Terms / AUP

Terms of Service

Clear rules for using SimpleVM services.

These Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy explain how SimpleVM services may be ordered, paid for, used, suspended, and terminated. They are written for operational clarity and do not replace independent legal advice.

ProviderSimpleVM

1. Lawful Use

Services may be used only for lawful purposes. Customers are responsible for all activity on their services, including activity by users, scripts, applications, and third parties with access.

  • No malware, phishing, botnets, credential theft, scams, or unauthorized access attempts.
  • No pirated software, warez, copyright infringement, or content that violates applicable law.
  • No child sexual abuse material or any content involving exploitation or abuse.
  • No activity illegal in the United States or in the jurisdiction where the service is operated.

2. Prohibited Network Activity

Customers may not use SimpleVM services to harm, degrade, probe, or abuse networks, systems, or users.

  • No denial-of-service activity, stress testing, amplification, reflection attacks, or flooding.
  • No unauthorized vulnerability scanning, penetration testing, brute forcing, crawling, or probing.
  • No open proxies, public VPN resale, TOR exit nodes, or proxy services sold to end clients.
  • No IRCd servers, spam operations, mass mailing setups, mail bombing, or open SMTP relays.
  • No cryptocurrency mining or other workloads that create sustained abusive resource usage.

3. Resource Use and Fair Use

SimpleVM plans are shared infrastructure products. Customers must use CPU, disk I/O, memory, storage, and network resources in a way that does not materially affect other customers or platform stability.

Public file mirrors, continuous high-throughput streaming, abusive download services, and similar traffic patterns may be restricted or suspended when inconsistent with the selected plan.

4. Payments, Renewals, and Refunds

Service fees are charged according to the selected billing term and plan. Customers are responsible for keeping account and payment details accurate. Unpaid services may be suspended and later removed according to the client-area billing workflow.

Payments are final unless SimpleVM states otherwise in writing. Setup fees, add-ons, domain registrations, licenses, overage charges, and services terminated for abuse or policy violations are not refundable.

5. Suspension and Termination

SimpleVM may suspend, restrict, or terminate services for non-payment, abuse complaints, security risk, unlawful content, policy violations, or activity that threatens the platform, upstream providers, customers, or third parties.

Severe violations may result in immediate termination without notice, refund, or data return. Less severe issues may receive a warning or suspension window when SimpleVM determines that remediation is appropriate.

6. Backups and Data Responsibility

Weekly backups may be included with plans, but customers remain responsible for maintaining their own current, tested backups. SimpleVM is not responsible for data loss caused by customer action, abuse suspension, non-payment, software failure, compromise, or service termination.

7. Privacy and Analytics

SimpleVM collects account, billing, contact, support, fraud-prevention, website analytics, and service-operation data needed to provide and protect services. Website analytics cookies are handled through the site cookie banner and Microsoft Clarity consent mode.

You may accept or decline analytics cookies using the banner. Essential service records may still be processed when required for billing, security, support, legal compliance, and service operation.

8. Abuse Reports and Contact

Report abuse, security concerns, copyright notices, account questions, or policy concerns to [email protected]. Include IP addresses, timestamps, logs, and relevant evidence when available.

9. Liability and Service Changes

Services are provided on an as-available basis. SimpleVM is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or lost-profit damages arising from downtime, data loss, interruption, suspension, termination, or service changes.

SimpleVM may update plans, prices, features, acceptable-use rules, and these Terms from time to time. Continued use of services after updates means you accept the updated terms.

10. Agreement, Governing Law, and Customer Responsibility

All SimpleVM services may be used only for lawful purposes. Customers are responsible for the content, software, configurations, accounts, users, and activity associated with their services, including activity by third parties they authorize. Customers agree to indemnify and hold SimpleVM harmless from claims arising from their use of the service where permitted by law.

This agreement is governed, construed, and enforced under the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States of America, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

11. Content That May Result in Immediate Termination

The following are prohibited and may result in immediate suspension or termination without notice, refund, or data return when required to protect SimpleVM, its customers, or third parties:

  • Pirated software, warez, copyright infringement, hacker tools, or programs designed for unauthorized access.
  • Malware, viruses, botnets, phishing, scams, credential theft, and fraudulent payment activity.
  • Child sexual abuse material, exploitative content, or any unlawful obscene material.
  • Cryptocurrency mining, Minecraft game servers, public TOR exit nodes, or resale of VPN or proxy access.
  • NGINX proxy-pass or port-forwarding configurations that expose an IP address not assigned to the relevant server.
  • Any activity unlawful in the United States or in the jurisdiction where the service is operated.

12. Traffic, Streaming, and File Distribution

Where an order or service description includes a traffic allowance, the applicable allowance and overage terms shown in the client area govern that service. A service may be restricted or suspended if its allowance is exhausted and required payment or configuration changes are not made.

SimpleVM is not intended for public file hosting, large-file distribution, or continuous audio/video streaming. Files made available primarily for download, public mirrors, and similar high-volume distribution uses may be restricted. Contact [email protected] before deploying a workload that could create sustained distribution traffic.

13. Server and Network Abuse

Any attempt to undermine, damage, probe, or interfere with a SimpleVM server, customer, upstream provider, or third-party network is strictly prohibited. This includes port scans, stealth scans, sniffers, SYN or UDP floods, GET floods, fork bombs, denial-of-service activity, unauthorized access, and security testing that may affect another customer or service.

SimpleVM may immediately terminate intentional abuse and permanently close the associated account. We may also apply I/O, packet-per-second, and other protective limits where a workload threatens service stability or creates a credible attack risk.

14. Mail Delivery Ports

Outbound TCP port 25 is blocked by default to protect the network from spam and abuse. Secure mail-delivery and submission ports, including TCP ports 465 and 587, are open for legitimate authenticated email use.

Customers may not bypass the port 25 restriction, operate an open relay, send unsolicited mail, or use SimpleVM services for mass-mailing activity. All mail activity must use appropriate authentication and comply with applicable anti-spam requirements.

15. Resource Abuse Process

Resource abuse includes any intentional or unintentional CPU, memory, disk I/O, storage, or network activity that materially affects other customers, equipment, or platform stability. Shared VPS resources must be used responsibly; customers should keep sustained load and I/O appropriate for their selected plan.

  • For non-severe misuse, SimpleVM may issue a written warning and allow time to correct the issue.
  • Repeated abuse may lead to further suspension, reactivation fees, additional restrictions, or termination without compensation or data retrieval.
  • Intentional abuse, including attacks, unauthorized access, or deliberate disruption, may result in immediate termination without a warning period.

16. Service Fees, Renewals, and Cancellation

Some services carry setup, add-on, licensing, or other charges that must be paid before service is provided. Service fees accrue for the applicable billing term. A cancellation request or a decision not to renew does not create a prorated refund for unused time unless SimpleVM confirms otherwise in writing.

Customers remain responsible for outstanding fees incurred before service cancellation. SimpleVM may refuse, cancel, or suspend a service at its discretion, including where payment, verification, security, or policy concerns require action.

17. Refunds and Payment Finality

Payments are final except where SimpleVM expressly agrees otherwise in writing. Setup charges, add-ons, domain registrations, certificates, control-panel or license fees, overage charges, and services terminated for an Acceptable Use Policy violation are not refundable.

Where SimpleVM elects to issue an unused-funds refund, it may be subject to a processing fee of $10 plus 20% of the return amount. This does not limit rights that cannot be waived under applicable law.

18. Account Deactivation and Non-Payment

A service suspended for non-payment may require a reactivation fee before it is restored. If payment is not received within the suspension period shown in the client area, the service may be treated as abandoned and removed. Original service data may no longer be available after removal.

Customers are responsible for keeping billing details, payment-method names, residential address details where requested, and a working email address accurate. SimpleVM may require verification before activating or continuing a service.

19. Copyright and Repeated Violations

Copyright, DMCA, or similar intellectual-property complaints are investigated promptly. A first verified violation may receive a correction window; repeated or serious violations may result in immediate suspension, reactivation charges, termination, account closure, and no refund for unused service time.

Send notices and supporting information, including the service IP, relevant timestamps, and evidence of the claimed violation, to [email protected].

20. Backups, Restores, and Data Loss

Customers are solely responsible for maintaining current, tested backups of their services and data. Included weekly backups, where offered, are a convenience and are not a substitute for an independent backup strategy.

SimpleVM is not responsible for data loss caused by customer action, compromise, software failure, abuse suspension, non-payment, termination, or an unavailable restore. A recovery attempt for a deleted service may involve charges, including a $40-per-hour restore fee when applicable.

21. Detailed Acceptable Use Requirements

  • Unsolicited bulk or commercial email, mail bombing, and open SMTP relays are prohibited. Legitimate bulk mail requires prior approval and appropriate authentication such as DKIM.
  • IRCd software and links to IRC chat networks are prohibited. BNC and eggdrop uses may be allowed only where they remain lawful and non-abusive.
  • Header forgery, abusive or threatening communications, fraud, pyramid schemes, unauthorized gambling, and activities intended to facilitate a policy violation are prohibited.
  • Lawful adult content must be owned or properly authorized by the customer and must never include unlawful or exploitative material.
  • SimpleVM may take corrective action when otherwise lawful activity is harmful to its subscribers, operations, reputation, goodwill, customer relations, or network integrity.

22. Enforcement, Monitoring, and Notices

SimpleVM does not ordinarily monitor customer communications to confirm compliance. When we become aware of harmful, unlawful, or policy-violating activity, we may remove information, suspend or shut down a service, apply filtering or limits, deny network access, or take another action we consider appropriate.

By requesting account activation or continuing to use a service, you agree to these Terms, the Acceptable Use Policy, and the associated notices and disclaimers. SimpleVM may amend these documents, pricing, plans, and technical limits from time to time.

23. Uptime and General Disclaimer

SimpleVM monitors its network and servers, but does not offer an uptime guarantee unless a separate written service-level agreement says otherwise. Services may be unavailable because of maintenance, upgrades, hardware or software failures, upstream issues, security events, or other causes.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, SimpleVM is not liable for lost profits, indirect or consequential damages, business interruption, data loss, or damages arising from downtime, suspension, termination, or the use of a customer account. Certain equipment, routing, software, and services may be provided by third parties.