e•Contact System’s services comprise a dual platform consisting of web-based technology through which the subscriber has access to a Contact Relationship Management (CRM) portal and a sophisticated auto email portal through which content is able to be delivered once a customer establishes their marketing plan.  While each customer retains e•Contact System to assist with the transmittal of content to its Recipients, e•Contact System does not actually send customer content to Recipients on a customer’s behalf.  Each customer is the actual sender of emails.  As the sender of emails, each customer is required to comply with the terms and conditions set forth herein and in the Software as a Service Terms of Use and to comply with all applicable laws.

e•Contact System has a NO tolerance spam policy.  What does this mean?  Your account will be immediately terminated if you send spam and you will be obligated to indemnify e•Contact System against any liabilities, costs and expenses it incurs as a result of such spam.

 

A few questions about spam.

What is Spam?

Spam is unsolicited email also known as UCE (Unsolicited Commercial Email). By sending email to only to those who have requested to receive it, you are following accepted permission-based email guidelines.

What constitutes a Preexisting business relationship?

The recipient of your email has made a purchase, requested information, responded to a questionnaire or a survey, or had offline contact with you.

 

What constitutes consent?

The recipient of your email has been clearly and fully notified of the collection and use of his email address and has consented prior to such collection and use. This is often called informed consent.

Isn't there a law against sending Spam?

The federal anti-spam law went into effect on January 1st, 2004 and preempts all state laws. While this new law will not stop spam, it does make most spam illegal and ultimately less attractive to spammers. The law is specific about requirements to send commercial email and empowers the federal government to enforce the law. The penalties can include a fine and/or imprisonment for up to 5 years.

How e•Contact System protects you from sending spam

e•Contact System is a permission-based email-marketing tool that follows the strictest permission-based philosophies:

• Communication - Your e•Contact System registration page already states that by accepting our user agreement you have agreed to use only permission-based contacts and adhere to all rules associated with the user agreement.
• Verification - e•Contact System automatically sends all of your imported contacts as well as any new contacts an email confirming their interest in receiving emails from you. Additionally, if your contact changes his or her interests or unsubscribes, e•Contact System automatically sends an email confirmation.
• Unsubscribe - Every email generated from e•Contact System contains an unsubscribe link which allows your contacts to opt-out of future emails and automatically updates your contact lists to avoid the chance of sending unwanted emails to visitors who have unsubscribed.
• Identification - Your email header information is correct because it is pre-set for you by e•Contact System. Your email's "From" address is verified and already accurately identifies you as the sender.
• Contact Information - all of your emails are pre-filled with your contact information including your physical address.

 

We urge you to take the Spam Test

1. Are you importing a purchased list of ANY kind?
2. Are you sending to non-specific addresses such as:
   • sales@domain.com, business@domain.com, webmaster@domain.com, info@domain.com, or other general addresses.
3. Are you sending to distribution lists or mailing lists which send indirectly to a variety of email addresses?
4. Are you mailing to anyone who has not explicitly agreed to join your mailing list?
5. Have you falsified your originating address or transmission path information?
6. Have you used a third party email address or domain name without their permission?
7. Does your email's subject line contain false or misleading information?
8. Does your email fail to provide a working link to unsubscribe?
9. Are you failing to process any unsubscribe requests that come to you via a reply to your email within 10 days or the request?

If you have answered YES to ANY of the above questions you will likely be labeled a SPAMMER. For more information visit The Coalition Against Unsolicited Email (www.cauce.org).

 

Anti Spam Policy

e•Contact System has a NO tolerance spam policy.  Customer accounts will be terminated if they send unsolicited email messages.  Please report any suspected abuse to abuse@econtactsystem.com .  ISPs and blacklists administrators may also contact us at abuse@econtactsystem.com.  Please forward the complete email in question, including headers.  We will take the appropriate action against the sender of the email in question.

 

 e•Contact System Customers

Each e•Contact System customer must accept the end user services agreement prior to using the Services.  As part of its agreement, each customer must agree to only send permission-based emails.  “Permission-based” means that ALL Recipients must have opted-in to receive communications from that customer.

An opt-in can occur either via a sign-up form on a web site, at a point-of-sale sign-up form, or on a physical sign-up sheet.  Purchased lists may not be used within the e•Contact System  system under any circumstances, regardless of the permission or source status.

 

As a customer of e•Contact System, you may not:

• Harvest emails for web sites or individuals
• Use purchase list (whether they are opt-in or not)
• Add an email address into you data base without the contacts permission
• Email someone who has requested to be deleted or removed from your data base

You may:

• Send out a pre-designed template from our library or use the custom template to a Recipient who has opted-in to receive emails from you
• Send out information and content from our library or custom template to Recipients who have requested to receive content on that topic from you or your organization
• You may add new contact information to your contact data base at any time.  However, NO new contact can be added to a contact group, be sent an email, or included in any marketing campaigns without prior permission to receive email contact from you.  All new contacts must be included in our opt-in data base prior any email contact, period

 

Policy Enforcement

e•Contact System has a NO tolerance anti-spam policy.  The strict measures we take to enforce our policy include, but are not limited to:

• A record of every email campaign sent through our system is saved.
• Any customer found to be using e•Contact System for spam will be immediately cut-off from use of the product.
• We maintain the IP address and date permission was granted for every new Recipient.
• Each contact imported or added as a new contact into e•Contact System will receive an email from us to ensure they have opted-in to receive informational and/or educational content from you.  They are saved in our data base and time noted.
• Every email, whether text or HTML, contains a mandatory unsubscribe/opt-out link at the bottom of the message.  This unsubscribe link cannot be removed.

 

Complaints

We have a NO tolerance spam policy.  Your account will be immediately terminated if you send spam.  Generally, spam is defined as unsolicited mass email to persons with whom you do not have a business relationship or who have not requested (opted-in) your mailing.  The Service may only be used by businesses, organizations, and professional individuals in connection with their established contact list of permission-based opt-in email addresses.  We provide the Services only to those who follow our strict anti-spam policy.  If you use the Services to send out emails to addresses obtained in any way other than a contact opting-in to your list, you are spamming and in violation of federal, state, and/or foreign regulations and subject to penalties.

However, we realize that it is possible for those who have opted-in to your mailings may have forgotten that they did in fact opt-in.  For this reason, we keep the IP address and date of permission for all new Recipients imported or added to e•Contact System.  If we receive a complaint from a Recipient for which we have a record of their permission then we will notify such Recipient of the date and from which computer they opted-in from and provide a link for that Recipient to unsubscribe from your data base.

Upon this type of complaint, we will notify you of the complaint, explain the action taken, review your contacts, and possibly make suggestions to ensure this does not happen again.

In the case that a subscriber who makes a complaint did not grant permission for the contact and there is no permission protocol record (IP address or opt-in) data in our system.  In this case we will investigate the situation, look at the email in question, and if it is determined that you may be sending unsolicited commercial emails, we will immediately disable the sending function on your account and we will immediately contact you by email and/or phone.  As soon as we hear from you and are able to verify that the subscriber was indeed and opt-in contact, we will remove the sending –block.  If we are unable to verify the contact did in fact opt-in your account will be immediately closed.