gaming or gambling websites, file-sharing or storage services, and streaming media services with high bandwidth requirements.

VPN services. Our network may not be used to provide VPN services to your clients or any other third parties. You may, however, use our services to operate a VPN for your own personal or internal business use.

7. Your responsibilities

Security. For unmanaged services, you are solely responsible for securing your server, including installing security patches, configuring firewalls, and protecting against threats. Even for managed services, we cannot guarantee security. No system is 100% secure. You are always responsible for your own applications, passwords, and access credentials. See our Terms of Service §10 for complete details.

Scripts and permissions. You are solely responsible for ensuring that all programs and scripts installed under your account are secure and that file and directory permissions are properly set. We recommend setting permissions as restrictively as possible. You are solely responsible for all actions taken under your account, including any compromise of login credentials.

Password security. Your username and password must be kept secure. We reserve the right to audit login credentials for security purposes. If your credentials are found to be insufficiently secure, we may notify you to change them, or we may change them and provide the new credentials to you. Your account may be suspended until you agree to use a more secure password.

Sensitive information. When opening a support ticket, you should share sensitive information, such as passwords, full payment card numbers, or identification scans, only through the confidential information channels provided in the Client Portal. Information voluntarily shared outside those channels is at your own risk, and we disclaim responsibility for any resulting harm.

Backups. You are solely responsible for maintaining backups of all your data in a location independent of us. Even if we offer backup services, backups can fail or may not contain the data you need. We are not liable for any data loss under any circumstances. See our Terms of Service §10 for complete details.

Your data, your responsibility, your service choice. You are solely responsible for selecting a service tier (shared hosting, VPS, dedicated server, or other) appropriate for your needs, including for the type, sensitivity, and regulatory requirements of any data you store or process. We generally do not monitor, inspect, or access customer content, applications, databases, or files in the ordinary course of business. We are not responsible for any consequences resulting from your choice of service tier or the data you place on it.

End users. If you provide hosting services to others, you are responsible for ensuring they comply with this AUP. You will be held responsible for the actions of your clients in matters described in this AUP. If you provide hosting services to others, you must (a) maintain your own designated DMCA agent and publish your own takedown procedure, (b) act promptly to disable access to allegedly infringing material upon receipt of a compliant notice, and (c) take immediate corrective action when notified by us of any AUP violation by your customers.

Content monitoring. You are responsible for all content on your account, even if uploaded by third parties. You are also responsible for the quality and performance of all content, and for ensuring compatibility with our server hardware and software.

Legal compliance. We do not provide legal advice regarding the contents of your website or account. All information, articles, tutorials, and tech support advice are provided in good faith and do not constitute official requirements or statements. You are solely responsible for ensuring your content complies with applicable laws by consulting a competent legal advisor.

Third-party security notices. It is your responsibility to stay informed of security advisories, patches, and notices for any third-party software you use, including but not limited to operating systems (such as Microsoft Windows or Linux distributions), control panels (such as cPanel or Plesk), CMS platforms (such as WordPress), and any applications you install. We do not monitor or send notices regarding third-party software vulnerabilities. You should subscribe directly to the security notifications of the products you use.

Timely security patching. You must apply critical security patches and updates to operating systems, control panels, and applications running on your unmanaged services within seven (7) days of the patch becoming available, or sooner if the vendor or industry guidance requires it. Failure to apply critical patches in a timely manner is a violation of this AUP and may result in suspension or termination, in addition to any liability you may have for damages caused by an unpatched system. For managed services, we will apply critical security patches to operating system and control panel software we manage on a commercially reasonable schedule. This does not relieve you of responsibility for patches to applications, themes, plugins, or any software you install.

8. Reporting violations

To report a violation of this AUP, please contact us through our Contact Us page with:

  • Your contact information
  • The IP address or domain involved
  • A description of the violation
  • Any supporting evidence (logs, screenshots, headers)

We take all reports seriously and will investigate promptly. For DMCA takedown notices, see our DMCA Policy.

9. Enforcement

We reserve the right to take the following actions in response to AUP violations:

  • Issue a warning requiring immediate corrective action. Warnings must be replied to within 24 hours.
  • Suspend access to the service pending investigation
  • Remove or disable access to prohibited content
  • Terminate the service without refund for serious or repeated violations
  • Report illegal activities to law enforcement authorities

The severity of enforcement depends on the nature and severity of the violation, your history, and other relevant factors.

9.1 Clean-up fee

You will be charged a clean-up fee of $60 with no advance notice if you have engaged in any activity that violates this AUP. This fee compensates us for the time and resources required to investigate and address violations.

Security-related violations that require us to investigate compromised servers, malware infections, phishing pages, or unauthorized network activity may incur a higher investigation fee starting at $300, plus our hourly rate for any additional time and resources required, in addition to or instead of the standard $60 clean-up fee.

9.2 Re-activation fee

If your account is suspended for violation of this AUP and you wish to re-activate it, a re-activation fee of $60 per service will be applied.

9.3 Termination after suspension

We have the right to terminate any hosting service or account that has been suspended for any reason for more than 5 calendar days after the suspension date, unless you have taken corrective measures to remove the initial suspension threat or violation. Any backup copies of the hosting account will be permanently deleted upon termination and no refund will be due.

This 5-day rule applies to AUP suspensions and is independent of the non-payment grace periods set out in our Terms of Service.

9.4 No credits or refunds

We do not issue credits or refunds for outages incurred as a result of our decision to suspend or terminate services for a violation of this AUP. Any account terminated due to policy violations will not receive a refund of any kind, including for the current month of service, prepaid future service periods, setup fees, or any other amounts. Such accounts do not qualify for any money-back guarantee.

9.5 Emergency intervention

In extreme cases where we believe your server may be causing harm to other customers, our network, or third parties, or where we believe your server may have been compromised, we reserve the right to:

  • Attempt to log in to your server to investigate and resolve the matter, or
  • Suspend the server until we can reach you and resolve the matter.

9.6 Unsupported software fees

If you operate software, operating systems, control panels, or applications that have reached end-of-life, are no longer supported by the original vendor, or that require unusual effort to support due to their age or configuration, we may impose unsupported software maintenance fees with fourteen (14) days notice. These fees are in addition to your regular service fees.

9.7 Excessive abuse handling fees

Where your account generates excessive or repeated DMCA notices, trademark complaints, abuse reports, or other compliance matters that consume our staff time, we may charge you for the reasonable costs of investigating, processing, and responding to those matters. Fees are based on the overall pattern of activity rather than any single notice, and are billed at our administrative rate of $45.00 per hour. Continued patterns of abuse may also result in suspension or termination under this Section 9.

10. Communications Decency Act

Sites hosted on our services are regulated by U.S. law. Under Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act, we do not remove allegedly defamatory material from domains hosted on our services. The only exception is if the material has been found to be defamatory by a court, as evidenced by a court order.

We are not in a position to investigate and validate or invalidate the veracity of individual defamation claims, which is why we rely on the legal system and courts to determine whether material is defamatory. Where a court order indicates material is defamatory, libelous, or slanderous, we will disable access to it. Where a U.S. court has placed an injunction against specified content or material, we will comply and remove or disable access to the material in question.

Section 230(c) of the Communications Decency Act provides that Internet service providers like us are republishers, not publishers, of content. Our service merely provides a hosting platform and space on which to host content. Any creation or publication of content on our services is the sole responsibility of the third-party user that creates or publishes it. We should not be held liable for any allegedly defamatory, offensive, or harassing content published on sites hosted under our web hosting services.

11. Responsible disclosure

We value the work of security researchers who help us keep our infrastructure and customers safe. If you discover a security vulnerability in our systems, we encourage you to report it to us responsibly.

11.1 Scope

This policy applies to vulnerabilities found in:

  • Our websites (aplushosting.com, serverpoint.com, colossuscloud.com)
  • Our Client Portal
  • Our APIs and management interfaces
  • Our network infrastructure

This policy does not apply to customer-operated servers, customer applications, or third-party services accessed through our platform.

Out of scope. This policy does not apply to: denial-of-service attacks, social engineering, physical attacks, theoretical vulnerabilities without demonstrated impact, third-party library issues without application-level impact, missing security headers without exploitability, and reports from automated scanners without manual validation.

11.2 Guidelines

When reporting a vulnerability, please:

  • Do not exploit the vulnerability beyond what is necessary to confirm it exists
  • Do not access, modify, or delete data belonging to other customers
  • Do not perform denial-of-service attacks or degrade our services
  • Give us reasonable time to address the issue before any public disclosure
  • Do not use automated scanning tools that generate excessive traffic

11.3 Safe harbor

If you conduct security research in good faith and in strict compliance with these guidelines, we generally will not pursue legal action against you. We reserve the right to determine, in our sole discretion, whether your conduct qualifies as good-faith research consistent with this policy. Conduct that goes beyond these guidelines, that involves accessing or modifying customer data, or that violates applicable law is not authorized and is not protected by this safe harbor.

We do not offer monetary rewards or bug bounties for security vulnerability reports. Recognition is limited to a thank-you message and, if you wish, public acknowledgment in our security advisories.

11.4 How to report

Please report vulnerabilities through our Contact Us page. Include a detailed description of the vulnerability, steps to reproduce it, and any supporting evidence such as screenshots or proof-of-concept code.

12. Transfer of content

You are solely responsible for retrieving any of your content from our infrastructure before you cancel or terminate your services. Once your services are cancelled or terminated, you will no longer have access to your account, your content, or any data stored under it, and we may delete that content at any time. You should complete any backups, downloads, or migrations before initiating cancellation. We are not responsible for content that you fail to retrieve prior to cancellation or termination.

13. Third-party software

A+ Hosting Inc. may make third-party software available to you, including operating systems, control panels, content management systems, applications, and similar tools. All such third-party software is provided on an as-is basis and is governed by the license terms of the respective vendor. We make no warranty, express or implied, regarding any third-party software, and we are not responsible for any loss, damage, or interruption arising from its use, configuration, or failure. Your use of third-party software is at your own risk.

14. Network addresses

Each VM is provisioned with a defined number of IP addresses for use on its network interface. Customers may not configure additional addresses beyond those explicitly assigned. Configurations that result in a VM presenting an excessive number of distinct addresses on our network, whether through manual configuration, bridged internal networks, container or virtualization platforms, or third-party software, are prohibited.

Violations may result in immediate suspension of the affected VM. Repeated or large-scale violations are grounds for account termination without refund. We enforce this limit at the network layer; non-compliant traffic is silently dropped.

15. Conduct in support interactions

Respectful treatment of our staff. Our staff are entitled to professional and respectful treatment in every support channel we make available, including the support ticket system in the Client Portal. By using our support services, you agree to treat our employees and contractors with courtesy and respect, to refrain from verbal abuse, threats, harassment, intimidation, or discriminatory language, to provide truthful information about your account and the issue being reported, and to keep communications focused on the issue at hand.

Consequences of misconduct. Conduct that violates these expectations is grounds for, at our sole discretion: a warning, closure of the current support session or ticket, restriction of access to non-essential support channels, or escalation under our Terms of Service and §9 of this AUP, up to and including suspension or termination of your account without refund.

Escalation. If you are not satisfied with a support interaction, you may request supervisor review by replying to the same support ticket or by contacting us through our Contact Us page.

16. Changes to this policy

We may update this AUP from time to time. Material changes will be posted on our website. Your continued use of our services after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

Last Updated: May 2026