ShortMyURL is built to make sharing links faster, cleaner, and easier. With that convenience comes a responsibility to use the service in a way that is safe, lawful, and respectful of other people.
This Acceptable Use Policy explains what you can and cannot do when using ShortMyURL, including our short links, custom aliases, QR codes, analytics, accounts, and API.
By using ShortMyURL, you agree to follow this policy.
1. Use ShortMyURL Responsibly
You may use ShortMyURL for legitimate purposes, including sharing websites, landing pages, campaigns, social profiles, documents, products, events, and other lawful content.
You are responsible for the links you create and the destinations they point to.
A short URL does not make the underlying content acceptable. If the destination violates this policy, the shortened link may also be considered a violation.
2. Prohibited Uses
You may not use ShortMyURL to create, distribute, promote, or facilitate links to content or activities that are illegal, harmful, deceptive, abusive, or otherwise inappropriate.
This includes, but is not limited to, the following.
2.1 Phishing and Credential Theft
You may not use ShortMyURL to create links designed to:
- Steal usernames, passwords, authentication codes, or other credentials
- Imitate login pages or trusted services
- Trick people into providing sensitive information
- Conduct phishing, spear-phishing, or similar attacks
- Redirect users to fake account, payment, banking, or verification pages
2.2 Malware and Harmful Software
You may not use ShortMyURL to distribute or facilitate:
- Viruses
- Trojans
- Ransomware
- Spyware
- Keyloggers
- Malicious scripts
- Drive-by downloads
- Exploit kits
- Other software designed to harm, compromise, or gain unauthorized access to a device or system
2.3 Fraud and Scams
You may not use ShortMyURL to facilitate fraud, deception, or financial scams.
Examples include:
- Fake investment opportunities
- Cryptocurrency scams
- Fake giveaways or prizes
- Payment scams
- Fake job offers
- Advance-fee scams
- Romance scams
- Impersonation-based fraud
- Fake support or customer-service pages
- Other schemes designed to deceive people for financial or personal gain
2.4 Spam
You may not use ShortMyURL to distribute unsolicited or abusive communications, including:
- Bulk email spam
- Unsolicited SMS or messaging campaigns
- Comment spam
- Social media spam
- Automated promotional spam
- Repeated unwanted link distribution
Using shortened URLs to hide the destination of spam or bypass spam filters is also prohibited.
2.5 Deceptive or Malicious Redirects
You may not use ShortMyURL to conceal, disguise, or obfuscate a malicious or deceptive destination.
You must not create a short link that intentionally misleads users about where the link will take them.
This includes using misleading custom aliases, fake brand names, deceptive keywords, or other techniques intended to make a destination appear more trustworthy than it is.
2.6 Impersonation
You may not use ShortMyURL to impersonate another person, company, organization, brand, government agency, or other entity in a deceptive or fraudulent manner.
Examples include creating links that falsely suggest they are officially operated by:
- Banks or financial institutions
- Government agencies
- Technology companies
- Social networks
- E-commerce platforms
- Businesses or brands
- Public figures or organizations
Legitimate fan, commentary, educational, or informational uses may be allowed where they are not misleading or deceptive.
2.7 Illegal Content or Activities
You may not use ShortMyURL to facilitate or promote activities that violate applicable laws or regulations.
This includes links used to facilitate criminal activity, unauthorized access, trafficking, fraud, or other unlawful conduct.
You are responsible for ensuring that your use of ShortMyURL complies with the laws applicable to you and your activities.
2.8 Intellectual Property Infringement
You may not use ShortMyURL to knowingly facilitate copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property infringement.
If you have the right to share content, you may generally use ShortMyURL to create a link to it. However, you remain responsible for ensuring that your use does not violate another person's or organization's intellectual property rights.
2.9 Security Abuse
You may not use ShortMyURL to facilitate attacks against websites, applications, networks, servers, devices, or other systems.
Prohibited activities include:
- Unauthorized access
- Credential attacks
- Denial-of-service attacks
- Exploitation of vulnerabilities
- Distribution of exploit code for malicious purposes
- Security bypass attempts
- Automated abuse of third-party services
- Any activity intended to compromise or disrupt systems without authorization
2.10 Harmful or Abusive Content
You may not use ShortMyURL to facilitate content or activities that are seriously harmful, abusive, or exploitative, including content involving the exploitation or abuse of children.
ShortMyURL may take action against links associated with content that creates a serious risk of harm to individuals or the public.
2.11 Abuse of ShortMyURL
You may not abuse the ShortMyURL platform itself.
This includes:
- Attempting to bypass rate limits or security controls
- Creating excessive numbers of accounts
- Using bots or automation to abuse the service
- Scraping or probing the service without authorization
- Interfering with the operation of ShortMyURL
- Attempting to gain unauthorized access to accounts or systems
- Circumventing suspensions or other enforcement actions
- Using the API in a way that creates unreasonable load or disrupts the service
3. API and Automated Use
If you use the ShortMyURL API, you must use it responsibly and within any applicable limits, documentation, or technical restrictions.
You may not use the API to automate spam, phishing, malware distribution, fraud, abusive redirects, or other prohibited activities.
We may restrict, suspend, or revoke API access if we detect abuse, excessive automated activity, security risks, or violations of this policy.
4. Custom Aliases
Custom aliases are provided for convenience and branding. They must not be used to create misleading, abusive, fraudulent, or deceptive links.
ShortMyURL may reject, modify, disable, or reclaim a custom alias when necessary to address abuse, impersonation, security concerns, legal requirements, or conflicts with our policies.
5. Link Destination Responsibility
ShortMyURL provides the redirect service, but users are responsible for the destinations they link to.
You should only create links to destinations that you have the right to share and that comply with this policy.
Changing a destination after creating a short link does not remove your responsibility for the resulting content or activity.
6. Reporting Abuse
If you believe a ShortMyURL link is being used for phishing, malware, fraud, spam, impersonation, illegal activity, or another violation of this policy, please report it through our contact page:
https://shortmyurl.org/contact
When reporting a link, please provide the short URL and enough information for us to understand the issue and investigate it.
7. How We Enforce This Policy
We may investigate suspected violations of this Acceptable Use Policy.
Depending on the circumstances, we may:
- Disable or remove a short link
- Disable a custom alias
- Restrict access to certain features
- Suspend or terminate an account
- Restrict or revoke API access
- Block abusive requests or traffic
- Preserve relevant information where legally permitted or required
- Cooperate with law enforcement or other authorized parties when legally required
We may take action without prior notice when necessary to protect users, our infrastructure, third parties, or the ShortMyURL service.
We do not guarantee that we will detect every violation or that every reported violation will result in enforcement.
8. Third-Party Destinations
ShortMyURL links may lead to websites and services operated by third parties.
We do not control or endorse the content, products, services, or practices of third-party websites simply because a ShortMyURL link points to them.
If you encounter harmful or illegal content at a destination, you may also need to report that content directly to the website or service hosting it.
9. No Evasion of Enforcement
If a link, account, alias, or API key has been restricted or suspended because of a policy violation, you may not create another account, link, alias, or API key for the purpose of bypassing that enforcement.
Attempts to evade enforcement may result in additional restrictions.
10. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Acceptable Use Policy from time to time to reflect changes to ShortMyURL, applicable laws, security practices, or emerging forms of abuse.
When we make significant changes, we may update the "Last Updated" date shown at the top of this page.
Your continued use of ShortMyURL after an updated policy becomes effective means you accept the revised policy.
11. Relationship to Our Terms of Service
This Acceptable Use Policy is part of and should be read together with our Terms of Service.
If your use of ShortMyURL violates this policy, it may also violate our Terms of Service and may result in enforcement action.
12. Contact Us
Questions about this Acceptable Use Policy or reports of suspected abuse can be submitted through our contact page:
https://shortmyurl.org/contact
We appreciate your help keeping ShortMyURL useful, reliable, and safe for everyone.
Keep It Short. Use It Responsibly.