Serverius IT infrastructure is providing underlying infrastructure services without any hosting activities. Serverius is not a hosting provider as it has no data carrier hardware like servers or disk storage services under management (only our clients do). Serverius is only providing IT resources like data center colocation, IP connectivity, DDoS protection, etc, that are used by users to build their own internet infrastructure for their own users. Like this, millions of companies in the world use Serverius services. Therefore Serverius does not know what Serverius network users are hosting on their hardware (it's technically impossible for us to see and forbidden by law) and is therefore never liable for what Serverius users host behind their network and/or on his own infrastructure.
Serverius is handling an extremely strict policy to prevent abuse and illegal content - Serverius does not tolerate any abuse at all. We use a strict policy of banning the illegal distribution of copyrighted material, spam, virus, or any illegal activities. Serverius promotes a high level of responsible behavior in connection with respect to the rights of others and requires that users of Serverius services will do the same. Therefore Serverius is using a clear abuse handling policy. If you - the person who has a complaint - have identified that Serverius services are used by one of our users in violation of applicable Dutch or European law and/or if you believe that your content has been used in any manner that infringes upon your rights, you are required to send an abuse notification directly to the IP responsible user entity. The procedure and requirements for the abuse notifications are set forth below.
Again, Serverius does not tolerate any illegal activities. In case something happens with an IP subnet that is used by one of our users (or a client(s) of a user), we are required to follow the rules. In order to process a claim, please ensure your claim adheres to Dutch and European law. This means you first must try everything within your power to get in contact with the infringing IP user (by using website contact information, domain name whois, etc.), and only if they do not reply, you can escalate the issue to the hosting provider (in most cases the Serverius user, the hosting provider).
To contact the IP responsible person (the IP user), you can send a clear email notice in plain text to abuse@serverius.net with proof and an explanation of the abuse. Never forget to write your first name, last name, direct telephone number, company name (what you are related to), email address, address, city, state/region, postcode, country, and any other contact information. Your email will automatically be forwarded by the Serverius Robot system to the IP responsible user of the IP. In most cases the hosting provider, the Serverius user. Only attach .jpg or .pdf files, do not send exotic attachment extensions to prevent the Serverius systems will see your email as a virus or hack attempt. Send your email in plain text with the IP address clearly written with spaces (so, our software can easily find the IP). Do not send your email to multiple addresses in the same email like support@serverius.net, noc@serverius.net, sales@serverius.net but ONLY to abuse@serverius.net (if you do, your email will not be parsed, Serverius will not receive your message and Serverius cannot forward your message to the IP user). Send 1 email per IP subnet and do not forget to mention the abused IP in the body text (our email parser will need it to forward it to the right person). Send as much proof in .jpg or .pdf as possible. Never forget to send the abused IP subnet information: without an IP it's technically impossible to help you with your request. Keep in mind, only a domain name will not be enough to forward your notice to the IP user. When sending an email, never forget to provide your full details, with a minimum of your First Name, Last Name, direct telephone number, Company Name (if you have one), Email Address, Address, City, State/Region, Postcode, and Country.
Keep in mind that Serverius is not related to IP usage and we have no outlook on what is hosted on the infrastructure of our clients. Serverius falls under Dutch/European law, so if you have not achieved the desired result for your complaint, you are required to go through the Dutch court system for a legal court order against the IP user to take down the IP subnet within the Serverius network. Therefore we advise you to keep it simple and first try to contact the IP user in a personal way. This usually gives the best and quickest results.
In case you do not get any reply from the IP user at abuse@serverius.net, you can send the Serverius NOC department your complaint together with all past communication to the IP subnet user and/or hosting provider (email address at the ripe database). You can use the ticket system for this or send it together with your first name, last name, direct telephone number, company name (what you are related to), email address, address, city, state/region, postcode, country, and any other contact information to noc@serverius.net. Do not forget to include a clear copy of all your past email communications with the IP subnet user when you send your claim to abuse@serverius.net (as an attachment) and do not forget to send clear information like IP subnets, personal client details, company names of the Serverius network user which is not responding. We need to see that you really tried to solve your abuse request in every possible way with the Serverius network user. Without this, Serverius is technically unable to help you because we need clear information in order to reach the IP user. Keep in mind that we really need to see you contact the IP user (we prefer .pdf) and you need to give the IP user minimum of 24 business hours to respond (because the IP user needs to have the ability to investigate and/or solve it). Serverius will forward your request again to our client and ask him to contact you. This will not guarantee that the IP user will contact you about your complaint, but normally it will when we ask it. Please do not send your email to multiple addresses like support@serverius.net, noc@serverius.net, or sales@serverius.net but ONLY to noc@serverius.net (if you do, our email system may get confused which results in not receiving your message, and therefore we will be unable to act).
Escalation: Serverius is obliged to act in accordance with Dutch and European law. We are therefore happy to act accordingly. European law clearly states that a data center, IP network, or other IT resource supplier is never responsible for the hosted content. In addition, there are clear rules and urgent procedures if there are reports of terrorist or child pornographic content. This means that in addition to the usual way (as described on this page), you can also send your notice to the relevant (government) authorities. In most cases, Serverius has short lines with the relevant authorities, so that verified reports received via these authorities are processed immediately by Serverius.
Serverius emphasizes that for years she has wanted the need for a government-regulated and monitored reporting/alerting system. This is to prevent numerous cases where it is not clear whether or not content is permitted under European or Dutch legislation. Serverius is sometimes asked to play its own judge. But Serverius is not and should not play judge, because that is what the European and Dutch legal system is for. There is an excellent arrangement for terrorist content and child pornography, but not for extreme right-wing content, for example. As an IT raw material supplier, Serverius is therefore confronted with an extremely complex problem, in which Serverius often has to act as a judge, and has to investigate cases itself, and this despite the fact that others often already know about the case, and deliberately does not inform Serverius on purpose. For example, there have been cases in which Dutch journalists, because of their commercial news value, deliberately do not disclose critical information about extreme right-wing websites to Serverius. Even after Serverius asked them many times. When there would be clear legislation, whereby there would be an obligation for someone who knows something to report it to the government, then the users of Serverius and Serverius themselves could act better and faster because there could never be any question of subjectivity. Because neither Serverius itself nor its (sub) users want to have bad things hosted within their infrastructure.
Technically it is not possible to check all content within a data center. But even if that were the case, it is not legally allowed due to the GDPR. And because the EU does not want a general monitoring obligation to look into all the data of citizens and companies that pass through our data centers, and to search through all the billions of files, all the millions of sites that are hosted by users and customers of users for questionable content. Sometimes they are also in American, Russian, Chinese, or Arabic, where Serverius as an SME entrepreneur and non-lawyer, is not able to determine whether it concerns the freedom of speech and whether it is punishable or not. That is already a difficult task for judges, and therefore for Serverius an impossible task. You might be able to ask large companies like Facebook or Twitter something like that, but Serverius thinks it's not a good idea to place all of the legal proceedings to a private party. That certainly cannot be asked in good decency from a company such as Serverius, because Serverius itself has nothing to do with its users of the data storage and connections and with any hosted content.
We want the government to arrange this properly so that we can do what we can do well: respond quickly to a report, work with technology, and not be forced to concern ourselves with what citizens need to do on the Internet. The do and don't, that is really a government task.
Gladfully the same point of view is used in an industry context. The DINL and DCC for example, are working hard on this. You can call DINL and DCC, they can tell you exactly what is being done with the judiciary and the police to keep harmful and criminal content off the internet.
- Note 1: We understand that a Serverius user did not intend that a Serverius or his own service is abused by someone else (e.g. a Serverius user or customer’s customer of a user). Still, the IP user is managing the IP services himself and is therefore fully responsible for anything related to or happening on its service, including sub-client usage, incoming or outgoing DDoS, or 3rd party software, its clients' client usage, and so on.
- Note 2: Nothing in this article should be construed as legal advice. For the definitive word on the law, legal help, etc. we highly recommend that you seek qualified legal advice.
- Note 3: Always communicate in the English language only.
- Note 4: Never send abuse complaints directly to the personal email addresses of the Serverius staff members. If you do, you could be blocked by our systems. Never call about abuse to personal mobile telephone numbers of Serverius personnel.
- Note 5: In case of external proxy services (like Akamai, Cloudflare, Incapsula, Stackpath) which could forward IP data traffic in the Serverius network, you first need to contact the proxy service (last IP hop of your IP trace) and request an abuse removal/block at the proxy service before you contact Serverius. Keep in mind that most of these proxy services will tell you they "only forward traffic from someone else’s hosting and therefore we cannot act" and they, therefore, will not disable their protecting service. Don't let them trick you, because it's not true and also irrelevant because if they are the first physical hosting service and therefore legally required to stop servicing the abused website (regardless of the fact that they offer protection against the spread of abuse and illegal content).
- Note 6: Due to the active abuse policy of Serverius in recent years, abuse case content is not hosted within the Serverius network or in its data centers anymore.
- Note 7: This information is also published on the Serverius website: https://serverius.net/abuse
