How do we monitor our members?

We use a variety of methods to make sure our members aren’t sending spam. The first and most important is an honesty policy. Generally our members already meet or exceed our guidelines and this is just a way for them to be recognized for their good practice.

With that said, the definition of spam can be a bit of a gray area and what one person considers spam may be different to what the sender considers spam. For that reason we have a variety of methods to monitor our members.

1. Manual Monitoring

We check all our members during the application and assess their current privacy policy and practices. We may also sign up for the newsletter or membership if they have one and check the frequency and content of the emails.

2. Blacklists

Known spammers are often listed on one or more spam blacklists. We check members against the blacklists to see if they have been known to spam. We haven’t found any of our members on any blacklists yet!

3. Feedback From Customers

Visitors to our member’s websites let us know when they have a complaint against one of members and we can take the appropriate action.

5 Places to Show Your Membership Seal

1: ON SIGNUP FORMS- Show vistors it is safe to enter personal information.
2: ON YOUR HOMEPAGE- Give your site credibility by displaying the Seal.

3. ON EMAILS- Members must have a working unsubscribe function. Put the seal on your emails so customers know they can safely unsubscribe if they want to.

4. ON ADVERTISING- Use the Seal to differentiate yourself from competitors in your advertising.

5. ON STATIONARY- Build trust offline as well as online.

TIP: Pick a hard address to guess

Spammers get email addresses from a variety of sources including guessing. Businesses will often have common emails like ’support@domain.com’ or ’sales@domain.com’ and make them easy targets for spam. There are also domains that have thousands, even millions of email accounts, like Hotmail, which also make it easy to guess. It’s a pretty safe bet that someone has the address ‘john@hotmail.com’

To make it harder for spammers to guess your email try adding extra characters. You can also make it harder to guess by increasing the length of the address to make it harder to guess. Instead of ’support@domain’ you could make it ‘2468support@domain.com’ or ‘123John123@hotmail.com’.

It may sound weird at first but people who contact you regularly will add you to their address book so it doesn’t matter how obscure your address is.

Latest Site Seals

Here you can see the latest logos:

80 x 15 Mini Banner.

88 x 33 Micro Bar.

120 x 60 Banner to suit Adsense.

How does it work?

Members get a unique piece of code that is inserted into your selected web pages to display the latest Seal. The Seal shows your visitors that you do not spam customers or sell their details.

Visitors can also click the logo to view your business contact details you choose to provide, and also send you an email directly via the contact form on your business listing. They can even view your business on a map! Click the Seal on this site to see our listing.

Can I use it on all my sites?

The seal displays your information unique for that domain, therefore the license is for use on ONE domain only. If you want to display the Seal on different domains you need to purchase additional licenses.

The easiest way to do it is from within the Member’s Area. On the Member’s Homepage you will see your previous listing. Below that there is a button titled ‘Add listing’. Click that create a new account.

Once completed, all your websites will be listed on you Member’s Homepage.

How do I cancel my account?

Please contact us to cancel your account by clicking here.

YOU CANNOT SIMPLY DELETE YOUR LISTING. We use Paypal to manage memberships so if you delete your listing then Paypal will continue to bill you.

How can I stop receiving spam?

Unfortunately if you are already receiving spam then it is almost impossible to stop spam on that email address. If you are not receiving much spam then keep your address safe and follow some simple rules:

1. Make sure you only enter information into sites that display the SPAM SAFE SITES logo!!! We constantly monitor our members to make sure they are not sending spam, and they have a VERIFIED opt out/ unsubscribe feature.

2. Have several email addresses. If you have several emails for different purposes. Then you can use one to enter into sites you consider possible spammers, one for business and one for personal use that you only give to very close friends.

3. Use a spam filter/ stopper. We recommend and use Spam Arrest because it requires any unidentified senders to verify they are real before the message is sent. Automatic mailing programs used by spammers cannot verify their address so there is NO WAY spammers can get through.

Can I unsubscribe or opt- out of spam mail?

Simple answer: NO.

Part of the spam laws require all emails to have an ‘opt out’ feature so that people can opt out of mailing lists. Sometimes these will actually work, but often it will simply confirm that your email address is active and being read, leading to more spam.

The best thing to do is use your email program to tag the sender as junk and delete the email.

How do spammers get my address?

There are many ways that spammers get your address some of the most common are:

-Forms & Surveys

If you have EVER given out your email address ANYWHERE it is possible they have sold your address! Websites will often have a incentive like a competition, discount or newsletter asking you for an email and other personal information. This is then added to their database and sometimes sold to marketing companies who will resell the information.

-Harvesters

If you own a website, or have your email address published anywhere on the internet then it can be found by ‘Spiders’ or programs that prowl the internet searching for email addresses and other info, usually automatically.

-Friends

Sometimes friends will visit a website that asks you to ‘refer a friend’, usually in return for a free membership.

-Guessing

It is possible for people to guess your email address. Many companies will have ’support@mybusiness.com’ as an address. Also free email services like Hotmail are very popular making it easy to produce a list of possible email addresses.

-Group/ forwarding emails

When you forward an email it will often contain the previous senders details. If this ends up with a spammer then they get a free list of prospects, often with nicknames.

MAKE SURE YOU DELETE THE PREVIOUS SENDERS EMAIL ADDRESS BEFORE YOU FORWARD AN EMAIL

PS: Bill Gates is not going to give you $5 for every person you send an email to, and you will not die miserable if you don’t pass chain letters on!