Sending Legal Mass Emails

teammatt3's picture

He has: 2,102 posts

Joined: Sep 2003

I'm doing some email marketing for a company and want to make sure it's within the laws. I read up on the Can spam act but this part is confusing me:

Quote:
Additional fines are provided for commercial emailers who not only violate the rules described above, but also:
"harvest" email addresses from Web sites or Web services that have published a notice prohibiting the transfer of email addresses for the purpose of sending email

Does this mean, if you get busted for one of the things above (false or misleading header information, deceptive subject lines, no opt-out method, etc) harvesting certain emails will make your punishment more severe? So if you don't do one of the "above" things, harvesting is ok?

What does "published a notice prohibiting the transfer of email addresses for the purpose of sending email" mean? More specifically, what's "transfer of an email address"?

All in all, I guess I don't understand what that whole thing means. I know you're not lawyers, but maybe you have better understanding of what those terms mean Smiling

247SiteAlert's picture

They have: 18 posts

Joined: Oct 2007

If you're going to be doing any email marketing for any company, make sure your email addresses are "Opt-In" which means that everyone has given their prior permission to be on that mailing list. Otherwise you will be spamming.

Usually opt-in mailing lists are created from people signing up on a website to join a mailing list.

Free Website Uptime Monitoring
http://www.247SiteAlert.com

JeevesBond's picture

He has: 3,956 posts

Joined: Jun 2002

I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, etc.

That text seems to be saying:

Quote: If you take e-mail addresses from Web sites, where that Web site has a written message telling you not to, then expect a bigger punishment under this law.

Or, in Mr T speak:

Mr T. in 'T Vs. Spammers wrote: I pity the foo' that harvests e-mail addresses!

That clause doesn't appear to affect what you're doing, since people are opting-in to your list. Just make sure you've got an opt-out link. The CiviCRM module for Drupal has a really good mailer functionality, have a look at the demo to see what you should include in your e-mails. Smiling

a Padded Cell our articles site!

They have: 48 posts

Joined: Oct 2007

as far as i know some email provider trigger this mass sending mails... and redirect it to spam mails...

DarkLight's picture

He has: 287 posts

Joined: Oct 2007

Update on Opt-Ins>>>

If you want a very good quality service for opt in and out campaign management, then I strongly recommend http://campaignmonitor.com/
You dont pay a penny until you decide to send an email, and the list management are amazing. All very secure, and under admin control. nicely layed out template and tables.
The only reason I dont use it is because I send all my members details to a database I made myself. then drag them back out with Excel.

You want a bit of advice though, Use Campaign Monitor as you wont have to mess around with legal issues, you just stick to their rules, and you are totally protected under their laws.

All the best news here: https://newsbotnet.com

Greg K's picture

He has: 2,145 posts

Joined: Nov 2003

And never forget that there are people that OPT IN for mailing lists that:

1. They did not realize they do it, ie signing up for something and not reading the fine print for a checkbox that says "Do not share my e-mail address with your marketing partners".

2. They did realize it, but then several months down the road when you buy the op-in list from a company, forgot they did it so can claim they didn't opt in.

IMO, if you didn't get the e-mail address from someone specifically entering it on your OWN website to sign up, then don't mail them! Heck, we have had people 3 months down the road complain because we are spamming them even though they signed up. Yeah, we had proof they did, but the time it takes to prove it to our ISP they complained to is annoying.

Keep spam where it belongs... in a can until ready to eat.

-Greg

They have: 16 posts

Joined: May 2007

If you work as a consultant and visit another company to work on their computers, DON'T do a save of all their email addresses!

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