Terms of service for Sparsa by Dalmos
These terms govern the use of Sparsa, a newsletter service for businesses and other organisations, provided by DALMOS SYSTEMS, obrt za informatičke usluge, vl. Noa Matas, Šibenik, Ulica Sedmog kontinenta 1 (MBO 99393786) ("Dalmos Systems", "we"). They apply to the customers that use Sparsa ("the customer") and to the people the customer allows to use it ("users"). Sparsa is offered only to businesses and other organisations, not to consumers.
1. Agreement and order of precedence
The customer accepts these terms by signing an order form or another agreement that refers to them, or by using Sparsa. The agreement consists of the order form or agreement, the data processing agreement (section 7), the Sparsa acceptable use policy and these terms. The acceptable use policy is part of these terms.
If the customer and Dalmos Systems have signed a separate written agreement, that agreement prevails over these terms wherever they differ.
2. The service
Sparsa lets the customer’s users build audiences, collect subscribers through sign-up forms with double opt-in, write newsletters, send them from the customer’s own authenticated domain, handle unsubscribes, bounces and complaints, and read reports. Where recipients have consented, Sparsa also measures opens and clicks.
Sparsa is available as an add-on to Medius, as a standalone service, and with a connection to Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Dataverse through Medius. The service ordered, the monthly e-mail allowance and any optional services are those stated in the customer’s order form or agreement. We develop Sparsa continuously and may change, add or remove features; we inform customers in advance of changes that substantially reduce a function they use.
3. Accounts and access
Users sign in with their organisation’s Microsoft Entra ID account. The customer decides who has access and with which role, keeps its accounts secure, and is responsible for what is done under its users’ accounts. The customer tells us without delay if it suspects unauthorised access.
4. The customer’s own domain, accounts and services
Sparsa sends from a domain or subdomain that the customer owns or is authorised to use. The customer publishes the DNS records that Sparsa shows and keeps them in place while it uses Sparsa.
Sparsa connects to services that the customer chooses for itself: its DNS provider, the mailbox it names for replies, and, where ordered, its Medius account and its Microsoft Dynamics 365 or Dataverse environment with the Microsoft licences it needs. The customer is responsible for having these accounts and licences, for complying with their terms, and for the fees their providers charge. We are not responsible for their availability, their changes or their charges.
5. Lawful use and the customer’s compliance
The customer is the sender and the controller of the personal data of its recipients. It uses Sparsa lawfully and in line with the acceptable use policy, and is responsible for the content its users send.
The customer is responsible in particular for: having a lawful basis for every recipient and every topic, and evidence of it; the wording of its consent requests and sign-up forms; deciding whether to use the soft opt-in for its own existing customers, and recording the conditions for it; the accuracy of every import attestation; identifying itself as the sender; and informing its recipients about the processing of their data.
6. Sending, deliverability and limits
Sparsa authenticates the customer’s mail, warms up new sending domains, paces sending per mailbox provider, and suppresses addresses that unsubscribed, complained, bounced permanently or were erased. Whether a message reaches the inbox is decided by the recipient’s mailbox provider; we do not guarantee delivery or inbox placement.
The customer’s first campaign is sent only after Dalmos Systems has approved it. While a new domain is warmed up, the number of messages per day is limited and a larger campaign is spread over several days. The customer cannot lift suppressions caused by unsubscribes, complaints, hard bounces or erasures.
Opens are measured as an estimate and clicks are counted only for recipients who consented to measurement; reports say so. Neither figure is complete.
7. Data protection
For the personal data that Sparsa processes on the customer’s behalf, the customer is the controller and Dalmos Systems is the processor. Dalmos Systems processes that data only on the customer’s documented instructions and under a data processing agreement in accordance with Article 28 GDPR, which the parties sign together with the order form and which forms part of the agreement.
Under it, Dalmos Systems in particular: keeps the data confidential and obliges the people who access it to confidentiality; protects it with appropriate technical and organisational measures; uses only the sub-processors on the Sparsa sub-processor list and informs the customer at least 30 days in advance of new ones, to which the customer may object; helps the customer to answer requests from individuals and to meet its other obligations; informs the customer without undue delay of a personal data breach; and deletes the data at the end of the service as described in section 12.
How Sparsa processes personal data, where it is stored and how long it is kept is described in the Sparsa privacy notice; how individuals can stop newsletters and request deletion is described on the Sparsa data deletion page.
8. Availability and support
We provide Sparsa with reasonable care and skill and make reasonable efforts to keep it available. We do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation: Sparsa may be unavailable during maintenance and updates, or when services it depends on are disrupted, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Cloudflare, Medius or the customer’s own providers.
Specific availability or support levels apply only if they are agreed in a separate written agreement (service level agreement). Support is provided by e-mail at service@dalmossystems.com.
9. Fees and payment
Fees, the monthly e-mail allowance, the billing period and the term are set out in the customer’s order form or agreement. The allowance applies per calendar month and unused e-mails do not carry over; e-mails above the allowance are billed in arrears in the blocks stated in the order form; the set-up fee for domain authentication and warm-up is charged once. We invoice in euros, and invoices are payable within the period stated on them. We may change fees for a following term with at least 30 days’ notice. Fees for third-party services (section 4) are paid by the customer directly to those providers.
10. Pause and suspension
We may pause the customer’s sending at once and without notice when a threshold of the acceptable use policy is reached, when Amazon SES pauses the customer’s sending or reports a finding, or when we receive an abuse report that we consider credible. We resume sending once the cause has been found and removed.
We may also suspend access to Sparsa, in whole or in part, if an invoice remains unpaid 14 days after a reminder, if the customer’s use breaches these terms or the law, or if it endangers the security or operation of Sparsa, its sending reputation or other customers. Where possible we give notice before suspending, and we restore access once the reason has been removed. Neither a pause nor a suspension deletes the customer’s data.
11. Term and termination
The agreement runs for the term stated in the order form or agreement. Either party may terminate it with the notice stated there or, if none is stated, with 30 days’ written notice to the end of a billing period. Either party may terminate with immediate effect if the other party materially breaches the agreement and does not remedy the breach within 14 days of written notice. We may terminate with immediate effect for a material breach of the acceptable use policy, such as sending to a bought list or giving a false import attestation, or for repeated breaches.
12. End of the service: return and deletion of data
When the agreement ends, no further messages are sent and the customer’s workspace becomes read-only for a notice period of 30 days, unless agreed otherwise: the customer’s users can still sign in, read and export its data, but nothing else changes. During that period the customer can ask us to cancel the termination or to help with reasonable requests to hand over its data. When the period ends, or earlier if the customer agreed in writing to an earlier deletion, the customer’s access ends and all of the customer’s data is deleted from Sparsa, and backup copies expire as described in the Sparsa privacy notice.
Until its access ends, the customer can export its lists, reports and per-contact history. The suppression list holds only one-way codes and cannot be handed over as readable addresses. Consent decisions that Sparsa recorded in Medius stay there under the customer’s Medius agreement, where it has one. The customer removes the DNS records it published for Sparsa.
13. Intellectual property and licence
Sparsa, its software, design, starter templates and documentation belong to Dalmos Systems or its licensors. For the term of the agreement we grant the customer a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use Sparsa for its own purposes through its users, and to use the starter templates in newsletters sent through Sparsa. The customer may not copy, modify, resell or reverse-engineer Sparsa, except where the law expressly allows it.
The customer keeps all rights to its data and content, including the images and texts of its newsletters, and grants us the right to process them only to provide the service. We may use suggestions the customer gives us to improve Sparsa.
14. Confidentiality
Each party keeps the other party’s confidential information confidential and uses it only to perform the agreement, during the agreement and for five years after it ends. This does not apply to information that is public, that the receiving party already knew, or that must be disclosed by law. Customer data is also protected as described in section 7, without time limit.
15. Liability
Each party is liable without limitation for damage it causes intentionally or through gross negligence, and wherever the law does not allow liability to be limited.
Otherwise, to the extent Croatian law allows: neither party is liable for indirect or consequential damage, such as lost profit, lost revenue or loss of business; and the total liability of Dalmos Systems for all claims under the agreement is limited to the fees the customer paid for Sparsa in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim. Dalmos Systems is not liable for failures of third-party services (section 4), for decisions of recipients’ mailbox providers, or for events beyond its reasonable control.
The customer is responsible towards Dalmos Systems for damage caused by e-mail sent through its account without a lawful basis, by unlawful content, or by a breach of section 5 or of the acceptable use policy, including fines and claims of third parties.
16. Changes to these terms
We may change these terms. We publish the new version on this page with its effective date and inform customers by e-mail at least 30 days before a material change takes effect; a customer that does not agree may terminate the agreement before then. Changes required by law may take effect sooner.
17. Governing law and disputes
These terms and the agreement are governed by the law of the Republic of Croatia. The parties will first try to resolve disputes amicably; otherwise the competent court in Šibenik has jurisdiction.
18. Contact
Dalmos Systems: service@dalmossystems.com, or by post to Ulica Sedmog kontinenta 1, 22000 Šibenik, Croatia.