Our community over at LowEndTalk is essentially divided into two parties:

1. Consumers
2. Providers

Under the “provider” category that can include anything from LIRs, colocation providers, VPS providers, shared hosting providers, and beyond.

It’s the best place to talk about hosting, and it certainly includes a melting pot of characters from around the world.

Plus lots of… spirited discussions,  and as with anything; sometimes perspectives (and opinions) can differ…

For a hosting provider when it comes to handling abuse reports on behalf of a group of IPs, they want to be able to have a fair manner where they can respond to abuse reports and take action accordingly.

However, they do not want to be leasing their IPs from someone that’s quick to pull access based on a few abuse reports.

These hosting providers that sell cheap services at scale are simply going to receive abusive customers from time to time. There’s no way around it.

It’s a reality of hosting. The important thing is dealing with it fairly, and timely.

Most businesses centered around leasing IP addresses understand that and grant some leeway to deal with abuse reports, providing they get taken care of…

Then Comes IPXO

Previously, no one gave any thought to popular IP middleman IPXO‘s abuse report policy.

I mean… why would you?

That was until a LowEndTalk user named @CyberSasu posted a thread titled “Issues with IPXO,”  in it, here’s what they said:

Hello,

I don’t know if anyone has faced similar kinds of issues or not with IPXO like us.

I have an active account with IPXO with 20+ IP ranges leased smoothly. But the problem starts when one ip out of /24 blocks is blacklisted, they suspend the whole account within a minute.
When we activated our account we mentioned that if any illegal activities like spam, or phishing happened within 24 we’d terminate the service (server, not the IP) and they agreed on it. But still, they suspended the whole account. Now they do not respond to any emails or anything.

Is this only us or does it happen to you also?

Providers Are NOT Happy About It

The outrage was immense, immediate, and urgent. Here’s what a few providers had to say:

User @Neoon gave a prompt and sufficient summarization:

Here’s What IPXO Had To Say

@IPXO themselves responded to the LowEndTalk thread stating the following:

Hey everyone!

Thank you for bringing your concerns to our attention. We welcome the opportunity to clarify our policies and procedures.

Firstly, there seems to be a misunderstanding regarding account suspension. Suspension does not impact your existing services or leased IP addresses. Instead, it temporarily restricts your ability to purchase new services until the underlying issue has been resolved.

We are committed to maintaining a high standard of integrity for the IP addresses available through our marketplace. However, while we remain vigilant against abuse, we also understand mishaps can occur. That’s why we allow a tolerance of two incidents per client each month. If a client exceeds the tolerance threshold, we apply an incident handling fee. You can read more about our abuse handling policy here: https://www.ipxo.com/kb/abuse-prevention-and-reputation/abuse-incident-handling-marketplace/

Primary Reasons for Account Suspension:

• If at least one subnet is listed in SpamHaus SBL account will be suspended until the issue is fully resolved.
• Hijacking a subnet for more than 48H with repetitive illegal announcements.
• Abuse reports escalated by IP owners, companies, or users (e.g., SPAM, phishing, attacks, copyright infringements).
• Recurring abuse despite client’s confirmation of resolution.

Primary Reasons for Account Termination:

• If a client confirms issue resolution but abuse keeps reoccurring, and no response is received to our abuse reports within 24 hours, we may terminate the offending subnet. However, before taking the action to terminate we always check the correspondence with client, what actions were taken, and how the issue is/was resolved.
• If we detect signs of spamming activities and spammer setup indications and the client fails to address the issue for a prolonged time or is unresponsive.

No termination is carried out without careful consideration of all positions, if the client is responsive, we terminate only in the exceptional cases.

IPXO’s purpose is to fill the market void by providing a platform where businesses can come and lease IP addresses for a defined period. Additionally, it serves as the primary destination for IP holders who wish to monetize their addresses. We are committed to assisting our clients in finding the essential tools and resources for effective IP management. If you encounter any issues or have concerns, our expert team is always available to help!

Hope this helps clear up the misconception!

Many providers then responded two abuse reports per client didn’t make any sense, but rather per subnet would be more understandable.

They elaborated by defining their ‘two abuse report policy’:

Thank you for your feedback, Mike.

To clarify, we only apply an incident handling fee for cases of abuse that require manual intervention – currently, the majority of the cases are handled automatically.

Therefore, we allow two free cases per client per month for situations that involve irregular/untemplated reports, law enforcement subpoenas, or escalated automated case sequences that require manual intervention from the Abuse Prevention team.
At this period of time we only charge for instances related to Spamhaus.

More information can be found under “Manual incident mitigation and handling fees” here: https://www.ipxo.com/kb/abuse-prevention-and-reputation/abuse-incident-handling-marketplace/

We also extend services designed to identify risk areas for customers and reduce instances of abuse. Our approach is to maintain flexibility with all cooperative clients, focusing on prevention, not punishment.

As a platform that serves both IP holders and IP lessees, it’s crucial for us to maintain fairness to both parties. That being said, I will take your feedback to our internal team to make sure we review our policies and continue to act fairly towards our community.
Thank you!

A little bit more fair…

Still, Providers Didn’t Seem To Be Happy

IPXO Is Considering Changing Policies

IPXO followed up on the thread by stating the following:

Hi!

As an IP leasing platform, we encounter a diverse range of client cases. While we are proactive about abuse, we also prioritize open communication and evaluate each case on an individual basis. Clients who are responsive and committed to resolving issues don’t need worry about termination. We reserve such extreme measures for clients who are deliberately abusive and either unwilling or unresponsive in addressing issues. Our focus is on fair resolution for all parties involved, rather than penalizing those who are open open about the issues they experience.

We appreciate your insights, and in light of this discussion, we are currently reviewing our policies to ensure they are both fair and clearly communicated to our clientele. Thank you!

Not a bad response.

Providers see it from their perspective.

An IP middleman sees it from their perspective.

And a block owner sees it from their perspective.

IPXO just has to balance making both parties involved as happy as possible.

Block owners don’t want a worthless subnet that’s flagged at every spam list.

Providers don’t want to deal with an overzealous authority that stands over them.

It’s all a game of balance…

Going forward, let’s see if IPXO makes any policy changes, and how they pull off balancing being the job of a middleman.

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