What does Imaginet consider spam abuse
Imaginet, as an ISPA member, uses ISPA’s definition of spam for the core basis of defining Spam Abuse.
ISPA’s definition is available at http://www.ispa.org.za/spam with the core being: All unsolicited bulk email is Spam with the following exceptions:
• Mail sent by one party to another where there is already a prior relationship between the two parties and subject matter of the message(s) concerns that relationship is not spam.
• Mail sent by one party to another with the explicit consent of the receiving party, is not spam.
In essence, ISPA believes that customers should only receive bulk mail that they have requested and/or consented to receive and/or which they would expect to receive as a result of an existing relationship.
Imaginet takes a strong stand against those who would use Imaginet's infrastructure to send any bulk e-mail or SPAM. Most people strongly object to getting such mail, and it is clearly an abuse of resources that the offender is not legally or ethically entitled to.
Users can only keep mailing lists with the acceptance and approval of the list's members and when it is their choice. If a mailing list includes addresses that cannot be delivered to or belong to people who do not want to be a part of the list, those addresses should promptly be removed.
Imaginet clients should never reply to SPAM, because this usually only confirms that your address is working and will lead to more SPAM being sent to you. We also strongly discourage users from buying lists of e-mail addresses for marketing or advertising because these lists are usually fraudulent and are made up of addresses that were gained by dishonest, untrustworthy or unethical means.
Imaginet clients must secure their mail servers against open SMTP relay – using a mail server to forward e-mails to other servers without their permission – to protect both themselves and other users. Unsecured mail servers can be abused by dishonest people to deliver SPAM. Imaginet can check clients' mail servers for open relay if they appear to be delivering SPAM. The results of a check will be given to the client, and they will have a reasonable period to fix the problem before their address will be cancelled. Imaginet can check any clients who use their mail servers as “smart hosts” or similar services for open relay at any time.
