Anti Spam Policy

Because our system is capable of being used to send Spam, we enforce a zero tolerance policy prohibiting abuse. Using our system to send emails to addresses gained by any means other than personal opt-in to your subscriber list will be subject to a US$500 penalty fee for each broadcast, plus any losses, costs, fines, damages or court-ordered awards made against us because of your actions.

Our autoresponders, by themselves, are not Spam. Their use is conditional upon your strict use of the verified opt-in model of email distribution. This means that your recipients must express interest in your information by sending you an email, filling out a form, making a purchase or otherwise contacting you first. In addition, all Autoresponder messages sent from zip-cart autoresponder accounts must have...

• a functioning Unsubscribe link and
• a valid name and contact address for you

so that recipients may opt-out of your list at any time, and you must honour each request promptly.

Users of zip-cart.com are strictly prohibited from sending unsolicited commercial email (UCE) or SPAM from their zip-cart accounts, whether those messages are sent directly by the account holder, by third party or by any affiliate or similar agent acting on the account holder's behalf. As such, zip-cart.com and The Profit Clinic reserve the right to terminate the account of any user breaching this condition, without notice and without compensation.

All lists used in conjunction with the services provided by zip-cart.com must be 100% opt-in. We require clients to provide proof of opt-in for any or all list subscribers on demand.

"The Internet is not a free resource. Access to and a presence on the Internet comes at a cost to the participants, the service provider, and the recipients of those services made available by the Internet"...

"Every recipient of every E-Mail message bears a cost, either direct (cost per message received, an incremental increase in connection charges) or indirect (higher service fees to recoup infrastructure costs associated with the additional Internet traffic which such mass-mailings create). In addition, other resources, such as the disk space and time of the recipient, are consumed."

"Because the recipients have no control over whether or not they will receive such messages, the aforementioned costs are realized involuntarily, and without consent. It is this condition (the absence of consent to bear the costs of receipt of a mass-distributed message) that has shaped the Internet Community's viewpoint - that the act of sending SPAM constitutes a willful theft of service, money, and/or resources."

Source: http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc3098.php

This has also become the basis of legal precedent against SPAM or UCE.

zip-cart.com may charge a US$100 administration fee for each Spam complaint received against your account. This fee will be applied toward disputing the complaint with the complainant, the reporting service or black list service, and resolving the complaint with our host. This applies to spam complaints we receive including, but not limited to, those generated by your affiliates or use of your ad tracking links.

Any merchant found to be involved in a SPAM/UCE campaign involving the services provided by zip-cart.com in any way, including flooding newsgroups, distributing messages to recipients who did not request them, or any other abuse of our system that contravenes any relevant legislation, will be subject to the following:

• The account will be closed immediately, without obligation of notice or compensation to the account holder.
   
• A US$500.00 penalty fee will become payable by the offending account holder.
   
• The terms of our Privacy Policy will no longer apply. All relevant information will be provided to investigating authorities, courts of law or anti-Spam organisations.
   
• All information stored within the offending account will be confiscated, with no right of retrieval by the account holder.

Further, you will be held accountable for any monetary damages, costs, fines, awards, penalties or losses suffered by zip-cart.com and The Profit Clinic as a result of your contravention of our Terms of Service and Spam policy, directly or indirectly. This may include, but is not limited to, loss of Web/Domain hosting, costs of securing further Web/Domain hosting, and punitive damages related to loss of clients and subsequent revenues and profits.

Where other clients of zip-cart.com suffer financial losses, costs or penalties of any kind as a consequence of your actions, we reserve the right to pass on all details in our possession to enable them to pursue legal remedy against you.