CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and Constant Contact©
Tuesday, Dec 23, 2003
This is a summary of some provisions of the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (CAN-SPAM Act), which President Bush signed into law On December 16, 2003 and how it may apply to you as a Constant Contact© customer.
What You Need to Know
The law goes into effect January 1, 2004 and is preemptive of all state laws. This means that it overrides the thirty-six states that already have spam laws. And, most importantly, it is preemptive to the pending California law that was to go in effect January 1st. That means you only have to comply with one law - the federal law. And, unlike the California state law which would have allowed a private right of action entitling recipients of prohibited spam to sue for statutory damages of $1000 per message, the federal anti-spam bill does not include a private right of action.
Fighting Spam
While this new law will not stop spam, it does make most spam illegal and ultimately less attractive to spammers. The law is specific about requirements to send commercial email and empowers the federal government to enforce the law. The penalties can include a fine and/or imprisonment for up to 5 years.
How it Affects You
As a Constant Contact customer, you are already in compliance with much of the federal law, but there are a few things you need to be aware of going forward.
How you already comply
Your list is a permission-based list, which means that you don't have to comply with the unsolicited email requirements stated in the law:
- Your email header information is not misleading because it is set for you by Constant Contact
- Your email campaign's "From" address is verified and already accurately identifies you as the sender
- Constant Contact automatically includes the ability for your subscribers to opt-out of future email campaigns
- Constant Contact automatically processes unsubscribes from your email campaigns
What you need to be aware of going forward
- Make sure that your email campaign's "Subject" line is straightforward, not misleading. The days of using cute phrases or tricks to boost open rates are over.
- If you aren't already doing so, any unsubscribe requests that come to you via a reply to your email must be honored within 10 days of the request.
- You will now also need to include a physical address in your email campaigns. Constant Contact will be making changes to comply with this law.
What Constant Contact is doing
The new law requires that all email campaigns include the sender's physical address. To accommodate this legal requirement, Constant Contact has added room for your organization's address in small print at the bottom of all Constant Contact templates.
Contact us if you have any questions or concerns about the new law.