Can Spam Act Stipulations
On December 16, 2003, President Bush signed a new federal law that governs all aspects of unsolicited commercial email in the United States. The law, known as S.877, took effect on Jan. 1, 2004, and preempts all State email laws. The main purpose of this legislation is to eliminate the huge flood of junk email (spam) that has been interfering with legitimate commercial email and marketing.
The law confirms that unsolicited commercial email is perfectly legal, and is NOT spam as long as the following requirements are met:
- All commercial email must originate from a legitimate email address that the recipient can reply to.
- All commercial email must originate from a legitimate domain name and must have correct header information so that the email can always be easily traced to its origin.
- The company sponsoring and/or broadcasting an email message must identify themselves within the email message, and must provide a physical address contact information for the sponsor of the email message.
- Every commercial email message must have a working opt-out link within the message so that the recipient can opt-out of future email messages from the sponsor or broadcaster of the email message.
- The SUBJECT line of every email message must be truthful and not deceptive.
- Every commercial email message must clearly identify itself as an advertisement or solicitation.
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