Messaging Terms & Conditions

1. This programme is not running yet

The Framatics store is a working prototype. It is not trading, nothing on it is licensed, and no payment can be taken through it. Terms and Conditions Section 1 sets that out in full and takes priority over everything below.

There is no live messaging programme. We have not connected a text messaging provider, no sending number or short code has been assigned to us, and no marketing text or marketing email has been sent to anyone. The signup fields in the footer are part of the interface demonstration. A number or address entered there is not enrolled in anything.

Everything below is written in the present tense because it describes the Programme as it is intended to operate on the day it opens. Until that day, no description here is an offer or a commitment, and none of it can be relied on. This section will be deleted when the Programme goes live, and the rest of this page becomes binding at that point.

We publish the rules first anyway. A messaging programme whose terms only appear after you have handed over your phone number is worse than one you can read beforehand.

2. Your consent to receive messages

When you opt in, you agree to receive recurring automated promotional and personalised marketing messages from Framatics at the phone number and email address you gave us, including text messages that may be sent using an automatic telephone dialling system. Message frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply, and your carrier charges them, not us.

By giving us a phone number you confirm that it is your own number and that you are the person authorised to use it. If a number stops being yours, tell us so we can stop messaging it, because the next person to hold it did not agree to anything.

Consent is not a condition of any purchase. You can buy from Framatics without joining the Programme, and leaving the Programme does not affect your orders, your account, your rewards balance or any price you are shown.

Agreeing to receive messages sent with an autodialler is not a statement that we use one. It is permission, not a description of our equipment.

Separately from marketing, we may always send you service messages about something you actually did: an order confirmation, a shipping update, a delivery problem, a security notice, or a reply to a question you asked us. Those are not marketing and opting out of marketing does not switch them off.

3. What we send you

If you join the Programme, expect messages about:

• A championship involving a team connected to you. This is the main reason we message. When a team you follow, or a team from a city you have told us about, wins a title, we will let you know that the front pages covering it are available as prints. Section 4 explains how we decide which teams are yours.
• Deals and promotions, including sales, discount codes, member offers and early access.
• New prints and new editions, including additional pages and follow-up coverage from a championship you already care about.
• New product lines, including photography and art alongside the newspaper prints.
• Reminders, such as an unfinished cart or an item on your wishlist coming back.

A championship is news with a short shelf life, so the messages that matter most cluster around one. Expect the Programme to be quiet for long stretches and busier in the days after a team of yours wins something.

We do not sell your phone number to other companies for them to text you, and we will not message you on behalf of an unrelated advertiser. Section 15 explains how the Privacy Policy treats the wider disclosure of personal information, which is a real disclosure you should read.

4. How we work out which teams and cities are yours

The Programme is only worth receiving if the team it messages you about is a team you actually care about. We work that out from the following, and nothing else:

• Teams you save or follow on the store, and the teams and leagues you filter and browse by.
• Cities and regions you tell us about, including where you live now and where you used to live. Fans keep the team they grew up with, so a former home town counts.
• The city and state on a shipping or billing address you give us for an order.
• The state associated with your phone number's area code. This is also how we apply the state telemarketing rules in Section 14.
• What you have bought or viewed on the store.

We do not collect precise location. We do not ask your device for GPS coordinates, we do not track where you physically are, and Privacy Policy Section 2 records that commitment. Every signal in the list above is either something you typed, an address you chose to give us, or the state an area code belongs to. All of it is city or state level at best.

Area codes and old addresses are guesses, and guesses are wrong sometimes. If we connect you to a team that is not yours, tell us and we will correct it, or use the opt-out in Section 8 and the guessing stops entirely.

5. Email as well as text

The Programme covers both text messages and marketing email, and you can be in one and not the other. Signing up with an email address does not enrol your phone number, and giving us a phone number does not enrol your email address.

They are also switched off separately. Replying STOP to a text stops texts. It does not stop email, which has its own unsubscribe link in the footer of every marketing message. Section 8 covers both.

The championship trigger in Section 3 works the same way on either channel. Which one you hear on depends on which one you gave us.

6. Consent to receive information electronically

The law may require us to give you certain information in writing before you agree to receive marketing calls or texts. By opting in you agree that we may give you that information electronically, on a page like this one, instead of on paper.

To read and keep a copy of this page you need a device with a web browser and an internet connection, plus somewhere to save the page or a printer to print it.

You can withdraw this consent, correct the information we hold, or ask for a free paper copy by emailing framatics.us@gmail.com.

7. Message frequency and cost

Message and data rates may apply. Your mobile carrier sets those charges and bills you for them. Framatics does not charge you to receive messages.

Message frequency varies and is at our discretion. Because the Programme is driven by championships, the number of messages in a given week or month is uneven by design.

We may change how often we send, and we may change the number or short code that our messages come from.

8. How to stop the messages

To stop texts, reply STOP to any message from us. We also accept END, CANCEL, REVOKE, OPT OUT, UNSUBSCRIBE and QUIT. You may get one final message confirming you are out.

Use the keyword on its own. Automated systems match these words exactly, so a sentence built around one, a different spelling, or extra words either side may not be recognised.

To stop marketing email, use the unsubscribe link in any marketing email.

You can also email framatics.us@gmail.com and ask us to remove you, and we will. Doing it that way is slower than a keyword, because a person has to read it, so use STOP or the unsubscribe link if you want it to happen immediately.

Telling a member of staff in conversation is not a reliable way to opt out. Put it in one of the routes above so there is a record of it.

Opting out of marketing does not close your account, forfeit rewards, or stop the service messages described in Section 2.

9. Help and support

Reply HELP to any text from us for help, or email framatics.us@gmail.com at any time.

The email address is for help and for questions about the Programme. It also works for opting out, as Section 8 says, but the keyword and the unsubscribe link are faster.

10. AI assistance with message content

We may use third-party generative artificial intelligence tools to help draft or suggest the wording of messages, and to help choose which of your teams a message should be about. A message may therefore be tailored to you using the information described in Section 4.

We decide what is sent. Every message goes out because Framatics chose to send it, and Framatics is responsible for it. A provider of an AI tool we use to draft wording is not the sender or the initiator of the message.

We will not use these tools to make a decision about you that has a legal or similarly significant effect, and we do not use them to set your prices.

11. Delivery, devices and carriers

The Programme is offered on an “as is” basis. It may not be available everywhere, at all times, or on every handset, and it may stop working if your carrier changes its products, software or coverage.

Where your device does not support MMS, we will send the message as SMS text instead.

Delivery depends on your carrier's network and is outside our control. Neither Framatics nor the mobile carriers are liable for delayed or undelivered messages. If something important is time limited, we will not treat a message you never received as notice to you.

12. Age requirement

You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority where you live if that is higher, to join the Programme. By opting in you confirm that you are, and that you live in the United States.

We do not knowingly enrol anyone under 18. If you believe a child has been enrolled, email framatics.us@gmail.com and we will remove the number and delete what we hold for it. Privacy Policy Section 10 covers children's information in full.

13. What you must not send us

When you reply to our messages, do not send:

• anything fraudulent, defamatory, threatening, harassing or stalking;
• obscene or violent content, or content attacking people on the basis of race, sex, religion, nationality, disability, sexual orientation, age or any other protected characteristic;
• viruses, malware or anything else designed to cause harm;
• anything promoting a product, service or promotion that is unlawful where it is received;
• health information protected by HIPAA or the HITECH Act; or
• anything else prohibited by law where you are sending from.

We may remove anyone from the Programme who does.

14. State telemarketing law and where you live

We aim to comply with state telemarketing law as well as federal law, including the Florida Telemarketing Act and Florida Do Not Call Act, the Oklahoma Telephone Solicitation Act of 2022, the Maryland Stop the Spam Calls Act of 2023, New Jersey Senate Bill 921 (2023), and the Virginia Telephone Privacy Protection Act.

To apply the right state's rules we need to know which state you are in. Unless you tell us otherwise, we treat you as a resident of the state your phone number's area code belongs to at the time you opt in. If that is wrong, write to us at framatics.us@gmail.com and tell us the state you actually live in, and we will use that instead.

Messages we send in direct response to something you sent us are not commercial telemarketing calls for the purposes of those laws. That covers replies to a keyword, opt-in confirmations, HELP responses, and order and shipping notifications.

15. Privacy, including the sale and sharing disclosure

Everything we collect through the Programme is handled under the Framatics Privacy Policy, which you should read alongside this page. Section 2 of that policy lists what we collect, Section 4 lists what we use it for, and Section 5 lists who receives it.

Framatics sells and shares personal information as those terms are defined by California and other US state privacy law. Privacy Policy Section 6 sets out exactly what that means and who receives it. Joining the Programme does not change that either way, and neither does leaving it.

To opt out of that sale and sharing, use the Cookie Preferences link at the bottom of any page and turn on Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. That control is separate from the messaging opt-out in Section 8: one stops us messaging you, the other stops the sale and sharing of your information. You can use either, both, or neither.

For access, deletion, correction or any other privacy right, email framatics.us@gmail.com with “Privacy Request” in the subject line. Privacy Policy Section 9 explains what happens next.

16. Other terms that apply, and disputes

The Framatics Terms and Conditions and the Framatics Privacy Policy both apply to your use of the Programme. If you are enrolled in the Framatics Family, the Loyalty Rewards Terms and Conditions apply to that separately.

These Messaging Terms cover the Programme only. They do not change any other agreement between us.

There is no arbitration agreement and no class action waiver in these Messaging Terms. Disputes about the Programme are governed by the law of the State of Georgia and are brought in the state or federal courts of Fulton County, Georgia, exactly as Terms and Conditions Section 14 provides. If an arbitration agreement is ever introduced, it will appear in the Terms and Conditions first and will not apply to anything that happened before it.

17. Changes, and how to contact us

We may change these Messaging Terms. If we do, we will post the updated version here and change the date at the top of the page, and where the change is significant we will tell you. Until you receive that notice, the version you last saw governs. Staying in the Programme after a change means you accept the updated terms.

If any part of these Messaging Terms turns out to be unenforceable, that part is narrowed or removed and the rest continues to apply. Not enforcing something once does not waive it.

The Programme is a service of Framatics, Atlanta, Georgia, United States. Reach us at framatics.us@gmail.com.

We do not publish a customer service telephone number. Email is the only support channel, and it is the channel to use for anything on this page.

18. Do Not Call policy

This section is our internal Do Not Call policy for text messages, published so you can see it.

Background. The federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, the related FCC rules and the cases interpreting them regulate telemarketing, which the rules define as contacting someone to encourage them to buy or rent property, goods or services. They set requirements for cold calls, prerecorded sales calls and autodiallers, and they created the National Do Not Call Registry alongside the internal Do Not Call lists that individual businesses must keep. Many states add their own rules on top, as Section 14 describes.

Our policy. Framatics is committed to complying with federal and state Do Not Call law. We do not send marketing text messages to:

• any number for which we do not hold prior express written consent, as the FCC defines it; or
• any number on our internal Do Not Call list.

Getting on our Do Not Call list. We keep an internal Do Not Call list and will honour a request to be added to it promptly, and in no case more than 10 business days after we receive it. To be added, either:

• reply STOP, END, CANCEL, REVOKE, OPT OUT, UNSUBSCRIBE or QUIT to any message from us, using the keyword on its own so our system recognises it; or
• email framatics.us@gmail.com with your name and the telephone number you want added.

How long it lasts. Your number stays on our Do Not Call list indefinitely, unless you later give fresh prior express written consent to rejoin. If you change your number, the new number is not covered, so ask us to add that one too.