There’s a piece of legislation in the United States – known as ‘CAN-SPAM’ (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing) – that was passed in 2003, and has marketers distressed.
First things first, let’s understand what it does to your business and its customers.
It fights that one thing we all hate – SPAM. And, protects us against spammers who sell fake goods online.
This act is a legislation that establishes the guidelines for commercial email and commercial messages, gives recipients the right to have a business stop sending emails to them, and lays out the fines incurred for those who violate the regulation.
Spam Laws in the United States have a few provisions:
Do include your valid postal address (could be your company’s street address/home address if it’s your work address) in every email you send out.
Do provide a clear and simple way to opt out of every email from you, and honor the unsubscribe within 10 business days.
Do use clear “From,” “To,” and “Reply to”. Your customers have a right to know from who is sending the emails. This also applies to the individual or business sending the message, as well as the routing information such as the origination domain name and email address.
Don’t sell or transfer any email addresses to another list. However, it’s okay to buy or rent email lists from companies that are members of the Direct Marketing Association.
Don’t make it hard to unsubscribe from emails by using small or transparent fonts. Additionally, you cannot make it difficult for them to unsubscribe.
Don’t use deceptive subject lines as a means to get them hooked into opening and reading your emails. Your subject line must accurately reflect the content of the email body.
The legislation is aligned so you can handle your email content and communication comply with email spam laws, and have an effective and fruitful relationship with your customers and prospective clients.
The number of spam messages sent over the Internet since the landmark bill passed in 2003 has grown 1-fold. Spammers have changed the toolkit to get around existing anti-spam laws using loopholes. One can say that CAN-SPAM is not the solution that people originally wanted it to be.
If you’d like to read more about the spam laws, FrescoData Blog provides some of the most useful resources, such as its implications, benefits, and general principles.
