Acceptable Use Policy

meruma is for talking to the people who want to talk to your business. This policy sets out what falls outside that. It forms part of the terms of service and applies to every organization using the platform and all of its users.

Many of these rules are not ours: messaging platforms and telecom carriers impose them on us, and when one organization breaks them the harm reaches everyone else.

Reporting a violation

If you received a message you did not ask for from a meruma account, or saw use that contradicts this policy, write to info@meruma.app. We review every report.

The consent rule

You may only contact people who agreed to be contacted. Almost every other rule follows from this one.

You may not message contacts that were:

• bought, rented or traded with a third party;
• scraped from websites, social networks or directories;
• obtained by any means without verifiable consent;
• already asked not to be messaged again, on any channel, even if they asked outside meruma.

Your organization must be able to show when and how it obtained each consent, and must honour every opt-out immediately.

Email

Every campaign must allow unsubscribing in one click, and that unsubscribe must be processed without delay. You may not hide who is sending the message, or falsify the sender, subject or headers.

WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger

On top of the above, these channels impose their own rules, which your organization accepts when connecting them:

• Contact only people who gave their number and explicit consent for that channel.
• Honour blocks and spam reports.
• Comply with the platform’s messaging policy, including its template categories and reply windows.
• Do not use the channels for the industries the platform prohibits: weapons, drugs, tobacco, alcohol, adult products, dating, gambling where it is not permitted, unapproved supplements and medical products, unregistered financial services such as payday lending or debt collection, multi-level marketing, and the sale of protected species or animal parts.

Account quality is measured by the platform: too many blocks or reports can lead it to restrict or suspend the number, and that is not up to us.

SMS and calling

• The form asking for a phone number must state clearly what messages will be sent, how often, how to opt out and how to get help, and the phone field may not be mandatory in order to get something else.
• Consent to receive text messages must be collected separately from email or phone consent.
• You must respect permitted calling hours and any applicable do-not-call lists.
• meruma is not a substitute for emergency services. Calling runs over the internet and does not guarantee reaching emergency numbers or transmitting your location.

Call recording

meruma can record calls. Recording someone without telling them is illegal in many countries and states, and several require the consent of every party.

If your organization turns recording on, it is its responsibility to inform the other party at the start of the call, obtain consent where required, and retain and delete recordings in line with the law that applies to it.

Prohibited content

meruma may not be used to transmit, store or distribute content that:

• is illegal, or promotes illegal activity;
• exploits or endangers minors;
• incites hatred, violence or harassment;
• infringes third-party intellectual property;
• constitutes fraud, scams, impersonation or phishing;
• contains malicious software.

Artificial intelligence

Bots must identify themselves as automated to the person they are talking to.

meruma and its artificial intelligence features may not be used to:

• make or assist employment decisions: hiring, evaluation, promotion or dismissal;
• assess creditworthiness or access to financial, educational or essential services;
• infer sensitive characteristics about a person without their consent;
• generate disinformation, impersonate a real person or produce deceptive content;
• develop a competing model or product.

Platform security

You may not attempt to reach another organization’s data, work around plan limits, break security mechanisms, reverse engineer the service, or run penetration tests without our written authorization.

Reasonable use

Plans are sized for the normal use of a working team. If disproportionate use affects the service for others, we will get in touch to agree a solution before taking any measure.

What happens on a breach

Depending on severity, we may ask for it to be corrected, limit a feature, suspend the organization or terminate the service. We give notice whenever doing so would not make the harm worse or be prevented by a legal obligation.

Where the breach affects a connected platform, that platform may also apply consequences directly to your organization’s account.