Acceptable Use Policy

This policy is the short list of things you must not do with Portsyde. It exists to keep the service lawful, stable and fairly priced for everyone using it, and it forms part of the Terms of Service.

1.Who this applies to

This policy applies to everyone who uses Portsyde, on any plan, and to anyone you let use your account. If someone in your household uses your account, their conduct is your responsibility.

2.Lawful use

Use Portsyde lawfully, both where you are and where our service runs. In particular, do not use it:

to commit or assist an offence, or to plan one;
to harass, threaten, defame or stalk anyone;
in connection with material that is unlawful to possess or distribute, and never in connection with material that sexually exploits children;
to distribute malware, or to phish for credentials or payment details; or
in breach of export controls or sanctions.

3.The text you store with us

Almost nothing of yours sits on our systems, but your configuration does: the names, labels and addresses you type when you set Portsyde up. That text is subject to this policy like everything else.

Keep it lawful and keep it yours. Do not use it to store other people's personal data, to publish anything you would not want attached to your name, or to route around a restriction somewhere else. Where a configuration itself breaks this policy, we may remove the offending part of it.

4.Rights to what you connect

Portsyde connects sources and services you already have. You must have the right to access everything you connect, and to use it the way you are using it.

We do not host or provide any of it, we do not check it, and we cannot see it — which is exactly why this is your call to make and your responsibility to get right. If you are not entitled to reach something, do not connect it.

5.No infringing use

Do not use Portsyde to infringe copyright, trade marks or any other intellectual property rights, or to help anyone else do so. We act on properly made copyright complaints about material we ourselves store, and we terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. The Copyright Policy explains the process.

6.One household, one account

An account is for you and the people you live with. Do not share it beyond your household, pool it with others, or pass credentials around so that a group can split the cost of a single plan.

Do not resell, sublicense, rent out or otherwise commercialise access to Portsyde, and do not operate it as a service for other people. If you want to offer something to your own customers, talk to us instead of building it on a personal plan.

7.Looking after the service

The service is shared. Do not do things that degrade it for other people:

No deliberate overloading: no flooding, denial-of-service, or automated traffic at a volume ordinary use would never produce.
No probing or attacking: no scanning, penetration testing without our written permission, no attempts to gain access to accounts, systems or data that are not yours, and no interference with anyone else's use.
No reverse engineering, decompiling or disassembling our software, except to the extent that law expressly permits it despite this restriction.
No automated scraping, crawling or bulk extraction of the service or the website, and no republishing what you extract.
No circumventing plan limits, rate limits, authentication or any other technical control, and no misrepresenting your identity or your account.
No running the service as an intermediary for traffic that is not yours.

8.Security research

If you find a vulnerability, tell us at legal@portsyde.com and give us a reasonable chance to fix it before you publish. Testing that stays within your own account, avoids other people’s data, and does not degrade the service is welcome, and we will not go after you for it. Everything beyond that is covered by the section above.

9.What we do about violations

If we believe an account is breaking this policy, we may limit it, suspend it, or terminate it. Which of those we choose depends on the seriousness of the problem, whether it looks deliberate, and whether it has happened before.

Where it is practical and lawful, we will tell you what we have seen and give you a fair chance to fix it before we act. Where waiting would risk harm to other customers, to our systems or to us, or where the law requires it, we may act first and explain afterwards.

We may also preserve or disclose information where the law requires it. Termination for breach does not entitle you to a refund, except where the law says otherwise or the Refund Policy provides one.