Constant Contact invests significant resources to ensure that no email coming from Constant Contact is spam. What does Constant Contact do to prevent misuse of our service?
Constant Contact employs a very strict anti-spam policy and only allows customers who comply with permission guidelines to use our service. Click here to read our Constant Contact customer policy. If we determine one of our customers is in violation of our permission policies, we disable their Constant Contact account immediately.
To support our policies Constant Contact includes a sophisticated anti-spam detection system and implements strong abuse prevention practices. These include the following:
- Very Limited Free Trial: During a free trial of Constant Contact, the email list cannot exceed 100 subscribers. Any list larger than 100 email addresses has provided valid contact information and has paid for use of the service.
- List Verification: The Constant Contact Customer Support team verifies all large lists. The list verification process includes a complete review of the list source, list age, collection methodology, confirmation practices, etc. New customer lists are tested before any volume mailings. Any list with questionable permission practices is rejected (or must first be fully-confirmed).
- List Inspection: In addition to the list verification process, all lists are screened for known spamming characteristics. Constant Contact continues to invest in our list inspection methods. These methods are continuously revised and kept up-to-date with changing spam practices.
- Content Checks: All email campaigns go through a content check process in which they are reviewed for spam content before they are sent. Any suspicious email content is reviewed by our abuse desk.
- Verification of From and Reply-to Ownership: Constant Contact verifies the ownership of all email addresses used as From or Reply-to addresses in campaigns sent from Constant Contact. This prevents any spoofing of sender identity.
- Abuse Desk: Our abuse email box is watched closely and all abuse complaints are processed promptly. Our system automatically tabulates all reported abuse complaints and associates them with a sender and a campaign. If a sender receives an unacceptable percentage of complaints, their account is disabled and the abuse team follows up with the customer directly.
- ISP and Blacklist Relations: Constant Contact has standing relationships and ongoing dialogues with many of the leading ISPs and Blacklists. These include the sharing of information regarding policies, practices and issues. If you are an ISP, mail administrator or blacklist owner and would like to get in touch with us, please email ops@constantcontact.com.
- Email Marketing Pledge: We agree to uphold a strong, affirmative consent model, and support and enforce the terms of the Email Marketing Pledge, the guidelines established by the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau), NAI Email Service Provider Coalition (ESPC) and TRUSTe.
- Net Abuse Sightings and other online sources: Constant Contact actively monitors various websites that report spam and abuse for references to Constant Contact and takes appropriate action whenever appropriate.
- Industry Anti-spam Initiatives:Constant Contact a founding member (and on the steering committee) of The Email Service Provider Coalition (ESPC), formed by the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) to provide unique and effective spam-fighting solutions. Constant Contact's CTO is the co-author of the Project Lumos whitepaper which details technical specifications and requirements necessary for the development of a robust system designed to eradicate spam by providing ISPs and others with a means of securely identifying and authenticating email senders. For more information on the ESPC, please visit www.espcoalition.org.
The Constant Contact Team is always looking for more vehicles for education and prevention to make sure all of our customers are great permission-based emailers. Our customers receive our Email Marketing Hints & Tips newsletter, are invited to an Email Marketing 101 webinar and receive in-product coaching on permission and privacy requirements. Please send any suggestions for enhancements or improvements to
ops@constantcontact.com
