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ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY

Application and purpose of policy

This Acceptable Use Policy (‘policy’) applies to all customers who acquire services from us and to the retail customers of our wholesale customers.

 

Your obligation to comply with this policy includes ensuring that every person who uses your service, including your retail customers and other end-users of a retail service, also complies with this policy.

 

A failure to comply with this policy could lead to the suspension or termination of your service or of your customers’ service.

 

This policy sets out the rules and responsibilities that apply to the use of our services and explains what uses are prohibited.

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Non-acceptable use of service

You are responsible for your actions and the actions of your retail customers and other end-users of a retail service on our telecommunications network ("network") and any systems you or another person access through your service.

 

If you or another person use your service recklessly or irresponsibly, or your or another person’s actions endanger any person or the integrity or security of our network, systems or equipment, your service or the service of your retail customers may be restricted, suspended or terminated without prior notice.

 

Any prohibited or offensive material may be deleted or have access limitations placed upon it.

You agree that you will not use, attempt to use, or allow your service to be used to:

  • do anything else that is illegal, fraudulent, prohibited under laws of the Commonwealth, State or Territory, or which breaches any code, standard or content requirement of any competent authority;

  • store, send or distribute material which interferes with other users or restricts or hinders any person from accessing, using or enjoying the internet, our services, network or systems;

  • store, send or distribute confidential information, copyright material or other content, which is subject to a third party’s intellectual property rights, unless you have a lawful right to do so;

  • store, send or distribute material which defames, harasses, threatens, abuses, menaces, offends, violates the privacy of, or incites violence or hatred against any person or class of persons, or which could give rise to civil or criminal proceedings;

  • store, send or distribute any content or material which is restricted, prohibited or otherwise unlawful under any applicable Commonwealth, State or Territory law, or which is likely to be offensive or obscene to a reasonable person including child sexual exploitation material, pro-terror material, extreme crime and violence material or non-extreme crime and violence material and prohibited drug related material;

  • access, monitor or use any data, systems or networks, including another person's private information, without authority or attempt to probe, scan or test the vulnerability of any data, system or network, without authority;

  • compromise the security or integrity of any telecommunications network or system (including ours) or tamper with, hinder the operation of or make unauthorised modifications to any network or system;

  • send, access, download, store, or distribute any viruses or other harmful programs or material;

  • send or distribute unsolicited advertising, bulk electronic messages or otherwise breach laws and regulations relating to Spam (unsolicited commercial electronic messages) to which the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) applies);

  • overload any network or system (including ours);

  • host or assist in the hosting of a Tor relay and/or exit relay that allows persons to anonymously send and receive traffic;

  • forge header information, email source addresses or other user information;

  • use another person's name, username or password or otherwise attempt to gain access to the account of any other person or customer; or

  • authorise, aid, abet, encourage or incite any other person to do or attempt to do any of the above acts.

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You must also implement all necessary steps to ensure that your retail customers and other end-users of a retail service are aware of and comply with the above requirements and with this policy.

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Excessive use of service

You must use your service and must implement all necessary steps to ensure that your customers and other end-users of a service use the service in accordance with any capacity limits stated in the specific plan that you or they subscribe to.

 

We may limit, suspend or terminate your service or your customer’s service if you or your customers unreasonably exceed those limits  or excessively use the capacity or resources of our network in a way that could hinder or prevent us from providing services to other customers, or may pose a threat to the integrity of our network or systems.

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Copyright infringement

You must not, and must implement all necessary steps to ensure that your retail customers and other end-users of a retail service do not, infringe the intellectual property rights of any person through material that you or they access or download from the internet and copy, store, send or distribute using the service.

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You must not, and must implement all necessary steps to ensure that your retail customers and other end-users of a retail service do not,  use the service to copy, adapt, reproduce, distribute or otherwise make available to other persons any content or material that is subject to copyright, or do any other acts relating to that copyright material which would infringe the exclusive rights of the copyright owner under the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth) or any other applicable laws.

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You acknowledge and agree, and must ensure that your retail customers agree, that we have the right to immediately cease hosting, block access to, and to remove from our network or systems any content regarding which we have received a copyright or other intellectual property infringement complaint.

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Content

It is your customers’ responsibility to determine the content and information accessed on the internet when using the service. You must advise your customers to take all steps necessary, including the use of filtering programs, to prevent access to offensive or obscene content on the Internet by children or minors who use a service.

You must not, and must ensure that your customers are informed that they must not, use, or attempt to use, a service to make inappropriate contact with children or minors.

You and your customers are responsible for any content you or they store, send or distribute on or via our network and systems. You and your retail customers must not use our services to send or distribute any content that is prohibited, deemed obscene or offensive or otherwise unlawful under any applicable Commonwealth, State or Territory law, including to send or distribute classes of restricted content to children or minors if that is prohibited or an offence under such laws.

Failing to comply with these requirements may lead to your or your retail customers’ service being immediately suspended or terminated without notice. If we have reason to believe you or your retail customers have used a service to access child pornography or child abuse material, we are legally required to refer the matter to the police.

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Security of service

You and your customers are responsible for maintaining the security of your or their service, including protecting your or their account details and passwords, as well as any unauthorised use of your or their service by a third party.

 

We recommend that you and they take appropriate security measures, such as using up to date anti-virus software and installing a firewall. You and your customers are responsible for all actions performed by and charges incurred by other persons that use a service.

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Regulatory authorities

You and your customers must label or clearly identify any content you or they generally make available using a service in accordance with the applicable classification guidelines and National Classification Code (issued pursuant to the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 (Cth)) or any industry code that applies to your or their use or distribution of that content.

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Commonwealth legislation allows the ACMA to direct us to remove any content that is classified, or likely to be classified, as 'prohibited', from our network and servers. We co-operate fully with law enforcement and security agencies including complying with obligations relating to interception or monitoring of traffic on our network and systems. We may take these steps at any time without notice to you or your customers.

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You and your customers must not prevent us from taking all the necessary steps to comply with any direction from the ACMA or a law enforcement or security agency. You acknowledge and must ensure that your customers are aware that we reserve the right to limit, suspend or terminate your service or your customers’ service if there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that you or they are engaging in illegal conduct or where use of the service is subject to an investigation by law enforcement or regulatory authorities.

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Complaints about content

If you or your customers have a complaint about content accessible using a service you or they can contact the ACMA by filling out an online complaint form at acma.gov.au.

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Suspension or termination of service

We reserve the right to suspend your service or your customers’ service if you or they are in breach of this policy, as long as we first take reasonable steps to contact you and give you the opportunity to rectify that breach within a reasonable period.

 

What is reasonable in this context will depend on the severity of the problems being caused by the breach. For example, if you or your customer commit a serious or continuing breach, it may be reasonable to immediately suspend the service without notice to you.

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Our right to suspend your service or your customers’ service applies regardless of whether or not the breach is committed intentionally, through a misconfiguration, or by other means not authorised by you or your customer.

If your service or your customers’ service is suspended and the grounds upon which it was suspended are not corrected by you or your customer within seven days, we may terminate the service.

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Changes to this policy

If reasonably required by law or to protect our reasonable business interests, we may vary this policy by placing an updated version on our website. Continuing to use the service after our update will constitute your and your customers’ acceptance of the changes.

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