CAN-SPAM Compliance

The January 2004 Federal CAN-SPAM law introduced a number of rules regarding the delivery of email. It’s important you have your legal counsel review your practices and ensure you are in compliance.

The two most important rules include:

1. having a valid postal mail address listed in all commercial messages and
2. a working unsubscribe link that is promptly honored to remove the subscriber from future messages.

A good book to read on e-mailing as a means of selling is Stephan Schiffman’s book “E-Mail Selling Techniques (That Really Work)”.  Page 29 of his book has a useful and concise summary about this topic:

Ten Things You Should Know About CAN-SPAM

1. CAN-SPAM applies only to commercial e-mail.
2. CAN-SPAM applies to e-mail for which a primary purpose is to feature your goods, services, or content even if you do not send the e-mail yourself; however…
3. CAN-SPAM does not apply to third-party advertisers who advertise in your mailings.
4. CAN-SPAM can apply to e-mail sent out by your affiliates on your behalf; however…
5. CAN-SPAM will not apply to e-mail sent out by your affiliates on your behalf unless you know, or should know, that the e-mail is being sent in violation of CAN-SPAM and you stand to gain from it financially, and you don’t try to stop it.
6. CAN-SPAM requires that all information in your e-mail headers and body be true, accurate and not misleading.
7. CAN-SPAM requires you to provide a fully functioning means of return Internet-based communication for the purpose of the recipient opting-out of your mailings.
8. CAN-SPAM requires you to honor those opt-out requests, and to immediately cease sharing the user’s address even with previously agreed-to partners.
9. CAN-SPAM does not require that you use confirmed opt-in for your mailings; however, it is one of the best defenses against an accusation of CAN-SPAM violation.
10. CAN-SPAM does not require ISPs to accept e-mail that is CAN-SPAM compliant.  In fact, ISPs are specifically exempted from claims that they must accept e-mail if it complies with CAN-SPAM.

Gray Areas (also known as areas where you may not know that could get you in trouble)

AWeber, Constant Contact and other mailing list builders most likely will not let you broadcast to a list that is not subscribed to you.  You can call them and argue that after all, it is your list which you collected personally but they will stick to their rules.

For example, Constant Contact will disable your account if you try do this.  You will need to contact them to unlock it.  How do we know?  <grin>

You will not be able to do a broadcast to a list you already own – outside of the list builder service -  until the people on your list agree to Opt-In to you using their provided widget.

How to get around this limitation?

Ask your people to subscribe to you.  It’s not the easiest solution but it can get the job done.

If you want to send out an “email blast” to a list you already own that have not subscribed to you, you can read this article about SendBlaster.

One Response to “CAN-SPAM Compliance”