Acceptable Use Policy

This policy sets out the standards that apply to everyone who uses this website. It supplements, and forms part of, the Website Terms of Use.

Effective date: Owner to insert effective date • Document version: Owner to insert version reference • Prepared by: Owner to insert responsible person

Draft for the Firm’s review. This is a professionally structured draft for adaptation by the Firm and its qualified legal advisers. It has not been checked against the law of any specific jurisdiction. Complete every placeholder and confirm every clause before publication.

1. Purpose and scope

1.1 This Acceptable Use Policy (the Policy) explains how you may and may not use the website operated by Owner to insert legal entity name (the Firm) at Owner to insert primary domain (the Website).

1.2 This Policy applies to every person who accesses or uses the Website, whether or not they are a client of the Firm, and whether access is by a person or by an automated system acting on a person’s behalf.

1.3 This Policy forms part of the Website Terms of Use. Words defined in the Website Terms of Use have the same meaning here unless stated otherwise. If there is a conflict between this Policy and the Website Terms of Use in relation to acceptable use, this Policy prevails.

1.4 This Policy governs use of the Website. It does not govern the conduct of a matter under an Engagement Agreement, which is subject to that agreement and to the applicable rules of professional conduct.

2. Definitions and interpretation

2.1 In this Policy:

Prohibited Conduct means any activity described in sections 4 to 14, and any other use of the Website that is unlawful or that this Policy does not permit.
Submission has the meaning given in the Website Terms of Use: any information, message, inquiry, or material you send to the Firm through the Website or an address or link published on it.
Automated Means means any robot, spider, crawler, scraper, script, browser extension, or other software or process that accesses the Website without a person directing each request.
Malware means any code, file, or program designed to disrupt, damage, disable, or gain unauthorised access to a system or data, including viruses, worms, trojans, ransomware, spyware, and logic bombs.

2.2 “Including” and similar words are illustrative and do not limit what precedes them. A reference to a law includes that law as amended and any subordinate legislation made under it.

3. The guiding principle: lawful use only

3.1 You must use the Website only for lawful purposes and only in ways that respect the rights of the Firm and of others.

3.2 You must comply with all laws, regulations, and codes that apply to your use of the Website, in your own location and in any location from or to which you direct your activity.

3.3 If a use is not expressly permitted by this Policy or the Website Terms of Use, you should assume it is not permitted and ask the Firm before proceeding.

4. Prohibited activities

4.1 You must not use the Website to do, attempt, encourage, or assist any of the following:

break any Applicable Law, or infringe or misappropriate any right of the Firm or a third party;
engage in fraud, dishonesty, deception, or misrepresentation of any kind;
facilitate money laundering, terrorist financing, bribery, corruption, tax evasion, or the evasion of sanctions or export controls;
gain unauthorised access to, interfere with, damage, or disrupt any part of the Website or any system or network connected to it;
transmit Malware or any other harmful material;
collect or extract data from the Website by Automated Means except as expressly permitted;
impersonate any person or entity, or misstate your affiliation with any person or entity, including the Firm;
harass, threaten, defame, or abuse any person, or publish material that is obscene or that incites violence or hatred;
misuse personal information, or process the personal information of others without a lawful basis;
use the Website to distribute unsolicited or bulk communications;
circumvent, disable, or interfere with security-related features of the Website or features that restrict use or copying of Content; or
use the Website in any way that could damage the Firm’s reputation, expose the Firm to legal liability, or bring the Firm into disrepute.

4.2 The prohibitions in this Policy apply regardless of whether the conduct causes actual harm and regardless of your intent, although intent may be relevant to the Firm’s response.

5. Fraud, phishing, and impersonation

5.1 You must not use the Website, or any communication that appears to originate from the Website or the Firm, to obtain money, credentials, or personal information by deception.

5.2 You must not create, send, or host content that imitates the Firm, its emblem, its wordmark, its personnel, or its communications in a way that could mislead a recipient about who they are dealing with.

5.3 You must not use the Website to set up or support a scheme that relies on impersonating a lawyer, a court, an authority, or any other trusted party, or that invites recipients to act on a false claim of legal process or legal jeopardy.

5.4 If you receive a communication that claims to be from the Firm and you are unsure whether it is genuine, do not act on it and contact the Firm using the details in section 22.

6. Financial crime and money laundering

6.1 You must not use the Website in connection with the proceeds of crime, the financing of terrorism, or any arrangement designed to conceal the origin, ownership, or control of funds or assets.

6.2 You must not use the Website to seek services that would require the Firm to act for a sanctioned person, to facilitate a transaction that breaches sanctions or export controls, or to structure a matter so as to avoid legal or regulatory requirements.

6.3 The Firm is required to apply client identification, verification, and monitoring measures before and during any engagement. Using the Website to provide false or misleading information for those checks is a serious breach of this Policy and may be a criminal offence. See the Compliance and Law Enforcement Requests Policy.

7. Unauthorised access and system integrity

7.1 You must not access, or try to access, any part of the Website, any account, any server, or any data that you are not authorised to access.

7.2 You must not probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of the Website or its infrastructure, or breach or circumvent any authentication or security measure, unless the Firm has given you specific written permission to do so as part of an authorised security assessment.

7.3 You must not carry out any denial-of-service attack, distributed denial-of-service attack, or any other action that imposes an unreasonable or disproportionate load on the Website or its infrastructure.

7.4 If you discover a security vulnerability, please report it responsibly to the Firm using the details in section 22 and give the Firm a reasonable opportunity to address it before any public disclosure.

8. Malicious content and uploads

8.1 You must not upload, attach, link to, or transmit through the Website any Malware or any file that is corrupt, that contains hidden or deceptive code, or that is designed to cause harm.

8.2 You must not use the Website to store or distribute material that is unlawful to possess or share, or that infringes the rights of others.

8.3 You are responsible for scanning any file you send to the Firm for Malware before sending it. The Firm may quarantine, refuse, or delete any Submission it considers unsafe.

9. Automated access, scraping, and technical limits

9.1 You must not access the Website by Automated Means for the purpose of copying, indexing, monitoring, or extracting Content or personal information, except that a general-purpose search engine may index the Website for search results unless the Website’s published instructions say otherwise.

9.2 You must not frame the Website, embed it in another service, or present its Content as your own or as part of another offering.

9.3 You must not use the Website or its Content to build, populate, or improve any dataset or machine-learning model without the Firm’s prior written consent.

9.4 The Firm may impose and enforce technical limits, including rate limits and IP-based restrictions, and may block access that appears automated or abusive.

10. Misuse of personal information

10.1 You must not use the Website to collect, disclose, or otherwise process the personal information of any individual except where you have a lawful basis to do so and the processing complies with Applicable Law.

10.2 When you include personal information about a third party in a Submission, you confirm that you are entitled to provide it to the Firm for the purpose of your inquiry, and that doing so does not breach any duty you owe to that person.

10.3 You must not use any contact information obtained from the Website to send marketing, to build contact lists, or for any purpose other than communicating with the Firm about a genuine inquiry.

10.4 The Firm’s own handling of personal information is described in the Privacy Policy.

11. Communication standards

11.1 Communications you send to the Firm through the Website must be civil and made in good faith. Abusive, threatening, or harassing communications are not acceptable and may be reported to the appropriate authorities.

11.2 You must not send repetitive, vexatious, or deliberately disruptive communications, or communications intended to overwhelm the Firm’s ability to respond to genuine inquiries.

11.3 You must not send communications that purport to impose deadlines on the Firm, to create legal obligations by silence, or to manufacture a lawyer–client relationship. As explained in the Website Terms of Use, no such relationship arises until the steps in that document are complete.

12. Content standards for submissions

12.1 Every Submission must:

be accurate and not misleading, so far as you are aware;
be your own, or material you are entitled to send;
not be unlawful, defamatory, obscene, or discriminatory;
not infringe any intellectual property right, right of confidence, or privacy right;
not contain Malware; and
comply with this Policy and the Website Terms of Use.

12.2 You are solely responsible for your Submissions and for the consequences of sending them. The Firm is not obliged to publish, store, or act on any Submission.

12.3 Please do not include sensitive or confidential information in an initial Submission. Wait for the Firm to confirm it can consider your matter and to tell you how to share information securely.

13. Intellectual property and infringement

13.1 You must respect the intellectual property rights in the Website and its Content, as described in the Website Terms of Use.

13.2 You must not use the Website to infringe the copyright, trade marks, database rights, or other intellectual property of any person, or to facilitate infringement by others.

13.3 The Firm will act on credible notices of infringement. Notices should be sent to the contact in section 22 and should identify the material, the right concerned, and the basis of the complaint.

14. Representations about the Firm

14.1 You must not state or imply that you are instructed by, act for, represent, partner with, or are endorsed by the Firm unless that is true and the Firm has confirmed it in writing.

14.2 You must not use the Firm’s emblem, wordmark, or name in domain names, social-media handles, advertising, or metadata in a way that suggests an association that does not exist.

14.3 You must not present the Firm’s decorative emblem as an official seal, an accreditation, or a certification.

15. Reporting misuse

15.1 If you become aware of any use of the Website that breaches this Policy, please report it to the Firm using the details in section 22, with enough information for the Firm to investigate.

15.2 The Firm values good-faith reports and will not take action against a person merely for making one. This does not protect conduct that is itself a breach of this Policy or of Applicable Law.

16. Monitoring

16.1 The Firm does not routinely monitor the content of communications, and the Website is built to operate without analytics or tracking by default.

16.2 The Firm may, to the extent permitted by Applicable Law, review server logs and Submissions where it has a legitimate reason to do so, including investigating a suspected breach of this Policy, protecting the security of the Website, responding to a lawful request, or complying with a legal obligation.

16.3 Any monitoring will be proportionate and consistent with the Privacy Policy and the Firm’s duties of confidentiality and privilege.

17. Enforcement and consequences of breach

17.1 If the Firm reasonably considers that you have breached this Policy, it may take any action it considers appropriate and proportionate, including:

issuing a warning;
removing, withholding, or refusing to act on a Submission;
restricting, suspending, or terminating your access to the Website;
blocking IP addresses or devices;
preserving evidence relevant to the breach;
disclosing information to, and cooperating with, law enforcement or a regulator where legally required or permitted; and
taking legal action, including seeking an injunction or damages.

17.2 The Firm will act reasonably in choosing a response and, where practicable and lawful, will tell you what rule you are said to have broken and give you an opportunity to respond. Urgent action may be taken first where necessary to protect the Website, the Firm, or others.

17.3 The Firm’s rights under this section are in addition to any other rights it has under the Website Terms of Use or Applicable Law.

18. Effect on existing representation

18.1 A breach of this Policy by a person who is also a client does not, by itself, end that client’s representation.

18.2 Whether the Firm may cease to act for a client is governed by the Engagement Agreement, the applicable rules of professional conduct, and any relevant court requirements, as described in section 17 of the Website Terms of Use. The Firm will not withdraw from a representation in a way that professional obligations prohibit.

19. Cooperation with authorities

19.1 Where the Firm is legally compelled to do so, it will cooperate with law enforcement and regulators in relation to misuse of the Website.

19.2 In doing so, the Firm will follow the Compliance and Law Enforcement Requests Policy, including verifying the authority behind a request, reviewing its scope, disclosing only what is legally required, and preserving privileged and legally protected client information and any mandatory reporting obligations.

20. Complaints and non-waivable rights

20.1 If you consider that the Firm has applied this Policy unfairly, you may complain using the details in section 22. The Firm will review your complaint and respond within a reasonable time.

20.2 Nothing in this Policy removes any right you have that cannot be waived under Applicable Law, including non-waivable consumer rights and any right to refer a matter to a court or competent authority.

21. Changes to this policy

21.1 The Firm may update this Policy from time to time. The current version is the one published on the Website, with the effective date shown at the top.

21.2 Continued use of the Website after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Policy.

22. How to contact us

22.1 To report misuse, respond to an enforcement decision, or ask a question about this Policy, contact the Firm at inquiries@ioannadigital.example (Owner to confirm the monitored contact address, and consider a dedicated abuse address).