Acceptable Use Policy
Last updated: [date]
ASMTP exists to deliver ordinary email reliably. That only works if every customer sends mail their recipients want. This policy says what is and is not allowed. It is part of our Terms of Service.
You may use ASMTP to send
- Personal and business correspondence.
- Messages your website sends to its own users and customers: confirmations, receipts, password resets, contact-form copies, notifications.
- Scans and documents from printers and other devices.
- Occasional messages to a small list of people who have asked to hear from you, with a working way to opt out.
You may not use ASMTP to send
- Unsolicited bulk or commercial email of any kind.
- Mail to lists you bought, rented, scraped or harvested, or to addresses collected without the person's clear agreement.
- Mail to lists where the addresses were collected more than 18 months ago without any contact since.
- Marketing mail without a working unsubscribe method that is honoured within 10 days.
- Mail with forged or misleading headers, sender names or subject lines.
- Mail from any address or domain you have not verified with us.
- Phishing, scams, malware, or links to them.
- Anything illegal in the UK or in the recipient's country, or that infringes anyone's rights.
- Chain letters, pyramid schemes, or "make money fast" schemes.
- Anything that damages, or is likely to damage, the reputation of our sending addresses.
What we mean by spam
Spamming means sending email through ASMTP to people who did not ask for it and have not agreed to hear from the sender, in any quantity. It includes:
- Sending to bought, rented, scraped or harvested lists, or addresses collected from websites.
- Sending the same or similar message to many people who do not know the sender.
- Scams, phishing, fake invoices, malware, or pretending to be someone else.
- Hiding who the sender is, forged sender details, or misleading subject lines.
- Continuing to email people who have asked to stop.
This is not spam: normal one-to-one business email, replies, invoices and receipts to your own customers, and the occasional bounce.
Spam ends the service for good
If you use ASMTP to send spam, or otherwise break this policy, we will stop your account straight away and permanently. We will not accept you as a customer again, and we will not refund what you have paid, for any plan or time pass. Our automatic checks only ever pause an account and tell us; a person looks at the evidence before anyone is closed for spam.
Technical limits
- You must stay within your plan's message, recipient and size limits.
- No more than 5 connections at once per login.
- You must not attempt to probe, scan or attack our systems, or share a login between organisations.
Bounces and complaints
We measure these over a rolling 7 days once a login has sent at least 50 messages.
- Complaints (recipients marking your mail as spam): above 0.1 percent we review your account; at 0.3 percent or above your login is suspended automatically.
- Bounces (address does not exist): above 2 percent we review; at 5 percent or above your login is suspended automatically.
These are the same levels the major mailbox providers use. Sending to bad addresses hurts everyone on the service.
Spam and virus scanning
Every message is scanned. A message that scores as likely spam is held rather than sent, and you are told. Three held messages in a day suspends the login. A message carrying a virus is refused and the login is suspended at once.
Compromised logins
If we believe a login has been stolen, we freeze it and tell you. Please reset the password from your customer area, check the device or website that used it, and tell us when it is safe. Only our team can switch a frozen login back on; we will look at it shortly, usually the same working day.
What we do on a breach
We may hold messages, pause a login, pause the account, or close it, without notice where the risk is immediate. An account closed for spam or for breaking this policy is closed for good and is not refunded. We may pass on to you any costs we incur, such as blocklist removal fees, caused by your sending.
Reporting abuse
Email abuse@asmtp.com with the full headers of the message. We read that mailbox every working day and act on genuine reports quickly. More on the Report abuse page.