Anti-Spam Policy

Why this one is strict

Mail reputation belongs to an address range, not to an account. One customer working through a bought list can land every other site on that range in junk folders for weeks, and nothing the innocent parties do will speed up the recovery. That asymmetry is why we act faster here than anywhere else in these documents.

1. Permission, and what counts as it

UK law — the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, sitting alongside data protection law — generally requires consent before marketing mail reaches an individual. Consent is something a person actively does. A box already ticked is not it. Nor is an address typed in to enter a competition, or one lifted from a company website.

There is one narrow carve-out: people who already bought from you, being told about comparable products, who were offered a refusal at the moment you took the address and in every message afterwards. It is far narrower than most senders assume it is.

For any address you hold, you should be able to say when permission was given and how. No record, no send.

2. Lists you did not build

Bought lists and rented lists are refused outright, with no case-by-case discussion. Neither are addresses scraped from directories, websites or social platforms, nor a list that came attached to a business you took over unless the original permission stretches to what you now intend.

Mailing a doubtful list to ask whether people want to be on it is not a way to fix the list. That message is itself the breach.

3. What a message must show

• an honest sender — real headers, a from-address that is what it claims;
• a subject that matches the contents;
• an unsubscribe that works, actioned immediately and no later than three working days;
• a postal address, and the registered company behind any trading name.

An unsubscribe never expires. Putting somebody back on because they later filled in a different form, or because the list has a new name, starts the breach over.

4. Shared plans and volume

Shared and reseller plans meter outbound mail by the hour. The allowance is built for what a website legitimately sends — receipts, resets, form notifications — not for campaigns.

Newsletters belong with a provider that manages sending reputation as its product and reports on delivery. Pushing a list through shared hosting hurts your own open rates before it ever becomes our problem.

5. Relays and sending for others

No open relays. No sending for a third party whose permission practices you cannot personally stand behind. Resellers own their customers' behaviour as far as we are concerned, because the account is what we can act on.

6. When a run starts

We watch the shape of outbound traffic rather than reading its contents. When a run begins, sending stops first and the conversation happens second. An hour of hesitation is the difference between a note to one customer and a delisting exercise affecting everyone.

• Broken in. Most spam from hosting is a hijacked form or a leaked password rather than a decision. We suspend sending, tell you where it originated, and turn it back on once the hole is shut.
• Sent on purpose. The account closes, and the balance of the term is not refunded.

Where an account gets a range blocklisted, the cost of delisting and of moving other customers to clean addresses can be passed to it.

7. Reporting spam you received

Send it through report abuse with complete headers. Without headers a report usually cannot be tied to an account, and a forwarded message body on its own rarely goes anywhere.

8. Mail we send you

Service, billing and security messages come regardless — they are part of running your account. Anything promotional is opt-in and unsubscribing from it never affects the operational mail. The detail is in the privacy policy.

9. The company

HostingFast is a trading name of Vitalcare at Home Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under Company No. 15098204. Registered office: Office 4648, 221–323 High Road, Chadwell Heath, Romford, England, RM6 6AX. Questions to info@hostingfastnet.com.