| About this
document: 1. This document
contains the general terms and conditions on which Southern Star
Communications Aust Pty Ltd (we) provide:
- domain name hosting services;
- associated email hosting and forwarding
services;
- web hosting services (such as the
provision of personal Web space); and
- associated services or software (such as
account management software, helpdesk support, or content filtering).
2. When you purchase Southern Star's
Services (sign up), you select a specific web hosting plan. This plan
will have additional conditions which apply, such as:
- The periodic charges payable (Fixed
Charge);
- Any limits on the amount of time you can
stay connected or on the amount of data you can store on our servers or
that users can download from your web site
- Any additional charges payable (on a
per-megabyte basis) if you exceed those limits, or if you access
additional services that Southern Star offers now or in the future (Usage
Charges).
3. When does this document apply?
- This
document came into force on 1 June 2005. If you sign up on or after this
date, this document forms part of the contract between you and
Southern Star.
4.
Who is the customer?
- The customer (in
this document referred to as you) is the person who provides their
personal details when purchasing a web hosting plan by telephone, in
writing or by using Southern
Star's on-line
signup page.
- By signing up
on-line, over the phone, or by signing a written application, you promise
that you are over 18 years of age. If not, then you are not authorised to
sign up to our Service. You may, however, arrange for a parent or guardian
to sign up instead of you
5.
Use of Services
- When you sign up,
you are requested to select a user name and password. You will need this
user name and password to upload data to our servers (access) and to
manage the services.
- You must take
reasonable steps to keep your password secret.
- You are responsible
for all use of the Services (including all Usage Charges) whether or not
you have supervised the specific use.
- Data may be uploaded
to our servers by you, your employees and contractors in connection with
the normal set-up, operation and maintenance of your website; by a visitor
to your website in connection with the normal operation of your website
(for example, filling in a form).
- You must make sure
that any person uploading data to our servers complies with any
obligations relating to content imposed on you under these terms and
conditions or our Acceptable Use Policy.
6. How are Service
charges calculated?
- The
Fixed Charge is set out when you sign up, and is usually stated for a
specific period (for example, one month or one year). You may agree to
change the Fixed Charge in the future if you purchase additional services
from us that are charged on a periodic basis.
- We will not increase
the Fixed Charge during any period for which you have already paid and we
will give you at least 30 days notice of any increase. However, this does
not apply to any promotional offers (such as a reduced fee for the first
month of your use of the Services).
Note: the remainder
of this section applies to Usage Charges. As at 1 June 2005, no Web Hosting
plans contain Usage Charges.
- The Usage Charge is
calculated based on your excess data usage, or any additional services
purchased, during a connection period.
- Where we calculate a
Usage Charge based on data downloaded and/or uploaded, we calculate 1
megabyte (or 1 MB) as 1,000,000 bytes (a byte is a unit of digital
information, equivalent to 8 binary digits).
- You agree that you
are liable for all Usage Charges, even though some Usage Charges may be
unexpected because of:
- Software installed
on your computer (such as "peer to peer" software) that downloads or
uploads data without your knowledge;
- Unsolicited email
and other electronic communications sent to your computer by third
parties; and use of the Services by others without your knowledge or
supervision.
7.
How are payments to be
made?
- All of our plans
permit payment by credit card. Some of our plans must be paid by credit
card.
- If you make payment
by credit card, you must provide valid credit card details and ensure that
those details remain current (for example, it is you responsibility to
make sure that the credit card details held by us are updated if the
credit card is replaced or renewed);
- If the credit card
is not in your name, you must ensure that the credit card holder has
authorised the use of the credit card to pay for Services provided by
Southern Star to you.
- We debit a Fixed
Charge to your credit card in advance at the beginning of the period to
which that Fixed Charge relates;
- We debit a Usage
Charge to your credit card in arrears after we have calculated the Usage
Charge for a period; and if we are unable to debit a charge to your credit
card, we may suspend the provision of Services, try to process your
payment again, or both. We do not have to adjust a Fixed Charge or Usage
Charge to take account of any period of suspension, unless we were unable
to debit your credit card because of a fault in our credit card processing
systems and facilities.
- If you make payment
by cheque (this only applies where cheque payments are permitted), you
must ensure that you provide to us a cheque for a Fixed Charge at the
beginning of the period to which that Fixed Charge relates; you must
provide to us a cheque for a Usage Charge for a period within 14 days of
us sending an invoice to you by email; and we may choose to suspend the
provision of Services if you do not make payment within the times set out
above until we have received your cheque and it has been accepted as
cleared funds by our bank.
8.
Quality of Service
We will make all
reasonable efforts to provide the Services to you on a continuous basis.
However, the provision of Services may be slowed or interrupted completely
for a number of reasons, including the following:
- Scheduled or
unscheduled maintenance of any equipment or facilities used to provide
the Services;
- A hardware or
software failure in any equipment or facilities used to provide the
Services; and
- Although we try to
ensure that our systems cope with expected demand, a Service may be
temporarily unavailable to you because of peak demand and network
congestion
- To the extent
permitted by law, we do not promise that the Services will always work,
or that you will always be able to connect to them. For this reason, we
do not recommend that you use the Services for mission-critical
applications, or for websites where large volumes of data are downloaded
- The speed of your
website depends on a number of factors, many outside of our control
(including network congestion and failure in other parts of the Internet
in general). For this reason, we do not promise that your content:
Will always be available to visitors to your website; or will be
available at a particular speed.
Federal and state
legislation may give you additional rights beyond those set out in these
terms and conditions. Also, such legislation may imply additional terms or
warranties in these terms and conditions which cannot be varied. Nothing
in these terms and conditions is intended to be inconsistent with, or
vary, such rights, terms or warranties.
We do not include
archiving or back-up services in the services that we provide. For
example, if your website data and content as stored on our server becomes
corrupted for any reason, we are not responsible for restoring a correct
version of that data or content. You are responsible for ensuring that you
maintain one or more secure and reliable copies of all data and content
stored on our server.
9.
Responsibility for use of Services
- You are responsible
for all use of the Services using your account details and for all content
placed on your website.
- We are under no
obligation to filter the content available through your website. However,
you must ensure that any information, data or software available from your
website:
is accurate;
is free of viruses, Trojans, worms, unsolicited communications ("spam") or
other malicious code; and
Complies with criminal or civil laws and regulations (including censorship
and intellectual property laws).
- You must ensure that
the use of the Services using your account details, and any of your
content placed on or through our World Wide Web, ftp, news or email
servers, does not infringe any applicable laws, including laws relating
to:
censorship;
gambling;
spam;
trade practices and fair trading;
copyright and other intellectual property rights; and
defamation.
- You must defend and
indemnify us if a claim is made against us, or we incur any losses or
expenses, because you have breached your obligations under paragraph 8 or
9
- Although we are
under no obligation to you to monitor or edit your use of the Services or
any content you place on our servers, we may remove or modify any content
that we believe on reasonable grounds infringes your obligations under
paragraph 8 or 9
- You are responsible
for Internet and telephone call charges that apply when you use our
Services
10.
Additional Rules
- We have an
Acceptable Use Policy that contains additional rules about the way that
you use the Services;
- The Acceptable Use
Policy forms part of the contract between you and us as if it were set out
here in full;
- The Acceptable Use
Policy may be changed from time to time by a new version being posted on
our website.
- If there is any
inconsistency between the Acceptable Use Policy and these terms and
conditions these terms and conditions prevail;
- We also have a
Privacy Policy that states the way that we may collect, store, use and
disclose personal information that we receive from you. We will comply
with the Privacy Policy, as amended from time to time. Your personal
details (including email address) will not be sold or provided to third
parties except when required under State and Federal legislation.
11.Ending
this agreement and suspension
- You can end the
contract between you and Southern Star by notifying us in writing or by
email no less than 14 days before the end of any period for which you have
paid a Fixed Charge. If you fail to do this, then the contract will be
automatically renewed at the end of that period for an additional period
of the same length.
- We can end our
provision of the Services to you at the end of any period for which you
have paid a Fixed Charge by giving you 14 days advance notice in writing
or by email; at any time by written or email notice if you breach your
obligations under these terms and conditions.
- If we believe on
reasonable grounds that you have breached your obligations under these
terms and conditions, we may suspend your access immediately while we
investigate whether a breach has occurred. We are under no obligation to
refund any part of the fees paid for Services during any period of
suspension.
- We may suspend your
access to the Services at any time, and without warning, if you fail to
make a payment when due (including where this is caused by a credit card
transaction being declined
12.
General provisions
- If we need to send
you a notice concerning this agreement, we can do so by email to the
primary email account you receive as part of the Services.
- The laws of
Victoria, Australia govern the interpretation of this agreement.
- You may not assign
or otherwise transfer your rights and obligations under this agreement and
any attempted assignment or transfer is void.
- You must not re-sell
our Services.
- Southern Star may
change these terms and conditions or the Acceptable Use Policy at any time
by giving you 30 days notice. If the change adversely affects your rights
or obligations under this agreement, you may cancel this agreement by
notice to Southern Star without penalty (including without paying any
Minimum Period Termination Charge that would otherwise apply). For your
notice of cancellation to be effective, Southern Star must receive the
notice before the change in the terms and conditions or Acceptable Use
Policy takes effect.
- If you validly
cancel this agreement under clause 12 because of a change to the terms and
conditions or Acceptable Use Policy made by us, we will refund to you any
unused part of any Fixed Charge that you have pre-paid, on a pro-rated
basis.
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