If you’ve ever started an email marketing project and dealt with a client (or manager) who told you, “Look, we’re not spammers here, so we don’t have to worry about those CAN-SPAM laws” we’ve created some handy “stfu” documents you can give ‘em. They list big brands who’ve had to pay some huge settlements to the FTC for seemingly simple, innocent mistakes (that a lot of us have made), like:
- Forgetting to include physical mailing address in the email footer
- Failure to properly clean unsubscribers from a list
- Misuse of the word “free” in subject lines
- Not warning about inappropriate content in your subject lines
Here’s a link to our resource guides where you can get a copy of SPAM Lawsuits: What’s the Worst That Can Happen?
The content is nothing new, as links to these lawsuits are all over the interwebs. But we just wanted to put it in a handy, printable guide. I’ve also included some little tips on “how this could happen to you” plus some food for thought at the end.
It makes a great gift for clueless clients, stubborn managers, and over aggressive sales people. Or, just print out a copy and drop it on your company lawyer’s desk.
Update: Rob Hassett, from InternetLegal.com, has contributed a couple topics on “Non-profits are not exempt” and “Affirmatve consent does not create an exemption from CAN-SPAM.”
While you’re perusing the MailChimp Jungle, be sure to check out Isabel’s collaboration for an email marketing project contract, and Tanya’s Yahoo Shortcuts discovery.
Most of the stuff in canspam is pretty obvious, but I had no clue about the mailing address requirement. Thanks for helping to educate about these things.
Ben – Great advice, and it can’t be repeated (or re-printed) too often. I know of an instance where one of the world’s largest sellers of IT management software got blacklisted by ISPs for 90 days because they got careless with their unsubscribe (opt-out) list and ran afoul of the CAN-SPAM laws. That really hurt, and it was entirely preventable.
Yeah, it never ceases to amaze me when people send spam to IT people. If you can pick a segment of the population to NEVER, EVER piss off with spam, that would pretty much be the one.
[...] hard way is what no one expect untill their doors are kicked down by the law enforcers – read this. If you want to market anything online, do not be stupid/uninformed – use an autoresponder. If [...]
Hi Ben-
I’m working with my first email campaign client (a bank) and am trying to get grounded in all this compliance stuff. They just asked me if I have a sample CanSPAM policy that we can use for their company (apparently it was recommended by the FDIC). Is that like a privacy policy for a website? I’ve been looking around but don’t see any examples of this. My guess it’s not something they have to have, but rather adhere to.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
-Justin
Ben – We’re just about to send out our first email newsletter, mainly to current customers, or people who have purchased products from us over the last year. However, I recently called around 300-400 prospect customers to see if they would be happy to receive email news letters from us. 98% were o.k. with that. But I don’t have their consent in writing! Does that matter or not?
Jasper, since it was over the phone, you don’t have any opt-in proof. That’s something you need, just in case too many people report your campaign as spam (which happens more often than you’d think). First and foremost, I’d run this by our Compliance Team so they can look into the details for you. Generally speaking, I would not mix this list of “phone opt-in” with the list that has some sort of purchase history, opt-in proof, etc. If the “phone list” turns out to be problematic, you want to be able to easily bail on that idea altogether, so it doesn’t taint your other list.
Anti Spam is good but I think it’s way to over the top. I have a newsletter where all my subscribers double opted in. It’s time stamped and all. I follow all the CAN SPAM laws by putting my mailing address etc in the footer and of course a Unsubscribe link. I even tell them where they opted in just incase they forget. I sent out a newsletter to my subscriber on Easter wishing them a happy easter and thats it. I wasn’t promoting anything, it was just a friendly email saying thank you for being a subscriber.
I get one guy on the list who claims I have spammed him. He was a real a**. I did nothing wrong and followed the rules. He tried to report me to my ISP, they didn’t do anything about it because I had evidence that I did nothing wrong. I just think some people are jealous or just completely way to over the top when they recieve and email they are not sure about so instead of clicking the “unsubscribe link” or admitting that they did opt in at one point even if they can’t remember they just decide to try and ruin you.
[...] a more peaceful kinda nerd, you can simply print out this guide, and drop it on their desk: [Spam lawsuits: what's the worst that can happen?]Okay, back to the topic at hand. If you’re the stubborn or paranoid kind of IT person who [...]
The link is broken to download the spamlawsuits.pdf help!
Hi Meghan, Sorry about that broken link. I’ve updated the blog post, but here’s the direct link to the guide: SPAM Lawsuits: What’s the Worst That Can Happen?