What is Considered Legal when Email Marketing?

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Article ContentA marketplace on the internet that sells and distributes goods is known as an eCommerce. The transfers take place electronically through funds transfer, online marketing and various other exchanges.

The most efficient as well as convient way to handle these transactions is from eCommerce. However, the are certain laws and restrictions that must be met when using this method. Since a person’s money is being handled the laws relate mainly to marketing.

Avoidance of fraud mailings such is avoided if you are in the ecommerce business. When in office President George W Bush passed a CAN SPAM Act to prevent the harm that a spammer can do. If found to be spamming you can be charged. Not only will your reputation be at stake but so will your revenue. Your emails will become filtered and not sent to others from the major internet providers such as AOL.They could also shut down your email altogether. A jail term or heft fine could be placed upon you. The host of your website may even shut you down.

The best solution is to open a legimate website and promote it. Do not try to force your email into someone’s inbox. Use the proper heading and message body. Do not be deceptive with any part of the email. If someone asks to be removed from your mailing list then remove them. If you go ahead and send them anyway then it is not legal.

Before sending a email promotion make sure that you have permission from the reciever.It is best not to buy email lists they usually do not generate that much business. The emails on them are usually not workable anyway. If you do decide to buy the mailing list find out the history behind how they were collected first. It could get you into trouble if permission was not obtained to send the email out. This just may not be worth risk of all of your hard work.

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The CAN-Spam Act: What is it and How it Helps You the User

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Everyone hates those annoying spam emails that seem to never stop. No matter how careful you are with your email address it seems that somewhere, somehow a spammer catches your email and you’re doomed to receive hundreds of commercial spam messages regarding buying vitamins, software or even get rich schemes.

Recently the FTC or Federal Trade Commission passed a CAN-SPAM act, which outlines various guidelines that businesses must follow in order to be able to send out commercial emails.

While this is meant to protect users from getting tons of spam messages in their email inbox, is widely critized as just a way for the government to be able to cash in on these deceptive practices.

Whatever the reason for enacting the CAN-SPAM act, the FTC has set guidelines out for businesses that must be obeyed and followed of those businesses face stiff penalties.

Here are some of the guidelines that must be followed under the CAN-SPAM Act.

No false or misleading email headers. A business cannot put one message like “Win a Trip to Florida” and inside the message is an ad for buying computers. The message cannot be deceptive in nature.

Physical Address. A physical address must be present at the bottom of every email that is sent by the company. This does not have to be the company’s exact address, it can be a PO Box or a false address. There just has to be a physical contact address in the emails.

Opt-Out. Email recipients must be able to opt out of the email at any time. It must be clearly visible as to where they can go and they must be allowed to request out. These responses must be met quickly, within 30 days of the original request of the opt-out request.

While these rules were enacted, very little has been achieved in cutting back the spam messages. Which leads critics to critize why this law was enacted in the first place.

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Spam: Where Does it Come From?

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The email messages asking for money to be sent to Africa or the United Kingdom. Those messages asking you to invest in the latest programs and products. They are all a part of the never ending problem on the Internet known as spam messages.

It seems that spam no matter how many filters a person uses or how secret they keep their email address will always be a problem. Although this is a growing problem with many people, many people do not know where the spam originates from.

Over 50% of the spam messages that are sent to users all over the world originate right here in the United States. The United States is responcible for over 50-60% of the spam messages that grace people’s inboxes everyday.

Although the United States has recently enacted a CAN-SPAM Act that outlines guidelines for senders of spam and promises to prosecute them in a court of law should they violate it. Many spammers get around it because of advanced technology that either sends their IP address to another country or covers up their email address and prevents them from being able to be tracked. The CAN-Spam Act did prevent some spammers from sending messages but not a lot.

Other spammers originate from other foreign countries. China, specifically the Hong Kong area is responcible for just under 20% of the spam messages that are sent. While Korea, Spain and France only make up 3% each. Japan has a few spammers but not enough to make up even 1% of the spam messages.

Russia is a nation known for its advanced technologies and abilities. At the moment Russia accounts for very little of the spam sent. However, Russia is directly responcible as it collects email addresses using zombie computers and then goes to sell that information on the black market. The going rate for a million email addresses to a spammer is just under $50 US dollars.

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