Standard Terms and Conditions for BTinternet Account Customers
You may also like to read our acceptable usage policy and service description.
- Interpretation
- Commencement of this Contract
- Provision of the Service
- Charges
- Security
- Use of the Service
- Restrictions on use
- If You Break this Contract
- Ending this Contract after the Service is provided
- Our Liability
- Changes to this Contract
- Assignment
- Matters beyond our reasonable control
- Giving Notice
- Software
- Sub-Domain Name
- Reimbursement
- Third Party Rights
- Law and Jurisdiction
1.1 In this Contract unless the context otherwise requires:
"BT Group Company" means a BT subsidiary or holding company, or a subsidiary of that holding company, all as defined by Section 736 of the Companies Act 1985 as amended by the Companies Act 1989.
"Charges List" means a list of charges and payment methods for the Service details of which we publish online at https://register.btinternet.com or any other URL which we notify to you.
"Content" means data, information, video, graphics, sound, music, photographs, software and any other material (in whatever form) which may be made available to you as part of the Service.
"Contract" means the agreement between us and you incorporating these Conditions, the Registration Form, the Acceptable Use Policy, located at URL: www.abuse-guidance.com, and the Charges List.
"Helpdesk" means the helpdesk facility provided by us to handle enquiries and administration for the Service.
"Internet" means the global data network comprising interconnected networks using TCP/IP ("Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol").
"Minimum Period of Service" means the first month of the Service, unless a different period of Service is stated in the Charges List depending on the payment option which you select or have selected during completion of the Registration Form, and which begins on the day we first make the Service available to you.
"Registration Form" means the online registration form available at https://register.btinternet.com and which you must complete before you can access the Service for the first time. In some circumstances we may complete the Registration Form with you on the telephone.
"Service" means the service provided by us to you whereby you can gain access to the Internet including Content and, where applicable, any other services and applications which we provide and you use in connection with the Service as set out at http://www.btinternet.com as varied by us from time to time.
"Software" means any software provided by us to enable you to access or use the Service.
"Sub-Domain Name" means any name specifically requested by or allocated to you for use as part of your URL.
"Third Party Information" means data, information, video, graphics, sound, music, photographs, software and any other material (in whatever form) which someone other than you makes available on your Website.
"you" means the person we make this Contract with.
"your Information" means data, information, video, graphics, sound, music, photographs, software and any other material (in whatever form) which you make available on your Website.
"your URL" means a uniform resource locator, which is the full address for your Website.
"your Website" means any website which you set up using the Service.
"we", "our" and "us" means British Telecommunications plc ("BT").
2. Commencement of This Contract
This Contract starts on the day when we accept your registration for the Service, following completion of the Registration Form.
3. Provision of the Service
3.1 We agree to provide you with the Service on the terms and conditions of this Contract, which sets out the entire agreement between you and us for the provision of the Service. We may accept instructions from another person who we reasonably believe is acting with your authority or knowledge.
3.2 In performing our obligations under this Contract we will exercise the reasonable care and skill of a competent Internet service provider.
3.3 You acknowledge that by accepting the terms and conditions of this Contract you will be deemed to be consenting to immediate provision of the Service by us to you. Accordingly, you will have no right to cancel the provision of the Service under the Consumer Protection (Distance Selling) Regulations 2000.
3.4 The Service allows you to access the Internet. The Internet is separate from the Service and use of the Internet is at your own risk and is subject to any applicable laws. We have no responsibility for any goods, services, information, software, or other materials obtained by you when using the Internet.
3.5 We cannot guarantee that the Service will never be faulty but we will correct reported faults as soon as we reasonably can. If a fault occurs you should report the fault by telephone, electronic mail or in writing to the Helpdesk, details of which are provided at http://www.btinternet.com, as varied by us from time to time.
3.6 The Service is accessed via a telecommunications dial-up connection. This Contract does not include the provision of telecommunication services necessary for connection to the Service. You are responsible for making a separate application for the appropriate service and for complying with the conditions applicable to it.
3.7 You are responsible for providing a suitable PC, an appropriate interface, modem and any other items of hardware or communications equipment necessary to enable you to access the Service. Information on the minimum specification requirements and equipment supported by the Helpdesk can be viewed in the FAQ ("frequently asked questions") section relating to the Service and available at http://www.btinternet.com.
3.8 BT will use reasonable efforts to make the Service available 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, but from time to time faults may occur which affects this level of Service availability. We may temporarily suspend the Service because of an emergency or for operational reasons, maintenance or improvements, but before doing so will give you as much notice as is reasonably practicable. We will restore the Service as soon as reasonably practicable after temporary suspension.
3.9 We may, from time to time, vary the technical specification of the Service or alter any code or number associated with the Service. We will give you as much notice as we reasonably can of any such variations which affect your use of the Service.
3.10 Helpdesk Call Monitoring
We may occasionally monitor and record calls made to or by us relating to the Helpdesk. We do this for training purposes and to improve the quality of our customer services, including complaint handling.
3.11 The Service may comprise software, services, technical information, training materials or other technical data which, because of their origin or otherwise are subject to the United States of America export control regulations or the laws or regulations of another country. In such cases, provision of the Service will be conditional on obtaining and maintaining all necessary consents. You agree to comply with any such laws and regulations of any country that are applicable to your use of the Service.
4. Charges
4.1 You agree to pay all charges for the Service as specified in the Charges List and by the method of payment which you select when you complete the Registration Form.
4.2 Unless otherwise specified in the Charges List, all charges are payable in advance. Unless we notify you to the contrary, liability for charges will start on the day we first make the Service available to you.
4.3 Unless the Charges List provides otherwise, all charges for the Service are inclusive of Value Added Tax.
4.4 You authorise us to charge to your chosen account all charges for the Service as specified in the Charges List.
5. Security
5.1 In order to access the Service you will be issued with a set of unique passwords and user names. You are responsible for the security and proper use of all passwords relating to the Service and must take all necessary steps to ensure that all passwords are kept confidential, secure and are used properly.
5.2 You must inform us immediately if you have any reason to believe that any password or user name has become known to someone not authorised to use it or if any password or user name is being or is likely to be used in an unauthorised way.
5.3 If we have reason to believe that there is likely to be a breach of security or misuse of the Service:
(a) we may change your password or user name and notify you accordingly; and/or
(b) suspend your user name and password access to the Service.
5.4 If you forget any password, by contacting the Helpdesk by telephone and satisfying such security checks as we may operate, you will be given a new password to enable you to use the Service.
5.5 You agree to notify us immediately of any changes to the information you give to us during the Registration Process including any changes to your account details.
5.6 You confirm and warrant that all the information supplied by you when you register on-line for the Service is true, complete and accurate in all respects.
6. Use of the Service
6.1 The Service may not be accessed or used more than once at any given time.
6.2 You are responsible for the creation, maintenance and design of your Information.
6.3 You must ensure that your Information and any Third Party Information does not include any information or material, any part of which or use of which would be a criminal offence or in any way unlawful. In particular, you must ensure that all necessary licences and consents (including those from owners of copyrights or performing rights any other intellectual property rights) have been obtained.
6.4 You must ensure that you will comply with all consumer and other legislation, instructions or guidelines issued by regulatory authorities, relevant licences and any other codes of practice which relate to the provision of your Information and which apply to you and/or which we may inform you of.
6.5 You must not use the Service:
(a) fraudulently or in connection with a criminal offence;
(b) to send, knowingly receive, upload, download, use or re-use any material which is offensive, abusive, indecent, defamatory, obscene or menacing, or in breach of copyright, confidence, privacy or any other rights;
(c) to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety;
(d) to send or provide unsolicited advertising or promotional material or knowingly to receive responses to any unsolicited advertising or promotional material sent or provided by you or any other party;
(e) in an unlawful manner, in contravention of any applicable legislation or licence or in contravention of our "Acceptable Use Policy" as may be amended by us from time to time and which you are strongly advised to read; or
(f) in any way that does not comply with any instructions that we have given to you.
6.6 You must not use a Sub-Domain Name so as to infringe the rights of any person, (whether in statute or common law), in a corresponding trade mark or name.
6.7 If anyone other than you uses the Service with or without your knowledge or approval in contravention of any of paragraphs 6.1 - 6.6 inclusive we can treat such contravention as a breach by you of this Contract for the purposes of paragraph 8 which shall apply accordingly.
6.8 You must tell us immediately if any third party makes or threatens to make any claim or issue legal proceedings against you relating to your use of the Service and you will, at our request, immediately stop the act or acts complained of. If we ask you to, you must confirm the details of the claim(s) in writing.
6.9 You must ensure that your contact details e.g. email address are included in a clear and legible form on your Website, for receipt of any enquiries or complaints regarding your Information or any other material which appears on your Website. BT reserves the right to disclose to any person with an enquiry or complaint your contact details if such person cannot locate these details on your website.
7. Restrictions on use
7.1 The Service is provided solely for your own use. You must not re-sell or attempt to re-sell the Service (or any part or facility of it) to any third party.
7.2 We may give you instructions about the use of the Service concerning health and safety, or the quality of the Service to other customers. Such instructions form part of this Contract and you agree to observe them.
7.3 If, following routine system administration of the Service (including without limitation server, network and security monitoring, and monitoring for unattended logins), we detect that your use of the Service:
(i) impairs the integrity of the system and/or the network used to provide the Service; or
(ii) causes detrimental performance of the Service to you or any other customer;
We reserve the right, on giving you prior notice where practicable, to suspend your access to the Service (without prejudice to our right to terminate this Contract under paragraph 8.1) until we receive assurance from you that you will not use the Service in such a manner.
7.4 You should be aware that while the BTinternet Anytime service is intended to provide 24-hour internet access availability, it is not intended to be an "always on" service. Accordingly, we reserve the right in particular to take the action described in paragraph 7.3 above against customers subscribing to that service whom we reasonably consider are:
(i) leaving their internet connection online while unattended; or
(ii) configuring their computer to automatically redial their internet connection in their absence
7.5 Use of unmetered access periods under the BTinternet Anytime service, or as part of BT Surf Package, is limited to an online session of two hours. Between the peak hours of 19:00 and 22:00, we may limit the session to 90 minutes. You can re-connect back to the Internet by using your dial-up connection.
7.6 Where we provide you with e-mail facilities, web hosting or other services which involve us providing storage space on our systems, we reserve the right to impose limits (which we may vary from time to time) on the storage space we provide to you. Such limits may be in relation to the physical amount of web-space or the number of mailboxes made available to you, e-mail messages that can be stored and /or the size of any attachments you can send. We reserve the right to reject material and/or to delete material which exceeds the relevant limit. Information on the applicable limits can be viewed in the FAQ ("frequently asked questions") section relating to the Service and available at http://www.btinternet.com.
7.7 You acknowledge that we may vary the Content from time to time without notice.
7.8 The Content may only be used for your own purposes and is protected by copyright, trademark and other intellectual property rights. You must not and must not permit anyone else to copy, store, adapt, modify, transmit, distribute externally, play or show in public, broadcast or publish any part of the Content.
7.9 We do not guarantee the accuracy or completeness of the Content and your use of the Content (for whatever purpose) is at your own risk.
7.10 Additional terms and conditions may be displayed online or elsewhere relating to particular Content (or any application provided to you as part of the Service). If you choose to access such Content and/or application you will need to comply with the terms and conditions that apply to them.
8. If you break this Contract
8.1 We can suspend the provision of the Service to you or end this Contract (or both) with immediate effect on giving you notice if:
(a) you breach any provision of this Contract and fail to remedy the breach within a reasonable period of being asked to do so;
(b) we believe the Service is being used in a manner prohibited under paragraphs 6 or 7 even if you are unaware that the Service is being used in such a way; or
(c) bankruptcy or insolvency proceedings are brought against you or if you do not make any payment under a judgement of a Court on time, or you make an arrangement with your creditors, or a receiver or administrator is appointed over any of your assets or you go into liquidation.
8.2 If we suspend the Service for breach of this Contract by you, we will not restore it until we receive an acceptable assurance from you that there will be no further breach. While the Service is suspended under this paragraph you must pay the charges for the Service until the Contract is terminated.
8.3 If we end this Contract under paragraph 8.1 you must pay us all charges which are due for the Service under this Contract, including any unpaid charges for the remainder (if any) of the Minimum Period of Service.
8.4 If we delay in acting upon a breach of this Contract by you, that delay will not be regarded as a waiver of the breach. If we waive a breach of this Contract by you, that waiver is limited to the particular breach.
9. Ending this Contract after the Service is provided
9.1 At any time after the Service has been provided this Contract or the provision of the Service (or any service or facility under it) may be ended by:
(a) 1 month's notice from us to you; or
(b) 7 days notice from you to us.
You must pay the charges for the Service up to the expiry of the notice.
9.2 If you give us notice during the Minimum Period of Service (other than because we have increased our charges for the Service, changed any of the terms and conditions of this Contract to your detriment, or because of any events covered by paragraph 13 below) you must also pay the charges due, if any, for any remaining part of the Minimum Period of Service, or as otherwise stated in the Charges List.
9.3 Notice given by you does not avoid any other liability for the Service already provided.
9.4 If we give notice to end the Service under paragraph 9.1 we will repay or credit the appropriate proportion of any charges for the Service which you have paid in advance for a period ending after the notice expires.
9.5 We reserve the right to suspend your e-mail account, provided to you as part of the Service, without notice if you fail to access your e-mail account ("Inactivity") for a continuous period of ninety days or more and in such circumstances we will:
(a) delete all e-mails residing in your e-mail account;
(b) reject all e-mails sent to your e-mail account and notify the sender that your e-mail account is inactive; and
(c) cancel all e-mail functionality provided to you as part of the Service.
We will restore your e-mail account if you access your e-mail account at any time after suspension. We reserve the right to terminate your e-mail account without notice if "Inactivity" occurs for a continuous period of 12 months.
10. Our Liability
10.1 We accept liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence. The limitations in paragraph 10.2 and 10.3 do not apply to liability under this paragraph 10.1.
10.2 We have no liability in contract, tort or otherwise (including liability for negligence) for any loss that is not reasonably foreseeable, nor any loss (whether direct or indirect) of business revenue, profit, or savings you expected to make, wasted expenditure or data being lost or harmed.
10.3 Our liability in contract, tort or otherwise (including liability for negligence) under or in connection with this Contract is limited to £250,000 for any event or related series of events and £500,000 for all events in any period of 12 months.
10.4 You acknowledge that we have no control over the information which can be accessed by using the Service and that we do not examine the use to which you put the Service or the nature of the information you send or upload. We exclude all liability of any kind for the transmission or reception of such information of whatever nature.
10.5 We exclude all liability of any kind for your Information or for Third Party Information. However we reserve the right to remove any of your Information or Third Party Information following notice to you, if we reasonably believe that there may be a breach of this Contract, the law or any third party rights.
10.6 We are not liable whether in contract, tort (including liability for negligence) or otherwise for the acts or omissions of other providers of telecommunication or Internet services or for faults in or failures of their networks and equipment.
10.7 Each provision of this paragraph 10 operates separately in itself and survives independently of the others.
11. Changes to this Contract
We may change the terms and conditions of this Contract, including our charges for the Service, at any time. We will give you at least 14 days notice of any such changes before they take effect.
12. Assignment
Neither you nor we may transfer or try to transfer any of our rights and obligations under this Contract to anyone else, except that we may transfer our rights and obligations to another BT Group Company.
13. Matters beyond our reasonable control
We will not be liable if we cannot do what we have promised in this Contract because of something beyond our reasonable control such as lightning, flood, or exceptionally severe weather, fire or explosion, civil disorder, war, or military operations, natural or local emergency, anything done by government or other competent authority or industrial disputes of any kind (including those involving our employees).
14. Giving notice
14.1 Notices given under this Contract may be given on-line by electronic mail using the Service, or in writing and delivered by hand or pre-paid post to the addressee at the following address:
(a) To us: at the postal address or e-mail address shown at http://www.btinternet.com/new/content/contact/ or any alternative address which we notify to you at any time.
(b) To you: at the postal address or e-mail address you specify when registering for the Service or any other alternative address which you notify to us at any time.
15. Software
15.1 Intellectual property rights in all Software and documentation supplied by us for your use in connection with provision of the Service remain our property or that of our licensors.
15.2 You may use the Software to the extent necessary for you to use the Service but you must not and must not permit any other person to decompile or modify the Software, nor copy the manuals or documentation. You must only access the Service through the Software or in an alternative way permitted by us and you must not attempt to circumvent any security measures in the Service or attempt to gain access to the source software or compiled code.
15.3 You must not transfer, assign or sub-license your right to use the Software or attempt to do so.
15.4 You agree to comply with the terms of any agreements reasonably required by the owners of any intellectual property rights in the Software relating to the protection of those rights.
15.5 We may offer updates or modifications to the Software or documentation capable of delivery on-line. Any applicable charges for such updates or modifications will be notified to you at the time we offer such updates or modifications.
16. Sub-Domain Name
16.1 You confirm and warrant that you are the owner of or that you are duly authorised by the owner to use any trade mark or name requested or allocated as your Sub-Domain Name.
16.2 You acknowledge that we cannot guarantee that any Sub-Domain Name you request will be available or approved for use.
16.3 We reserve the right to require you to select a replacement Sub-Domain Name or your URL and may either refuse to provide or may suspend the Service if, in our opinion, there are reasonable grounds for us to believe that the Sub-Domain Name or your URL is, or is likely to be, offensive, abusive, defamatory or obscene or in breach of the provisions of paragraphs 6.6.
17. Reimbursement
You must reimburse us in respect of any sums we are obliged to pay because:
(a) the Service is misused in any of the ways described in paragraph 6;
(b) any claims or legal proceedings are brought or threatened against us by another person in respect of defamation, breach of copyright or other intellectual property right infringement which are attributable to your use of the Service; or
(c) if you use the Service for business purposes, any claims or legal proceedings are brought or threatened against us by another person because the Service is faulty or cannot be used by them.
18. Third Party Rights
A person who is not a party to this Contract has no right under the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 to enforce any term of this Contract but this does not affect any right or remedy of a third party which exists or is available apart from that Act.
19. Law and Jurisdiction
This Contract is governed by English Law and you and we submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.
