Notice and Takedown procedure

Version: 2020-01

As web host, Greenhost is an intermediary in providing digital services. In that role, third parties can file a Notice and Takedown request. If the details in the Notice and Takedown request make it manifestly and irrefutably clear that content provided through our platform is illegal or infringing, Greenhost will take steps, such as removing this content. As the intermediary, Greenhost is not supposed to judge the content in a legal sense. If there is any uncertainty whether content is infringing or illegal, Greenhost is not allowed to take content offline.

If, after consulting this procedure you want to file a Notice and Takedown request, please fill out the designated form.

Article 1: Notification

  1. A notice is made using the designated form.
  2. In all cases where a notice is made that meets the requirements of the procedure, Greenhost will inform the customer when the notice has been received, taking into account the content of the notice. The communication will take place through an email to the email address provided by the client. The informant will remain anonymous unless the reporter explicitly indicates that his identity must be known to the customer. When the informant and the client cannot resolve the issue in an amicable manner, the message will be processed accordingly. In urgent cases, this step can be skipped.
  3. Messages will have to meet the following requirements:
    • The informant indemnifies Greenhost for any claims third parties might make which might arise from any adjudication and / or dismissal, to meet the requests included in the report;
    • If the notice concerns an alleged infringement of an IP right (for example copyright or trademark) the informant has to demonstrate in a sufficient manner that he / she is entitled, in respect to the applicable law on which a call is made, to claim ownership or has been authorised by the rightful claimant;
    • The message is clear and supported by sufficient facts;
  4. Messages will be considered only if they meet the requirements of this regulation. If a report does not meet the requirements, the informant is given the opportunity by Greenhost to modify the message or clarify. If the message afterwards still does not meet the requirements of this article, the notice is inadmissible.

Article 2: Decisions

  1. Greenhost will decide if the notice is rightful within five working days. If this is not reasonably possible, Greenhost will assess the report as soon as possible, notifying the complainant of the reason for the delay and the time within which it expects to assess the report.
  2. If the notice is admissible, Greenhost will judge it in accordance to these regulations.
  3. Greenhost will motivate its decisions.
  4. In the case of a report which, in the opinion of Greenhost, refers to manifestly unlawful content and which under the prevailing law needs to be immediately removed from the Internet, the decision will be made promptly and also immediately made known to both the reporter as the customer.

Article 3: Objection

  1. Interested parties may object to a decision. The objection must be submitted by e-mail to Greenhost, at the latest ten days after the decision sent by Greenhost was received.
  2. Within two working days of receipt of the objection, Greenhost will send a copy of the objection by e-mail to the other, non-objecting party.
  3. The reasons for the objection will be motivated in this writing.
  4. Greenhost will decide on the objection, within ten working days of receipt of the objection.

Article 4: Criteria for assessing the notice

  1. The notice shall be assessed in accordance with Dutch law and will, wherever possible, be based on recent legal examples of the particular case.
  2. Messages that are submitted for assessment must directly relate to the alleged illegal information of the customer of Greenhost. Reports that only relate to morality, decency or other pertained behaviours are not considered.
  3. The notice can contain the following requests:
    • Information of a customer should deleted or made inaccessible;
    • Name and address of a customer must be provided to the informant;
    • Or a combination of these two variants.

Article 5: Requests to make information inaccessible or deletion

  1. In case we receive a request for removal of information that is posted by a customer with whom Greenhost has a hosting agreement, or for making this information inaccessible, Greenhost will review the request as follows:
    • If the relevant information, in the opinion of Greenhost, is not deemed manifestly unlawful, the request will be rejected;
    • If the relevant information, in the opinion of Greenhost, is manifestly unlawful, an urgent appeal is sent to the customer to remove the offending information;
    • If the customer does not abide to this request immediately, the offending information will be made inaccessible or removed, unless the customer has sufficiently demonstrated that there is no unlawful information. In that case Greenhost decides if the information will be made inaccessible or removed;
    • Greenhost will ensure that only the illegal information will be removed
  2. In case we receive a request for removal of information that is posted by a customer with whom Greenhost has a conduit agreement, or for making this information inaccessible, Greenhost will review the request as follows:
    • If, in the opinion of Greenhost, the relevant information is not manifestly unlawful, the request will be rejected;
    • If, in the opinion of Greenhost, the relevant information is deemed manifestly unlawful, an urgent appeal is sent to the customer to remove the offending information;
    • If the customer does not respond to the request immediately, the offending information will be made inaccessible or removed or , in case the customer has sufficiently demonstrated that there is no unlawful information, Greenhost decides that the information should be made inaccessible or removed immediately;
    • If it is not technically possible to block access to the offending information (without disruption of the other services), Greenhost will let the informant know that they can also request the name and address details of the customer himself, so the informant can enforce action on his own account by legally requesting to make the offending content inaccessible.
  3. If the request referred to in the second paragraph of this article relates to the allegedly unlawful manner by offering files through P2P software, the application should be supported with prove, that a significant amount of the allegedly illegal files, were distributed for an extended period of time.

Article 6: Requests for disclosure of names and addresses

  1. If a message contains the request for the name and address of a customer with whom Greenhost has a hosting agreement or a conduit agreement, the request of the informant is only granted if, in the opinion of Greenhost, all of the following conditions are met:
    • The informant has to sent an urgent request to the customer, via Greenhost, to request his / her name and address details voluntary, and the customer should provide these details within five business days thereafter or make it plausible that there is no wrongful information provided by the customer which allegedly is be distributed over the Internet;
    • The informant himself has not acted unlawfully towards the customer to gather the data which serves to identify the customer;
    • It is plausible that the acquirement of the relevant information or the conduct itself was illegal and/or harmful;
    • The informant made clear that the acquirement of the names and addresses is essential;
    • It is likely that no other form of intervention to acquire the names and addresses is possible;
    • The interests of the informant, Greenhost and the customer should point out that the significance of the request of the informant must prevail;
    • It is beyond reasonable doubt that the data requested by the informant is directly related to the customer.
  2. If an objection is lodged against a decision to provide the name and address name and address will not be provided until the decision on the objection.

Article 7: Communication between Greenhost and its customer

  1. All communications between Greenhost and the client will be done via e-mail, unless otherwise stated in the regulations.

Article 8: Opinion

  1. Greenhost may ask advice from external consultants, either legal or technical experts, that are not connected to Greenhost, for inspection and analysis.

Source: Portions of this document are taken from the policy and complaint procedure of internet provider XS4ALL. This work is made under a Creative Commons License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/nl