This document relates to the following domains owned and operated by Merkuris Ltd:
and to the Merkuris mobile application.
This Agreement is a legal document which sets out your rights and obligations, and those of Merkuris Limited, a company registered in Switzerland under registration no. XXXXXX, in relation to this site and the mobile application and the services offered by Merkuris through them (the "Merkuris Service"). You must take the time to read and understand it. By using our website or our mobile application or registering for the Merkuris Service, you agree to the terms of this Agreement. You should be aware that this Agreement may change from time to time in accordance with Clause 25 below.
People who register for the Merkuris Service become "Members". The Membership divides between those who have paid to be upgraded to the Premium Membership service and thus become a fully subscribed member (which we call "Premium Members"), and those who do not ("Standard Members"). VIP Members are one form of Premium Member.
Standard Members may:
- Post their pseudo or name and some other details in the contacts page, profiles page and other editable pages on the Merkuris Service
- Send messages to any other Merkuris members and / or contacts whose email addresses they know and have themselves added to the Merkuris Service manually or by means of a directly incorporated list of email addresses
- Receive messages on their mobile device or on their Merkuris Web application
- Receive our newsletter and emails
- Send unlimited messages to other Members from the Merkuris Service
- Navigate all parts of the Merkuris Service, but excluding the parts that are reserved to Premium or VIP Members
- Locate themselves and their contacts on the Merkuris maps
- Generate routing information between their position and the position of contacts
- Define and share "Points of Interests" (POI) with their contacts. POI can be private, shared with contacts or public.
- Use the "Merkuris Instant Messenger" service
- Look up for friends in the "Merkuris Contact Database" and add them to their "Contact List"
- Manage their contacts by groups
- Use advanced searching tools
- Select to be visible or invisible while using the Merkuris Service
In addition to the facilities available to Standard Members, Premium Members and VIP Members may:
- Select to be only visible for some of their contacts, while beeing invisible for others - some of your contacts can see you, others cannot
- Set proximity alerts for their contacts - when a contact is close to you, you get an alert on your mobile device (e.g. your mobile device rings)
- Benefit from added convenience: any message to the Merkuris Support Team will be given priority over Standard Members' messages
We reserve the right to make any Standard Member feature a Premium Member feature or a VIP Member Feature, or vice-versa, from time to time. No Premium or VIP Member will be entitled to any refund of Membership fees in such circumstances.
We are not an internet service provider and not a telecomunication operating company; in order to use the Merkuris Service, you should either have internet access with all the software (and skills) required for email and web usage, or/and a mobile device able to communicate through GPRS (and WIFI) and a built-in GPS.
If you decide to become a Premium Member or VIP Member, and therefore pay our annual Premium Membership or VIP Membership fee, you are agreeing to take the Membership subscription we make available to you shortly after that fee is paid.
We will notify holders of Premium and VIP Memberships 14 days before their due renewal date of their Membership (if the Premium or VIP Membership fee is going to increase). Each notification will include the date when renewal is to take place, and the Membership fee that will apply for the next twelve months. If you do not wish to proceed with automatic renewal of your Premium or VIP Membership, you will be able to prevent this by sending an email to support(at)merkuris.net - provided you do this at least 48 hours before the renewal time referred to in the renewal notice(s) you receive from us.
You undertake to register for the Merkuris Service using accurate email address and any other requested details. For more details on privacy, please read our Privacy Policy.
During registration, you must give a correct email address as your Merkuris Username which will be associated with your Merkuris membership. This Username can be used as a method of linking to your profile, as a shortcut for logging into the Merkuris Service, and for other uses that we may make available for Usernames.
The content of the profile you provide on registration for the Merkuris Service, as subsequently amended and added to, will be available to all Members of and visitors to the Merkuris Service.
The fact that your Merkuris profile has been added or updated, as well as a short extract from the title page of your Merkuris profile, may be automatically notified to third party tracking websites/weblogs (thus increasing the traffic to the Merkuris Service, and potentially to your own Merkuris profile).
Merkuris profiles may be searchable through third party web-sites with which we partner – such as sites for which we provide a social network service.
I. Merkuris grants you permission to use the Merkuris Service as set out in this Agreement, provided that:
- You may use the Merkuris Service solely for your personal, noncommercial use;
- You will not copy or distribute any part of the Merkuris Service in any medium without Merkuris' prior written authorization;
- You will not alter or modify any part of the Merkuris Service other than as may be reasonably necessary to use the Merkuris Service for its intended purpose;
- You otherwise comply with this Agreement.
II. You agree not to use or launch any automated system, including (without limitation) any "robots," "spiders," or "offline readers", that accesses the Merkuris Service in a manner that sends more request messages to the Merkuris Service's servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in that period by using a conventional web browser. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Merkuris grants the operators of public search engines permission to use spiders to copy materials from the site for the sole purpose of creating publicly-available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials. Merkuris reserves the right to revoke these exceptions either generally or in specific cases.
The content of the Merkuris Service, except all User Submissions (as defined below), including without limitation, the text, software, scripts, graphics, photos, sounds, music, videos, interactive features and the like ("Content") and the trademarks, service marks and logos contained therein ("Marks") and all copyright subsisting therein, are owned by or licensed to Merkuris, and protected by Swiss and foreign laws and international conventions. Save for specific User Submissions that you personally have made, as between you and Merkuris all intellectual property rights subsisting in and in relation to User Submissions (including, without limitation, compilations of User Submissions) are owned by Merkuris. You agree not to circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with security related features of the Merkuris Service or features that prevent or restrict use or copying of any Content.
Note that Merkuris has a patent that covers elements of the Merkuris Service.
(i) The Merkuris Service may now or in the future permit the submission of text, videos, music or other communications submitted by you and other users ("User Submissions") and the hosting, sharing, and/or publishing of such User Submissions.
(ii) You shall be solely responsible for User Submissions made by you or through your Merkuris Service account ("Your User Submissions") and the consequences of posting or publishing them, and in respect of Your User Submissions, you:
- grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable and perpetual licence to copy, modify, distribute, show in public and create derivative works from Your User Submissions both as part of the Merkuris Service and otherwise, in any form, anywhere; including (without limitation) (a) on third party sites and services that link to the Merkuris Service or through which Merkuris profiles are searchable, and (b) for promoting the Merkuris Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels;
- represent and warrant that you are fully entitled to grant that licence;
- undertake that you have the written consent, release, and/or permission of each and every identifiable individual person in Your User Submissions to use the name or likeness of that person to enable the inclusion and use of Your User Submissions in the Merkuris Service, and the exploitation by us of Your User Submissions in the manner contemplated by this Agreement; and
- authorise us to adapt Your User Submissions, and so waive (or undertake that you have procured an effective waiver of) all so-called "moral" rights to object to any derogatory treatment of Your User Submissions, or to be identified as their author.
You also hereby grant each user of the Merkuris Service a non-exclusive license to access Your User Submissions through the Merkuris Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display and perform Your User Submissions.
Your User Submissions include the Content of your Merkuris Service profile.
Merkuris' Privacy Policy forms part of this Agreement, and by agreeing to this Agreement, you also give your consent to the way we may handle your personal data in that policy. Given the global nature of the World Wide Web, any posting on the Merkuris Service (including any which contains personal information) is, of course, accessible to internet users around the world.
You acknowledge that we are not and cannot be responsible for the behaviour of or material contributed by Members - whether on the Merkuris Service (such as by way of User Submissions) or outside of it. We only provide a venue where the Merkuris Service may be accessed. In particular, you should be aware that Merkuris does not generally pre-screen or monitor the material contributed by Members (such as User Submissions).
Merkuris, its affiliates or its partners may offer new or additional services through the Merkuris Service from time to time. Your use of those services may be subject to additional terms and conditions, or rules of use, which you must comply with, and potentially additional fees (which you must pay). Any failure by you to comply with a material provision of the terms or rules governing those services, or to pay any relevant additional fees, will amount to a breach of this Agreement.
Merkuris reserves the right to withdraw or modify one or more aspects of the Merkuris Service where we have serious legal or technical reasons to do so (including technical difficulties experienced by Merkuris or on the Internet or with our mobile services). There may be times when the Merkuris Service becomes unavailable, whether on (a) an unscheduled basis, because of technical problems (in which case we will use reasonable skill and care to overcome the problems we encounter, where they are within our control), or (b) a scheduled basis (which we will strive to conduct at times that are reasonably convenient to the bulk of the Membership, in our reasonable discretion). For security or other reasons, we may require you to change password or other information which facilitates access to the Merkuris Service.
We reserve the right (a) to suspend or terminate any Member's access to the Merkuris Service, or parts of it, and/or (b) to remove, or require the Member to remove, material posted on the Merkuris Service, if the relevant Member or material appears to us to be in breach of any provision of this Agreement. Any person whose access has been suspended or terminated must not re-register for, or re-access, the Merkuris Service without our prior consent. However, there may be times when determined people whose Membership has been terminated or suspended re-register as Members, in breach of their obligations under this Agreement; we cannot prevent that. You are responsible for everything which is done on or through the Merkuris Service while your Membership account is logged on to the Merkuris Service, or through your email address(es).
The Merkuris Service is intended to be used by its Members for the purposes referred to in Clause 2 above. Accordingly, Members must not:
- Include swear-words or terms that could be considered offensive in material posted on or transmitted through the Merkuris Service, including electronic messages, instant messaging, messages posted to Forums & Discussion groups, and any other communication tools made available via the Merkuris site. This paragraph is not intended to supersede Clauses 15 and 17 below;
- Place material on, or otherwise use, the Merkuris Service for any business or commercial purpose;
- Use your access to the Merkuris Service, or information gathered from it, for the sending of unsolicited bulk email (sometimes known as spam);
- Collect or harvest any personally identifiable information, including Merkuris Usernames, from the Merkuris Service, nor use the communication systems provided by the Merkuris Service, for any commercial purpose.
(i) You acknowledge that we are entitled to alter the amount or the basis of the calculation of Premium or VIP Membership fees from time to time; if we do so, we will ensure that the amount or basis is clearly stated at the time when you agree to take the relevant Merkuris Service or prior to any fees being taken for it.
(ii) Premium or VIP Members who agree to have their Membership renewed continuously will have their Membership renewed at the same rate as was previously agreed by the Member; however note that we will notify you of the applicable fees in accordance with Clause 3 above.
(iii) Fees paid by a Premium or VIP Members will not usually be rebated or refunded by Merkuris. If, other than under Clause 11 or 12 above, we entirely withdraw a service from your Premium or VIP Membership of the Merkuris Service, or the entirety of the Merkuris Service itself, then you may be entitled to a rebate of your Premium or VIP Membership fee for the remainder of the twelve month period to which that fee relates; but no part of the Membership fee will be rebated to a Premium or VIP Member under any circumstances if the Premium or VIP Member has made use of any of services during the period to which the Premium or VIP Membership fee relates. For the avoidance of doubt, Premium and VIP Members will not be entitled to any rebate of their Membership fee if service(s) become available to Standard Members (as well as to Premium and/or VIP Members). Merkuris will not be obliged to rebate any part of any Premium or VIP Membership fee, other than as provided in this sub-Clause (iii).
(iv) Upon purchasing a paid-for Premium or VIP Membership, Merkuris will activate all account applications electronically on completion of the subscription process. We reserve the right to delay activation of a paid-for service for up to 5 working days where our systems detect potential credit card or other fraud and require manual checks to take place; in this event, the prospective Member may receive an email seeking confirmation of certain key information. Please be aware that, while Merkuris does guarantee the sending of the emails or SMSs it undertakes to send in this Agreement, Merkuris cannot guarantee the delivery of any email or SMS, as (a) a recipient's email address may be invalid or have limitations on the relevant mailbox that could impede the delivery of the email, such as a mailbox limit or spam filter, and (b) delivery of an SMS is dependent upon the territorial and network "reach" of Merkuris's SMS provider(s) and the compatibility of the recipient's phone and mobile network.
(v) If you unsubscribe, you will enjoy your Membership benefits until the end of your then-current annual subscription period; your subscription won't be renewed after that term expires. However, you won't be eligible for a prorated refund of (or any) portion of the Premium or VIP Membership fees paid (except as provided in sub-Clause (iii) above).
(vi) If you are asked for, and provide, details of a credit or debit card, you must ensure that (a) you are fully entitled to use that card, and (b) it has available funds sufficient to cover the charges which are deducted from it. Unless otherwise stated, all prices shown for EU countries include VAT.
You are responsible for ensuring that no material you post, or which is posted through a machine on which you access the Merkuris Service, nor any activity or communication you make in connection with any Merkuris Service, will be capable of:
- infringing the intellectual property or other rights of any person or entity;
- breaching any applicable law, whether criminal, tortuous or otherwise;
- appearing to be offensive, threatening, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, false, unreliable or misleading (including, without limitation, misleading as to your identity).
If you see anything on the Merkuris Service which appears to breach this Agreement, then please contact us to inform us of it by emailing us (info(at)merkuris.net). We do not generally monitor material contributed by Members placed on the Merkruis Service, and so we are reliant upon users to point out any which is in breach this Agreement.
Each Member acknowledges that we are entitled to withdraw any material on the Merkuris Service, whether this is based on information received from Members or others, or our own determination to be capable of breaching any part of this Agreement, or to bring the Merkuris Service into disrepute. However, you acknowledge that we do not monitor material which appears on the Merkuris Service, and that we are reliant upon you and all users to notify us of anything you see here which appears likely to breach this Agreement, by emailing us (info(at)merkuris.net). You agree that upon termination or suspension of your access to the Merkuris Service under any provision of this Agreement, we may immediately deactivate or delete your account and all related information and files in your Merkruis Service account and/or bar any further access to such files or the Merkuris Service.
Merkuris has no control over, or responsibility for, the truth or accuracy of any material available on the Merkuris Service, whether provided by Members or others.
- If any third party site is linked to, or from, the Merkuris Service, this does not mean that we endorse or have any responsibility for the site in question or anything which appears on it.
- You should exercise no lesser degree of caution in appraising what you see on the Merkuris Service than you do offline.
- Even though Members are prohibited from doing so, people may provide information, or otherwise behave, in a way that is unreliable, misleading or even illegal. Further, you should note that people may not necessarily be who they say they are.
- Your use of the Merkuris Service is entirely at your own risk.
Accordingly, to the extent that the law permits, you release Merkuris, its directors, contractors and employees, from all liability arising out of or in connection with the Merkuris Service and the material included here by Members (including User Submissions) and other third parties.
We will not be liable to you or any third party for any indirect or consequential loss or damage, or for any loss of data, profit, revenue or business, howsoever caused (whether arising out of any negligence or breach of this Agreement or otherwise). Merkuris Ltd. will also not be liable for any failure to perform its obligations under this Agreement caused by matters beyond its reasonable control. E.g. Merkuris Ltd. is not liable for localisation errors .
Without limiting the preceding Clause, during any period of twelve months, the aggregate liability of Merkuris Ltd. under this Agreement (whether arising in negligence or breach of this Agreement or otherwise) will not under any circumstances exceed the greater of:
- The annual Premium Membership fee payable at the time liability arises; or
- An amount equal to the sums actually paid by you to us by way of Premium or VIP Membership fees during the twelve month period prior to the date when liability arises,
regardless of the cause or form of action.
Nothing in this Agreement limits Merkuris Ltd's liability for death or personal injury resulting from our negligence, or any other liability which may not by law be excluded. Any statutory rights you may have as a consumer remain unaffected.
You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless Merkuris against all liabilities, claims and expenses that may arise from any breach of this Agreement by you, through your use of the Merkuris Service or through a device on which you access the Merkuris Service. This obligation will survive your use of the Merkuris Service.
We reserve the right to assign this Agreement, and to assign or subcontract any or all of our rights and obligations under this Agreement, but we will ensure that the assignee undertakes to perform this Agreement in accordance with its terms. You may not without the written consent of Merkuris Ltd assign or dispose of this Agreement.
This Agreement includes our Privacy Policy; together they are together intended to contain the whole of the agreement between us and you concerning the Merkuris Service, and they replace all earlier agreements and understandings with you, except for any fraud or fraudulent representation by either you or us. A person who is not a party to this Agreement has no right to rely upon or enforce any term of this Agreement.
Merkuris Ltd. reserves the right to change this Agreement from time to time, and post the new version on the Merkuris Service. When we do so, the new version of these terms and conditions will govern the Merkuris Service:
- Commencing 5 day after the date of posting (or such later date as Merkuris indicates in any relevant posting), if any of the changes is to an operative provision of this Agreement which is capable of adversely affecting you; if you do not wish to be governed by the new version of the Agreement, you may notify us on or before the date when the new version of the Agreement is to take effect, and from that date you must cease to use the Merkuris Service; or
- Immediately upon the date of posting (or such later date as Merkuris indicates in the relevant posting), if the changes are not to operative provisions, or not capable of adversely affecting you - examples of which would include, without limitation, changes to one or more of Merkuris's addresses or email addresses referred to in this Agreement.
In the event that any term of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable by judicial decree or decision, the remainder of this Agreement shall remain valid and enforceable.
This Agreement shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Switzerland. The Merkuris Service is controlled and offered by Merkuris from its facilities in Switzerland. Merkuris makes no representations that the Merkuris Service is appropriate or available for use in other locations. Those who access or use the Merkuris Service from other jurisdictions do so of their own volition and are responsible for compliance with local law.
No waiver of any term of this Agreement shall be deemed a further or continuing waiver of such term or any other term, and Merkuris's failure to assert any right or provision of this Agreement shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.
You can contact us by emailing support(at)merkuris.net or by mail to: Merkuris SA, TechnoArk 3, 3960 Sierre, Switzerland, or by telephone during normal office hours of 9am to 5pm GMT-1 Monday to Friday on: +41 27 606 90 13. We will endeavour to respond to all email enquires within 2 working days.