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Anti-Spam Policy for
ShoestringStartups.com
(Last updated April 13, 2008)
ShoestringStartups.com is
committed to permission-based email marketing practices, and as a
result has established this no-tolerance Anti-Spam Policy.
ShoestringStartups.com will occasionally update this Anti-Spam
Policy. When it does, ShoestringStartups.com will also revise the
“last update” date at the top of this Anti-Spam Policy. For changes
to this policy, ShoestringStartups.com will notify you (the
customer) by placing a notice on its web site home page.
Spam is commercial email or unsolicited bulk
email, including “junk mail”, which has not been requested by the
recipient. It is intrusive and often irrelevant or offensive, and
it wastes valuable resources. Spam messages are the opposite of
permission-based email, which are normally anticipated, personal,
relevant and/or associated with a pre-existing business or personal
relationship. Inappropriate newsgroup activities, consisting of
excessive posting of the same materials to several newsgroups, are
also deemed to be spam.
Customers of ShoestringStartups.com products and
services have agreed during their registration process, upon
accepting the Terms of Use, to comply with this Anti-Spam Policy.
Specifically, each customer agrees not to use the
ShoestringStartups.com products or services to send unsolicited
email or bulk email, whether or not for commercial purposes.
ShoestringStartups.com reserves the right to determine in its sole
discretion what constitutes actionable spam, as well as what
measures are necessary in response to such spam activities.
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3. |
How ShoestringStartups.com Helps You to
Avoid Spamming |
ShoestringStartups.com has developed its Internet
marketing tools to incorporate a strict permission-based
philosophy. This anti-spam philosophy is implemented through the
following:
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(a) |
Communication and Agreement – The Terms
of Use that you have agreed to as part of registering for
the ShoestringStartups.com products and services state how
and for what purposes you can collect your site visitor
addresses, and that you will follow the
ShoestringStartups.com Privacy Policy and Anti-Spam Policy.
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(b) |
Unsubscription – Each email created using
ShoestringStartups.com products contains an “unsubscribe
link”. If your web site visitors use the link to request
that they be unsubscribed, your subscriber lists will
automatically be adjusted to eliminate the prospect of
sending unwanted email to such persons. Additionally, each
person on your subscriber list has the option of
unsubscribing through a web-based method provided on the
ShoestringStartups.com web site. Customers of
ShoestringStartups.com who try to remove the unsubscribe
link will be warned that they are doing so, and if they
persist in having the link removed or deactivated in any
way, then ShoestringStartups.com will have the right to
terminate their account.
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(c) |
Purchased Mailing Lists - Mass mailings
to purchased email lists are not allowed.
ShoestringStartups.com only allows opt-in mailing lists.
Purchased or inherited lists are by definition not opt-in.
Similarly, you cannot use an email list relating to
particular subject matter, and then use it for an unrelated
topic.
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Spam laws vary from state to state, and from
country to country. This ShoestringStartups.com Anti-Spam Policy
has been developed to conform to the highest commercially reasonable
standards. As a result, and without limiting the general
prohibitions against all spam activities, the following are
expressly prohibited:
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(a) |
Use of false headers, or other false
information, to identify the point of origin or the
transmission path of the email, or to hide the true origin
of the email sender,
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(b) |
Unauthorized use of a third party’s
internet domain name without the permission of such third
party, to make it appear that the third party was the point
of origin of the email,
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(c) |
Use of any false or misleading information
in the subject line of the email, and |
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(d) |
Assisting any person in using the
products or services of ShoestringStartups.com for any of
these previously mentioned activities.
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5. |
Questions to Ask Yourself |
To help in establishing whether you are
participating in activities constituting spam, ask yourself the
following questions:
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(a) |
Are you sending email to non-specific
addresses, such as info@domain.com or sales@domain.com? |
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(b) |
Have you deliberately falsified your
transmission path information or originating address? |
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(c) |
Are you sending email to mailing lists or
distribution lists, which then send indirectly to various
other email addresses?
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(d) |
Have you imported for use a purchased list
of any type? |
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(e) |
Are you continuing to mail to anyone who
has asked to be deleted from your mailing list? |
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(f) |
Does your email not provide a fully
functioning link to unsubscribe? |
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(g) |
Does you email subject line contain false
or misleading information? |
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(h) |
Have you used a third party’s email address
or domain name without the party’s consent? |
If you answer yes to any of these questions, you
are likely involved in spam activities, and should contact
ShoestringStartups.com customer support service at support@shoestringstartups.com.
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6. |
Measures to Enforce the Anti-Spam Policy |
Any ShoestringStartups.com customer found to be
using ShoestringStartups.com products or services for spamming
purposes may, at ShoestringStartups.com’s discretion, be immediately
cut off from use of all ShoestringStartups.com products and services
and/or fined US$ 1,000 per occurrence, with no refund of fees that
have been paid.
ShoestringStartups.com warns all of its customers
when signing up that if they participate in spamming activities they
will be subject to the loss of ShoestringStartups.com services,
fines and possible legal action.
ShoestringStartups.com has the right to actively
review its customers’ subscriber lists and email for suspiciously
large broadcasts. If ShoestringStartups.com finds any customers to
be spamming, it will issue a warning, and if the activities are
serious enough, ShoestringStartups.com will take action
immediately. If ShoestringStartups.com has any reason to believe
that the customer, despite warning being given, threatens to or is
continuing to send spam, then ShoestringStartups.com may take action
immediately, including disabling the customer’s account and/or
reporting the customer and the incident to the proper authorities.
ShoestringStartups.com does not attempt to censor
any content, nor to curtail the business of its customers. However,
spam activities do not fall within uses authorized by
ShoestringStartups.com, and will not be tolerated.
If you believe that you have received spam from
or through ShoestringStartups.com’s facilities, please send a
complaint from your email account along with the unsolicited email,
with completed header, to support@shoestringstartups.com. Please
provide any other information that you believe may help us in our
investigation. ShoestringStartups.com does not investigate or take
any action based on “anonymous” spam complaints.
ShoestringStartups.com supports the efforts of
various organizations working to responsibly eliminate spam
activities. However, if an individual has opted-in to receive email
from a customer of ShoestringStartups.com, and then falsely or
maliciously files a spam complaint against ShoestringStartups.com or
its customers, ShoestringStartups.com will cooperate fully with the
appropriate agencies to ban the complainant from use of anti-spam
software and the Internet community.
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