What business activities are prohibited?

What business activities are prohibited?

Please be aware that all activities not mentioned below are considered on a case-by-case basis.

The list of prohibited business activities:

• Adult and sexually oriented

• Adult entertainment, pornography or related digital or non-digital contents, adult dating, adult pay-per-view, adult webcams

The definition includes any type of adult entertainment and related, including activities, businesses or transactions that facilitate such prohibited activities.

• Prostitution, escort services, non-therapeutic massage services

This includes any assimilated or potentially assimilated services, such as adult clubs, strip clubs, cabarets, etc.

• Underage porn or assimilated

This definition includes any written, audio or visual contents, services, hosting, facilitation thereof, with no limitations in scope, semantics or context.;

• Activities that may be illegal, or subject to specific regulations or licenses
• Weapons (war) including Firearms

Any sale, trading, renting, borrowing, financing or related activities, businesses or transactions are prohibited. Business industries which take any part in production or sale of firearms, their parts, explosives, gunpowder or ammunition.

• Counterfeit, unlicensed or smuggled goods

Any type of related activities, businesses or transactions.

• Drugs, legal or illegal; narcotics, psychotropic substances, cannabis and derived substances, drug paraphernalia

Any type of related activities, businesses or transactions, unless underlying goods qualify as pharmaceuticals or para pharmaceuticals and therefore are subject to relevant applicable rules.

• Cyberlockers, IPTV

Anonymous file storage service providers, download websites, IP based TV channel streaming websites.

• Data (including personal or sensitive data) sale/purchase

Any sale, purchase, sharing, facilitation of personal or sensitive (including, potentially personal or sensitive) data on a B2B/B2C and C2C regardless of the underlying business model.

• Unregulated auctions
• No-value-added services

Resale of services without added benefit such as government offerings or sites which are deceptive or predatory towards customers.

• Manufacture of tobacco products
• Psychic services, unlicensed therapists

This includes any assimilated or potentially assimilated services (psychic, medium, astrology, divinatory arts, unlicensed therapists) exercising their services without a license or qualified professional training.

• Unfair practices
• Multi-level, pyramidal, affiliate marketing activities or assimilated

Any multi-level marketing schemes which may be associated with any unfair marketing or selling practices.

• Profiles: account sharing or renting on streaming platforms or similar (Netflix, YouTube, Spotify, etc.)

Sharing or reselling/renting of profiles/accounts on media platforms may be illegal in certain jurisdictions and not acceptable under the Terms & Conditions of the concerned platforms.

• Financial services
• Shell banks and shell corporations as well as other entities which provide services to shell banks and shell corporations.
• Companies offering bearer shares
• Debt collection services

Debt collection services by agencies, liquidators, notaries, lawyers, etc.

• Financial services (unlicensed)

Any type of financial services that are not carried out in accordance with applicable licensing/approval requirements.

• Binary options

Binary options are a risky form of derivatives which often contain an “all or nothing” structure that gives investors a 50 percent chance of losing their entire investment amount and have short contract durations.

• Unlicensed Trading/Brokerage services

Unlicensed Trading of bonds, shares, futures, securities, investments, hedging services, FX services or other financial products.

• Crowdfunding, crowd-lending/financing (unregulated)

Non-regulated platforms that do not benefit from a formal licensing/approval including a fit and proper test of administrators, and that are not obliged entities under the relevant Member State AML laws and regulations.

• Other high-risk activities
• Donations: charities, NGOs, political parties, or political activities

Registered and legally operating charities and non-governmental organisations. Donations/collections are not allowed in consideration of enhanced risks of terror financing, bribery and corruption. Acceptable exceptions include accepted crowdfunding platforms, as long as the underlying users abide by the restrictions above, or special situations (humanitarian crises, well-known international organisations, locally known NGOs).

• Timeshares

Property rental services with divided form of ownership and use rights.

• Atomic Power

Business industries which have direct relations with atomic power supply, provision or storage.

• Extractive industries

Business industries dealing with extraction of minerals from earth including drilling, pumping, quarrying and mining.

• Embassies / Consulates
• Auctions, Penny auctions

Penny Auctions (i.e. auctions where participants are required to advance a non-refundable payment to participate) and similar concepts are prohibited. Certain Auctions may be accepted under specific circumstances.