The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was approved by the US Senate in November 2003 and by the House of Representatives in December 2003. It was signed into law by President Bush on December 16, 2003 and went into effect on January 1, 2004

CAN-SPAM (The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) Act requires unsolicited commercial e-mail messages to be labeled and to include opt-out instructions and the sender's physical address. It prohibits the use of deceptive subject lines and false headers in such messages.

For detailed information see: http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/summ108.html#s877
 

Complying with CAN-SPAM is currently a high priority for all email marketers, and
The Email Company is committed to helping our clients in this regard. Here is a quick guide to CAN-SPAM as well as some practical tips for ensuring compliance.

Please note: This is not intended as an exhaustive overview of the entire Act, but simply a summary of the most important issues as they apply to The Email Company's clients.


Commercial vs. Transactional Email

It is vital to distinguish between Commercial and Transactional email since many provisions apply only to Commercial email. Examples of Transactional email are purchase confirmations, replies to user-initiated request for quote etc. Newsletters, promotions, competitions, sales announcements, product launches, surveys etc. would all be seen as Commercial email. 95% of the email the eMail company transmits for its clients is Commercial email and need to comply with the provisions listed below.


Key Provisions Aple to Complicabmercial Email

Provisions that you probably already comply with

• Provide clear notice that recipients may opt-out from receiving future messages and provide a working mechanism for them to do so.
• The unsub mechanism you use must be available for 30 days after the date of the transmission.
• You must remove the recipient no later than 10 days after the removal request.
• You may send messages to recipients who opt-out and subsequently opt-in again.
• Don't falsify header information. This includes the From Address and the Subject Line, neither of which may be false or misleading.

Provisions that you need to start complying with immediately

• If a user has not previously opted in to receive a specific email from you, you may email them as long as you provide clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an advertisement. You do not necessarily need to include ADV in the subject line, although this would be one way of identifying the message as an ad. If a user has previously opted in receive a specific email from you, you do not need to provide clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an advertisement. You can only be in this situation if you rent a list. Right? You may want to say that.
• If you provide a list or menu of email messages a recipient can opt in or out of (like in a Preference Center), you also need to include an option for the recipient to opt out of all messages from you.
• Include a valid physical address of the sender (the company or product being promoted in the email) in all messages. Do not use post box addresses.

Practical Tips for the eMail company Email Clients

• Be conscientious about complying with all the above provisions!
• If you use a reply-to address in your DARTmail transmissions, set up a fool-proof system to remove unsubscribe requests that come to your reply-to address from your DARTmail lists.
• If your master database is not in DARTmail, be sure to delete all unsubs that are captured by DARTmail from your master database on a regular basis.
• If you are running a List Generator or Preference Center with multiple message options, you need to add an option for unsubscribing to all mailings.
• If you rent or buy lists from third party vendors you need to provide such vendors with your suppression file (i.e. all users who have opted out of receiving mail from you) before they do a transmission on your behalf. Alternatively, if you are doing the transmission, be sure to remove your suppression file names from the rental list before transmission.
• If you are running a List Generator or Preference Center, we suggest you sign up for the eMail company's new Permission Proof module to help you manage spam complaints. Permission Proof collects additional user information such as IP address, time/date stamp, and referring URL, and adds them to your DARTmail lists. When someone who opted in for a message complains that they never subscribed, you have the evidence you need to refute the claim.