Email Marketing and Spam Related Policies
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Policies Related to Spam
What is Spam?
In addition to being a canned luncheon meat "Spam" is also applied to Email. This application of the word means Unsolicited Bulk Email ("UBE"). Unsolicited means that the Recipient has not granted verifiable permission for the message to be sent. Bulk means that the message is sent as part of a larger collection of messages, all having substantively identical content.
Examples of normal Unsolicited Email:
- first contact inquiries
- job inquiries
- sales inquiries
Examples of normal Bulk Email:
- subscriber newsletters
- customer communications
- discussion lists
A message is Spam only if it is both unsolicited and bulk. The receipt of a complaint about a message sent in bulk means that it was unsolicited and sent out in bulk.
Technical Definition of Spam
An electronic message is "spam" IF:
- the recipient's personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients; AND
- the recipient has not granted verifiable, deliberate, explicit and still-revocable permission for it to be sent to them.
Spam is an issue about consent, not content. Whether the UBE message is an advert, a scam, porn, a begging letter or an offer of a free lunch, the content is irrelevant - if the message was sent unsolicited and in bulk then the message is spam. Spam is not a sub-set of UBE, it is not "UBE that is also a scam or that doesn't contain an unsubscribe link", all email sent unsolicited and in bulk is Spam. This distinction is important because legislators spend inordinate amounts of time attempting to regulate the content of spam messages, and in doing so come up against free speech issues, without realizing that the spam issue is solely about the delivery method.
Important facts relating to this definition
- The sending of Unsolicited Bulk Email ("UBE") is banned by all Internet service providers worldwide.
- The internationally-accepted definition of Spam is "Unsolicited Bulk Email". Therefore anyone sending UBE from Superb Internet's network, regardless of whether the content is commercial or not, illegal or not, needs to be fully aware that they will lose their account if they send UBE.
Spam and The Law
Various jurisdictions have implemented legislation to control what they call "spam". One particular example is US S.877 (CAN-SPAM 2004). Each law addresses "spam" in different ways, and as a consequence, often has different definitions of what they cover, whether they call it "spam" or not. Superb Internet uses the industry standard "unsolicited bulk email" definition which underlines "it's not about content, it's about consent". As such, arguments as to whether UBE messages are covered under CAN-SPAM or are compliant with CAN-SPAM, are entirely irrelevant. Sending mail in compliance with the CAN-SPAM 2004 act only protects you from criminal or civil action but not from termination.
Official Policies
Please see section 15 of our [Acceptable Use Policy] for information about the consequences of sending UBE from Superb Internet Corporation's network.
Unacceptable Practices
List Washing
Te process of removing an e-mail address from a mailing list when the recipient either requests removal or complains to the sender's hosting provider that he has received UBE. In the view of spammers, and some unscrupulous hosting providers, list washing can potentially yield a "clean" list of e-mail recipients who don't object to receiving unsolicited e-mail but do not necessarily want to receive those emails. This list is not clean however. See Email_Marketing_and_Spam_Related_Policies#How to Convert your List to COI below for more information on properly cleaning up your mailing list.
Snowshoe Spamming
Like a snowshoe spreads the load of a traveler across a wide area of snow, some spammers use many frequently-changing IP addresses and domains to spread out the spam load in order to dilute recipient reputation metrics and evade filters. Conversely, legitimate mailers try hard to build their brand reputation based on a known domain and a small permanent range of sending IPs. Showshoe Spamming from a server with many IP addresses on Superb Internet's network will soon lead to termination since detection includes methods to catch this practice.
Proper Mailing List Management
If you have email addresses on your mailing list that you did not obtain personally or through a system your company has developed you must not use those addresses on your list. All addresses on a list should have been sent one email immediately after they subscribed asking them to confirm their subscription. Any email address on a mailing list that is not associated with a verifiable confirmation that they want to continue to be subscribed must not be sent any other mail. If someone does not opt-out of a mailing list it does not mean they are double-opt-in. A mailing list operator must not subscribe users to a list and require that person to opt-out if they want to stop receiving email.
Confirmed Opt In (COI) is the only acceptable way to operate a mailing list. See Email_Marketing_and_Spam_Related_Policies#How to Convert your List to COI below for more information on this.
All customers who have some type of mailing list in operation, either commercial or not, are urged to read and are required to adopt the practices outlined in the following informative document provided by Spamhaus.org: http://www.spamhaus.org/faq/answers.lasso?section=Marketing%20FAQs
There is a zero tolerance policy for customers sending to mailing lists that are not managed properly. Accounts terminated for abuse do not receive any refunds regardless of the last date of payment.
With many hosting packages the use of our mailing list software (EZMLM) is already enabled within myCP(tm). If this is not available to you within myCP(tm) you may have it added to your account. You may order this service through the Order Accounts link in myCP or by contacting sales by ticket or telephone. Dedicated server customers will likely want to install this software, or another recommended package such as Communigate Pro, MajorDomo, MailMan, or Lyris, on their server instead of utilizing our mail servers for this purpose.
How to Convert your List to COI
You have collected thousands of opt-in email addresses from your website and added them to your mailing list without properly verifying if the address owners actually consented to be subscribed to your list. You sent out a bulk mailing to the list and now you're blacklisted by ISPs and spam filter systems for spamming. How can you now fix the problem?
The solution is to conduct a Permission Pass to rid your list of those addresses which should not be on there. A Permission Pass involves sending out a new bulk email to your list asking the recipients to confirm they wish to remain subscribed to it. Only those who confirm are then kept on the list, those who do not answer (or whose addresses bounce because they're filtering you due to the previous spam, or never actually existed as users) are deleted from your list. The resulting clean list is a 100% Confirmed Opt-in list, infinitely more valuable than what you started with.
Before conducting a Permission Pass you need to liaise with any major spam filter systems that are currently blocking mailings from you, agreeing the mailing in advance. You must also contact Superb Internet through a ticket in myCP so that complaints resulting in the campaign do not cause your account to be terminated.
It is however vital that you understand the semantics of a Permission Pass:
- A permission-pass is only appropriate where an otherwise Opt-in list has got slightly dirty - not one that has been gathered by harvesting or from other questionable sources. You can not simply buy a list from a 3rd party and conduct a permission pass on it, you will simply be considered to be spamming and treated as a spammer.
- A Permission Pass is opt-in, not opt-out. You can not ask recipients to respond in order to opt-out of the list, as that is no different from ordinary spamming. No "permission" exists with opt-out and additionally recipients can't opt-out of something they do not receive. Opt-out leaves all the bad addresses on your list, leaving you open to generating complaints, hitting spamtraps, and continuing the cycle of mailings ending in julk folders or blocked by spam filters.
- A Permission Pass will significantly reduce the size of your mailing list, by anything from 50% up to as high as 90%. This may at first seem counter productive to some marketers who think volume is better than quality, but there is no point in having a giant list of people who are not responding or who feel they are being spammed.
- You can only conduct a Permission Pass once for each recipient. If they do not respond you can not contact them again to urge them to respond.
The resulting clean list is 100% recipients who are interested in receiving your mailings. Keep it safe from future pollution.
If you are really serious about the future of your legitimate bulk email marketing business, consult an email deliverability specialist such as word-to-the-wise.com who can help you devise ways to not just mail responsibly but also to be seen as a responsible mailer by the Industry.
If you _REALLY_ Aren't Sending Spam
It is quite possible that your server has been compromised or is vulnerable to allowing others to use it for purposes other than intended. Please see My Server may be Compromised-Hacked-Rooted]] for information on investigating this. If this excuse is given while untrue it is known as the [Sanford Wallace] "Hacker X" excuse. Claiming to be hacked repeatedly and magically having spam complaints appear as a result on a persistent basis will be treated as any other UBE offense.
REFERENCES
Some information about this subject can be found here:
