Anti-SPAM and Emailing Policies for Hosting Customers

1. Buying bulk mailing lists is NEVER acceptable under any circumstances, even if you are told that it is a double opt-in mailing list. In all likelihood, the people on the list you purchased did not opt-in to get your email. This means that if you send them an email, you essentially turn yourself into someone else's hated spammer.  If you want to reach a new audience with a product or message, you can advertise offline, on search engines (see www.hithiker.com) or advertise on someone else's newsletter (called an ezine) that reaches your target audience.
2. Sending emails without fully identifying yourself and your company is never acceptable. Your email should always have the following signature:

Your full name
Your Company Name, if applicable
Company Address (at least city and state)
Company Phone Number
Your email address
Company website address (Optional, but recommended)

3. All emails should have a subject that is not misleading.
4. If you are sending a newsletter or group (mass) mailing to your customers, members or any other group, the following is required for the mailing to comply with anti-spam rules:
   1. Numbers 1, 2 and 3 above must be followed
   2. In addition, your email must be addressed to a specific person (not to “friends” or “customers” or “Subscribers”) and must contain the email address to which the email was addressed somewhere in the body of the email.
   3. You should either have a link, an email address or a toll-free phone number, which instructs people how to get their name off the list.
   4. If someone asks to be removed, the request should be honored before you send anything to that list again.
   5. Every name/email on the list must have either requested to be on the list (and you should have proof of that fact) or they must be your customer or someone who has requested that you send information to them.
   6. Unless your list is a discussion group, your list members should not be able to write to each other.
   7. Your list should be set up so that only the list owner (or other designated members) should be able to write to the list.  This prevents those angry exchanges where someone on the list complains to the whole list and then this list explodes with angry exchanges that go out to the entire mailing list.
   8. Never sell your list to a third party. This is not only a bad business practice, it may subject you to civil or other liabilities.

This policy may sound very strict. However, we all know how much junk mail we are getting. Since companies like AOL, Yahoo, ATT, Earthlink and MSN have a problem that is millions of times larger, you can probably understand why they and other ISPs are fighting back. In addition, Congress has passed a number of SPAM related laws lately and is destined to pass more in the future. To protect your company from potential liability and to protect our ability to send mail to anyone in the future, we have no choice but to follow these new rules.

If you need or want to send mailings to customers or newsletter subscribers, please contact us so we can discuss your options. If you don’t send mailings, all you need to worry about is the first 3 items above. You can add a signature in your Outlook Express (go to Tools/Options/Signatures) or edit the one you already have to include the required information.

Mailing programs you may wish to consider if you have a newsletter or a customer mailing (both offer free trials):

• Constant Contact - Mailing list software with many newsletter templates, well-known program, slightly higher price than Internet Mail Manager (below) and other features required by our anti-spam policies. Visit their website to see the other features.

• Graphic Mail - has excellent mailing list templates, the ability to send each email individually, the ability to personalize the design of your message or newsletter, a very low price and the option to only pay in months when you use the service, rather than every month.  Visit their website to see the other features. Read about ways to make your newsletter or customer mailings more effective.

If you know of other mailing list software that allows sending individualized emails, one at a time, has simple removal tools for "unsubscribing" to the list and is otherwise in compliance with stricter email rules, please let us know.  We will be happy to add any good program to the list above. 

We will receive any complaints from email recipients who think you have sent them unsolicited email. We will investigate and, for the protection of everyone else on the server, will be forced to suspend the account of anyone who is not following the rules as set forth above.

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