Abuse Reporting Procedures

NameSilo supports the free flow of information and ideas over the Internet. Accordingly, NameSilo does not actively monitor, nor does it exercise editorial control over, the content of any message or web site accessible through domains registered at NameSilo. However, Namesilo reserves the right to suspend domain services when the use of said domain(s) violates our Terms and Conditions, per said terms, which each registrant must agree to. Please note that nothing documented on this page shall be construed to modify and/or ammend our Terms and Conditions - we are simply trying to make reporting domain service abuse easier and to help the reporters of alleged abuse work with us in a productively.

If you feel that a domain's use violates our Terms and Conditions, please take the time to bring it to our attention by notifying us at , or use our Contact Us page if email access is not accessible. If after sending us an abuse report via email you have not received a reply within 3 business days, that means we did not receive it for some reason. We strive to respond to all abuse complaints the same day, but that is not always possible.

Please note that if your abuse report requests that we reveal the name/address/phone/email provided by the domain registrant or requests the suspension of domain services due to a violation of our Terms and Conditions, and is not formally accompanied by a related written legal instrument of appropriate means and venue, that additional supporting information may need to be provided in order to facilitate such a request (more details on this can be found below). Also, please note that we generally provide registrants with 3 days notice of a pending domain action due to a Terms violation in order to give them the opportunity to correct alleged violations since many times, in our experience, the violation was made without their knowledge. If the registrant is not in violation of our Terms at the end of the 3 days notice period, we may cancel any pending action and consider the matter resolved. Also, please note that NameSilo is not a shortcut around due process. We lack the expertise and legal means to investigate many matters - in other words, nobody endowed us with police or judicial powers. For example, you may assert that you own copyright over material - but we have no means to verify this assertion in many cases. When we lack the power to verify claims of others or to verify the identity of the claimants (as is many times the case with copyright, trademark, servicemark, and intellectual property matters), there may be better, and more appropriate means for you to seek applicable remedies including but not limited to the Uniform Domain Dispute Resolution Policy and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (i.e. filing a DMCA takedown). Finally, please note that if the domain registrant fails to get back to us regarding the alleged Terms violation notification, we take that very seriously. Our Terms specifically require the registrant to get back to us regarding these matters in a timely manner and failure to do so can result in domain suspension. We use all forms of available contact information to contact the registrant and their failure to respond typically results in either revealing the contact information they have provided or domain suspension.

Generally supporting information must demonstrate/include the following:

• You must include your name, address, and email or telephone number (preferably both). If you have legal counsel actively representing you in the matter, please include their contact information as well.
• You must include specific details concerning the alleged Terms violation, including but not limited to: 1) exact URL(s) where we can see the violation, 2) for matters where URLs cannot be used (i.e. spam and/or phishing allegations), copies of files used as part of the violation and evidence as to their origins (i.e. emails including full headers). 3) any other supporting evidence such as screen shots and/or server log files.
  
• The terms violation must currently be in active and verifiable use at the time we investigate the matter. If we cannot see/download/use/access the violation, then we cannot verify it. For example, if you report that malware is being distributed via a domain, but the reported URL where it is downloaded/distributed does not work, then we cannot verify the violation.
• If requesting a domain suspension, it must be the proper course of action compared to other means/remedies. For example, lets assume that you own the copyright on music being sold by Google. Assuming google.com was registered at NameSilo, taking down the whole domain is NOT the proper course of action; rather filing a DMCA takedown or filing an applicable lawsuit against Google would be called for. As a rule of thumb here, is the entire use of the domain in question predominantly in violation of our Terms and Conditions, or just a smaller portion of it while the rest is legitimate?
• You must be qualified to determine the violation of Terms and be associated with any parties affected by the outcome of any action taken. For example, lets say you notice that a site is republishing documentation written by Microsoft and file a suspension request with us based on Microsoft's copyrighted material being misappropriated by a 3rd party without Microsoft's knowledge, but that you neither work for Microsoft nor have their specific written consent to represent their interests in these matters. We will not suspend the domain because: 1) it will probably be impossible or improbable to accurately identify you are who you say you are, 2) you are not qualified to file this complaint since there is no way for you to know that the site does not have Microsoft's permission and 3) you are not associated with Microsoft or the site publishing the information. In this case, you should bring your complaint to Microsoft or the site supposedly violating Microsoft's copyright.
  

There are some special scenarios related to domain suspension which require additional supporting information:

• When the domain in question is allegedly indirectly supporting a violation of our Terms via serving as a name server(s) for other domains (wherein the other domains are all violating our Terms), it needs to be shown that innocent domains will not be affected by suspending the name server domain and that the domain in question is indirectly used only for purposes that are in violation of our Terms. Therefore, we require a list of all domains which are receiving name server service from the domain in question and evidence that all of those domains are in violation of our Terms. We typically only consider domain suspension in this scenario if the abuses involved are serious (i.e. malware, phishing etc.). It is assumed that someone reporting such a violation understands that such actions can undermine the global DNS system and therefore has done due diligence to ensure innocent domains will not be harmed; such diligence would require TLD zone file access in order to determine the entire list of possible domains affected. Failure to perform such diligence may result in us dismissing the complaint. In the event such diligence cannot be taken, we will likely recommend instead pursuing suspension of the domains which are directly violating the Terms, which may very well not be registered with NameSilo.
• When the domain in question is used to allegedly impersonate another entity as a means to commit fraud (i.e. as in a phishing scheme), the person filing the abuse report must 1) legally represent the interests of the impersonated entity and/or 2) offer evidence of fraudulent solicitation (i.e. provide a copy of a phishing email with headers referencing the domain in question). For example, lets say there is a bank site that looks similar to another bank site - the mere existence of that site does not necessarily violate our Terms. Perhaps its a domain used by a web designer building a comp for a prospective or current client.