Acceptable Use Policy - EMAILCOLLECT

Our Acceptable Use Policy governs the use of our downloadable products, including ‘New-Contacts,’ ‘QR Code,’ and ‘PDF/s’. By accessing and utilizing these products, you agree to comply with the terms and conditions outlined in this policy. It is important to familiarize yourself with these guidelines to ensure responsible and appropriate use. Please note that this Acceptable Use Policy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For more information about the license, you can visit the Creative Commons website.

We require that you (“Administrator”, “Member”, “End-User”):

Have legal egress to the short-term residence (STR) for which they purchase a subscription.
Never require payment from their STR Guests for their subscription.
Never provide their buyer card details to EmailCollect outside of the official purchase transactions process. Our order process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com. Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for all our orders. Paddle provides all customer service inquiries and handles returns.
Make it clear to their STR Guests what they’re committing to before they submit their details (including making it clear that they’re entering into a subscription).
Keep the subscription description clear to ensure the subscription’s purpose is made very transparent.
Take reasonable steps to let subscribers correct errors in their subscription.
LIST YOUR TERMS & CONDITIONS, PRIVACY POLICY, AND SUBSCRIPTION SUPPORT DETAILS (EMAIL AND PHONE NUMBER) CLEARLY IN ALL OF YOUR CONTACTS WITH YOUR SUBSCRIBERS.
Make sure the subscriber accepts your terms & conditions and privacy policy before they make a subscription.
Make sure the subscriber can unsubscribe from their subscription with you.
Make sure the subscriber’s Personal Information is managed according to current and relevant laws, and in the method outlined in our Privacy Policy.
Don’t conduct any activities we construe as sales malpractices or deceptive sales tactics.
Don’t promote any products that are not relevant to your STR (the reason for your guest’s subscription) and that you never promote products that are on our Prohibited Activity Policy.
Have clear subscription statement descriptors (this is what appears on your Guest’s subscription form). So they can recognize what they are subscribing to, you must use your STR business name. This is submitted when you become an EmailCollect Member and can be updated in the Member Profile section of your dashboard; ensure you update your website accordingly.

Best practices

EmailCollect is not the intended user of the Personal Information (PI) your Guest has approved use of. Therefore, we will not act as a long-term storage facility for the PI you have been provided nor do we take responsibility for the storage of PI once it has been given to you (if you lose your data, we will be unable to provide you with another copy).

As the intended (approved) recipient, EmailCollect recommends the following practice:

From your EmailCollect Member dashboard, identify a property that has “New Contacts” available for collection.
Click “Download” and select to “Consent” for EmailCollect to delete from our database all of the data collected for this particular property (if you do not consent for data to be deleted, we will not be able to provide you with the data).
Access your downloaded .csv file (which will contain your contacts’ PI) and ensure that it is stored in a secure location and is never on-sold.
Within a feasible amount of time, transfer the contact details to YOUR EMAIL MARKETING PLATFORM; ensure your chosen platform ensures an “Unsubscribe” feature and complies with relevant laws.
If we receive complaints that our service is being used for nefarious activity or users of our Forms are unable to unsubscribe, we will take appropriate action to protect the individual’s PI and EmailCollect’s reputation.
All contact with your Guests, who have subscribed to receive contact from you, should also contain links to your STR’s terms & conditions, refund policy, rental support, and a way for renters to contact you directly (usually through providing a reply email address or a link to your STR website/webpage).
We strongly recommend that you use this contact opportunity to promote your STR’s and upcoming events relevant to the STR location and not as a “Sales” platform and that your website/landing-page processes bookings and payments in accordance to applicable laws or points to your online travel agencies (OTA) to manage the booking and payment processes.

Disputes

Disputes can also occur when a subscriber is unable to unsubscribe or the content in your contact with them is deemed by them to be inappropriate or not connected to the contact the agreed to.

This can be for many reasons, including:

Misunderstanding the contact they agreed to receive.
They don’t recognize you as someone they consented to receive contact from.
Recurring contact after subscription cancellation.
They didn’t receive the information they expected.

Unfortunately, disputes are a common part of dealing with online communication, especially when people are often overwhelmed with sales and product promotions. A subscriber needs to be able to refuse contact with you at any time. We recommend that you make yourself fully aware of subscriber issues that occur and resolve them before they appear. Ensuring that your description of yourself is clear at every step and your business contact details are up to date.

It’s important that you keep your responsibilities towards management of Personal Information is at the forefront of your business practices. Please see our Privacy Policy, which we will endevour to keep up to date with current laws. We also recommend that you be alert to the PI laws local to your STR and your Guests’ country of origin. We’ll send you a dispute notification whenever we receive a dispute from one of your Guests and we recommend keeping all dispute alerts always switched on (Alerts can be found in your EmailCollect dashboard).

When a dispute occurs, EmailCollect will provide an “Alert” on your dashboard and may be required to suspend your subscription until the dispute is resolved. We will also email you asking for information.

If you win a dispute case, we will return the relevant property (subscription) to active status and prorate the cost of the suspension time against the cost of that property’s next subscription cycle.

Online fraud

Our aim is to protect our customers (Members) from fraud.

Fraud can occur if your Guest Subscription Form is accessed by a bot which could result in non-entity subscriptions placing an excessive number of “New Contacts” into your STR subscription. If you notice that the number of “New Contacts” you receive is unusual, please contact us through your dashboard and provide us with the relevant details.

Another fraudulent activity could be that your QR Code was accessed by a person who is not your Guest due to your QR Code being outside of your STR. This person may not be a legitimate user of STR’s and, as such, is deceiving you into believing they have legitimate interest in being contacted by you. You may think that one or two of these occurrences is not of concern, however, an excessive number can have flow-on effects, such as over-burdening your account with your email marketing platform.

Other fraudulent activity could occur when any actor (human, bot, etc.) subscribes to receive contact about your STR but they illegally use someone else’s legitimate contact details; this is a very important concern when it comes to being able to Unsubscribe.

Here are some tips to protect your business from fraudulent subscriptions:

Be vigilant on the placement of QR Code provided with your subscription. Be sure that it is placed within the relevant STR in a location your Guest can expect to find it; near the TV, on the living-room coffee table, etc.
So as to avoid the QR Code being thrown into the rubbish bin or being caught on a breeze and floating into a public space (i.e., avoid using loose pieces of paper) but, instead, are printed as stickers or placed in a frame.
Ensure your mail management system is secure.
Ensure your mail management system removes contacts who are unreachable (such as bounced emails or undelivered SMS).
Ensure your mail management system facilitates requests to Unsubscribe.
Ensure that the option to Unsubscribe is provided every time you contact your Guests.
Ensure you use strong passwords across your organization.
Don’t store sensitive Guest information physically (on paper, files, etc); store this data virtually with secure 128-bit encryption.
Any 3rd party software patch updates should always be up to date.
Always retain any Guest communication to aid with any disputes.

If you notice a suspicious Guest subscription activity, please report them to privacy@emailcollect.com.au immediately.

APP and GDPR Compliance

Making sure we are Australian Privacy Principles (APP) and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliant, and in turn that the personal data of the subscribers subscribing to receive contact from you is treated correctly, whilst continuing to provide a great Member experience has been an important focus for EmailCollect when implementing the APP and GDPR. Please visit our Privacy Policy, GDPR Policy, Cookies Policy, Prohibited Activity Policy, and our Terms and Conditions, to determine how this affects you.

As an Australian registered business, we have adopted the APPs contained in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (the Privacy Act). The APPs govern the way in which we collect, use, disclose, store, secure, and dispose of Personal Information.

A copy of the Australian Privacy Principles may be obtained from the website of The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

As a business that could knowingly or unknowingly do business with residents of the EU, EmailCollect advises that our Members visit the GDPR website and read the GDPR summary provided to ensure compliance.

The following are extracts from the summary provided by the GDPR:

“GDPR is an EU law with mandatory rules for how organisations and companies must use personal data in an integrity friendly way. Personal data means any information which, directly or indirectly, could identify a living person. Name, phone number, and address are schoolbook examples of personal data. Interests, information about past purchases, health, and online behaviour is also considered personal data as it could identify a person.

“Processing data means collecting, structuring, organizing, using, storing, sharing, disclosing, erasing and destruction of data. Each organization that processes personal data (which is every organization with employees and customers) must ensure that the personal data it uses fulfils the requirements of the GDPR.”

“The GDPR applies in all EU Member states, which makes it easier for both businesses and citizens.”

“The size of the sanctions are significant. Organisations that violate the law may face sanctions of up to the higher amount of 4% of their global sales (the last 12 months) or € 20 million.”

This Acceptable Use Policy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

You are free to share and adapt this policy under the terms of the license. For more information about the license, you can visit the Creative Commons website. Thank you for your cooperation and adherence to these guidelines.