Common use of Codes of Practice Clause in Contracts

Codes of Practice. Industry codes of practice are a major element of the Australian regulatory framework. The codes require both the ISPs and the Internet content hosts (ICHs) to take appropriate steps to protect the public from prohibited and potentially prohibited content. A range of matters are to be dealt with under the codes. Some of these matters include (a) procedures restricting access to persons over 18 years of age, (b) assisting subscribers in dealing with spam, and (c) providing information about, and access to filtering technologies.6 While we observe that compliance with the industry codes are not mandatory, Schedule 5 of the BSA does provide that once ACMA directs an ISP or ICH to comply with the code, it must do so or commit an offence.7 In addition to the matters that the code must deal with, ISPs and ICHs are required to (1) provide information about filtering mechanisms, and (2) to make available to subscribers of their services, filtering products on a cost price basis. From our investigations, we may provide as a tentative conclusion, the importance placed by Australia’s regulatory regime in ensuring the community is consulted, and their grievances heard. We see this reflected not only in the formulation of the codes of practice (as described above) but also in the estab- lishment of a complaint mechanism (discussed in the Subsection 7.1.4 below).