The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 was signed into law on December 16, 2003 by President Bush.  This federal legislation is the first step in protecting consumers.  While it will not end the war against spam, it certainly is a major advance in the right direction.    

Here is a brief summary of the legislation from www.spamlaws.com: 

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 will require unsolicited commercial e-mail messages to be labeled (though not by a standard method) and to include opt-out instructions and the sender's physical address. The law would prohibit the use of deceptive subject lines and false headers in such messages. The FTC would be authorized (but not required) to establish a "do-not-email" registry. State laws that require labels on unsolicited commercial e-mail or prohibit such messages entirely would be pre-empted, although provisions merely addressing falsity and deception would remain in place. The CAN-SPAM Act was approved by the Senate in late November 2003 and by the House in early December 2003; it currently awaits the President's signature.

What does this mean to you?

In addition to IMN’s E-Mail Policy, there are a few new things our customers need to be aware of when it comes to complying with the new law: 

1. A physical address must be included in all commercial email. The new law requires that you include a valid physical postal address in any commercial email messages.  Note that it is not mandated for transactional or relationship messages, but to be safe IMN is requiring this for any emails sent out through our system.  To assist you with this requirement, when you log into your  IMN account on or after January 1, you will be asked to enter a valid postal address.  Every outgoing email message will include this address in the standard email Footer, next to the Unsubscribe link. 

2. Subject lines cannot be deceptive or misleading.  This law will start to crack down on misleading and deceptive emails, so when you craft your subject lines, make sure they are not only engaging and interesting, but honest about what you are presenting in your newsletter.   Not only will this conform to the law, but it will be greatly appreciated by your readers. 

3. Advertisements and solicitations must be identified as such.  The new law requires that advertising and solicitation emails be clearly and conspicuously identified.  If this is the nature of your emails, you can add a disclosure to your Footer/Disclaimer section (in the Title and Headings area, accessible from the Main Menu).  For more information on what exactly is considered “clear and conspicuous,” the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has produced extensive guidelines in its “Dot Com Disclosures” document. 

Other Pertinent Information

Here are a few other facts relating to the law that you may want to be aware of:

• This law preempts any local state Anti-Spam laws, including the California bill that was to go into law in January.
• The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the primary agency that will enforce this law.
• Your State Attorney General will have limited jurisdiction in regards to this law.
• ISPs have a right of action so if you as an individual want to take action, it would be through your ISP.
• The law prohibits the harvesting of email addresses from the Internet.

As this law goes into effect, we’ll keep you updated on this and other steps that are being taken to keep our e-mail boxes free of unwanted spam.