Rules for the provision of the message routing service to the WhatsApp messenger

to edna Terms

Last Updated: 06.12.2022

1. Terms and definitions

  • Service (Services) shall mean providing the Customer with the opportunity to exchange Messages with Users in the WhatsApp Messenger;
  • Reporting period shall mean 1 (one) calendar month;
  • User shall mean an individual using the Messenger, having an account created at the time of registration in the Messenger and allowing to identify each User. The User has duly consented to receive Messages from the Customer or from the Customer’s Customer on a mobile phone, tablet or other device on which the WhatsApp Application is installed;
  • Message shall mean electronic messages transmitted to Users by the Customer on its own behalf (outgoing messages) and from Users to the Customer (incoming messages) through the functionality of the Software. The Customer initiates the distribution of messages and determines their content, and if the User sends a message to the Customer’s address, the User is the initiator of the distribution. The maximum length of one Message is 1000 (one thousand) characters;
  • WhatsApp Service Provider (Service Provider) shall mean Meta Platforms Inc, California and its affiliates, which provides WhatsApp Messenger Messaging;
  • WhatsApp shall mean a hardware and software complex of Meta Platforms Inc. and its affiliates, which provides the ability to send Messages to Users on devices on which the Messenger is installed;
  • Messenger shall mean a mobile application or web service for instant messaging, owned by a third party with whom the Contractor has entered into an agreement to send messages from the Customer, and available to Users through a mobile application, website and other resources;
  • SPAM shall mean a message received from the Customer, sent to a person without his prior consent, recognized by the User as SPAM and blocked by him, as well as information that is not related to the subject of the agreement to which these Rules are an integral part;
  • Template message shall mean a standard Message formed in accordance with pre-created Templates;
  • Templates shall mean formats pre-created in accordance with the company’s policy for standard messages that the company plans to send to Users;
  • Business Policy shall mean the current terms and conditions and/or policies that apply to each User or entity registered with WhatsApp Messenger, available at the following links:
    https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/business-solution-terms
    https://www.whatsapp.com/legal/business-terms-for-service-providers/
    https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/guides
    https://www.whatsapp.com/policies/business-policy
  • Prohibited Messages shall mean Messages that (a) infringe or violate the intellectual property rights of any third party; (b) violate any law or regulation; (c) are defamatory, obscene, harmful to minors or child pornography; or (d) contain, at the date of the Rules, any commonly known viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancel bots or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, detrimentally interfere with, surreptitiously intercept or expropriate any system, data or personal information.
  • Service provision period shall mean the period of time during which the Contractor provides the Customer with Services on the terms of these Rules.

Unless otherwise provided by these Rules, Service provision period begins from the date specified in the notification about connecting the Customer’s account/message routing service to the WhatsApp messenger.

Other terms used in these Rules are determined in accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Cyprus.

2. Cost of Services and payment procedure

2.1. The cost of Services for the Reporting period is calculated in accordance with the volume of Services and the Tariffs, which are set by the Contractor and set in the Customer’s Dashboard.

2.2. Payment is made in the manner prescribed by the Terms. The cost of the Services, is set in USD/EUR.

2.3. Billing/tariffing of Services is carried out separately for each account allocated to the Customer.

3. Messages Forming

3.1. The provision of the Service is carried out on the basis of the Terms concluded between the Customer and the Contractor.

3.2. Not later than 20 (twenty) business days before the planned date of the start of using the Service, the Customer provides the Contractor with a letter filled out in the prescribed form.

3.3. After successful registration of the Customer’s account in WhatsApp no ​​later than 10 (Ten) business days before the planned date for sending Templated Messages to Users, the Customer provides the Contractor with a letter filled in according to the approved form.

If the Message Templates do not comply with the requirements of the law and the terms of these Rules, the Contractor returns the Templates for revision, indicating the reasons for the return.

3.4. When using the Service, the Customer independently, without the participation of the Contractor, determines the content of Templated messages, determines the list of Users to whom they will be sent and their telephone numbers.

3.5. The maximum length of one Templated Message cannot exceed 1000 (one thousand) characters.

3.6. Detailed rules for generating Messages are described in the specifications of the interaction interfaces, which can be provided to the Customer upon request.

4. Messages forwarding

4.1. To transfer Messages to the Contractor, the Customer uses the Dashboard or integration tools provided in the form of API.

4.2. The communication channel between the Customer and the Contractor is provided via the Internet.

4.3. To exchange Messages with Users of the Customer, it provides the Contractor with access to the Dashboard and / or parameters for connecting via the API.

4.4. Types of Messages that are available for sending to Users:

  • the first Message sent to the User must be a Templated Message;
  • in case of receiving a Message from the User, the Customer has the opportunity within 24 hours after receiving such a Message to send to the User any number of Messages that may not be Templated.

4.5. The allowed number of Messages sent to one User within 24 hours may be limited on the side of the Service Provider, but not determined in advance.

4.6. The allowed number of sent Template Messages per day is subject to the rules of the WhatsApp Service Provider. The Provider’s rules can be found at:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/whatsapp/api/rate-limits/#capacity

4.7. When transferring the Message received from the Customer to the Service Provider, its integrity and content must be preserved.

4.8. The Contractor provides the Customer with reports on delivered and undelivered Messages in real time via the Internet using an agreed protocol.

5. Mode of provision of the Service

5.1. The Service is provided around the clock every day (24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year).

5.2. The Contractor is not responsible for interruptions in the provision of the Service that occurred as a result of power supply problems, fires, acts of terrorism and other force majeure circumstances, as well as a result of circumstances arising from the fault of Internet service providers, the Service Provider.

5.3. The Contractor has the right to temporarily suspend the provision of the Service for technical work with the Software, subject to informing the Customer at least 1 (One) calendar day before the date of their commencement.

6. Guarantees of the Customer

There is a clear understanding between the Parties that the Services are provided subject to the provision by the Customer of the following warranties:

  • The Customer guarantees compliance with the Rules for the provision of Services, and also undertakes to provide the Contractor with reasoned requested copies of documents confirming the Customer’s right in accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Cyprus to use the Services in a timely manner and in full;
  • The Customer undertakes not to use the Services to transmit or receive materials of a rude, offensive, humiliating or threatening nature, in violation of copyright and other rights, or materials that are contrary to applicable Cyprus or international law;
  • The Customer undertakes not to use the Services to disseminate unnecessary information to the recipient, not requested by the latter, information of the SPAM type;
  • The Customer undertakes not to send Messages containing information that directly or indirectly compromises the Contractor, and the Messages should not contain information that can compete in terms of price or consumer properties with the services provided by the Contractor.

Sending information to recipients who have previously expressed a clear unwillingness to receive this information is a gross violation of the Rules for the provision of Services and entails the responsibility of the Customer, in accordance with the conditions of the Terms, up to the suspension of the provision of Services and the payment of penalties established by the Terms.

7. Service usage

7.1.      SPAM, Abusive or inappropriate content

7.1.1.   Customer shall not under any circumstances, knowingly and willfully, transmit any Message via the Contractor which is (a) unsolicited, for example where the recipient has not explicitly requested the message or where the message or originator is as such that the sender cannot be easily identified; or (b) contains content that includes spyware, viruses, worms, Trojan horses, adware or other malware, or exposes the recipient to such programs in an indirect way; or (c) contains content deemed illegal by Cyprus law and/or the law of the recipient’s country; or (d) is offensive, abusive, defamatory, threatening, indecent, menacing, misleading or discriminatory, or otherwise intended to cause distress, annoyance, inconvenience, worry or upset to the recipient; or (e) contains copyright works, trademarks or other intellectual property without the written permission of the rights holder; or (f) may bring the name of the Contractor into disrepute.

7.1.2. If Customer discovers that Prohibited Messages, as described above, have been submitted to the Contractor then Customer shall, to the best of its abilities, notify the Contractor at the earliest possible opportunity and no later than 24 hours after discovery of the incident. If the Contractor discovers that Customer has transmitted Prohibited Messages, then the Contractor shall, to the best of its abilities, notify Customer at the earliest possible opportunity and no later than 24 hours after the discovery of the incident.

7.1.3. As a result of Prohibited Messages (as may be reasonably determined by the Contractor) being transmitted by Customer to the Contractor, the Contractor shall first notify Customer of the purported Prohibited Message and Customer must rectify the event to comply with these Rules. The Contractor shall be entitled, without any liability, to suspend or modify the Services as may be reasonably necessary to ensure that it is in compliance with such applicable laws, regulations or codes of practice. Where the event is capable of being remedied and Customer fails to remedy the said event, the Contractor shall provide to Customer notice prior to the suspension. In the event the Parties are unable to further resolve the matter, the Contractor may suspend Customer’s account or in extreme cases, terminate Customer’s account and Terms. In the instance of fines being levied against the Contractor as a result of Prohibited Messages being sent by Customer, provided that Customer has failed to notify the Contractor prior to transmission, Customer shall be liable to pay each fine in its entirety.

7.2. Security and privacy.

7.2.1. Customer shall be responsible for keeping account and connection credentials secure and private, for choosing passwords of strong enough complexity, and for implementing IP address based access controls where applicable. The Contractor shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages arising from any intrusion of Customer’s online customer account or the unauthorized use of Customer’s credentials, including (without limitation) loss of profits, loss of revenue, or interrupted communications, provided that such intrusion was not due to the negligence, act or omission of the Contractor. Customer will transmit messages over System using HTTPS protocol. The Contractor may disclose any messages transmitted over the System to the extent permitted by law to protect the Contractor’s rights or property, including (without limitation) to protect the operation of the System, or to comply with the law or regulatory enquiries or requirements.

7.3. Source and destination addresses.

7.3.1.Where applicable to do so, Customer acknowledges that correct source address Type Of Number (TON) and Number Plan Indicator (NPI) settings, and correct source and destination address formatting, according to GSM specification, must be set for each message submitted to the Contractor. Customer acknowledges that failure to correctly set such settings and formatting may result in message delivery failure or the incorrect representation of the source address when it is displayed on the receiving device. The Contractor shall not be responsible for checking or modifying above-mentioned settings or formatting.

7.4. Abuse

7.4.1.   The Contractor shall make available Services to Customer as defined in the Terms and these Rules. The Contractor shall notify Customer if it believes abuse (as defined in section 7.1 hereof) of a Service is taking, or has taken place. An abused Service shall be deactivated until Customer resolves the incident to the commercially reasonable satisfaction of the Contractor.

7.4.2. Any attempt by Customer to influence their account in order to achieve gain to which they are not entitled, including but not limited to exploiting undocumented features of an account or service, shall result in the immediate suspension of Customer’s account in accordance with clause 7.1 hereof. Customer is liable to repay the Contractor for the full amount of the value of any improper gain.

7.5. Suspension of Service. Customer acknowledges that the Contractor has the right to cease the Services in respect of any individual who has given notification that such individual does not, or is withdrawing, consent to receive Messages (a “Withdrawal Consent Notification“), whether such Withdrawal Consent Notification was received indirectly or directly by the Contractor. The Contractor shall inform Customer where it has received such Withdrawal Consent Notification directly.

8. Other terms

8.1. In all other respects that are not provided for by these Rules, the Parties are guided by the provisions of the Terms.

8.2. These Rules come into force from the date of their acceptance by the Terms and is valid for the duration of the Terms.