Terms and Conditions
Please read these terms carefully as they set out your rights and obligations when you engage pebble design for any of their services and you must comply with these terms. All work is carried out by Pebble Design on the understanding that the client has agreed to these Terms and Conditions.
Website Payment Terms
Initial 50% deposit to be paid on agreement and progress payments to be invoiced no later than the end of month 1, month 2 and up to a maximum of 6 months (typically 25% and 25%).
- If on monthly direct debit plan – Monthly fees invoiced for each month from the start of the project, and to be set-up as automatic direct debit payments via our secure payment page. Early cancellation, will require payment of all months in full.
- Sites exceeding 6 months can incur additional charges beyond this original proposal.
- Payment on all progress payments and website hosting required in full before going live.
- Quotation valid for 30 days.
- Delivery subject to seasonal influences and time of order.
- Payment terms: 7 days
- Failed transaction fee – $16 + GST (including rejected transactions due to insufficient funds)
Pebble Design has the right to take the site offline for any work not paid for by the due date.
Accepted payment methods – bank account transfer, credit card or BPAY.
Development process & online software system
We lead you through all stages of the website process with ease and simplicity. The stages we move through are the initial quote, brief, content, technical info, concept, html full responsive (17 media queries including popular mobile), CMS hosting set up and functionality, build all website pages, testing, go live, post live checking. Any deviations from this system may incur delays and additional charges.
Development timelines and schedules will be adhered to by both you and Pebble Design. Where development schedules are not adhered to by you the final delivery date or dates will be adjusted accordingly. Pebble Design can extend the due date for any Deliverable by giving written email notice to you. Building a website after concept approval and all the information and images are provided can take between 4 weeks to 12 weeks depending on the size and functionality of the website.
Supply of images & content
All images and copy for the website are to be supplied via We Transfer when requested. Items not supplied on schedule will incur additional costs and delays. We offer copy writing services, photography and stock images as additional services if required.
CMS edit functionality
There is no FTP access to the site, only admin access via the CMS. Copy and image changes are limited to content via modules and pages like the Accommodation, Promotions/Specials, What’s On blog, Local Attractions, Image gallery, Guest Reviews. All other images in the main website template/s and on occasion a few custom images are not editable due to hard coding.
Additional costs for late supply of images and content
If you want images or content changed throughout the website development process, this time will go on your change allowance so we strongly recommend to put the images you would like to use in the folders that we have provided so there is more clarity for the web developers to know which images to use on your web pages before the full build. Once the 5% change allowance is used up, additional costs will be incurred.
Change allowance
We have designed our system from many years of experience to be fair and be a win/win for both parties. We have efficient systems that our quotation process is based on and we allow a maximum of a 5% total time allocation for changes during stages which is ample time if you work within our systems. Any changes made at later stages will exceed this allowance and will incur additional charges. Please note that we code our sites to very high responsive standards, 17 different media queries which does not allow for custom mobile styling. This can be done as an optional charge.
Additional build/support time
We do offer additional development hours in blocks of time, 5, 10, 20. We prefer to stay on budget, but are flexible during development if the need arises to extend already quoted and approved stages.
Progress payments
On time payments will ensure that the workflow is maintained, any delays will cause delays in delivery of stages. An invoice will be emailed to you to make payment.
Progress payments to be invoiced no later than the end of month 1, month 2 and up to a maximum of 6 months (typically 25% and 25%).
If you have negotiated a 12 or 24 month payment plan and for any reason a monthly payment gets missed, this will null and void the 12 or 24 month contract and full payment will then be required.
Business consultancy
We are exceptional website developers, but also offer marketing consultancy as an additional service if this is required to help develop your product or business.
IT Consultancy
We are web developers and have limited knowledge of network, email, backup set ups. It is preferable that you use specialised consultants for these services as they are not included in our services. We are not liable or responsible for any email related issues. We can only offer limited support to the best of our knowledge as web developers are not specialists in this field.
Ongoing support
We offer online marketing strategies to help extend the effectiveness of your website. Additional web functionality can be added and extended as one off jobs or done through pre paid support blocks of time. We can assist with further content and article writing, landing pages, email marketing, adwords, photography, social media and extended SEO.
Artwork terms and Photography copyright
- Additional changes, out of scope authors changes, additional training and instruction will incur additional charges and will be advised before commencement.
- Work will not proceed without written authorisation at sign off periods and on time payments of deposit, progress charges and hosting charges.
- Unless stated otherwise, all works and submissions created by Pebble Design are Copyright © and owned by Pebble Design.
- Please note that images and videos produced and created by Pebble Design is licenced for usage on the property website that we created and host. If the website is hosted with us, this licence extends to the usage of the images on social media and OTA platforms.
- Should you wish to purchase the licence for the rights to use your property images without hosting your website with us, this can be negotiated and a price agreed to. This will cover property specific images only and not generalised location images or video.
The Fine Print
- By having your website built by Pebble Design you are accepting these terms and conditions.
- Pebble Design will assist as best possible if there are client side computer hardware or software issues, however it is the responsibility of the client to consult with an IT company on hardware/software issues or mail server solutions.
- Pebble Design will not be responsible for problems resulting from changes to a website conducted by any other party.
- Please note that once the website has gone live this constitutes a finished and complete project unless otherwise agreed too in writing and all additions to the website will incure an additional charges.
- Pebble Design will assist in domain delegation but is not liable for any delays caused by third party providers. Please be aware that there are several procedures beyond our control which can effect the delegation process.
- Pebble Design web hosting is all done on third party servers* who specialise in these services. Pebble Design are not liable for any outages, loss of services or cease of services through any of these 3rd party companies at any time.
- Pebble Design is not responsible for negative results resulting from failure to implement optimization particulars as indicated in the ongoing and continued optimization of the site.
- Pebble Design reserves the right to modify all aspects of the SEO service including search engine submission and strategies at any time in the interest of achieving the best results for the client.
- Due to the diverse nature of SEO and the regular algorithm changes, Pebble Design is not responsible for organic rankings in search engines.
- In the event of the contract between Pebble Design and the client being terminated by either party, Pebble Design owns the intellectual property of all original build files and the client owns all the text based content and images originally supplied. A single licence is included whilst Pebble Design host and manage the website. If the site is to be hosted and managed externally a single licence can be purchased for the use of the code on the original property/hotel intended and is at the discretion of Pebble Design to agree or disagree to this. If Pebble Design are in agreement we can prepare and package the files to supply digitally once the single licence fee has been paid. This licence includes the right to use our IP on one website. As we have developed our own custom hotel server environment, you will need your developer to modify to suit your new hosting environment. If the website is built on a different CMS server platform all functionality would be lost. The single licence can be extended and additional licences can be purchased for multiple property use.
- Pebble Design cannot guarantee SEO placing of the website. Successful listing is a function of the uniqueness and quality of the website and subject to variation based on competitor’s activities. Popular keywords or general keywords are more competitive than others, affecting listing dramatically.
- Due to delays typically encountered with indexation of submitted pages, Pebble Design is not responsible for slow or non response by a particular search engine.
- Pebble Design is not liable for content added via the CMS, it is the responsibility of the client to ensure approved, legal content suitable for general viewing is made available via their website.
- If work is done over an extended period of time and the hours exceed the quoted amount and the job doesn’t go through to completion, no refunds will be provided.
- Should you choose to move your website elsewhere or no longer host your website there will be no website hosting refund.
- If you or an agent of yours other than Pebble Design attempts to update, edit or alter the website, infrastructure, source files or hosting management in a way that causes damage to individual pages or the site’s architecture, you are liable to pay for the time needed for Pebble Design to repair the services.
- No employee, contractor or director of Pebble Design Online Pty Ltd shall be personally liable for any claim, loss, damage, or expense arising out of or in connection with the services provided under this agreement. This limitation of liability extends to all aspects of our work.
Ownership and Rights
- The process of creating the ‘finished product’ for a client, requires the construction of native and/or master files. These files contain intellectual techniques and/or information. Whilst the ‘finished product’ is the sole property of the client (upon full payment), the ‘native files’ remain the property of Pebble Design.
- The native (source) files (the files that were used to originally create the document, ie, InDesign™, Illustrator™, Photoshop™, HTML, Word™, PowerPoint™, Excel™, etc) sketches, illustration, including electronic files, procedures and development files employed to create the agreed work remain the sole property of Pebble Design unless specifically agreed and released in writing and after all costs have been settled.
- A charge for supply of native files will be incurred as it includes intellectual creative expertise, file retrieval, digital file/disc transfer, compensation for loss of (future) earnings. Native files will not be supplied until payment is received in full. This does not include unused intermediate ideas and concepts, which will remain the property of Pebble Design. Also does not include purchased Fonts as it is illegal to hand them over – instead the font licences will need to be supplied in outlines and the client will have to purchase the font licences themselves.
- For Commercial Confidentiality and Intellectual Property reasons, Pebble Design native files cannot be accessed by any external company or contractors without prior consent of Pebble Design. Pebble Design licence a single use of this code on the original property the work was created for. This licence fee is included so long as Pebble Design host and manage the website. In the event that Pebble Design (at our sole discretion) allows access by 3rd parties additional terms & conditions will apply. By allowing external parties to access these files, you unconditionally waive Pebble Design for any liability that may be associated by changes to the files and backup files that we may hold. In the event that Pebble Design no longer hosts and manages the website and you wish to host your website elsewhere and if agreed by Pebble Design, a single licence can be purchased to facilitate this.
- Part of Pebble Design’s duty of care to our clients is to maintain a thorough storage and back-up procedure of your native files. Once confirmation of receipt of native files has been received from the client, Pebble Design will immediately REMOVE said native files and subsequent back-ups from our servers.
- Charges may apply to digitally transport large file sizes at the discretion of Pebble Design and the client will be solely responsible for these costs.
- Pebble Design will construct achievable ‘non-native’ file requests on any given request, standard hourly charges/rates will apply.
- In the construction of Graphics and Data, Pebble Design relies upon the information that is supplied by the client. While best practice is applied by Pebble Design, it is the sole responsibly of the client to ensure the information is correct and the end result matches the data supplied. Clients unconditionally accept that the final proof supplied is correct and cannot hold Pebble Design liable under any circumstances for errors and omissions.
- While constructing Graphics and presentation, Pebble Design may purchase stock photography or font licences. These images and fonts are licensed to Pebble Design and are not transferable without written authorisation by Pebble Design with the appropriate royalty fees.
- Images and fonts supplied by the client for artwork must be licensed by the client and the client accepts all liability for any infringing copyright. Once the images are supplied to Pebble Design, we will use them without restriction in the project or any related projects – unless advised of any restrictions.
- All data is treated in commercial confidence, but will remain on our systems for integrity verification in the event of a dispute. In the event of a client not using our design and development services in the period of 24 calendar months, Pebble Design retains the right to remove all backups & native files without the clients knowledge. Should the client wish to terminate our service it is their responsibility to request the backup files.
- Whilst every effort has been made in ensuring that print-ready artwork is colour correct and free of errors, Pebble Design can not be held liable for colour matching or production quality should a client choose to manage the printing process themselves.
- Although we highly recommend that Pebble Design manage the production process from concept to completion, we advise clients that wish to manage the production of their printed items understand the importance of carefully checking printed proofs (not just digital proofs) and press checking is advised to ensure a quality finish.
Copyrights and Trademarks
- Copyright is retained by Pebble Design on all design work including words, pictures, ideas, visuals and illustrations unless specifically released in writing and after all costs have been settled. If a choice of design is presented, only one solution is deemed to be given by Pebble Design as fulfilling the contract. All other designs and concepts remain the property of Pebble Design, unless agreed in writing that this arrangement has been changed. A single licence is included whilst Pebble Design host and manage the website. If the site is to be hosted and managed externally a single licence can be purchased for the use of the code on the original property intended and is at the discretion of Pebble Design to agree to this.
- By supplying text, images and other data to Pebble Design for inclusion in the customer’s website or other medium, the customer declares that it holds the appropriate copyright and/or trademark permissions. The ownership of such materials will remain with the customer, or rightful copyright or trademark owner.
- The customer agrees to fully indemnify and hold Pebble Design free from any and all claims resulting from the customer not having obtained all the required copyright, and/or any other necessary permissions.
- One of the conditions of us creating your website is that we are credited in your website footer on every page with our name, copyright symbol and the credit links to our website. The copyright of our work must remain on all pages of the work that we originally create.
Design Charges
- Prices quoted for all work are estimates only and are based on the initial brief from the client. Any changes, corrections or work additional to the original brief will be charged at an hourly rate (or a preagreed fee negotiated by the client and Pebble Design).
- Charges for design services to be provided by Pebble Design, will be set out in a written estimate or quotation that is provided to the customer. At the time of the customer’s signed or email acceptance of this estimate or quotation, indicating acceptance of the Terms & Conditions, a non-refundable deposit of 50% of the quoted fee will become immediately due. Work on the project will not commence until Pebble Design has received this amount.
- All work conducted by Pebble Design at the request of the Customer, and without an agreed quotation will be charged at an hourly rate. Charges are not negotiable once work has commenced.
Web Code Standards
- Code XHTML 1, CSS 3 – current industry standard (HTML 5 elements on request if required), Semantic coded, clean and optimized code and images for search engines & load speed, Compatibility in most popular browsers including Microsoft Edge 12 and onwards (as older versions will auto update), Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera. Splash page for earlier versions of Internet Explorer, 301 Redirects from old website, On Page SEO (page titles and URLs, meta data, H1 tags), Google Web Fonts, Javascript and jQuery (no Flash – not supported on Apple devices), Favicon (browser icon), Google Analytics tracking.
Charges for Other Services and charges from third party providers
- Charges for any additional services over and above the estimated design, will become fully payable (100% of the quoted service amount) at the time of estimate or quotation acceptance.
- All third party costs incurred from any third party supplier, as requested or agreed by our client, are liable by the client unless prior written notification (email is acceptable) is recieved within appropriate timing.
General Payment
- The client will be provided with an Invoice prior to final issue of artwork or publication. At this time the remainder of the amount due will become payable. Accounts which remain outstanding for 30 days from the date of invoice, will incur an extra charge of 5% per month of the outstanding amount. If the services of a debt collection agency are required to receive payment of this account, the cost collection will be added to your invoice.
- If you fail to pay any invoice, Pebble Design reserve the right to withdraw the services and associated materials or refuse completion and/or delivery of work until past due balances are paid. All materials or property belonging to you, as well as work performed, may be retained as security until all just claims against you are satisfied.
- All ongoing support rates are charged in blocks of time in advance.
- Website CMS hosting is payable in advance to ensure a website remains live. To cancel website hosting 1 months notice in writing is required. No refunds are available on annual or monthly hosting plans.
- If on an ENSO package, the monthly ENSO payment will continue monthly after the 24 month period unless otherwise notified in writing from the client.
Supply of Files by the Client
- It is the responsibility of the client to supply correct, proofed text files in an agreed format and file type. Any changes or corrections to original text supplied will be charged at an hourly rate (minimum of one hour).
- It is the responsibility of the client to supply appropriate resolution photos and images in an agreed file type. Pebble Design takes no responsibility for the print quality or resolution of images provided by the client.
Final Art Approvals and Changes
- It is the responsibility of the client to proof all artwork and production files before sign-off and/or production. Pebble Design takes no responsibility for errors in typography, spelling, grammar, formatting or file errors.
- Any changes or corrections made by the client subsequent to the issue of final artwork will be charged at an hourly rate (minimum of one hour). Pebble Design may extend or modify any delivery schedule or deadline as may be required by such changes. Re-issue of artwork on disk, via e-mail or ftp upload will be charged at an hourly rate (minimum of one hour).
Showcasing Artwork
- Pebble Design reserves the right to show any artwork, ideas and sketches created for Projects in a portfolio, in various online galleries and in logo process posts as examples of client work.
- Pebble Design owns the right to display and showcase their work by any means they see fit and brand all of their work with their logo and link back to their website.
Project Communication and Delays
To maintain efficient flow of the project through to completion, regular and transparent communication is required at all key stages.
If in the event there is a communication breakdown and no communication has been acknowledged or responded to after a 2 month period, we withhold the right to cancel the project and pursue any outstanding payments owing for time, work and expenses incurred. We retain the copyright to any uncompleted projects and related files.
Domain Names
All domain names are legally owned by you. All domain name registrations aresubject to availability and registration rules. You manage your domain(s) and payment of fees. Pebble Design use various Registrars to manage your domain names. You are bound by the Registrar’s “Domain name registration terms” which are found on their website. You indemnify Pebble Design against any loss or damage arising directly or indirectly from any failure of services provided by the Registrar.
Pebble WordPress Premium Server Environment
Our hosting environment has been purposed designed for commercial use, reliability and security. Our custom server set up has been designed to ensure SSL security, weekly updates, daily website backups, monitoring and maintenance, bandwidth flexibility, performance and load speed delivery, global functionality upgrades and updates to our custom built templates, increased CPU performance and a customised, easy to use back-end environment for the many varied skill set of our clients and their marketing teams. We can also use a CDN (content delivery network) solution to further increase performance and speed of our sites for faster global delivery across 4000 plus servers. Our server hosting and management does cover our regular monitoring and plugin updates however if new coding and additional troubleshooting is required then support time will need to be purchased.
If you do choose to host the site on your servers we can not be responsible for the code we deliver functioning as efficiently or accurately on a foreign server environment. We are also not liable for the weekly maintenance or daily backup functionality. We also cannot offer custom upgrades, new widgets and plug-ins we design that will work in a foreign environment.
Our standard server hosting covers up to 2.5GB of data and 500GB bandwidth. We are at liberty and have the right to increase the monthly cost if it goes over 2.5GB data or 500GB bandwidth per month. The additional prices per month that will be charged are as follows (the size below includes the standard 2.5GB data);
- Up to 5GB – additional $50 + gst per month
- Up to 7.5GB – additional $100 + gst per month
- Up to 10GB – additional $150 + gst per month
- Up to 12.5GB – additional $200 + gst per month
- Up to 15GB – additional $250 + gst per month
- Up to 17.5GB – additional $300 + gst per month
- Up to 20GB – additional $350 + gst per month
Server Hosting
Pebble Design has made every effort to ensure and offer continued and reliable uptime of our websites. There is no way to guarantee 100% uptime and no server company offers this. There are instances outside of our control as there are many third parties involved of which we are not liable for:
- DDos attack – A distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack is a malicious attempt to disrupt the normal traffic of a targeted server, service or network by overwhelming the target or its surrounding infrastructure with a flood of Internet traffic. Usually a server restart kills the attack.
- Outlook Exchange Autodiscover attack or timeout – The autodiscover file is a dynamically generated file from Microsoft 365 / Outlook email exchange, which contains the information Outlook needs to access your external mailbox. This can be abused and security measures will need to be put in place on a client by client basis, for example if you don’t have an Outlook email exchange server hosted or connect to the website domain then this potentially will be an outbound attack. This is very similar to a DDoS attack but not as serious. If it is an attack, usually a server restart kills the attack. If not we would need to block the attack manually, to prevent this from happening again. However this needs to be monitored carefully as you may actually be using the autodiscover feature with your Microsoft 365 / Outlook account, if this is the case you would need to contact your email IT person to look into why the email server is timing out. This autodiscover feature isn’t recommended unless set up by a professional.
- Marketing Promotion – a planned or sudden impact of traffic from a large scale visitation can disrupt the server infrastructure. The server can become slow and unresponsive and eventually crash. This is very similar to a DDos attack but being a real world event rather than staged by computers / bots. We need to be advised and across any large scale marketing activities to assist in the management of continued uptime. In the event of needing to upgrade and increase the capacities of your current server plan additional costs will apply.
- General Maintenance / Server Downtime – If a server goes down for maintenance (rarely the case) the server will auto-restart after the scheduled maintenance which normally needs a 1-3 minute window to be fully back online. Server maintenance is generally done in the lowest website visitation period.
- Third Party Code Security and Performance Risks – This can be a number of things, from embedding Javascript, Plugins to iFrames, any type of code that is pulling data / files from a different server than the intended. This type of code can be injected / added into a website in which the original developer didn’t intend, being fully un-supported and out of our control. From small updates to edits, any type of third party code is not recommended that can not be updated by Pebble Design, then this code can drastically affect the original website / code and even double up on code. This can unnecessarily affect the overall security and performance of the website. These things are most often added by marketing and web managers which entirely bypasses the Pebel Design developers code review and tests. An example software commonly used is called a Google Tag Manager (GTM), third party code can easily be added alongside Google code so even more HTTP requests / connections are made. This potentially could put your website at risk of being hacked or even open up avenues to being attacked as well as affecting original performance and Google Page Speeds.
Client admin access and developer level access to the backend of your WordPress website
Client Admin Access
Our standard procedure is to set our clients up with client-level access. This includes being able to edit all images and content in the website. This does not include structural and template coded and hardcoded areas such as forms, maps, header, footer… For ease of content updates, we have purpose designed modules which are fully editable at this level.
SEO access is available on request and there will be additional costs for setup.
Developer level access (full admin access) is only available through Pebble Design. For any developer level coding, support time can be purchased to meet any requirements needed.
Hosting your WordPress website on a different server and licence fees
If you want to host your website on different servers, we can package up the files and provide them to you and give you a single licence for the original intended property. You will then need to find a new website developer who can install them on the other servers as they are most likely configured quite differently. They will need to take the site live and do all updates moving forward. We won’t be able to do any future speed optimisations, custom-designed hotel widget installations which we have purposely designed for hotel clients to increase direct bookings and grow databases, theme optimisations, WP or Plugin updates or any other updates moving forward.
Not all web servers are equal. There is a massive difference between hosting environments and that is why we are not prepared to comprise as we want the best for our clients. We know how much revenue is made from a hotel website and if comprised how much revenue can be lost! It’s a bit like paying for a beautiful sports car but then diluting the fuel and putting really cheap types on it and expecting it to perform the same… it just won’t. It’s critical in the marketing and success of hotels that there is peace of mind knowing that the website is secure and performing at its best.
Our custom server environment and website code is our intellectual property and by hosting your website with us does not include full access to our IP. For a new website going live or moving an existing WordPress website, we need to package the code and digital files for hand over and include a single licence for the original intended property and the cost is $12,500 + gst. Alternatively, we can set up full admin access for $12,500 + gst (including the single licence). These prices also include the rights to use our design IP. If you have not purchased either of these options you will need to pay $12,500 + gst to use our IP on a different server or you will be in breech of copyright ownership.
Please note the Pebble Design WordPress code (html5, css, sass, php, js…), inclusive of custom built modules and custom functionality strictly remains the IP of Pebble Design. Under no circumstances will Pebble Design give access to a competitor agency working in the same field and demographic. In this instance the design of the website may be copied and rebuilt by the agency once the Design IP has been agreed and paid for as above.
By moving the website to a different server you also accept the condition to credit the original creators of the design and works Pebble Design in the footer of the website with a link to https://pebbledesign.com/ We also retain the right to request for our name and link to be removed from the website if the standard of work deteriorates or declines.
New management rights ownership
In the event that the management rights for the property are sold, the original website contract is only in place with the current owners and a new contract needs to be entered into with the new owners. If no new contract is put in place with the new owners, all copyright of the website code and any imagery and video created by Pebble Design remains the property of Pebble Design Online Pty Ltd.
Should the new owners wish to move the website to their own servers and use the IP created by Pebble Design there is a contractual fee of $12,500 + gst to release, package up and supply the necessary files. This includes a single licence for the new owner of the property. If this is not agreed to and this is copied without Pebble Designs consent, these parties will be in breech of copyright ownership. Please be aware of our design and code IP as mentioned in the above section.
By moving the website to a different server you also accept the condition to credit the original creators of the design and works Pebble Design in the footer of the website with a link to https://pebbledesign.com/ We also retain the right to request for our name and link to be removed from the website if the standard of work deteriorates or declines.
Pebble Mailer Privacy and Anti-Spam Policy
At Pebble Design, we respect the privacy needs of our valued customers and members. This Privacy Policy outlines what specific information is gathered on the Pebble Mailer site and how that information is used.
Maintaining the privacy of your information is of paramount importance to us as it helps foster confidence, goodwill and stronger relationships with you, our customers. If, at any time, you have questions or concerns about our privacy practices, please feel free contact us at [email protected].
Information Collection and Use
Pebble Mailer collects information that personally identifies you (“personal information”) in some circumstances, for example when you apply for our services or our customers provide your personal information to us so that we can help them communicate with you by email. The types of personal information we collect include name, contact details, identification information, organisation, title, information submitted in forms, payment details and enquiry/complaint details. We also collect personal information about your interactions and transactions with us, including any through monitoring and recording any contact we have with you by telephone, email or online for purposes including security, dispute resolution and training. We collect personal information directly from you as well as from third parties including public sources, our related companies, information service providers and the parties with whom we exchange information as described here.
We also store and manage information on behalf of our customers so they can manage their email campaigns. This includes information about our customers’ subscribers such as email addresses, emails received, links accessed (we sometimes track this for customers through our software) and other details entered by customers into our systems, which are subject to our Terms of Use but are not otherwise limited or controlled by us. It is possible that in this respect we could handle sensitive information such as information about professional association membership, political beliefs, health and religion. We do not use this information for our own purposes.
We collect, use and disclose your personal information to provide, administer, improve and personalise our products and services, maintain and update our records, manage our relationship with you and our customers and deal with your enquiries and concerns. We may also collect, use and disclose your personal information in connection with suspected fraud, misconduct and unlawful activity.
If you are our customer, your personal information is used to create your personal access to our email marketing product, and to contact you in the course of using this product. Financial information that is collected is used to verify, identity and to bill either you or your company for products and services, as applicable. Demographic and profile data collected by Pebble Mailer may be used to tailor this web site or any requested email communications, and to display information that is more relevant to you. Pebble Mailer also compiles demographic and product use information, but in the aggregate only, and may make that aggregate information publicly available. Under no circumstances will Pebble Mailer make any personal information about an individual user available publicly in this manner.
Your email address is used to only send you information that you have requested. As part of your use of our email marketing software, Pebble Mailer allows you to elect to receive, or not receive, certain information. Pebble Mailer adheres strictly to permission-based email policy. Except as mentioned above, Pebble Mailer will not send you unsolicited email information, commercial offers or advertisements. Pebble Mailer will not sell, rent, or loan our contact lists or our customer’s contact lists (including customer data) to any outside firms not involved in the provision of Pebble Mailer services, nor will Pebble Design use customer contact lists for our own marketing purposes. All emails that you have requested will have an option to unsubscribe. Unsubscribe requests are fulfilled within minutes and no further communications will be sent to users who have stated that they do not wish to receive the specified information.
We may not be able to do the things described above without your personal information. For example, we may not be able to communicate with you and deal with your enquiries.
Disclosure
Pebble Mailer will not use or disclose your personal information without your consent, except:
- where required or authorised by law;
- to implement the terms of any agreement we have with you;
- to assist the lawful investigation of a law enforcement authority;
- to protect the rights, property or personal safety of another Pebble Mailer customer, any member of the public or Pebble Mailer;
- the assets and operations of the business are transferred to another party as a going concern; or
- as otherwise described in this Privacy Policy.
We may exchange your personal information with your representatives and with our service providers that assist us with archival, auditing, accounting, customer contact, legal, business consulting, banking, payment, delivery, data processing, data analysis, information broking, research, investigation, website or technology services. Third parties to whom we disclose personal information may be located in Australia, the United States of America and other countries.
Subscriber Lists, Campaign Content and Campaign Reports
Pebble Mailer employs a range of measures to protect the privacy and confidentiality of personal information in subscriber lists, email content and reports. Pebble Mailer may scan the content of your campaigns to ensure it complies with our Terms of Use — to protect against defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, obscene, profane, or threatening material that is racially or ethnically offensive.
Communications from the Site
Special Offers and Updates
We send all new users a welcoming email to verify their new account and confirm their password and username. Established users will occasionally receive information on products, services, special deals, and a newsletter. Out of respect for the privacy of our users we present the option to not receive these types of communications. Customers can unsubscribe via the unsubscribe mechanism at the bottom of each email.
Newsletter
If a user wishes to subscribe to our newsletter, we ask for contact information such as name and email address. Out of respect for our users privacy we provide a way to opt-out of these communications via the unsubscribe mechanism at the bottom of each email.
Service Announcements
On rare occasions it is necessary to send out a strictly service related announcement. For instance, if our service is temporarily suspended for maintenance we might send users an email. Generally, users may not opt-out of these communications, though they can deactivate their account. However, these communications are not promotional in nature.
Customer Service
We communicate with users on a regular basis to provide requested services and in regards to issues relating to their account we reply via email or phone, in accordance with the user’s wishes.
Website Usage Information
We use your IP address to help diagnose problems with our server, and to administer our website. We do not link your IP address which accesses our website to any personal information. We use tracking information to determine which areas our site users visit based on traffic to those areas. Pebble Mailer does not track what individual users read, but rather how often each page is visited. This helps us maintain a superior and informative website for you.
Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to your computer’s hard disk for record keeping purposes. Most web browsers are set to accept cookies. Pebble Mailer uses cookies to make your use of our website and services as convenient as possible. Cookies are useful to estimate our number of visitors and to determine overall traffic patterns through our website.
If you do not wish to receive any cookies you may set your browser to refuse cookies. This may mean you will not be able to take full advantage of Pebble Mailer’s services.
In providing email campaign services for our customers, we may link cookies and IP addresses with records of emails received and links accessed to help our customers monitor the effectiveness of their email campaigns and manage their relationships with subscribers.
In some cases third parties may use cookies and other technologies such as web beacons and JavaScript on our website in connection with online services like website analytics and surveys. This may allow them to collect information about your use of our website (including your computer’s IP address) which they may store in the United States or other countries. The use of these technologies allows them to deliver customised evaluate users use of our website and other websites and provide other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Those third parties may also transfer the information they collect to others where required to do so by law, or where those others process the information on their behalf. The services we may use from time to time include Google Analytics, Yahoo, Adobe and Microsoft. You can find more details in the privacy policies for those services, including information on how to opt-out of certain conduct.
Our website may contains links to other sites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices or policies of those sites.
Security Technology
Pebble Mailer has made a substantial investment in server, database, backup and firewall technologies to protect our information assets. These technologies are deployed as part of sophisticated security architecture. All data resides in a tightly controlled, secure data center. These investments mean that information about the identity and preferences of individual members is strongly protected by Pebble Mailer against unauthorised access. We will maintain safeguards to protect the security of these servers and your personal information.
Pebble Mailer may process, store and back up its information with the assistance of those providers.
Policy Modifications
We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If/when Pebble Mailer makes changes to this privacy statement, we will post any changes here, so be sure to check back periodically.
Anti-Spam
At Pebble Design, we take permission very seriously. By creating an account and agreeing to our Terms of Use, you are also agreeing to this anti-spam policy.
The law isn’t enough, it’s permission that counts
While the CAN-SPAM laws are a step in the right direction for reducing the spam problem, we don’t feel they go far enough. Our definition of spam goes beyond the laws in most countries and encompasses what we believe to be true permission email marketing.
Spam is any email you send to someone who hasn’t given you their direct permission to contact them on the topic of the email.
But that’s not enough. Permission is a fuzzy word open to interpretation. Let’s get into some specific scenarios so it’s clear what does and doesn’t constitute permission.
What kind of email addresses are OK to send to with Pebble Mailer?
To send email to anyone using Pebble Mailer you must have clearly obtained their permission. This could be done through:
- An email newsletter subscribe form on your web site.
- An opt-in checkbox on a form. This checkbox must not be checked by default, the person completing the form must willingly select the checkbox to indicate they want to hear from you.
- If someone completes an offline form like a survey or enters a competition, you can only contact them if it was explained to them that you would be contacting them by email AND they ticked a box indicating they would like you to contact them.
- Customers who have purchased from you within the last 2 years. If someone gives you their business card and you have explicitly asked for permission to add them to your list, you can contact them. If they dropped their business card in a fishbowl at a trade show, there must be a sign indicating they will be contacted by email about that specific topic.
Basically, you can only ever email anyone who has clearly given you permission to email them specifically about the subject you’re contacting them about.
What kind of email addresses are NOT OK to send to with Pebble Mailer?
Anything outside the examples above doesn’t equal permission in our eyes, but here are some examples to make sure we’re crystal clear. By using Pebble Mailer, you agree not to import or send to any email address which:
- You do not have explicit, provable permission to contact in relation to the topic of the email you’re sending.
- You bought, loaned, rented or in any way acquired from a third party, no matter what they claim about quality or permission. You need to obtain permission yourself.
- You haven’t contacted via email in the last 2 years. Permission doesn’t age well and these people have either changed email address or won’t remember giving their permission in the first place.
- You scraped or copy and pasted from the web. Just because people publish their email address doesn’t mean they want to hear from you.
Sure, some of these people might have given you their email address, but what’s missing is your permission to email them commercial messages. Blasting promotional emails to any of these people won’t be effective and will more than likely see your email marked as spam by many of your recipients.
What content MUST I include in my email?
Every email you send using Pebble Mailer must include the following:
- A single-click unsubscribe link that instantly removes the subscriber from your list. Once they unsubscribe, you can never email them again.
- The name and physical address of the sender. If you’re sending an email for your client, you’ll need to include your client’s details instead.
How we’ll know if you don’t have permission
Pebble Mailer has numerous layers of approval and monitoring to ensure you comply with our anti-spam policy. Here’s a few of them:
- Until your account has been approved by a member of our team, every email you send will need to be approved.
- Our software is directly integrated into the spam reporting systems for some of the biggest ISP’s like Outlook.com and AOL. If you don’t have permission and someone marks your campaign as spam, we’ll know about it the moment that button is pressed. If you receive a complaint rate greater than 0.3% of all recipients (that’s 30 complaints for every 10,000 recipients) you will receive a warning email requesting an explanation and giving you advice. This is a generous figure that takes into account false spam reports. Higher levels of complaints will result in accounts being locked or terminated.
- Our team verifies all large lists imported into our software. Until we’ve given it the all clear, you can’t send to it.
- We monitor blacklists and our abuse accounts all day every day. We can pinpoint who is causing us delivery problems or attracting complaints very easily.
If we do discover that you’re emailing people without their permission, we will terminate your account with Pebble Mailer immediately.
In the end, it’s really common sense. Take off your marketing hat and put yourself in your recipient’s shoes. If they don’t recognize who you are or aren’t interested in what you’re sending, they’ll think you’re a spammer. It’s that simple.