All services deal with a level of abuse from their users, TorBox is no different. Our abuse system is a dynamic and learning algorithm based on the 99th percentile of users, meaning that our abuse system will never be triggered by an average user, or even a heavy use user. TorBox is very proud of it's infinite capability, and to keep that ability in place, protecting against the 1% of abusers is necessary.
What is considered abuse?
Abuse, in the terms of TorBox, is any usage that falls outside of the 99th percentile of usage by the general population of our users.
What does the abuse process look like?
The system will gather all of the users who have used over the "checking" threshold, and check daily your rolling 15 day usage. If your 15 day usage is too high, you will be sent a warning.
This warning gives you 3 days to reduce your rolling 15 day usage below thresholds. You are given a total of 3 warnings. Each warning will send you an email, a notification, and rotate your API key.
On the fourth instance of abuse, your account will be banned and your API key revoked.
What are the thresholds?
We will not state the absolute thresholds, and cannot realistically state the dynamic thresholds as they change with the usage of our users. If more users have more usage on their accounts, then the dynamic threshold will go up, allowing more usage for everyone, but if more users start using less downloads (maybe in favor of a growing cache), then the dynamic threshold will go down.
The threshold will never go lower than the below:
Free - 5TB a month
Essential - 10TB a month
Standard - 20TB a month
Pro - 30TB a month
These values are not the max you are allowed to use nor are they accurate depictions of the dynamic threshold. These are the lowest thresholds, so you can be sure that if you stay below these levels you will be fine forever.
You can easily get away with much higher usage thanks to the dynamic threshold, but these are the absolute lowest you could ever get a warning with.
The dynamic threshold is specifically built so that the average user, or even a power user will never run into them.
Does a higher plan give me a higher threshold?
Yes, a higher TorBox plan, gives you a higher threshold, meaning you can download more new items on a Pro plan, compared to an Essential plan for example. Being on the Pro plan gives you 20TB more than the Essential plan, and being on the Standard plan gives you 10TB more than the Essential plan. These numbers are locked in place, but the exact threshold moves dynamically to match the 99th percentile of our users.
How can I reduce my usage to normal levels?
While not all of these things may be the issue only you can know why your usage is so high to receive a warning.
Stop hoarding.
Stop using automated tools. Tools that promote or are defaulted using cached items are acceptable, rather than tools built to "build cache", or "build a library", or "migrate libraries", etc.
Stop sharing your account with too many other people.
Can I appeal a ban?
In rare cases, you can appeal a ban if you believe you have been unfairly banned, or there were extenuating circumstances which caused your warnings and eventual ban. Due to our warning system, which allows you 3 warnings, with 3 days to reduce your usage, you have had ample time to correct any issues, meaning that in most cases an appeal will be denied.
Can I get a refund if my account is banned for abuse?
No refunds will be given.
What tools are acceptable to be used?
Anything listed in our Integrations page is approved and acceptable for use.
How is usage tracked?
Every time you create a new torrent, Usenet, or web download, we store a small information about this download consisting of the date created, the type, the user, and the size of the download. This data is what we use to track total usage of our service.
What usage is tracked?
Only new downloads are tracked as usage. If the torrent, usenet, or web download has never been downloaded before, ie: not cached, then it is added to your account as part of your usage. Cached downloads are not tracked, and will not affect your usage. This means that if you only added cached downloads for your entire usage on TorBox, you will never receive a warning, even if it is much higher than our dynamic abusive limits.
What does this discourage?
Using TorBox with the help of automated tools for the purpose of downloading and storing as much as possible as soon as possible. Since content on TorBox is deleted after 30 days of no usage (read how our cache works), most of this content that was automated will be deleted, as users may not actually be using this content.
Storing, curating, or hoarding excessively large "libraries" for potential future use. TorBox is not your NAS. While you may use it so in smaller quantities, storing excessive amounts will lead to the deletion of content anyways.
Attempting to "build the cache for TorBox users". While TorBox appreciates your love for our product, the mentality of this is wrong, and if taken too far, can be seen as abusive. TorBox, while still young, will continuously grow its cache with its users. While this may be seen as a negative, our cache system will remove any unused content if it is unused for 30 days.
Mass sharing of accounts. If a user is sharing their account, such as reselling to other potential customers, too much usage will be on their account, potentially leading to a ban of the account.
Why is the abuse system so complex?
This is because we don't want to limit our user's potentials when using TorBox, and we as a company, dislike having to police our users in any way, allowing for near complete freedom. Unfortunately due to TorBox's size, costs are much higher, which means even if we like the idea of storing everything, it simply isn't fiscally possible for us to allow it at this stage in TorBox's development.
Are warnings permanent?
Warnings are permanent for the lifetime of your account.
Afterword
We were honestly pretty disappointed when we realized that users were using our service to hoard content. While it may have caused a disruption in the community to implement this system, it was necessary due to financial and performance reasons. TorBox is new, and asking it to hold onto hundreds of terabytes per user, is simply unreasonable, and doesn't match with our mission, goals, or our team. We hope to serve you long into the future, and keeping our service free of abuse and keeping our performance up to standard.