What you need to know about the recent FTC updates to CAN-SPAM

As you may have heard, several weeks ago the FTC released its Statement of Basis and Purpose and Final Discretionary Rule (“final Rule”) on the CAN-SPAM ACT. So, what do you need to know about the FTC updates?

The update contains four new rules, and also contains some clarifications and guidance to the text of the original act in the form of the Statement of Basis and Purpose (SBP). Quite a lot to digest!

The good news is that if you are a single organization sending email on your own behalf and you comply with the existing CAN-SPAM guidelines, it’s likely that the new rules will have relatively little impact on you.

• First, you should review the From: address and From: name you are using in your emails. At least one and preferably both of these should be clearly recognizable as belonging to your organization.

• Second, unless you can confirm that your Forward-to-a-Friend mechanism is CAN-SPAM compliant, make sure you are not “procuring” the forwarding of your campaigns by offering any kind of incentive (e.g. coupons, t-shirts, loyalty points, etc.) to your recipients. Forwarded messages that include incentives to forward are considered commercial messages rather than personal (non-commercial) messages under the new interpretation, and thus will be non-compliant under CAN-SPAM if they do not contain the required opt-out mechanism.

• Finally, make sure that your opt-out mechanism complies with the new guidelines. The opt-out mechanism must not be complicated: “an e-mail recipient cannot be required to pay a fee, provide information other than his or her e-mail address and opt-out preferences, or take any steps other than sending a reply e-mail message or visiting a single Internet webpage to opt out of receiving future e-mail from a sender ." (Note: the Constant Contact opt-out mechanism is compliant with the new guidelines.)