Acceptable Use Policy

The German text is the binding one. This translation is provided for convenience only.

This policy applies to all services of GoodFlare IT, proprietor Arne Heidrich: game servers, bots and apps, VPS and containers, web hosting, domains and DNS management. It is part of the contract (Terms § 5) and also sets out our content moderation rules under Art. 14 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act, DSA).

You are responsible for your services, including content of your users, players and sub-users and everything done through your access.

We do not generally monitor your content (Art. 8 DSA). We do follow up on notices and on technical signs, such as unusual outgoing traffic or sustained full load.

You may not store, offer, distribute or deliberately make available content that breaks the law, in particular:

• child sexual abuse material (§§ 184b, 184c StGB)
• incitement to violence and crime, incitement to hatred, symbols of unconstitutional organisations (§§ 86a, 111, 130 StGB) and terrorist content online (Regulation (EU) 2021/784)
• insult, defamation, threats and stalking (§§ 185 to 187, 238, 241 StGB), dangerous disclosure of personal data (§ 126a StGB) and violations of intimate privacy by images (§ 201a StGB)
• infringements of copyright, trade marks and other rights, such as unlicensed copies of software, games, films or music
• pornographic and other content harmful to minors without the access restrictions required by the German Interstate Treaty on the Protection of Minors in the Media
• offers of prohibited goods and services, such as drugs, weapons or forged documents, and unlicensed gambling
• processing other people’s personal data without a legal basis

Also not allowed:

• distributing, hosting or controlling malware, such as viruses, trojans, ransomware, botnets and their command servers
• phishing pages, fake shops and pages impersonating other companies, people or authorities
• fraud, investment fraud and pyramid schemes
• tools and services whose evident purpose is crime, such as “stresser” or “booter” services, credential stuffing or trading stolen credentials

We offer no e-mail services. Outgoing connections on port 25 may be blocked; send e-mail through an external provider of your choice.

Advertising e-mails and other messages without the recipients’ consent (§ 7 UWG) are not allowed, including through third parties, nor is promoting content on our servers through such messages.

Not allowed:

• attacks on other systems, also “for testing” without the operator’s permission: denial-of-service (DDoS), port and vulnerability scans, password guessing, exploiting vulnerabilities
• forging source addresses (IP spoofing) and interfering with routing
• open proxies, open mail relays and open DNS resolvers that third parties can use without control, and anonymisation or VPN services for third parties, including Tor exit nodes
• circumventing our protection and billing measures and accessing other customers’ systems

Security testing of your own services is allowed. Please agree larger load tests with us beforehand so our filters do not take them for an attack.

Mining cryptocurrencies and similar methods that keep CPU, memory or disks under sustained load (such as proof-of-space farming) are not allowed on any service. Wallets, payment processing and blockchain nodes are allowed within fair use.

Your plan’s specifications are for the intended operation of a game server, a website or a server. Where services share CPU cores, sustained full load over many hours that does not come from the normal operation of your service is not intended use.

On game servers and websites, storage is for running the booked service, not as general data storage, a backup target for other systems, a download mirror or a file store for third parties.

If your use stays well above the usual, we contact you first and suggest a fitting plan. Technical limits, such as for CPU share, processes and connections, are enforced automatically regardless.

Follow the licence and usage terms of the game and its extensions, for Minecraft for example Mojang’s End User License Agreement and Usage Guidelines, which also govern what you may sell on a server.

Servers that mainly serve to distribute cheats, stolen accounts or unlawfully copied game content are not allowed, nor are attacks on other game servers.

If your server is public, moderate chat and content appropriately and respond to your players’ reports. If minors play, observe the protection of minors.

Follow the rules of the platforms your bot works with (such as Discord, Telegram, Twitch).

Not allowed are bots that send unsolicited mass messages or spam, automate other people's accounts (self-bots), disrupt or take over servers or channels (raid or nuke bots), collect user data without a legal basis, or work around the platforms' rate limits.

With root access you are responsible for the system: updates, secure credentials, firewall and the software you install.

If a system is evidently taken over by third parties, for example as part of a botnet, we disconnect it from the network until you have cleaned or reinstalled it.

Keep applications such as WordPress, their plugins and themes up to date. Outdated software is the most common way websites are abused for phishing and malware.

If there are signs of malicious code or a phishing page, for example from a notice, we inform you. If the website is compromised, it may be temporarily blocked until it is cleaned; your files and databases stay as they are, and you can keep working on the website in the customer area. Once the reason is resolved, or if it was a false alarm, we lift the block without delay.

Domains and DNS records may not be used for purposes this policy prohibits, in particular phishing, malware, botnets, pharming or as a vehicle for spam.

Do not choose a domain that infringes third-party rights such as trade mark or name rights.

If a domain registered through us is abused, measures under the registry’s rules may follow as well, such as a suspension on its instruction or after a dispute resolution proceeding.

We act step by step and choose the mildest measure that works. We take into account how serious and how long-lasting the violation is, whether it is repeated, whether you knew of it, the effects on others and the fundamental rights of everyone involved, in particular freedom of expression and information (Art. 14(4) DSA). Where possible we restrict only the affected part, such as a single website instead of your whole account.

• Notice with a deadline: we describe the violation and ask you to fix it or respond within a reasonable time.
• Blocking individual content: where technically possible and sufficient, we block access to a specific item only, such as a single address.
• Pause: we stop the affected service. Your data is kept.
• Termination: for serious or repeated violations we terminate the contract for cause (§ 314 BGB).

We act without prior notice only where serious harm would otherwise occur, in particular with ongoing attacks, active malware or phishing, child sexual abuse material, or where our infrastructure or other customers are at risk. We then inform you without delay afterwards.

If information gives rise to a suspicion of a criminal offence involving a threat to the life or safety of persons, we inform the competent law enforcement or judicial authorities (Art. 18 DSA).

If we restrict a service or content, you receive a statement of reasons under Art. 17 DSA by e-mail and in the customer area: what we restricted and for how long, the facts and the trigger (a notice or our own review), whether automated means were involved, the legal ground or the rule of this policy that was broken, and how you can challenge it.

You can object at any time, by replying to the notice or to hello@goodflare.io. The proprietor then reviews the case again personally and lifts the measure as soon as its reason no longer applies. Recourse to the courts remains open to you.

The proprietor reads and reviews notices personally, without AI services or other automated means. Technically, the load monitoring of our systems helps us notice anomalies; we do not use malware scanners at present. A person always decides on restrictions. The exception is automatic network protection against ongoing attacks, such as filtering a denial-of-service attack.

Payment remains due during a justified suspension. If a suspension was unjustified, we credit you the time.

If you are responsible for a violation, you indemnify us against third-party claims based on it, including reasonable costs of legal defence.

Report illegal content and abuse on our servers at goodflare.io/report-content or by e-mail to hello@goodflare.io.