Acceptable Use Policy

1. Scope and responsibility

This Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) applies to all NodePier sites, applications, builds, containers, domains, subdomains, APIs, onion services, storage, and network activity. It is incorporated into the Terms of Service.

NodePier is invitation only and control-plane access is limited to adults who are at least 18 years old. You are responsible for activity performed through your owner key, deployed code, users, agents, integrations, and services. You must take reasonable steps to secure applications and address abuse made possible through them.

2. Illegal, exploitative, or dangerous activity

You may not use NodePier to create, upload, host, facilitate, advertise, sell, or distribute:

• material or conduct that is unlawful in the applicable jurisdiction, or services intended to enable others to violate law;
• child sexual abuse material, sexual exploitation of minors, grooming, trafficking, non-consensual intimate imagery, or credible threats of violence;
• terrorist content or activity where prohibited by law, instructions tied to an imminent violent act, or material supporting a designated sanctioned organization;
• unlawful weapons, controlled-substance, fraud, theft, money-laundering, or sanctions-evasion services;
• content obtained or disclosed through unlawful access, coercion, stalking, or exploitation; or
• any service whose primary purpose is coordinating or concealing serious harm.

3. Malware, attacks, and unauthorized access

You may not:

• deploy malware, ransomware, destructive code, credential stealers, botnet infrastructure, command-and-control systems, cryptojacking, or unwanted surveillance software;
• phish, harvest credentials, impersonate login services, or distribute malicious downloads;
• access, scan, test, interfere with, or exploit systems without the system owner's authorization;
• launch or coordinate denial-of-service attacks, traffic amplification, brute-force attacks, spam campaigns, or automated abuse;
• bypass NodePier isolation, rate limits, authentication, resource controls, network restrictions, or provisioning safeguards; or
• publish active secrets or access tokens for the purpose of enabling unauthorized access.

Good-faith security research is permitted only when authorized by the affected owner, carefully scoped, designed to avoid harm, and compliant with law. “Research” is not a defense for accessing systems without permission.

4. Deception, harassment, and privacy harm

You may not operate services that materially deceive or harm others, including:

• fraud, investment scams, fake support, deceptive billing, counterfeit goods, or identity theft;
• impersonation likely to confuse users about source, sponsorship, or affiliation;
• doxxing, targeted harassment, stalking, swatting, coercion, or publishing sensitive personal data without a lawful basis;
• stalkerware, non-consensual tracking, hidden surveillance, or tools primarily designed to defeat a person's privacy choices;
• bulk unsolicited messaging, address harvesting, or distribution of purchased or stolen contact lists; or
• dark patterns or interfaces intentionally designed to capture secrets or consent deceptively.

5. Network and resource integrity

You may not use resources in a way that degrades NodePier, its upstream provider, or other networks. Prohibited activity includes sustained resource exhaustion, unapproved cryptocurrency mining, abusive scraping, excessive automated account creation, packet spoofing, open relays, public exit nodes, or public proxies that create unmanaged abuse risk.

Lawful Tor onion-service hosting is allowed when the hosted service complies with this AUP. NodePier's onion feature does not authorize a Tor exit, relay, bridge, or generalized proxy. Prior written approval is required before operating network infrastructure not ordinarily produced by NodePier's application-hosting workflow.

NodePier may apply or change technical limits and may throttle a service that threatens capacity even when the underlying content is lawful.

6. Intellectual property and regulated content

You must have sufficient rights to use all content, code, trademarks, and domains you deploy. You may not use NodePier primarily to distribute infringing copies, defeat effective access controls unlawfully, or continue infringement after a valid notice and reasonable opportunity to respond.

Services handling regulated data or activity—including health, financial, biometric, education, export-controlled, or government data—may require contracts and controls NodePier does not provide. You may not assume NodePier is compliant with HIPAA, PCI DSS, FERPA, CJIS, export-control programs, or another specialized regime unless NodePier expressly agrees in a signed writing.

7. Enforcement

NodePier may investigate a credible report using the limited information reasonably available. Because traffic logging is intentionally privacy-preserving, NodePier may not possess visitor IP addresses, requested paths, referrers, or unique-visitor histories.

Depending on severity, history, evidence, and risk, NodePier may request information, limit resources, block a route or domain, stop a container, suspend a site, reject a deployment, preserve data when legally required, permanently remove a service, or report conduct where required by law. Immediate action may occur without notice when delay could cause harm.

NodePier will try to distinguish unlawful or abusive material from lawful surrounding content and use a proportionate response when practical, but does not promise a particular outcome or response time.

8. Reports, counter-information, and appeals

See Abuse and Copyright Reports for the reporting process. A useful report should identify the exact hostname and material, explain the violated rule or right, include supporting evidence, provide a way to follow up, and contain a good-faith statement of accuracy.

Customers may respond to a report and appeal an enforcement decision by explaining the error, remediation, and safeguards against recurrence. NodePier may decline repetitive, abusive, anonymous, unsupported, or legally defective demands, except where anonymity is necessary for safety and enough evidence exists to act.