Online Legal Documents

Software Terms and Conditions

For companies selling software, it is critical to ensure that your terms and services agreement protects your company against risk.  As you are likely aware, a terms and conditions agreement is a contract that customers consent to when accessing when purchasing a licence to use software.

This article reviews the most important aspects of terms and conditions agreements for various types of online businesses.

Australian Consumer Law

For software companies, including those offering SaaS solutions, software is defined as ‘goods’ under the ACL and companies who sell to consumers, terms and conditions must comply with the Australian Consumer Law (ACL). Foreign companies who sell goods and services, including software, to Australian consumers are also subject to the ACL, which is found in Schedule 2 of the Competition and Consumer Act.

They critical aspects of the ACL include:

Consumer guarantees

Unfair Contract Terms

Misleading and deceptive conduct

Goods

Under the ACL, software is defined as ‘goods’. Which is confusing for those companies who offer Software-as-a-Service.