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| LightHouse Hosting maintains a strict and inflexible policy regarding the use of it's computer systems or network to send unsolicited Email otherwise known as SPAM. |
LightHouse Hosting has found itself in the not so unique position of defending it's mail policies to other ISP's in the industry. Although we have a strict and tough policy concerning SPAM, we managed to get at least one of our primary mail systems banned from AOL's network. This problem caused service interruptions and heartache for many of our customers and took many man hours to resolve and restore normal mail service.
After sending out a strong reminder to every one of our clients regarding our policies with respect to SPAM we received many questions about activities that our customers were concerned about when performing their own mailings using our servers.
We have taken the time to try to provide to all of our customers a very detailed overview of acceptable and un-acceptable mail usage for people hosted on LightHouse Hosting. |
The word "Spam" as applied to Email 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.
To be Spam, a message must be sent Unsolicited AND Bulk. Unsolicited Email is normal email (first contact enquiries, job enquiries, sales enquiries, etc.), Bulk Email is normal email (newsletters, discussion lists, etc.). ONLY the combination of Unsolicited AND Bulk is Spam.
Technical Definition: An electronic message is "spam" IF: (1) the recipient's personal identity and context are irrelevant because the message is equally applicable to many other potential recipients; AND (2) the recipient has not verifiably granted deliberate, explicit, and still-revocable permission for it to be sent; AND (3) the transmission and reception of the message appears to the recipient to give a disproportionate benefit to the sender
Additional Definitions for SPAM
Webster's Dictionary: http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=spam
Mail Abuse Prevention System (MAPS): http://www.mail-abuse.org/standard.html
Crynwr.com Spam Definition Document: http://www.crynwr.com/spam/definition.html
Monkey.com's 'Spam Defined' Document: http://www.monkeys.com/spam-defined/
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Anyone using LightHouse Hosting's SMTP service that tried to send mail to a friend or colleague at an AOL account on June 3, 2003 know's why. One of several LightHouse mail servers was banned from sending mail to AOL because of multiple violations of AOL's SPAM policy. In fact, the server that was banned was actually taken off line. This very capable and very expensive SMTP server dedicated to making sure your mail is delivered in a quick and efficient manner remained idle for a full 48 hours until it was completely re-configured and put back on line. During that time our customers did not experience any other delivery issues because we placed several backup systems into operation very quickly.
The cost factor alone was bad enough but the cost to our customers that could not reach AOL accounts for 24 hours was equally as bad.
What good would our service be if we told our customers that they could not use our service to send out E-mail? SPAM is a big deal to LightHouse Hosting because it can cause serious service interruptions for our customers, customers that we guarantee excellent service to. |
This topic is not as easily covered as the rest but let's look at some of the most popular examples.
Yes You Can!
Send E-mail's to anyone. Individualized e-mails with any content is completely acceptable. E-mail at LightHouse Hosting is not monitored for content or destination.
Mail To Customer Mailing Lists. So many of our customers develop extensive customer mailing lists. These lists are legitimate and LightHouse provides a fully capable list server to help you easily contact lists of individuals and clients that you have established relationships with.
"Opt In" lists. This one gets a bit complicated. Opt-in lists are simply lists that people have provided their e-mail address to and have asked to receive literature. These lists are often sold by legitimate organizations such as Yahoo, Netscape, and may others. When people come across topics on a site such as Yahoo, they may wish to receive e-mail concerning that topic. They "opt in" to the list by providing the list maintainer with their contact information. The list maintainer tells the individual that their information can and probably will be sold into target marketplaces. Examples of opt-in lists could be investment companies that post daily or weekly fund performance reports. How about your local weather delivered every morning into your e-mail account. These lists are "legitimate lists" and can be used by our customers.
E-mail to companies or individuals if you are seeking a job, or requesting additional information about the company. You don't always have to know the recipient of the e-mail in order for the e-mail to be considered legitimate.
Subscriptions or forum lists are also acceptable. Remember, the individual has volunteered their e-mail and/or contact information. Once that is done, you can send them e-mail.
It's easier to say that there are more things you can do with e-mail than not.
One word of advice...when the individual contacts you and tells you to stop sending them information then STOP.
No You Cannot!
Buy a list of 35 million e-mails that have been harvested from the internet and send out a mailing. What is a harvested list? There are many programs available to the "Spamming community" that will go on the internet and browse web sites, automatically, for the sole purpose of collecting e-mail addresses that people post for legitimate customers to contact them. These lists can be compiled into mailing lists of thousands or even millions of e-mail addresses and sold for under $50.00. These are bad, stay away from them.
Use Bulk E-mailers and Bulk E-mail services. Ironically, you will receive SPAM from bulk e-mailers that claim that they can perform mass mailings (legitimate) for you to targeted audiences for pennies. These are not legitimate companies and you will end up being the topic of an Abuse Report on many ISP's abuse desks. Just don't use them. There is no quick answer to honest advertising on web sites and web directories such as Yahoo or Google.
YOU CANNOT send out your SPAM from another server from some other site and be safe. People believe that if they send out their mass mailing from a "free" yahoo account or some other free mail account then they will be safe from the wrath of LightHouse Hosting. Not true. If the e-mail you are sending out in any way leads back to your company and it's web site, we are involved and you have spammed, plain and simple.
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LightHouse Hosting and it's representatives don't care to get involved with the politics of spamming nor do we have any ambition to become activists and fight for the rights of spammers, or for that matter, anti-spammers. Our policy is simple. If an activity being performed on our service by one of our customers jeopardizes our ability to do business, grow and prosper, and take care of our customers, then that activity will be banned. It's actually that simple.
Also keep in mind there are laws out there ther govern the conduct of people using the internet. LightHouse Hositng does not support any activity considered illegal in any state.
For those that feel our policies are not acceptable and violate their god given right to do whatever they wish, then they, with our help and blessings, can host their site somewhere else. |
LIGHTHOUSE HOSTING LLC STRICTLY PROHIBITS THE USE OF THEIR SERVERS TO SEND OR RELAY UNSOLICITED MAIL (SPAM). IF ANY DOMAIN HOSTED BY LIGHTHOUSE HOSTING LLC, PARTICIPATES IN THE SENDING OF UNSOLICITED MAIL, UNSOLICITED BULK MAILINGS, UNSOLICITED SPOT MAILINGS OR ANY OTHER FORM OF MAILING COMMONLY KNOW AS SPAM, THE DOMAIN WILL BE CANCELLED IMMEDIATELY AND ALL ACCESS TO LIGHTHOUSE HOSTING LLC WILL BE TERMINATED. TERMINATION OF THE HOSTING ACCOUNT ON OUR SERVERS APPLIES REGARDLESS OF THE SOURCE/SERVER THE MAIL IS DISTRIBUTED FROM. LIGHTHOUSE HOSTING DOES NOT SUPPORT THE PRACTICE OF SPAM AND WILL TERMINATE THEIR ASSOCIATION WITH ANY COMPANY HOSTED BY OUR SERVERS IF THAT COMPANY HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED AS THE SOURCE OF UNSOLICITED E-MAIL/SPAM REGARDLESS OF THE ORIGINATING SERVER. ALL INFORMATION STORED ON LIGHTHOUSE HOSTING LLC SERVERS WILL BE REMOVED IMMEDIATELY, DNS WILL BE TERMINATED, AND MAIL WILL BE SENT TO THE ABUSE DESK OF THE DOMAIN'S ISP. THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS AND NO SECOND CHANCES.
MAILING LISTS HOSTED ON LIGHTHOUSE HOSTING LLC SERVERS ARE NOT TO BE USED TO DEVELOP UNSOLICITED MAILING LISTS OR BULK MAILING LISTS. ACTIVITY FLOWING THROUGH THE SMTP SERVERS HOSTED BY LIGHTHOUSE HOSTING LLC IS MONITORED CONTINUOUSLY AND NEW SECURITY FEATURES AND MONITORING TECHNIQUES ARE BEING INSTALLED IN ORDER TO DETECT AND PREVENT UNAUTHORIZED USE OF LIGHTHOUSE HOSTINGS SMTP SERVERS.
I ACKNOWLEDGE THE POLICY CONCERNING UNSOLICITED MAILINGS AS STATED ABOVE AND I HEREBY AGREE NOT TO USE THE EQUIPMENT OWNED AND OPERATED BY LIGHTHOUSE HOSTING LLC OR ANY OTHER SMTP SERVICE FOR THE PURPOSE OF SENDING ANY UNSOLICITED BULK MAILINGS. |
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