i feel the need to write more about what’s considered spamming so that our clients can avoid sending spams without knowing.

obviously if someone gathers email addresses from forums, newsgroups, web sites, etc. using email address harvesting software and sends emails to the list of email addresses trying to sell his earn-money-quick-nonsense, pills, lose weight products, drugs, your-email-won-price-scam, enlarge-certain-part-of-body…

same if you buy a list of email addresses from somebody else.

that’s absolutely spam. if anyone sends out that kind of email that way, we remove the account without second thought. and the spammer is responsible for any damage made to our server, IP, other web sites.

but in this post, i would like to address such situation that some people may not think it’s spamming while actually it is spamming.

someone may think that sending emails to a list of people is not spamming as long as there’s opt-out options. that is WRONG.

you see, there’s a difference between what’s considered as spamming by law and what’s considered as spamming by real people and ISPs.

according to Singapore law and CAN-SPAM ACT of 2003 (US anti-spam law), you won’t go to jail if you provide opt-out options in the emails (provided you comply to all other items in the law).

however all ISPs, web hosting providers, spamcop, etc. consider it as spamming as long as it is not opt-in.

in other words, you can only send emails to people who actually requested to receive email from you. for example, he signed up for your newsletter by filling out the signup form on your web site himself.

send subscribers what they subscribe for, your newsletter, i mean, your real useful newsletter. don’t send them ads after they sign up, it’s abusive and would be considered as spam.

and you have to be able to prove that, his full name, date of subscription, his IP address, logfile, etc.

as serious web hosting provider, we follow how ISPs, spamcop and hosting industry define spamming.

if you send emails to people who did not request to receive email from you, even though you give opt-out option, it is still spam. we will terminate account that sends spam email. and the client who sends spam will be responsible for it.

pls do not argue that it’s not against the law. it’s a clear cut. sending emails to people who did not request the email is spam and we do not allow that on our servers.

but then, if someone’s activity is considered as spamming by law, it won’t be as simple as getting hosting account terminated. the spammer will be sued and in trouble, big time trouble.

we have zero tolerance to spam for all our client’s interests. if anyone send spam complaint to spamcop against a domain, we have to take action to secure our servers, our IP addresses, and all our clients’ businesses.

so, if you run a mailing list, or newsletter, or something like that, make sure it’s opt-in. double opt-in is better.

do not send mass mailing is best.