Regulations for "Can-Spam Act of 2003" Effective Date January 1, 2004

• Prohibits fraudulent or deceptive subject lines, headers, return addresses, etc.
• Makes it illegal to send e-mails to e-mail addresses that have been harvested from websites.
• Criminalizes sending sexually-oriented e-mails without clear markings.
• Requires that you have a working unsubscribe system that makes it easy for recipients to unsubscribe/opt out of receiving your e-mails.
• Requires most e-mailers to include their postal mailing address in the message.
• Implicates not only spammers, but those who procure their services. Indeed, if you fail to prevent spammers from promoting your products and services you can prosecute.
• Includes both criminal and civil penalties and allows suits by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), State Attorneys General, and Internet Service Providers

Opt-out law

• The new federal law will require businesses to stop sending e-mails to those who request to be removed from a list. This requires a functioning reply address or e-mail unsubscribe system that operates for at least 30 days after your last mass e-mailing (Sec. 5(3)).
• In addition, you must include your postal address and a clear indication that the e-mail includes a solicitation, unless you have "prior affirmative assent" from the recipient (Sec. 5(a)(5)).

E-Mail Deception Is Now a Crime

• Hijacking another e-mail server to send or relay spam.
• Falsifying e-mail headers or e-mail addresses to hide one's identity.
• Using someone else's e-mail address in the "from" field.
• Registering for e-mail addresses under false identities.
• Deceptive subject headings.
• Harvesting e-mail addresses that appear on websites.
• Randomly generating e-mail addresses.
• Knowingly linking an e-mail ad to a fraudulently registered domain.
• Participating in other offenses such as fraud, identity theft, obscenity, and child pornography and exploitation.

Affiliates and email deception

• If you have affiliates using e-mail marketing to promote your products, you could be in trouble. The law stipulates that "it is unlawful for a person to promote, or allow the promotion of, that person's trade or business ... if that person knows, or should have known in the ordinary course of that person's trade or business, that the goods ... were being promoted in such a message ... and took no reasonable action to prevent the transmission..." (Sec. 6(a)).
• For more information on the Can Spam Act of 2003 visit the US Congress website at http://www.house.gov/