Spam Laws Reviewed

The most important thing to remember about email marketing is that you want to treat others as they would treat you. Many of us get a hundred or more emails a day - some of use can handle this load, others don’t.

Angering a customer or prospect does NOT get you the sale.

SmartBiz.com released a great summary of the SPAM law as it is today.

Send email solicitations if the person explicitly consented to the receive such messages from you. Consenting to an informative newsletter is not the same as consenting to solicitations.
Send emails in regards to existing transactions to your customers or former customers.
Send emails in regards to inquiries.
Send emails about product updates/offerings to customers you have an ongoing relationship with.
You do not have to check with the “Do Not E-Mail Registry” before sending solicitations since the FTC decided not to create it.

DO NOT

Do not send advertising emails to someone who has told you not to send emails.
Do not send advertising email unless you do the following (a) clearly identify the message as and advertisement (b) include a valid email address, (c) include your company and postal address.
Send emails with false or misleading headers or subject lines.
Do not use false or inaccurate routing information. “Spoofing” (using a false reply address) can quadruple your penalty.
Do not promote fraudulent schemes such as chain letters, pyramid schemes, or such things as the “Nigerian Scam”. If something looks fishy, don’t send it.
Do not use software that automatically generates an email list. abc@company.com, abc1@company.com, abc2@company.com…
Do not use an email list that has been “harvested” (a robot goes around the Internet gathering email addresses).

These rules do not just apply to the US. The EU has similar laws and can prosecute you.

OTHER CONSEQUENCES

Many of us think the only consequence is if someone prosecutes us in the court of law, however, there are other consequences.

The recipient marks your domain as “junk mail” and it gets filtered.
You loose a prospect.
Bad news travels quicker than good. Recipients of your email start telling others not to do business with you.
Your domain or IP address becomes blacklisted by an outside agency. Many companies use an outside service to keep them update-to-date on domains or IP addresses that are known spammers. Emails on the blacklists will not be processed and delivered to the recipients inbox.

Source: “Email Can and Can’t Dos” by Michael D. Jenkins, SmartBiz.com.