Abuse Policy

1. Purpose

This Abuse Policy describes how HostSteps receives, validates, investigates and responds to reports involving misuse of its services or infrastructure.

2. Reporting

Reports should identify the affected hostname, IP address, account or service where known and include timestamps, logs, message headers, URLs, screenshots or other evidence sufficient to investigate. Reporters should avoid submitting unnecessary sensitive information.

3. Triage and Validation

HostSteps may validate technical indicators, account ownership, timestamps, service scope and credibility before taking action. Reports may be prioritized according to severity, active harm, legal urgency, security impact and recurrence.

4. Customer Notice and Remediation

Where appropriate, HostSteps may notify the customer and require investigation, containment or remediation within a specified timeframe. Notice may be limited or omitted where prohibited by law or where immediate disclosure could increase security or safety risk.

5. Protective Actions

HostSteps may rate-limit, filter, block traffic, disable credentials, quarantine content, restrict a service, suspend an account or terminate a service when reasonably necessary to stop active harm, comply with law, protect infrastructure or enforce the agreement. Actions will be proportionate where circumstances permit.

6. Repeat or Severe Abuse

Repeated violations, intentional abuse, fraud, malware operations, phishing, attacks or failure to remediate material compromise may result in accelerated suspension or termination and may affect refund eligibility under the Refund Policy.

7. Legal Requests

Requests from authorities or litigants are evaluated for legal validity and scope. HostSteps may preserve or disclose information where legally required and may challenge or narrow requests where appropriate and legally permitted.

8. Evidence and Records

HostSteps may retain relevant logs, notices, actions and case records for security, audit, contractual and legal purposes subject to applicable retention and privacy requirements.

9. Appeals

A customer may request review of an enforcement action through support, providing relevant evidence and remediation details. Review does not require HostSteps to restore a service while an active material risk remains.