Emma's privacy and permission policy

Here at Emma, we're dedicated to protecting your privacy and the privacy of anyone on the receiving end of an Emma-delivered email. To that end, we have instituted certain policies -- rules, you might call them -- to help us make sure Emma remains a safe, trusted environment for email marketing and correspondence.

This document outlines those policies and our efforts to enforce them.

1. A simple, straightforward policy on permission
2. No list rental or purchasing here
3. Why we don't allow list rentals or purchases
4. No old lists, either
5. Keeping your personal information, well, personal
6. Protecting your customer lists and data
7. Adhering to the Safe Harbor Data Privacy Principles
8. When Emma sends emails to you
9. Ensuring secure billing transactions
10. To sum things up...

1. A simple, straightforward policy on permission
   Emma is a permission-based email-marketing platform. It is designed to let organizations send emails to people who want to receive those emails. Emma's permission policy is part of the Terms of Use agreed to by every Emma customer, and it appears as a reminder on Emma's import process every time new lists are added. It goes beyond the stipulations set forth in the United States' Can-Spam legislation and is as follows:

   To send an email to someone using Emma, that recipient must be:
   - Someone who is a customer, member or subscriber of your business or organization,
   - Someone who has specifically asked to receive your emails by opting in or signing up in some way, or
   - Someone who has bought a product or service from you in the past 18 months
   

   
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2. No list rental or purchasing here
   While many services allow you to purchase or otherwise obtain a list of addresses of people you've never met and send them emails, Emma does not. We do not rent, sell, or otherwise share our lists or those of our customers, and we do not allow any Emma customer to rent or purchase lists and send to them using the Emma network.
   
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3. Why we don't allow list rentals or purchases
   Emma goes beyond the Can-Spam law to prohibit the sending of unsolicited commercial emails to any lists that have been rented or purchased. Why? Because we've learned that lists obtained in that manner aren't worth the trouble and expense. We know that email works best when it appeals to an audience that's receptive to your message, and that begins with a true permission-based list. More questions about permission? Just ask us.
   
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4. No old lists, either
   When it comes to sending permission-based email, the age of the list matters. If enough time passes between someone initially subscribing to your list and eventually receiving an email from you, permission "expires" as people eventually forget what they've signed up for. That's why we don't allow sending to any email address that was obtained more than 18 months ago and has not received any correspondence from you since that time.
   
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5. Keeping your personal information, well, personal
   In order to create and administer your Emma account, we explicitly ask for and collect certain information about you and your company, including financial information used to verify identity and bill for services. Under no circumstances will we share your (or any other member's) personal information with any third party, except in the circumstance where the requesting organization is a high-powered government agency with the authority and requisite threats of long-term jail sentences to make us share that personal information. Otherwise, no one gets access to your information, ever.
   
   We also collect certain aggregate information about our customers. We use this information to improve our services and do a better job of marketing them. We may also report such information -- always in aggregate form and never in a way that could identify individuals -- to third parties, such as newspapers or industry observers or potential customers and partners.
   
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6. Protecting your customer lists and data
   We do everything we can to make sure your customer lists, email content and response data remains private and confidential. Though we reserve the right to monitor your lists, content and response data from time to time to make sure they comply with our Terms of Use, we will never share, sell or rent your customer data to anyone for any reason. It makes us feel icky just thinking about it.
   
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7. Adhering to the Safe Harbor Data Privacy Principles
   Emma adheres to the data privacy principles of the Safe Harbor program, designed to provide U.S. companies with guidance on how to provide adequate protection for personal data from Europe as required by the European Union's Directive on Data Protection. Emma is listed in the United States Department of Commerce's Safe Harbor directory of self-certifying companies, available here.
   
   Direct any Safe Harbor inquiries or requests to:
   
   Emma
   2120 8th Avenue South
   Nashville, TN 37204
   hi@myemma.com
   
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8. When Emma sends emails to you
   Just as we ask and expect you to respect the inbox of your customers, we will do our best to respect yours. The only emails you'll receive from us will be emails related to your account or your use of Emma. We might alert you to new features or site enhancements. We might check in to see how your last campaign went. Some of those emails may be directed to everyone, and some of them may be written just for you. In the future, we may also ask if you'd like to receive information from our partners. We do not have partners, and until we do, we will not ask.

   We will not sell your email address. We will not rent it. We will not loan it out for the afternoon.

   
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9. Ensuring secure billing transactions
   You are asked to supply certain credit card and billing information in order to purchase Emma's services. That information is transferred, using the most secure transmission technology, to a trusted third party for processing. The information is then encrypted using Data Encryption Standard 3 (Triple DES) and securely stored to handle your transactions. Your credit card information is not stored on the Emma website or in our database. We do not have access to your credit card information, and we do not know whether you chose the Flowers or Picket Fence motif for your card design, though our personal preference is for the Picket Fence.
   
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10. To sum things up...
    Your privacy, and the privacy of people on both sides of Emma emails, is extremely important to us, and we'll do everything we can to protect it. Direct any questions you may have regarding this Privacy Policy to privacy@myemma.com. And if you suspect our privacy and permission policy has been abused in any way, please notify us at abuse@myemma.com.
    
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