CAN-SPAM is the U.S. federal regulation regarding the sending of commercial email and messages. Besides email, something else that’s covered under CAN-SPAM is SMS messaging.
To give a little background around CAN-SPAM…
What does ‘CAN-SPAM’ even mean? CAN-SPAM’s full name is Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003.
This law was enacted in 2003 by President George W. Bush and set the first standards for commercial email in the U.S. The ‘CAN’ in CAN-SPAM is a play on words and is suggesting that this law will help in “canning” spam.
Straight from the FTC themselves, here are the main requirements of CAN-SPAM:
- Don’t use 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.
- Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
- Identify the message as 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.
- Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal 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.
- Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. 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 person 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 people 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. Make sure your spam filter doesn’t block these opt-out requests.
- Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days. You can’t charge a fee, require the recipient to give you any personally identifying information beyond an email address, or make the recipient take any step other than sending a reply email or visiting a single page on an Internet website as a condition for honoring an 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, even in the form of a mailing list. The only exception is that you may transfer the addresses to a company you’ve hired to help you comply with the CAN-SPAM Act.
- Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The law makes clear that even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible.
Now that’s CAN-SPAM in a nutshell. Up in Canada, they also have similar regulations, but I have to say, they are a little more strict than we are in the U.S.
Canada’s ‘CAN-SPAM’ is called CASL (pronounced “castle”) which is an acronym for Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation.
Starting July 2017, anyone sending commercial emails to anyone in Canada must receive ‘express consent’. In the U.S., we send emails based off of ‘implied’ consent, meaning, if someone hasn’t opted out yet, they probably want to receive email. But in Canada, this is not the case and senders of commercial email must have subscribers’ permission before sending any form of commercial email.
So, ladies and gents, you have a little over a year to be fully compliant! Right now at our company, we’re sifting through our database looking for the Canadian members to ensure we can prove they have given expressed consent. It’s a big undertaking, but it’s necessary. Commercial email senders must be able to prove in a court of law that their subscribers have given express consent. This evidence may be a form the subscriber filled out selecting to receive the emails. (A side note: the ‘check box’ must never be pre-checked under CASL.)
Other countries have their own set of regulations so whoever you’re sending to, you need to make sure you’re in compliance with their laws. Check this out if you want to see what other country’s laws entail. At my company, we send to subscribers in Mexico and Mexico doesn’t have regulation regarding commercial email, but all of our emails, no matter where we send are CASL/CAN-SPAM compliant.
If you’re a digital marketer, it’s important to know these laws and ensure to abide by them. These ‘rules’ not only have legal ramifications if they’re not followed, but they inherently provide better inbox placement and overall better reputation so your marketing long-term will be more successful.
https://www.fcc.gov/general/can-spam
https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/can-spam-act-compliance-guide-business
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003
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