Last updated 29 March 2017

Thanks for visiting choice.com.au. Like any site we have a few house rules, which form our terms and conditions (T&Cs). Basically, these tell you what we expect of you when you use our site. We'll also let you know what you can expect of us. And of course, there's some legal stuff in the mix, as well.

Because CHOICE aims to be open and transparent in everything we do, we've laid out all the details you might need to know when browsing our site, or interacting with us, all on this one page.

But first, here's the gist.

The gist...

• You can use our sites as long as you don't hack us, steal or use our content without asking, or share your password with others.
• Take responsibility for what you post: don't use our sites to break any laws or promote your brand or company.
• You should know that when you become a member online, we'll bill you on a recurring basis. We'd like to make it really clear that it's up to you to cancel these membership payments - but we're always here to help if you have any problems.

We encourage you to read the entire document, because when you access our site we'll assume you know and agree to our T&Cs.

What's the deal with these T&Cs?

This page sets out the full T&Cs of use of CHOICE's Sites. When we talk about using a CHOICE "Site" or Sites, we're talking about using this website, including our freely available content and the member areas of the website, as well as our free member research community, voiceyourchoice.com.au.

Check back often

We may change these T&Cs from time to time. You should know that by continuing to use our Sites you're agreeing to the updated T&Cs. To make it easy for you to find the latest T&Cs, we provide a link at the bottom of each page of this website and other Sites and platforms as appropriate.

Who are 'you'?

In these T&Cs "you" are the user of the Sites. You can be a person, a corporate entity or another entity incorporated or unincorporated, like an association.

Who we are

We're "CHOICE", also known as the Australian Consumers' Association Ltd, a nonprofit company, with offices at 57 Carrington Rd, Marrickville, NSW 2204 Australia.

The 'Agreement'

By using, registering and/or subscribing to one or more of the Sites, you agree to these terms and conditions ("Agreement").

The breakdown

There are three parts to the Agreement.

1. General

2. User generated content

3. Your membership

1. General

Your rights

As long as you comply with the Agreement, we give you the right to access, use and display one or more of the Sites. The contents of the Sites are for your personal, non-commercial use only. You agree not to interrupt, or attempt to interrupt, the operation of the Sites in any way.

You agree not to share your access privileges with any other person or organisation. If you're a business, library or school or another institution and would like access for multiple users to the premium or member parts of the Sites, we can arrange that. Please call our friendly Customer Services team on 1800 069 552 Mon-Fri 9am-5pm (AEST or AEDT) to find out more.

Protecting your password

When you register with CHOICE, you'll select a password. If our Customer Services team sets up your access, immediately change the generic password used for that purpose on your next log in. Take care to keep your password confidential. At the risk of stating the obvious: don't write it down or store it electronically where it can be discovered and don't disclose it to anyone.

The reason we need to say all this is that you could be liable if an unauthorised person gains access to any of the Sites and breaches the T&Cs or in some way damages one or more of the Sites using your log-in details.

Your privacy

We take protecting your privacy very seriously at CHOICE, and abide by the Australian Privacy Principles. You can read all about how we do this in our Privacy Policy here. Or, if you prefer, write to us at 57 Carrington Rd, Marrickville, NSW 2204 Australia and we'll be happy to send you a copy.

Copyright and trade marks

CHOICE owns the copyright for all material presented on the Sites, and some of our employees and/or contractors own moral rights.

If you'd like to use any CHOICE ratings, reports, articles, materials, photos, graphics, publications, products or equivalent materials including trade marks and other CHOICE intellectual property ("the Materials"), in whole or part, you must have our written permission before doing so.

The Materials are protected in Australia and internationally by the law of copyright, moral rights, trade mark, equity, common law and other legislation such as the Competition and Consumer Act 2010.

We reserve the right to take legal action to prevent any unauthorised use or reproduction of the Materials, in whole or part, for any purpose including but not limited to advertising, copyright works, trade marks, logos and any commercial purpose use.

You can help us by asking for permission to use the Materials or reporting anything you think breaches this agreement to us at ausconsumer@choice.com.au.

Links to other sites

We link out to other sites from time to time, usually to give you additional info you might want or need. But we don't endorse, and haven't necessarily verified any of the information available from any link found within the Sites.

We welcome links from other sites to ours, not if you also copy or appropriate our content at the same time:

• You may not copy or use any of the graphics (or other elements) from one of our Sites within another site - any link to us should be provided as a text link.
• You may not link to the Sites within a frame in your site.

We'll take all steps available to us to prevent links of these types to our Sites.

2. User generated content

The Agreement relates to any and all Communications submitted to one or more of the Sites. By "Communications" we mean things like content, survey responses, other responses to research, and user reviews and comments.

Removing material

It probably won't happen often but we may, in our absolute discretion, at any time remove any Communications from the Sites. Just to be clear: removing these Communications isn't an admission that they're inappropriate, and it's not an admission of any liability by us.

If we think it's necessary, we'll remove Communications and/or any other content within our control.

When we'll remove content

If we consider something is:

1. For a commercial purpose

2. Indecent or abusive

3. False or misleading

4. Slanderous, libellous or defamatory

5. Likely to cause injury of any kind

6. Likely to or does violate or breach any rights of any person and/or group (including the intellectual property rights, contract rights, or any other rights of CHOICE and/or any third party)

7. Likely to or does violate or breach any applicable laws, rules, or regulations

8. Likely to or does contain software viruses or any other malicious code

9. Likely to be harmful, or to cause loss or damages to CHOICE and/or any third parties

10. In our opinion, of a vexatious nature

11. Likely to relate to a membership or access issue and the customer has been contacted and/or the issue has been resolved

12. Off-topic and/or

13. Not adequately and/or properly declaring an association and/or vested interest in any brand, product and/or company

You're responsible for what you post

You should know you are solely responsible for the content of any and all Communications you publish to the Sites. These are public, unless otherwise indicated.

Wait, there's more...

These disclaimers limit our liability to you. It's important you're aware of them.

When you post to the Sites:

• You acknowledge and agree not to use a bot or other device to scrape or assist scraping of information from the Sites.
• We can use and republish anything you post to the Sites.
• You indemnify us in case you publish something that gets us into trouble. Indemnify means you'll take responsibility and secure us against legal responsibility.
• You acknowledge and agree that, we may in our absolute discretion and without notification to you, edit or remove any one or more of the Communications from the Sites.
• You acknowledge and agree that we aren’t under any obligation to publish the Communications.
• You acknowledge and agree that we aren't liable for your actions in using our Sites.

Complaints about user comments

We're pretty small and, as a nonprofit, we don't have the resources to vet all contributor communications. So we don't control, review or systematically vet the content of any Communications.

We don't take responsibility for, endorse or necessarily agree with your Communications and/or the Communications of any third party, including members of the public, on our Sites.

We'll still try to respond to complaints

CHOICE will permanently remove any and all relevant communications if we think that's necessary.

While we'll try our best to act on any complaint, we can't guarantee we'll act within any specific time period. And we won't act on any complaint that we deem to be vexatious. (In plain language, vexatious means frivolous or without genuine grounds for a complaint.)

You should know that if you complain but don't include your name and contact details, we may treat your complaint as vexatious.

How to report inappropriate comments

If you think a comment is inappropriate, unsuitable or breaches any term or condition of the Agreement, please report it to Customer Services and provide these details:

• why you think the material is inappropriate, unsuitable or in breach of the Agreement terms and conditions, and
• your name and contact details.

We take any and all complaints seriously, and we'll temporarily remove relevant Communications while we review them.

Tell us if you have a vested interest

We're proudly independent and unbiased - it's in our DNA. We aim to tell the truth at all times, and we need you to be honest with us, too.

So if you're making a comment that touches on a brand, product and/or company that you have an association with, or a vested interest in, be transparent about it. In other words, "you must advise CHOICE and other users of any association and/or interest at the time of any Communications and be completely transparent about the association and/or interest".

Here's how...

If you use official brand and/or company accounts you must include that info in your display name, which shows on your comments e.g. Ruby Hutchison, XYZ Company. You can change your display name by editing your profile.

If you're using a private account, you should include this information in your profile. And if your comment is related to the brand or company you have an association with or vested interest in, or to a direct competitor, you should state this in the body of your comment. E.g. I am an employee of XYZ Company but these views are my own.

CHOICE staff comments

From time to time, CHOICE staff may respond to queries or comments. This is not an approval, agreement or endorsement of your or another party's comments, and it's not indicative of a systematic review of that or any other forum facilitated by us.

3. Your membership

Here's what you need to know when you have a paid membership with us. (Good decision, by the way.)

Your rights

As a consumer, you have rights.

Under Australia's Competition and Consumer Act 2010, you have remedies available to you if a service isn't delivered with due care and skill. Your CHOICE membership is no exception.

Something wrong?

Let us know by calling us 1800 069 552 during business hours or emailing us at ausconsumer@choice.com.au and we'll help you as quickly as we can. You can read all about our complaints handling policy here.

Prices

All our prices are in Australian dollars. We may change the price of your membership from time to time but we'll let you know before this happens.

How do my ongoing membership payments work?

We're glad you asked. When you become a member online, we'll bill you on a recurring basis. That means we'll debit your nominated card or bank account until you tell us to stop. In other words, it's up to you to cancel.

We'd love you to stick around, but if you want, you can cancel your membership payments at any time by:

• logging in and going into 'My Profile' at choice.com.au where you can cancel your membership
• calling us on 1800 069 552 during business hours or emailing ausconsumer@choice.com.au

You'll have access to all the services that come with your membership until the end of your membership term (to see the different memberships available to you, go to choice.com.au/membership).

So I can tell you I want to cancel my payments at any time?

Yep. Absolutely. The one thing you should know is that to avoid being charged for the next membership period (remember, we said 'recurring'), you need to notify us at least one (1) day before your membership expires.

• If you have a quarterly membership, we'll automatically debit your nominated credit card or bank account each quarter. You'll see your debit on your bank statement, shown as "CHOICE MARRICKVILLE".
• If you have an annual or two-year membership, we'll let you know that a new membership term is about to start before we debit your nominated card or bank account.

One more thing...

It's important you know that if your card's expiry date has changed and you haven't updated the details in your profile or contacted us to let us know, your payments will continue to be deducted.

By agreement with the Payment Card Industry, recurring payments like membership renewals can be processed on supplied credit cards past the expiry date, as long as the credit card number is still the same.

So please keep us up to date with your details, and if you're ever unsure get in touch.

Get in touch

We're always here to help. If you ever have a problem with your membership, just get in touch: by calling us 1800 069 552 during business hours or emailing us at ausconsumer@choice.com.au.