Acceptable Use Policy

1. Scope

This Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) applies to all SurgeNode services - VPS, FiveM VPS, Dedicated, and any add-ons. It forms part of our Terms of Service. By using the service you agree to follow this policy. Where there is any conflict, the Terms of Service take precedence on contractual matters.

2. Prohibited content

You must not host, store, or distribute through SurgeNode any content that is:

• Unlawful under UK law, including content that infringes copyright at scale, defames an identifiable person, or violates a court order.
• Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) - this is reported to the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) and / or the National Crime Agency without notice. Zero tolerance.
• Terrorist content as defined under the Terrorism Act 2006 and the Online Safety Act 2023, or content glorifying or inciting terrorism.
• Incitement to violence or hatred on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
• Phishing infrastructure, including pages impersonating banks, payment providers, postal services, government agencies, gaming platforms, or any party other than yourself.
• Stolen credentials, stolen data, or fraud-enablement material, including “combo lists,” carding tutorials, OpFor tooling.
• Malware, command-and-control infrastructure, or droppers.
• Doxing or content that publishes personal data of an identifiable person without their consent and without lawful basis.

We do not screen customer content proactively, but we will act on any credible report and on our own awareness.

3. Prohibited activities

You must not use the service to:

• Originate or facilitate denial-of-service attacks, including booter / stresser services and traffic amplification.
• Send unsolicited bulk email or SMS in violation of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR) or applicable foreign anti-spam law.
• Conduct unauthorised access against systems you do not own or have explicit written permission to test (the Computer Misuse Act 1990 takes a dim view of this).
• Run mass port scanning, vulnerability scanning, or brute-force activity against third parties.
• Run open SMTP relays, open proxies, or open DNS resolvers.
• Operate a TOR exit node without our prior written approval. Tor relays / bridges / hidden services are generally fine; an exit node generates abuse complaints that affect the whole network and must be coordinated.
• Run mass scraping in violation of a third party's terms of service or robots policy, particularly if it puts a meaningful load on the target.
• Engage in any other activity that is illegal under UK law or that materially harms third parties.

4. Resource abuse

• Cryptocurrency mining on shared VPS or shared infrastructure is prohibited without our prior written approval. Mining on a dedicated server you fully own (Unmanaged Linux) may be permitted on a case-by-case basis - talk to us first.
• Disk-filling, fork-bombing, runaway processes, and any sustained resource pattern that materially degrades neighbours' service on shared hypervisors.
• Anti-fingerprinting, residential-proxy, or proxy-rotation services at scale. These generate abuse complaints out of proportion to their revenue and often violate other parties' terms of service.
• Anything that intentionally generates abuse complaints, even if individually legal, in volumes that materially impact our network reputation.

5. Copyright complaints (UK)

We follow the UK procedure under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002. If you believe content on a customer's service infringes your copyright, send a notice to {{COPYRIGHT_EMAIL}} with:

• your name, contact email and address (and the rights-holder's, if you act for one);
• identification of the copyrighted work;
• the URL or sufficient detail to locate the allegedly infringing material;
• a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorised by the rights-holder, its agent, or the law;
• a statement, made under penalty of false declaration, that the information is accurate and that you are the rights-holder or are authorised to act for them.

Where we can substantiate a notice, we will pass it to the customer responsible and may remove or restrict access to the material pending response. Customers may submit a counter-notice. We do not adjudicate disputes between rights-holders and customers - that is a matter for the courts.

6. Reporting abuse

Email {{ABUSE_EMAIL}} with as much detail as you can - IPs, timestamps in UTC, log excerpts, packet captures, request headers. We target acknowledgement within 24 hours and an action update within 72 hours, faster for active attacks.

If you have come across CSAM, report it directly to the Internet Watch Foundation first, and CC us if it is hosted on our network. The IWF can act faster than we can on those reports.

7. Cooperation with law enforcement

We comply with lawful requests from UK authorities. Police forces and other authorised bodies should email {{LEGAL_EMAIL}} with their request and a copy of any underlying authorisation. We require lawful basis (a Schedule 2 DPA 2018 disclosure, a court order, or equivalent) before disclosing customer data.

For non-UK requests, we will assess them under UK law and route them through Mutual Legal Assistance channels where appropriate.

8. Consequences of breach

• Most AUP breaches start with a warning and a request to fix the issue within a stated time.
• Repeated or unresolved breaches lead to suspension of the service.
• Severe breaches - illegal content, active attack, fraud, CSAM, terrorism content - result in immediate suspension or termination without notice.
• AUP terminations are non-refundable.
• We may report serious abuse to relevant authorities and preserve relevant data and logs.

9. Changes to this policy

We update the AUP from time to time. We will publish the new version on this page with a new effective date and, for material changes that affect existing customers, give reasonable notice by email or a prominent notice on the site.