 Anti Spam Policy |
ICI EMAIL POLICYTHIS IS FOR ANYONE THAT SENDS EMAIL TO A MAILING LIST. THE RULES FOR SENDING MASS MAIL HAVE CHANGED. ANY LIST THAT RECEIVES A SPAM COMPLAINT WILL BE BLOCKED FROM SENDING EMAIL. BACKGROUND Law, under which MCI (MCI/UUNET*) is granted the authority to shut down any ISP that does
not comply with an organization's SPAM corporate policy: Failure to comply with new corporate requirements (see below) recently put out by AOL and MCI/UUNET can shut down you, ICI, and all of ICI's clients, as all ICI server activity would be blocked from the Internet itself. The recent rulings regarding verification email is not yet law, current policies require that if complaint emails are not verified, an ISP's may be blocked or shut down. * UUNET is the central hub of the Internet in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UUNET it is owned by MCI. http://postmaster.aol.com/guidelines/index.html AOL's consortium rules, under "consideration" but you should be ready for these changes
too: http://postmaster.aol.com/asta/proposalfaq.html Spamcop's rules: MCI, the internet backbone provider for most of the USA uses these rules, and shuts down
circuits for 30 days, 90 days, or permanently. http://www.spamcop.net/reported.shtml New "verify" procedure, as posted by Spamcop: [However the initial sign up is accomplished, whether on a web site, by email, or otherwise
- the final confirmation phase should use a random code which is emailed to the intended
recipient. If that code is not returned by the user, then they should not be added to the
mailing list. —(http://www.spamcop.net/reported.shtml)] Verify email addresses Sometimes, people will use a fake email address when signing up for something. Once in a
while, this fake address can be someone else's real address. The recipient then sees your
mailing as spam. Also, people have been known to take revenge on spam-fighters by
signing them up for hundreds of mailing lists at once. Ideally, all mailing lists should
protect against this. You can protect against this by asking each list subscriber to respond
with a special code that you send out in email: This is the method most noncommercial lists use, as well as well commercial systems like
deja.com. This is a bit of a barrier for a commercial list, so you may decide to avoid verification of
this kind, but you should be extra careful in your removal procedures if you do forgo
address verification. You should also be prepared for fallout from this (IMHO) bad
decision. (http://www.spamcop.net/fom-serve/cache/104.html)]
For more information: General Questions about Mailing Lists More about SPAM http://www.spamhaus.org/definition.html http://www.mail-abuse.com/spam_def.html ICI NEW EMAIL POLICY AND PROCEDURESTo comply with the new law, ICI has instituted the following procedures and policies for sending email. By following these guidelines, ICI protects both itself as well its clients from prosecution under the law. ICI is registered with AOL as a registered bulk mailer (white-list and feedback loop) and with SPAMCOP as abuse@intracommunities.org to provide SPAM reporting as well as SPAM feedback 'tickets'. We work closely with these and other organizations in the industry to make sure that email is sent ethically and in compliance with all rules and guidelines to the benefit of all ICI clients and our client's customers. As we do not make the rules, we can only report and institute compliance procedures when the rules get handed down. Since these rules are recent, they are subject to change. Unfortunately, the penalty for any ISP found to be violating the new law is to be shut down; the rules require that we act immediately. For this we apologize for any inconvenience that the new policy may cause. What is Verified Email? In October 2005 new policies have been instituted requiring that every person on your list has given consent to receive email from your organization. Whether a commercial or private list, if complaints are received from people on your mailing list, opt in and opt out requests are no longer enough to show consent. Current SPAM filters used all across the industry now require Verified Email. Here is how it works: A person who wishes to join your email list or whom you want to add to your email list will receive a Verification email. The Verification email includes your contact information, your email policies and terms, the purpose of the list as well topics that are covered in your emails, an automated unsubscribe link as well as "Please click here to verify your request to join this list." One click on the Join link and the person has been verified. The link passes a hidden id to the ICI server that confirms conclusively that the same person who checks the email at the recipient's address has clicked that link. When is verification email needed? Verification is now required for any email list which is a purchased commercial list for mass email, which has degraded over time, had subject or interest change, or has not been properly maintained for unsubscribe requests. Current opt in lists are still okay to use. Verified email is required in the following situations:
Any email you send is traced by its outgoing SMTP, whether you are using ICI mass mailer, Eudora, Outlook, Express or any email client. Reckless use of email risks not only having your email blocked, but all ICI clients. If anyone is found not to be complying with new SPAM rules, there are financial and/or criminal penalties. For those who use commercial lists or have received complaints, each mailing list is permitted to use the list for three verification emails before the list is deemed SPAM. The three verification emails is a rule set by the industry and therefore subject to change. What are the benefits of these policies? In the short run, these new rules may result in additional costs in order to get mailing list verified according to the new guidelines. You can expect that a percentage of your list will not verify. Most commercial lists can expect only 20% to verify. The good news is that those that do verify are the real number of people who are reading your email and you will have an effective list. ICI is registered with AOL as a registered bulk mailer (white-list and feedback loop) and with SPAMCOP as abuse@intracommunities.org to provide SPAM reporting as well as SPAM feedback 'tickets'. Once your list has been verified by ICI, you will be able to include in your email a logo certifying that you are sending "Verified Ethical Email". What are the Costs? For those not using commercial lists, current use of personal opt in lists may continue. With the first complaint, you will receive a warning from ICI. After the third complaint, you will be required to verify your lists. If you are concerned that your lists may require verification, for current ICI clients with NO complaints against them, the cost to verify a list is $135.00 + 2 cents for each verified customer. For this, you will receive a new mass mailer table, with automated unsubscribe as well as verification click through for each new name added to the list. For those that do receive complaints that you are a SPAMMER from people on your mailing list, additional costs will be for the administration and negotiation time billed at $100 per hour that is required to prevent services from being blocked by carriers. If you have ever spent time dealing with customer service for technical problems, you may take this time and double it as both technical and legal departments are required to facilitate clearance of any SPAM complaint that your list generates. If you have been deemed to be using your email lists recklessly and abusing privileges, ICI will have no choice but to pursue legal action. |
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