Email Sending Policy

Since the beginning of Discover of solutions existence, we have been fighting alongside the global anti-spam community (Internet Service Providers, fellow Email Service Providers and anti-spam organizations) in the raging war against spam. On a daily basis, there are email senders that impersonate legitimate brands and/or try to phish for personal information. Spam laws have been set up in certain countries and as an additional measure, we’ve created our own set of rules to protect the reputation of our clients and their intended recipients. Not only do these rules help us identify spammers, they also help increase your deliverability and build a strong sending reputation.

Unfortunately, failing to observe these rules could affect your ability to send through and to use our services. In some cases, it can lead to a rate limitation on your emails, or temporary or permanent account suspension.

Defined below are core statistics the Discover of Solutions team references when reviewing email accounts and sending practices. Please familiarize yourself with this chart and work to stay below these acceptable thresholds. Accounts with statistics above these numbers can face account suspension and in some cases, termination and penalties. Prior warning of such actions will be given in all cases unless the risk is deemed to be critical to the security of Discover of Solutions infrastructure.

*Discover of Solutons reserves the right to update the parameters of the acceptable sending threshold without prior notice.

Core Statistics defined:

• Bounces – Much like traditional snail mail, when a destination address cannot accept the incoming package and it gets returned to sender, bounced messages are returned to sender because the recipient address is incorrect or inactive.
• Unsubscribes – Recipients that opt out of receiving communication because they no longer want to receive communication. There are a variety of reasons customers choose to unsubscribe; some might be that they’re no longer interested in the content you’re publishing or are overwhelmed with a noisy inbox, or your content wasn’t what they were expecting.
• Blocks – Messages that do not leave Discover of Solutions servers due to a permanent error. These are email addresses that bounced in the past because they are either non-existent or invalid, or previously reported your message as spam. This also includes email addresses that resulted in complaints from recipients or did not pass through Discover of Solutions spam filters.
• Spam Complaints – Number of recipients that marked your message as spam.
• Spamtrap Hits – After a certain amount of inactivity, webmail providers turn email addresses into spam traps to catch senders that are using outdated lists or lists purchased, and/or obtained from third-party companies.
• Unjustified Abuse Complaint – When a recipient reports a sender for messaging without their consent.

Our 7 Commandments

Below are 7 commandments that you are to comply with to maximize your deliverability rates and to avoid any rate limitation or suspension of your account, and ultimately to help us in the war against spam.

1 – ALL SENDING METRICS TO REMAIN WITHIN DISCOVEROFSOLUTIONS THRESHOLDS

Regular maintenance of your contact list will ensure that you are emailing an engaged audience with active email addresses. While it can vary from business to business, a good benchmark for an engaged customer is someone who has opened or clicked on an email in the past 3 to 6 months. Maintaining a list of customers who regularly read your content and find value in your messaging will result in less bounced or blocked emails. While the process of removing inactive or incorrect email addresses may make your contact list look smaller, it will significantly improve your deliverability (and sender reputation) in the long-run. Other things to keep in mind for good practices are: writing subject lines that are reflective of the content within the emails & avoiding promotional terms or common spam words.

2 – ACQUIRING OR SENDING TO THIRD-PARTY MAILING LISTS IS PROHIBITED

Sending campaigns to contact lists that have been acquired (bought, exchanged or rented) from a third party company where you are not explicitly named will negatively impact deliverability and is strictly prohibited. As a result, email addresses must always be collected in a way where the recipient has explicitly opted in to receive communication from you. Use of lists that are bought, rented or scraped from third-parties is prohibited by law in most countries, and is absolutely prohibited on Discover of Solutions servers.

3 – EMAILS (UNLESS  TRANSACTIONAL ) CAN ONLY BE SENT WHERE PERMISSION HAS BEEN EXPRESSLY OBTAINED IN NATURE, IT CAN ONLY BE SENT TO RECIPIENTS WHO HAVE EXPLICITLY GRANTED PERMISSION TO RECEIVE THEM

All your contacts should have granted clear, explicit and provable consent to receive communication. This consent should be granted through a confirmed simple opt-in or double opt-in system that clearly expresses the topic of the subscription on an online or offline form via a checkbox. This checkbox must not be checked by default. In other words all checkboxes have to be blank by default, leaving users the opportunity to willingly opt-in to receive communication. Consent to the sending of emails must always also be given separately, i.e. it cannot be combined with other declarations.

4 – PROOF OF CONSENT MUST BE PROVIDED IN THE EVENT OF AN ESCALATED ABUSE COMPLAINT

Discover of Solutions takes escalated abuse complaints received from recipients very seriously.

At any given moment, you must be able to provide information regarding all email addresses to which you’ve sent emails through Discover of Solutions, including:

When and how has this email address been collected?

• Date and time
• Newsletter subscription?
• Existing customer relationship?
• Lottery/Sweepstakes participation?
• Other

In case of online data collection:

• URL of the data collection site
• IP used by the email address owner
• Type of opt-in (single, confirmed or double opt-in)
• Additionally, in case of a double opt-in: date and time of confirmation

Is there an explicit statement of consent/opt-in for the email address? (may be provided as a screenshot)

• Wording of the statement
• Was the customer able to give the consent explicitly and separately?

If there was no explicit consent/opt-in, but there was an existing customer relationship:

• Nature of customer relationship (e.g. purchase of product X)
• How was the customer informed when recording the email address (what message was given informing that the email address can be used for marketing purposes and that they are able to unsubscribe it any time?)

5 – AN UNSUBSCRIBE LINK MUST BE INCLUDED IN EVERY MARKETING CAMPAIGN

All marketing campaigns must include a clear and concise link for recipients to easily opt-out of receiving future communication. The link must be easy for anyone to recognize, read, and understand. On your end, this unsubscription must be granted immediately, with no further emails being sent to this recipient from that moment forward. Transactional and confirmation emails such as purchase orders, payment invoices, password resets, account creations, etc. by nature do not require an unsubscribe link.

6 – SENDER NAME AND STATUS MUST BE CLEARLY COMMUNICATED IN EVERY MESSAGE

“From”, “To” and “Reply-To” fields must accurately and clearly identify the sender’s domain name and email address. It is important to send from domains that are at least one month old, with a transparent public domain record that redirects to the sending party’s legal pages. When sending from a different domain name on behalf of a partner or related third-party organization, the email body must clearly communicate that the message is sent via a third-party domain. Discover of Solutions has developed custom plans for agencies, resellers and advertisers to follow the sending best practices. Please contact our Sales Team if you feel that you fall into one of these categories.

7 – ONLY LEGAL AND LEGITIMATE INFORMATION CAN BE SENT WITH Discover of Solutions

Discover of Solutions does not support the sending of messages that contain, promote, reference, or link to unlawful, illegal, libelous, defamatory or violence against any individual or group and more generally affecting human rights. Moreover and unless the sender gives us sufficient and specific guarantees at Discover of Solutions sole discretion, Discover of Solutions does not work in principle with senders (i) who promote the following activities, whether permitted by law or not, including the following but not limited to: gambling, sexual, adult content, weapons and any explosives, tobacco or tobacco-related, drugs, political, hacking, penny stocks, forex and crypto-currency trading and trading advice, payday loans, debt collection agencies, clairvoyance, lead sales and affiliate marketing, paid surgery, work-at-home or entrepreneurial schemes, and promotional real estate, or (ii) who send emails in the name and on behalf of third-parties (including their own customers). In general, your emails must not contain any information or content otherwise sovereignly deemed unsuitable to Discover of Solutions or harmful to the reputation of Discover of Solutions, its affiliates, partners, customers and users.

Your use of the Services must follow all applicable guidelines established by Discover of Solutions.

The guidelines below are examples of practices that may violate this Policy when generating or sending Emails through the Services:

• Using non-permission based Email lists (i.e., lists in which each recipient has not explicitly granted permission to receive Emails from you by affirmatively opting-in to receive those Emails);
• Using purchased or rented Email lists;
• Using third party email addresses, domain names, or mail servers without proper permission;
• Sending Emails to non-specific addresses (e.g., webmaster@domain.com or info@domain.com);
• Sending Emails that result in an unacceptable number of spam or UCE complaints (even if the Emails themselves are not actually spam or UCE);
• Failing to include a working “unsubscribe” link in each Email that allows the recipient to remove themselves from Your mailing list;
• Failing to comply with any request from a recipient to be removed from Your mailing list within 10 days of receipt of the request;
• Failing to include in each Email a link to the then-current Privacy Policy applicable to that Email;
• Disguising the origin or subject matter of any Email or falsifying or manipulating the originating email address, subject line, headers, or transmission path information for any Email;
• Failing to include in each Email Your valid physical mailing address or a link to that information; and
• Including “junk mail,” “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” incentives (e.g., coupons, discounts, awards, or other incentives) or other material in any Email that encourages a recipient to forward the Email to another recipient.

If your business is regulated by an authority (i.e. medications, investments, lending, banking, gambling, betting…), you are asked to contact our sales department for a custom account instead of subscribing for a self-service account. Discover of Solutionsreserves the right to request documents and relevant licenses pertaining to your activity.