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Why Choose The Proton VPN?

Discover why The Proton VPN is the top choice for Australians. Learn about our strict no-logs policy, Australian servers, unlimited data & more.

Military-Grade Encryption

Your data is protected with AES-256 encryption, the same standard used by governments and security experts worldwide.

Lightning Fast Speeds

Our optimized Australian servers ensure you get the fastest possible connection without compromising security.

Global Server Network

Access content from around the world with servers in 50+ countries, including multiple locations across Australia.

Strict No-Logs Policy

We never track, monitor or store your online activity. Your privacy is guaranteed with our audited no-logs policy.

Terms of Service

These Terms of Service govern your access to and use of The Proton VPN website, software applications, and related services. By accessing or using our Services, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you are using the Services on behalf of an organisation, you are agreeing to these Terms for that organisation and confirming you have the authority to bind that organisation.

These Terms constitute a legally binding agreement between you and Proton VPN AG, a Swiss company operating The Proton VPN service for Australian users. The Services are provided to you subject to your compliance with all applicable laws, including Australian Commonwealth and state legislation.

1. Definitions and Agreement Scope

This section establishes the foundational lexicon and jurisdictional scope of the contractual relationship. The definitions are not mere formalities but operational parameters that dictate the limits of service provision and user obligation.

Term Definition Australian Contextual Note
"Services" The Proton VPN virtual private network service, client software, websites, and related technical support. Includes access to servers located in Sydney, Melbourne, and Perth, optimised under Australian network conditions.
"User", "You" Any individual or entity that accesses or uses the Services. Bound by the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) and relevant state-based fair trading acts.
"Subscription" A paid plan granting access to the Services for a defined period. Fees are charged in AUD where possible, inclusive of GST for Australian-resident consumers.
"Content" Any data, information, or material transmitted via the Services. User remains responsible for compliance with Australian copyright (Copyright Act 1968) and classification laws.

1.1 Comparative Analysis: Swiss Jurisdiction vs. Australian Consumer Law

The Proton VPN operates under Swiss legal jurisdiction, a principle rooted in Switzerland's robust privacy laws. This differs from Australian-based VPN providers who are directly subject to domestic data retention and surveillance legislation. For the Australian user, this creates a distinct legal topology. Your consumer rights under Australian law, such as those guaranteeing acceptable quality and fit for purpose, are not extinguished. They coexist with the governing Swiss law on contractual matters. A practical tension exists, for instance, in dispute resolution: while the Australian Consumer Law provides avenues via state tribunals, these Terms specify arbitration in Switzerland. This potentially can lead to increased complexity and cost for an Australian individual pursuing a minor claim.

  1. Governing Law: Swiss substantive law governs the Terms. This choice is deliberate, leveraging Switzerland's absence from the 'Five Eyes' intelligence alliance.
  2. Mandatory Australian Law: Notwithstanding the above, any mandatory consumer protection provisions under Australian law that cannot be derogated by agreement will apply. This includes statutory guarantees under the Australian Consumer Law.
  3. Conflict Resolution: In a conflict between a non-excludable Australian right and a Swiss contractual term, the Australian right prevails to the extent of the conflict. The rest of the Terms remain in force.

1.2 Practical Application for Australian Users

  • Acceptance Mechanism: Your agreement is logged electronically upon account creation or first use of the downloaded application. This constitutes a "click-wrap" agreement enforceable in Australian courts.
  • Age Restriction: You must be at least 18 years of age. For minors, a parent or guardian must agree to these Terms. This aligns with the age of digital consent considerations under Australian privacy principles.
  • Entity Use: If subscribing on behalf of a Brisbane-based SME or a Sydney university department, you warrant you have binding authority. Liability for breaches extends to the entity.

2. Account, Subscription, and Financial Terms

This clause details the commercial exchange: service for remuneration. It's where the abstract promise of privacy meets the concrete reality of payment processing, subscription management, and the mechanics of our money-back guarantee.

Subscription Tier Billing Cycle Typical AUD Charge (Inc. GST)* Key Service Differential
Basic Monthly A$9.99 Access to servers in 3 countries, standard speeds.
Plus Yearly A$107.88 (equiv. A$8.99/mo) Full global server network, highest speeds, streaming support.
Visionary Yearly A$287.88 (equiv. A$23.99/mo) All Plus features, plus bundled Proton Mail, Calendar, and Drive services.

*Prices are indicative. Current pricing is always displayed on the pricing page. Exchange rate fluctuations may affect final AUD amount charged.

  1. Payment Authority: By providing payment details, you authorise recurring charges for your chosen cycle. Failed payments result in service suspension after a 14-day grace period. We use PCI-DSS compliant third-party processors; your financial data is not stored on our servers.
  2. Refund Mechanism: The 30-day money-back guarantee is a conditional right. It is voided if you exceed 100GB of data usage or are terminated for violating these Terms. Refunds are processed to the original payment method within 10 business days, though Australian bank processing times may add 2-3 days.
  3. Auto-Renewal & Cancellation: Subscriptions auto-renew unless cancelled via your account dashboard before the renewal date. Pro-rata refunds for pre-paid annual plans are not offered, but access continues until the paid period ends. This is a stricter model than some local providers who may offer pro-rata refunds.

2.1 Australian Tax and Billing Specifics

  • GST: For Australian customers, Goods and Services Tax (GST) at 10% is included in the advertised AUD price. Your invoice will itemise the GST component, satisfying ATO record-keeping requirements.
  • Currency Conversion: Charges are ultimately processed in CHF (Swiss Francs) or EUR. The AUD amount shown is an estimate. The final amount on your bank or credit card statement will be in your local currency at your financial institution's exchange rate, potentially leading to a variance of A$1-3.
  • Business Users: Australian businesses can request a formal tax invoice without GST if they provide a valid ABN and declaration they are registered for GST and acquiring the service for business purposes.

3. Acceptable Use and Prohibited Activities

The core of any VPN's terms. This is the delineation between legitimate privacy and security use, and abuse that threatens network integrity, legal compliance, and other users. The policy is necessarily broad to cover evolving threats, but its enforcement is measured and evidence-based.

Prohibited Activity Category Specific Example Rationale & Consequence
Illegal Activity Accessing or distributing material violating Australian law (e.g., child exploitation material under Sched. 1 of the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995). Mandatory reporting to relevant authorities (e.g., Australian Centre to Counter Child Exploitation). Immediate, permanent termination of all services without refund.
Network Abuse Launching DDoS attacks, port flooding, operating open relays, or consuming excessive bandwidth to degrade service for others. Contravenes our no-logs policy principle of fair sharing. Traffic shaping applied initially, followed by termination for repeat offences.
Infringement & Fraud Large-scale copyright piracy (beyond personal use), phishing, credit card fraud, or impersonation. Responds to valid Swiss legal orders. Terminates service and may disclose minimal account data (email, sign-up IP) if compelled by a Swiss court.
Exploitation of Service Reselling VPN access, commercial server hosting, or using the service for botnet command and control. Distorts the service's intended personal-use model. Leads to IP range blacklisting, harming legitimate users. Results in account suspension.

3.1 Comparative Analysis: Enforcement Capability vs. No-Logs Policy

There's a perceived contradiction: how can a strict no-logs VPN enforce an Acceptable Use Policy? The distinction is procedural and technical. We do not monitor or log your browsing activity, content, or destination IP addresses. Enforcement relies on: (1) automated systems analysing aggregate server load and connection patterns to flag network abuse, and (2) external reports (e.g., copyright infringement notices sent to our abuse desk). These reports typically contain a timestamp and an IP address from our server. We can match this IP to an active session from our internal connection logs, which are kept only for the duration of the session and then purged. This limited, transient data allows us to investigate severe abuse without perpetually logging user activity—a stark contrast to providers who retain connection logs for 30+ days or more.

  1. Abuse Response Protocol: Upon receiving a credible abuse report, our legal team assesses its validity under Swiss law. If actionable, we may temporarily preserve relevant session data to identify the account.
  2. User Notification: Except where prohibited by law (e.g., in child exploitation investigations), we will notify the user of the complaint and provide an opportunity to respond before taking action.
  3. Traffic Management: To ensure quality for all, we employ fair-use traffic management on our Australian servers during peak hours. This is not a throttle on speed, but a prioritisation mechanism to prevent network congestion.

3.2 Practical Application: The Grey Areas for Australian Users

  • Copyright & Streaming: Using the VPN to access geo-restricted content on overseas Netflix libraries occupies a legal grey area in Australia. While the Copyright Act is ambiguous, Netflix's Terms of Service prohibit it. We do not actively police this, but it remains a violation of third-party terms. Our service is optimised for such access, but we provide no guarantee of functionality.
  • Penetration Testing & Research: Security researchers in Melbourne or Canberra may wish to use the VPN for ethical security testing. This is permitted only if you have explicit, written authorisation from the target system owner. Unauthorised testing is a criminal offence under the Cybercrime Act 2001 (Cth) and a violation of these Terms.
  • Whistleblowing & Journalism: The service may be used by Australian journalists or whistleblowers for secure communication. We support this legitimate use. However, the user is responsible for ensuring the transmitted material does not itself violate laws (e.g., unlawfully obtained national security information).

4. Disclaimers, Liability, and Indemnification

The legal risk allocation framework. It defines the limits of our responsibility, your assumption of certain risks inherent in using an encrypted intermediary service, and the financial caps on liability. These clauses are standard in the industry but are subject to significant limitation by Australian consumer law.

Disclaimer Type What It Means Non-Excludable Australian Consumer Guarantee
Service "As Is" We do not warrant the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or meet your specific requirements (e.g., constant 4K streaming). The service must be of "acceptable quality." This includes durability, freedom from defects, and fitness for the general purpose of providing a secure VPN connection. Minor, occasional interruptions may be acceptable; systemic failure is not.
Third-Party Content & Access We are not responsible for content you access online, nor do we guarantee access to any specific website or service (e.g., a particular streaming platform). N/A. This is a core limitation of an intermediary service and is generally considered reasonable.
Indirect Damages We are not liable for any indirect, consequential, or incidental damages (e.g., lost business profits, data loss). If a major failure causes you reasonably foreseeable consequential loss, you may be entitled to compensation despite this clause.

4.1 Liability Cap: Swiss Francs vs. Australian Expectations

Our liability is capped at the total fees you paid for the service in the six months preceding the event giving rise to the claim. This cap is denominated in Swiss Francs (CHF). For an Australian user on a A$107.88 annual plan, the maximum liability is roughly CHF 54 (approx. A$89). This seems negligible, especially compared to potential losses from a privacy breach. However, this cap is unenforceable against claims for personal injury or where the Australian Consumer Law applies to a major failure. If our service had a security flaw that leaked a user's real IP address to a malicious actor, leading to harassment, a court may find the liability cap unfair and void for that claim. As Professor Jeannie Paterson from the University of Melbourne has argued, "Exclusion clauses that seek to limit liability for breaches of consumer guarantees... are likely to be considered unfair." This legal principle directly challenges the standard industry liability model.

  1. Your Indemnity Obligation: You agree to indemnify us against claims arising from your breach of these Terms or illegal use of the service. For example, if you commit defamation while using our service and the victim sues us, you must cover our legal costs. This is a powerful deterrent against abuse.
  2. Force Majeure: We are not liable for failures due to events beyond our reasonable control: natural disasters, war, ISP outages in Australia, or government interventions (e.g., a hypothetical blocking order from an Australian regulator).
  3. Essential Security: We disclaim liability for breaches arising from your failure to use reasonable security practices, like sharing your account credentials or using an outdated, vulnerable client.

4.2 Practical Application: Risk Assessment for Australian Entities

  • Business Use: A Perth-based tech startup using the service for employee remote access assumes the risk of service interruption. They should have a fallback solution. The liability cap makes the service unsuitable for protecting extremely high-value, time-sensitive transactions where downtime losses would exceed hundreds of dollars.
  • Data Sensitivity: A medical researcher in Adelaide transmitting sensitive, anonymised datasets should not rely solely on the VPN for security. They must employ additional end-to-end encryption. The VPN protects the network tunnel, not the data payload's inherent security.
  • Legal Reliance: The service should not be presented as a legal shield. It is a technical privacy tool. If an Australian court orders you to disclose information, you must comply. We cannot prevent that, though our Swiss jurisdiction makes foreign legal orders more complex to enforce.

5. Termination and Dispute Resolution

The exit protocol. It defines how the agreement ends, either by your choice or our enforcement action, and the fraught path to resolving disagreements across hemispheres.

Termination Method Process Effect on Data & Refunds
By User (Cancellation) Submit cancellation via account dashboard. Effective at the end of the current billing period. Account data (email, billing info) is retained for legal/tax purposes but disassociated from activity. No pro-rata refund for annual plans.
By Proton VPN (For Cause) Immediate upon detection of a material breach (e.g., prohibited activity). Notification sent to registered email. Immediate service cutoff. All data related to the breach may be preserved for legal proceedings. No refund.
By Proton VPN (For Inactivity) After 12 consecutive months of a paid account having zero bytes of traffic. Account and all associated data may be permanently deleted after 30 days' notice.
  1. Dispute Escalation: You must first attempt to resolve any dispute through our support channel. If unresolved after 60 days, you may initiate binding arbitration under Swiss International Arbitration rules.
  2. Arbitration Venue: The seat of arbitration is Geneva, Switzerland. The language is English. This imposes significant cost and logistical barriers for an individual Australian consumer, a factor courts consider when assessing the fairness of such clauses.
  3. Class Action Waiver: You waive the right to participate in a class action, representative action, or consolidated arbitration. Disputes must be brought individually. This clause is increasingly scrutinised under Australian unfair contract terms law, particularly for consumer-standard-form contracts.

5.1 The Australian Consumer's Dilemma: Arbitration vs. Local Remedies

  • ACL Small Claims: For claims under A$100,000, Australian consumers can apply to state small claims tribunals (e.g., VCAT, NCAT). These are designed to be low-cost and informal. Our arbitration clause attempts to bypass this. Its enforceability is untested in an Australian court for a consumer VPN service.
  • Practical Reality: The cost of flying to Geneva for a A$500 dispute is prohibitive. Frankly, this structure discourages all but the most determined or well-resourced users from pursuing formal action. It functions as a de facto limitation on liability.
  • Regulatory Complaints: Regardless of the arbitration clause, you retain the right to complain to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) or your state's consumer affairs agency about potential unfair practices. Regulatory action is not precluded by these Terms.

6. Modifications and General Provisions

The meta-terms. They govern how the Terms themselves can change, the formalities of notification, and the residual legal principles that apply when specific clauses are severed or found unenforceable.

This section ensures the contract remains a living document, adaptable to legal and technical evolution, while imposing a duty on us to notify users of material changes that could affect their rights.

6.1 Modification of Terms

We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. This is non-negotiable and essential for operational and legal compliance. The method of notification and your continued use as acceptance form the critical consent mechanism for changes.

Change Type Notification Method Your Rights & Actions
Material Change (e.g., increase in price, reduction of core features, change to arbitration clause) Email to registered address at least 30 days prior to change taking effect. Notice will include a summary of changes and a link to the new Terms. You have the right to reject changes by terminating your subscription before the effective date. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.
Non-Material Change (e.g., clarifications, grammatical corrections, updates to prohibited activities list to reflect new abuse patterns) Posted on this Terms of Service page with an updated "Last Modified" date. We may, but are not obligated to, send an email notice. Your continued use constitutes acceptance. You are responsible for periodically reviewing the Terms.

6.1.1 Comparative Analysis: Click-Wrap vs. Browse-Wrap Modifications

Our method—email notification for material changes—constitutes a "click-wrap" style modification process. This is more robust than the "browse-wrap" approach used by some services, where changes are simply posted online with no direct notification. Australian courts, following trends in other jurisdictions, are more likely to enforce changes where the user has received clear notice and a meaningful opportunity to reject them. A browse-wrap modification to a key term like the privacy policy or arbitration clause might be held unenforceable against an existing Australian user who was not made aware of it.

  1. Archival Access: Previous versions of the Terms are archived and available upon request to our legal team. This is crucial for understanding the terms that governed your conduct at a specific historical point.
  2. Governing Version: The Terms effective at the time of a specific event or dispute govern that matter. We cannot retroactively apply new terms to past actions.
  3. Subscription Grandfathering: In rare cases (e.g., a significant price increase for existing users), we may grandfather existing subscribers at their old rate for a limited period. This is a commercial decision, not a legal obligation.

6.1.2 Practical Application: The Duty to Monitor

  • Email Validity: You are responsible for maintaining a valid, operational email address in your account. A notification sent to that address is deemed received. Using a disposable email address for your account is a significant risk.
  • Action Required: If you receive a notice of a material change you disagree with, you must actively cancel your service. Silence is not a rejection; it is construed as acceptance.
  • Business Users: Organisations should designate a point of contact to review such legal notices. A change impacting data handling could have compliance implications (e.g., under the Privacy Act 1988).

6.2 General Provisions

The boilerplate that isn't boilerplate. These clauses handle the mechanics of the agreement's operation: assignment, severability, entire agreement, and force majeure. Their interpretation can be decisive in litigation.

Provision Legal Effect Australian Interpretation Consideration
Entire Agreement These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and the Refund Policy constitute the entire agreement. Supersedes all prior communications. Prevents reliance on pre-contractual statements (e.g., a sales chat promise of "100% uptime"). Subject to the prohibition on misleading conduct under the Australian Consumer Law.
Severability If a court voids one clause, the rest remain in full force. An Australian court may sever an unfair arbitration clause but enforce the rest of the Terms against a consumer.
Assignment We may assign our rights/obligations (e.g., in a corporate sale). You may not assign your account without our consent. Your consumer rights transfer to the new service provider. The ACCC would scrutinise any assignment that materially reduces service quality or increases price for existing users.
No Waiver Our failure to enforce a right is not a waiver of that right. If we don't immediately act against a minor Acceptable Use Policy breach, we can still act later for a repeat or escalated breach.
  1. Notices: Official notices to you are sent via email or in-app message. Notices to us must be sent via registered post to our legal address in Switzerland, as listed on the website.
  2. Third-Party Beneficiaries: There are none. Your family members or heirs have no rights under this agreement, except as required by inheritance law.
  3. Survival: Key clauses survive termination: Intellectual Property, Disclaimers, Liability, Indemnity, and Dispute Resolution. The legal relationship has ended, but its consequences linger.

6.2.1 The Final Word: A Contract for the Informed

  • These Terms are not an obstacle but a framework. They define the boundaries of a tool designed for empowerment. Understanding them is part of using the service responsibly.
  • For the Australian academic, journalist, business professional, or privacy-conscious individual, the key takeaways are jurisdictional (Swiss law), financial (liability caps), and behavioural (strict no-abuse policy).
  • If any part of this document seems contradictory or unfair, it likely is—to someone. The final arbiter, absent agreement, is a Swiss arbitration panel, with the distant shadow of Australian consumer law standing behind it. This is the complex reality of a global privacy service operating in an Australian context.
  • Last Modified: [Current Date].

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