Member Agreement
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CompuServe Member Agreement
We recently wrote to you in relation to forthcoming changes to the CompuServe Member Agreement . We set out below the updated Member Agreement which will be effective from 1st July 2003.
To see a full copy of the email we sent you click the "Member Email" link on the channel bar or at the foot of the page.
To see answers to questions you may have, click on the "FAQs" link on the channel bar or at the foot of the page.
UK COMPUSERVE MEMBER AGREEMENT
This Agreement is a legal document which details your rights and responsibilities as a CompuServe member and those of the provider of the CompuServe information, communication and transaction service, and its affiliates and others involved in the provision of the service. The provider of the CompuServe information, communication and transaction service shall be AOL Europe Services Sarl, a company registered in Luxembourg (each referred to herein as "CIS", "CSi" "we" or "us") You agree and understand that AOL Europe Services Sarl will be the provider of the CompuServe Service and will be responsible for performance of our obligations to you under this Agreement.
You cannot obtain an account and become a member of CompuServe until you have indicated your agreement to all of these provisions by clicking on 'Agree' at the end of this Agreement.
To be a CompuServe account holder you must be at least 18 years old. If you're not, you may still use CompuServe, but only if the account was created by your parent or guardian.
Because protecting your privacy is especially important, we would first like you to understand how you agree that your personal data will be used by clicking 'I agree' below. We also draw your attention to the provisions relating to liability in Section 6.
1. PERSONAL DATA
Personal data is any data that identifies or relates to you or your individual CompuServe account. It includes identity and billing information which you agree to supply to us accurately and to keep up-to-date by using GO Word BILLING.
CIS controls the personal data you provide to us when you register for CompuServe and subsequently in the course of your use of the CompuServe Service. This means that CIS takes responsibility for the processing, disclosure and use of that data, even if it is done by a third party on CIS's behalf.
Personal data will be collected, processed, stored and used by us, and passed to and processed by our subsidiary and/or affiliated companies (together "CIS Group Companies") and other data processors acting under our control for the purpose of providing, promoting and billing for the CompuServe service, maintaining a directory of members, providing customer support to CompuServe members and other purposes mentioned below.
The CompuServe Service is global, and many of the computers and companies that process data on our behalf are based in the USA and other countries outside the European Union ("EU"). Thus, your personal data (which may include data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, or concerning health or sex life) may be transferred to, processed and held both inside and outside the EU. Countries outside the EU may not have as well developed data protection laws in place to protect your information as those inside the EU, but we will ensure your personal data is treated in compliance with those laws, this Agreement and our Privacy Policy. Details of companies and countries processing your data will be provided request, by writing to the postal address for Personal Data Enquiries in Clause 11 below.
We encourage you to tell us what your marketing preferences are for your personal data. For this purpose, please note that unless you "opt-out" you are agreeing that contact data you supply us:
(a) may be used by or disclosed by CIS Group Companies until 12 months after you cease to be a CompuServe Member, and
(b) may be passed to selected third party suppliers of goods and services and advertisers until 6 months after you cease to be a CompuServe Member for the purpose of marketing to you their respective goods and services. You can opt out at any time after you have completed the registration process by using GO PREFERENCES.
To provide a service which meets our members' needs, we may collect personal data relating to the popularity and usage of the various services offered through CompuServe. However, this data will be used and disclosed only on an anonymous, aggregated basis.
We may hold personal data relating to the transactions you enter into with us or others through CompuServe, such as online merchants. We will disclose this data to a party to the transaction but only to facilitate your transaction. CIS Group Companies may also use this data to let you know about products and services that may be of interest.
When you call our Customer Service Department, we may monitor or record your call and store details of the phone number you use to make the call. This information is used only to track reported problems and better address your customer service needs.
We will retain your personal data only as long as is necessary for the purposes to which you consent under this Member Agreement and as required by applicable laws and then delete it from our systems. We reserve the right to retain certain data generated or provided as a result of your CompuServe membership (such as credit card numbers) where such data can not identify you personally for more than one year after the cancellation of your membership for purposes such as research to enable us to provide a better service to our members and fraud prevention. To inspect, change or correct your identity and contact information, you should call our Customer Service Department on 0870 6000 800 or use GO BILLING.
We may disclose your personal data if we are either compelled to do so by law, or in response to a valid, legally-compliant request by a law enforcement or governmental authority. Where you provide us with billing account details owned by a third party, you consent to us disclosing your name and address, and data relating to payments made under that account.
2. SOME BASICS OF YOUR COMPUSERVE MEMBERSHIP
This Agreement incorporates the rules and regulations which can be viewed at GO RULES (please be sure to read and understand them) and is intended to contain your entire agreement with CIS relating to your use of CompuServe; we believe it to be fair and reasonable. However, additional terms and conditions may apply if you use affiliate services like our international areas, other CompuServe services such as the Executive News Service, Forums or third-party software or services.
As CIS's business and the online world continue to evolve, CIS will need to change provisions of this Agreement. Any changes to this Agreement made by CIS will not take effect until the end of the Billing Period after the Billing Period in which you were notified of the changes. If you don't agree to those changes, you may terminate your membership at any time prior to the changes taking effect. By continuing to use CompuServe, you will have accepted the relevant changes. See Section 8 below for the definition of "Billing Period" and for details of how to terminate your membership.
CIS and its information providers, Forum managers and other third party suppliers may from time to time modify or remove aspects of CompuServe, including various types of content and services. CIS will not, however, remove aspects of CompuServe which are fundamental to its nature without first giving members at least 30 days prior notice.
Because we give out free trial offers, we can limit you to just one free trial.
When you accept this Agreement and complete the CompuServe registration process, you become the account holder and CompuServe grants you a non-exclusive licence for the duration of your membership to use the member name (which is your online identity) that is selected by or assigned to you during the registration process. Your member name can't be vulgar or be used in any other way that breaches this Agreement.
As the account holder, you are responsible for all activity on your account and any breaches of this Agreement which may result. You'll periodically receive important notices about your membership, so it is important for you to regularly check your account's mailbox. Because you are responsible for all use of your account, you should supervise the use of it by others.
You are responsible for the security and proper use of your password and must notify us promptly if you have any reason to believe that it has become known by an unauthorised person or is being used in an unauthorised manner. If we believe that there is likely to be a breach of security, we may change your password and will promptly notify you of the change which has been made.
3. CHARGES AND BILLING
The answers to many common billing questions can be found by using GO BILLING.
You will be charged for CompuServe in accordance with the charging plan notified to you during registration. We may change our fees or billing methods but such changes will not take effect until the end of the Billing Period after the Billing Period in which you were notified of the changes. If you don't agree to those changes you may terminate your membership at any time prior to the changes taking effect. By continuing to use CompuServe, you will have accepted the relevant changes. See Section 8 below for details of how to terminate your membership.
You are responsible for all charges incurred and purchases made by you or others using your account.
We offer premium content and services through CompuServe. If you access them, additional charges (known as surcharges or premiums)will be incurred. You are provided with notice of the relevant additional charges when you enter any surcharged or premium area, you can check them at GO RATES, and they apply even during any free trial of CompuServe.
You must make payments to us from the credit card, charge card, debit card or bank account you selected during the sign-up process (as changed by agreement with us from time to time). If we don't receive payment from that account, you remain obliged to pay us the unpaid sums. We will be charging your designated account every month but some charges may be accumulated before they are charged to your designated account. You authorize CIS to charge certain purchases you make online to your designated account; you will be informed when this is happening.
We expect you to pay your account balances on time. If we don't receive payment within 30 days from the date on your CompuServe account statement, you agree to pay all outstanding charges due to CIS on demand and CIS will be entitled to charge interest of1.5% per month on all those charges. You agree that you will immediately pay any then-outstanding charges if your membership is terminated for any reason.
You should let us know about any billing problems or discrepancies promptly after they first appear on your account statement. If you do not bring them to our attention within 180 days, you will have given up your right to dispute them.
Telephone charges for connecting to CompuServe are your responsibility. There is a network of access numbers throughout the United Kingdom; you are responsible for selecting the least costly of these numbers (at GO RATES). There are also telecommunications surcharges, which arise when you use CompuServe from certain locations or via certain networks; these surcharges will apply during any free trial of CompuServe. You are responsible for checking the amount of any telecommunications surcharges which may apply at GO RATES.
Although certain areas on CompuServe may be designated as free of charge, CompuServe incurs costs in maintaining them. So, we reserve the right to charge your account at our normal RATES if you use these free areas for more than 5 hours in any Billing Period.
If you hold a qualified business account which has been approved by CompuServe for corporate billing, your charges will be accumulated, identified by member name, and will normally be invoiced following the end of each month.
4. ONLINE CONDUCT AND CONTENT
Content
Content is the information, software, communications, images and sounds provided online. The content available through CompuServe is provided by CIS, its affiliates, other CIS Group Companies, our members, Forum managers, independent content providers and other third parties. In general, CIS does not pre-screen content but does reserve the right to remove any that does not meet its standards or comply with CIS's rules and regulations (available at GO RULES).
CIS does not control, monitor or review the content provided by others which is available on CompuServe or the Internet. Therefore we do not accept responsibility for content that is provided by others or for any failure or delay in removing it from CompuServe except if any act or omission amounts to a breach of this Agreement by us. Members must take responsibility for managing their own online experience and that of others who use their account. This is especially important when children are online; they are safer and get more out of the experience with adult supervision. You should review the Parental Control facility (at GO CONTROLS).
You are responsible for evaluating the accuracy, completeness and value of content, goods and services offered or made available by third parties through CompuServe or the Internet; CIS will not be party to any transaction concerning such content, goods or services.
CIS is not responsible for content available on the Internet, although we reserve the right, without accepting the obligation, to block access to areas on the Internet which may contain illegal or harmful content or which may be used for purposes that are injurious to CIS, CompuServe or its members.
This medium allows individuals to create their own content and voice their opinions; CompuServe members are encouraged to do so. But you must abide by certain rules and standards as a CompuServe member.
You must ensure that your account is used only for lawful purposes and in a manner which does not in our reasonable judgement infringe the rights of any person or entity, or restrict anyone's enjoyment of CompuServe or the Internet. The details of our rules and standards are available at GO RULES. If you, or anyone using your account, breach them, CIS may take action against you or your account. This can range from a warning about the breach to the termination of your account.
You may have access to services provided by CIS Group Companies which are available both to CompuServe members and other Internet users. When using these services, such as the compuserve.co.uk website, your conduct remains subject to this Agreement; however, non-CompuServe members are not subject to this Agreement and may not be governed by the same rules or standards.
Junk Email
Your account may not be used to send unsolicited "junk emails", by which we mean any email whose primary purpose is to propose a commercial transaction to a person with whom you do not already have a prior commercial relationship. Further, you may not use the CompuServe member directory or any other area of CompuServe to collect information, such as member names, about other members nor use this information for junk email purposes. If you have received junk email and want to report it, send an email to Abuse@compuserve.com. CIS may, without prior notice, block or limit the transmission through CompuServe of junk email.
Proprietary Rights
The content on CompuServe is owned by CIS and others and is protected by copyright, trademarks and other intellectual property rights. You must not copy, modify, distribute, show in public or create any derivative work from any of the content you find on CompuServe, unless you have the right to do so. Doing so without permission from the owner of the content can lead to the termination of your CompuServe account and may even breach the criminal law. Further, content owners may initiate criminal or civil action against you, in which event, you will be responsible for any resulting losses, expenses or other costs incurred by CIS and others (see Section 7 "Responsibility" below).
You agree only to make authorised, legal uploads and downloads of content through CompuServe. All the content you transmit must either be your own or you must be expressly authorised to distribute it on CompuServe.
Some areas of CompuServe are generally accessible to other members (we refer to them as "public"), like OurWorld, Forums and the Member Directory. By putting content in a public area, you are representing that you are fully entitled to do so and that you grant to CIS the non-exclusive right to copy, modify, distribute, show in public and create derivative works from that content in any form, anywhere. You also grant CompuServe members the right to use such content for personal, non-commercial purposes.
5. COMPUSERVE SOFTWARE LICENCES
You use CompuServe proprietary software to access CompuServe, which you agree to use in accordance with this Agreement. You may not sub-license, or charge others to use or access, our software. We may occasionally provide automatic upgrades to improve your online experience and we employ virus-screening technology to assist in the protection of our network and our members.
In order to avoid you incurring additional charges unintentionally, if you are logged on to CompuServe but there has been no activity for an extended period of time then CompuServe may log off automatically; if this occurs, you will need to sign on again to recommence your use of CompuServe. You must not use tools that defeat this automatic log-off feature.
CIS grants to you a non-exclusive licence to use CompuServe software to connect to CompuServe from authorized locations in accordance with this agreement. This licence is subject to the restriction that, except where expressly permitted by law, you may not translate, reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble or make derivative works from, CompuServe software; nor may you modify CompuServe software or use it in any way not expressly authorized by this Agreement. You acknowledge that the technologies introduced by CIS may not be consistent across all platforms (e.g., Macintosh).
6. LIABILITY
You agree that CompuServe, CompuServe Software and the Internet are supplied or made available to you as is and as available for your personal use only and that your use of each is at your sole risk. CIS does not make (and hereby excludes) any guarantee or undertaking that you will be able to access CompuServe at a time or from a location of your choosing or that there will be adequate capacity for CompuServe as a whole or for particular products, services or content. However, CIS will use reasonable skill and care to provide and maintain the availability of CompuServe.
Except where expressly referred to elsewhere in this Agreement, this Agreement contains all of the contract terms, including any guarantees we give about the CompuServe Software and CompuServe, which we believe to be fair and reasonable. Accordingly, we exclude from this Agreement any other terms not expressly stated in this Agreement (including any about content or the CompuServe Software), whether they are statutory or otherwise, except to the extent such exclusion is prohibited by law.
CIS will not be liable to you or any third party for any:
(i) loss or damage which is not reasonably foreseeable; and
(ii) where CompuServe is being used for any business or other commercial purpose, for any consequential loss, loss of data, profit, revenue or business, howsoever caused (whether arising out of any negligence or breach of this Agreement or otherwise), even if that loss or damage was foreseeable by, or the possibility of it was brought to the attention of, CIS or its affiliates.
Without limiting the above three paragraphs (and except for any liability which may not by law be limited), the liability of CIS under this Agreement (whether it arises in negligence or otherwise) will not under any circumstances exceed an amount equal to the fees paid or payable to CIS by you during the six-month period preceding the time liability arises, regardless of the cause or form of action.
As much of the content on CompuServe is supplied by third parties (such as information providers and Forum managers), those third parties shall have the benefit of this Section 6 (apart from its first paragraph) as if they were referred to as "CIS" there. However, in using content and areas provided by third parties, you may be required to agree to additional terms and conditions; CIS will not be a party to any contract which results.
Nothing in this Section 6 excludes CIS's or any other person's liability for death or personal injury arising out of that person's negligence.
7. YOUR RESPONSIBILITY
You are responsible for any losses, expenses or other costs incurred by CIS, each CIS Group Company and their affiliates(including CompuServe Interactive Services, Inc.), Forum managers, information providers and other contractors that arise from any breach of this Agreement or use of CompuServe or the Internet through your account. CIS reserves the right, at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defence and control of any claim which you are responsible for, in which event you will(from that time onwards) have no further responsibility under this Section 7 for that claim.
8. TERM AND TERMINATION
This Agreement runs for successive periods of one month ("Billing Period") beginning on the date when you commence your membership("Billing Day"). It automatically renews each month on the corresponding date to your Billing Day (or, if there is no such day in any particular month, the last day of that month) unless terminated by you or us in accordance with this Agreement. You may cancel this Agreement at any time for any reason by following the online instructions provided at GO CANCEL. Your cancellation will be effective at the end of the then current Billing Period. CIS may cancel this Agreement at any time for any reason effective upon at least one complete Billing Period's prior notice to you (except as provided below).
CIS may terminate your membership immediately without notice in certain circumstances, such as where you have breached any of your obligations in this Agreement and your breach is, in CIS's reasonable discretion, especially serious. This kind of breach generally arises where relevant laws or someone's rights have been infringed, or your online conduct has adversely affected someone's (including CIS's) interests or another member's CompuServe use. Non-exhaustive examples include:
(i) online behaviour or content which is likely to infringe the criminal law or someone's rights; and
(ii) failure to pay charges in accordance with this Agreement.
Alternatively CIS may decide, in respect of less serious breaches, to suspend your membership or to issue a warning to you. Non-exhaustive examples of activity which CIS may decide to treat this way include:-
(i) non-critical breaches of this Agreement;
(ii) the sending of junk email; and
(iii) other online behaviour which causes annoyance but is not(in CIS's reasonable opinion) serious or intentional.
If after receiving a suspension or warning you again engage in any activity which would warrant a further suspension or warning, CIS will be entitled to terminate your membership immediately.
If your CompuServe membership is terminated for breach of this Agreement, you must obtain CIS's permission (and provide such undertakings as CIS requires), before you can use CompuServe again. You must cease to use CompuServe Software and CompuServe upon any termination.
Termination of this Agreement shall not affect any rights accrued in favour of you or CIS. This Section 8 ("Term and Termination")and Sections 6 ("Liability"), 7 ("Your Responsibility"), 9 ("Law") and 10 ("Miscellaneous") of this Agreement shall survive such termination.
9. LAW
This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales.
10. MISCELLANEOUS
Notices. Under this Agreement, we may be required to give you notice about important matters from time to time. Such notice may be given to you by email, letter, fax or on screen notification. Email notice will be sent to your registered account. Postal and fax notice will be sent to the address you provide us in your registration and which you may modify by calling our Customer Service Department at 0870 6000 800.
You may give notice to CIS by writing us an email at ukcssvc@cs.com, by phoning our Customer Service on 0870 6000 800 or by writing a letter to us CompuServe Customer Services, PO Box 676, Bristol BS99 1YN. However, if you wish to give notice of termination of your membership, you must follow the procedure specified at GO CANCEL.
Emailed notice will have been given two days after the date of its delivery. On screen notice will have been given two days after the date of its inclusion on the service by CIS. Fax notice will have been given on the day of sending, provided it was sent prior to 6.00pm, or otherwise on the following day. Postal notice will have been given to you two working days (Mondays to Fridays except English bank holidays) after proven dispatch by first class post.
Assignment. CIS reserves the right to assign or subcontract any of its rights or obligations under this Agreement. You may not, without the written consent of CIS, assign this Agreement.
Matters Beyond Our Reasonable Control. CIS shall not be liable for any failure to perform any of its obligations under this Agreement caused by matters beyond its reasonable control.
No Waiver. Any concession allowed by us or any failure to exercise any right or remedy available to us, will not release you from liability or affect our ability to exercise that right or remedy.
11. QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS MEMBER AGREEMENT
If you have questions about the Member Agreement or about your rights and responsibilities as a CompuServe member, please contact us by email at ukcssvc@cs.com.
Personal Data Enquiries:
To inspect, change or correct your identity and contact information, you may use GO BILLING. To find out how you can inspect or correct other personal data please contact our member services on 0800 376 5432. If you have other questions about the handling or protection of your personal data, all written enquiries should be addressed to Data Protection, CompuServe Customer Services, PO Box 676, Bristol BS99 1YN or Data Protection, AOL Europe Services Sarl, 65, bd Grande-Duchesse Charlotte, L-1331 Luxembourg, or via email at ukcstech@cs.com
The CompuServe Service will be provided by AOL Europe Services Sarl, which is registered in Luxembourg under number B72728, with a corporate address at 65, bd Grande-Duchesse Charlotte, L-1331 Luxembourg, and whose VAT registration number is LU 19453873. Please use the dedicated contact details specified above to ensure prompt processing of your requests.
To see answers to questions you may have, click on the "FAQs" link on the channel bar or at the foot of the page.
UK COMPUSERVE MEMBER AGREEMENT
This Agreement is a legal document which details your rights and responsibilities as a CompuServe member and those of the provider of the CompuServe information, communication and transaction service, and its affiliates and others involved in the provision of the service. The provider of the CompuServe information, communication and transaction service shall be AOL Europe Services Sarl, a company registered in Luxembourg (each referred to herein as "CIS", "CSi" "we" or "us") You agree and understand that AOL Europe Services Sarl will be the provider of the CompuServe Service and will be responsible for performance of our obligations to you under this Agreement.
You cannot obtain an account and become a member of CompuServe until you have indicated your agreement to all of these provisions by clicking on 'Agree' at the end of this Agreement.
To be a CompuServe account holder you must be at least 18 years old. If you're not, you may still use CompuServe, but only if the account was created by your parent or guardian.
Because protecting your privacy is especially important, we would first like you to understand how you agree that your personal data will be used by clicking 'I agree' below. We also draw your attention to the provisions relating to liability in Section 6.
1. PERSONAL DATA
Personal data is any data that identifies or relates to you or your individual CompuServe account. It includes identity and billing information which you agree to supply to us accurately and to keep up-to-date by using GO Word BILLING.
CIS controls the personal data you provide to us when you register for CompuServe and subsequently in the course of your use of the CompuServe Service. This means that CIS takes responsibility for the processing, disclosure and use of that data, even if it is done by a third party on CIS's behalf.
Personal data will be collected, processed, stored and used by us, and passed to and processed by our subsidiary and/or affiliated companies (together "CIS Group Companies") and other data processors acting under our control for the purpose of providing, promoting and billing for the CompuServe service, maintaining a directory of members, providing customer support to CompuServe members and other purposes mentioned below.
The CompuServe Service is global, and many of the computers and companies that process data on our behalf are based in the USA and other countries outside the European Union ("EU"). Thus, your personal data (which may include data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, or concerning health or sex life) may be transferred to, processed and held both inside and outside the EU. Countries outside the EU may not have as well developed data protection laws in place to protect your information as those inside the EU, but we will ensure your personal data is treated in compliance with those laws, this Agreement and our Privacy Policy. Details of companies and countries processing your data will be provided request, by writing to the postal address for Personal Data Enquiries in Clause 11 below.
We encourage you to tell us what your marketing preferences are for your personal data. For this purpose, please note that unless you "opt-out" you are agreeing that contact data you supply us:
(a) may be used by or disclosed by CIS Group Companies until 12 months after you cease to be a CompuServe Member, and
(b) may be passed to selected third party suppliers of goods and services and advertisers until 6 months after you cease to be a CompuServe Member for the purpose of marketing to you their respective goods and services. You can opt out at any time after you have completed the registration process by using GO PREFERENCES.
To provide a service which meets our members' needs, we may collect personal data relating to the popularity and usage of the various services offered through CompuServe. However, this data will be used and disclosed only on an anonymous, aggregated basis.
We may hold personal data relating to the transactions you enter into with us or others through CompuServe, such as online merchants. We will disclose this data to a party to the transaction but only to facilitate your transaction. CIS Group Companies may also use this data to let you know about products and services that may be of interest.
When you call our Customer Service Department, we may monitor or record your call and store details of the phone number you use to make the call. This information is used only to track reported problems and better address your customer service needs.
We will retain your personal data only as long as is necessary for the purposes to which you consent under this Member Agreement and as required by applicable laws and then delete it from our systems. We reserve the right to retain certain data generated or provided as a result of your CompuServe membership (such as credit card numbers) where such data can not identify you personally for more than one year after the cancellation of your membership for purposes such as research to enable us to provide a better service to our members and fraud prevention. To inspect, change or correct your identity and contact information, you should call our Customer Service Department on 0870 6000 800 or use GO BILLING.
We may disclose your personal data if we are either compelled to do so by law, or in response to a valid, legally-compliant request by a law enforcement or governmental authority. Where you provide us with billing account details owned by a third party, you consent to us disclosing your name and address, and data relating to payments made under that account.
2. SOME BASICS OF YOUR COMPUSERVE MEMBERSHIP
This Agreement incorporates the rules and regulations which can be viewed at GO RULES (please be sure to read and understand them) and is intended to contain your entire agreement with CIS relating to your use of CompuServe; we believe it to be fair and reasonable. However, additional terms and conditions may apply if you use affiliate services like our international areas, other CompuServe services such as the Executive News Service, Forums or third-party software or services.
As CIS's business and the online world continue to evolve, CIS will need to change provisions of this Agreement. Any changes to this Agreement made by CIS will not take effect until the end of the Billing Period after the Billing Period in which you were notified of the changes. If you don't agree to those changes, you may terminate your membership at any time prior to the changes taking effect. By continuing to use CompuServe, you will have accepted the relevant changes. See Section 8 below for the definition of "Billing Period" and for details of how to terminate your membership.
CIS and its information providers, Forum managers and other third party suppliers may from time to time modify or remove aspects of CompuServe, including various types of content and services. CIS will not, however, remove aspects of CompuServe which are fundamental to its nature without first giving members at least 30 days prior notice.
Because we give out free trial offers, we can limit you to just one free trial.
When you accept this Agreement and complete the CompuServe registration process, you become the account holder and CompuServe grants you a non-exclusive licence for the duration of your membership to use the member name (which is your online identity) that is selected by or assigned to you during the registration process. Your member name can't be vulgar or be used in any other way that breaches this Agreement.
As the account holder, you are responsible for all activity on your account and any breaches of this Agreement which may result. You'll periodically receive important notices about your membership, so it is important for you to regularly check your account's mailbox. Because you are responsible for all use of your account, you should supervise the use of it by others.
You are responsible for the security and proper use of your password and must notify us promptly if you have any reason to believe that it has become known by an unauthorised person or is being used in an unauthorised manner. If we believe that there is likely to be a breach of security, we may change your password and will promptly notify you of the change which has been made.
3. CHARGES AND BILLING
The answers to many common billing questions can be found by using GO BILLING.
You will be charged for CompuServe in accordance with the charging plan notified to you during registration. We may change our fees or billing methods but such changes will not take effect until the end of the Billing Period after the Billing Period in which you were notified of the changes. If you don't agree to those changes you may terminate your membership at any time prior to the changes taking effect. By continuing to use CompuServe, you will have accepted the relevant changes. See Section 8 below for details of how to terminate your membership.
You are responsible for all charges incurred and purchases made by you or others using your account.
We offer premium content and services through CompuServe. If you access them, additional charges (known as surcharges or premiums)will be incurred. You are provided with notice of the relevant additional charges when you enter any surcharged or premium area, you can check them at GO RATES, and they apply even during any free trial of CompuServe.
You must make payments to us from the credit card, charge card, debit card or bank account you selected during the sign-up process (as changed by agreement with us from time to time). If we don't receive payment from that account, you remain obliged to pay us the unpaid sums. We will be charging your designated account every month but some charges may be accumulated before they are charged to your designated account. You authorize CIS to charge certain purchases you make online to your designated account; you will be informed when this is happening.
We expect you to pay your account balances on time. If we don't receive payment within 30 days from the date on your CompuServe account statement, you agree to pay all outstanding charges due to CIS on demand and CIS will be entitled to charge interest of1.5% per month on all those charges. You agree that you will immediately pay any then-outstanding charges if your membership is terminated for any reason.
You should let us know about any billing problems or discrepancies promptly after they first appear on your account statement. If you do not bring them to our attention within 180 days, you will have given up your right to dispute them.
Telephone charges for connecting to CompuServe are your responsibility. There is a network of access numbers throughout the United Kingdom; you are responsible for selecting the least costly of these numbers (at GO RATES). There are also telecommunications surcharges, which arise when you use CompuServe from certain locations or via certain networks; these surcharges will apply during any free trial of CompuServe. You are responsible for checking the amount of any telecommunications surcharges which may apply at GO RATES.
Although certain areas on CompuServe may be designated as free of charge, CompuServe incurs costs in maintaining them. So, we reserve the right to charge your account at our normal RATES if you use these free areas for more than 5 hours in any Billing Period.
If you hold a qualified business account which has been approved by CompuServe for corporate billing, your charges will be accumulated, identified by member name, and will normally be invoiced following the end of each month.
4. ONLINE CONDUCT AND CONTENT
Content
Content is the information, software, communications, images and sounds provided online. The content available through CompuServe is provided by CIS, its affiliates, other CIS Group Companies, our members, Forum managers, independent content providers and other third parties. In general, CIS does not pre-screen content but does reserve the right to remove any that does not meet its standards or comply with CIS's rules and regulations (available at GO RULES).
CIS does not control, monitor or review the content provided by others which is available on CompuServe or the Internet. Therefore we do not accept responsibility for content that is provided by others or for any failure or delay in removing it from CompuServe except if any act or omission amounts to a breach of this Agreement by us. Members must take responsibility for managing their own online experience and that of others who use their account. This is especially important when children are online; they are safer and get more out of the experience with adult supervision. You should review the Parental Control facility (at GO CONTROLS).
You are responsible for evaluating the accuracy, completeness and value of content, goods and services offered or made available by third parties through CompuServe or the Internet; CIS will not be party to any transaction concerning such content, goods or services.
CIS is not responsible for content available on the Internet, although we reserve the right, without accepting the obligation, to block access to areas on the Internet which may contain illegal or harmful content or which may be used for purposes that are injurious to CIS, CompuServe or its members.
This medium allows individuals to create their own content and voice their opinions; CompuServe members are encouraged to do so. But you must abide by certain rules and standards as a CompuServe member.
You must ensure that your account is used only for lawful purposes and in a manner which does not in our reasonable judgement infringe the rights of any person or entity, or restrict anyone's enjoyment of CompuServe or the Internet. The details of our rules and standards are available at GO RULES. If you, or anyone using your account, breach them, CIS may take action against you or your account. This can range from a warning about the breach to the termination of your account.
You may have access to services provided by CIS Group Companies which are available both to CompuServe members and other Internet users. When using these services, such as the compuserve.co.uk website, your conduct remains subject to this Agreement; however, non-CompuServe members are not subject to this Agreement and may not be governed by the same rules or standards.
Junk Email
Your account may not be used to send unsolicited "junk emails", by which we mean any email whose primary purpose is to propose a commercial transaction to a person with whom you do not already have a prior commercial relationship. Further, you may not use the CompuServe member directory or any other area of CompuServe to collect information, such as member names, about other members nor use this information for junk email purposes. If you have received junk email and want to report it, send an email to Abuse@compuserve.com. CIS may, without prior notice, block or limit the transmission through CompuServe of junk email.
Proprietary Rights
The content on CompuServe is owned by CIS and others and is protected by copyright, trademarks and other intellectual property rights. You must not copy, modify, distribute, show in public or create any derivative work from any of the content you find on CompuServe, unless you have the right to do so. Doing so without permission from the owner of the content can lead to the termination of your CompuServe account and may even breach the criminal law. Further, content owners may initiate criminal or civil action against you, in which event, you will be responsible for any resulting losses, expenses or other costs incurred by CIS and others (see Section 7 "Responsibility" below).
You agree only to make authorised, legal uploads and downloads of content through CompuServe. All the content you transmit must either be your own or you must be expressly authorised to distribute it on CompuServe.
Some areas of CompuServe are generally accessible to other members (we refer to them as "public"), like OurWorld, Forums and the Member Directory. By putting content in a public area, you are representing that you are fully entitled to do so and that you grant to CIS the non-exclusive right to copy, modify, distribute, show in public and create derivative works from that content in any form, anywhere. You also grant CompuServe members the right to use such content for personal, non-commercial purposes.
5. COMPUSERVE SOFTWARE LICENCES
You use CompuServe proprietary software to access CompuServe, which you agree to use in accordance with this Agreement. You may not sub-license, or charge others to use or access, our software. We may occasionally provide automatic upgrades to improve your online experience and we employ virus-screening technology to assist in the protection of our network and our members.
In order to avoid you incurring additional charges unintentionally, if you are logged on to CompuServe but there has been no activity for an extended period of time then CompuServe may log off automatically; if this occurs, you will need to sign on again to recommence your use of CompuServe. You must not use tools that defeat this automatic log-off feature.
CIS grants to you a non-exclusive licence to use CompuServe software to connect to CompuServe from authorized locations in accordance with this agreement. This licence is subject to the restriction that, except where expressly permitted by law, you may not translate, reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble or make derivative works from, CompuServe software; nor may you modify CompuServe software or use it in any way not expressly authorized by this Agreement. You acknowledge that the technologies introduced by CIS may not be consistent across all platforms (e.g., Macintosh).
6. LIABILITY
You agree that CompuServe, CompuServe Software and the Internet are supplied or made available to you as is and as available for your personal use only and that your use of each is at your sole risk. CIS does not make (and hereby excludes) any guarantee or undertaking that you will be able to access CompuServe at a time or from a location of your choosing or that there will be adequate capacity for CompuServe as a whole or for particular products, services or content. However, CIS will use reasonable skill and care to provide and maintain the availability of CompuServe.
Except where expressly referred to elsewhere in this Agreement, this Agreement contains all of the contract terms, including any guarantees we give about the CompuServe Software and CompuServe, which we believe to be fair and reasonable. Accordingly, we exclude from this Agreement any other terms not expressly stated in this Agreement (including any about content or the CompuServe Software), whether they are statutory or otherwise, except to the extent such exclusion is prohibited by law.
CIS will not be liable to you or any third party for any:
(i) loss or damage which is not reasonably foreseeable; and
(ii) where CompuServe is being used for any business or other commercial purpose, for any consequential loss, loss of data, profit, revenue or business, howsoever caused (whether arising out of any negligence or breach of this Agreement or otherwise), even if that loss or damage was foreseeable by, or the possibility of it was brought to the attention of, CIS or its affiliates.
Without limiting the above three paragraphs (and except for any liability which may not by law be limited), the liability of CIS under this Agreement (whether it arises in negligence or otherwise) will not under any circumstances exceed an amount equal to the fees paid or payable to CIS by you during the six-month period preceding the time liability arises, regardless of the cause or form of action.
As much of the content on CompuServe is supplied by third parties (such as information providers and Forum managers), those third parties shall have the benefit of this Section 6 (apart from its first paragraph) as if they were referred to as "CIS" there. However, in using content and areas provided by third parties, you may be required to agree to additional terms and conditions; CIS will not be a party to any contract which results.
Nothing in this Section 6 excludes CIS's or any other person's liability for death or personal injury arising out of that person's negligence.
7. YOUR RESPONSIBILITY
You are responsible for any losses, expenses or other costs incurred by CIS, each CIS Group Company and their affiliates(including CompuServe Interactive Services, Inc.), Forum managers, information providers and other contractors that arise from any breach of this Agreement or use of CompuServe or the Internet through your account. CIS reserves the right, at its own expense, to assume the exclusive defence and control of any claim which you are responsible for, in which event you will(from that time onwards) have no further responsibility under this Section 7 for that claim.
8. TERM AND TERMINATION
This Agreement runs for successive periods of one month ("Billing Period") beginning on the date when you commence your membership("Billing Day"). It automatically renews each month on the corresponding date to your Billing Day (or, if there is no such day in any particular month, the last day of that month) unless terminated by you or us in accordance with this Agreement. You may cancel this Agreement at any time for any reason by following the online instructions provided at GO CANCEL. Your cancellation will be effective at the end of the then current Billing Period. CIS may cancel this Agreement at any time for any reason effective upon at least one complete Billing Period's prior notice to you (except as provided below).
CIS may terminate your membership immediately without notice in certain circumstances, such as where you have breached any of your obligations in this Agreement and your breach is, in CIS's reasonable discretion, especially serious. This kind of breach generally arises where relevant laws or someone's rights have been infringed, or your online conduct has adversely affected someone's (including CIS's) interests or another member's CompuServe use. Non-exhaustive examples include:
(i) online behaviour or content which is likely to infringe the criminal law or someone's rights; and
(ii) failure to pay charges in accordance with this Agreement.
Alternatively CIS may decide, in respect of less serious breaches, to suspend your membership or to issue a warning to you. Non-exhaustive examples of activity which CIS may decide to treat this way include:-
(i) non-critical breaches of this Agreement;
(ii) the sending of junk email; and
(iii) other online behaviour which causes annoyance but is not(in CIS's reasonable opinion) serious or intentional.
If after receiving a suspension or warning you again engage in any activity which would warrant a further suspension or warning, CIS will be entitled to terminate your membership immediately.
If your CompuServe membership is terminated for breach of this Agreement, you must obtain CIS's permission (and provide such undertakings as CIS requires), before you can use CompuServe again. You must cease to use CompuServe Software and CompuServe upon any termination.
Termination of this Agreement shall not affect any rights accrued in favour of you or CIS. This Section 8 ("Term and Termination")and Sections 6 ("Liability"), 7 ("Your Responsibility"), 9 ("Law") and 10 ("Miscellaneous") of this Agreement shall survive such termination.
9. LAW
This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales.
10. MISCELLANEOUS
Notices. Under this Agreement, we may be required to give you notice about important matters from time to time. Such notice may be given to you by email, letter, fax or on screen notification. Email notice will be sent to your registered account. Postal and fax notice will be sent to the address you provide us in your registration and which you may modify by calling our Customer Service Department at 0870 6000 800.
You may give notice to CIS by writing us an email at ukcssvc@cs.com, by phoning our Customer Service on 0870 6000 800 or by writing a letter to us CompuServe Customer Services, PO Box 676, Bristol BS99 1YN. However, if you wish to give notice of termination of your membership, you must follow the procedure specified at GO CANCEL.
Emailed notice will have been given two days after the date of its delivery. On screen notice will have been given two days after the date of its inclusion on the service by CIS. Fax notice will have been given on the day of sending, provided it was sent prior to 6.00pm, or otherwise on the following day. Postal notice will have been given to you two working days (Mondays to Fridays except English bank holidays) after proven dispatch by first class post.
Assignment. CIS reserves the right to assign or subcontract any of its rights or obligations under this Agreement. You may not, without the written consent of CIS, assign this Agreement.
Matters Beyond Our Reasonable Control. CIS shall not be liable for any failure to perform any of its obligations under this Agreement caused by matters beyond its reasonable control.
No Waiver. Any concession allowed by us or any failure to exercise any right or remedy available to us, will not release you from liability or affect our ability to exercise that right or remedy.
11. QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS MEMBER AGREEMENT
If you have questions about the Member Agreement or about your rights and responsibilities as a CompuServe member, please contact us by email at ukcssvc@cs.com.
Personal Data Enquiries:
To inspect, change or correct your identity and contact information, you may use GO BILLING. To find out how you can inspect or correct other personal data please contact our member services on 0800 376 5432. If you have other questions about the handling or protection of your personal data, all written enquiries should be addressed to Data Protection, CompuServe Customer Services, PO Box 676, Bristol BS99 1YN or Data Protection, AOL Europe Services Sarl, 65, bd Grande-Duchesse Charlotte, L-1331 Luxembourg, or via email at ukcstech@cs.com
The CompuServe Service will be provided by AOL Europe Services Sarl, which is registered in Luxembourg under number B72728, with a corporate address at 65, bd Grande-Duchesse Charlotte, L-1331 Luxembourg, and whose VAT registration number is LU 19453873. Please use the dedicated contact details specified above to ensure prompt processing of your requests.