Terms, Conditions and Acceptable Use

(Rev: 03/04/2025)

T&C? AUP? WTF? Yes, we need to have a big stick - just in case... The lawyers make us do this...

  1. The term we, us, our, Ausics in this document refers to the service provider, who provides The Service.
  2. The term The Service refers to any service, function, capability, or access we provide for your use.
  3. The term you, your, user, end-user, client, member, host and virtualhost(s) in this document refers to the member or hoster, using The Service, for example: the account holder, or any person authorised on their behalf to access The Service, regardless of if monies are paid or not.
  4. Throughout this document the term you applies to both members and hosts, ie: everyone.
  5. The term member refers specifically to a member user, that is, one who uses an ausics.net Email, and a web address of members.ausics.net/username.
  6. The term hosts and virtualhosts refers specifically to those using virtual hosting, that is, with their own domain name, or a sub-domain provided by The Service.
  7. The term Minor for the purpose of this document is a person under the age of 18 years.
  8. The term Adult is a person who is 18 years of age or over.
  9. The term Adult content is content that should only be viewable by an adult, typically this is classifications above, but not including, MA15.
  10. The conditions outlined within are governed by the laws of the State of Queensland, Australia, and by use of The Service you agree to submit exclusively to the jurisdiction of the Courts of The State of Queensland, in The Commonwealth of Australia.
  11. By use of The Service you agree to indemnify and keep indemnified Ausics, our agents, representatives, and upstream service provider(s) for any and all losses, damages, liabilities, or proceedings by any person(s), companies or organisations.
  12. By use of The Service you are agreeing to all terms and conditions contained herein and acknowlege that breaches may result in suspension, or immediate termination, with, or without notice and liability.
  13. If, by Act of Parliament or Court, any point in these conditions are invalidated, only that point becomes void, with the remaining conditions being in full force.



1. Account Management
  1. You agree to keep all contact and personal details for the account current at all times, if you move address or change private Email or mobile number, you must notify us of the changes within 7 days.
  2. You must at all times keep your login details secret, use a strong and secure password, never written down or left in view of others. Do not use anything that someone may associate with you, such as, but not limited to, names (incl pets), dates, addresses and locations, or phone numbers, If you change your password, it must be at least twelve (12) characters long, contain a mix of upper and lower case letters, numbers, and non alphanumeric characters. If stuck, try using occasional number substitutions, example, imlazereds01 could be changed to 1mL4z3reD%Ol, and make sure you are not using the same password anywhere else.
  3. You agree to check your primary Email account regularly, as this is the address we will use for administrative and account related correspondence. If you forward your Administrative Emails to a third party service (eg: Outlook or Gmail, etc), you will be deemed to have received the message, regardless of if you did or not.
  4. You acknowledge that it is your responsibility to notify us immediately if you suspect unauthorised use of your account or a compromise of any scripts, forms, or code you are running.
  5. You acknowledge that we reserve the right to Email all active Email accounts (for Web Hosts, this means you and your Email users) in very urgent public safety situations, such as a Police issued AMBER Alert.
  6. You agreee that should you no longer require The Service, you will notify us at your earliest opportunity to request your account closed, upon confirmation, we agree to do so within seven days (excluding holiday periods). Members must use their member Email, and Hosts must use their hosting administrative Email when contacting us, further proof of ID will be sought, including SMS confirmations.
  7. You accept that when your account is closed, your personal information will remain in our database for as long as required under law, currently this is two years. You will not however receive any correspondence from us. You further accept that all of your data is deleted from the Mail and Web Host Servers, and that it is your responsibility to download all of this data prior to requesting closure. You also accept that some of this data may be stored in backup archives and subject to sections 5.b and 5.c.
  8. Host Managers acknowledge that if you close a Virtual User Email, the data will be deleted either immediately, or shortly after, consider if you need to retieve a copy and do so before deleting the Virtual Users Email.

2. Services
  1. You acknowledge that The Service is provided as best efforts, without warranty, guarantee or liability. This may not always be possible due to many factors including many outside of our control and by use of The Service you indemnify us from any losses, damages or liabilities, due to any service unavailability. A reminder this is a free service for personal uses, commercial websites are forbidden. It is however permitted to use your Email for commercial communications, if you so wish.
  2. You acknowledge that as a hobbyist service run by volunteers, support requests are processed using our Helpdesk Ticketing System, typically within two to seven days, but may take longer in particular during Qld Public Holidays, Easter, Christmas and New Years.
  3. You acknowledge that The Service uses Disk Quotas for Webspace Storage, Email Storage, and Data Transfers. Hosts that find they are often exceeding their WWW Data Transfer Quota very early on in their month, may request Quota Slicing, this is where each monthly period will be divided into 4 slices (4W/1W = 4) with data rollover so you don't lose any of your monthly quota.

  4. Hosts acknowledge that since functionality and security is preferred over eye candy, we provide a basic management interface that allows you to administer your shared-host account, we do not provide commercial control panels (eg: directadmin, cpanel, plesk, etc) allowing us to maintain absolute control and security over our systems.

    Did you know that 990 out of every 1000 Webhosts almost never login to their control panel? They...

      • only need one FTP account for their website
      • only login with FTP to initially upload their webite or make a backup
      • always use their front-end (eg: Wordpress, OpenCart etc) to manage their website
      • login to phpmyadmin to upload and setup their Databases in some cases
      • login to add or delete Email users or Aliases as staff changes occur
      • rarely login to check their Web Stats, they just get on with their business
      • never login to check Quotas, relying on Providers to notify them when nearing limits
      • rarely even login to pay an Invoice, most use recurring CC payments (N/A with us)

    You can do all these things with us without fuss (except paying invoices of course since we don't charge), we don't see the need for over priced highly restrictive outdated eye candy control panels, you're a business, you get on with what you do best, you don't sit there staring at a portal, even some commercial hosting services use custom management tools.

    For the remaining very rare few who feel they need the pretty eye candy views and mostly useless features of a commercial control panels, well, as a no frills no BS service, our hosting won't be for you.

    The reasons for dislike of commercial control panels are many, for example, we dislike their design methods, it's no longer 1995, yet they still put all your eggs in one basket not having separate Email and Web Servers, so in case of a hardware failure outage, your wiped off the face of the planet, no website, no Email.

    We also disagree with the requirement to use a very limited choice of Linux distributions, and the limited choice of server daemons, we use what we use because they have excellent track records in security, performance, and capabilities, especially in clustering and complete services hardware separation, and let's not forget the non standard requirements and changes required to the underlying operating system just to run their software, that adds more links in that possible chain of failure, and in our opinion reduces server security.

    Scarily, some control panels use daemons that are storing passwords in plain text formats. Using plain text files for authentication is very inefficient and has a high risk of corruption, it also doesn't scale for clustering, which is important with Email and load balancing.

    Many people report the myriad of useless features on some control panels often confuses and frustrates them, they just want us to K.I.S.S

3. Legals
  1. You acknowledge that you are responsible for the actions of all persons using The Service under your account regardless of if the actions were authorised or not.
  2. You must not breach any standards, content requirements, or codes of conduct, that are set out by a relevant Federal authority or Internet industry body in Australia.
  3. You must not use The Service in any way for any activities that is in breach of the laws of the State of Queensland, or the Federal laws of the Commonwealth of Australia.
  4. You must not posses, store, display, transmit, relay, link to, or reference, material that discriminates, in particular against a persons race, sex, sexual orientation, disability, or political beliefs.
  5. You acknowledge your use of The Service must not be used for material that is deceptive, fraudulent, defamatory, obscene, offensive, malicious, or harmful.
  6. You must not use The Service to bully, taunt, harass, demean, intimidate, threaten or affront, any person or persons.
  7. We have a zero tolerance policy towards bullying, any use of The Service to partake in any form of bullying will be regarded as a material breach resulting in account termination.

    1. Section 474.15 of the Australian Commonwealth Criminal Code makes it an offence for a person to use a carriage service to threaten or cause fear of, serious harm or kill. (Penalty - 7 to 10 yrs imprisonment respectively)

    2. Section 474.17 of the Australian Commonwealth Criminal Code makes it an offence for a person to use a carriage service to menace, harass, or cause offence to another person. (Penalty - 5 yrs imprisonment)

    3. Section 474.17c of the Australian Commonwealth Criminal Code makes it an offence for a person to use a carriage service to make available, publish, or otherwise distribute personal information of another person, which a reasonable person would consider as being menacing or harassing. (Penalty - 6 yrs imprisonment)

    4. Section 474.29A of the Australian Commonwealth Criminal Code makes it an offence for a person to use a carriage service to provide material which incites suicide.
      (Penalty - 1000 units)

    5. Section 474.29B of the Australian Commonwealth Criminal Code makes it an offence for a person to use a carriage service for obtaining, possessing, controlling, producing, supplying suicide related material. (Penalty - 1000 units)

    6. As of 7 November 2024, one Commonwealth penalty unit is equal to Three Hundred and Thirty (330) Australian Dollars.

    7. The definition of Carriage Service is any service for carrying communications by means of guided and/or unguided electromagnetic energy. This includes but not limited to, the use of wire, cable, fibre, and waveguide, as well as radiocommunication. Some examples, but not limited to, POTS, VoIP, Mobile services, WiFi, Internet, Intranet, other Terrestrial Devices and Services and newer technologies.

    8. Communications may be of any form, eg: voice, text, images/pictures, video, and other.
  8. You must not use The Service for any form of attack (including, but not limited to ICMP/Malware/Mail Bombing) on any person(s), machine(s) or network(s).
  9. You must not use The Service to gain access to any system(s) or network(s) where you have no direct authority to do so, nor to alter, copy, move, delete, create, view or access in any method any data that you do not have direct authority to do so.
  10. You must not use The Service to impersonate other persons, companies or organisations, nor may you suggest, hint, or imply, that you represent someone or some organisation that you do not.
  11. You acknowledge we reserve the right to alter these terms at any time, with 30 days notice for major changes or new additions, or with no prior notice for clarification of existing conditions, cosmetic only changes will not be announced.
  12. You acknowledge we reserve the right to immediately enforce additional conditions upon any Host or Member we deem is placing an unfair burden on The Service.

4. Content
  1. You acknowledge you are responsible for any and all information, literature, software, works of art, or any other material or referenced links you make available via The Service.
  2. You acknowledge that in distributing any material, you must not infringe upon the intellectual property rights of others, and that the material is
      Your own, or
      Open Source, or
      Shareware or Freeware, and there exists a licence that permits their re-distribution, or
      You are the exclusive copyright agent, or an authorised distribution agent, of that material.
  3. You must restrict access to Adult material.
      Content that exceeds MA15+ in Australia must be protected by password or PIN, and
      Have some form of age verification process, and
      Not knowingly supply a password to a minor, and
      Immediately revoke access if a minor is detected as accessing the content.
      Optionally, you may wish to make us aware of the situation in case of later complaints.
  4. You acknowledge that we perform anti-virus scanning of all data uploaded onto, or stored on our systems, and any material that fails a check will be automatically and without prior warning, deleted.
  5. You acknowledge that although we do not as a rule, we reserve the right to examine, restrict access to, or if legally required, delete any material on our servers.
  6. You must ensure that any scripts, code, or software you place on The Service, are secure and it is your responsibility to keep them up to date.
  7. You acknowledge we reserve the right to issue a "fix immediately" notice to anyone found running insecure versions of software regardless of it having been exploited yet or not.
  8. You accept that in the event of a serious situation, such as a hacked/defaced site, we reserve the right to immediately suspend the website. You also accept that if necessary, we will archive the site and at our discretion, eiher delete the dangerous material, or the entire website, providing you with the archive to download, and clean up.
  9. You accept you must not run any form of IRC related service, including Scripts, Proxy/Relays/Bouncers, Bots, or other IRC service with the exception of IRC related Blog, Forums, or Channel Website.
  10. You also must not run any other form of Proxy or Bouncer.
  11. You must not use The Service to send Unsolicited Bulk Email.
  12. Any mailing lists, mailouts, advertising, promotional marketing, or newsletters of any kind, must be wholly subscriber confirmed opt-in, you must obtain the subscribers express and direct permission prior to adding them to any mailout list. You must not use a default checked box on any sign-up forms, and you must not host a web-form of any kind where you have a notify a friend type option.

      The Service has a ZERO tolerance on spamming, this is a material breach of usage terms and grounds for instant termination, the Australian Spam Act also provides for substantial penalties.

      Organisations that are exempt under Australian Spam Act of 2003 (Cth) (rev) are not afforded any protections or privileges in relation to use of The Service, the exemption only means the ACMA can not prosecute you, it does not mean you are not spamming, if the recipient did not ask for, or give you their express authority to include them in such mailouts or contacts, then including them is unsolicited, and spam.

  13. Hosts acknowledge we do not, and will not, provide catch all Email addresses to prevent spam and abuse.
  14. Websites can not be used for commercial purposes.
    However, you may use your private Email for commercial purposes.

5. Misc
  1. You must posses a current backup of your entire Website and Emails at all times.
  2. You acknowledge that for the sole purpose of Network Disaster Recovery, we maintain a nightly backup of Members and Hosts Websites and Databases, these are periodically rotated out.
  3. You acknowledge that for the sole purpose of Network Disaster Recovery, we maintain a nightly backup of stored Emails, this excludes Email in queues (where we are a relaying). For reasons of privacy, Email backups are only kept over a strict rolling seven day period (ie: Monday overwrites previous Monday, Tuesday overwrites previous Tuesday, and so on).
  4. Members using The Service for Internet activities accept we use special DNS lists (most of which are from reputable anti-malware services) that allow us to block advert sites and select dangerous websites, we are against Internet censorship, especially by governments, however the world we live in today includes seasoned fraudsters and other criminal and extremists organisations who don't care who their victums are. We are also obligated to block sites if requested to do so by authorised Australian Federal Enforcement agencies.

6. Complaints
  1. As The Internet is global, you should consider that laws will differ between countries, even within jurisdictions of each country. What may be unlawful in your country, may not be in Australia. You are generally subject to the laws of the land where the content is physically hosted, and if different, also the laws of countries where your business or organisation is legally registered to trade, in Ausics's case, that's solely in the State of Queensland, Australia.
  2. Court Orders, Police User-Info Requests, or Take Down Requests must be lawfully actionable in the State of Queensland, Australia.
  3. International Court Orders and User-Information Requests will be declined, these need to be directed to The Australian Federal Police, who will determine if such requests are valid under Australian Law, or any International agreements, and if so, The Australian Federal Police will make the request to us on your behalf.

    This protects us from breaches of the Privacy Act, and Civil actions for Wrongful doings.

  4. When making your complaint, regardless of the nature, you must provide all requested information, be as detailed a bout your complaint as possible and be generous in the information provided, the more evidence you can provide, the speedier a resolution can be arrived at, if it's Email or Usenet related, don't forget to provide all (including hidden) headers, we can't act without them.

    Please note that we can not, and will not, accept anonymous complaints.

  5. Copyright Infringement Allegations

      In Australia, Copyright infringement is a Civil wrong, not a Criminal wrong, therefor, the AFP will not generally become involved, we are happy to help out cautioning an identifiable person, but can not release identifying details on any alleged infringers without an order from the Federal Court of Australia.

      As we operate members services behind NAT and shared hosting, we appreciate you may not know who the alleged infringer is, it is probable we will not either, but providing us with detailed information including times, dates, durations, etc, may allow us to identify a person by time access logs and heavy data usage. We may have questions, so it won't help your cause spamming us notices with bots, have a real human reach out.

      A reasonable period of time (fourteen days) must be allowed for us to look into your allegations, and attempt to identify the alleged infringer and pass on your notice.

      Copyright complaints must include a declaration that you are the legal Rights Holder or legally Authorised Agent of the allegedly infringed material, these requests must come from a contactable human, it must include that persons full name, title, position, Email address, and business hours phone incuding extension number.

2:42 AM - Monday June 2, 2025
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