Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy ("Policy") sets out the activities that are prohibited on the network of Noiz Cybersecurity (Pty) Ltd ("Noiz") and forms an integral part of the Noiz Terms of Service. Noiz reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to request modifications to, or to disable, any website, account, database or other component that violates this Policy, including in emergency situations. To accommodate evolving client needs, business requirements, the Internet landscape and legal developments, Noiz may revise this Policy at any time, and clients are encouraged to review it periodically. Continued use of Noiz services following a revision constitutes acceptance of the changes.

If you identify a potential violation of this Policy, please report it promptly by emailing [email protected].

(Last updated: 8 October 2026. Effective: 8 October 2026.)

About this version. This version was published on 8 October 2026 and takes effect on publication. It changes section 3 (whose sites a plan may host), section 4 (resources on shared hosting), section 8 (disk and mail storage) and section 9.1 (traffic on shared hosting). This Policy is kept current and each update applies from the date it is published.

Table of Contents

1. SPAM and Unsolicited Email

Sending unsolicited commercial communications (including, but not limited to, email, instant messaging, SMS, chat rooms, discussion boards and newsgroups) via Noiz's network is strictly prohibited.

Communications qualify as unsolicited if the recipient's email address was obtained without explicit consent or request, or if the recipient would not reasonably anticipate such communication based on an existing relationship. This applies to both personal and business email addresses (e.g., [email protected]). Communications that do not clearly identify a consensual sender or that appear to originate from a third party or affiliate are also deemed unsolicited.

Examples of Unsolicited Communications:

• Purchased mailing lists, "safe lists," or harvested email addresses where recipients have not explicitly consented to receive communications from a specified sender.
• Emails requiring recipients to opt out of further unsolicited messages they did not initially request.
• One-time invitations for additional information that were not explicitly requested or consented to by the recipient.
• Emails sent to mailing lists containing unwilling recipients or those who have requested removal but continue to receive messages after a reasonable period.

Mailing list operators must maintain verifiable records of recipient consent and provide an unsubscribe option for future communications.

Upon receiving a SPAM complaint, Noiz may require verification of recipient consent, including when and how the email address was obtained.

Noiz reserves the right to suspend or terminate accounts sending unsolicited email (SPAM) with or without notice, in accordance with the Terms of Service.

Violators will be liable for any costs incurred by Noiz, including monetary damages and reputational harm. Noiz may impose cleanup fees or charges for blacklist removal, determined at its discretion.

Using Noiz services (e.g., mailboxes, autoresponders, webpages) to send SPAM, even indirectly, constitutes grounds for suspension or termination. If a website is compromised and used for unsolicited communications, Noiz may apply leniency for first incidents but reserves the right to suspend or terminate for repeat occurrences.

For additional details, refer to the Noiz FAQ on Spam Abuse.

2. Offensive Content

Noiz prohibits the publication of, or links to, the following content on its hosting systems:

• Pornographic, sexually explicit, or violent material.
• "Hate" sites or content reasonably deemed discriminatory based on sex, race, age, or other protected characteristics.
• Illegal content, including stolen copyrighted material.
• Defamatory content or material violating personal privacy.
• Content involving theft, fraud, drug trafficking, money laundering, or terrorism.
• Pirated software distribution sites.
• Illegal gambling sites.

If, in Noiz's sole discretion, client content violates any law (including the Film and Publications Act, 65 of 1996) or this Policy, Noiz may:

• Require immediate removal or modification of the content;
• Suspend or terminate access to services without notice;
• Delete the offending content without notice;
• Notify relevant authorities if required, provide backups or copies as requested, disclose client data, and take further actions as mandated.

3. Account Features and Whose Sites a Plan May Host

3.1. Legacy Shared and Premium Shared are for your own domains. A plan in these families hosts the websites, applications and mail of the customer who bought it. The domain count on the plan is there so that one business can run its own several sites, not so that the plan can be divided among several businesses.

3.2. You may not sell, rent, give or otherwise pass on space, mailboxes, databases or any other part of a Legacy or Premium plan to other people as their hosting, whether or not money changes hands, and whether or not you call it hosting. A plan split among unrelated parties is being resold, and reselling is not permitted on these families.

3.3. If you host websites for other people as a business, take a Reseller plan. It is built for that: it gives you a pool to divide among your customers' sites, a ceiling for each site so that one customer cannot crowd out another, and the tools to run their sites. The price difference between Premium Shared and Reseller exists because Reseller carries other people's sites and Premium does not.

3.4. This applies whether you host for others as a business, as a favour or as part of another service you provide: if the domain is not yours, it does not belong on a Legacy or Premium plan. Agencies approved by Noiz are governed by the Agency Terms, which set out the only basis on which an agency may hold a Legacy or Premium plan for a client's site.

3.5. On a Reseller plan you must hold your own customers to terms at least as strict as this Policy, and you remain Noiz's counterparty for everything they do. You are their first line of support, and Noiz does not support them directly. The rest of the reseller terms are in clause 7 of the Specific Terms and Conditions.

3.6. Account features must be used only for the websites, applications and mail that the plan may host under this section. Services that enable or assist anonymous or abusive third-party behaviour, including anonymity or forwarding services that shield such behaviour, are forbidden. Any service that degrades server stability, network components or quality of service is prohibited.

4. Shared Systems and Resource Usage

Clients on shared environments must not interfere with system operations or disproportionately consume resources. Excessive server hits, inefficient scripts or database queries may affect other users. These restrictions generally do not apply to Managed Virtual or Dedicated Servers unless they affect Noiz's management capabilities.

4.1. Terms used in this section. "Shared hosting" means the Legacy Shared and Premium Shared families and Reseller plans: many customers on one managed server. "Plan figures" means the numbers printed on the product page for your plan: cores, memory, disk, and the counts of domains, databases, mailboxes and FTP users. They are what you bought and what the plan is priced on. Where a plan shows a disk throughput figure, that is a plan figure too. "Server settings" means the few things Noiz does not print on a product page because they are set on the server for everyone and change with capacity and abuse conditions: the monthly traffic ceiling and the outgoing-mail limits. Sections 8.6 and 9.1 explain them.

4.2. One principle runs through this section: the number printed for your plan is the limit. There is no hidden margin above it and no second, unpublished figure below it. If a figure matters to you, it is on the product page.

4.3. Memory is a hard limit. The memory figure on your plan is the most your sites, scripts and mail processes may use together at any moment. A process that asks for more than that is stopped at that figure; it is not slowed down and allowed to carry on. Noiz holds memory this way on every shared plan because a single account that runs past its memory puts every other customer on the server at risk, and that is the one thing a shared server must never allow.

4.4. Processor and disk throughput are held at their figures. Your sites may use up to the cores shown for your plan and, where a throughput figure is shown, up to that rate of disk reads and writes. At the limit your work queues or slows; it does not take time or throughput from other customers. Nothing is taken away from you below the figure, and nothing is lent to you above it.

4.5. Disk is measured, not stopped. Your plan's disk is the allowance you bought. Usage above it is billed under section 8, not blocked, so a mailbox filling up overnight does not take your site down.

4.6. These rules apply to Legacy Shared, Premium Shared and Reseller plans alike. The families differ in what you get (the figures, the tools and the type of processing pool), not in how the figures are enforced.

4.7. Reseller plans: one pool. On a Reseller plan the cores and memory shown are a single pool. Your own sites and every site you create for a customer draw on the same pool, together. Creating more sites does not create more pool. You may create as many sites as you like; the pool is the only limit.

4.8. Reseller plans: a ceiling for each site. Inside the pool, each individual site is also held to its own ceiling, which is the compute of the plan one step below yours:

• on Reseller 1, each site may use up to 1 core and 1 GB of memory;
• on Reseller 2, each site may use up to 1 core and 2 GB;
• on Reseller 3, each site may use up to 2 cores and 4 GB;
• on Reseller 4, each site may use up to 4 cores and 8 GB.

This means no single customer of yours can take the whole pool, and a busy site cannot starve the others you host. If one customer needs more than that ceiling, they need a plan of their own, or you need the next Reseller tier.

4.9. The pool and the per-site ceilings are the terms of a Reseller plan. Where Noiz is not yet able to enforce either of them automatically on the server, Noiz measures usage against them and will tell you when a site is living at its ceiling or the sum of your sites is living at the pool's limit. Noiz does not claim that an automatic limit exists where it does not.

4.10. Living at the limit. A limit is not a breach. Hitting your memory figure during a backup, an import or a busy hour is normal, and Noiz does not act on a spike. What Noiz watches for is a service that sits at its limits day after day, because that site is either doing something it should not be or has outgrown its plan.

4.11. Where that happens, Noiz looks at why before doing anything. Most of the time the cause is specific and fixable in an afternoon: an inefficient query, a plugin fetching remotely on every page load, a crawler, a compromised file. Noiz tells you what it can see and what would fix it. Where the cause is that the site has grown, Noiz says so, shows you the usage, and sets out the plan it should move to and what that costs. You choose, and Noiz gives you a reasonable time to change.

4.12. Noiz does not charge for processor, memory or throughput use on shared hosting, and does not suspend a service for using what it is entitled to. The only usage charge is disk, under section 8. Suspension for resource use happens only where the server itself is at risk and there is no time to talk first; the steps are in the Account Blocking Policy.

4.13. Noiz servers are for hosting your websites, applications and mail. They are not personal storage, an archive, a media library, a public mirror or a backup target for equipment elsewhere. Content on the service must relate to the sites and applications the service runs.

4.14. Scripts, databases and scheduled tasks on shared hosting:

• Bulk mail beyond the server's sending limits (section 8.6), even if it is not SPAM, will result in account deactivation.
• Custom CGI scripts are permitted only on Shared Hosting Personal packages or higher and must not benefit external sites. Resource limits prevent runaway scripts.
• Interactive "chat" applications are prohibited on shared systems and are better suited to Managed Virtual or Dedicated Servers.
• MySQL databases (available on Shared Hosting Personal or higher):
  • Are limited to published quotas;
  • Each database is capped at 5GB;
  • May not store websites or circumvent disk allowances;
  • Are for use with Noiz-hosted packages only; external access is for development;
  • Allow 10 concurrent connections per user;
  • May not store binary files (e.g., images) directly; use links instead;
  • Noiz may require changes or relocation if they affect performance.
• Cron jobs (on Shared Hosting Personal or higher):
  • Must not execute more frequently than every two hours;
  • Should use lower CPU priority if resource-intensive.
• Automated monitoring enforces resource limits.

5. Server-Side Processes

Installation or operation of standalone, unattended server-side processes (daemons) on Noiz servers is prohibited, except for permitted cron jobs. Violations may result in immediate account termination without warning. This does not apply to Managed Virtual or Dedicated Servers unless the process interferes with Noiz's management.

This restriction protects CPU and memory resources and enhances security by preventing unapproved programs from accepting external connections.

Managed Virtual or Dedicated Server disks at high load risk stability. Noiz monitors and notifies clients, providing guidance. After three unaddressed notifications, alerts are deactivated, potentially leading to unresponsive services.

The following are prohibited on Cloud and Self-Managed Server products:

• Cryptocurrency mining activities.

6. Internet Abuse

You may not use the Noiz network for illegal, abusive or irresponsible activities, including:

• Unauthorised access, probing, scanning, or testing of systems/networks;
• Unauthorised monitoring of data/traffic;
• Interference with services (e.g., mail bombing, flooding, overload attempts);
• Using accounts/computers without owner authorisation;
• Deceptive information collection (e.g., phishing, password robbery, port scanning);
• Distributing software that covertly gathers/transmits user information;
• Activities likely to provoke retaliation against the Noiz network;
• Breaches of applicable laws, including the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act 25 of 2002 (ECT Act), which may result in fines or imprisonment;
• Introducing viruses or failing to use updated virus-scanning software;
• Forging messages, trafficking pirated software, or port scanning;
• Publishing information on illegal material availability, including links.

Compliance with connected networks' policies is required. Detected inappropriate activity may lead to account deactivation pending investigation, potentially involving law enforcement without prior notice.

7. Security

Clients must implement reasonable security measures. Negligence may lead to compromised websites/mailboxes, affecting others via blacklisting, phishing, or spamming.

• You are responsible for securing scripts/programs (using latest versions) and directory permissions. All account actions are your responsibility, including credential compromises. Secure passwords (at least 11 mixed alphanumeric characters with case variations, changed regularly, avoiding common words) are required. Noiz may notify you and require changes for weak passwords; failure may lead to suspension/termination if it compromises the site.
• Noiz reserves the right to reset passwords in abuse cases.

For guidance, review the Noiz FAQ on Secure Passwords.

8. Disk Usage and Mail Storage

8.1. Disk is the one thing on shared hosting that is metered. The meter is in the hosting control panel and the client area (Home > My Dashboard > My Products & Services > Product Details), it is live, and it is the place to check. It counts everything held in your subscription: websites, databases, mail stores, logs and backups you keep in your own space.

8.2. Usage above your plan's disk figure is charged at R10 per gigabyte per month, or part of a month, on the excess only. How it is measured and how it appears on your invoice are set out in Billing and Overage Charges. On a Reseller plan the charge is worked out on the whole pool, not per site, and it is billed to you.

8.3. Do not wait for a warning before acting: the meter is live, and usage above your plan's disk figure is billed whether or not a notice has reached you. Where an excess is large, or repeats month after month, Noiz contacts you to talk about the right plan rather than let an invoice grow quietly.

8.4. There are two ways to raise the figure: move up a plan or, where an extra-disk option is offered for your plan, buy disk in blocks of 100 gigabytes at the price shown on the store page. A block raises your allowance from the next invoice and is usually cheaper than sustained overage.

8.5. Mail lives inside your disk. There is no separate size limit on a mailbox. Apart from the automatic clearing of Trash, Junk and Spam folders described below, there is no rule about how old or how large a stored message may be. Mail counts toward your plan's disk like everything else, and the only consequence of a large mail store is the disk charge in section 8.2. Messages in Trash, Junk and Spam folders are kept for a maximum of 90 days, after which they are deleted automatically.

8.6. Old and oversized mail is, even so, the most common reason a subscription runs over its disk. Keep mailboxes tidy, archive locally what you no longer need on the server, and do not run catch-all mailboxes that nobody reads. Attachment size, message size, recipient and connection limits for sending are server settings; support will tell you the current values, and if you have a legitimate need to send more, ask before you send, not after the queue fills.

8.7. Very large numbers of small files, or a single directory holding an unreasonable number of them, can make a subscription impossible to back up in a sensible time. Where that happens Noiz will tell you and ask you to reduce it, and those files may be left out of platform backups until you do.

8.8. Managed Virtual and Dedicated Server disks near capacity risk stability. Noiz notifies and guides; after three unaddressed notifications, alerts are deactivated, potentially causing unresponsiveness.

9. Traffic Usage

9.1. Shared Hosting and Reseller

• Traffic is a server setting, not a plan figure, on every shared plan. A monthly ceiling is set on the server as a backstop against runaway usage and abuse; it is not advertised, it sits far above what a normal business website uses, and Noiz contacts you if a service approaches it. Traffic is never billed on shared hosting.
• Shared hosting, including add-ons such as CDN and WAF, is for website hosting, not primary file storage, archiving, high-volume video streaming or multimedia.
• How Noiz handles a site that outgrows shared hosting is explained on the Unlimited Traffic page.

9.2. Managed Virtual or Dedicated Servers, Self-Managed Virtual or Dedicated Servers, Cloud, and Colocation

• Certain services require prior consultation, including:
  • Public mirroring accessible to the general public;
  • Websites/services redirecting traffic;
  • Reselling bandwidth/network capacity for end-user internet access;
  • Routing Colocation traffic via Self-Managed/Cloud servers to the internet.
• No fixed quotas apply, but Noiz monitors patterns; disproportionate usage may trigger rate limiting to preserve network integrity (affecting speed, not volume or time). Noiz is not liable for losses from such restrictions.
• Traffic usage is provided per IP; aggregation across servers is unavailable. Excessive usage is flagged for discussion.

All clients must adhere to this Policy to maintain server and network performance for the benefit of all users. To discuss specific requirements, contact [email protected].