Acceptable use policyDraft

1. Why this policy exists

Every customer’s mail leaves through shared infrastructure, and mailbox providers judge that infrastructure by what all of us send. One sender’s spam lowers everyone else’s delivery. This policy is how we keep the shared reputation clean.

It applies to every account and sub-account, and to everything sent through Refiremail: the API, the SMTP relay, broadcasts and automations. Breaking it is a breach of our terms.

2. Email only people who asked

• Send marketing email only to people who gave you permission to email them about that subject, and keep a record of when and how they gave it. Refiremail keeps a per-contact consent ledger for this.
• Never use purchased, rented, shared, appended or scraped lists, or addresses collected from websites, directories or social networks.
• Do not guess addresses, or email published role addresses such as info@ or sales@ that never signed up.
• If someone signed up long ago and has not heard from you since, ask whether they still want your email before you send them a campaign.
• Send marketing as marketing. Promotions, newsletters and other bulk mail go through broadcasts or automations, which add an unsubscribe link and header. Do not send them through the transactional API to avoid that.
• Transactional email (receipts, one-time codes, password resets, account alerts) must be something the recipient needs because of an action they took or an account they hold.

3. Honour every unsubscribe

• Every marketing email must let the recipient unsubscribe in one step. Broadcasts and automations add this for you, including the header mailbox providers use to show their own unsubscribe button: RFC 8058 one-click unsubscribe on bulk mail only.
• Do not hide, remove or break the unsubscribe link, and do not ask for a password, a login or a reason before honouring it.
• Never email someone again after they unsubscribed, bounced or complained, whether by importing them again or by sending from another account. One suppression list covers both your API mail and your campaigns.
• Include your organisation’s name and a postal address in every marketing email.

4. Honest headers and content

• No false or misleading From names, Reply-To addresses or subject lines.
• No pretending to be another person or organisation: no phishing, spoofing or impersonation.
• Send only from domains you own or control and have verified with us.
• Do not hide where a link goes, for example behind a chain of redirects or a link shortener.
• Do not put “Re:” or “Fwd:” on a message that is not a reply or a forward, or dress up marketing as a personal note.
• No malware, and no attachments or links meant to install software without the recipient’s informed consent.

5. What you may not send

Whatever consent you hold, do not use Refiremail to send:

• anything illegal in India or in the recipient’s country, or that promotes illegal activity;
• any content that sexualises children. We close the account and report it to the authorities;
• sexually explicit content;
• phishing, credential harvesting, fraud or scams, including fake invoices, fake job offers, advance-fee schemes and investments promising guaranteed returns;
• malware, ransomware or links to them;
• counterfeit or pirated goods, or content that infringes someone’s copyright or trademark;
• gambling or betting offers where they are unlawful for the recipient;
• illegal drugs, prescription medicines without a prescription, or weapons and explosives where their sale is restricted;
• hate speech, harassment, threats, or content that incites violence;
• other people’s personal data shared without a lawful basis, such as leaked databases.

Allowed only with our approval first

Some mail draws complaints even when it is lawful. Write to [email protected] before you send any of these: lending, credit repair or debt collection; cryptocurrency, trading or investment offers; affiliate marketing or lead generation for other businesses; political campaign mail.

6. Bounce and complaint limits

A high bounce rate means a list is old or was not collected with consent. A high complaint rate means people did not expect the mail. Both lower delivery for every customer, so we watch them for every account.

When we step in

Over any 7 days, once 2% of your emails hard-bounce or 0.05% are reported as spam, we treat the account as at risk and may ask you to clean a list or change how you collect addresses.

When bulk sending pauses automatically

Bulk sending (broadcasts and automations) pauses by itself when, over the last 7 days:

• 4% or more of your emails hard-bounced, or
• 0.08% or more of them were reported as spam.

An account that sent fewer than 500 emails in that time pauses at 50 hard bounces or 5 spam complaints instead. A plan may set lower limits, never higher ones.

While bulk sending is paused, broadcasts in progress stop and transactional mail keeps flowing. Fix the cause, then write to [email protected] and we will review the account and lift the pause.

Transactional mail used for marketing

Transactional mail is not paused with bulk mail, so it must not draw complaints. If more than 0.5% of an account’s transactional emails in 24 hours are reported as spam, we suspend the account while we review it. An account that sent fewer than 200 transactional emails in that time is suspended at 5 complaints.

7. Fair use of the platform

• Do not try to get around a rate limit, the suppression list or a pause, for example by opening new accounts, rotating sending domains, or spreading one list across several sub-accounts.
• Agency sub-accounts are meant to keep each client’s sending reputation separate, to protect the others. They are not a way to keep sending for a client we have paused.
• Do not load-test, scan or probe the service or other customers’ accounts without our written permission. Security research is welcome through [email protected].
• Do not resell or share access to the service, except by running client sub-accounts on a plan that includes them.
• Do not relay mail for people you do not know, such as anonymous sign-ups on your own platform.

8. Reporting abuse

If you received unwanted email sent through Refiremail, forward it with its full headers, as an attachment if you can, to [email protected]. Mailbox providers and blocklist operators can use the same address. Security issues go to [email protected].

We read every report, and we do not tell a sender who reported them.

9. What we do when this policy is broken

We act in proportion to the harm, usually in this order:

1. We tell you what we found and what needs to change.
2. We pause bulk sending until it is fixed.
3. We suspend sending, or the whole account.
4. We end the agreement.

We go straight to suspension for phishing, malware, content that sexualises children, or mail that puts recipients at immediate risk, and we may report it to the authorities.

If you think we got it wrong, reply to our notice or write to [email protected]. A person will review it.

10. Changes to this policy

We will post changes on this page with a new date and email account owners before a change takes effect. This policy is a draft and takes effect only after legal review, when the Draft label comes off this page.