As of 2008 there are 37 states in the USA, which have passed an anti-spam law to regulate unsolicited commercial email. Each one of these 37 states has a unique law, as there is no uniform state law. Despite there being no uniform law most anti-spam statutes, as well as the federal CAN SPAM ACT, primarily aim to prevent deception. Deception is the hallmark of SPAM.
The following is a short list comprising most of the email campaigning ‘dos and donts’:
- You must provide an easy opt-out option
- Once a person has opted out you may no longer send messages to him/her
- You may not Include false or misleading content (in the header, source, path, or subject line)
- If the recipient has not “opted in” to your list you must include ADV: as the first item in the header (short for advertisement)
- You should include your postal address in the content
- You may not violate your e-mail service provider’s policies
- Don’t share email addresses with others
- Don’t use fraudulent transmission data (in an effort to confuse the origin of the message
To figure out if you live in one of the 37 states which has an anti-spam statute you may visit the National Conference of State Legislatures website here: http://www.ncsl.org/programs/lis/legislation/spamlaws02.htm
You can read the contents of the federal statute here:
http://www.spamlaws.com/federal/108s877.shtml
It is very interesting to learn more about anti-spam laws. I am sure this is going only become a bigger issue as time goes on and more and more are using the Internet. I am just glad we got you to keep us up to date with the happenings. Great post Dave – Thanks!
Almost a year later and we still see so many violations. While many are due to ignorance, there are still those that try to push the envelope and create havoc for those that behave responsibly.