Providence, 31.07.2013
These Rules of Use form part of your agreement with us.
PLEASE NOTE: It is important that you read and understand all the Rules of Use. However, there are a few key points that we want to highlight:
Compliance with legislation. We do not accept any liability for any content transmitted and full responsibility for content shall rest on you. You must observe all relevant legislation and regulations applicable in your jurisdiction and in the jurisdiction of all persons to whom you direct communications when using our services. By using our services you also agree to be bound by the Rules of Use. We do not modify the content of electronic communications sent or received through our systems or the selection of the addresses of the recipients. However, where a service requires opt-out wording in an electronic communication, we may insert such wording without any other modification to content and without incurring any liability.
Defending complaints from regulatory authorities. You shall be responsible for answering and defending any complaints that we receive from any regulatory body resulting from your use of any of our services. We will forward any complaints to you as soon as practical. You must follow the applicable complaint procedures and respond to each complaint within the timeframes specified by the relevant regulatory body or us and must forward a copy of your response to us immediately. You will be liable for any fines or penalties imposed by any regulatory body on you or us or any of our associated companies, due to your contravention of these Terms.
Indemnity. You agree to hold ARTIO and our suppliers harmless and to indemnify ARTIO, our associated companies, and our respective officers, directors, employees, agents and suppliers fully against all damages, awards, penalties or legal costs claimed or imposed by any party as a result of any action, commission or omission by you that constitutes a breach or contravention of these terms, any applicable legislation, regulations, industry code of conduct or mobile network code of practice or acceptable usage policy.
I. Acceptable Use
You may only use our services:
in accordance with our Terms;
in accordance with all relevant legislation and regulations applicable in your jurisdiction and in the jurisdiction of all persons to whom you direct communications when using our services;
for the purposes for which they are designed; and
in a manner which does not interfere with or diminish others’ rights.
You must:
have a commercial relationship with all intended recipients of any commercial electronic communications that you send using our services and that all intended recipients would reasonably expect to receive commercial electronic communications from you, or that recipients have either requested the receipt of messages from you or consented thereto;
offer a convenient method for recipients to opt-out of receiving further commercial electronic communications from you or from a subscription service;
obtain express consent from intended recipients if required by law or a relevant industry code of conduct and specifically for any subscriptions for which a recipient may be charged repeatedly; and
include contact details and identifying particulars in your electronic communications sent via our systems to ensure that recipients can identify you as the sender and that complaints are directed to you and not to ARTIO or a mobile network.
II. Prohibited Use
The following list gives examples of illegal, abusive, interfering or otherwise unacceptable or inappropriate behavior while using our services. When you use our services, you must not:
send junk electronic communications, spam or any unsolicited messages (commercial or otherwise);
make any misrepresentation including to:
- deceive, mislead, defraud or otherwise make misrepresentations to any person regarding any fact or circumstance;
- impersonate or attempt to impersonate someone else or otherwise misrepresent your identity to any person;
- create a false identity, mobile phone address or header;
- change the content of communications received by you and thereafter forwarding same to others without indicating the nature of the changes; and
- forge or otherwise manipulate origination details and data on any electronic communications to disguise or delete the origin of anything transmitted using our service;
transmit anything (including words and images) which is defamatory, discriminatory, obscene, lewd, offensive, threatening, abusive, harassing, harmful, hateful or which contains pornography, adult content, religious or racial slurs or threatens or encourages bodily harm or the like or which may violate any person’s rights regardless of whether such content is accessed, transmitted, propagated, distributed, created or stored in a public or private context;
commit fraud or solicit or induce any person to participate in any commercial or non-commercial activities such as a financial scam, “pyramid schemes” or “chain letters”;
violate or infringe anybody’s intellectual property rights;
use our intellectual property (including the ARTIO trade mark, any website content and our proprietary software) without our consent
violate any applicable third party policies or requirements;
violate relevant guidelines or best practices of any relevant regulatory body or mobile network, or any other industry standards;
do anything which does or may:
damage, impair, overburden or disable our systems or services, or the systems of others;
interfere with another user’s use and enjoyment of the service or of similar services;
interfere with or disrupt networks connected to the service or violate the regulations, policies or procedures of such networks;
compromise or tamper with the security of our or any other person’s software, hardware, systems, networks or services;
transmit any computer code which is designed to harm the operation of any software, hardware or network, including viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs and cancelbots;
harvest or collect information about others, including telephone numbers and email addresses, without their consent for any reason;
violate the privacy of any person;
reproduce, replicate, copy, sell or re-sell any of:
our services or any part thereof including websites and web pages, or any services that constitute the provision of telecommunications services in terms of applicable legislation; or
the information or data contained in our services;
repeatedly transmit content in such a manner as to have the effect of harassing a recipient;
access any of our services or any similar service of any third party or any network without authorisation or through hacking, password mining or any other means;
offer any Emergency Services to mobile phone users or your clients. “Emergency Services” shall mean services that allow a user to connect with emergency services personnel or public safety answering points such as 911 or E911 services in the U.S.A.; or
help any third party to do any of the above.
Export Restrictions. The export of any our goods, software, technology (including technical data), or services to Cuba, Iran, North Korea, North Sudan and/or Syria (or any other U.S. embargoed country) without prior authorization by the U.S. Government is strictly prohibited and you warrant not to take any action that might cause us to be in violation of these rules.
III. Consequences od Non-Compliance
If you violate these Rules of Use, we may immediately and without notice suspend or terminate your account.
Your violation of these Rules of Use may result in civil or criminal liability.
We may investigate complaints about your use of our services and may disclose any information we deem fit to any complainant or the authorities, in our sole discretion.
You will have no claim of any nature against us (including claims for re-imbursement, refund, compensation or damages).
If we notify you of any fine imposed against us due to your use of our services in violation of our Terms or these Rules of Use, you will immediately pay the amount of such fine or damages to us. Any amount not paid to us within 24 hours of notification shall accrue interest at the maximum rate allowed by law.
4. Examples of Applicable Laws
The following list contains a few examples of laws, regulations and codes of conduct to which we subscribe and which may apply to your use of our services:
United States:
- the Controlling the Assault of Non-solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN SPAM) Act
- the Telephone Consumer Protection Act
- the Rules of the Federal Trade Commission relating to sending of unwanted commercial messages
- Mobile Marketing Association Mobile Marketing Code of Conduct and other guidelines – more information and contact details available at http://www.mmaglobal.com
- CTIA guidelines – more information and contact details available at http://www.ctia.org
South Africa:
- the Electronic Communications and Transactions Act No. 25 of 2002
- the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008
- the WASPA Code of Conduct and Advertising Guidelines available at http://www.waspa.org.za
European Union:
- Directive 2002/58/EC
- Directive 2000/31/EC
- Directive 95/46/EC
- Directive 93/13/EC
- all national member state laws promulgated in terms of any of the above directives
- Mobile Marketing Association Mobile Marketing Code of Conduct and other guidelines – more information and contact details available at http://www.mmaglobal.com
United Kingdom:
- Phone Pay Plus Code of Practice available at http://www.phonepayplus.org.uk/
The above is not an exhaustive list of applicable laws, and it is your responsibility to obtain legal advice.
