Date: July 2014
When you obtain certain services from Melbourne IT, you are stating that you have read and understood this Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree to abide by it.
This is the Melbourne IT Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). It applies to you if you have obtained certain services offered from time to time on our websites, as further specified in the terms and conditions for the relevant service (collectively referred to as the Services)
Please read it carefully as it is a condition of the supply of the Services to you that you agree to this AUP.
1.1 We may vary this AUP at any time by general notice on a page of the internet referred to on our websites at https://melbourneit.web-staging.com.au/legals/. Changes to the AUP will become effective upon publication of the notice.
1.2 If you use any Service after publication of any change to the AUP accordance with clause 1.1, your use will constitute acceptance of the amended terms.
1.3 Any reference in this AUP to our Supplier is a reference to any third party service provider (Supplier), if and to the extent a Supplier is supplying the Services to you on behalf of us.
The purpose of the AUP is to provide a set of principles, rules and guidelines for the use of information obtained by you from the Internet. The Internet provides you with the means of acquiring and disseminating a wealth of public, private, commercial, and non-commercial information. We respect that the Internet provides a forum for free and open discussion and dissemination of information. However, when there are competing interests at issue, we reserve the right to take certain preventative or corrective actions as set out below.
3.1 You agree that you are at all times responsible for the use of your account. You also agree that you are at all times responsible for ensuring that anyone who accesses your account (for whatever reason, and regardless of how your account is accessed) is aware of this AUP and complies with this AUP.
3.2 If you are a provider of Internet services, you agree to comply fully with all applicable laws concerning the privacy of on-line communications and the provision of Internet services. Any failure by you to comply with those laws will constitute a breach of this AUP.
3.3 If you are a provider of Internet services, we do not require you to monitor or censor transmissions or websites created by your customers. Notwithstanding the preceding, you acknowledge that information reaching our facilities or our Supplier may have originated from a customer of yours, or from another third-party. As a consequence, you agree that we or our Supplier, respectively, have the right to directly take action against a customer of yours, or, against you directly because of any activity of a customer of yours, even though the action may affect other customers of yours.
3.4 Finally, if you are a provider of Internet services, you agree to co-operate with us and/or our Supplier in any corrective or preventive action that either we or our Supplier, respectively, deems necessary. Failure to cooperate with such corrective or preventive measures is a breach of this AUP.
4.1 You agree that we cannot and do not monitor, verify, warrant, or vouch for the accuracy and quality of the information that you may acquire over the Internet, or, review, edit, censor, or take responsibility for any information you may create.
4.2 As a result of clause 4.1, you agree that:
4.2.1 you must exercise your own best judgment in relying on information obtained from the Internet;
4.2.2 when you place information on the Internet, you have the same liability as other authors for copyright infringement, defamation, and other harmful speech; and
4.2.3 neither we nor our Supplier accept any responsibility and shall not be liable to you for any loss or damage that you may suffer that results from inaccurate, unsuitable, offensive, or illegal Internet communications.
4.3 Notwithstanding clauses 4.1, you acknowledge that we or our Supplier may:
4.3.1 monitor private electronic mail messages sent or received by you if required to do so by law, governmental authority, or when public safety is at stake; or
4.3.2 monitor its service electronically to determine that its facilities are operating satisfactorily;
4.3.3 monitor the conduct of your account with us as a means of determining whether you are complying with this AUP subject to the terms of this AUP and our Privacy Policy.
You agree that you shall be responsible for ensuring that neither you, nor any other person or party whom you permit to use the Services either undertakes, or attempts to undertake, any of the following prohibited activities (Prohibited Activities):
Spamming – This means sending unsolicited bulk and/or commercial electronic messages over the Internet (“spam” or “spamming”), providing a capability on a websites (which may include, without limitation, for the avoidance of doubt, parked pages and online cards) hosted by us or our Supplier that permits third parties to spam from the our/Supplier’s server, or, maintaining an open SMTP relay. These activities are not only harmful because of their negative impact on consumer attitudes toward us and/or our Supplier, but they can also overload our or ourSupplier’s network and disrupt service to other users of the Services. Accordingly, you agree that when a complaint is received by either us or our Supplier, we or our Supplier each have the discretion to determine from all of the evidence whether the email constitutes spam or spamming and/or take any other action permitted by this AUP.
Intellectual Property and Privacy Violations – This means engaging in any activity that infringes or misappropriates the intellectual property rights of others, including copyrights, trademarks, service marks, trade secrets, software piracy, and patents held by individuals, corporations, or other entities. It may also mean engaging in any activity that violates privacy, publicity, or other personal rights of others. The distribution of information or tools that promote the violation of the intellectual property or privacy of others (including, without limitation, warez, hacking, serial numbers and software cracks) is also prohibited. You agree that where required by law, we or our Supplier may remove or block access to your content. You also agree that we or our Supplier may terminate your privileges if who commit repeat violations of copyright laws.
Obscene Speech or Materials – This means using our or our Supplier’s network to advertise, transmit, store, post, display, or otherwise make available child pornography, other offensive sexual content or materials, or, any other obscene speech or material. You agree that where required to by law, we or our Supplier may notify law enforcement agencies when it becomes aware of the presence of child pornography on or being transmitted through the network of we or our Supplier (as the context requires) and/or take any other action permitted by this AUP.
Adult Material – This means using our or our Supplier’s network to advertise, transmit, store, post, display, or otherwise make available any pornography, nudity and sex-related merchandising (Adult Material) of any sort, including by means of creating or maintaining any links to websites containing any Adult Material
Defamatory or Abusive Language – This means using our or our Supplier’s network as a means of transmitting or posting defamatory, harassing, abusive, or threatening language, or, engaging in any form of electronic “stalking”. This also means illegally storing, or using or distributing software in order to do any of the preceding things.
Forging of Headers, Return Addresses and Internet Protocol Addresses – This means any forging, deleting or misrepresenting message headers, return addresses or Internet protocol addresses, whether in whole or in part, to mask the originator of the message.
Illegal or Unauthorized Access to Other Computers or Networks – This means accessing illegally or without authorisation computers, accounts, information or communication devices or resources or networks belonging to us, our Supplier or any other party, or, attempting to penetrate security measures of another individual’s system (often known as “hacking”). This also includes any activity that might be used as a precursor to an attempted system penetration (for example, port scan, stealth scan, or other information gathering activity).
Distribution of Internet Viruses, Worms, Trojan Horses, or Other Destructive Activities – This means distributing information regarding the creation of and sending Internet viruses, worms, Trojan horses, pinging, flooding, mail-bombing, or denial of service attacks. This also includes any activities that disrupt the use of or interfere with the ability of others to effectively use the network or any connected network, system, service, or equipment.
Facilitating a Violation of this AUP – This means advertising, transmitting, or otherwise making available any software, program, product, or service that is designed to violate this AUP (including, without limitation, by the provision of software that “harvests” electronic addresses from the Internet). It also includes the facilitation of the means to spam, initiation of pinging, flooding, mail-bombing, denial of service attacks, and piracy of software.
Export Control Violations – If you are located in the United States, this means exporting encryption software over the Internet or otherwise, to points outside the United States.
Usenet Groups – This means that the content of any Usenet Group must not violate this AUP. You agree that we nor our Supplier may at any time determine not to accept postings from newsgroups where either of us have actual knowledge that the content of the newsgroup violates the AUP.
Other Illegal Activities – Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that we or our Supplier respectively, may determine to be harmful to the subscribers, operations, reputation, goodwill, or customer relations of either us or our Supplier.
Other Activities – Engaging in activities, whether lawful or unlawful, that we or our Supplier respectively, may determine to be harmful to the subscribers, operations, reputation, goodwill, or customer relations of either us or our Supplier.
6.1 In addition to any other rights in clause 5, if you engage in any Prohibited Activity, or, if we or our Supplier become aware that you are otherwise engaging in any harmful activities, or, you otherwise breach or violate any of the terms of this AUP, you agree that we or our Supplier may take any action to stop the Prohibited Activity, harmful activity, violation or breach of this AUP, including but not limited to:
6.1.1 removing any or all information, content, material software or other content stored in the facilities, our or our Supplier’s network or systems;
6.1.2 shutting down a websites (which may include, without limitation, for the avoidance of doubt, parked pages and online cards);
6.1.3 implementing screening software designed to block offending transmissions;
6.1.4 denying access to the Internet;
6.1.5 suspending your access to the Services;
6.1.6 terminating your account with us without notice to you; or
6.1.7 take any other action it deems appropriate.
6.2 We may provide you with notice that we or our Supplier intends to take any action under clause 6.1, but is not obliged to do so.
We are concerned with the privacy of on-line communications and websites (which may include, without limitation, for the avoidance of doubt, parked pages and online cards). However, you acknowledge that we cannot warrant or guarantee that any online communication will be secure. Accordingly, you agree that neither us nor our Supplier take any responsibility for the security of information transmitted over our or our Supplier’s facilities. You further agree that neither we or our Supplier accepts any liability for any injury to you (whether monetary or otherwise) as a result of any information transmitted over our or our Supplier’s facilities.
8.1 You agree that we and our Supplier may disclose information, including but not limited to, information concerning you, a transmission made using the our or our Supplier’s network, or a websites (which may include, without limitation, for the avoidance of doubt, parked pages and online cards), in order to comply with a court order, subpoena, summons, discovery request, warrant, statute, regulation, or governmental request.
8.2 You further agree that neither we nor our Supplier assumes any obligation to inform you that your information has been provided and in some cases, such notice may be prohibited by law.
8.3 You also agree that we or our Supplier may disclose your information or information transmitted over our or our Supplier’s network where necessary to protect us and/or our Supplier and others from harm, or where such disclosure is necessary to the proper operation of the system.
In addition to the above provisions, if you reside in Australia, you agree to comply with the following additional provisions:
9.1 You may have certain additional legal responsibilities relating to supervising and controlling children’s access to the Internet content and other obligations under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992 (Cth), as amended or replaced from time to time (the AB Act), or other applicable legislation. If you are a parent, these websites will also provide you with information about procedures that you can implement to control the access of children to the Internet and the use and application of Internet content filtering software to restrict the content of information on the Internet.
9.2 In addition to any other Prohibited Activity mentioned above in clause 5, you must not use our or our Supplier’s network to advertise, transmit, store, post, display, obtain or otherwise make available:
9.2.1 any Prohibited Content or Potentially Prohibited Content, as each is respectively defined by the AB Act;
9.2.2 content that is (or would be) classified RC or X by the Classification Board of Australia, including, without limitation, any of the following information:
9.2.2.1 material containing detailed instruction in crime, violence or drug use;
9.2.2.2 bestiality;
9.2.2.3 real depictions of sexual activity;
9.2.2.4 material containing excessive violence or sexual violence; and
9.2.3 to minors – content hosted in Australia that is classified R and is not subject to a restricted access system and which complies with criteria determined by the Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA), including, without limitation, any of the following:
9.2.3.1 material containing excessive violence or sexual violence;
9.2.3.2 material containing strong violence or sexual violence;
9.2.3.3 material containing any simulated or implied sexual activity;
9.2.3.4 material that deals with issues or contains depictions that require an adult perspective.
You should also be aware that you may at any time formally complain to the ABA if at any time you become aware that any website (which may include, without limitation, for the avoidance of doubt, parked pages and online cards) hosted by us or our Supplier (as the context requires) on behalf of a customer of us who has obtained any of the Services who either resides in Australia and/or conducts business in Australia, and which contains Prohibited Content or Potentially Prohibited Content. If you wish to do so, please make your formal complaint in accordance with the procedure required by the ABA, which you can view through their website, which is located at http://www.aba.gov.au.
10.1 You agree that we shall have no liability to you with respect to this AUP or any action taken, or inaction, by us or our Supplier in connection with this AUP (including, without limitation, in relation to any violation of this AUP.
10.2 You acknowledge and agree that you are required to indemnify us, our Supplier and all directors, officers, employees and agents of us and our Supplier in relation to this AUP in accordance with the terms of the Indemnity contained in the Terms and Conditions for the relevant Services that you have obtained from us.
10.3 In the event your Service is suspended or terminated due to unauthorised access, you will be solely responsible for remedying any unauthorised changes to the Service due to this unauthorised access. You agree that we hold full discretion whether to reinstate your Service in these circumstances.
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