What the network is for, what it is not for, and what happens at the line.

Why this policy exists#

A proxy network is only as useful as its reputation. Every abusive request degrades the success rate of every legitimate customer, exposes the person whose household connection was used, and puts our address space on lists it is hard to leave. We therefore enforce this policy actively, and we favour the people behind the exits over any single customer.

Permitted uses#

• Collecting publicly available information: prices, listings, search results, advertisements, reviews, availability, public profiles and pages, at a pace the destination can absorb.
• Verifying what the public sees from a given country, city or carrier: ad placement and delivery, localisation, content and pricing differences, compliance of your own or your clients' campaigns.
• Brand protection and market research: finding counterfeit listings, unauthorised resellers, misuse of your trademarks or content.
• Testing, monitoring and quality assurance of websites, apps and infrastructure that you own or are expressly authorised to test.
• Managing accounts that you own or are authorised to manage, within the terms of the platform concerned.
• Security research on systems you own or have written authorisation to test, and academic research within the law.
• Ordinary private browsing and access to lawful content.

Prohibited uses#

Attacks and intrusion

• Denial-of-service, flooding, amplification or any traffic intended to degrade a service.
• Exploiting vulnerabilities, brute-forcing or guessing credentials, credential stuffing, or scanning systems you are not authorised to test.
• Distributing malware, running command-and-control infrastructure, or facilitating any of the above.

Fraud and deception

• Payment fraud, use of stolen payment instruments or accounts, chargeback fraud, money laundering.
• Click fraud, ad fraud, fake engagement, fake reviews or any manufactured signal sold or presented as genuine.
• Impersonation of people or organisations, phishing, and deceptive account creation at scale.
• Circumventing purchase limits, ticketing rules or access controls where the law of the destination or of your country prohibits it.

Unauthorised access and data

• Accessing accounts, systems or data without authorisation, including by bypassing authentication, paywalls or technical protection measures in breach of the law.
• Collecting personal data without a lawful basis, scraping content that is not publicly accessible, tracking or profiling identified individuals, harassment, stalking or exposing private information.

Spam and unsolicited messaging

• Sending bulk unsolicited messages of any kind, or creating accounts in bulk to do so. Outbound port 25 is closed on every network for this reason.

Illegal content and activity

• Any content involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of minors. We have zero tolerance, terminate immediately and report to the competent authorities.
• Terrorist content, human trafficking, the sale of illegal goods or services, and anything else illegal where you operate, where the destination operates or where the exit is located.

Circumvention and interference

• Reselling or sharing access to the Service without a written agreement with us, or hiding your identity to evade a suspension or termination.
• Attacking, overloading or reverse-engineering the gateway, or exploiting a metering or billing defect instead of reporting it through a support ticket opened from a HodlProxy account.

Rules of good conduct#

• Pace requests per destination and back off when you receive a 429 or a challenge. Small sites deserve more restraint than large ones.
• Respect the exclusions a destination publishes where they apply to what you do, and the destination's terms where they bind you.
• Use the network that fits: datacenter for open sources, residential and mobile only where the destination requires them.
• Keep sticky sessions as short as the task allows, and do not keep a household connection busy for hours.

Enforcement#

• Automatic safeguards apply to everyone: outbound port 25 is closed, and destinations on our deny list are refused with a 403 and a reason.
• For a first, minor breach we normally send a warning describing what we observed, with a deadline to stop.
• For a serious breach, or when a warning is ignored, we suspend the sub-user or the account. Suspension takes effect immediately when the protection of exits or third parties requires it.
• Repeated or grave breaches lead to termination. The unused balance may be withheld to cover the costs and damages caused; any remainder is returned under the Refund policy.
• Where the law requires it, we preserve evidence and cooperate with the competent authorities.
• You may contest a measure through a support ticket opened from your account within 14 days; a person reviews the case and answers with the outcome.

Reporting abuse#

If traffic from our network affects you, report it through a support ticket opened from a HodlProxy account with the IP address or hostname, the UTC time window, the destination and a description of the behaviour, with logs or screenshots where possible. We aim to acknowledge every report within one business day and to act on confirmed abuse within 72 hours. Reports from the affected party or from law enforcement are handled first.

Changes to this policy#

This policy may be updated to address new forms of abuse. Changes are announced by email and on this page at least 14 days before they take effect, unless a change is needed immediately to protect exits or third parties, in which case it is announced as soon as it is made.