Spam Policy

Updated March 3, 2004

We have always had a strict anti-spam policy.

Due to the enormous problems spam causes on the internet overall, our policies are now even more strict.

We consider our servers to be a private network although we are open to commercial client/members. We reserve the right to determine which systems this network communicates with and in what manner.

We are not responsible for delivery *to* our clients of emails they may find offensive. We have taken a pro-active stance against spam, but cannot police each individual piece of email before it reaches our clients.

We define spam as UCE: unsolicited commercial email (trying to sell something to someone who has not requested information) or UBE: Unsolicited Bulk Email (sending to a large list of people without request, whether it be a commercial solicitation, joke, chain-letter, etc.). This also applies to posting in newsgroups or in web forums/bulletin boards online where commercial postings, off-topic postings, and/or cross postings are not allowed.

The following applies to anyone using our system and/or network. This includes non-clients who may send spam *to* or *through* our network.

If someone is found spamming their account is:

• Immediately locked.
• Discussions may take place pursuant to the reinstatement of such account under very *few* conditions. In most cases your account will be deleted permanently.
• A "cleanup" charge of $500 per incident or actual time to answer spam complaints, remedy network blockages, etc. will be imposed, whichever is greater.
• If you plan to send out an email to a list exceeding 25 email addresses you must first notify support@quasar.net and receive permission as well as instructions on how best to handle your list. Depending on your list we may require specific software which we determine. We may also recommend an independent maillist service which we believe conforms to responsible email practices. No more than 100 emails of any kind may be sent out by any user in a one-hour period. Unapproved scripts designed to send bulk email are not allowed on our servers.
• All mailing lists must be "double" opt-in, meaning someone cannot sign up someone else's address from a form on your site thus subscribing them to a list without verification that is really the person subscribing that address.
• Any and all mailing lists of any kind must be kept current (i.e. 'cleaned')
• Certain other scripts are not allowed on our servers. These include formmail.cgi, formmail.pl, cgiemail and other scripts which allow someone to send email directly to a user outside our system and those which can be exploited by spammers to spam. We will provide you with a form which will work safely with our system.

• If you are using another email server to send spam but directing them to a website on our network that is also grounds for termination of your account. The consequences, including charges incurred are the same as if you had sent the spam out from our system.
• Most places which advertise opt-in direct or bulk email services are *not opt-in.*
• *Opt-out* only mailings are not allowed.
• All legitimate, opt-in commercial emailings whether individual emails or mailing list must conform to the CAN-SPAM act of 2003.


Just because it may appear that spam has been made *legal* that does not mean that it is allowed here nor is it across most of the internet!

We may attempt to properly report spam coming into our system and encourage our users to do the same. Normally we will send a spam complaint to any known address for reporting of spam or to the abuse and postmaster addresses at a domain. On systems where we receive no response, or the spam complaint bounces, or where the offense continues from the same network we are now unfortunately blocking the ability of such places to communicate with our network (blackholing). We may also blackhole a network *during* an incident where we see massive spams coming into our system and may report it later.

We are aware that this may affect some innocent people whose ISPs unfortunately condone or prommote spamming. Our best advice to you is to convince your ISP they should not condone, harbor or promote spam...or...to get a more reputable, "net-responsible" provider.

We may occasionally use known spam-fighting blacklists to proactively prevent spam from known spammers.

Some networks may be blocked entirely for network abuse (not just email). At this time we do not block entire geographical areas carte-blanche, however significant portions of some countries are inaccessible here due to individual network's handling of and attitudes about spam. In the majority of cases we block entire address ranges, not just individual IP numbers.

If you are having trouble communicating with our system feel free to call us to discuss whether your provider is one who has been blackholed. We do not post the list of blackholed providers publicly because the professional spam operations would then know to use different address blocks to send us even more spam.

We are truly sorry the current climate of the internet has become such requiring us to limit access in some cases.

If you are unsure if what you want to do is spam, a helpful article located HERE may be of help.

If you have received a spam email which you believe originates at our system or refers the recipient to an address or website on our system, please forward the spam with full-headers to abuse@quasar.net

For other types of incidents such as DOS attacks, please use security@quasar.net.