You can use our Services via the Turn.io platform to send and receive WhatsApp messages over mobile networks globally. When you use our Services under Customer Terms of Service Contract (“the Customer Contract”), our Rules of Use apply to you.
Our Rules of Use are described below:
We are just a conduit, and as such, we do not take any responsibility for what is sent and where it goes. That is your responsibility.
When you use our services you must do so:
- in accordance with the Customer Contract;
- all laws, regulations, codes of conduct and rules of mobile operators, guidelines or industry standards and best practices applicable to your contract with us and in the jurisdiction of all persons to whom you direct communications when using our services;
- for the purposes for which they are designed; and in a manner which does not interfere with or diminish others' rights.
In the instance that you are engaging in commercial services with your customers and their end users through our services, you must:
- have a confirmed commercial relationship with all intended recipients of any commercial electronic communications that you send using our services;
- ensure that all intended recipients would reasonably expect to receive commercial electronic communications from you, or that recipients have requested the receipt of messages from you or consented thereto;
- offer a convenient method for recipients to opt-out of receiving commercial electronic communications from you or from a subscription service;
- obtain express consent from intended recipients if required by law or a relevant industry code of conduct and specifically for any subscriptions for which a recipient may be charged repeatedly; and
- include contact details and identifying particulars in your electronic communications sent via our systems to ensure that recipients can identify you as the sender and that complaints are directed to you and not to us or to a mobile network.
- Turn.io services and our Responsibilities:
To deliver your messages, they are transmitted through a system of networks (“Turn.io/our system”). We cannot guarantee uninterrupted and continued use of our Services – we don’t control the others in the network chain, network coverage or the mobile handset.
- During transmission, messages may flow through the systems of several mobile networks and aggregators (‘the chain’).
- Your WhatsApp message is considered delivered once it has been transmitted from the Turn.io system to the WhatsApp gateway.
- A WhatsApp message sent by a mobile phone user is considered to be delivered when it is submitted from our system to WhatsApp.
- We will try to ensure uninterrupted and continued use of our Services; however, this is largely dependent on the effective functioning of network service providers’ infrastructure, network coverage and the recipient’s mobile handset.
We may throttle message throughput due to WhatsApp restrictions. This is not as violent as it sounds. It just means that we will restrict the number and timing of messages to stay within the volume restrictions imposed by some suppliers.
Our Services may only be used for person-to-person communication. To clarify, you may use the Services to communicate via text messages with individuals such as customers, employees and other individuals interested in your business. A few examples of the types of communication for which this service may be used are appointment reminders, announcements and alerts.
- Your responsibilities and obligations for using our Services:
You may not engage or assist some else to engage in any illegal, abusive or otherwise unacceptable or inappropriate behavior whilst using our service. Examples of this are listed below (this is not intended to be an all-inclusive list.):-
- You must not use our services to send junk electronic communications, spam or any unsolicited messages.
- You may only send content that is of personal and informative nature to your end-users.
- You understand that in the event that unsolicited or prohibited content is sent to end-users, WhatsApp reserves the right to refuse delivering such content and / or to suspend your account.
- You must not make any misrepresentations. This includes communications that:
- deceive, mislead, defraud or otherwise make misrepresentations to any person regarding any fact or circumstance;
- impersonate or attempt to impersonate someone else or otherwise misrepresent your identity to any person;
- create a false identity, mobile phone address or header; and
- forge or otherwise manipulate origination details and data on any electronic communications to disguise or delete the origin of anything transmitted using our service.
- You must not transmit anything (including words and images) which is defamatory, discriminatory, obscene, lewd, amounts to child pornography, is offensive, morally repugnant, induces an unacceptable sense of fear or anxiety threatening, abusive, harassing, harmful, hateful or which contains pornography, adult content, induces or promotes tribal or racial disharmony, religious or racial slurs or threatens or encourages bodily harm or the like, or which may violate any person’s rights regardless of whether such content is accessed, transmitted, propagated, distributed, created or stored in a public or private context.
- You must not commit fraud or solicit or induce any person to participate in any commercial or non-commercial activities such as a financial scam, ‘pyramid schemes’ or ‘chain letters’; violate or infringe anybody's intellectual property rights; use our intellectual property (including our trademarks, any website content and our proprietary software) without our consent; reproduce, replicate, copy, sell or re-sell any of:
- our services or any part thereof including websites and web pages, or any services that constitute the provision of telecommunications services in terms of applicable legislation; or
- the information or data contained in our services.
- You must not violate any applicable third party policies or requirements.
- You must not do anything which does or may:
- damage, impair, overburden or disable our systems or services, or the systems of others;
- interfere with another user's use and enjoyment of the service or of similar services;
- interfere with or disrupt networks connected to the service or violate the regulations, policies or procedures of such networks.
- You must not: compromise or tamper with the security of our or any other person's software, hardware, systems, networks or services; transmit any computer code which is designed to harm the operation of any software, hardware or network, including viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs and cancelbots. The names are funny, but the consequences are not.
- You must not access any of our services or any similar service of any third party or any network without authorization or through hacking, password mining or any other means.
- You must not violate the privacy of any person or repeatedly transmit content in such a manner as to have the effect of harassing a recipient.
- You must not offer emergency services to mobile phone users or your clients.
You are further Responsible for:
- connectivity, following our rules and assisting us to fix problems.
- You must ensure that you can connect to our system.This means that you must carry the cost of all installations and the management of connectivity to our system.
- You must make sure that the messages sent and received on your account are in line with these Rules of Use.
- You must assist us with information we may need to investigate and fix problems with our systems or the services.
- You must route all directly or indirectly associated with any of our WhatsApp Business API services, via our messaging gateway. This will enable us to ensure that all Services offer the required confirmation messages as stipulated by the various industry codes of conduct and that those messages can be validated as having been submitted.
- In addition, you must permit every recipient who receives a message sent from a number allocated to your account to opt-out of receiving further communications from you by replying ‘stop’ (whether or not opt-out instructions were included in the SMS message). We recommend that you advertise instructions on how to opt-out.
Investigation, Suspension and Termination of our Service:
We are allowed to investigate violations of these rules and share information with others. If you, or others using your account, violate (or if we have reason to believe that you have violated or have encouraged others to violate) these rules, we may investigate the incidents that we believe are contrary to these rules. This right to investigate is in addition to our other available rights and remedies described in the other parts of these Terms. We may provide this information to affected third parties and to governing authorities legally requesting it.
We reserve the right to investigate and/or suspend the number services if we determine, in our sole discretion, that the number of opt-outs received in respect of any number allocated to your account is excessive.
- On our request, you will cooperate with us in identifying the source of and/or reasons for an excessive opt-out rate.
- Your cooperation includes, but is not limited to, giving us proof of opt-ins and sharing content of sample messages sent to recipients from the relevant long numbers allocated to your account.
Due to the varying rules governing the use of IP messaging around the world we reserve the right to suspend your access to the Services at any time if:
- we have reason to believe that you are using the Services in contravention of our Customer Contract; or
- these Terms of Use; or
- any industry code of conduct or applicable laws;
- or if you change the reason for which you are using our Services without letting us know.
We may end the Services immediately without notice if you don’t comply with your responsibilities and obligations under the Customer Contract.
Our failure to enforce these Terms of Service does not amount to a waiver of our rights. In order for us to investigate whether your use of our Services is in compliance; we may request information from you regarding your use of our Services. You must provide us with all information reasonably necessary for us to complete our investigation within 5 business days from our request to you.
We will restore our Services to you once we are satisfied that the cause of suspension no longer exists.
We reserve the right not to restore Services and to terminate your account and any or all of our Services to you, in accordance with Customer Contract if:
- you do not provide us with the information we request in order for us to investigate your use of our services within 5 business days of our request; or
- the information that you provide is, in our sole discretion, not sufficient to satisfy us that your use of our Services is compliant with our terms, industry codes of conduct and applicable law.
Terms for use of Demo Numbers:
A demo number is a special number on shared infrastructure, that can be used for limited time for demo purposes.
- Sometimes wires may get crossed, because we have to recycle demo codes. We try not to allocate demo number codes used less than three months ago, but cannot guarantee this. It is possible that messages intended for the previous demo number customer be sent to your account, and you agree to accept this risk.
- We may, in our discretion, automatically insert a footer in any message sent from a demo number with enough character space available.
Templated Messages:
- You may be charged for the cost of the use of templated messages (subject to the terms of the Customer Contract).
- You must make sure that there are enough funds available in your account to cover the cost of the templated messages.
- If you have insufficient funds available on your account to cover the cost of the messages you send and receive, we will stop processing your messages and we will bill you for templated messages sent.
- We do not monitor or have any control over how many templated messages you send and we will have no liability for the cost associated with it.