T&C
Abuse
If you need to file a complaint or report abusive behaviour which involves a domain name registered with us, please use our dedicated email address below:
Complaints: support@ionos.com
Abuse: abuse@ionos.com
Abuse handling procedure
Please find our abuse handling procedure described below.
If you contact IONOS by email regarding an abuse complaint, our abuse team will check your concern. Please note that we don’t send an answer to the complainant because of the automated systems and spam prevention.
Please always provide any information necessary to investigate a case:
- Involved domains, IP addresses, URLs, *complete* email headers, traffic data, …
- There is no requirement from our side to obfuscate any data.
- For complaints about IP addresses, please always include timestamps and port numbers (if applicable).
- Clearly state the type of abuse you are addressing: spam, phishing, botnet operations, malware distribution, trademark or copyright infringements, port scans, brute force attacks, …
- Information about the type and scope of the delivery plus item numbers and position numbers indicated in the order
- Please do not combine complaint categories unless absolutely necessary. We are fully aware that, for example, phishing cases usually also involve trademark infringements.
- Please always use up-to-date registration data from WHOIS or RDAP when filing complaints
Abuse process description
Our abuse management system checks if the reported domain or IP address is either registered with IONOS or pointing to resources controlled by IONOS and if one or more related customers can be identified.
If so, a case is automatically created in our ticketing system. If not, the complaint is flagged for manual review. The first option will lead to much faster case resolution, so please always provide all relevant information in plain text.
The exact abuse process depends on the involved product and state of the affected contract. In some cases, we might immediately suspend services; in others, we might give the affected customer some time to fix the problem and only suspend if the problem persists.
Additional information regarding complaint types
Complaints about email (spam, phishing, …)
We operate several large, shared mail clusters. See IP addresses of IONOS mail servers for details. When reporting an email received from such a system, please always include the complete email headers in your complaint.
A guide on how to retrieve those headers in various email clients is available at What Are Email Headers and How Can I View Them?
Please note that the displayed sender address is not sufficient to identify the sender of an email reliably.
This also applies to the mail systems operated by GMX, mail.com, and WEB.DE:
Note for externally hosted abusive content
Please always send complaints to the registrar of the related domain and the hoster of the content, i.e., file a complaint against the domain and all related IP addresses.
When acting purely as a registrar, we might be unable to confirm a complaint since we might be unable to access the infringing content.
Unless the domain name itself is clearly indicative of abuse, we cannot quickly resolve such cases. Only the hoster can.
Trademark and Copyright complaints
Trademark and Copyright complaints are usually forwarded to country-specific paralegal or legal teams. Please provide all relevant information like proof of trademark registration or proof of authorization/representation.
Also, provide a reachable contact address.
In general, we recommend getting legal advice before sending Trademark or Copyright complaints.