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Affiliate marketers and ad-supported email newsletters will be most affected by the Federal Trade Commission's latest rules and clarifications of the CAN-SPAM email law.
The FTC is seeking public comment on five proposed changes and clarifications. Two are most crucial to email marketers and publishers:
1. The FTC would define the sender of an email message as the one who controls the content, decides which email addresses to send the message to or is listed in the "from" line in the message.
It's an important distinction for newsletter publishers, because it clears up the worry that a publisher would have to include an opt-out for every advertiser or be held liable if a message included ads from companies recipients would have opted out from.
2. The FTC also wants to shorten the deadline to remove opt-outs from the current ten days to three.
This could be a challenge for marketers with extensive affiliate networks, who could find it hard to make sure all their affliliates remove opt-out names in time.
The FTC has also proposed rules and clarifications on three other topics:
1. Senders could use Post Office or private mailboxes as their valid physical address.
2. People don't have to pay, provide any information besides an email address or do anything other than visit a single Web page or send a reply email in order to opt out of a list.
3. A "person" under CAN-SPAM includes "an individual, group, unincorporated association, limited or general partnership, corporation or other business entity."
You can send in comments on paper or online anytime before June 27. To submit paper comments, follow the directions as listed on the FTC's online information sheet. Or, fill out the online comment form here.
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