Acceptable use policy

1. The idea

Outember is for business-to-business outreach that a person would be glad, or at least not upset, to receive: relevant, honest, at a human pace. This policy is part of our Terms of service and applies to everyone using an account, including through the API.

2. No spam

• Contact people for whom your message is plausibly relevant to their job. Don't blast large, untargeted lists.
• Don't buy, rent or share lists of email addresses gathered without regard to the law, or send to addresses you know are invalid.
• Don't try to get around the safety limits, for example by spreading one sender's activity across several organizations or trials.
• Keep each mailbox at a sensible volume (30 to 50 cold emails a day suits most) and watch your bounces and complaints.

3. Follow the law

You're responsible for knowing the rules where you and your recipients are. In particular:

• CAN-SPAM (United States): no false or misleading sender details or subject lines, say who you are, include a valid postal address, offer a clear way to opt out, and honour opt-outs within 10 business days.
• GDPR and UK GDPR (EU and UK): have a lawful basis (usually legitimate interests, which you've assessed), tell people where you got their data and how to object, and stop when they object.
• PECR (UK): business emails to corporate addresses must identify you and offer an opt-out; sole traders and some partnerships count as individuals and need consent.
• CASL (Canada) and similar laws elsewhere: check the consent rules before emailing people there.

This is a summary, not legal advice. If you're unsure, ask a lawyer before you launch.

4. Respect a no

• When someone asks you to stop, stop. Add them to the do-not-contact list (Leads → Do not contact), which every campaign checks before each invite, message and email.
• Keep "Stop when someone replies" on in your campaigns, and consider adding "not interested" replies to the do-not-contact list automatically (Settings → Compliance).
• Don't re-import or re-enrol people to get around the do-not-contact list, and don't contact them from another account.

5. LinkedIn accounts

• Only connect real LinkedIn accounts that you own or are authorized to use. No fake profiles, and no account shared by several people.
• Your messages must also follow LinkedIn's Professional Community Policies.
• Read the LinkedIn-automation risk in our Terms of service: LinkedIn restricts automation, and that risk is yours.

6. No scraping beyond the product

• Use lead sources to find people for your own outreach, not to harvest LinkedIn data in bulk or to build, sell or share a database.
• Don't access the service by automated means other than our API and integrations, and stay within their rate limits.
• Don't reverse-engineer the service or use it to build a competing product.

7. Content that isn't allowed

• harassment, threats, hate speech or discrimination;
• deceptive claims, impersonating someone, or pretending a message is something it isn't (for example a fake reply or a fake invoice);
• phishing, malware or links meant to collect passwords or payment details;
• illegal products or services, adult content, or anything that infringes someone else's rights.

8. Security

Don't probe, scan or load-test the service, or try to access other customers' data. If you find a vulnerability, report it to security@outember.io as described on our security page.

9. What happens if these rules are broken

We may pause campaigns, disconnect a sender, suspend or close the account, and report illegal activity to the authorities. Where it's reasonable we'll warn you first and give you a chance to fix the problem. Paid periods aren't refunded when an account is closed for breaking this policy.

10. Report abuse

Received an unwanted message sent with Outember? Ask the sender to stop (they're required to), and tell us at hello@outember.io with the message and the sender's name. We'll look into it and act.