Make the terminology useful
Plain-language definitions for the ideas behind privacy and infrastructure.
Content revised · English
Useful paths through The hosting lexicon.
Start with the requirement
Terms are useful when they explain a decision. The lexicon connects legal language, privacy concepts, server architecture, networking and payment technology so you can ask more precise questions.
Follow the details
Browse the five groups below: legal concepts, privacy, hosting, technical architecture and payments. Each definition explains the meaning, the practical relevance and an important boundary.
Return to the configuration
The catalogue lets you inspect specifications, select a region and build an order summary. Production availability and fulfilment are launch work.
Explore the collection.
Lexicon · Legal
1718 USC § 2257
Section 2257 is a US statute concerning specified record-keeping and related requirements for covered sexually explicit depictions.
CCPA
The California Consumer Privacy Act, as amended, gives qualifying California consumers rights concerning covered businesses' handling of personal information.
Chilling effect
A chilling effect occurs when concern about consequences discourages a person from lawful expression or action.
Counter-notification
A counter-notification is a formal response available in specified notice-and-takedown procedures, including parts of the US DMCA framework.
Court order
A court order is a direction issued by a court in the exercise of its authority.
Data residency
Data residency describes where specified data is stored or processed.
Data retention
Data retention is the period and conditions under which information is kept before deletion or archival.
Digital Services Act
The DSA is an EU framework setting obligations for intermediary services, with requirements varying by service and scale.
DMCA
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a US law with several components, including copyright-related notice-and-takedown provisions for certain online service providers.
GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation is an EU data-protection framework governing covered processing of personal information.
Jurisdiction selection
Jurisdiction selection means considering legal and operational environments when choosing where an activity or service is based.
LGPD
Brazil's General Personal Data Protection Law provides a framework for covered processing of personal information.
Mutual legal assistance treaty
An MLAT is an agreement used by participating countries to request specified assistance in legal investigations or proceedings.
PIPL
China's Personal Information Protection Law governs covered handling of personal information and related protections.
Prior restraint
Prior restraint refers broadly to a restriction on expression imposed before its publication or dissemination.
Safe harbour
A safe harbour is a legal provision that can limit specified liability when its conditions are satisfied.
Subpoena
A subpoena is a form of legal demand that can require testimony or production of material in a proceeding.
Lexicon · Privacy
8Anonymous signup
Anonymous signup usually describes an account flow that requests little or no identifying information.
Doxxing
Doxxing is the exposure or distribution of identifying or sensitive personal information, often with harmful intent.
No-logs policy
A no-logs statement describes the absence of specified logging. Its value depends on the categories, scope and evidence.
Operational security
Operational security is a process for understanding what information actions reveal and reducing exposure that matters to a goal.
Privacy by default
Privacy by default means choosing settings and workflows that limit unnecessary exposure without requiring users to discover every option.
Pseudonymity
Pseudonymity means activity is associated with an alias or identifier rather than an immediately declared real-world identity.
Threat model
A threat model identifies what needs protection, who or what may threaten it and which consequences matter.
No KYC
Understand No KYC hosting: what identity checks are absent, what records can remain, and how signup differs from payment, privacy and VPS delivery.
Lexicon · Hosting
10Bulletproof hosting
Bulletproof hosting is an informal and inconsistently used label, sometimes associated with refusing abuse enforcement.
Colocation
Colocation places customer-owned equipment in a data-centre facility that supplies agreed power, space and connectivity.
Dedicated server
A dedicated server assigns a physical machine to a customer rather than allocating only a virtual environment.
DMCA resilience
DMCA resilience is a marketing description for a hosting service's handling of copyright-related complaints and disruption risks.
Domain registration privacy
Domain privacy services can limit which registrant details appear in public registration records.
Reseller hosting
Reseller hosting gives an account holder a way to create or manage hosting accounts for their own customers.
Shared web hosting
Shared hosting places multiple websites on a managed server platform with account-level limits.
Virtual private server
A VPS provides an isolated guest environment on shared hardware. Compare resource allocation, root access and maintenance with shared or dedicated hosting.
Offshore hosting
Offshore hosting means hosting outside a reference location. Assess the operator, data access, backups and plan compatibility alongside the server region.
WHOIS and registration data
WHOIS is a mechanism historically used to query registration information for domains and network resources.
Lexicon · Technical
15Anycast
Anycast advertises the same network address from more than one location, allowing routing to direct traffic to one of them.
Border Gateway Protocol
BGP is the routing protocol used to exchange reachability information between networks.
Distributed denial of service
A DDoS attack uses distributed sources to overwhelm a network, service or application and reduce availability.
Hypervisor
A hypervisor provides the layer that runs and isolates virtual machines using a physical host's resources.
IPv4
IPv4 is an internet protocol using 32-bit addresses, commonly represented in dotted decimal notation.
IPv6
IPv6 is an internet addressing protocol with a substantially larger address space than IPv4.
NVMe
NVMe is a storage protocol designed for non-volatile memory devices, commonly used by modern solid-state drives.
Onion routing
Onion routing uses layers of encryption along a route so intermediaries do not each need the complete end-to-end path.
RAID
RAID combines drives into an arrangement intended for capacity, performance, redundancy or a combination of those goals.
Remote Desktop Protocol
RDP provides a graphical remote session, commonly used to access Windows systems.
Secure Shell
SSH provides encrypted remote login and other secure network operations such as file transfer and tunnelling.
Tor
Tor is a network and software ecosystem using routed, layered connections to improve privacy and resist some forms of traffic observation.
Tor relay
A Tor relay forwards traffic within the Tor network; different relay roles have different operational exposure.
Virtual private network
A VPN carries traffic through an encrypted connection between participating endpoints.
KVM virtualisation
KVM supports guest virtual machines using Linux kernel facilities. Learn why the virtualisation label differs from dedicated CPU, backups or a network guarantee.
Lexicon · Payment
9Atomic swap
An atomic swap is a protocol for exchanging assets in a way designed to make the agreed exchange complete or unwind under its rules.
Bitcoin
Bitcoin is a decentralised cryptocurrency whose on-chain transactions are recorded on a public ledger.
BTCPay Server
BTCPay Server is open-source software for operating a cryptocurrency payment acceptance system, especially for Bitcoin.
Lightning Network
Lightning is a Bitcoin payment-channel network supporting payments without recording each transfer as a separate base-chain transaction.
Monero
Monero is a cryptocurrency using privacy mechanisms to conceal public transaction participants and amounts.
Monero subaddress
A subaddress is a Monero receiving address derived within a wallet, useful for organising or distinguishing incoming payments.
Non-custodial
Non-custodial describes an arrangement where a service does not hold the user's spending keys or equivalent control of the funds in question.
Peer-to-peer exchange
A peer-to-peer exchange arranges a trade between participants, sometimes with a platform providing matching or dispute services.
Stablecoin
A stablecoin is a digital asset designed to track a reference value, commonly a fiat currency.