DOES YOUR COMMERCIAL E-MAIL COMLPY WITH FEDERAL LAW?

The Federal CAN-SPAM Act places conditions on the sending of unsolicited commercial email and places certain requirements on the sending of transactional or relational email. Commercial email is defined as an email having the primary purpose of advertising or promoting products or services. Some examples of commercial email include newsletters, bulletins, informational pieces, marketing material, offers of services or products, and solicitations. Transactional or relational messages are emails that arise from current business relationships and contain content that involves a recent or ongoing transaction.

The CAN-SPAM Act makes it unlawful to send commercial, transactional or relational email where the header (the email address and domain name) is false or misleading. As well, the CAN-SPAM Act requires commercial email to contain the following:

• 1 Clear and conspicuous notice in the subject line that the email is an advertisement and/or solicitation;
• 2 Clear and conspicuous notice of an opt-out provision; and
• 3 Valid physical postal address for sender.
• If a recipient of the commercial message opts-out of receiving future messages, the business must cease such communication to the recipient within 10 days. Also, the business must not disclose the email addresses of the recipient who opted-out to any other party.
• The law does not provide a private cause of action for violations; however, it does make it a criminal offense for a person to:
• 1 Send spam with the intent to deceive receivers of the spam or the Internet service provider of the spam's origin from a computer of another used in intrastate or interstate communication;
• 2 Falsify the source, destination, and routing information of the spam sent;
• 3 Use a false identity to register for 15 or more email accounts or 2 or more domain names for the purpose of sending spam; or
• 4 Falsely represent the right to use 5 or more IP addresses and send spam from those addresses.
• Tip. In order to steer clear of hefty penalties for violations, businesses should create an email policy and/or template in order to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act. For assistance with creating such or for help with any other business need, contact Denise Bowman of the Law Offices of Alexander & Cleaver at 1-800-292-LAWS (1-800-292- 5297) or dbowman@alexander-cleaver.com.