NO SPAM POLICY

Owners of Hosting.ca hosted accounts are responsible for the complaints and consequences arising from your hosted account. Upon discovery or notification of these service abuses, Hosting.ca will investigate and, without prior notice to you, may disable any account in order to protect the security, integrity, and usability of the hosting services and the Hosting.ca servers and shared network. We have a very strict no spam policy with our email services such as Hosted Exchange, Simple Email, and SmarterMail Hosting plans.

Reporting Spam

Hosting.ca defines SPAM, also known as Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) or Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE), as any email message the recipient considers unsolicited and of a commercial nature or email sent in bulk.

HOSTING.CA EXPRESSLY PROHIBITS THE SENDING OF SPAM THROUGH ITS NETWORK AND SERVERS.

HOSTING.CA HAS A NO SPAM POLICY. If you believe that you have received SPAM (as defined above) from Hosting.ca’s network, please send a signed complaint along with the message you received, including its complete email headers, to abuse@hosting.ca. Hosting.ca does not investigate or take action based on anonymous SPAM complaints.

Prohibited Email Activities:

1. Sending Spam:  Defined as the sending of email to recipients who consider the message unsolicited email of a commercial nature or the sending of email in bulk to recipients who consider the message unsolicited email of any nature.
2. Spam Information Collection:  Defined as the collection of responses, directly or indirectly, from spam sent by you or your behalf.
3. Web Site Advertising via spamming:  Defined as the sending spam AND contains direct or indirect links or references to one or more websites. This also includes the use of third-party email accounts.ie: Using gmail.com to send mail to advertise yourcompany.com.
4. Mail Bombing:  Defined as the sending of a large number of email messages to a single system, person, or email address.
5. Mail Harassment:  Defined as sending email in a manner or with content that is perceived as threatening or harassing
6. Letter Bombing:  Defined as sending an email with content that will or could potentially harm the recipient’s computer.

Prohibited Mailing List Activity and Mailing List and Address List Minimum Requirements:

The following is a list of minimum requirements for the permitted use of mailing lists by way of Hosting.ca services and networks. They are guidelines to minimize the probability of complaints. However, you will still be responsible for any complaints received in relation to your account despite having implemented all of the requirements.

If you send out bulk email, your email will be conclusively labeled as SPAM unless you implement all of the following requirements, either under option A or Option B below.

Option A. Listserve-style email lists:

(All members add themselves to the list by sending a subscribe email from their email address to the list owner.)

1. In the initial message to the member,
   a. there is a clear and conspicuous notice that the member is signing up for a mailing or address list; and
   b. there is a simple, effective method of list removal outlined in the message.
   c. a non-Internet method of contacting the list owner is through a provided-phone number and/or land address will suffice.
   d. terms and conditions of the email address used by the list are provided.
2. Prior to any subsequent mailing to the list, list owners must remove all addresses for list members who have chosen to be removed from the list and all addresses from which emails have bounced back as undelivered.
3. Lists are not used for purposes or in a manner which is harassing, abusive, illegal, and/or will create liability for you, Hosting.ca, or third parties.
4. Email to the list members is only from the entity with which the member signed up and only on the topic for which the recipient agreed to receive information.
   Emailing to a list that contains members of a list that was purchased, rented, leased, or lent to you is prohibited. Email to list members on a subject that is not on the topic or product for which the member agreed to receive messages is SPAM and is prohibited.

Option B. General Mailing and Address Lists:

(Members added by means other than member sending a subscribe email from their email address to the list owner.)

1. Provide clear and conspicuous notice that the prospective member is signing up for a mailing or address list and such notice must appear near the email address collection point.
2. Require prospective members of the list to take some non-passive action to request to sign up for the list.
3. Provide conspicuous, comprehensive terms and conditions of address use that are posted or linked near the email collection point and available to the list member to print or download after sign up. Include subject matter of the list and anticipated mailing frequency, sharing/trading/selling of the address.
4. An address is added to the list using only Double Opt-In Procedures, with the address confirmed and permission-to-email verified before mailings begin.
   An Opt-In Procedure is defined as a list sign up process where: a. potential mailing list members are given a clear, conspicuous choice as to whether they want to receive such emails or not; and
   b. if the potential member chooses to receive such emails, they express this choice by undertaking some non-passive action.
   A Double Opt-In Procedure is defined as an Opt-In Procedure where:
   a. the potential mailing list members request an invitation to join the mailing list or address list;
   b. prior to receiving any other mailing from the mailing list or address list, the potential member receives an invitation email message to the email account that will receive the mailings;
   c. to be added to the mailing list, the potential member must reply or click a link contained in the invitation email message; and (if replies constitute a request to receive an email, then you are responsible for reading the replies and taking appropriate action-i.e. if the reply says, “Do not send me emails.”, then
   the address must be removed from the list owner’s databases.)
   d. if an invitation email is not replied to or confirmed by the link, that email address is not added to the mailing list and no further email is sent to that email address.
5. The list removal method must be simple, effective, and conspicuously displayed in all messages including the invitation email message
6. There must be both an automated and non-automated means of removal from the list.
7. The list must provide a non-Internet method of contacting the list owner. For example, telephone number or address.
8. Prior to any subsequent mailing to the list, list owners must remove all addresses from which emails have bounced back as undelivered and all addresses for list members who have chosen to be removed from the list.
9. Lists are not used for purposes that are harassing, abusive, or illegal or for purposes or in a manner that will create liability for you, Hosting.ca, or third parties.
10. Email to the list members is only from the entity with which the member signed up and only on the topic for which the recipient agreed to receive information.
    Email to a list that contains members of a list that was purchased, rented, leased, or lent to you is prohibited. Email to list members concerning a subject that is not concerning the topic or product for which the member agreed to receive messages is prohibited.

Prohibited Newsgroup Spamming:

1. Are posted to 15 or more newsgroups and which contain the same or similar information;
2. violates the rules of the newsgroup in which the posting is made;
3. is off the topic of the newsgroup and is not the topic of the current discussion in the group; and/or
4. is a commercial posting unless the newsgroup rules expressly permit commercial posting.

Hosting.ca Complaint Processing:

Hosting.ca prohibits SPAMMING, defined as the sending of Unsolicited Commercial Email (UCE) and Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE), in order to protect the integrity of the Hosting.ca servers and network resources. Please review Hosting.ca’s No SPAM Policy, below, for the full definitions of SPAM, UCE, and UBE, in addition to other email guidelines.

Complaints of UCE and UBE, regardless of whether the email is actually solicited or not, are what trigger the blacklisting of Hosting.ca networks and services. Therefore, the sending of email which results in UCE/UBE complaints is conclusively a SPAMMING activity in violation of Hosting.ca’s No SPAM Policy.

IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO PREVENT ALL SPAM COMPLAINTS RESULTING FROM EMAIL ACTIVITIES ON YOUR HOSTING.CA HOSTED ACCOUNT. YOU WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY CHARGES FOR THE CLEANUP OF YOUR ACCOUNT.

Processing of Reports of SPAM Activity and SPAM Complaints:

Hosting.ca processes reports of SPAM activity and SPAM complaints in the manner described below.

A. If the email activity associated with your hosted Hosting.ca account poses an immediate threat to Hosting.ca’s servers or network, Hosting.ca reserves the right to immediately disable the account and send an email notification to your account contact. An immediate threat includes Hosting.ca’s servers being listed on any real-time blocklists (RBL).

Hosting.ca will charge at an hourly rate of $150/hour to rectify severe spam-related problems (delisting from Realtime Block Lists – RBL’s). A standard RBL de-listing charge is $300.

B. Absent an immediate threat to the servers or network, Hosting.ca will follow the steps outlined below for SPAM processing.

1. First UCE/UBE Event – Hosting.ca sends a “complaint received” message to the complainants and sends the complaints and first warning to your Hosting.ca account contact.
2. Second UCE/UBE Event – Hosting.ca sends a “complaint received” message to the complainants and sends the complaints and second and final warning to your Hosting.ca account contact.
3. Third UCE/UBE Event – Hosting.ca immediately and permanently disables the email capabilities of the account and then sends notifications to your Hosting.ca account contact of this permanent email disablement and will charge at an hourly rate of $150/hour to rectify any spam related problems (delisting from Realtime Block Lists – RBL’s)

A UCE/UBE Event is defined as either of the following:

1. Urgent: Any blacklist of Hosting.ca’s servers or notices of activity our account that violates Hosting.ca’s No SPAM Policy; or
2. Complaint: Hosting.ca’s receipt in any period notices of activity on your account that violates Hosting.ca’s No SPAM Policy

IT IS YOUR RESPONSIBILITY TO KEEP YOUR PASSWORD SECURE.

Hosting.ca is a proud supporter of NO SPAM. If you’re looking to report spam, please view Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation website.