Nomad Internet Marketing March 2017 Issue 03 | Page 22

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Spam is defined as “unsolicited commercial
email.” Thus any email you send that is
commercial in nature and the recipient didn’t
ask for is technically spam. Right about now
there are readers thinking to themselves, “Oh
#$%&, I think I may have sent spam.” Yup. If
you’ve been marketing for any length of time,
there’s a good chance you sent spam and
didn’t even know it. That’s because…
There is NO exception for business –to–
business email. This means ALL email, such
as an email asking another marketer to
promote your product, must comply with the
law.
Here’s a rundown of CAN-SPAM’s main
requirements. I want to get this EXACTLY right so I’m
going to take it right off of the FTC’s website:
1. Don’t 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.
2. Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The
subject line must accurately reflect the
content of the message.
3. Identify the message as an ad. The law gives
you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you
must disclose clearly and conspicuously that
your message is an advertisement.
4. Tell recipients where you’re located. Your
message must include your valid physical
postal address. This can be your current
street address, a post office box you’ve
registered with the U.S. Postal Service, or a
private mailbox you’ve registered with a
commercial
mail
receiving
agency
established under Postal Service regulations.
5. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving
future email from you. Your message must
include a clear and conspicuous explanation
of how the recipient can opt out of getting
email from you in the future. Craft the notice
in a way that’s easy for an ordinary person to
recognize, read, and understand. Creative
use of type size, color, and location can
improve clarity. Give a return email address
or another easy Internet-based way to allow
people to communicate their choice to you.
You may create a menu to allow a recipient
to opt out of certain types of messages, but
you must include the option to stop all
commercial messages from you. Make sure
your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out
requests.
6. Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-
out mechanism you offer must be able to
process opt-out requests for at least 30 days
after you send your message. You must
honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10
business days. You can’t charge a fee, require
the recipient to give you any personally
identifying information beyond an email
address, or make the recipient take any step
other than sending a reply email or visiting a
single page on an Internet website as a
condition for honoring an opt-out request.
Once people have told you they don’t want
to receive more messages from you, you
can’t sell or transfer their email addresses,
even in the form of a 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.
7. Monitor what others are doing on your
behalf. The law makes clear that even if you
hire another company to handle your email
marketing, you can’t contract away your legal
responsibility to comply with the law. Both
the company whose product is promoted in
the message and the company that actually
sends the message may be held legally
responsible.