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Notify terms and conditions of use and fair use policy

To protect sending reputation, special terms and a fair use policy apply to the Notify email and SMS system.

General terms​

In general, you may not use a message to:

  • Bring into disrepute any of:
    • Swimming Club Data Systems
    • Any club affiliated to Swim England, Swim Wales (Nofio Cymru), Scottish Swimming, or British Swimming
    • Any other entity related to Swim England, Swim Wales (Nofio Cymru), Scottish Swimming, or British Swimming
    • Any other individual, government, or corporate entity.
  • Distribute computer programs, viruses, or other malware
  • Promote drugs (legal or otherwise)
  • Promote events or products not related to your organisation
  • Promote any event, product, or scheme that is illegal in England and Wales, or your organisations local jurisdiction.

Swimming Club Data Systems reserves the right to make decisions regarding the suitability of messages according to these terms and any other criteria it deems appropriate at that time.

The rules and policies of our service partners, Amazon Web Services and Twilio, apply in addition to the SCDS rules. Where their rules are more restrictive, those rules take precedence.

Rate limits​

SCDS applies restrictions to the number of emails or SMS messages that can be sent in a given period. Rate limits may vary by organisation.

Penalties​

Following the sending of any inappropriate content, Swimming Club Data Systems may apply any penalties or restrictions as it sees fit. Swimming Club Data Systems reserves the right to make all decisions regarding the suitability of content.

These may include but aren't limited to:

  • User account sending restrictions
  • User account sending suspensions
  • Manual review of a user's messages before sending
  • Tenant-wide sending restrictions
  • Tenant-wide sending suspensions
  • Tenant-wide suspensions
  • Termination of service.

Notify email​

General recommendations​

  • Put yourself in your customer's shoes. Ask yourself if the message that you're sending is something that you would want to receive in your own inbox. If the answer is anything less than an enthusiastic "yes!" then you probably shouldn't send it.
  • Use proper prose and good grammar when writing emails. Spam filters are designed to look for bad or broken English as a red flag. Always use a professional tone.

Compliance​

  • Be aware of the email marketing and anti-spam laws and regulations in the countries and regions that you send email to. You're responsible for making sure that the email you send complies with these laws. This guide doesn't cover these laws, so it's important that you research them. For a list of laws, see Email spam legislation by country on Wikipedia.
  • Always consult an attorney to obtain legal advice.

Bounces​

A bounce occurs when an email can't be delivered to the intended recipient. There are two types of bounces: hard bounces and soft bounces. A hard bounce occurs when the email can't be delivered because of a persistent issue, such as when an email address doesn't exist. A soft bounce occurs when a temporary issue prevents the delivery of an email. Soft bounces can occur when a recipient's inbox is full, or when the receiving server is temporarily unavailable.

SCDS monitors the number of hard bounces. If we see a hard bounce, the user account the email is associated with may be suspended or your organisation asked to update its details. High bounce rates may negatively impact our ability to send messages to your users.

Customer clubs are responsible for keeping contact details up to date. You can do this on at least a yearly basis by performing membership renewal.

You must remove lapsed members and any associated user accounts in a timely manner. SCDS may automatically opt users out of Notify emails if they have not logged in for an extended period of time.

When an email hard-bounces, the email address will be added to a global suppression list. You must contact SCDS support to request removal of an email address from that list. SCDS reserves the right not to honour such requests.

Complaints​

A complaint occurs when an email recipient selects the "Mark as Spam" (or equivalent) button in their web-based email client. If we accumulate a large number of these complaints, the ISP assumes that we're sending spam. This has a negative impact on our deliverability rate and sender reputation. Some, but not all, ISPs will notify us when a complaint is reported, which is known as a feedback loop. SCDS reserves the right to take any action necessary to protect our sending reputation. This may include suspending the ability for users or entire organisations to send emails via the Notify system for as much time as may be deemed necessary.

Message quality​

Email receivers use content filters to detect certain characteristics of messages and determine whether a message is legitimate. These content filters automatically review the content of messages to identify common traits of unwanted to malicious messages.

If an email receiver's content filters determine that your message has characteristics of spam or malicious email, your message will most likely be flagged and diverted from recipients' inboxes.

Remember the following when designing your email:

  • Modern content filters are intelligent, continuously adapting and changing. They don't rely on a predefined set of rules. Third-party services such as ReturnPath or Litmus can help identify content in your email that might trigger content filters.
  • If your email contains links, check the URLs for those links against denylists, such as those found at URIBL.com and SURBL.org.
  • Avoid using link shorteners. Malicious senders might use link shorteners to hide the actual destination of a link. When ISPs notice that link-shortening services—even the most reputable ones—are being used for nefarious purposes, they might denylist those services altogether. If your email contains a link to a denylisted link-shortening service, it won't reach your customers' inboxes, and the success of your email campaign suffers.
  • Test every link in your email to verify that it points to the intended page.
  • Make sure that your website includes Privacy Policy and Terms of Use documents, and that these documents are up to date. It's a good practice to link to these documents from each email you send. Providing links to these documents demonstrates that you have nothing to hide from your customers, which can help build a relationship of trust.
  • If you plan to send high-frequency content (such as "daily deals" messages), make sure that the content of your email is different with each send. When you send messages with high frequency, you must make sure that those messages are timely and relevant, rather than repetitive and annoying.

Attachments​

SCDS monitors all attachments sent Notify. Restrictions apply to the types of file which can be sent. The same rules which apply to email content apply to attachments.

warning

Images of children may not be distributed via Notify.

Force send​

The use of the force send functionality is monitored. You may be required by SCDS to submit detailed reasoning for using the force send functionality. Failure to provide a sufficient reason may lead to your ability to use force send being suspended.

Notify SMS​

Notify SMS offers a one-way service for rapid communication with members. Notify SMS is billed on a Pay as You Go basis.

The same general recommendations apply as for the Notify Email service. SCDS may automatically opt users out of Notify SMS messages if they have not logged in for an extended period of time.

Compliance​

Twilio, our SMS service provider strongly encourages customers to review proposed use cases with qualified legal counsel to make sure that they comply with all applicable laws. Here are some general best practices:

  • SMS-to-voice functionality is in widespread use in the UK, and as a result, Twilio will not reject messages sent to landlines.
  • Sending cannabis-related content is prohibited. CBD-related content is, however, permissible in the UK.
  • Message delivery to M2M numbers is on a best-effort basis only.
  • Only communicate during an end user's daytime hours unless it is urgent.
  • In 2023 BT/EE introduced strict regulations to reduce fraudulent messaging and smishing attempts. Messages sent to BT subscribers with sender IDs related to specific brands will be blocked by default, so customers are required to allowlist Alpha Sender IDs related to the specific brands before sending messages with them. Please find more details in BT Protected Brands.