Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) forms part of your agreement with Matthew James Creative, LLC (“MJC,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) and applies to all Services. Capitalized terms have the meanings set forth in the Hosting Agreement and Terms of Service.

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01Prohibited Uses

You agree not to use the Services to:

1. Unlawful Activities: Violate any applicable law or regulation; infringe intellectual property, privacy, or publicity rights.
2. Security Violations: Engage in hacking, phishing, credential harvesting, port scanning, vulnerability scanning without authorization, or distributing malware, spyware, ransomware, trojans, or keyloggers.
3. Network/Resource Abuse: Run processes or scripts that degrade server/network performance (e.g., abuse of cron jobs, background daemons, crypto-mining, denial-of-service or distributed DoS activities).
4. Spam & Unsolicited Communications: Send bulk or unsolicited email/SMS/push messages; maintain open SMTP relays; purchase or use third-party lists without proven permission.
5. Illegal/Restricted Content: Host or link to content that is obscene, exploitative, defamatory, deceptive, or otherwise unlawful; promote violence or hate.
6. Fraud/Deception: Impersonate others, engage in phishing, or misrepresent your identity, affiliation, or the origin of content.
7. Data Scraping/Misuse: Collect personal data without consent, violate data protection laws, or circumvent robots/crawling restrictions.
8. Circumvention: Bypass or attempt to bypass security, usage, or access controls applied to the Services.

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02Email & Messaging Standards

1. Consent & Compliance: All messaging must comply with applicable laws (e.g., CAN-SPAM, TCPA, CASL, GDPR/UK-GDPR where relevant) and require valid consent.
2. Sender Reputation: You must maintain proper SPF/DKIM/DMARC where applicable and promptly address abuse or bounce issues.
3. Unsubscribe: Provide a functional opt-out and honor opt-out requests promptly.
4. Outreach Compliance. Any outreach for links, PR, or promotions must comply with applicable laws and platform rules (e.g., CAN-SPAM, FTC disclosure/endorsement guidelines, and publisher policies). Purchased lists or deceptive practices are prohibited.

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03Security & Data Protection

1. Your Responsibility: For web properties you control, you are responsible for securing your accounts, credentials, code, forms, plugins, themes, and integrations. For sites MJC hosts and maintains under the Digital Visibility Program or a written maintenance plan, MJC is responsible for platform, plugin and theme updates. Use strong passwords and MFA where available.
2. Updates: You are responsible for keeping your application, plugins, themes, and dependencies up-to-date unless enrolled in a written maintenance plan with MJC that expressly covers such updates.
3. Sensitive Data: Do not store payment card data, health data, or other regulated data on the Services without prior written authorization and appropriate compliance controls.

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04Resource Usage

1. Fair Use: Use resources in a manner consistent with normal operation of your site(s) and that does not adversely impact other customers.
2. Prohibited Loads: Excessive CPU, memory, I/O, or network usage; persistent background tasks not related to the website’s function; storage of large, non-web files (e.g., backups, archives) without written approval.
3. Throttling/Suspension: MJC may temporarily throttle, isolate, or suspend workloads that threaten platform stability or security.

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05Enforcement & Remedies

1. Investigation: MJC may investigate suspected violations and is not obligated to monitor all content or activity.
2. Actions: MJC may remove content, disable functionality, suspend or terminate Services, and/or notify law enforcement for violations of this AUP, the Hosting Agreement, or TOS.
3. No Refunds: Suspensions/terminations for cause may occur without refund.

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06Reporting Abuse

To report abuse or suspected violations, contact us via the channels provided on our website. Provide as much detail as possible (URLs, headers, timestamps, logs).

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07Changes to this AUP

MJC may modify this AUP at any time by posting updated terms on our website. Continued use of the Services after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised AUP.