By Lesley Fair

Say “spam,” and what comes to mind?  For many people, it’s the unsolicited email that clutters their inboxes with offers of fast money, easy weight loss, and so-called personal enhancements.  However, since Congress passed the CAN-SPAM Act, the landscape has been changing.  The law covers virtually all email with the primary purpose of advertising or promoting a commercial product or service – even if it’s not sent in bulk.  Although you’ll want to review your company’s email policies with your attorney, the requirements of CAN-SPAM simply enact into law the consumer-oriented policies that top marketers have been following all along.

Here’s a rundown of CAN-SPAM’s seven main provisions

1. No 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. No deceptive subject lines.  The subject line must accurately reflect the contents of the message.
3. Identify that the message is 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 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.”  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 consumer – not just your general counsel – 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 them 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.  
6. Honor opt-out requests promptly.   The law gives you 10 business days to honor a consumer’s 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 to other marketers.
7. "This means you!”  CAN-SPAM makes clear – and recent FTC cases have further established – that you can’t “contract away” your responsibilities by hiring another company to handle your email marketing.  Under the law, both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sent the message may be held legally responsible.  The good news is that compliance is easy; the bad news is that at $16,000 a violation, non-compliance is pricey.  What’s more, the penalties skyrocket for certain aggravated violations – like email address “harvesting” and “dictionary attacks” – and may even include prison time for serious offenders.

Under CAN-SPAM, email is still an effective way to tell potential consumers about the great new products and services your company has to offer and to keep current customers coming back for more.  It’s simply a matter of common sense compliance. Read the CAN-SPAM Act: A Compliance Guide for Business to learn more.

Lesley Fair is an attorney in the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.