Terms of Use

1. Who you are dealing with

This site is published by Australian Enterprise Services ("we", "us"), an Australian business, at aestech.com.au. You can reach us at hello@aestech.com.au.

2. Accepting these terms

By using the site you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, please do not use the site. If you use the site on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you are authorised to accept these terms for that organisation.

3. What this site is, and what it is not

We publish independent reviews, ranked buyer guides, pricing explainers, comparisons, alternatives pages, policy templates, and reference material about frameworks including SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001 and PCI DSS.

This is general information for buyers. It is not legal, regulatory, security, audit, financial, or certification advice, and it is not a substitute for professional advice about your situation. Nothing on the site creates an adviser, auditor, assessor, consultant, or client relationship between us and you.

In particular: our compliance content describes how frameworks generally work. It does not certify you, it does not assess your controls, it cannot tell you whether you satisfy a standard, and it must not be relied on as evidence in an audit. Certification decisions are made by accredited certification bodies and qualified assessors, not by us. Before acting on anything here, get advice from a professional who knows your organisation.

Policy templates and checklists are starting points only. They are generic, they are not drafted for your business, and you are responsible for reviewing, adapting, and approving any document before you adopt or rely on it.

4. Commercial relationships and affiliate links

The site is reader supported. Some outbound vendor links are affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you click through and sign up or buy, at no additional cost to you. Commercial links carry rel="sponsored nofollow noopener".

Affiliate relationships do not buy inclusion, ratings, verdicts, rankings, positions, badges, or awards. Our scoring approach is published on the methodology page and the full commercial position is on the affiliate disclosure page. If we ever publish paid placement, it will be labelled as such on the page it appears on.

5. Accuracy, and the limits of it

We take care with what we publish, but software changes faster than any review site can track. Prices, plan names, limits, features, model versions, certifications, and vendor claims change without notice, and some content ages between updates. Framework requirements and regulatory timelines also change.

We do not warrant that content on the site is current, complete, accurate, or fit for your purpose. Confirm the current terms directly with the vendor before you spend money, and confirm regulatory obligations with a qualified adviser before you rely on them.

6. Third-party sites and vendors

The site links to vendor sites and other third-party resources. We do not control them, we are not responsible for their content, pricing, availability, security, or practices, and a link is not an endorsement of everything on the other side of it. Once you leave this site, the other party's terms and privacy policy apply to you, not ours. Any contract you enter is between you and that vendor, and we are not a party to it.

7. How you may use the site

You may read, share, quote, and link to our content. You may cite it, including in AI-assisted answers and research tools, provided the citation is accurate and attributed to AES Tech with a link to the source page. We publish llms.txt, llms-full.txt, and an AI index specifically so machine readers can use the site correctly.

You may not:

• copy, republish, mirror, or redistribute substantial parts of the site, or present our content as your own;
• sell, license, or commercialise our content, templates, comparison data, or scores;
• scrape or extract content at a volume or rate that degrades the service for other readers, or in breach of our robots.txt;
• strip, alter, or obscure attribution, disclosure notices, or sponsored link attributes;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to the site, its infrastructure, or its data, or interfere with its normal operation;
• use the site for anything unlawful, or in a way that infringes anyone's rights.

Security researchers: our security policy sets out how to report a vulnerability. Good-faith testing that follows that policy is welcome and is not a breach of these terms.

8. Our content and trade marks

Unless stated otherwise, the content, structure, scoring, visuals, and code of this site are owned by Australian Enterprise Services or used under licence, and are protected by copyright. Product names, logos, and trade marks belonging to the vendors we write about remain theirs, and we use them for identification and commentary only. Their use here does not imply any partnership, sponsorship, or endorsement by them unless we say so explicitly.

9. Comments and anything else you submit

If you post a comment, you keep ownership of what you wrote and you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to publish, store, display, moderate, and remove it in connection with the site. You confirm the submission is yours to post and does not infringe anyone's rights or break the law.

Comments are moderated, and we may edit, refuse, hide, or delete a comment, or block an abusive contributor, at our discretion. Grounds and process are on the comment policy page. Comments express the views of the person who posted them, not ours. Do not include confidential information, personal information about other people, or anything you would not want published.

10. Newsletter

The newsletter is double opt-in. You can unsubscribe from any email with one click, or by emailing us. What we store and why is set out in the privacy notice.

11. Availability

We publish the site as it is and as it becomes available. We may change, suspend, restrict, or discontinue any part of it, including pages, templates, tools, and the newsletter, at any time and without notice. We do not promise uninterrupted or error-free access.

12. Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law

Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts, or modifies any consumer guarantee, right, or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law or any other law that cannot lawfully be excluded. If a guarantee applies and cannot be excluded, our liability for failing to meet it is limited, at our option, to supplying the services again or paying the cost of having them supplied again.

13. Disclaimers and liability

Subject to section 12, and to the maximum extent permitted by law:

• the site and its content are provided without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including as to accuracy, currency, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose;
• we are not liable for any loss or damage arising from your use of, or reliance on, the site, including lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, business interruption, wasted expenditure, procurement decisions, failed audits or certifications, regulatory action, or any indirect or consequential loss;
• where liability cannot be excluded but can be limited, our total aggregate liability to you for all claims relating to the site is limited to AUD 100.

You use the information here at your own risk, and you remain responsible for your own procurement, security, and compliance decisions.

14. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify us against any claim, loss, or cost arising from your breach of these terms, your unlawful use of the site, or content you submit to it.

15. Privacy

How we handle personal information is set out in the privacy notice, which forms part of these terms.

16. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the site changes. The current version is always the one published here, with its last updated date at the top. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the updated terms. Material changes will be reflected in that date, so check it if you rely on these terms.

17. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of New South Wales, Australia. You and we submit to the non-exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of that state and the courts able to hear appeals from them.

18. General

If any part of these terms is found to be unenforceable, it is severed and the rest continues to apply. A delay in enforcing a right is not a waiver of it. These terms, together with the disclosure, privacy, comment, and security pages they refer to, are the whole agreement between us about your use of the site.

19. Contact

Questions about these terms: hello@aestech.com.au.