Anti-Spam Policy

In absence of any other policy, HomeownersConnections has adopted the Anti-Spam and Privacy Policy of it's hosting provider, CoolerSites.

Spam is absolutely prohibited by CoolerBiz and Coolersites clients. CoolerSites and all sites on the CoolerServer Platform (CSP) support ONLY permission-based email marketing practices using the CSP or affiliated partner sites. In this regard, CoolerBiz has implemented some of the strictest policies in the email industry and supporting procedures that:

• Help prevent the CoolerEmail system from being used for the purpose of unsolicited email campaigns.
• Encourage permission-based marketing.
• Respond to all complaints suggesting the CSP or affiliated partner sites have been used as a vehicle to send unsolicited email.

CoolerBiz actively monitors import lists and outgoing emails for suspiciously large intended or actual broadcasts. Any customer found to be using the CSP or affiliated partner sites for Spam is subject to being permanently barred from ever using CSP or affiliated partner sites systems.

Spam is unsolicited commercial email, junk mail or bulk mail that has not been requested by the recipient. In addition to wasting valuable resources and time, it is intrusive, irrelevant and often offensive, Typically, spam emails do not contain an option to unsubscribe from the mailing list. Spam is the opposite of permission-based emails ---- those that are anticipated, personal, relevant and often associated with a "pre-existing business or personal relationship."

Preventing Unsolicited Emails Via the CSP or affiliated partner sites system

Users of the CSP or affiliated partner sites must abide by a strictly enforced End User License Agreement. Under this agreement, the user promises to not abuse the CSP or affiliated partner sites system or to send spam. User specifically agrees not to send unsolicited bulk email, for commercial or non-commercial purposes (unsolicited bulk email is defined as email sent to more than 10 individuals without their permission). The agreement also includes such provisions as:

User agrees not to post, upload or otherwise transmit:

• any content related to inappropriate subject matters;
• any content to "rented" or "purchased" lists;
• any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;
• any content that you do not have a right to post and transmit under any law or contractual/fiduciary relationships;
• any content, such that such posting, uploading, or transmission constitutes the infringement of any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party;
• any materials that contain software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
• any materials which imposes an unreasonable large load on our infrastructure;
• any content that is harmful to minors;
• content that intentionally or unintentionally violates any applicable local, state, national or international law, including, but not limited to, regulations promulgated by the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission, any rules of national or other securities exchange, including without limitation, the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ, and any regulations having the force of law;
• content that is misleading or impersonates any person or entity or falsely states or otherwise misrepresents your affiliation with a person or entity;
• content with manipulated, or forged identifiers;
• content promoting harm or providing instructional information about illegal activities;

With regard to email campaigns, all users of CSP or affiliated partner sites must also accept that an unsubscribe option will be automatically appended to every email sent to more than 100 people via the CSP or affiliated partner sites. This is mandatory. When the unsubscribe option is requested by an email recipient, the CSP or affiliated partner sites system automatically suppresses emails to that email address in future campaigns. This suppression feature is also mandatory.

In the event that a CSP system User violates any one of our usage rules on the CSP or affiliated partner sites, or for any other reason deemed appropriate by CoolerBiz or affiliated partner sites, CoolerBiz reserves the right to suspend or terminate, without notice, access to the CSP or affiliated partner sites system User's account and all related data. We rely on feedback from various governmental and industry sources, a network of the leading ISP's in the world and millions of email recipients to assist in our policing against spam. If you send an email out through the CSP or affiliated partner sites that generates a spam complaint, you will be responsible for providing an opt-in record for the complaint at issue. Any spam complaints that are not successfully appealed are assessed a $25 fine. Additional fines may be assesed by affiliate partner sites

Permission-Based Marketing

The CSP and/or affiliated partner sites offers frees tools to encourage system Users to create and manage "opt-in" (and double opt-in) lists of contacts. By building and using an "opt-in" (and double opt-in) lists, system Users can be certain that they are sending emails to recipients that have expressly given their permission to do so.

Recommended Action --- Unsolicited Email Complaints

If a complaint is received by CoolerBiz regarding alleged unsolicited emails being sent from our system tools, an immediate investigation is undertaken.

Warning -- The system User is notified that an unsolicited email complaint has been lodged against them and a demand is issued to "show proof" that the complainant opted in to the User's list. The User is reminded of the terms they accepted in the End User License Agreement (including possible legal ramifications if the user has is guilty of spamming). In addition, the complainant's email address is automatically tagged as "unsubscribed" if the complainant did unsubscribe--so no further emails are sent to the complainant. The User is also required to manually remove the complainant's email address from their contact list if the complainant did not unsubscribe.

Termination---If CoolerBiz or affiliated partner sites have ANY reason to believe the User, despite the warnings, is or will continue to send unsolicited bulk email to more than 10 individuals without their permission, or any complainant who has previously unsubscribed, the User's CoolerEmail account privileges are subject to immediate termination.

Think You've Been Spammed?

1. Immediately unsubscribe using the "unsubscribe" link at the bottom of the email.
2. Forward the unsolicited email to abuse@coolerbiz.com and provide any other information that you believe may help us in our investigation.

CoolerBiz and CoolerBiz partners take permission marketing very seriously. Thank you for reviewing our Anti-Spam Policy.

Many spam complaints are registered with anti-spam agencies. We fully support the efforts of agencies working to responsibly curtail the sending of unsolicited commercial email. However, if an individual opted-in to receive an email and then falsely and/or maliciously files a spam complaint against CoolerBiz or affiliated partner sites, we will cooperate fully with appropriate agencies to ban the user from further use of anti-spam software and community.

This policy was last updated: August 1, 2003. We reserve the right to modify this policy at any time.