Acceptable Use Policy

Version: 2.0
Effective Date: 1 October 2026
Last Updated: 25 September 2026

This Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP") forms part of the agreement between the customer ("Customer", "you" or "your") and Snowtech Services ("Snowtech", "we", "us" or "our") and governs the use of Snowtech products, services, systems, networks and infrastructure.

This AUP is incorporated into the Snowtech Services Terms of Service. By ordering, accessing, renewing or continuing to use a Snowtech service, the Customer agrees to comply with this AUP.

PURPOSE AND SCOPE

The purpose of this AUP is to protect Snowtech, its customers, its infrastructure and third parties from unlawful, abusive, insecure or disruptive use of Snowtech services.

This AUP applies to all Snowtech services where relevant, including:

  • Web hosting and reseller hosting.
  • Virtual Private Servers (VPS) and server services.
  • Email services.
  • DNS services.
  • Cloud and storage services.
  • Network services.
  • Software, applications and APIs operated through Snowtech services.
  • Customer accounts and authentication credentials.
  • Any other service supplied by Snowtech that is capable of being used in a manner covered by this AUP.

This AUP applies to activity performed directly by the Customer and activity originating from Customer services, accounts, users, employees, contractors, customers, applications, scripts or compromised systems.

CUSTOMER RESPONSIBILITY

Customers are responsible for ensuring that their use of Snowtech services complies with this AUP.

Customers are also responsible for taking reasonable steps to ensure that persons authorised to use their services comply with this AUP.

A Customer remains responsible for responding to abuse originating from their service even where the activity was caused by a compromised website, application, mailbox, password, API credential, server or other system rather than being intentionally initiated by the Customer.

Snowtech recognises that compromise can occur despite reasonable precautions. Where practical and appropriate, Snowtech will work with Customers to contain and remediate compromised services rather than treating an unintentional compromise in the same manner as deliberate abuse.

COMPLIANCE WITH LAW

Customers must use Snowtech services in accordance with applicable Australian laws and regulations and any other laws that lawfully apply to their activities.

Customers must not use Snowtech services to undertake, facilitate, promote or knowingly assist unlawful activity.

The Customer is responsible for determining which laws and regulatory requirements apply to their activities and content.

PROHIBITED CONTENT AND ACTIVITY

Customers must not knowingly use Snowtech services to host, store, distribute, transmit, advertise or facilitate content or activity that is unlawful or that materially threatens the security or operation of Snowtech systems, customers or third parties.

Prohibited activity includes, but is not limited to:

  • Malware distribution.
  • Ransomware.
  • Phishing and credential theft.
  • Fraudulent websites or services.
  • Scams intended to unlawfully obtain money, credentials or personal information.
  • Botnet command-and-control infrastructure.
  • Malicious redirects.
  • Exploit kits used for unauthorised or malicious activity.
  • Distribution or use of stolen credentials.
  • Unauthorised access to computer systems, networks or accounts.
  • Malicious code intended to compromise, damage or interfere with systems or data.
  • Content prohibited by applicable law or a binding court or regulatory order.
  • Services primarily operated for the purpose of facilitating activity prohibited by this AUP.

The possession or legitimate use of security, administration, development or testing tools is not prohibited merely because those tools could also be used maliciously. Their use must be authorised and must not breach this AUP or applicable law.

CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE MATERIAL

Snowtech strictly prohibits the use of its services to host, store, distribute, transmit, advertise, solicit or facilitate child sexual abuse material ("CSAM") or other material involving the sexual exploitation or abuse of children.

Where Snowtech becomes aware of suspected CSAM associated with a service, Snowtech may immediately restrict or disable access to the affected service or content and take any other action reasonably necessary or required by law.

Snowtech may preserve relevant information and cooperate with law enforcement, regulators or other authorised bodies in accordance with applicable legal requirements.

SECURITY RESPONSIBILITIES

Customers must take reasonable steps to maintain the security of systems, applications, websites, mailboxes, accounts and credentials under their control.

Depending on the service, Customer responsibilities may include:

  • Using strong and unique passwords.
  • Protecting authentication credentials and API keys.
  • Applying security updates to Customer-managed software.
  • Maintaining supported versions of Customer-managed applications.
  • Removing unused or insecure applications and accounts.
  • Responding promptly to known or suspected compromise.
  • Taking reasonable precautions against malware and unauthorised access.

For unmanaged VPS and server services, the Customer is responsible for security and administration of the operating system, applications and other Customer-managed components.

For managed services, responsibilities are divided according to the management services expressly included in the applicable plan or agreement.

COMPROMISED ACCOUNTS AND SERVICES

Where Snowtech detects or reasonably suspects that a website, mailbox, hosting account, server, application, credential or other service has been compromised, Snowtech may take reasonable action to contain the incident and protect affected systems.

Actions may include:

  • Temporarily disabling a website or application.
  • Disabling or resetting compromised credentials.
  • Temporarily restricting SMTP or email access.
  • Blocking malicious traffic.
  • Restricting network access.
  • Disabling malicious scripts or processes.
  • Temporarily suspending the affected service.

Where reasonably practicable, Snowtech will notify the Customer and provide information necessary for remediation.

Snowtech may require the Customer to remedy the cause of the compromise before normal service is restored.

NETWORK ABUSE

Customers must not use Snowtech services to interfere with, disrupt, attack or obtain unauthorised access to networks, systems, services or accounts.

Prohibited network activity includes, but is not limited to:

  • Denial-of-service or distributed denial-of-service attacks.
  • Network flooding.
  • Packet or source-address spoofing.
  • Unauthorised port scanning or vulnerability scanning.
  • Unauthorised penetration testing.
  • Brute-force attacks.
  • Dictionary attacks.
  • Credential stuffing.
  • Password spraying.
  • Unauthorised interception of network traffic.
  • Attempts to bypass authentication or access controls.
  • Malicious exploitation of vulnerabilities.
  • Amplification or reflection attacks.
  • Operating malicious proxies or relays.
  • Botnet or command-and-control traffic.
  • Deliberately circumventing technical restrictions or rate limits.
  • Network activity intended to interfere with the operation of third-party systems or services.

SECURITY TESTING AND SCANNING

Legitimate security testing, vulnerability scanning and penetration testing must only be performed against systems for which the Customer has appropriate authorisation.

Customers must not use Snowtech infrastructure to scan, probe, test or attempt to access third-party systems without permission.

Security testing that is likely to generate substantial traffic, abuse reports or other operational impact may require prior approval from Snowtech.

SHARED AND RESELLER HOSTING RESOURCE USE

Shared and reseller hosting services operate on infrastructure used by multiple customers. Customers must use shared resources reasonably and must not operate workloads that materially degrade the performance or availability of services for other customers.

Customers must not:

  • Persistently consume resources substantially beyond those allocated to their hosting plan.
  • Attempt to circumvent CPU, memory, process, disk I/O, storage, inode, bandwidth or other resource controls.
  • Run workloads that are unsuitable for a shared hosting environment.
  • Operate persistent background daemons or server applications where these are not supported by the applicable hosting service.
  • Use shared hosting primarily as a file distribution, compute, proxy, mining or other service for which it was not designed.

Specific resource allocations and technical limits applicable to a hosting plan are those published for the service or technically applied to that service.

Where resource usage adversely affects the hosting environment, Snowtech may restrict the affected workload and may recommend optimisation or migration to a more appropriate service.

VPS AND SERVER RESOURCE USE

VPS and server customers may operate server applications, background processes and daemons appropriate to their service, subject to the allocated resources, applicable service conditions and this AUP.

Customers must not deliberately use VPS or server services in a manner that materially interferes with Snowtech infrastructure, upstream networks or other customers.

Snowtech may restrict traffic or services where necessary to protect infrastructure from abusive workloads, attacks or other material operational impact.

CRYPTOCURRENCY MINING

Cryptocurrency mining is prohibited on shared and reseller hosting services.

Cryptocurrency mining on VPS, dedicated server or other compute services may only be operated where expressly permitted by Snowtech and must remain within the technical and resource limits of the applicable service.

Cryptocurrency-related websites, applications or content are not prohibited merely because they relate to cryptocurrency, provided their operation otherwise complies with this AUP and applicable law.

EMAIL AND SPAM

Customers must comply with the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) and other applicable laws governing commercial electronic messages.

Customers must not use Snowtech services to send, facilitate or support unsolicited bulk email or other unsolicited electronic messages.

Prohibited email activity includes:

  • Sending unsolicited bulk email or spam.
  • Using purchased, harvested, scraped or unlawfully obtained mailing lists.
  • Sending phishing or fraudulent messages.
  • Sending malware or malicious attachments.
  • Forging or materially falsifying email headers or sender information.
  • Using open mail relays.
  • Using Snowtech services to receive responses to spam sent through another provider.
  • Hosting websites or services primarily advertised through spam.
  • Using compromised accounts or credentials to send email.
  • Attempting to circumvent Snowtech email rate limits, filters or abuse controls.

MAILING LISTS AND BULK EMAIL

Customers operating mailing lists or sending bulk commercial email must be able to demonstrate appropriate consent or another lawful basis applicable to the communication.

Customers must maintain sufficient records to demonstrate the basis on which recipients were contacted where required by law or reasonably requested by Snowtech in connection with an abuse investigation.

Commercial electronic messages must contain accurate sender identification and a functional unsubscribe mechanism where required by applicable law.

Unsubscribe requests must be honoured within the period required by applicable law.

Snowtech may require additional evidence of consent or mailing-list practices where a service generates significant complaint, bounce or abuse levels.

SHARED HOSTING EMAIL LIMITS

Unless a different limit is expressly specified for the applicable service, shared hosting accounts may send no more than 2,000 email messages per account per hour.

This limit exists to protect shared mail infrastructure, delivery reputation and other customers.

The existence of the hourly limit does not authorise unsolicited email. All messages remain subject to this AUP and applicable law regardless of volume.

Snowtech may apply lower temporary limits, throttling or other restrictions where an account generates abnormal volumes, excessive delivery failures, spam complaints, blocklisting or other activity that threatens mail-system reputation or stability.

MAIL REPUTATION AND BLOCKLISTING

Customers must not use Snowtech services in a manner that materially damages the reputation of Snowtech mail systems, domains or IP address ranges.

Where email activity threatens mail reputation or causes blocklisting, Snowtech may:

  • Throttle outbound email.
  • Temporarily block outbound email.
  • Disable SMTP authentication for an affected account.
  • Reset compromised credentials.
  • Disable an affected script or website.
  • Suspend the affected mailbox, hosting account or service.

Where Customer activity causes Snowtech systems or IP addresses to be blocklisted or requires substantial abuse remediation, Snowtech may charge the Customer reasonable costs associated with investigation, remediation and restoration where permitted by law.

MALWARE, PHISHING AND FRAUD

Customers must not knowingly use Snowtech services to create, host, distribute or facilitate malware, phishing, credential theft, fraudulent websites or other malicious activity.

Where such content results from compromise rather than deliberate Customer activity, Snowtech may immediately restrict access to the affected service while the compromise is investigated and remediated.

Repeated failure to secure a service after previous compromise may result in additional restrictions, suspension or termination where the service continues to present a material risk.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY INFRINGEMENT

Customers must not knowingly use Snowtech services to infringe the copyright, trade marks or other intellectual property rights of another party.

Customers are responsible for ensuring that they have the rights or permissions required to publish, distribute or otherwise use content hosted through their services.

Snowtech may investigate properly submitted infringement complaints and may disable access to material where reasonably necessary or required by law.

Repeated or deliberate infringement may result in suspension or termination of the affected service.

IP ADDRESS USE

Customers may only use IP addresses assigned or authorised for their service.

Customers must not configure, announce, spoof or otherwise use IP addresses that have not been assigned or authorised for their use.

IP addresses supplied with a service remain under the administrative control of Snowtech or the applicable network provider. Allocation of an IP address gives the Customer the right to use that address with the applicable service but does not transfer ownership of the address.

Snowtech may change an assigned IP address where reasonably necessary for network, security, supplier or operational reasons.

Requests for reverse DNS or PTR records must relate to legitimate use of the assigned address and may be refused or removed where necessary to protect network or email reputation.

PROXIES, RELAYS, VPNS AND IRC

Customers must not operate open proxies, open mail relays or other publicly accessible relay services that can be used by unauthorised third parties to generate abuse.

Legitimate private VPN services and similar technologies may be operated on suitable VPS or server services provided their use complies with this AUP.

Public proxy, anonymisation, VPN exit, Tor exit or similar services that are likely to generate significant abuse complaints or network risk may require prior approval from Snowtech.

IRC servers and related services may be operated on suitable VPS or dedicated server services where permitted by the applicable service conditions.

IRC botnets, malicious bots, abusive scripts, denial-of-service activity and services that repeatedly cause material network disruption are prohibited.

ABUSE COMPLAINTS AND INVESTIGATIONS

Snowtech may investigate reports or indications of abuse associated with its services, including reports concerning:

  • Spam.
  • Phishing.
  • Malware.
  • Fraud.
  • Network attacks.
  • Unauthorised access.
  • Intellectual property infringement.
  • Illegal content or activity.
  • Compromised websites, mailboxes, accounts or servers.
  • Other suspected violations of this AUP.

Customers may be required to provide information or take remedial action within a reasonable timeframe specified by Snowtech.

The timeframe will depend on the nature and severity of the issue. Serious security, legal or operational incidents may require immediate action.

When investigating abuse, Snowtech may access logs, account information, configuration information and Customer data to the extent reasonably necessary to investigate, contain or remediate the issue, subject to applicable law and the Snowtech Privacy Policy.

REPORTING ABUSE

Reports concerning abuse originating from Snowtech services should be sent to:

Email: abuse@snowtech.com.au

Abuse reports should contain sufficient information to allow the issue to be identified and investigated. Where available, this should include relevant IP addresses, domain names, URLs, timestamps, email headers, log entries or other supporting information.

General customer support requests should continue to be submitted through the Snowtech Client Area or normal support channels rather than the abuse address.

LEGAL AND REGULATORY REQUESTS

Snowtech will comply with lawful warrants, court orders, regulatory requirements and other legally binding requests applicable to Snowtech and its services.

Snowtech may preserve, disclose or otherwise process information where required or authorised by applicable law.

Snowtech may respond without prior notice to the Customer where notice is prohibited by law, would compromise a lawful investigation, or where Snowtech is otherwise legally permitted or required to act without notice.

Snowtech is not required to comply with a request merely because the requesting party describes it as an investigation or information request. Snowtech may require appropriate legal authority, identification or supporting information before disclosing Customer information.

ENFORCEMENT

Snowtech may take action reasonably necessary to stop or prevent a violation of this AUP, protect its infrastructure or customers, respond to an incident or comply with applicable law.

Depending on the nature, severity and history of the violation, Snowtech may:

  • Issue a warning.
  • Request that the Customer investigate or remediate an issue.
  • Disable access to specific content.
  • Disable or reset compromised credentials.
  • Block network traffic, ports or protocols.
  • Block or throttle email.
  • Remove or modify DNS records where reasonably necessary to stop abuse.
  • Null-route an IP address.
  • Restrict an affected website, mailbox, application or service.
  • Suspend the affected service.
  • Suspend the Customer account.
  • Terminate the affected service in accordance with the Terms of Service.
  • Refer matters to law enforcement, regulators, registries, upstream providers or other appropriate bodies where required or reasonably appropriate.

Snowtech will generally seek to use an action proportionate to the nature and severity of the issue.

Snowtech is not required to progress through each enforcement step before taking stronger action. Serious, deliberate, repeated or urgent violations may result in immediate restriction, suspension or termination.

EMERGENCY ACTION

Snowtech may take immediate action without prior notice where reasonably necessary to:

  • Stop an active attack.
  • Contain a compromised service.
  • Prevent continuing spam, phishing, malware or fraud.
  • Protect Snowtech infrastructure or other customers.
  • Protect network or email reputation.
  • Prevent significant third-party harm.
  • Comply with an urgent legal or regulatory requirement.

Where reasonably practicable, Snowtech will notify the Customer after emergency action has been taken and advise what is required to restore the affected service.

COSTS RESULTING FROM ABUSE

Where a Customer's violation of this AUP causes Snowtech to incur material additional costs, Snowtech may recover reasonable costs associated with investigating, containing or remediating the incident where permitted by law.

This may include reasonable costs associated with blocklist remediation, excessive abuse handling, network remediation or work required to restore affected Snowtech infrastructure.

Snowtech will not impose an additional abuse remediation charge merely because a routine abuse report has been received.

SERVICE CREDITS

No service credit is payable for service interruption resulting from reasonable enforcement of this AUP, except where otherwise required by law or expressly provided by an applicable Service Level Agreement.

MONITORING

This AUP does not require Snowtech to continuously monitor Customer content or communications for violations.

Snowtech may use reasonable technical and operational measures to identify spam, malware, security threats, excessive resource consumption, network abuse and other activity affecting the operation or security of its services.

The absence of enforcement against particular activity does not mean that the activity is permitted or that Snowtech has waived its rights under this AUP.

RELATIONSHIP WITH OTHER POLICIES

This AUP should be read together with the Snowtech Services Terms of Service, Privacy Policy and any service-specific terms applicable to the Customer's services.

If a mandatory legal or regulatory requirement applies, that requirement prevails to the extent that it cannot lawfully be varied by this AUP.

CHANGES TO THIS AUP

Snowtech may update this AUP from time to time to reflect changes in technology, services, security threats, abuse patterns, laws, regulations or operational requirements.

The current version number and effective date will be displayed with this AUP.

Where a change materially affects existing Customers, Snowtech will provide reasonable notice where required by law or where reasonably practicable.

Continued use or renewal of Snowtech services after an updated AUP takes effect constitutes acceptance of the updated AUP to the extent permitted by law.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Abuse reports should be directed to:

Abuse: abuse@snowtech.com.au

General questions regarding this AUP or Customer services may be directed to:

Support: support@snowtech.com.au

Client Area: https://www.snowtech.com.au/clientarea.php

EXTERNAL REFERENCES

Current legislation and mandatory regulatory requirements take precedence where they cannot lawfully be varied by this policy.