What You Should Know About The CAN-Spam Act

The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing (CAN-SPAM) Act of 2003 signed into law by President George W. Bush on December 16, 2003, established the United States’ first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. –     Wikipedia 

If you ordinarily use emails, or email marketing in your business, then you should see that you atleast become privy of relevant provisions of the CAN-SPAM Act (A Compliance Guide for Business), and the implications thereof. The CAN-SPAM Act is a law that regulates commercial emails, establishes requirements for commercial mails, and gives recipients the right to have you stop spamming them. It spans across all commercial messages as described by the law to be “any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service,” thereby encompassing emails that advance content and products on commercial websites. Business-to-business emails are not exempted from this law.

Here is to compliance:

● Do not use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message- United States' ​Federal State Commission.

● Your Subject must mirror the content of your email. No to deceptive subjects.

● Is your e-mail an Ad? Clearly identify that it is so.

● Conspicuously identify where your physical postal address is and where you are situate: POB,

PMB, and physical address etc.

● Give recipients the leeway and the ​"how" (which must be clear and conspicuous) to pull out

of receiving future emails from you.

● Give recipients a return email address or any other way for them to email you their choice.

● Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.

● Immediately strike out emails that indicate they want to opt out of your Ads or emails from

receiving same.

● Your opt-out technology must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you

send your email.

● Within 10 business days, a recipients communicated opt out indication should be honoured

without charging a fee for the choice to opt out.

● You are not allowed to sell or give out email addresses of individuals especially when they have

indicated they want to opt out of your mailing list. The only exception is that you may transfer

the addresses to a company you’ve hired to help you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.

● Evaluate and monitor what agent-companies are doing on your behalf. According to the law, even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, your responsibility to comply with the law remains dangling on you. Your company and the agent-company risk being held liable where legal violations occur as they sometimes will.