Acceptable Use Policy
Effective [DATE]
This is the document we actually enforce. It is short on purpose. The short version: run your game server, don't attack anyone, don't host anything illegal, and don't do things that get our IP addresses blocklisted.
1. Scope
This policy applies to everyone using Uptick Host. It forms part of our Terms of Service. Breaching it can result in warning, suspension, or immediate termination without refund, depending on severity.
2. Absolutely prohibited — immediate termination, no notice, no refund
- Child sexual abuse material, or any content that sexualises minors. We report this to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and to law enforcement, and we terminate immediately and permanently.
- Participating in or facilitating attacks on others — DDoS attacks, booters, stressers, amplification or reflection services, packet floods, or any tool whose purpose is to disrupt someone else's service.
- Malware, botnet command-and-control, phishing infrastructure, credential-stuffing tools, carding, or fraud infrastructure.
- Unauthorised access attempts against anyone — port scanning, vulnerability scanning, brute-forcing, or exploiting systems you do not own.
- Content that is illegal under US federal law or the law of Washington.
3. Prohibited — warning, then suspension
- Spam. Sending unsolicited bulk email, or running anything that causes our IP addresses to be listed on a blocklist. Outbound SMTP (port 25) is blocked by default on all servers.
- IRC servers, IRC bouncers, and IRC bots. Prohibited outright — our upstream network provider does not permit them.
- Cryptocurrency mining of any kind.
- Open proxies, Tor exit nodes, and public VPN endpoints.
- Copyright-infringing distribution, including distributing paid modpacks, plugins, resource packs, or music you do not have the right to distribute — whether via your server, its world downloads, or links from it.
- IP address spoofing or forging packet headers.
- Circumventing your resource limits, or running workloads materially outside the purpose of a game server (for example, using a game server plan as a general compute node, render farm, or file-distribution service).
4. Resource use, and what "no overselling" means
We do not oversell memory. When you buy 12 GB, 12 GB is reserved for your instance and not promised to anyone else. CPU is allocated as a percentage of a physical core, dedicated from the 8 GB plan upward and shared below it. This is how we operate the platform, and we will tell you honestly if that ever changes.
What we ask in return: stay inside your allocation. Specifically, don't run processes unrelated to your game server, don't attempt to escape your container, and be reasonable about disk I/O — an unthrottled world pre-generation or a runaway plugin can affect neighbours, and we apply I/O limits to prevent that.
Storage is for game server data. It is not general file storage or a backup target for unrelated material.
5. Bandwidth
Your network port is unmetered — we do not bill for traffic and we do not cap your monthly transfer. What "unmetered" does not mean is unlimited use for non-game purposes: sustained high-volume transfer unrelated to running a game server (file distribution, seeding, proxying) is outside the plan's purpose and we may throttle or ask you to stop.
6. Plugins, mods, and what you install
You can install what you like within the rules above, and we don't police your modpack. But you are responsible for what you run. Plugins and mods from untrusted sources are a genuine security risk, and a compromised server that starts attacking others will be suspended under section 2 even if you didn't intend it.
7. Security
Use strong, unique passwords. Keep your server software and plugins reasonably current. If we believe your server has been compromised, we may suspend it immediately to protect other customers and our network — we will tell you why and help you recover from backup.
8. Copyright complaints (DMCA)
We comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512.
Designated agent: [AGENT NAME], UpTick Hosting, [ADDRESS], abuse@uptick.host
To submit a notice, include: your signature (physical or electronic); identification of the copyrighted work; identification of the material you say is infringing, with enough detail for us to find it; your contact details; a statement of good-faith belief that the use is not authorised; and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and you are authorised to act for the owner.
Our process. On receiving a valid notice we will forward it to the affected customer and give them 24 hours to remove the material. If it is not removed, we will disable access to it. We log every notice and every action taken. If you believe material was removed in error, you may submit a counter-notice and we will follow the statutory process.
Repeat infringers. We terminate the accounts of customers who receive repeated valid infringement notices. In practice: three valid notices within 12 months results in termination. We apply this consistently.
9. Network abuse reports
Send abuse reports to abuse@uptick.host. We monitor it every day and aim to acknowledge within 4 hours during posted hours.
How we triage:
| Severity | Example | Our response |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | Active attack traffic, malware C2, CSAM | Immediate suspension, minutes |
| High | Spam, blocklist listing, compromised server | Suspension within hours |
| Medium | Port scanning, policy breach | Warning with a remediation window |
| Low | Complaints without evidence | Investigated, logged |
10. Being a good neighbour
We block outbound amplification vectors (NTP monlist, DNS ANY, SSDP, memcached, CLDAP, chargen), enforce anti-spoofing on every instance, rate-limit outbound UDP, and block port 25 by default. These protect you, other customers, and the wider internet. Please don't ask us to remove them.
11. Legal process
We require valid legal process — a subpoena, court order, or warrant as appropriate — before disclosing customer data, except where there is a genuine and immediate risk to someone's life or safety. Our contact for legal process is [AGENT NAME] at abuse@uptick.host.
12. Reporting a problem with this policy
If you think we've enforced this policy wrongly, email support@uptick.host and say so. We would rather review a decision than lose a customer over a mistake.