CANSPAM Act of 2003 and How it Will
Affect Our Marketing Campaigns
Identifying Violations of the CANSPAM Act of 2003
Prohibition Against Predatory and Abusive Commercial Email - The
Meat of the CANSPAM Act of 2003 and what Congress is Trying to Regulate
This pertains to Chapter 47 of title 18 Section 1037. Fraud and
related activity in connection with electronic mail. This section
has been added to the title, and is addressed to circumstances pertaining
to fraud. It applies to things affecting interstate or foreign commerce,
falsifying header information or using computers without authorization
to send email through either actual physical means or through programs
placed on protected computers. It also applies to situations of
identity theft and using mail accounts without the owner's authorization
to send bulk unsolicited commercial email. It also takes into consideration
the possibility of a single person using false information to obtain
multiple email addresses or domains with the intention of sending
bulk unsolicited commercial email. The section copied and pasted
from the act follows.
IN GENERAL.-Whoever, in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce,
knowingly-
- (1) accesses a protected computer without authorization, and
intentionally initiates the transmission of multiple commercial
electronic mail messages from or through such computer,
- (2) uses a protected computer to relay or retransmit multiple
commercial electronic mail messages, with the intent to deceive
or mislead recipients, or any Internet access service, as to
the origin of such messages,
- (3) materially falsifies header information in multiple commercial
electronic mail messages and intentionally initiates the transmission
of such messages,
- (4) registers, using information that materially falsifies
the identity of the actual registrant, for five or more electronic
mail accounts or online user accounts or two or more domain
names, and intentionally initiates the transmission of multiple
commercial electronic mail messages from any combination of
such accounts or domain names, or
- (5) falsely represents oneself to be the registrant or the
legitimate successor in interest to the registrant of 5 or more
Internet Protocol addresses, and intentionally initiates the
transmission of multiple commercial electronic mail messages
from such addresses, or conspires to do so, shall be punished
as provided in subsection (b).
You are also at risk should you initiate practices that use software
to harvest email addresses from websites, or artificially generate
email addresses to send bulk unsolicited commercial email. You are
also at risk if you had knowledge of these things, and initiated
or helped to initiate emails generated from these practices. If
the emails generated are deemed fraudulent, or were used for identity
theft, obscenity, child pornography, and the sexual exploitation
of children, if such offenses involved the sending of large quantities
of electronic mail, then you are looking at additional problems.
These are all noted in the act.
It also goes on to discuss the "Sense of Congress". They
feel that "Spam has become the method of choice for those who
distribute pornography, perpetrate fraudulent schemes, and introduce
viruses, worms, and Trojan horses into personal and business computer
systems", and "The Department of Justice should use all
existing law enforcement tools to investigate and prosecute those
who send bulk commercial e-mail to facilitate the commission of
Federal crimes".
I am not going to go into punishments at this time. I will later
go over the wide range of punishments that can befall the person
that chooses to disregard this act. To protect yourself from this
section of the bill, and any other, just be honest. When registering
an email or domain with the intention of using it for commercial
email purposes, use real contact information for yourself. Don't
gain unauthorized use of other computers and systems to send email
in violation of this act. Don't hack into systems and place your
own scripts to send out email in violation of this act. Keep your
trojan horses to yourself and use acceptable practices to gain email
addresses and put in the hard work required to gain trust in your
readers. Then you can send them all the email you want without worrying
about getting into trouble.
From my experience with internet marketing and email marketing,
it is far better to send a couple hundred emails to a few trusting
readers than to send billions of emails to untrusting readers. Why
you might ask? Simple. It costs much less for one. If you don't
know someone, are you likely to buy from him or her? It is the "trust
building" that makes people click on your links or programs.
It doesn't matter if it is on a website, or in an email. What do
you do when you they bombard you with a bunch of email? If you're
like me, either you block the IP, or you delete it at the very least.
However, when you receive email from someone you know, what do you
do with it? You open it right? That's what I do. So then, doesn't
it make more sense to do the work and gain the trust? You'll get
much more targeted response out of your email list if you do. You'll
also limit the possibilities of getting yourself into trouble with
the CANSPAM Act of 2003.
Other Protections for Users of Commercial Electronic Email - Requirements
for Email Falling Under the CANSPAM Act of 2003.
Here we will get into the actual requirements of the act. I'll
start out with the act section copied and pasted directly from the
act itself, and then we'll discuss what the sections mean. I will
break the following areas down because of their length. Indented
texts are directly copied from the Act. The section is as follows:
(a) REQUIREMENTS FOR TRANSMISSION OF MESSAGES.-
(1) PROHIBITION OF FALSE OR MISLEADING TRANSMISSION INFORMATION.-It
is unlawful for any person to initiate the transmission, to a protected
computer, of a commercial electronic mail message, or a transactional
or relationship message, that contains, or is accompanied by, header
information that is materially false or materially misleading. For
purposes of this paragraph-
(A) header information that is technically accurate but includes
an originating electronic mail address, domain name, or Internet
Protocol address the access to which for purposes of initiating
the message was obtained by means of false or fraudulent pretenses
or representations shall be considered materially misleading;
(B) a "from" line (the line identifying or purporting
to identify a person initiating the message) that accurately identifies
any person who initiated the message shall not be considered materially
false or materially misleading; and
(C) header information shall be considered materially misleading
if it fails to identify accurately a protected computer used to
initiate the message because the person initiating the message knowingly
uses another protected computer to relay or retransmit the message
for purposes of disguising its origin.
Bottom line on this section pertains to the header information
generated by all email you send. It should identify you properly
without being edited or hidden in any way. It also pertains to obtaining
email accounts through fraudulent means, or for fraudulent purposes.
It also includes editing header information, or any of the things
mentioned in this paragraph, to disguise or hide the information
passed by the email header and from line.
Back
to Table of Contents
More
Meat (Article Continues)
Canspam Compliance Company Interviews
Other Legal Articles:
Related E-Book Downloads
By James R. Sanders
January 06, 2003
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James R. Sanders is the owner of Sanders
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