As one of the largest email service providers,
Topica Inc. works with the email abuse prevention
community to find solutions to the problem of
unsolicited email. The company has consistently
taken a leadership role in abuse prevention:
- In Q3 2003, Topica along with 36 other Email
Service Providers, announced technical specifications
and requirements necessary for the development
of a robust system designed to eradicate spam
by attacking the root of the problem —
a lack of secure identity and accountability
in email. This unique registry approach, named
Project
Lumos, provides Internet Service Providers
(ISPs) and others with a means of securely identifying
and authenticating email senders. A whitepaper
was released detailing the architecture and
its easy implementation.
- In Q1 2003, Topica, along with eighteen other
major Email Service Providers, became a founding
member of the Email Service Provider Coalition
of the National Advertising Initiative (NAI).
This group was formed in response to overwhelming
public concern regarding the proliferation of
spam and business concerns regarding the increasing
difficulty in delivering legitimate, permission-based
email messages.
- In Q4, 2002, Topica joins the Internet
Alliance and announces new partnerships
with associations and companies aimed at abuse.
- In Q3, 2002, Topica began offering new tools
to encourage the use of Confirmed Opt-in among
users of Topica Email Publisher, its paid service.
The company also began utilizing innovative
"shut-down" tools to further enforce
its permission policies. The same applies to
all subsequently launched services.
- In 2001, Topica Exchange, the free service
hosting over 50,000 discussion groups and newsletters,
moved to require Confirmed Opt-in (Double opt-in)
for 100% of all subscribers added to the service.
Lists on Topica Exchange serve over 50 million
subscribers, making the service one of the largest
confirmed opt-in communities and giving testimony
to the effectiveness of confirmed opt-in.
Topica is proud to be a member of TRUST-e
and the Internet
Alliance, organizations that are dedicated
to protecting consumer privacy, curbing unsolicited
commercial email (or "Spam"), and promoting
responsible email practices.
Email is a critical and effective means of
communication for groups like legitimate marketers,
publishers, non-profits and small businesses.
All users suffer when inboxes are clogged with
mail that is unwanted and unrequested, i.e. Spam.
Technically, "Spam" is defined as
Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE). But beyond
the technical definition, there is confusion:
What email is wanted? What constitutes permission?
The answer is simple: If you are not 100% sure
as a list owner that you are using an email address
for the purpose for which permission was given
to you, you are probably sending Spam.
Topica has a strict policy against Spam. As
one of the nation's largest and most popular providers
of email services, now serving over 50,000 mailers,
we feel a responsibility towards strict enforcement
of permission-based practices. When a subscriber
complains, they are unsubscribed from a list,
and these subscriber complaints are investigated
and often result in termination of a List Owner's
account with us. This policy will tell you about
the tools we give List Owners to help make sure
their email is permission-based, and will let
you know how we enforce our policy.
Topica offers a free list-hosting service, Topica
Exchange, as well as a paid marketing application,
the Topica Online Marketing and Sales Solution.
Whichever service you use, Topica follows strict
permission-based email policies to insure that
mail is only sent to subscribers who have asked
to receive it. We have invested heavily in extensive
measures to prevent unsolicited commercial email
from being sent through our services.
Whether you are using Topica Exchange or Topica's
Online Marketing and Sales Solution, we require
that you abide by our strictly-enforced Terms
of Service. These Terms state that Topica will
not be used to "transmit, disseminate or upload
spam, chain letters, junk mail or any other type
of unsolicited mass email..." In the event that
Topica determines that a List Owner is sending
email to subscribers who have not given permission
to receive it, Topica has the right to delete
a customer's list and terminate their use of the
Topica service.
Topica Exchange
Topica Exchange is our free list-hosting service.
It's a service dedicated to the creation and management
of free discussion groups and newsletters. It's
a 100% confirmed opt-in service, where subscribers
to every list hosted on the service must confirm
their subscription by responding to a confirmation
email.
Topica's Online Marketing and Sales Solution
Topica's Online Marketing and Sales Solution is
our paid marketing service. Its users may collect
and import customers with permission from those
customers
Precautions
There are several precautions that we take to
prevent the possibility of Spam:
- On Topica Exchange, we require that all lists
be confirmed opt-in and provide the tools for
your subscribers to confirm their subscription
to your discussion group or newsletter, meaning
they must respond to a confirmation email sent
to them after the user has either subscribed
to a list or has been added to a list by you,
the list owner.
- On Topica Exchange discussion groups, only
subscribers of a particular list are permitted
to post messages to that list. This prevents
posting from unknown persons outside the community.
- On Topica's Online Marketing and Sales Solution,
it's not a requirement that lists be confirmed
opt-in but we provide the tools (and highly
recommend their use) for your subscribers to
confirm their subscription to your list by responding
to a confirmation email (whether they've signed
up through a remote subscription form that we
provide or whether you add subscribers directly).
We also provide the tools that allow you to
send existing, "unconfirmed" subscribers
messages asking that they confirm their subscription
to your list.
- All email sent by Topica must include an "Unsubscribe"
link that automatically removes the recipient's
address from that list.
- Any subscriber email addresses that are publicly
displayed (such are on the Demographic Survey
page on Topica) are encoded on our sites to
ensure that email harvesters are unable to collect
them.
- Topica supports and provides administrative
tools to make it easy for anyone to moderate
their own list, specifically discussion lists
on Topica Exchange. This allows List Owners
to serve as a Spam filter on their own lists.
- Topica prohibits email sent to Role Accounts.
Role Accounts are specific email aliases, such
as info@---.com that are reserved by convention
to be used by departments, job roles, or distribution
lists for groups of people. If you know of any
of your subscribers using a role account, please
let them know that they should use a personal
email address or another email account to subscribe
to your list. If you have any questions specifically
on role accounts and Topica's restriction of
their use, please contact
our Privacy and Standards department.
- Individuals within our Privacy and Standards
and our Customer Success departments are dedicated
to monitoring our abuse queues, which alert
us to complaints on mail sent through our services,
and ensuring the proper use our system. A violation
of our terms of service, which strictly prohibits
the sending of anything other than permission-based
mail, will lead to a termination of service.
Unsubscribing from Mail Sent Through Topica
We provide One-Click Unsubscribe Links in every
email we send. You, as a subscriber to mail sent
through Topica, can unsubscribe at any time by
clicking the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of
any Topica email. Your email address will be automatically
removed from that mailing list, although it may
take up to 24-48 hours to process.
If our systems are temporarily down or you
suspect, for any reason, that your email address
has not been unsubscribed upon request, please
contact
our Customer Success department.
How to Send Us Spam Complaints
If you feel that you've received mail sent through
Topica that you did not request, please contact
our Abuse Team including a copy of the offending
eamil. Also, if you suspect someone of abusing
Topica's services, please let our Abuse Team know
so that we can take the appropriate steps.
All users can expect that we take Spam very seriously
and have spent great efforts to restrict its presence
on our services.
Know that we've taken many precautions and
have provided many tools to our List Owners to
ensure that our service be used to send mail to
only those recipients that have requested it.
Know that our dedicated Privacy and Standards
and our Customer Success teams diligently monitor
all mail that comes to us with complaints of Spam
and complaints of abuse on our system. We monitor
this mail and take action on any violators of
our terms of service, strictly enforcing our policy
that only permission-based mail be sent through
our services.
Know that we stand in front of all email sent
through our services. We're very proud to be one
of the largest and most popular email publishing
services on the Internet today. We're proud to
place the Topica brand in our mailings. And we're
proud to offer our services in a way that curbs
the use of Spam and protects users' privacy and
stays true to our partnerships with the Internet
Alliance and TrustE.
Topica offers a free list-hosting service, as
well as paid marketing automation software. Topica
follows strict permission-based email policies
across both services to insure that mail is only
sent to subscribers who have asked to receive
it, and we have invested heavily in extensive
measures to prevent unsolicited commercial email
(or "Spam") from being sent through
Topica. Our anti-spam policy is something we take
very seriously; therefore we have implemented
the following tactics:
Dedicated Team: We established a dedicated
Privacy and Standards team, led by Bill McCaulley,
Vice President of Finance and Operations. This
team proactively educates our customers regarding
best practices, and we take fast action when abuse
occurs. Our Privacy and Standards department as
well as individuals in our Customer Success department
are dedicated to monitoring our abuse queues,
which alert us to complaints on mail sent through
our services.
Strict Requirements: We require List Owners
with large opt-in lists to submit disclosure forms,
for review by our Privacy and Standards department
prior to activation. All email sent through our
system includes header information that identifies
the List Owner that sent the mail.
Bad Address Detection: We have proprietary
technology for the detection of bad addresses
upon import, automatically disabling accounts
when addresses appear not to be permission-based.
Complaint Tracking: We track complaint levels
for each List Owner and each list. Our strict
suspension processes allow us to suspend customers
quickly upon proof of abuse. If users on your
service complain about messages sent from our
service, please forward the message in question
with full headers and with the original recipient
email address intact to our Privacy
and Standards department. After receiving
this, our Privacy and Standards team will be able
to handle complaints in accordance with our Terms
of Service. Actions may include account suspension
and account termination.
If you administer a large network, we can set
up a dedicated process and established complaint
threshold for handling your users' complaints.
When your users complain regarding email from
any of our domains, we can set up a priority address
for you to forward the complaints to us. If you
would like us to set up a priority complaint queue
for your domain, please contact
our Privacy and Standards department.
If you're looking to unsubscribe multiple individuals
or a domain from the Topica services, please have
the authorized representative of your company
contact
our Abuse Team.
If you have questions or concerns about our
policies, please contact
our Privacy and Standards department.
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