CANSPAM Act of 2003 and How it Will
Affect Our Marketing Campaigns
(5) INCLUSION OF IDENTIFIER, OPT-OUT, AND PHYSICAL ADDRESS IN COMMERCIAL
ELECTRONIC MAIL.
(A) It is unlawful for any person to initiate the transmission
of any commercial electronic mail message to a protected computer
unless the message provides
(i) clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an
advertisement or solicitation;
(ii) clear and conspicuous notice of the opportunity under paragraph
(3) to decline to receive further commercial electronic mail messages
from the sender; and
(iii) a valid physical postal address of the sender.
(B) Subparagraph (A)(i) does not apply to the transmission of a
commercial electronic mail message if the recipient has given prior
affirmative consent to receipt of the message.
You may not send commercial email without conspicuously identifying
the commercial nature of the email. That can be accomplished through
the subject line. They are then a bit redundant by referring to
the opt out functions that must be included with each commercial
email you send. The physical address is another added item. I will
get into that in a bit. Again, you are reminded that this does not
apply if affirmative consent was given for you to send them the
commercial email.
Why would they decide that a physical postal address should be
included? The first thing I think of when mentioning a physical
address is credibility. If someone is trying to hide, which most
of your disreputable spammers do, then the last thing they are going
to want to provide is a valid physical address. That would be like
blindfolding yourself and then telling someone to chase you then
do whatever they wanted to when they caught you. That added line
makes it easier for the government to find who they are looking
for.
I do see a fatal flaw in this concept though. If a spammer is going
to jump through hoops to disguise their header information, and
hide most of the information this act references despite being told
they can't do it anymore, then chances are they will do it anyways.
When they do, they will only provide false information anyways.
I can understand how the intentions were to make things safer for
us. However, your typical spammer has a set of habits that go against
everything this act is trying to get them to conform to.
Beyond credibility, I also look at the ability to contact someone.
Another reason I could see for such a requirement would be contact
purposes. Lets say that you used their email opt out functions.
Lets further say, that for some reason, their servers where down,
and they were unable to receive the transmission of your request.
The physical address gives you the option of sending them snail
mail to comply with your request.
(6) MATERIALLY.-For purposes of paragraph (1), the term "materially",
when used with respect to false or misleading header information,
includes the alteration or concealment of header information in
a manner that would impair the ability of an Internet access service
processing the message on behalf of a recipient, a person alleging
a violation of this section, or a law enforcement agency to identify,
locate, or respond to a person who initiated the electronic mail
message or to investigate the alleged violation, or the ability
of a recipient of the message to respond to a person who initiated
the electronic message.
This lists the reasons for the regulation requirements. It boils
down to the basics of making it easier for government and law officials
to track email and where it originates. I can understand this too.
For tracing email that contains disguised, absent, or hidden information,
it takes allot of resources. Those resources cost money. Therefore,
I can see where government would try to coerce people into making
their job easy. Again, the problem is that most the marketers they
are targeting with this act are going to provide false information
to keep doing what they do. They've been doing it for years. It's
been making them money for years. Chances are they aren't going
to stop just because we ask them to, and ask them to stop hiding.
Criminals usually try to keep their activities hidden. Marketers
breaking the law will continue to try to keep themselves hidden.
Back
to Table of Contents
Still
More Meat - How Much More Can You Take? (Article
Continues)
Canspam Compliance Company Interviews
Other Legal Articles:
Related E-Book Downloads
By James R. Sanders
January 06, 2003
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