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In January 1st, 2004 the Federal
CanSpam anti-spam law went into effect.
Over this last summer and fall email spam went to legislation.
What has come out of it thus far is the Federal Can-Spam Act of
2003. So far, the Can-Spam Act prohibits 4 major activities:
- False or misleading transmission information, such as From:
or Reply To: headers that are technically accurate but misrepresentative
of the message's true origins
- Deceptive subject headings that mislead the recipient as to
the true nature of the message's content
- Email transmission after objection; that is, sending a message
to a recipient more than 10 days after the recipient has opted-out
of the list.
- Address harvesting and dictionary attacks, in which commercial
email is sent to addresses that were collected from the Internet
without permission or that were compiled by automated means.
Much of it still up in the air but I’ve provided some advise
on how you can keep your email compliant with these new laws.
What this means to you as a business owner or newsletter writer,
is that your email list must consist of people who have opted-in.
Second, add a clause to both your newsletter and your websites Legal
Notices, that you are indeed in compliance with this law.
Complaints can become a serious problem: the State Attorney General
may launch a lawsuit. Penalties can be as much as $2,000 per email.
It's unlikely, but it's possible in theory, at least for the time
being.
The requirements for compliance are easy:
1) Include an opt-out process aka an unsubscription process
(a link where they can remove themselves from the list).
2) Include your business postal mailing address.
3) Include warning labels for adult content, such that Recipients
who have not provided affirmative consent are advised in the subject
line that the message contains sexually explicit material.
By August or so, there will be a do-not-spam-registry, similar
to the do-not-call registry for telemarketing. It is speculated,
that additional software for businesses may be required to check
your email lists against the registry.
Finally: Will this stop spam? Hardly. In fact, it will probably
increase spam 100x. Now, all the spammers have to do is state "advertising"
in the subject line, and they can send all they want, hundreds of
emails per hour, perfectly legally. We will be burdened with additional
laws, while spammers continue their vandalism.
Page last updated Februrary 29, 2004. | 
