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Josh
Nason
Business Development
Yesterday, you may have heard about some long-discussed adjustments to the CAN-SPAM regulations that help define our industry and promote responsible email marketing. On Monday, the Federal Trade Commission made some changes and here...they...are! Initially these were proposed by the FTC in 2005 and more than 150 organizations, companies and other folk gave their .02, which I think is awesome. While three years seems like a long time, getting input from those that send and those that regulate is a great idea.
(Copy below pulled from Wendy Davis' story on Mediapost and remixed for here.)
-If different marketers are advertising in one joint e-mail account, they must designate which company will be considered the sender and thus, be responsible for Can-Spam compliance. That designated company will have
to make sure that the e-mail gives recipients a way to opt-out of
future ads, and also will have to put its name in the "from" line and
have a valid postal address in the e-mail. The multi-sender scenario
often occurs with travel marketing, where airlines, hotels and car
rental companies send one combined message to e-mail recipients.
What you need to know: if two companies send out a 'combo' email, one has to be held responsible if something happens to violate any regulations. Blame can't be split.
-Marketers still have up to 10 days to stop sending emails to people that opt out. The 2005 proposals would have cut that down to three days.
What you need to know: this is stupid. If someone can't be automatically unsubscribed, they need a better system.
-Marketers can't not require recipients to pay a fee or complete a survey in order to opt out.
What you need to know: Duh. I would be pretty upset if there was a impetence to me getting out of a list. Any horror stories out there from unsubscribing from emails?
The rules go into effect 45 days afte they are published in the Federal Register, expected to happen sometime in late-May.
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MySpace won a $230 million suit against Sanford "Spam King" Wallace and his buddy Walter Rines Tuesday in a L.A. federal court, the largest amount ever awarded since the CAN-SPAM act was introduced in 2003. The two had been luring users into revealing login information via phishing sites and then, sending false friend requests and messages with the usual: porn, gambling and ringtones.
A couple kids just slamming some servers at night? Hardly. Wallace and Rines distributing more than 730,000 messages and earned over $500k. This is a really interesting story, including some backstory on Wallace who has been called a 'spamming legend'.
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