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Terms of Use
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Preliminary Remarks

Steganos Online Shield is a Virtual Private Network service (hereafter referred to as 'service' or 'VPN service'), which allows Internet traffic by means of a computer (so called 'VPN server') to be redirected to different regions. Through this, the user can conceal their IP address from media services and also encrypt their data traffic. The service is made possible by a piece of software (hereafter referred to as 'software' or 'product'), that the user installs on their computer. The service is offered by Steganos Software GmbH, Storkower Str. 158, 10407 Berlin, Germany (hereafter referred to as "Steganos"). By using Steganos Online Shield, you agree to the following terms and conditions:

§ 1 Scope of application

Steganos provides the service exclusively on the terms set out in this document. You must agree to these terms in order to use the service, regardless of whether you are using it free of charge or in exchange for a fee.
These these terms only apply when the user uses the service offered by Steganos or the product offered by Steganos. In case of discrepancies, individually reached agreements have priority as long as they were concluded in writing or are confirmed by Steganos.

§ 2 Services

(1) Steganos Online Shield makes Internet usage possible by mean of the VPN server provided by Steganos, subject to particular protocols and restrictions on data volume and/or bandwidth.
(2) Unused data volumes are not carried over to the next month, regardless of whether the use of the service is free or paid.
(3) Steganos reserves the right to perform maintenance work on the system. As far as possible, Steganos will give notice of any failures of the system within a reasonable amount of time.
(4) Steganos reserves the right to restrict the scope of freely available services, or to convert them into paid services, to discontinue them, or to offer additional services that are subject to charge.
(5) The usage rights and restriction of the user in reference to the software have been set in accordance with §§ 69a et seq of the German Copyright Act (Gesetz über Urheberrecht und verwandte Schutzrechte, or UrhG).

§ 3 Protection of Privacy and Data Protection

The terms of use relating to data protection can be found in our separate data protection terms.

§ 4 Your obligations as a user

(1) Steganos Online Shield may only be used when no valid laws or rules are violated in doing so, and by those who recognize these terms of use and agree to uphold them.
(2) If the user perpetrates violations against their obligations under these terms, they are required to reimburse Steganos any expenses Steganos incurs as a result. Furthermore, they release Steganos from any liability towards third parties that arises due to their violation of the terms of use. Steganos reserves the right, where appropriate, to mount a legal defense, and the user is liable for Steganos' reasonable legal expenses in this event. The right of Steganos to restrict the availability of the service or to cancellation of the service without prior notice remains intact.
(3) The user may not assign their rights and obligations under this contract to any third party.

§ 5 Prohibited use

(1) You are forbidden to use Steganos Online Shield in a manner that endangers, offends, or damages another user, a third party, and/or an employee of Steganos and its subsidiaries or partners or that could endanger the intellectual property rights of a third party.
(2) In particular, you are forbidden to use Steganos Online Shield for the following purposes:
a) Sending undesired data, phising, and similar activities
The sending of junk mail, spam, chain letters, data not desired by the recipient, spimming, or spamming, or similar activities;
computer espionage or otherwise unpermitted or unfair distribution of data;
phishing and similar activities;
the electronic or other collection of user IDs or Email addresses of users, particularly for the sending of unsolicited Email, as well as unauthorized framing or linking.
b) Violation of the intellectual property rights of third parties and contractual conditions.
Transfer of content or activities, that damage the intellectual property rights of third parties (initiator and design patents, brands, symbols, names and business rights, patents, registered designs, etc.) e.g. illegal or unauthorized copies of a copyright-protected work of another person, as well as all content over which the respective user is not the copyright holder or those which they do not have permission to use. Copyright holders who believe their works have been dowloaded via Steganos Online Shield can contact Steganos at copyright@steganos.com for assistance in preventing further unauthorized access to their works.
c) Automization, disturbances of Steganos Online Shield, account abuse.
All automated usage of the system, e.g. the creation of user account or sending or receiving data with the help of scripts;
the disturbance, interruption, or overuse of Steganos Online Shield;
the attempt to masquerade as another user or person;
selling or other transfer or alienation of your own user account;
the usage of the Steganos Online Shield server interfaces through software other than that which has been provided by Steganos.
d) Electronic attack through crackers, crawlers, etc.
Electronic attacks of any type on the system, the database, or the network of Steganos Online Shield or of individual users. Every electronic attack will lead to an immediate expulsion of the user from the service and will result in prosecution. Electronic attacks include, but are not limited to:
attempts to overcome, disable, or bypass the security barriers of Steganos Online Shield.
implementation of computer programs that automatically read data such e.g. crawlers (akaspider or robots, or bots);
the deliberate usage and/or distribution of viruses, worms, Trojan horses;
utilization of links, programs or other processes, that could or should damage the platform, database, or the network of Steganos Online Shield or individual users.
brute force attacks;
spamming.
e) (other) Violations of laws or rules
promotion of illegal activities or behaviors;
illegal, criminal activities, or plans; as well as support, incitement, instruction, or assistance of such activities, including, but not limited to, the production or the sale of illegal weapons, the violation of data protection conditions, child pornography, fraud, transmission of obscene content, drug dealing, gambling, harassment, stalking, spamming, spimming, development and distribution of computer viruses and other damaging data, copyright violations, patent violations;
theft of company secrets;
the usage of Steganos Online Shield in any way that violates valid laws or regulations.
(3) Every user is bound by these user conditions, the laws, and other regulations, and is responsible for their upkeep. Steganos takes no responsibility for the content and activities of the user. Steganos will fully cooperate with public and private criminal and legal authorities in cases of rights violations by the users to the extent required by law and according to their own discretion . Steganos reserves the explicit right to initiate legal proceedings itself.
(4) Steganos can restrict the access to copyright owners' content where the owner's rights have been violated by users of Steganos Online Shield and to the content of owners whose rights have been violated by users of Steganos Online Shield or who can demonstrate to Steganos that they are content owners and have suffered harm as a result of Steganos Online Shield users.
(5) Steganos takes no responsibility or liability for an abusive usage of Steganos Online Shield. Steganos cannot supervise the content and activities of Steganos Online Shield to prevent abuse. Even when Steganos decides to restrict a user or access to certain contents because of concrete report of illegal or prohibited behavior, Steganos takes neither responsibility for the content or activity nor for the termination of the abusive usage.

§ 6 Restriction

(1) In cases of investigation by government authorities or of violation of these terms of use, Steganos is justified in restricting the user temporarily, partially (meaning e.g. restricting access to only certain content), or entirely. The restriction is, in so far as possible, done to prevent the further use of the service to infringe others' rights.
(2) The customer is not entitled to a refund if his access to the service is restricted under § 6.1 above.

§ 7 Delivery and Risk of Loss

(1) With the beginning of transport, the risk of harm or loss passes to the customer. In cases of transport damages, Steganos cedes their waiver of any claims of compensation to the customer.
(2) Steganos only has documentation that is readable by machine and easy to deliver.

§ 8 Warranty and Liability

(1) Steganos points out that the security of the user in relation to the implementation of Steganos Online Shield requires further precautions, such as a secure configuration of the user's web browser and operating system.
(2) Steganos makes no guarantee in reference to the service or software.
(3) Steganos is not liable for the loss of data.
(4) Steganos is particularly not responsible for damages that come about through the theft of identity or IP address of the user, or the failure of particular VPN servers.
(5) Steganos is also not liable for the availability of certain VPN servers in the Steganos Online Shield network.
(6) Steganos is liable for the failure of assured attributes for intent and gross negligence as well as in the injury of its main obligations under these terms.
(7) The liability of Steganos to the customer is limited to 1,500 EUR.
(8) Furthermore Steganos is liable only to the extent that the damages that were foreseeable at a particular time and to the typically foreseeable extent.
(9) The existence of mistakes is only with respect to the software specifications and descriptions of Steganos. Special requirements, wishes, and presentations of the customer will only be a part of the contract when they are explicitly arranged in writing.
(10) Steganos is justified in updating and improving the warranty, and exchanging the the software or delivery of updates. The customer must be prepared to accept a temporary solution in some cases until regular updates can be restored and errors are eliminated. Should Steganos not be in a position to consider a temporary solution within an appropriate timeframe to eliminate the error through improvements, exchange, or delivery of an update, the customer is entitled to a price reduction or a refund. In the case of three error elimination attempts within a timeframe of three months with respect to the same defect, it is not appropriate or reasonable, barring exceptional circumstances, to attempt another repair procedure.
(11) Due to the known defectiveness of the Windows operating system as well as the variety of hardware upon which it runs, the user is reminded that the appearance of irregularities is not necessarily due to defects in the software. The rules of evidence apply, and the customer must prove that a defect is based on errors in the software and was present when risk passed to him. This applies particularly if the customer used the software improperly, in an unsuitable installation environment, in contravention of recommendations of the appropriate installation environment, exposed it to improper external actions, or made unauthorized changes to the software or hardware or operating system programs.
(12) Given the present state of technology, it is not possible to create software in a way in which it would be able to operate without errors in all possible usages and combinations. Steganos therefore, because of the known complexity of the software, makes no assurance that the software is in particular cases appropriate for a particular purpose or that a compatibility exists between software or hardware products, or otherwise that an absolute disturbance free implementation is possible.
(13) In the case of the cancellation of the contract, the customer has to hand over or destroy all authorized or unauthorized finished copies of the software and documentation and affirm to Steganos in lieu of oath, to hand over all copies or to destroy them.
(14) The limitation period for any claims by the customer to a guarantee or damages is six months from the beginning of use of the service.
(15) Tese liability restrictions are not valid if Steganos is liable under product liability laws.
(16) Steganos reserves the right to further develop its service at any time without it resulting in a claim to damages on the part of the customer.

§ 9 Payment Conditions

(1) The price and payment deadline for the usage of Steganos Online Shield are set out according to the plan that has been selected by the customer ("account type").
(2) In the case of a late payment on the part of the customer, Steganos may calculate an interest in the amount of 3% above the applicalbe discount rate set by the Deutsche Bundesbank. The customer has to give evidence that no loss occurred for Steganos or only very little damage.
(3) The customer is entitled to claims only when their counter claims are uncontested or legally valid. Rights of retention of the customers are excluded in so far as they do not rest on the same contractual relationship.
(4) Steganos Online Shield offers the user the possibility to increase the data volume of their account against a fee. Through this the user account is bumped up to a premium account and the restriction of a free account as described will no longer apply.
(5) The E-Commerce provider that was contracted by Steganos accepts credit cards and charges the credit card of the user according to the selected premium account type automatically monthly or yearly. When a fee is not paid on time or Steganos cannot perform the transaction with the given credit card information, Steganos reserves the right to restrict access to the Steganos Online Shield service. When the user does not settle their outstanding fees with Steganos within five days, and Steganos has informed them of the outstanding invoice, Steganos reserves the right to downgrade the user's account from an Steganos Online Shield Premium Account to a free account (that includes the described restrictions).

§ 10 Invoicing

(1) The fees for a premium account will be billed from the date at which the user has ordered a premium account and will charged thereafter either monthly or yearly until the customer cancels their account. Through a click on "get more storage space..." inside the software, the start date of the billing period can be seen. The E-commerce supplier that Steganos has contracted charges the user's credit card automatically monthly and yearly on the calendar day that corresponds to the starting date of the premium account. If the premium account was opened on a day that does not exist in a certain year, the E-commerce supplier that Steganos has contracted charges users credit card on the last day of such a month or year. When the premium account of a user, for instance, was created on January 31, the next billing date is February 28. The E-commerce supplier that Steganos has contracted can also authorize the credit card of the user in regular periods in order to secure in advance the booking of account fees or any connected fees. The fees cannot be reimbursed. There is no reimbursement or credit for a time period that has only been partially used.
(2) Steganos can change fees and costs or add new fees or costs from time to time. The customer will however be informed of this in advance per email.
(3) When the customer wants to use another credit card, or if there is a change in the card's validity or expiration date, they can change this information on the account page, where they can see information about their user account at Steganos' E-commerce supplier. The account credentials necessary for this were received by the customer by email during the ordering process for premium access. When the credit card of the customer expires soon and the customer continues to use Steganos Online Shield, their usage represents the approval for Steganos' E-commerce supplier to continue to charge the credit card, and the customer is liable for possible amounts that are not deductible. The customer is responsible for keeping their contact and payment information up to date.

§ 11 Cancelation or Termination of the Account and Retractions

(1) The Steganos Online Shield premium account remains valid until the customer cancels it or Steganos deletes it. The customer must cancel their premium account prior to the completion of the monthly or yearly billing period in order to prevent their card from being charged with the next monthly or yearly fee. Steganos' E-commerce supplier charges the monthly or yearly fees for the premium account to the credit card that the customer entered when they ordered the premium access (or the credit card that the customer entered when they changed their account information).
(2) Steganos Online Shield Premium accounts are paid for in advance The account fees cannot be retroactively paid. STEGANOS DOES NOT REIMBURSE FEES OR GIVE CREDIT FOR PARTIALLY USED MONTHS OR YEARS. The customer can cancel their Steganos Online Shield Premium account at any time. Such a cancelation is applied immediately. The customer can cancel the premium account from the software. When the customer cancels their premium account, they must notice that there will be no refund for the last or previously charged monthly fee. By registering for an Steganos Online Shield Premium account and entering payment information, the customer consents to the payment conditions.
(3) An exception to § 11(2) exists when the law on distance selling to consumers applies: the customer can revoke their contract in writing (e.g. via letter or email) within two weeks without providing reasons. The deadline begins at the earliest with receipt of this information and at the latest with the day of the activation of a premium account with Steganos Online Shield. Your right to cancellation is ensured if your revocation takes place within the time limit. The cancelation should be directed to Steganos Software GmbH, Storkower Str. 158, 10407 Berlin, Germany, or via email to support@steganos.com or at the E-commerce supplier contracted by Steganos.
(4) In the case of an effective cancelation, the received services should be returned on both sides. If the user is not able to return the service completely or partially, or only in bad condition to Steganos, they must provide reimbursement to Steganos where applicable. In particular they must reimburse Steganos in accordance with the price of the presently used data volume in relation to the selected tariff.
(5) The cancellation right of the user prematurely expires when the contract has been fulfilled from both sides at the explicit request of the customer, before they have exercised their right to cancellation.
(6) Cancellation must always be done in writing. When the written form is not possible, because the cancelled party's address is not known to the other party, the text form suffices (e.g. email). Regardless of a cancellation of the contract, the clauses remain preserved with respect to the terms of use, the prices, payments, warranty, and liability restrictions.

§ 12 Free Accounts

With a free Steganos Online Shield-account, a certain data volume can be used per month free of charge. The amount of the volume can be seen in the service description at www.steganos.com. Steganos Online Shield reserves the right to cancel free accounts at any time with or without prior notification.

§ 13 Other General Business Conditions

(1) In so far as the software contains copyrighted material from other producers, and these producers require the arrangement of their own regulations, in particular their own terms of use, these regulations of the software are attached and a contract will simultaneously be arranged between Steganos and the customer in favor of the producer that was named in every regulation. The software of the other producer enjoys priority with respect to every regulation. With respect to the rights position of Steganos, every regulation is valid but subject to these general terms of use.
(2) Should conditions of another regulation be ineffective, the priorities stated in point § 13(1) become valid, such that the corresponding provisions of the general terms of use apply instead.

§ 14 Regulations for Users of the Beta Version of the Software.

(1) A beta version is an unfinished version of a piece of software. Insofar as the user decides to use the beta version of the product, they are acknowledging that the product can fundamentally change up until the final version is released. Beta versions should not be installed onto production systems that are necessary for everyday work. They can cause data loss and other problems and disturbances.
(2) Within the beta test, data volume granted for free for testing purposes cannot serve as the basis of a future claim to such data volumes or to the complete availability of the data volume granted during the beta test.
(3) By participating in a beta test the user requires no rights to discounts or free services.
(4) For the duration of the test period, the user acquires the right to use the software on one computer. No other usage rights are transferred. The purpose of the transfer of rights is to allow the user to test the program for a limited period of time.
(5) The user is not authorized without previous written permission from Steganos to transfer the usage rights to a third party or to allow a corresponding third party usage rights.
(6) The user obligates themselves never to make the software and documentation available to third parties without explicit written permission from Steganos, neither in the original nor in the form of partial or complete copies.
(7) The time limitation of the usage rights is made apparent in the offer. After the completion of this time, the user is obligated to delete the beta version and all copies. The user has then at this point given up all further usage rights to the software.
(8) Steganos can cancel the usage rights at any time or prior to the completion of the period that was stated in the offer.

§ 15 Place of Fulfillment and Choice of law

(1) The exclusive forum of legal action for all disputes regarding this contract is Berlin, Germany.
(2) For legal relationships between Steganos and the customer, the law of the Federal Republic of Germany applies, this is also the case when the user is located abroad.

§ 16 Written Form

(1) Changes to the business conditions must be made in writing.
(2) Oral subsidiary agreements are not valid.

§ 17 Final Provisions and Severability Clause

(1) The terms of use of the customer are not valid.
(2) Should a term in these conditions be or become invalid, ineffective or inexecutable, the parties undertake to replace it with a condition which, insofar as is possible, comes closest in legal terms to the economic purpose of the agreement. The parties agree that an ineffective or unworkable provision is to be replaced with an effective and workable provision the effects of which come closest to the association's purpose and to the purpose of the ineffective or unworkable provisions of the contractual partners. The existing conditions are correspondingly valid in the case that the contract proves to be incomplete. § 139 of the German Civil Code (BGB) is excluded.
(3) German law applies . Place of fulfillment and forum for legal disputes is Berlin unless a special forum (e.g. for enforcement proceedings) is designated.

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Privacy Policy
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Preliminary Remarks

Steganos Online Shield is a Virtual-Private-Network-Service (hereafter: service of VPN-Service), that can redirect the internet traffic of computer (so called VPN-Server) into different regions. Through this, the user can conceal their IP address from media services and encrypt their data traffic. The service is made possible by a piece of software (hereafter: software or product), that the user installs on their computer. The service is offered by Steganos Software GmbH, Storkower Str. 158, 10407 Berlin, (hereafter "Steganos"). The following data protection conditions are valid for the usage of Steganos Online Shield, the components of the general terms and conditions (GTC) are:

§ 1 No Saving of Data in the Usage of the VPN Server

The Steganos Online Shield-Service saves neither the addresses nor contents that the user calls up, nor the IP addresses that Steganos Online Shield has allocated, nor their own IP address that they use on Steganos Online Shield. It is not possible for Steganos to determine what contents Steganos Online Shield calls up. Neither the IP addresses of the users nor the IP addresses of the called server is saved.

§ 2 Pseudonymous User ID Instead of Email Address

The free usage of Steganos Online Shield does not require the entry of personal data (e.g. Email address). Steganos Online Shield records for the purposes of billing and the local distribution, which data volume (thus only the amount of transferred data, however not addresses or content) belongs to which pseudonym. The pseudonymous user ID is derived from the public key of the MAC address of the computer, that Steganos Online Shield thereby uses, and it is not traceable to a certain computer or user.

§ 3 Decoupling of the Payment Information from the Pseudonymous User ID

In booking a premium account through the Ecommerce supplier of Steganos, personal data is required. THE E-COMMERCE-SUPPLIER RECIEVES , EXACLTY LIKE STEGANOS, AT NO POINT ACCESS TO THE ADDRESSES OR CONTENTS THAT THE USER HAS CALLED UP, IN THE CASE THAT THESE WERE DIRECTED OVER A STEGANOS ONLINE SHIELD-VPN-SERVER.

§ 4 Acquisition and Usage of Data by Steganos

(1) The Email address that was provided by the user in the context of free usage will only be used to provide the offers/services described (see AGB). Steganos uses especially the Email address of the user, in order to send the user updates, newsletters, or other current information. The user can cancel the delivery of the newsletter.
(2) Steganos would like to offer the user the best possible service. Therefore the software asks the customer under certain conditions if their email can be sent to Steganos, in order to inform them in the future of new products or special offers. The subscription is optional and happens only with the explicit consent of the customer. In order to save the user from having to enter their address, Steganos-Software tries to determine the Email of the customer under certain conditions. If the customer agrees to the determination of their email address and decides later against a further reference with Steganos information via Email, they can unsubscribe to these emails at anytime without having to provide a reason.
(3) Steganos records certain information of the user on the website www.steganos.com automatically, that cannot be assigned exclusively to IP addresses or browser types. THIS IS NOT THE CASE FOR THE USAGE OF THE STEGANOS ONLINE SHIELD-VPN-SERVER THAT SAVES NO TYPE OF DATA.

§ 5 Forwarding Data to Third Parties

Steganos does not provide personal information to third parties, unless the user has explicitly and willingly agreed to do so, or there is a legal obligation to do so. One exception is certain carefully selected and technical services that perform certain tasks for us. These are tasks such as sending our newsletter (data processing) or the collection and processing of anonymous data for the use behavior or the acquisition of information in relation to software error in order to improve the Steganos Online Shield-website. NEITHER STEGANOS NOR THE CONTRACTED DATA PROCESSOR GETS ACCESS TO THE ADDRESSES OR CONTENTS THAT HAVE BEEN CALLED BY THE USER, SO LONG AS THEY HAVE BEEN DIRECTED OVER THE STEGANOS ONLINE SHIELD-VPN-SERVER.

§ 6 Usage of Cookies

Cookies are small data, that can be "placed" from a server onto the users computer (e.g. the server of the Steganos Online Shield-website). This data can contain personal information such as personal setting, in order to improve the user of the internet offer. The Steganos Online Shield website uses cookies to record location information in order to adjust the representation of websites to the user profile. Most browsers are set up to automatically accept cookies. Every user can configure their browser so that all or certain cookies are accepted or rejected or that the acceptance of cookies requires a request for permission. You can figure out how this works from the documentation of the respective browser or from the "help" menu. To use Steganos Online Shield the acceptance of cookies is not necessary. The usage of cookies through inserts and other third parties on Steganos Online Shield underlies the data protection guidelines of the inserts or rather third parties; the data protection guidelines of Steganos Online Shield find so far no usage.

§ 7 Support

When the user uses our support, their request together with the entered data is saved in a data bank. This information is used exclusively by our support team, in order to address questions. The recorded data is pulled up within Steganos also to make statistical evaluations. Neither raw data, nor the results of the evaluation will be made available to third parties.

§ 8 Access to the Steganos Online Shield-VPN-Server and the Webserver

We save user data on especially protected servers. The access is only made available to a small number of people.

§ 9 Personalized Advertising

The user is in agreement that Steganos user data itself transferred in anonymous forms or pseudonymous forms, in order present, or have presented, directed personalized advertising and/or special offers and services over the Steganos Online Shield-service. NEITHER STEGANOS NOR THE CONTRACTED DATA PROCESSOR GETS ACCESS TO THE ADDRESSES OR CONTENTS THAT HAVE BEEN CALLED BY THE USER, SO LONG AS THEY HAVE BEEN DIRECTED OVER THE STEGANOS ONLINE SHIELD-VPN-SERVER.

§ 10 Google Analytics

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analysis service of Google Inc. (“Google“) Google Analytics uses so called "cookies", text files, that are save on your computer and make possible the analysis of the usage of the website. The information produced by the cookie about your use of this website (including your IP address) is transferred to a Google server in the United States and stored there. Google takes this information in order to evaluate your usage of the website, generate reports about website activity for the operators of websites and in order to provide further services related to website usage and Internet usage. Google may also provide this information to outside parties if this is legally mandated or if such parties process this information for Google. Google will no circumstances bring your IP address into contact with other data from Google. You may prevent the installation of cookies by making appropriate settings in your browser software; however, should you do so, you will not be able to use all of the functions of this website. Through the use of this website, you express your consent to the processing of data collected by Google about you in the manner described above and for the purposes previously mentioned.
GOOGLE HAS NO ACCESS TO OUR USERS CALLED UP ADDRESSES OR CONTENTS, IN THE CASE THAT THESE WERE DIRECTED OVER AN STEGANOS ONLINE SHIELD-VPN-SERVER.

§ 11 Changes and Guidelines

Steganos reserves the right to change data protection guidelines at anytime under the data protection guideline rules.

§ 12 Questions and Comments

When you have questions, comments, or suggestions regarding the protection of your data, send us an Email to privacy@steganos.com.