Acceptable Use Policy

1. Prohibited Use or Content

You may not use the Services to publish content or engage in activity that is illegal under applicable law, that is harmful to others, or that would subject Blend Hosting to liability, including, without limitation, in connection with any of the following, each of which is prohibited under this AUP:

a) Disclosing sensitive personal information about others;

b) Storing personal or sensitive information, including without limitation, “Protected Health Information” as defined under the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (“HIPAA”);

c) Phishing or engaging in identity theft;

d) Distributing computer viruses, worms, Trojan horses or other malicious code;

e) Promoting or facilitating prostitution or sex trafficking;

f) Hosting ponzi or pyramid schemes, or websites that engage in unlawful or deceptive marketing practices;

g) Hosting, distributing or linking to child pornography (any such content will be suspended immediately without notice and reported to law enforcement or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) or content that is harmful to minors;

h) Distributing pornography or adult related content or offering any escort services;

i) Engaging in the unlawful distribution of controlled substances, drug contraband or prescription medications (including without limitation, promotion, marketing, or sale of prescription medications without a valid prescription);

j) Gambling or selling weapons or ammunition;

k) Promoting or facilitating violence or terrorist activities; or

l) Infringing the intellectual property or other proprietary rights of others.

2. Excessive Use of Resources or Network Abuse

You may not consume excessive amounts of server or network resources or use the Services in any way which results in server performance issues or which interrupts service for other customers. Prohibited activities that contribute to excessive use, include without limitation:

a) Hosting or linking to an anonymous proxy server;

b) Operating a file sharing site;

c) Scripts or processes that adversely impact our systems; or

d) Utilizing software that interfaces with an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network.

3. Unauthorized System Access

You may not directly or indirectly use the Services to gain access to any network or system without permission, including without limitation:

a) Accessing another network without permission, including to probe or scan for vulnerabilities or breach security or authentication measures;

b) Attacking other networks (e.g., utilizing botnets or other means to launch Denial of Service (DoS) or other attacks);

c) Intercepting or monitoring data without permission; or

d) Using any deep-link, page-scrape, robot, crawl, index, spider, offline reader, click spam, macro programs, internet agent, or other automatic device, program, algorithm or methodology, to use, access, copy, index, acquire information, generate impressions or clicks, input information, store information, search, generate searches, or monitor any portion of Blend Hosting’s website or servers for any unauthorized purpose.

4. Storage of Backups

You may not use your hosting account as a backup solution. Our Services are designed to host your website only and may not be used as a data repository. Blend Hosting reserves the right to remove backups from your hosting account with or without notice.

5. Zero Tolerance Spam Policy

a) Any user account which causes or results in our IP space being blacklisted will be immediately suspended and/or terminated.

b) Forging or misrepresenting message headers is prohibited.

c) Websites advertised via spam (i.e. “Spamvertised”) may not be hosted on our servers.

d) You may not use the Services to sell contact lists or send email to any purchased lists (i.e. “Safe Lists”).

e) You may not use the Services to send spam or bulk unsolicited messages. We may terminate with or without notice the account of any user who sends spam.

6. Bandwidth Fair Usage Policies

Blend Hosting provides unmetered data on VPS, Cloud Servers, Shared/Reseller Hosting, Colocation and Dedicated Server packages which offer generous fair use data transfer. Data transfer covers bandwidth usage Nationally per month unless otherwise stated as is the case with our Colocation and Dedicated Server plans where this bandwidth policy extends to International data. 

Customers may use this data for any purpose other than those unacceptable as stated in our Acceptable Use Policy.  Your server will be limited to 128kb/s for both National and International traffic. Please contact our Support Desk should you wish to purchase an dedicated bandwidth.

Should Blend Hosting deem a customers account as exceeding fair use bandwidth consumption which causes interference with other users, Blend Hosting will notify the customer and allow the customer to remedy the problem. However, should a customers bandwidth usage be significantly greater than fair use, Blend Hosting reserves the right to suspend or throttle the customers account where appropriate.