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Summary
Web Designers are exhorted to utilize
available technology to protect themselves and their website visitors
& users from spammers. Spammers frequently use automated "bots"
to spider/crawl websites to harvest email addresses for spamming
purposes. Web Masters and Designers should ensure that their sites are
not capable of supplying email addresses to automated harvesters.
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| Ref # |
Principle or Proposed Principle
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| WMD001 |
Webmasters and Web Designers should take
all steps possible to ensure that no email address (whether belonging
to themselves or otherwise) appears on their website in a manner
susceptible to harvesting by automated means. |
| WMD002 |
Webmasters and Web Designers should
maintain a page on each website, readily accessible and easy to locate,
which outlines the policy of that site in relation to spammers spamming
email addresses belonging to that domain. The policy should clearly
state the conditions under which email sent to addresses at or related
to that site or domain is and is not welcomed, the rights of action
reserved by the webmaster/domain owner, and the range of consequences
offenders of the policy may encounter. |
| WMD003 |
Where a website contains interactive forums
(including but not limited to chat rooms, message boards, classified
advertisements, guest books, and similar), the Webmaster / Web Designer
should ensure that the privacy of the email addresses of all users is
protected, by non-publication of such email addresses (except where the
user has voluntarily added their email address in the body of their
message/s, unless the Terms of Service of the particular forum prohibit
such content by users). If the nature of such an interactive forum is
to encourage off-forum contact between participants, initial contact
between participants should be via either:
- a web-form script, with the delivery of
the contents of that form to the recipient to include the IP and
timestamp details of the sender;
- a time-limited email redirection service;
or
- other such technology or moderation to
protect the email address of the recipient from public access.
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| WMD004 |
Where a website accepts third-party
advertising within it's site, the Webmaster/Web Designer should conduct
"due diligence" on all intending advertisers to ensure, to the best of
their reasonable abilities, that:
- a) The advertiser does not have a known
history of spamming or other forms of net abuse; and
- b) The advertiser is promoting a
legitimate product or service, not in violation of the Terms of Service
of their own, or the Publication's own, service providers, and not of a
type which may reasonably be suspected of falling within a category
listed by the US Federal Trade Commission as a "Top Ten Dot Con".
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| WMD005 |
In choosing a web hosting service,
Webmasters/Web Designers should conduct such "due diligence" as to
assure themselves that the service they choose is not a "spam friendly"
service. Such "due diligence" should include, yet go beyond merely
examining the Terms of Service / Acceptable Use Policies and Privacy
Policies of the hosting service. Examination should include (though not
be limited to) inclusion/exclusion from various blacklists, newsgroup
commentaries regarding enforcement/non-enforcement of such Terms of
Service, and search of various websites specialising in maintaining
databases of "spam friendly" hosting services.
(Examples not forming part of this Principle:
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| WMD006 |
As the functions of many websites may fall
into more than just one category of the Principles of Best Practice in
Email Spam Prevention and Eradication, Webmasters and Web Designers
must ensure that the websites they design or for which they are
responsible comply with the Principles of Best Practice for all
categories relevant to the website. |
| WMD007 |
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| WMD008 |
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| WMD009 |
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| WMD010 |
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| WMD011 |
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| WMD012 |
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