Acceptable Use Policy: What You Can Host

This Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) sets out what you may and may not do with OffshoreServ services. It is written in plain language on purpose. The guiding rule is simple: you can run anything that is legal in the jurisdiction where your server is located, and we act quickly against a short list of things that are not. This policy is part of our Terms of Service and applies to every plan and location.

1. What is allowed

You may use OffshoreServ for any purpose that is lawful in the location where your server runs. We host projects that many providers avoid, and we do not judge lawful content by its politics or its subject matter. Examples of welcome uses include:

Journalism, publishing, and research, including sensitive reporting and whistleblowing support.
Privacy and anonymity tools: VPNs, proxies, and Tor relays and bridges.
Tor exit relays, which are allowed. If you run one, follow the Tor Project's good-practice guidance, keep a reduced exit policy, and expect abuse reports; we handle those under our normal complaints process rather than by pulling the server. On a dedicated or GPU server, telling us in advance by ticket helps us route reports to you quickly.
Streaming and media delivery.
Adult content that is legal in the server's jurisdiction.
Application, game, and web hosting, self-hosted services, backups, and development.

Because the deciding factor is local law, the same content may be fine in one location and not in another. Our locations pages describe the legal character of each.

2. What is forbidden

The following are never allowed on our network, in any location. Items in section 2.1 are zero-tolerance and are acted on immediately, without the warning ladder in section 6.

2.1 Zero-tolerance

Child sexual abuse material. Removed at once and reported to the competent authorities.
Malware infrastructure: botnet command-and-control, stealers, ransomware panels, and exploit kits.
Spam and phishing.
Attacks launched from our network: denial-of-service attacks, mass scanning, and brute-force attempts.
Fraud against real people: carding, fake shops, account takeover, and extortion.

2.2 Also forbidden

Content that is illegal under the law of the server's jurisdiction. This is the general boundary, and it covers unlawful material of every kind, including infringing material where a local court or a valid EU DSA notice has established illegality.
IP or port scanning of third parties without their consent, and other unsolicited probing of networks you do not control.
Open resolvers or amplifiers left exposed: misconfigured DNS resolvers, NTP, memcached, or similar services that can be abused for reflection or amplification attacks. Secure them or keep them closed.
Cryptocurrency mining on shared VPS or RDP CPU. Mining is not permitted on shared or CPU-only VPS and RDP plans because it starves neighbors of resources. It is allowed on dedicated servers and GPU servers, which are provisioned for you alone.
Resource abuse on shared plans: sustained activity that degrades service for other customers on shared infrastructure.

3. Outbound email (SMTP)

Outbound SMTP on port 25 is closed by default on new services to protect our network's reputation and to make spam harder. If you have a legitimate need to send mail directly, request Open port 25 under Server actions on your server's page in the client area; we open it for accounts in good standing. Whether the port is open or closed, sending spam, unsolicited bulk email, or phishing is forbidden under section 2.1 and ends the service. Use authenticated submission and keep your lists clean.

4. Fair-use bandwidth

Bandwidth is unmetered under fair use. "Fair use" means normal, sustained application traffic for the plan you bought. On shared plans, do not run activity that consistently saturates shared links or CPU to the detriment of others. If your usage causes a problem, we will tell you first in your client area and suggest a fix, such as moving to a dedicated server, before taking any action. Dedicated and 10 Gbps plans are yours to use to their stated capacity. Legitimate high-bandwidth uses such as streaming, backups, and mirrors are welcome; the only limit is that shared infrastructure must stay usable for everyone on it.

5. Your server, your responsibility

You are responsible for the security and configuration of your own server, including patching, credentials, firewall rules, and the applications you install. A compromised customer server that is used to attack others, send spam, or host zero-tolerance content is still a violation of this AUP, so keep your systems hardened and up to date. Our hardening guide is a starting point.

6. Enforcement

For ordinary violations we prefer to fix the problem, not to punish. Our enforcement ladder is:

Warning. We explain the issue in your client area and give you a reasonable, stated window to resolve it.
Suspension. If it is not resolved, or if the activity is causing active harm, we suspend the service until it is fixed.
Termination. Repeated or unresolved violations end the service.

For the zero-tolerance categories in section 2.1, we skip the ladder and act immediately, which can mean instant suspension or termination and, where the law requires, a report to the authorities. Where we can, we tell you in your client area what happened and why, and we restore a service suspended in error.

7. Reporting abuse

Copyright notices and legal notices are handled under the DMCA & Complaints Policy. Please include the exact IP address or URL, a clear description of the problem, and timestamps with the time zone. We log every report, act on it under the process above, and count it in our transparency report.

8. Changes and questions

This AUP is part of our Terms of Service and may be updated as our network and the law evolve. The date at the top shows the current version, and material changes are notified as set out in the Terms. If you are not sure whether your project fits, the locations pages describe the law that applies in each jurisdiction, and our DMCA & Complaints Policy explains how complaints are handled. Customers with an active dedicated or GPU server can also ask us by ticket from the client area.