The CAN SPAM Act of 2003

The CAN SPAM Act of 2003 is an acronym for Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act which became effective January 1, 2004. The said legislation sets the requirements for commercial emails and as well the penalties for the violators.

CAN SPAM Act of 2003 permits unsolicited mailing as long as the sender practices the agreed upon requirements for commercial emails. These agreed upon requirements include clarity that the message is an advertisement, accurate header information on which the email and IP addresses of the sender can be tracked. CAN SPAM Act also requires an explicit way for opting out and stop further mailings. Whenever an email contains adult content, the sender should place a message prompt or the like in the subject line to warn the reader. A misleading subject line is discouraged.

Furthermore, commercial emails sent to addresses compiled without permission, such as by automation and email address generation using ‘dictionary attack’ (combination of names, letters and numbers into multiple permutations) are prohibited. In addition, aggravated offense such as hijacking computers through Trojan or worms or using open mail relays for sending spam is also prohibited.

The content is exempted if it is purely religious, or if the content complies with the marketing mechanism specified by the law. Messages with national security content are also exempted.

To understand more about the CAN SPAM Act of 2003 – the governing bodies, the penalties, reactions and detail explanation about it, you can visit http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm. [http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm]

Despite the measures established to fight spam, including CAN SPAM Act, most online marketers who send legitimate emails and are CAN SPAM compliant get block and thus experience low ROI.


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