Acceptable Use Policy

This Acceptable Use Policy (the "Policy") defines the standards that govern outbound activity delivered by Outword LLC ("Outword," "we," "us," or "our") on behalf of our clients. It exists to protect recipients, preserve sender reputation, and keep deliverability strong for every engagement we run. This Policy is incorporated into our Terms of Service, and it applies to you as a client of Outword and to all outreach we send in your name.

1. Purpose

Outword runs managed, full-service outbound for vetted business senders. This Policy sets out what is and is not permitted in that outreach. We enforce it to protect recipients, to comply with applicable law, and to preserve the deliverability and reputation that make your outbound work. Material violations may result in pausing or terminating activity, as described below.

2. Permitted Use

Outbound delivered through Outword is for legitimate business-to-business communication. Permitted use includes:

• Reaching business recipients with whom you have permission or a genuine, documented legitimate business interest, in compliance with all applicable laws (including CAN-SPAM, CASL, GDPR, ePrivacy, and local equivalents).
• Sending from an accurate sender identity on a domain you control that can receive and respond to replies.
• Communicating a relevant, truthful offer to an audience for which there is a real business reason to make contact.

3. Prohibited Use

We will not send, and you may not ask us to send, outreach that involves any of the following:

• Purchased, rented, scraped, or harvested lists, or unsolicited bulk email (spam).
• Forged, disguised, or misleading sender, reply-to, header, or routing information.
• Messages without a clear and functioning way to opt out, or messages to anyone who has already opted out.
• Messages to recipients who have complained, hard-bounced, or appear on a suppression list.
• Phishing, malware, fraudulent, deceptive, or unlawful content, or any content you are not authorized to send.
• Any attempt to circumvent recipient filters, opt-out mechanisms, sending limits, or monitoring.
• Outreach that infringes intellectual property, violates privacy rights, or promotes prohibited products or activities.

4. Authentication and Sender Integrity

Every engagement is built on proper sender authentication, because correct authentication is what tells mailbox providers your mail is genuine and helps it reach the inbox. As part of onboarding and ongoing operation, we establish and maintain industry-standard sender authentication (including SPF, DKIM, and DMARC alignment) and correct reverse DNS for the sending identities we operate on your behalf.

• You agree not to alter the sending domains, authentication records, or reply handling we configure in a way that breaks authentication or sender integrity.
• Sender identity must always be accurate. Replies must reach a real, monitored mailbox.
• These measures protect your domain reputation and the trust recipients place in your messages.

5. Rate, Bounce, and Complaint Discipline

Healthy sending is measured, warmed up, and continuously monitored. To protect deliverability and recipients, we apply graduated sending volumes and per-identity limits, and we watch engagement signals closely throughout an engagement.

• We maintain hard caps on bounce and complaint rates. As a guideline, hard-bounce rates are kept below 3% and spam-complaint rates below 0.1%.
• We monitor these signals continuously and will automatically slow, pause, or adjust sending that approaches or breaches these thresholds, to protect your reputation and the recipients you are trying to reach.
• Sending volumes ramp gradually rather than spiking, which is both safer for deliverability and more respectful of recipients.

6. List Hygiene and Consent

Clean, well-sourced data is the foundation of responsible outbound. For every engagement:

• Target lists are validated before sending, and invalid or unengaged addresses are removed promptly.
• You agree to provide only data you have the right to use, and to retain evidence of permission or legitimate interest where applicable.
• Opt-out and do-not-contact requests are honored promptly, and within 2 business days at the latest, and the relevant contacts are suppressed from further outreach.
• Suppression lists are maintained and respected across the engagement.

7. Compliance with Law

All outreach must comply with the laws applicable to you and to your recipients, including anti-spam, privacy, and marketing laws. Where we process personal data on your behalf, we do so in line with our Privacy Policy and, where applicable, a Data Processing Addendum. You remain responsible for the lawfulness of the audiences and offers you ask us to pursue.

8. Enforcement

We may investigate suspected violations of this Policy, review sending metadata as needed for abuse or deliverability investigation, and take protective action. Protective action can include slowing or pausing sending, requiring changes to lists or content, and, for repeat or serious violations, suspending or terminating the affected activity or engagement. We will use reasonable judgment and, where practical, work with you to resolve issues before taking severe action, but we may act immediately where needed to protect recipients or the email ecosystem.

9. Reporting Abuse

If you believe outreach delivered by Outword violates this Policy, or you have received a message and wish to report a concern, contact our Trust and Safety team at abuse@outword.io. Please include the full message and its headers where possible. We review every report, investigate the originating engagement, and enforce this Policy, up to and including immediate suspension where warranted. We aim to acknowledge abuse reports within one business day.

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. Material changes will be posted on this page with a revised "updated" date. Continued participation in an engagement after an update takes effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Policy.