Acceptable Use Policy

Horizon Hosting Limited (trading as "Horizon Hosting") Company Number: 13693820 Registered in England and Wales

Last Updated: 12 November 2026

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This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP", "Policy") forms part of, and is incorporated by reference into, our Terms and Conditions (the "Terms"). It governs your, and any of your authorised users' ("Users"), access to and use of the Websites and the Services, including any hosting, virtual private server, colocation, dedicated server, domain, or related infrastructure services we provide. Capitalised terms not defined in this Policy have the meaning given to them in the Glossary.

By accessing or using the Websites or Services, you confirm that you and any Users who access the Services through your account are responsible for compliance with this Policy, and you agree to be bound by it. If you do not agree, you must not access or use the Websites or Services.

1. Changes to this Policy

We may revise this Policy at any time by updating this document and the "Last Updated" date shown above, in accordance with Clause 1 of the Terms. You waive any right to receive individual notice of each change, and it is your responsibility to review this Policy periodically. Your continued use of the Websites or Services after a revised version is posted constitutes your acceptance of the revised Policy.

2. Illegal Activity and Prohibited Content

You may access and use the Websites and Services for lawful purposes only. You are responsible for any data, content, or material that you or your Users access, store, process, transmit, or distribute using the Websites or Services.

We prohibit the use of the Websites or Services for the storage, processing, transmission, or distribution of any data or material that is unlawful under the laws of England and Wales or any other jurisdiction applicable to you or the recipients of that material, including without limitation:

• Infringement — material that infringes any intellectual property or other proprietary right, including copyright, trade mark, patent, or trade secret, whether through unauthorised copying, distribution, or storage of software, images, video, or other works. See our Intellectual Property Policy for how we handle infringement reports.
• Offensive or Unlawful Material — material that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, threatening, harmful, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, obscene, or otherwise objectionable.
• Content Endangering Minors — any material that sexually exploits, endangers, or otherwise harms minors, or that is unlawful under the Protection of Children Act 1978, the Sexual Offences Act 2003, or any other applicable UK legislation intended to protect the health, safety, or well-being of minors. We will report such material to the appropriate authorities, including the Internet Watch Foundation and law enforcement, and will suspend or terminate access immediately and without notice in accordance with Clause 7.

3. General Prohibited Conduct

In addition to Clause 2, you agree not to, and not to permit any User to:

1. systematically retrieve data or content from the Websites to create or compile a collection, compilation, database, or directory, without our written permission;
2. make unauthorised use of the Websites, including collecting the usernames or email addresses of other users by electronic or other means for the purpose of sending unsolicited communications, or creating accounts by automated means or under false pretences;
3. use a purchasing agent, automated bot, or third party to place orders on your behalf where this is intended to circumvent purchase limits, promotional restrictions, or verification processes;
4. use the Websites (excluding content you lawfully host via the Services for your own business) to advertise or offer goods or services unrelated to your account, without our permission;
5. circumvent, disable, or otherwise interfere with any security-related feature of the Websites, Services, or our infrastructure, including features that enforce resource limits, licensing checks, or access restrictions;
6. engage in unauthorised framing of, or deep-linking to, the Websites in a manner that misrepresents your affiliation with us;
7. trick, defraud, or mislead us, our staff, or other users, including any attempt to obtain sensitive account information such as passwords (phishing);
8. make improper use of our support services, including submitting false reports of abuse, misconduct, or infringement;
9. use scripts, bots, data mining tools, or similar automated means to interact with the Websites, our client portal, or our administrative systems in a manner not authorised by us; this clause does not restrict your lawful use of the Services to run your own applications, bots, or automated processes as part of your hosted environment;
10. interfere with, disrupt, or place an undue burden on the Websites, the Services, or the networks or systems connected to them, including those of other customers;
11. impersonate another person, or use another user's account or identity without authorisation;
12. use information obtained from the Websites or Services to harass, abuse, or harm another person;
13. copy, scrape, or republish material from our Websites in order to compete with us, or otherwise exploit our own Website content or Marks for a revenue-generating purpose; for the avoidance of doubt, this clause does not restrict your use of the Services to operate any lawful business, including a hosting, technology, or competing business — it applies only to reuse of our own Website content and branding;
14. decipher, decompile, disassemble, or reverse engineer any software forming part of the Websites or any control panel, panel software, or other tool we provide, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by applicable law;
15. attempt to bypass any measure designed to prevent or restrict access to the Websites, Services, or any portion of them;
16. harass, threaten, or intimidate any of our employees, contractors, or agents;
17. remove or alter any copyright, trade mark, or other proprietary notice from any of our Content;
18. copy or adapt any software forming part of the Websites or our control panels, including HTML, JavaScript, PHP, or other code, except as expressly permitted;
19. upload, store, or transmit any virus, malware, or other harmful code, or engage in spamming or excessive/abusive messaging, that interferes with any party's use of the Websites, Services, or our infrastructure, or that impairs, disrupts, or interferes with their operation;
20. upload or transmit, via the Websites (as distinct from your own hosted environment, which is governed by your own applicable privacy and cookie obligations), any passive or active information-collection mechanism not disclosed to us, such as web bugs or spyware; and
21. use the Websites or Services in a manner inconsistent with any applicable law or regulation.

4. Network Abuse, Fair Use and Cost Recovery

4.1 Network and IP Abuse

You must not use the Websites or Services to originate, participate in, or facilitate any of the following, whether directed at us, another customer, or any third party:

1. denial-of-service or distributed denial-of-service attacks, or any activity intended to disrupt, degrade, or deny the availability of any network, system, or service;
2. port scanning, network probing, or vulnerability scanning of systems you do not own or have explicit written authorisation to test;
3. sending unsolicited bulk email ("spam"), or operating an open mail relay, open proxy, or open resolver;
4. IP or email spoofing, or any other activity intended to falsify the origin of traffic or communications; or
5. any other activity that we reasonably consider is likely to cause our IP addresses, mail servers, or network ranges to be listed on a spam, malware, or abuse blocklist, or that otherwise damages our network or IP reputation.

4.2 Fair Use

Where a Service is described as "unlimited", "unmetered", or otherwise without a stated numerical limit on a resource (such as bandwidth, storage, or requests), that description is subject to a fair use standard. "Fair use" means resource consumption that is reasonably consistent with the typical, legitimate use of that resource by other customers on a comparable Service tier, and that does not degrade the performance, availability, or security of our infrastructure for other customers.

Whether a particular pattern of use exceeds fair use is determined by us, acting reasonably and having regard to actual usage patterns across comparable customers. Where we consider your use exceeds fair use, we will, where reasonably practicable, contact you first to request that you reduce or adjust your usage before taking further action. We may, in accordance with Clause 7, suspend or restrict the affected Service, require you to move to a different Service tier, or apply reasonable technical measures to manage resource consumption, if usage is not brought within fair use limits.

4.3 Cost Recovery

Where a breach of this Policy by you or a User causes us to incur reasonable costs or expenses, we may invoice you for those costs, in addition to any other remedy available to us under this Policy or the Terms, including suspension or termination under Clause 7 and indemnification under Clause 15 of the Terms. Recoverable costs may include:

(a) third-party costs, such as blocklist or IP reputation delisting fees, the cost of replacing IP addresses or network ranges that have suffered reputational damage, or fees for engaging third-party mitigation services in response to an attack originating from or facilitated by your account; and

(b) our own reasonable administrative and investigative costs, including staff time spent identifying, investigating, mitigating, and remediating the breach, calculated by reference to the time actually spent, multiplied by our then-current standard hourly rate for the staff involved (or, at our election, a fixed administrative handling fee that we publish from time to time in place of itemised time costs).

Documentation. For costs claimed under (b), we will keep a record showing, for each item of work: the date, the staff member or role involved, a brief description of the work performed, and the time spent. For costs claimed under (a), we will retain the relevant third-party invoice, receipt, or confirmation. We will provide this supporting evidence to you on reasonable request, and any invoice we raise under this Clause will include a summary of the costs claimed.

Suspension until paid. In addition to our general right to suspend the Services under Clause 9 of the Terms, where we raise an invoice under this Clause we may suspend the affected Service until it is paid in full. Save where the breach giving rise to the invoice is ongoing, or is a repeat of a previous breach, we will first send you the invoice and supporting summary and allow you a reasonable period to pay it or raise a good-faith dispute before suspending the Service on this ground. This Clause does not limit any other right we have to suspend or terminate the Services for non-payment of any amount due under the Terms.

This Clause reflects recovery of our actual and reasonable costs and is not a penalty.

5. Content You Host or Submit

Where you store, transmit, process, or otherwise make available any data, files, applications, or other material using the Services, or submit any material to us via the Websites (in either case, "Content"), you represent and warrant that:

1. the storage, transmission, processing, public display, or performance of your Content, and its access, downloading, or copying by others, does not and will not infringe the copyright, patent, trade mark, trade secret, or moral rights of any third party;
2. you are the creator and owner of your Content, or you hold the necessary licences, rights, consents, and permissions to store, transmit, process, and make it available using the Services or Websites;
3. you hold the written consent of every identifiable individual featured in your Content to use their name or likeness in the manner your Content is used;
4. your Content is not false, inaccurate, or misleading in a way likely to cause harm;
5. your Content does not constitute unsolicited or unauthorised advertising, promotional material, pyramid schemes, chain letters, spam, or mass unsolicited communications;
6. your Content is not obscene, lewd, violent, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise unlawful;
7. your Content does not ridicule, mock, disparage, intimidate, or abuse any individual;
8. your Content does not advocate the violent overthrow of any government, or incite or threaten physical harm against any person;
9. your Content does not violate any applicable law or regulation;
10. your Content does not violate the privacy or publicity rights of any third party;
11. your Content does not contain material that solicits personal information from, or exploits, anyone under the age of 18, whether sexually, violently, or otherwise, and complies with Clause 2 above; and
12. your Content does not contain material that is discriminatory or abusive on the basis of a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, including race, sex, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation, gender reassignment, age, pregnancy or maternity, or marriage or civil partnership.

We do not actively monitor Content you store or transmit via the Services, save as described in Clause 10. You remain solely responsible for your Content, and you agree that we bear no liability for any Content stored, transmitted, or made available by you or your Users, in accordance with Clause 13 of the Terms (Disclaimer of Warranties).

6. Complaints

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate access to the Services in response to a complaint. Where we receive a complaint, whether from an internet user, an industry body, a regulator, or any other party, we are not required to determine the validity of the complaint before acting under this Policy, and we have no obligation to forward the complaint to you, or to identify the complaining party.

7. Suspension or Termination of Services

Where you or a User engage in conduct, or a pattern of conduct, that breaches this Policy or is otherwise illegal or improper, we may suspend or terminate the Services, or a User's access to them, in accordance with Clause 9 of the Terms and Clause 3 of our Support Policy.

Where reasonably practicable, we will attempt to notify you of the breach and request that it cease. However, where our operations are threatened, where the conduct is illegal, or in cases of suspected fraud, harassment, or infringement, we reserve the right to suspend or terminate the Services, or access to them, immediately and without notice.

We do not undertake, and have no obligation, to monitor or police activity occurring via the Services, and we have no liability to any party, including you or your Users, arising from a breach of this Policy by you or a User.

8. Investigation and Enforcement

We reserve the right to enforce this Policy through investigation, litigation, and, where appropriate, referral for prosecution. We are not obliged to monitor or exercise editorial control over material stored, processed, or distributed using the Services, but we reserve the right to do so. We may take any action we consider appropriate against you or a User for a breach of this Policy.

9. Cooperation with Law Enforcement

We may access and disclose information, including transactional and account information, relating to your or a User's access to and use of the Services, for any lawful reason, including to comply with the law or a lawful request from a public authority, to protect our rights or property, or to protect users from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful conduct.

10. Monitoring and Filters

We reserve the right to install and use software to detect and report breaches of this Policy, including software designed to filter, restrict, or terminate access to the Services. By using the Services, and by permitting Users to use the Services through your account, you consent to us collecting information reasonably necessary to enforce this Policy.

11. Governing Law and Your Rights

This Policy is governed by, and forms part of an agreement governed by, the laws of England and Wales, and is subject to Clause 16 of the Terms (Governing Law, Jurisdiction and Dispute Resolution). If you are a consumer, nothing in this Policy affects your statutory rights, including under the Consumer Rights Act 2015.

12. Contact Us

If you have any questions about this Policy, or wish to report a suspected breach, please contact us at:

Horizon Hosting Limited (trading as Horizon Hosting) 11 Ann Wicks Road Frampton On Severn Gloucester GL2 7HH United Kingdom

Company Number: 13693820 Email: [email protected] Phone: +44 20 3137 9373