Legal / 06

Acceptable Use Policy

• Last updated 14 October 2026
• Version 0.1
• SCB Network Ltd

Draft. This document has not yet been reviewed by a solicitor and is not in force. Highlighted items are details SCB Network still has to confirm.

This policy protects our customers, our network and the wider internet. It applies to everyone who uses our services, including your own customers and users. It forms part of our Terms of Service.

01Illegal and harmful content

You must not use our services to store, publish, send or link to:

• child sexual abuse material. We report it immediately to the Internet Watch Foundation and the police and close the account without notice;
• content that is illegal in the United Kingdom, including terrorist content, content encouraging violence or self-harm, and illegal hate speech;
• material that infringes copyright, trade marks or other intellectual property rights, including pirated software, media or licence keys;
• content that harasses, threatens or defames others, or discloses someone's personal data without a lawful basis;
• fraudulent offers, counterfeit goods, unlicensed gambling, or the sale of illegal drugs, weapons or stolen data.

02Security abuse

• No phishing sites, malware, ransomware, exploit kits or botnet command-and-control servers.
• No attempts to access systems, accounts or data without permission, including port scanning, vulnerability scanning or password guessing against systems that are not yours.
• No denial-of-service attacks or "stresser" services, and nothing designed to disrupt other networks.
• No open proxies, open mail relays or open DNS resolvers.
• No forged packet, email or DNS headers, or impersonation of another person or organisation.

Security testing is allowed only on systems you own or have written permission to test. Tell us in advance if the testing involves our network.

03Email and spam

• Send marketing email only to people who have given consent or with whom the law allows it (the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003), and include a working way to unsubscribe.
• No bought, rented or scraped mailing lists.
• No advertising of your services through spam sent from elsewhere ("spamvertising").
• Keep complaint and bounce rates at a level that does not put our mail servers' reputation at risk.

04Fair use of shared resources

On shared, WordPress and reseller hosting, servers are shared with other customers. You must not:

• use more CPU, memory, disk activity or processes than your plan allows, or run scripts that affect other customers;
• mine cryptocurrency, or run game servers, IRC servers, torrent clients or long-running background processes;
• use the hosting space mainly as file storage, backup storage or a file-sharing service;
• run bulk download or streaming services that are not part of a normal website.

"Unlimited" features are subject to fair use: what a normal website of that kind would need. If your use outgrows your plan, we will contact you and suggest a suitable plan before taking any action, unless the impact on others is urgent.

05Virtual servers

On a VPS or VDS you are responsible for keeping the server secure: install updates, use strong credentials or keys, and close services you do not need. A compromised server that attacks others or sends spam will be isolated until it is cleaned. Cryptocurrency mining is not allowed on VPS or VDS plans unless your plan explicitly allows it.

06What we do about breaches

We investigate reports and, depending on how serious the breach is, we may:

• contact you and ask you to fix the problem within a reasonable time;
• remove or disable access to specific content;
• suspend the service, immediately if there is a risk to others or a legal requirement;
• end the service and close the account for serious or repeated breaches;
• report illegal activity to the police or other authorities and cooperate with them.

Where we act because of a breach, you are responsible for any costs it causes, such as removing our IP addresses from blacklists.

07Reporting abuse

To report abuse coming from our network, email [email protected] [or a dedicated [email protected] address] with the evidence: the URLs, IP addresses, timestamps (with time zone) and full email headers where relevant. For copyright complaints, include the work you say is infringed, the infringing material, and confirmation that you own the rights or act for the owner.