This page outlines our anti-spam policies and implementing procedures. This information is for users, email recipients, ISPs, blacklist administrators, and mail list administrators.

Information for ISPs and blacklist administrators

SendMail has a zero-tolerance spam policy. It is keen to build relationships with all of the leading ISPs and Blacklists. These include the sharing of information regarding policies, practices and issues. If you are an ISP, mail administrator or blacklist owner and would like to get in touch with us, please email relations@SendMail.com.au.

Information for users and email recipients

We review and monitor large list imports. This includes a review of the list source, list age, collection methods, and confirmation practices.

We actively monitor the content of all emails going to a large number of subscribers.

A record is saved of every email that is sent through the system.

Any customer found to be using SendMail for spam will be immediately cut-off from use of our service.

We maintain the date subscribed for every new subscriber.

All mailing lists managed by SendMail require a two step subscription for every subscriber.

Every email, whether text or HTML, contains a mandatory unsubscribe/opt-out link and a report spam email address at the bottom of the message. The links cannot be removed.

If you know of or suspect any violators, please notify us immediately at abuse@SendMail.com.au. Please forward the complete email in question, including headers. Please also unsubscribe from the newsletter using the link at the bottom of the email if you no longer wish to receive emails from the sender. We will take the appropriate action against the sender of the email in question.

Information for ISPs

SendMail invests significant resources to ensure that no email coming from SendMail is spam. What does SendMail do to prevent misuse of our service?

SendMail employs a very strict anti-spam policy and only allows customers who comply with permission guidelines to use our service. Click here to read our SendMail customer policy. If we determine one of our customers is in violation of our permission policies, we disable their SendMail account immediately.

To support our policies SendMail includes a sophisticated anti-spam detection system and implements strong abuse prevention practices. These include the following:

No Free Trial: SendMail does not provide a free trail of any kind.

List Verification: The SendMail Customer Support team verifies all large lists. The list verification process includes a complete review of the list source, list age, collection methodology, confirmation practices, etc. New customer lists are tested before any volume mailings. Any list with questionable permission practices is rejected (or must first be fully-confirmed).

List Inspection: In addition to the list verification process, all lists are screened for known spamming characteristics. SendMail continues to invest in our list inspection methods. These methods are continuously revised and kept up-to-date with changing spam practices.

Content Checks: All email campaigns go through a content check process in which they are reviewed for spam content before they are sent. Any suspicious email content is reviewed by our abuse desk.

Verification of From and Reply-to Ownership: SendMail verifies the ownership of all email addresses used as From or Reply-to addresses in campaigns sent from SendMail. This prevents any spoofing of sender identity.

Abuse Desk: Our abuse email box is watched closely and all abuse complaints are processed promptly.

ISP and Blacklist Relations: SendMail is keen to create dialogues with all of the leading ISPs and Blacklists. These include the sharing of information regarding policies, practices and issues. If you are an ISP, mail administrator or blacklist owner and would like to get in touch with us, please email relations@SendMail.com.au.

Information for mail list administrators

We have a zero-tolerance spam policy. Your account will be immediately terminated if you send Spam. Spam is defined as unsolicited mass email to persons with whom you do not have a business relationship or have not requested (opted-in to) your mailing. IntelliContact Pro is intended for marketers who have an established list of permission-based opt-in email addresses. We provide our product only to those who follow our strict anti-spam policy. Using the system to send out emails to addresses obtained in any way other than a subscriber opting-in to your list will incur a $250 (Australian dollars) charge per substantiated incident (i.e. per email).

To determine whether you have sent spam we will,

(a) review the content of the message in question

(b) review your subscriber list for patterns common to harvested lists

(c) review the spam complaint

(d) view the records to see when the subscriber was subscribed and their IP address

You may not:

(a) harvest emails from web sites.

(b) purchase lists (whether they are opt-in or not)

(c) send out unrelated offers or content to your newsletter list

(d) add an email address into a list without the subscriber’s permission

(e) email someone who has requested to be removed from your list

You can only send out a regular newsletter or promotion to a recipient who has opted-in to receive it.

How do we handle false complaints?

We realize that it is possible for those who have subscribed to your mailings to have forgotten that they have subscribed. For this reason, we keep the date of subscription for all new subscribers. If we receive a complaint from a subscriber for which we have a record of their subscription, AND the email sent to them contained the content they subscribed to, then we will notify the subscriber of the date they subscribed and provide a link for that subscriber to unsubscribe from your list.

Upon this type of complaint, we will notify you of the complaint, explain the action taken, and review your web site and may suggest changes to the notifications or descriptions you provide when subscribers sign up for your lists.

In the case that a subscriber who makes a complaint did not sign up through your site (i.e. was imported into the system) no IP record or date of subscription will be available. In this case, we will investigate the situation, look at the email in questions, and if it is determined that you may be sending UCE 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 an opt-in subscriber, we will remove the sending-block.

Transfer of subscribers

Please note that a subscriber subscribing to one of your lists does NOT give you permission to transfer them to other lists or send them content, even if it is through the same list, that differs from the content subscribed to.

Why we must fight spam

First, no one likes to receive unsolicited email. It is a burden on mail servers and an annoyance to all who receive it. Further, if we allowed a client to send unsolicited email through our mail servers or did not strictly enforce our Anti-Spam policy, our IP address and domain would be added to blacklists. Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and email filter services subscribe to these blacklists. If one of our servers were to be added to a blacklist, all email coming through that server to subscribers whose ISP or mail filer subscribes to that blacklist will NOT be received. This is for ALL of our clients, not just the one who sent the original email that was reported. Once on blacklists, it is very difficult and often impossible to get off. As such, we must enforce this policy very strictly.