General Terms and Conditions

1. Agreement with the general terms and conditions

By filling in the registration form available on the website www.usenet.org (hereinafter "website"), sending it to Argovest AG (hereinafter "provider") and expressly agreeing to the General Terms and Conditions listed on the website, the customer declares his agreement to the validity of these General Terms and Conditions.

2. Subject matter of the contract

2.1 The provider provides the customer via the website with technical access to the use of servers operated by third parties for the worldwide service Usenet (hereinafter "service"), exclusively on the basis of these General Terms and Conditions.

2.2 The Provider does not operate its own news servers and does not publish or administer content on the connected servers of the Service either itself or through third parties.

3. Conclusion of contract

3.1 The Customer receives from the Provider a confirmation of registration for the Service as well as a user name and a password (hereinafter "Access Data") in order to be able to use the Service.

3.2 The contract between provider and customer is considered concluded from the date on which the registration is confirmed to the customer and the access data is communicated.

4. Registration

4.1 Only natural persons of legal age are entitled to register on the Website for access to the Service. Legal persons are excluded from registration.

4.2 By registering, the customer undertakes to provide the following data completely and correctly: Surname, first name, address, telephone number, e-mail address and payment data of the payment method chosen by him (alternatively electronic direct debit PayPal, iDeal, credit card).

The customer guarantees that he is the legal owner or effective representative of the payment data provided by him. The client must provide proof of authorization.

4.3 The provider reserves the right to refuse any registration without giving reasons. It is not obliged to accept customers as members.

5. Download volume

5.1 The download volume is the agreed amount of data that the customer can use monthly from the Usenet, i.e. via servers of third parties.

5.2 The download volume and the duration of the contract shall be determined by the customer prior to the conclusion of the contract in accordance with the customer's requirements.

5.3 If the customer has used up the monthly agreed download volume, it is possible to access the download volume of the following month prematurely. The customer can make the appropriate settings on the website in the member area under "More volume". The respective recharging dates do not affect the duration of a contract lasting several months.

5.4 If the customer has not used his monthly download volume within one month, the unused download volume expires at the end of the respective month. The customer is not entitled to a pro rata refund.

5.5 If the download volume of the following month is brought forward, the volume of the current month will not apply.

The decision whether the download volume of the following month should be brought forward or whether the download volume of the current month should only be used up is exclusively incumbent on the administration and discretion of the customer.

5.6 The provider only provides the monthly agreed download volume, which is within the technical performance limits of the service and takes into account the agreements with other customers.

5.7 The Provider may block or restrict the access of the Customer or third parties to the Service and the Website if technical services of the Service are impaired or the Provider has reason to believe that the Customer or third parties are making unauthorized or abusive use of the Service, in particular as described under 10.

In the event of such a measure, the customer will be informed immediately by e-mail from the provider.

5.8 If the provider cannot provide the contractually agreed volume for the respective month, he can extend the contract term by one month or credit the volume not provided for the following month.

6. Contract duration and test period

6.1 The contract is concluded for the agreed term.

6.2 The contract term shall be extended repeatedly by the originally agreed term of the selected product, provided that the customer does not terminate his contract before expiry of the term.

6.3 If the customer first chooses the free trial period when registering, the contract term includes the trial period and the term of the selected product package. The customer is granted a special right of termination for the duration of the free trial period until the end of the last day of the free period.

6.4 If the customer does not make use of his special right of termination within the free trial period, the contractual relationship will subsequently continue for the duration of the selected package.

6.5 The free trial period can only be used once, unless the provider expressly grants the customer an additional free trial period.

6.6 The customer has the possibility to change to another product before his chosen product package expires. The term is then extended accordingly by the term agreed within the framework of the newly selected product package.

If the customer has brought forward his download volume in his originally selected product package but has not consumed it and changes to another product package, the download volume brought forward until then expires.

7. Terms of payment

7.1 The contract shall be concluded on those conditions which are valid at the time of conclusion of the contract and which the customer acknowledges upon conclusion of the contract.

7.2 The membership fee for the concluded contract period must be paid in advance. The period for advance notice of direct debit from the bank account when paying by SEPA direct debit mandate is reduced to one day.

7.3 The provider is entitled to change the prices for the agreed contractual services under the following conditions:

  • The customer will be informed by the provider by e-mail at least four weeks before a price increase takes effect.
  • The customer has the right to terminate his contract from receipt of the information letter until the price increase takes effect. If he does not terminate the contract within the aforementioned period, the price increase shall be deemed accepted.
  • The provider does not exercise this right more than once a quarter in order to adjust the fees to changing market conditions, changes in value-added tax or significant changes in procurement costs.
  • Price reductions, on the other hand, will take effect on the announced date. For the customer's membership fees, the reduction shall take effect for the following contractually agreed period, unless otherwise notified.

7.4 If the customer has reversed an agreed payment or the bank has refused payment due to insufficient funds in the account, the provider shall invoice all costs incurred for repeated refusals and cancellations. The amount shall be increased by the respective bank fees plus the amount contractually agreed.

7.5 The Provider may block access to the Service if the Customer is in arrears with payment or has provided false or abusive payment information to the Provider and the Provider has previously requested payment and notified the Customer of the imminent blocking of the Service. Blocking access does not constitute an exercise of the right of termination. The customer remains obliged to pay the amounts due to the provider. This does not affect the provider's claim for damages and interest on arrears, if payment is still delayed.

8. Termination

8.1 The contract can be cancelled at any time via support form. Cancellation becomes effective upon receipt by the provider. There is no claim for reimbursement of payments made for the agreed contract period.

8.2 The period of notice for packages with a term of one month is seven days to the end of the contract.

8.3 The period of notice for packages longer than one month is one month at the end of the contract.

8.4 The special termination right in the case of a trial period can be exercised until the end of the trial period.

8.5 Except for the reasons expressly stated in the General Terms and Conditions, the Provider reserves the right to terminate the contract for good cause without notice or prior notification.

8.6 In the event of termination, irrespective of the contracting party, no payments already made will be refunded.

9. Customer obligations

9.1 In the event of any changes to the data used in the registration process (e.g. personal data, payment data), the customer is obliged either to change his profile in the customer area of the website or to contact the provider using the support form or by letter and inform him of the change. For this the customer finds the contact data of the offerer on www.usenet.org under the legal regulations.

9.2 The Customer is obliged to keep the access data to the Service and to the Website confidential and to keep them in a safe place and not make them accessible to third parties in order to prevent unauthorised or abusive use. Any forwarding of access data to third parties is not permitted. The provider is not liable for damage or loss of data caused by unauthorized or abusive use. Exceptionally, he is only liable for a culpable breach of his contractual obligations by the provider.

9.3 The communication as well as the sending of contract-related information by the provider are sent by e-mail. Therefore, the customer undertakes to check the receipt of e-mails in his electronic mailbox at least once a week. In addition, the customer is obliged to ensure that the e-mails can be received at all, in particular those originating from the"@usenet.org" domain. If the customer uses anti-spam software or an e-mail service with such a function, he must make the appropriate settings. The customer agrees that the provider may send him news and information about the function of the service as well as subscription offers by post or e-mail.

9.4 The contracting parties are mutually obliged to immediately report any misuse and/or unauthorized use of the access data. In the event of misuse and/or unauthorized use, the provider is entitled to block the access data in question after prior information and to exclude the relevant customer temporarily or permanently from the use of certain or all parts of the service. The same applies in case of a concrete suspicion of a corresponding use.

10. Terms of Use

10.1 The customer requires a computer system with access to the Internet and a program for reading the articles in order to use the service.

10.2 The Service shall be made available to the Customer 24 hours a day. However, access may be interrupted for maintenance.

10.3 Access to the Service in whole or in part may be suspended or terminated, in particular by simple discretion of the Provider in the event of force majeure, difficulties in the structure of the telecommunications network, blocking of the telecommunications network, strike, international, national or regional emergency or storms, difficulties in data processing or technical difficulties.

These lists do not claim to be exhaustive.

10.4 The Provider does not publish or administer any content on the servers of the worldwide Usenet service maintained by third parties. The contents of the forums on the servers of the service are posted by third parties and are exclusively their responsibility. The use of the service is at the sole risk of the customer.

10.5 The provider declines any liability and responsibility for any content retrieved by the customer, in particular its correctness, completeness or compatibility with applicable national or international law.

10.6 The customer is permanently obliged to behave in such a way that he does not violate national or international laws.

10.7 The Customer is obliged to use the Service with caution, reason and sound judgment and to observe legal regulations.

As the discussion forums are freely accessible to everyone, it is in the nature of the Service that they may contain texts that may be offensive, inaccurate, damaging or otherwise inappropriate, proprietary, in some cases untrue or otherwise misleading.

10.8 The customer assumes liability for the information and the resulting consequences. He agrees to use the Usenet only for receiving and sending data that is compatible with the provisions of these General Terms and Conditions.

10.9 The customer undertakes in particular to refrain from the following:

  • Defame, threaten, incite hatred against others, or in any way violate the rights of others
  • Sending, publishing, uploading to servers, forwarding, sending or offering documents that infringe a patent, registered trademark, design or model, copyright, trade secret or any other third party rights, unless the owner has expressly permitted the customer to distribute or forward these documents or the customer itself is the owner of the corresponding intellectual property rights.
  • Publishing, sending, uploading to server, forwarding, sending or offering any kind of information and documents that violate rights, or are defamatory, degrading, infringing and, above all, constitute or could constitute a violation of public order and morality, of the privacy of others
  • Downloading documents uploaded by another Member which the Customer knows or should reasonably have known to be unlawful in this form
  • Upload to the server of any kind of files, software or documents that contain viruses or are defective or do not comply with the specified technical parameters or that in one form or another could damage the computer or impair its function. This applies in particular to the dispatch of unsolicited advertising (spamming).
  • To advertise or also to offer products or services for private purposes, except those intended for this purpose in the Usenet
  • offering competitions, surveys, sales systems with snowball effect or chain letters or their transmission, except in the areas provided for this purpose in the Community

10.10. If the customer becomes aware of the transactions listed here (this list is not exhaustive), he should immediately inform the provider at abuse@usenet.org and describe the place of deposit or the unlawful documents himself.

11. Limitation of liability

11.1 The Provider grants access to servers whose entire content comes from other servers of third parties with which the servers to which the Provider's customers have access automatically and continuously exchange data. The customer is therefore aware that the data accessible to him within the scope of the service does not come from the provider, but from third parties. For these reasons, the provider assumes no liability for content over which it does not exercise any form and at any time control.

11.2 The provider is only liable for damages which he himself, a legal representative or employee has committed intentionally or grossly negligently. In particular, the provider excludes liability, for whatever reason and whatever nature, for such content that is distributed on Usenet and/or the Internet or made accessible via this network.

11.3 Furthermore, the Provider excludes any liability for data that the Customer has downloaded from Usenet. This also includes the case that the customer receives access via a link of the software provided by usenet.org or one of the Internet websites of the provider.

11.4 The customer acknowledges that damages may result from the use (e.g. Trojans, viruses, attacks by Internet pirates, etc.). Any costs arising therefrom shall be borne by the customer. The provider is not liable for occurred and/or suffered damages or data loss at the customer, which resulted from unauthorized or abusive use. In exceptional cases, the provider assumes liability for damage caused by a culpable breach of the provider's contractual obligations.

11.5 The Provider cannot guarantee permanent access to the Service or permanent use. Within the scope of its technical possibilities, however, the provider undertakes to offer concrete access to the service. In the event of inaccessibility or only limited use of the service, the provider is only liable for damages resulting from intent or gross negligence.

11.6 In particular, the provider is not liable for speed bottlenecks in the connection to the service or failures of the service for which he is not responsible.

12. Protection of minors

The customer is aware that some content on Usenet is not suitable for minors. If the customer nevertheless grants minors access to the Internet and Usenet with the access data provided to him, he alone assumes liability for this.

13. Conditions of amendment

13.1 In principle, the service is accessible to the customer 24 hours a day. In the event of force majeure, difficulties in data processing or technical difficulties, difficulties in the structure of the telecommunications network, blocking of telecommunications networks, strikes, international, national or regional emergencies or storms (the list is not exhaustive), access to the service may be suspended or discontinued in whole or in part at the sole discretion of the provider.

In addition, the service can be interrupted for maintenance reasons.

13.2 The Service and the Website are subject to regular changes and developments. These can be consequences of a change in the technical framework conditions as well as legal changes or due to official requirements.

13.3 Insofar as this does not cause the customer any disadvantages, the provider is entitled to make changes to the functions at any time without prior notification.

13.4 If essential parts of the Service are changed or cease to exist, the Customer shall be informed in writing or by e-mail. In such a case, the customer has the option of terminating the contract within four weeks after the relevant service or technical function ceases to exist. If the customer does not make use of this right, the change is deemed accepted.

13.5 The Provider's right to change, replace or terminate voluntary services of the Service (such as the provision of a client) is not affected by this. The customer has no right to retain or use certain voluntary services of the provider

13.6 The provider is entitled to change or complete the general terms and conditions in compliance with an appropriate advance notice.

The customer may object to significant technical changes in writing or by e-mail within a period of four weeks from receipt of the amended General Terms and Conditions. If the customer does not exercise this right, the amended General Terms and Conditions shall take effect after expiry of this period instead of the previous General Terms and Conditions.

14. Cancellation policy

14.1 The customer has the right to revoke the contract within fourteen days without giving reasons. The revocation period begins on the day on which the contract between provider and customer comes into existence.

In order to effectively revoke the contract, the customer must contact the provider

Argovest AG
Hallenstrasse 15
8008 Zürich
Schweiz
Number: +41 44 508 3255
E-Mail: info@usenet.org

with the help of a clear explanation (e.g. letter sent by post or e-mail). The sample cancellation form can, but does not have to be used for this purpose. This can be completed on the website here and subsequently transmitted electronically. If the customer makes use of this alternative, the receipt of his revocation is immediately confirmed (e.g. by e-mail).

For the protection of the revocation period it is sufficient that the customer sends his declaration about the exercise of the revocation right before expiry of the revocation period.

14.2 If the Customer recalls his contract, the Supplier shall immediately repay all payments received, including delivery costs (with the exception of additional costs arising from the fact that the Customer has chosen a delivery method other than the standard delivery offered cheaply by the Supplier), i.e. within fourteen days after effective receipt of the Customer's declaration of revocation.

For repayment, unless otherwise agreed, the provider uses the same transaction method that was used for the original payment.

Under no circumstances will additional fees be charged for the repayment.

14.3 If the Customer has requested that services commence during the cancellation period, he shall pay an appropriate proportion of the total scope of the services provided for in the contract, for the period between the commencement of the services and receipt of his declaration of cancellation.

14.4 Sample Withdrawal Form

Download

15. General

15.1 If one or more provisions of the contract or a provision of the General Terms and Conditions become invalid in whole or in part, this shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions or certain parts of these provisions of the contract and/or the General Terms and Conditions.

Ineffective or missing regulations are replaced by the economically closest legal regulations.

15.2 Changes, additions or ancillary agreements regarding these General Terms and Conditions must be made in writing to be effective, as must confirmation by an authorized representative of the Provider.

This also applies to the omission or amendment of this clause.

15.3 If written form is mentioned within this contract, this means that the declarations must be sent by e-mail to the address provided by the provider and the address provided by the customer. The declarations sent shall be deemed to have been delivered even if they have not been called up one week after receipt in the customer's electronic mail box.

15.4 The provider is entitled by declaration to transfer the contract and all rights and obligations resulting from it to legal successors.

15.5 A set-off of the customer's own claims against similar claims of the provider is only possible if these are legally established in favour of the customer or the provider acknowledges the claims.

15.6 These General Terms and Conditions are governed by Swiss law.

The courts of Switzerland shall have jurisdiction in any legal dispute arising from this Agreement.

Zurich, August 2018

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