Unintended Consequences

You may have noticed that since since passage of the CAN-SPAM Act, you have continued to get spam. Shocking, no? While the act's problems are myriad, this article about a dating service spamming University of Texas students is instructive.

"White Buffalo... said its messages shouldn't be blocked because they comply with federal anti-spam laws.Those laws require the messages to have a title that correctly states the contents of the e-mail, a valid address and that companies honor unsubscribe requests."

The problem with a law defining spam is that when the law is crafted by a legisative body beholden to business interests, it's likely to define spam in a way that makes a lot spam legal. That's precisely what's happened with CAN-SPAM. As many observers noted when it was passed, it was a big change in how spam was defined; for the first time, the presumption that somebody has the right to send you unsolicited commercial email simply because you have a mailbox was written into law.

The best path for marketers using email to build a long-term sustainable business: rise above the law. The definition in the CAN-SPAM act is not a rule to follow, it's a minimum requirement to stay out of trouble. It should not be viewed as license to ignore established standards of opt-in email.