Email Marketing News and Tips

This series of articles is intended to discuss the facets of CAN-SPAM compliance. It is not intended to be the end-all be all for legal compliance around the world. This blog posting is also not to be misconstrued as legal advice. As an email marketer, you will need to make sure that you remain in legal compliance for not only the locality where you reside, but also every territory you intend to email. While any ESP can give you tools to help you remain compliant, it is actually your responsibility to ensure that your campaigns and practices remain compliant with all jurisdictional laws.

If you are concerned over the laws in your area, you should contact a knowledgeable attorney to help you remain compliant.

May 2008 update

In May, the CAN-SPAM laws were revised. After a long judicious review and discussion process, four major changes took place:

1. The definition of a person has been clarified.
2. The definition of a sender has been clarified.
3. The definition of a valid physical postal address has been clarified and expanded.
4. Opt-Out requests must not cost money and require only one action by the recipient (i.e., click a link, send an opt-out email) and must not request additional information

What is a ‘person’?

This is defined to be “an individual, group, unincorporated association, limited or general partnership, corporation or other business entity”. Basically, this section clarifies and specifically defines the definition of ‘person’ to mean any individual or business type whether for profit or non-profit. Effectively, no one is exempt from this definition.

What is a ’sender’?

A sender is defined to be someone “…who initiates [a commercial electronic mail] message and whose product, service or Internet web site is advertised or promoted by the message”. Where only one recipient (From line) and one company (matches From line) is evident, only that one person is responsible for the content. Where multiple products are advertised in an email from multiple companies, each company is responsible for that email content.

What is a ‘valid physical postal address’?

This definition of ‘valid physical postal address’ is set to mean “the sender’s current street address, a Post Office box the sender has registered with the USPS or a private mailbox the sender has registered with a commercial mail receiving agency (CMRA) that is established pursuant to USPS regulations”.

This means that if you use your actual business or home address, this will suffice. If you have a PO Box or other USPS authorized address, you may also use these. You cannot use addresses that are outside of this definition within the body of an email. There is also still some question as to shared addresses. The concept of “one business, one address” was part of the discussion for this change, but it is not defined above. However, this is implied if you use a USPS registered address. A business’s street address could, in fact, accept mail for multiple businesses at a single address where USPS registered addresses typically do not (unless registered in advance with the USPS).

For further legal implications of this, you may want to consult with an attorney. However, as long as your address is registered for delivery by the USPS, your address should be safe to use in your email. Email addresses that do not receive mail by the USPS (such as some rural routes), do not qualify as a ‘valid physical postal address’.

Opt-Out mechanism changes

The final change is in opt-out consideration. Basically, email marketing campaigns must provide a mechanism to the recipient to opt-out of the email with only a single action (click one link or send one email). This opt-out mechanism must not charge fees or require any additional information other than the email address itself. This also means that you can no longer require people to log in to change preferences in order to opt out. It must be a single action that removes the user.

Additional information

The 16 CFR Part 316 PDF document is a very long read and discusses many considerations in the changes including how to classify certain types of emails such as forward-to-a-”friend” style messages and other transactional style messages. If you are interested, it is probably worth reading through these sections as some of these issues may arise again during the next revision of CAN-SPAM.

Email Campaigns

As an email marketing manager in the US, you will want to review your email campaign procedures to ensure your emails remain compliant with these new CAN-SPAM provisions.

Note that Boomerang does require a physical address to be entered before the first email can be sent. However, you must ensure that the address that is entered complies with CAN-SPAM. When using Boomerang’s opt-out links, these links work with a single click without fees or additional information as do remove requests when emailed to us. If you provide your own opt-out link that leads to a site that requires a login and password before the user can remove themselves, this does not comply with these new provisions. If you want to manage the emailed removal requests yourself, you’ll want to make sure your systems comply with these new CAN-SPAM provisions.

Next up… the purpose behind the CAN-SPAM Act (why does it exist?)