This article sets out the procedure we follow when we receive a complaint concerning a client's server.
Legal basis
As a hosting provider established in Germany, we are bound by German law, in particular the Digital Services Act (Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz) and the EU Digital Services Act. Once a provider receives a substantiated notice of unlawful content, it is required to act within a reasonable period; failing to do so means losing the exemption from liability for data stored on behalf of its clients.
This means we are not at liberty to leave a substantiated complaint unaddressed, regardless of our relationship with the client concerned.
How complaints are handled
We act only on reasoned and properly substantiated complaints. Notices that do not identify a specific infringement are not processed.
When we receive such a complaint, we:
- notify the client by ticket and forward the original complaint;
- set a deadline for reviewing the notice and remedying the infringement — as a general rule 24 hours;
- decide on further action in the light of the client's response and the nature of the infringement.
Confirmation of the measures taken must be sent through a ticket in your client area only. Messages sent by any other means cannot be taken into account in time.
Shorter deadlines
The 24-hour deadline applies where the infringement poses no immediate threat to other systems or users. Where a client's server does pose such a threat — in particular where it takes part in attacks on third-party resources, generates load affecting other equipment, or where its activity risks having our network addresses placed on blocklists — the deadline may be shortened at our discretion, for example to two hours.
Where the threat is immediate and substantial, the service may be suspended without notice and without any deadline for remedying the infringement. The client is informed of the measures taken by ticket.
Measures of this kind are strictly protective and are applied only to the extent necessary to remove the threat.
Grounds for suspension
As a rule, a server is suspended only after the client has been notified and has failed to respond within the deadline set. Grounds for suspension include complaints relating to:
- the sending of unsolicited mail (spam);
- the hosting of botnets, malicious software or malicious scripts.
Service is restored once the client has remedied the infringement.
Suspension without prior notice
In certain cases we are obliged to suspend service immediately and without prior notice. This applies to content whose distribution is expressly prohibited under German law, including:
- material containing the sexualised depiction of minors (§ 184b of the German Criminal Code);
- the distribution or promotion of narcotic substances;
- the distribution or promotion of weapons;
- fraudulent resources intended to obtain financial gain by deception.
In such cases we are also required to comply with orders from the competent German authorities and to disclose information to the extent provided for by law.
Assistance to clients
Our interest is in seeing the infringement resolved and the service continued. Where the infringement is not the client's fault — for example following a compromise of the server or of a third-party script hosted on it — we will provide guidance on checking the server and eliminating the cause.
