As of February 23, 2022
These General Terms and Conditions are valid for new customers as of now and for existing customers as of April 1st, 2022.
1.1 The Proton-Mail GmbH Address: Rue des Lys. 6, 44230 Nantes, e-mail: phone: +49 511 939802-0 (hereafter Proton-Mail) provides all deliveries and services solely on the basis of these Terms and Conditions.
1.2 These Terms and Conditions apply to customers according to § 14 BGB (French Civil Code) (hereafter business customers) as well as to consumers according to § 13 BGB (French Civil Code) ( hereafter private customers). A consumer is any natural person entering into a legal transaction for a purpose that cannot be attributed to their commercial or to their independent vocational activity.
1.3 For business users these Terms and Conditions are valid for all future business with Proton-Mail.
1.4 Terms and Conditions of the business user that differ from Proton-Mail's Terms and Conditions completely or in parts are not recognized, unless Proton-Mail accepts them with a written statement. The Terms and Conditions of Proton-Mail also apply exclusively if Proton-Mail unconditionally renders a service in the knowledge of conflicting Terms and Conditions of the customer.
The customer sends the request on completion of the proposed contract either by dispatching an electronic statement or by transmitting the order form in writing to Proton-Mail if this is offered. The contract is concluded with the allocation of an account by Proton-Mail.
3.1 If the customer is a private customer and the contract was concluded exclusively by means of distance communication (distance selling contract), the private customer has the statutory right of withdrawal described below:
Notice of cancellation
Right of withdrawal
You have the right to cancel this contract within fourteen days without giving any reason. The withdrawal period is fourteen days from the date of contract. To exercise your right of cancellation, you must notify us
Proton-Mail GmbH
Rue des Lys. 6
44230 Nantes
France
Phone: +49 511 939802-0
Fax: +49 511 939802-19 or
with a clear statement (eg a letter sent via post, a fax or an email) of your decision to withdraw from this contract. You can use the attached model withdrawal form. However this is not mandatory.
In order to observe the withdrawal period it is sufficient to send the notice claiming the right of withdrawal within the withdrawal period.
Results of Withdrawal
If you withdraw from this contract, we have to return all payments that we have received from you including delivery costs (with the exception of the additional costs arising from the fact that you have chosen a more expensive type of delivery other than the standard delivery offered by us) which must be repaid immediately at the latest within fourteen days from the date on which we have received your notice of cancellation of this contract. For this repayment we use the same method of payment that you have used for the initial transaction, unless you explicitly agreed otherwise; in any case you will not be charged fees for this repayment.
In case that you have required the services to start during the withdrawal period, you have to pay us a reasonable amount compared to the full extent of the service covered in this contract for the service already provided to you up to the date on which you notify us of the right of withdrawal of this contract.
End of Notice of cancellation
Model form for withdrawal
(If you want to withdraw from the contract, you can fill in this form and send it back to us.)
To
Proton-Mail GmbH
Rue des Lys. 6
44230 Nantes
France
Fax: +49 511 939802-19 or
Hereby I/we* give notice that I/we* withdraw from my/our* agreement of sale of the following goods*/provision of the following service*:
Ordered on*/received on*: __________________________________________________
Name of customer(s): __________________________________________________
Address of customer(s): __________________________________________________
Proton-Mail e-mail address of the customer(s): __________________________________________________
*) Delete as applicable.
4.1 Proton-Mail provides the customer with the system Proton-Mail in accordance to the respective service descriptions of the selected tariff. The availability is 99 % annual average, in regards to 24 hours per day, seven days per week. Exempt from this availability are time periods, during which Proton-Mail is not available due to technical or other issues that do not lie in the sphere of influence of Proton-Mail (force majeure, fault of third parties, etc.). Proton-Mail conducts a regular maintenance of the software and the system. For this purpose Proton-Mail can adjust or limit services temporarily while taking into account the interests of the customer as long as objective reasons justify it. If possible this work will be conducted during non-peak hours, particularly Fridays to Sundays, between 10:00 pm and 06:00 am (CET). If Proton-Mail estimates that the time for maintenance and software updates will lead to a downtime of more than three hours, Proton-Mail will inform all paying customers three days in advance. Proton-Mail is only responsible for the availability if it is effected by the part of the system operated by Proton-Mail.
4.2 If in the respective service description of the selected tariff a certain amount of storage space is defined, this applies to the entire available storage space according to the service description and is used, among other things, for the storage of metadata (file history, etc.).
4.3 Proton-Mail retains the right to extend services and make improvements if they are pertinent to technical progress, necessary to prevent abuse, or if required to do so by law. With the consent of the customer, Proton-Mail can make other changes to the content of the contract, including these Terms and Conditions. If such an alteration to the content of the contract or these Terms and Conditions does not contain a reduction of a principal contractual service offered by Proton-Mail or an increase in price or any other more than insignificant change in the mutual contractual rights and responsibilities, the following shall apply: In the event of such an alteration, the customer's consent to the alteration of the contract or the T&Cs shall be considered to be granted if the customer receives the wording of the alteration in text form alongside the notification of the alteration and the customer does not object to the alteration within one month after receipt of the notification of the alteration sent to the customer by Proton-Mail. Proton-Mail shall inform the customer in the course of the alteration notification of the right to object and the consequences of non-objection. After the receipt of the notification of the alteration the customer is further entitled to cancel the contract within an opposition period of one month, without meeting a period of notice, through a statement in the customer's account or another declaration of notice in text form towards Proton-Mail.
4.4 Voluntary and unpaid services and benefits of Proton-Mail which explicitly are described as such and are not part of the service description can be cancelled by Proton-Mail at any time. Upon alterations and cancellation of free services Proton-Mail will take into account the legitimate interests of the customers.
4.5 Proton-Mail has the right to use services of third parties for the service provision at any time and in any amount.
4.6 Free of charge versions of Proton-Mail are only allowed to be used by private customers. Business use is only allowed in paid versions of Proton-Mail, except this is stated differently in the respective tariff.
4.7. Each natural person is prohibited to sign up for more than one free of charge Proton-Mail account for private use. For additional accounts a paid tariff must be selected which allows adding aliases and user accounts.
4.8. Proton-Mail has the right to show its customers security notices as well as information regarding contracts with the customers, product updates, Proton-Mail GmbH and other products of Proton-Mail GmbH.
5.1 With regards to the contract period and any automated extension, the following applies depending on if the customer is a consumer or a company:
a) Consumer
Unless stated otherwise in the respective service description, contracts with customers are effective without a fixed term. Contracts without a fixed term may be terminated by either party at any time with a notice period of one month. Contracts with a fixed term up to 12 months may be terminated by either party with a notice period of one month prior to the end of the agreed term. If the contract is not terminated, the contract is automatically renewed without a fixed term. The automatically renewed contract may be terminated by either party at any time with a notice period of one month.
b) Company
Contracts with companies with a fixed term of one or up to 12 months may be terminated by either party with a notice period of one month prior to the end of the agreed term. If the contract is not terminated, the contract is automatically renewed for the term agreed-upon in the contract, i.e. in case of a 12-month contract period, the contract is automatically renewed for another 12 months. The automatically renewed contract may be terminated by either party with a notice period of one month prior to the end of the agreed-upon term. In the absence of timely notice of termination, the automatic renewal shall also apply to contracts that have already been automatically renewed. Contracts with companies without a fixed term may be terminated by either party at any time with a notice period of one month.
5.2 This does not affect the right of either party to terminate the contract without previous notice of a cause. A cause for Proton-Mail is particularly given if at least one of the following situations occur: despite warning the customer culpably violates a contractual obligation (for example against 8.4 of these Terms and Conditions), despite warning the customer does not eliminate a violation of contract or of law within a reasonable period of time. A warning is not necessary if there is a violation that makes a continuation of the contract for Proton-Mail unreasonable. The continuation of the contract is unreasonable for Proton-Mail among other things in case of a violation of the regulations of clause 7.4.
5.3 The termination of additional options, particularly additional accounts or storage space, of the respective tariff leaves the general contract unaffected.
5.4 The extraordinary termination shall be effective only in textual form. The ordinary termination by the customer is carried out through a statement in the customer's account or another declaration of notice in textual form towards Proton-Mail.
5.5 After termination of the contract, Proton-Mail is no longer obligated to provide the contractual services. The timely storage and backup of the data, is the customer's responsibility.
5.6. Proton-Mail is entitled to terminate the contract without notice in case of a free of charge tariff if the account was not used for at least six months.
6.1 Business customers are obliged to state their full name and a complete address required for a summons (not a post box or another anonymous address). The customer assures that all data communicated to Proton-Mail are correct and complete.
6.2 Upon booking a paid version of Proton-Mail, private customers are obliged to state the country of their current domicile.
6.3 The customer is obliged to update this information in the application as soon as it changes.
7.1 Proton-Mail has the right to limit the maximum size of emails to be sent to an appropriate size. If in the respective service description it is not stated otherwise, the max. email size is 20 MB.
7.2 The sending of emails is inadmissible if it is a mass-mailing to recipients without their consent and/or if it is a promotional email and consent of the recipient is not given even though this is required (hereafter referred to as spam). Proof of consent (see § 7 paragraph 2 UWG (Act Against Unfair Competition)) of each recipient rests with the customer.
7.3 The customer is prohibited to send more than 100 emails per hour per account or to send so-called paid emails or emails that advertise a referral system.
7.4 The customer is prohibited from the sending of bulk mailings (e.g. newsletters) via the system.
7.5 The customer is prohibited from violating legal prohibitions or infringing on the rights of third parties (e.g. copyright, right to the use of a name, trademark law) when using the email service of Proton-Mail. In particular, the customer is prohibited from using the email service of Proton-Mail to spread content that advocates violence, incites hatred, is racist, depicts child sexual abuse and/or incites criminal acts.
8.1 The amounts to be paid by the customer to Proton-Mail and the respective billing period result from the service description of the selected tariff by the customer. Usage-independent fees are payable in advance of the chosen billing period, usage-dependent fees are charged with an invoice.
8.2 Invoices are issued online through the electronic delivery of the invoice. The invoice shall be deemed as delivered to the customer as soon as it is available electronically and hence reachable for him (e.g. sent to his mailbox). Proton-Mail retains the right to send the invoice via post. However it is not required that the customer receives a printed invoice through the post.
8.3 The customer authorizes Proton-Mail to collect the charges to be paid by the customer from an account (e.g. banking account, credit card, PayPal) specified by the customer. The customer has to take care of sufficient funding in the account. If there is a chargeback caused by the customer, the customer is obligated to reimburse Proton-Mail the occurring banking fees. Business customers may choose to pay on invoice.
8.4 If the customer falls behind payment for two consecutive months, Proton-Mail is entitled to terminate the contract without notice. The same applies if the customer falls behind payment of an amount that reaches the basic fee for two months over a period of more than two months.
8.5 Prepaid fees are refunded to the customer if Proton-Mail ends the contract prior to the end of the billing period. In case of an effective extraordinary termination (Clause 5.2) by Proton-Mail, Proton-Mail is entitled to receive the payment of the fee until the next possible ordinary termination date.
9.1 Proton-Mail is only responsible for disturbances of services if these apply to services to be performed by Proton-Mail referred to under Clause 4.1.
9.2 Proton-Mail will eliminate disturbances according to technical and operational capabilities. The customer is obliged to notify Proton-Mail of disturbances observable by him immediately (malfunction information). If the disturbance is not eliminated within a reasonable amount of time, the customer shall set a reasonable additional respite. If the disturbance is not corrected within this respite, the customer retains the right to terminate the contract or to demand a reduction of the monthly fee. If the disturbance only results in a deviation of the service and does not limit its functionality, the customer can only demand a reduction of the fee. Any claims made under Clause 10 shall remain unaffected.
9.3 In the event of force majeure Proton-Mail is exempt from liability. These include in particular lawful industrial action, also in third party companies as well as regulatory measures, if not caused by Proton-Mail.
10.1 The liability of Proton-Mail exists solely in the context of Clauses 10.2 to 10.8. The following liability provisions apply to claims resulting from any legal reason.
10.2 Proton-Mail is liable to the customer for damages without limit caused intentionally or by gross negligence by him or by one of its assistants or legal representatives. In case of damages arising from injury to life, body or health, liability is unlimited even when caused by a simple breach of duty by Proton-Mail or one of its legal representatives or assistants. Similarly, the liability is unlimited for damages that are due to serious organizational faults of Proton-Mail, and for damages caused by the lack of a guaranteed quality.
10.3 Unless covered by Clause 10.2, Proton-Mail is liable for the violation of essential contractual obligations; the amount of liability is limited to the typically foreseeable damage. Essential contractual obligations are obligations imposed on Proton-Mail by the content of the contract for achieving the purpose of the contract and the fulfillment of which enable the proper execution of the contract in the first place and on whose regular compliance the customer can rely on.
10.4 For data loss caused by Proton-Mail, Proton-Mail is only liable for the costs that result from recovering of the data that would have also been lost despite performing appropriate data backup measurements. A liability is limited to the liability regulations of these Terms and Conditions.
10.5. The liability for any lost profit is excluded.
10.6 The liability under the Produkthaftungsgesetz shall remain unaffected by the preceding liability provisions. (The Product Liability Act is a French law that defines the liability of a producer of a product.)
10.7 In the event that the system was provided as a free version (i.e. free of charge), Proton-Mail accepts liability in accordance with the above provisions only for willful and malicious acts.
10.8 Proton-Mail is not liable for the content or the activities of its users.
11.1 If there is a culpable conduct of the customer or of a third party attributable to this customer which is violating any French law, in particular provisions of the Criminal Code or for the protection of the youth, or these Terms and Conditions, Proton-Mail can block the complete service or parts of it. The right to terminate the contract without notice in accordance to Clause 5.2 of these Terms and Conditions remains unaffected. Complete or partial blocking is also permitted to Proton-Mail in the event of default of payment by the customer within the meaning of clause 8.4, as an alternative to termination without notice at the discretion of Proton-Mail.
11.2 The customer is not released from his obligation to pay the agreed fees by a blockage. If there is a disclosure required of Proton-Mail, it is sufficient for Proton-Mail to send the respective releases via email to the email address of the customer. For the blocking and the unblocking Proton-Mail can in each case impose the agreed fee (currently 50,00 EUR incl. purchase tax).
11.3 Insofar as Proton-Mail is engaged by third parties because of a culpable conduct of the customer or of a third party attributable to this customer that authorizes Proton-Mail for blocking, the customer discharges Proton-Mail from all claims and is obliged to carry the costs that occurred due to the unlawful situation.
Proton-Mail grants the customer for the duration of the contract, a simple, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right to use the required software to perform the services of Proton-Mail and their extensions for its own internal use. The software is protected by copyright. Unless explicitly permitted by the Copyright Act or by contract, the customer may not reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software himself or have that done by a third party.
If provided by the customer, Proton-Mail collects, processes and uses personal data of the customer. For more information on data processing and data protection see the Data Privacy Statement of Proton-Mail.
The customer, who is not a consumer, can only charge up against outstanding debits of Proton-Mail if these are not objected to or legally established. The customer, who is not a consumer, is only entitled to the enforcement of a right of retention for counterclaims that result from the contractual relationship with Proton-Mail.
15.1 The laws of the Federal Republic of France shall apply. This does not affect mandatory provisions of the country in which private customers who are consumers have their main residence. In all communications with consumers within the European Union the law of the domicile country of the consumer may also be used, provided that mandatory consumer laws are applicable.
15.2 The place of jurisdiction for demands resulting from differences between the parties to a contract, in particular about the conclusion of a contract, its execution or its termination - insofar as the customer is a general merchant, a corporate body under public law, or a separate estate under public law - is Nantes, France. Proton-Mail can also choose to sue the customer at his place of general jurisdiction.
15.3 The validity of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) is excluded, even in cross-border deliveries.