Acceptable Use Policy (AUP)

01Purpose and scope

The purpose of this Policy is to ensure the secure, lawful and stable operation of the Service for all Clients and to protect the Service, its infrastructure and third parties from abuse.

The Policy applies to the Client (the User), all of the Client’s end users and Players, all Protected servers connected to the Service, and all traffic that passes through the Service.

Definitions: the terms “Service”, “Client” (“User”), “Account”, “Protected server” and “Operator” are used with the meanings set out in the Terms of Service. The “Operator” (“we”) is the administration of the CastShield project.

02Prohibited content and materials

The Client undertakes not to use the Service to transmit, host or provide access to content that, in particular:

• is unlawful or infringes applicable law or the rights and legitimate interests of third parties;
• infringes intellectual-property rights (copyright and related rights, trademarks), including the pirate distribution of third-party software and materials;
• contains malware, exploits, trojans, ransomware or other code designed to disrupt systems or to obtain unauthorised access;
• is used for phishing, credential theft, fraud or deceiving users;
• constitutes unsolicited bulk messaging (spam), including in-game spam and unsolicited advertising;
• contains material that exploits minors or any other content expressly prohibited by law.

03Network abuse

Any network activity aimed at disrupting the Service, the Protected servers of other Clients or third-party resources is prohibited, including:

• attacks on the Service, its infrastructure and other users: DDoS/DoS, flooding, amplification, brute-force, exploitation of vulnerabilities;
• port, network and service scanning, or infrastructure reconnaissance without the Operator’s express written permission;
• spoofing of network identifiers (IP/MAC spoofing), forging of headers and protocol packets;
• operating botnets, using infected or rented nodes for attacks, or coordinating attacks;
• using the Service as a launch point, relay or means of disguising attacks against any third-party targets.

The Service is intended solely for protecting the Client’s Protected servers, and not for carrying out offensive actions against any resources.

04Circumvention and interference

Any attempt to circumvent, disable or compromise the protection mechanisms and the operation of the Service is prohibited, in particular:

• circumventing or neutralising the edge filter, the captcha, the queue, the anti-cheat and other filtering systems;
• reverse-engineering, decompiling or analysing the protection mechanisms in order to bypass them;
• conducting load testing or penetration testing of the Service or its infrastructure without prior agreement;
• attempting to intercept, read or modify the traffic, configurations or data of other Clients;
• interfering with the operation of the Service, creating artificial load, or exploiting bugs without notifying the Operator.

Any vulnerabilities discovered should be responsibly reported to the Operator at abuse@castgame.net rather than exploited.

05Resource abuse

Misuse or excessive use of the Service’s resources is prohibited, including:

• cryptocurrency mining and other resource-intensive computations unrelated to the protection of Minecraft servers;
• proxying arbitrary non-Minecraft TCP/UDP traffic through the Service, or using the Service as a general-purpose proxy/VPN/tunnel;
• reselling, re-sharing or providing the Service’s protection to third parties without the Operator’s written permission;
• creating multiple Accounts (multi-accounting) to circumvent limits, Plan restrictions, free-tier quotas or previously imposed blocks.

The Operator may restrict or suspend any usage that creates a disproportionate load or threatens the stability of the Service for other Clients.

06Payment abuse and fraud

Any form of payment fraud or dishonest financial conduct is prohibited, in particular:

• unjustified chargebacks and payment reversals that bypass the procedure established by the Offer;
• paying with stolen or compromised bank cards, accounts or payment details;
• any other fraudulent conduct, or abuse of promotions, bonuses or referral mechanics.

Where payment fraud is detected, the Operator may immediately block the Account without any refund and disclose the relevant data to the payment provider and the competent authorities.

07Client responsibility for users and content

The Client is fully responsible for all actions taken using their Account and Protected servers, including the actions of their end users and Players.

The Client is solely responsible for the lawfulness of the content hosted on the Protected servers, for respecting the rights of third parties, and for the compliance of their servers’ activity with applicable law.

The Client undertakes to communicate the requirements of this Policy to their users and to ensure compliance; a breach of the Policy by the Client’s users is treated as a breach by the Client themselves.

08Submitting and handling abuse reports

Violations of this Policy, unlawful content or network abuse related to the Service should be reported to abuse@castgame.net.

An abuse report should ideally include: the IP addresses and/or domain names involved in the violation; the date, time and time zone of the incident; a description of the violation; supporting materials (logs, screenshots, headers); and your contact details for follow-up.

The Operator reviews properly submitted reports within a reasonable period and may request additional information. Urgent threats (an ongoing attack) are handled with priority. Knowingly false or bad-faith reports may be left without consideration.

09Enforcement measures

Depending on the nature and severity of the violation, the Operator may apply the following measures, including in sequence: a warning → restriction of features or throughput → suspension of service → blocking of the Account without any refund.

For gross violations — attacks, payment fraud and attempts to circumvent the protection — measures are applied immediately and without warning, and the paid period is non-refundable.

In addition, in the case of attacks: the IP addresses and ASNs involved in the attack (the entire pool) are blocked indefinitely, including at the kernel level (XDP); attack sources (IP, ASN, behavioural signatures) are recorded and submitted to public abuse databases (AbuseIPDB and similar) and to the abuse contacts of hosting providers, which harms the IP’s reputation and usually leads to your servers being blocked by your own hosting provider.

10Cooperation with law-enforcement authorities

The Operator retains data on violations and attacks and, upon an official, lawfully issued request, discloses it to law-enforcement and other competent authorities in accordance with the applicable law of the Russian Federation.

Disclosure may also take place to the extent necessary to protect the rights and legitimate interests of the Operator, other Clients and third parties, to prevent fraud and to ensure the security of the Service. The processing of personal data is governed by the Privacy Policy.

11Relationship with other documents

This Policy applies together with the Offer and the Terms of Service and forms an integral part of them. In the event of a conflict between the documents regarding acceptable use, this Policy prevails, unless expressly stated otherwise.

Terms not defined in this Policy are used with the meanings set out in the Terms of Service.

12Changes to the Policy and contacts

The Operator may amend this Policy. The current version and the date of the last update are stated on this page. Continued use of the Service after the changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated version.

Operator: the administration of the CastShield project.

Email for abuse reports and enquiries: abuse@castgame.net.