Do I have permission to contact a customer by email?

hazelh

I can see that in the CVS summary that I will receive a customer's email. However with all the legislation about privacy and spam am I allowed to contact the customer directly or have they only given permission to be contacted by Smugmug?

denisegoldberg

I assume you have either a Portfolio or Pro account. If that's the case, the customer is buying from you, not from SmugMug.

hazelh

Thanks for that @denisegoldberg

Shinrya

@denisegoldberg said:
I assume you have either a Portfolio or Pro account. If that's the case, the customer is buying from you, not from SmugMug.

It would be good to have absolute clarification on this from a SM employee. Maybe different rules depending on US vs EU customers.

hazelh

Yes I agree - having built my own email lists I know how important it is to get permission before sending somebody an email - I don't want to be accused of spamming somebody.
@Shinrya @denisegoldberg

denisegoldberg

@hazelh said:
Yes I agree - having built my own email lists I know how important it is to get permission before sending somebody an email - I don't want to be accused of spamming somebody.

You might want to contact SmugMug support directly to get an answer.

https://help.smugmug.com/email-a-smugmug-support-hero-rkwelDyVrz

hazelh

@Shinrya said:

@denisegoldberg said:
I assume you have either a Portfolio or Pro account. If that's the case, the customer is buying from you, not from SmugMug.

It would be good to have absolute clarification on this from a SM employee. Maybe different rules depending on US vs EU customers.

@Shinrya I have contacted help@smugmug.com and got the following reply:

Thank you for contacting SmugMug.

No, when an order is placed there is no opt-in or out for promotional emails. If you wanted to add a sign up to your site our hero Tom has created a tutorial using Mail Chimp's embed code. You can see it here:
https://portal.photom.me/customization/add-a-newsletter-signup-form-to-your-smugmug-site/

Hope this helps!

leftquark

The SmugMug heroes or any SM employee are not lawyers or experts in the laws of your particular location. If you have questions it's best to contact your local lawyer. They are purchasing from you, and it's your responsibility to protect and use the customer information in accordance with your local laws.

I'm not a lawyer either but there are probably a number of situations where you can contact the customer (for example to help them with an order, to ensure they received an order appropriately, etc). If you're trying to upsell them, then I'd reach out to a local lawyer for guidance

Shinrya

I'm still none the wiser. I understand Aaron's response that people are essentially purchasing from you, but procedurally this still seems quite muddled to me as it is Smugmug that handles the ordering, transaction, and communication between the purchaser.

Also, the answer from support "No, when an order is placed there is no opt-in or out for promotional emails."
Well which one is it then? This answer tells me nothing.

hazelh

@Shinrya said:
I'm still none the wiser. I understand Aaron's response that people are essentially purchasing from you, but procedurally this still seems quite muddled to me as it is Smugmug that handles the ordering, transaction, and communication between the purchaser.

Also, the answer from support "No, when an order is placed there is no opt-in or out for promotional emails."
Well which one is it then? This answer tells me nothing.

From the previous message:

If you wanted to add a sign up to your site our hero Tom has created a tutorial using Mail Chimp's embed code. You can see it here:
https://portal.photom.me/customization/add-a-newsletter-signup-form-to-your-smugmug-site/

What they are trying to say is that you need to create an opt-in form for your smugmug site and if you follow the link it shows you how to do this.

Hazel

leftquark

Yes, as Hazel mentioned, the heroes are telling you that it's up to you to handle the data properly, according to the laws in the areas. So if it's law to request permission before sending promotional material, then it's up to you to do that. I hope one day that SmugMug will make it easy to do these kinds of things and build the tools so that we can choose to add them with the click of a button, but for now it's up to us to add it.

When I last looked at the laws, which was 8 months ago, my clients were purchasing from me and it was up to me to ensure I had the tools in place. SmugMug could be one of the tools but they're purchasing FROM ME, through SmugMug (as opposed to purchasing from SmugMug). When you purchase from many online stores, they're responsible for your data, not Stripe or Square or PayPal (though as the provider, they also have some responsibility to protect it, but they're allowed to share it with the store. In this case, SmugMug is allowed to share the data with you and it's up to you to protect it).

Shinrya

Got it. Thanks for the explanation Aaron.