Posts Tagged ‘opt out’
CAN-SPAM – it is important
At the beginning of the year, I decided to unsubscribe from an email that I receive. It is a newsletter for an industry that I have not been focusing on, and it tends to provide relatively little insight and a lot of conference sign ups and report offers.
They have still not stopped sending me emails.
Besides my high-level of annoyance, it is illegal. It got me thinking about the details of the CAN-SPAM Act for Commercial Emailers. Although most email companies or marketers know these, I think it is good idea to do a refresher course.
Here are a couple highlights from the FTC website
- No false or misleading header information – meaning your “From,” “To,” addresses
- No deceptive subject lines – basically no bait and switch
- There must be an opt-out method in the email – let the user tell you they don’t want any or specific types of messages from you
- You have to include the sender’s physical postal address.
OK. Those were the basics rules, and you can get the details at the FTC website. However, I was looking for details on my particular issue. I opted out of the email list, but they keep sending. What was their obligation? Here is what the FTC says:
Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor’s email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address. Finally, it’s illegal for you to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law.
What does this mean to me? It means that I have the right file a complaint about an email spammer, and for the FTC to take action for it. The FTC had fined spammers for violations of CAN-SPAM.
Beyond the legal ramifications, what does excessive email sending mean to your deliverability rate and email reputation? In ExactTarget’s Channel Preference Survey, it indicated that excessive marketing for email providers was considered SPAM by users. Personally, this email list is taking far too much time for me to unsubscribe, so I am going to flag them in my email SPAM filter. it was nice knowing you.